Wanderlust!

Alright, alright enough hints and bad cell phone photos, I'm ready to spill! Dan and I are opening a new type of retail shop. As you probably know (since even the New York Times seems to recycle the story once a year or so) Portland is exploding with food carts! The 'food cart culture' here is huge because the type of food being served in them goes above and beyond just hot dogs and pretzels. Fine cuisine is actually being made and served in carts. More recently 'cart pods' have appeared, where a group of food carts gather in one space, which is great because the customer can go and pick what they wan to eat.

ANYway, I kept thinking with such a affluent 'cart culture' in Portland, why aren't people selling more things out of carts? Why isn't there a cart where you can buy clothes or handmade goods? I would shop there! In my googling, the only place I could come up with like this was in Boston, Haberdash Vintage. The boy and I talked about it and we decided that Portland is in desperate need of something like this and so Wanderlust was born!

Wanderlust is a shop on wheels. We specialize in finely curated vintage clothes for men and woman, as well as handmade goods from all over the place (I just placed an order for the most awesome bags from a woman in the UK!).
I'm so excited for this new endeavour! No one's quitting their day job, for now we'll be a weekend and evening sort of business that goes around to street fairs, music festivals, food cart pods (if they'll have us!) and other places, open our doors and sell our wares. Go to our website to find out all the ways to know where we'll be next, we've got twitter, facebook and an 'events' section on our website so you'll always be in the know.


So we've got a lot of work ahead of us. Our trailer is in less than pristine condition but this week we've made some progress and we're on our way to open our doors by the end of July. We've nicknamed this 1974 trailer Lil' Jerry and even though he's got some major issues, we think he's going to be the best trailer for the job.
I'm so excited! I can't wait for Wanderlust to open it's doors.

Happy Monday!

I am flat out exhausted from this weekend which I hope explains this random post. I've got strange pains in my legs and arms and a decent tan to show for my hard work. It seems that Summer has finally arrived in Portland which is fantastic. When the boy works from home we like to go over to Wolf and Bear, our nearest food cart, and eat delicious pita sandwiches. They also serve Arnold Palmers (which most of my friends know is my official summer drink!) but they call them 'tea-onade'. I won't hold that against them though, this one hit the spot.

Today on a walk to the art store for some foam core (gotta love design school) I saw these twin grey and white cats laying in the dirt trying to cool off. Of course once I started taking photos of them, they got up and came over to check me out. So sweet!
I promise an 'official' announcement of my new project later this week. I want to get all the details right and hopefully be able to show some pictures so you'll have to wait just a little bit longer.

Here's What My Summer Looks Like...

Sneak peak at the BIG things to come...

Summit of Awesome Recap

The Summit of Awesome was so much fun! On top of being really inspiring, I even got to meet some of my crafty heros.
Day One was full on informational classes on running a business. I sat in on 'getting press for your business' and 'legalities of starting your business' both of which had so much good info. The best thing I learned about press was to find a hook by finding something that would be valuable or interesting to the public. Ask yourself, why did you decide to make your item, how do you sell your items, what do you make your items out of. focus on potential solutions your product provide.


Day Two I took some more business focused classes and some fun ones too. I got to hear Heidi from My Paper Crane speak about her business and the make plush fortune cookies with her later in the day. It was so special to be able to craft with one of my crafty heroes. I also learned about pitching to magazines and blogs. The most helpful thing that Jena from Modish suggested was making a list of the top 20 blogs you'd like to be featured on and start from the top down, approaching them about coverage. Blogs like new and fresh content that maybe hasn't been covered before so start with your first choice and move on from there.

Day Three was great too, I met another one of my crafty heroes Emily from The Black Apple. She was super informative about her business and was really an open book about her struggles with her business. I heard about the 'best of etsy success' from a couple successful etsy sellers and Danielle who works for etsy. The best part of that was learning to stay focused, streamlined and notice what your customers are buying. I also got to hear Mark Montano speak about his success. What a total inspiration! He listed the things that he does every day to keep himself motivated to keep making and creating. To end my recap of this really awesome event, I want to list those things to remind myself to stay motivated and try to incorporate at least half of these things in my regular life.
- Be clear about your goals
- Have a torture list (people who can help you achieve your goals- bug them!)
- Perserverence (you've got to do the work)
- Work on your craft and talent everyday (learn new things)
- Make friends with your contemporaries
- Remember your take and input is unique.
- Multitask
- Keep the TV off (or at least craft while you're watching!)
- Create a dream board (a list of goals and inspirations)
- Know how much you're worth
- Create your own definition of success

Good Morning!

My brain is absolute mush this morning and I have so much to get done. Here's a cute outfit I put together in the last week. It's maybe exactly how I dressed in 1995, right down to the hair.
I have so much to share about the Summit of Awesome. Tomorrow! It was so inspiring and motivating and I took some good notes. I can't wait to share some of the smart smart smart things people said.

Shoot.

Photo of me with bbgun shooting beer cans off a fence. Don't try this at home kids.

I am so excited about today and the rest of the week.
I will be joining lots of other creative types for the Summit of Awesome right here in Portland. I am looking forward to talks by and crafty time with Heidi Kenney (My Paper Crane), Berkley Illustration and Emily Martin (The Black Apple) to name a few.
Unfortunately the summit coincides with my first week of summer courses (and trying to squeeze five days of work into two and a half) so I feel pretty overwhelmed!
I'll be back on Monday with a recap of what I'm sure will be an 'awesome' time.

The Right Time is Now.

I came up with a spectacular idea a couple days ago that's been slowly forming in my brain. It's becoming clearer to me exactly what this idea would look like as more than just an idea. If I got up and worked and worked and worked and did it.
Today the boy and I decided that we would. That we would make this tiny nugget of an idea into a full blown thing.
Unfortunately, a couple more 'things' need to happen before I can be more than completely vague about this but soon enough I can share the news with everyone!
I meant it on my first post of this year, 2010 is the year to blaze your own trail. The year to not hold back. 2010 is my year to say 'the right time is this very instant and I'm going to make a dream come true. No excuses.'
Oh friends, I'm so excited.
Stay tuned.

Hanging Lamp

A few weeks ago, on a thrift store run, I came across this metal cylinder. It was the perfect color, a bright orange that we have as an accent in our living room, and I thought with just a little bit of handy work I could give it a new use. (I'm not exactly sure what it's old use was though- candle holder?)


Anyway, I used copper wire to create a grid on the top and then wrapped that wire around the top of an old lightbulb chord and voila, a brand new hanging lamp. Totally original, not from Ikea and it fits perfectly with the color scheme and look of our living room. I'm so happy with it!
Total cost: $3.

Fair Part Two.

I love fair rides.



Bright, metal structures in the middle of a crowd of people all pushing to get to the front of the line.
Back to normal next week. No more fairs, but photos of me shooting a beer can off a fence with a bbgun because that's how I roll.

Fair Part One.

We loved the ferris wheel.


In fact it was the only ride we went on. Best 5 tickets I've ever spent. We went around and around and then my favorite part: stop and go, stop and go as everyone disembarked. We sat at the top of the ferris wheel looking at downtown on one side of us and river and then our neighborhood on the other side. We tried to find our house but couldn't. We took photos of ourselves, stealthily moving from one side of the compartment to the other.

The boy took a bunch of photos with his Diana Mini which I can't wait to get developed. This ride was called the 'bear affair'. which is amazing.
I have to admit that I long to be back at the fair on a beautiful 75 degree day like Saturday, especially with the rain we're having today. Oh, Portland.
I talked to my dad yesterday, who's lived in Seattle for pretty much his whole life, and I mentioned the weather. He said 'It's just one of those Junes'. Gotta love the native pacific northwesterner.

Striped Skirt

I made this skirt from the basic skirt pattern in Wendy Mullin's Sew U This book has wonderful straight forward directions. I added a zipper and trim at the bottom and I'm so happy with how it turned out. The fabric was on super sale, only $3 a yard so total this skirt probably cost $6 and it's prefect for summer!
I've also started going through my crafty stash and I'm planning on putting packages together later this week to mail out to interested parties. I'll post something more 'official' in a couple days.

Monday Monday

I had a fantastic weekend. I want to share all the fun photos but there's no time today. Instead you'll have to deal with these too-too cute photo booth photos that we took on Saturday. The photo booths were from the 1950's and took the best photos. We did the black and white ones first and then came back to do the color, which turned out to be my favorite. There are several photo booths in Portland, The Ace Hotel, Beulahland, VooDoo Donuts, just to name a few. I think the boy and I need to make a tour of them all.
The most awesome and sweetest part of our wedding was during our vows, which we wrote ourselves. Dan took out a photo booth photo of us from the first week or two that we started dating. It was such a surprise and he said so many sweet things about when we were just starting to date. Now, every time I see a photo booth photo it makes me think of our wedding day.

Vintage for the Home

I added a couple new vintage finds to the shop.




A classic blue metal stapler and red plaid thermos, both of them are perfect summer goodies for your home. I always love when I add stuff to the shop that I would really like to keep for myself. I hope these find a good home!

Want List.

So many things I want from the internet these days.
First, the sailor tote bag from bayan hippo. I've been coveting this bag for a while, it would be perfect for our trip to Minneapolis.

I also love love love this Olisio TG-1600 Smart Iron. My iron has seen better days, the steamer on it is totally non-functional and even though this iron is a little on the pricy side it might just be worth it. Plus, I love that yellow!

I got the boy a Diana mini for Christmas and we have had a ton of fun with it. This Diana F+ clone camera in pink would be a perfect addition to our growing 35mm cameras. Plus we can use this flash on the Diana mini too!

French Press Cover

Last nite I found myself desperate for a personal sewing project, something that wasn't going up on etsy or be gifted to a friend. Of course, what I came up with I now want to sell in my etsy shop but at the time I was just making something I wanted and needed. A cozy for my french press.
I'm what you'd call a serious caffeine addict. I make a french press of coffee everyday, bring it up to my office and sip on luke warm coffee all morning. This cozy is insulated with the heat insulated lining (made originally to use for pot holders) so now my coffee can stay warm. I made mine reversible too so I won't get too sick of the fabrics. I love how this turned out and now all I need a list of my friends with french press coffee makers so I can make one for each of them.