Heidi Kennedy of My Paper Crane will have a show opening tonight at Schmancy. She's come all the way from Pennsylvania, I hope I can make it. Schmancy is at 1932 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98101, event starts at 6 p.m.

Crystalyn Kae will be selling her bags at a rooftop garden trunk show on Saturday. She'll have bags you cannot see anywhere else, all on a pretty roof in Wallingford. I think a some ice cream from Molly Moon's is the only proper thing to do afterwards. Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 4032 Stone Way North, Seattle, WA 98103

Urban Craft Uprising is now accepting applications for the December show, the deadline is September 8th and you can find applications right here.

art, craft & design is the new (to me) blog of Andrea who owns Bluebottle Art Gallery here in Seattle. It's full of stuff I'm crushing on already.

Lauren and Emira, whose recent book The Boss of You I've talked about here before, will be featured at The Lab this Wednesday. I'm so excited:

The Lab presents “The Boss of You” authors Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon

July 23rd from 6-8 at Velocity's store 251 Yale Ave N.

Please welcome Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon, veteran business women and authors of the new book, “The Boss of You,” to share knowledge and inspiration to help you start and run your own business. They’ve turned their hard-won experience from 8 years of running Raised Eyebrow Studios – a mission-based web design business –into an informative, easy to follow, and encouraging manual on what it takes for women to become successful entrepreneurs. Bring your questions, stories, and take notes - this should be a delightful, truly informative evening!

Want to win some amazing knitting stuff? Susan from Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm (and the incredibly-good-idea Fiber CSA) that I talked about last year is holding a raffle to raise money for somebody who needs our help. She's raffling off her entire yarn stash and including skeins from the farm (yarn which I've had the pleasure to touch, and it's ever so nice). Not just that, lots of prizes, some individual, some included in the grand stash prize, have been added. There is loads of scrumptous hand spun and dyed yarn, stitch markers, knitting patterns, roving and knitting kits from people all hoping to help -- the list is really something to behold.

In the hopes of helping out as much as I can I've donated a prize as well, one of my Portable Knitting Needle Cases for DPNs that I make as The Organized Knitter.

You can purchase as many raffle tickets as you like by donating through Paypal. Each ticket is $10 and well worth it for a chance at all the great stuff.

You can read the story behind why this money is being raised, it'll break your heart, see the huge list of prizes and buy tickets here at the MVFF blog. It's a good cause for some people who have given their entire lives to helping others, and I hope you will buy many tickets in the effort to help them as much as they deserve.

I'm a little late to hear this news, so buy raffle tickets quickly as the drawing is taking place on Sunday, July 13th, just four days away.

The next Lab is this Wednesday, June 25th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Velocity showroom in South Lake Union here in Seattle. This month the guests are PNW crafty ladies Kristen from Schmancy and Plush You, Moxie of Made By Moxie and Hansi of Hansigurumi. Kristen mentioned that the people at Craft have donated a box set of their first year of CRAFT along with their latest issue to give away. I'm looking forward to finding out more about how all of these ladies do their work.

The talk about blogging at The Lab last night was a lot of fun. I didn't feel nearly as deer in the headlights as I thought I would, though I'm afraid my style of blogging meant I didn't have very helpful answers. (Example: What is your most popular post? My answer: I don't actually know. (It's the bacon cups, duh, Megan.)) Also, I got to buy my blog anniversary present, the Gro Bal Baby.

John was a fabulous host for the evening, and I want to thank him for being so generous as to have the events in his store and allowing people to mill around with food and drinks. Thank you John. Velocity is a fantastic store, online and in real life, and I always find myself trying out lots of furniture while I'm there.

Thanks to Paola (MirrorMirror), Elaine (Decorno), and Mary (Shelterrific and Straight from the Container) for being such wonderful girls. I do hope our different styles and goals for blogging gave a varied perspective. An extra huge thank you to Paola for getting this event started and inviting me to be part of this night.

I got to meet Jessie of Cakespy and Tula of Whorange and a bunch of other people. Thanks so much to everybody for coming last night. I ran into Eliza Truitt, who ran a small photography workshop I gratefully attended last month. If she starts starts having regular classes I'll be sure to let you know, a class focusing on "So, you just bought a DSLR..." would be helpful to so many people I know.

A thanks goes to Dry Soda for providing food and beverages. I've begun associating the flavor of Kumquat soda with an evening of learning new things from intersting people.

The next Lab (June) will feature Kristen Rask, owner of Schmancy and creator of the Plush You event and book, Moxie of Made By Moxie and Hansi of hansigurumi. They'll be talking about the Plush You! show and crafting in general.

The Lab for July will feature Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon talking about their book The Boss of You. If you have or want to run your own business these two have a lot of wisdom to share as they have owned Raised Eyebrow Web Studio for a very long time. I've mentioned this before, but I used to read their site The Soapbox Girls way back in 1999, so I'm very excited they'll be coming through town. (I missed them when they were here on the book tour.)

You can join Velocity's mailing list to hear about future events.



See Mary's notes over at Shelterrific.

Here are my notes on what I can recall from what we talked about last night:

(more...)

So, after talking blogging platforms last night, this morning I discover my own Wordpress won't allow me to post anything longer than a few hundred characters. Why? I have no idea. But, I have a long wrap up with notes on what I can remember we talked about last night that is ready to be posted as soon as my Wordpress stops throwing this hissy fit.

I bought myself the GroBal Baby! Happy Anniversary, my website.

The Lab event on Blogging is tomorrow (Wednesday) night at 6 p.m. and I do hope you can make it because we have prizes. During the first Lab event with Matte Stephens three prints were given out to people who attended (names picked from a jar), so of course we had to come up with some free stuff to give away. I had to forget about plans to bake cupcakes due to some pesky health and safety standards (understandable, if sad) so I decided to make some surprise balls to give away:



Surprise balls are crepe streamers wrapped around small gifts which are revealed as you unwrap. What's inside? You'll have to win one to find out. I was conscious of keeping the surprises gender neutral, and Scott gave guy approval to everything that went inside. I also hear rumors that a pink hose from Cynthia Rowley's summer stuff from Target will be one of the prizes.

I do hope you can make it. There will be food and drink (so you won't starve if you're coming straight from work), and a bunch of fabulous people to mingle with. Here is Google Maps link to the Velocity store (across the street from the gigantic REI, parking is easy) and here are the details:

Please join us Wednesday, May 28th from 6-8 to meet prominent voices in the rapidly growing, ever-evolving world of blogs. Blogs purport transparency and openness, but there are less-apparent elements behind blogs, like relationships between bloggers and importance of search-engine optimization, which will make this such a fascinating topic to discuss. We welcome Northwest design bloggers Elaine from Decorno, Mary from Shelterrific, Megan from notmartha, and Paola from MirrorMirrorto meet and greet and answer your questions about this fascinating topic. Please join us to learn how to start and promote your own blog, whether for business or fun, from our delightful and knowledgeable panel of experts.

This is a reminder that I'll be speaking at The Lab alongside Paola from MirrorMirror, Elaine from Decorno, and Mary from Shelterrific. It'll be Wednesday, May 28th from 6-8 at Velocity Art and Design in South Lake Union, across the street from the gigantic REI store. We'd love to see everybody there! We'll have food and wine and promise to have you home by 8:30. Come with questions because, as I mentioned before, I don't think I can fill my slice of time just talking about blogging. If you haven't been in that area for a while it's worth a visit. There is a fantastic store for kids stuff, Tottini, as well as the Vivace with pretty latte mosaics in the floors.

I was thinking about what I could bring when I realized that today (May 22nd) is the seven year anniversary for my site. So, of course I have to bring cupcakes to celebrate. Maybe a redo of these little guys, or perhaps a batch of the really tiny ones. And I've decided to buy myself a present while I'm at Velocity - a GroBal Baby to house the replacement for my sadly departed fern. (Sorry, fern.)

Velocity has announced the next event for The Lab, and I'll be speaking, or at least answering questions. The next Lab event will focus on blogs and will have four speakers for the night, Paola from MirrorMirror, Elaine from Decorno, Mary from Shelterrific (whom I only met last month and was so pleased to find one of the authors from a favorite site lived here in Seattle), and myself. I'm terrified, and excited. Honestly, I don't have much to say so you'd be doing me a huge favor if you come armed with questions.

Here are the details:

Please join us Wednesday, May 28th from 6-8 to meet prominent voices in the rapidly growing, ever-evolving world of blogs. Blogs purport transparency and openness, but there are less-apparent elements behind blogs, like relationships between bloggers and importance of search-engine optimization, which will make this such a fascinating topic to discuss.

Dry Soda will be offering refreshments (so there will be plenty to eat if you're coming straight from work) and last time there was wine. Thanks, Dry Soda.

Now, at the last event Velocity raffled off a few Matte Stephens prints so of course I feel like we should have something to give away, but what? Maybe I should make everybody some jello orange slices? Or teeny tiny cupcakes?

The first event was a lot of fun and the stories Matte Stephens had to tell were fascinating. Future speakers include Lauren and Emira from Raised Eyebrow Web Studios (and the authors of The Boss of You), and there was a hint at some local wine and cheese makers. So please, come join us.

This is a reminder that this Wednesday, April 16th is the very first event for The Lab here in Seattle at Velocity Art and Design from 6 to 8 p.m. The featured artist is Matte Stephens, who very recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest. There will be refreshments by Dry Soda and I hear there will be a drawing for limited prints from Matte. It looks like it will be fantastic. Read more about it at Velocity and at MirrorMirror.

images from Matte Stephens

A Seattle Design Meetup has emerged from the Design*Sponge Biz Lady night and I couldn't be happier. It's being called The Lab and the first event will be April 16th at the South Lake Union Velocity store and the guest speaker is Matte Stephens, who is moving from Alabama to Portland, Oregon. More details will be announced as they are finalized.

A big thanks go to Paola of Mirror Mirror and John Tusher of Velocity for setting this up. To read more about how it emerged see this entry at Paola's blog and her entry on The Lab with more about Matte Stephens can be found here.

The other week I attended the Design*Sponge Biz Lady Meetup. It was a very good night and I learned a lot. Grace's talk on writing press releases was fantastic as it came from the perspective of somebody who read a lot of them for her past job. Her notes are here (note: PDF). And John Tusher of Velocity has most interesting stories to tell. Thank you to Grace for holding such a good event!