Artist Spotlight - G & G Creations

Even though I could not find the time to set up a real tree and decorate it this year due to participating in the Texas Christkindl Market, I could not resist buying an assortment of lovely tin snowflakes from G & G Creations, a fellow vendor at Christkindl. Gagik started making his tin ornaments and jewelry as a hobby. His wife convinced him he should sell his creations. They are beautiful. I am glad he decided to get them out there to potential customers.

I had planned to hang my purchases in front of a window but they fit perfectly with the small holiday vignette I did find the time to put together. It is amazing how much sparkle the snowflakes have in low light. Perhaps next year I will hang them in front of a window.

Click the images to get a closer look.

Sudden Temperature Drop Affects Wildlife and the Christkindl Market

This little brown bird exemplifies the song lyric, "Baby it's cold outside." I don't think it would be possible for it to fluff its feathers any further in its attempt to stay warm. It is sitting on a storage bench on the south side of my house, so it probably found the warmest microclimate in my yard.

Yesterday we saw a high of 72 degrees in the early afternoon before an extreme cold front blew through with gusts just over 40 mph that dropped the temps to 22 degrees F at midnight. An hour after the first north blast, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees. It was in the teens before daybreak and never got above 30 degrees today. It is supposed to be above freezing tomorrow so the icicles (photo from a previous freeze) on my rosemary that overhangs my waterfall should start to disappear.

With the subfreezing temps and brisk winds resulting in wind chills that never got out of the teens, the Texas Christkindl Market closed on Sunday. It is expected to open again at noon on Monday as the temps will be a bit better and the winds much lighter. If you have not finished your Christmas shopping, I am sure all of the vendors would be happy to help you cross off items on your gift list. We may have some of our doors closed on our 817 Arts Alliance Hut to keep the temperature inside a bit warmer but we will be open for business.

817 Arts Alliance Texas Christkindl Market Hut Halfway Point

Ok, it is a couple of days past the halfway point. I have been very busy working at the 817 Arts Alliance hut, making a little more product when I can and keeping up with my Etsy orders, that I am afraid I missed the midpoint by a bit and a couple of weeks of posting as well. I am happy to report that all 14 local artisans and the Mayan village international fair trade partner have had sales. We appreciate our customer's support and hope everyone loves their purchases.

While no one artist has sold out entirely of their creations, there are several specific things that have sold out and are not expected to make an appearance again at this year's market. Ellengant Creation's Jingle Jaws fish and her caged dragon necklaces are examples. Anna B's lighted Christmas trees are currently sold out but she is hopeful that a couple of more might make an appearance by the end of next week. I am hopeful that I can have some more of my agate slice night lights with nature charms or flying pigs ready before the end of the market, but I am not making any promises. Sky Imaginings has brought out more of her knit and crocheted goodies and Ladybug Bath has restocked her soaps and candles. Stock is limited however.

Today's weather was perfect. The market was alive with visitors enjoying the food and drink, shopping and the new children's area, Peppermint Park. It was a pleasant change from our brush with the blue norther last Thursday, whose effects were felt very strongly through Friday. (We had a visitor from Michigan that found it fairly balmy, unlike the two friends he was visiting.) It looks like the forecast calls for ups and downs in temperature for the final two weeks and a bit of rain on a couple of days. I hope you will find a day where the weather and your schedule allows you to come out and enjoy the experience at the Texas Christkindl Market.

A couple of views of our hut and a happy customer (Santa hat by Sky Imaginings) are found in this post. You can read the artisan statements when you visit and view a wonderful selection of unique, many one of a kind creations, that is until they find homes with someone.

Post Update: I should have included a link when I wrote this post to an article that Downtown Arlington Management Corporation shared the previous week about the 817 Arts Alliance Hut. I was very pleased to have our hut featured.

First Time Venture Being a Vendor at the Texas Christkindl Market

First let me say that I hope you have had the opportunity to have a Happy Thanksgiving with those you care about. Personally this has been the nicest Thanksgiving I can remember in a number of years. Hopefully it will help fortify me for the next four weeks when I am participating as a vendor at the Texas Christkindl Market which opens tomorrow at 5pm on the north side of the baseball stadium in Arlington, TX.

My alter ego, 817ArtsAlliance, has as part of its mission, a goal to empower small local artisans so they can bring their creations to market. Towards that goal, I was permitted to secure a hut at the Texas Christkindl Market this year in order to showcase creations from such artisans who otherwise would not be able to participate for a variety of reasons. I have arranged for fourteen local artisans, including myself, and one international handmade fair trade member to be a part of the 817ArtsAlliance hut this year. (Post update: Photo below taken by a friend on our second night.) While many of the artisans have limited stock available, their talent is far from limited. They are passionate about what they create. For some, when their stock is sold out there will not be any more coming. Some others will likely be restocking but with the nature of many of the handmade items, exact replicas are not expected in all cases. What does this mean for you? Come out early for those one of a kind OOAK pieces that speak to you and check back now and then to see what new items may be on display through the end of the market on December 23. Unique, handmade treasures for a variety of people on your gift list or yourself can be found by thoughtfully browsing the 817ArtsAlliance hut. If you don't find what you are looking for in our hut, there are many other wonderful things to be found in the remainder of the Christkindl Market.

Indian Summer Clouds of Butterflies

Here in North Texas our extended Indian Summer came to an abrupt halt yesterday. The weather during the prior week was spectacular though and the butterflies took advantage of the sunshine, warmer temps and plentiful nectar in a patch of blue mistflower and a lantana bush in my backyard. Many varieties of butterflies were attracted to both, including some very late Monarch butterflies on their trip south.

The lantana bush seemed especially popular with the sulphur butterflies. It was alive with a cloud of predominantly yellow butterflies flitting from flower to flower. How many do you see in my photo? (Click to enlarge to make your job easier.)

Queen butterflies flocked to my patch of blue mistflower. A cloud of orange erupted when I walked too close to this area of the garden. In this photo they share the nectar bounty with other butterflies and insects.

Craft Show Booth Design

An important part of having a successful craft show is knowing what your set up will be before arriving at your show. There are some important questions you need to have answered in order for you to properly prepare. What is your allotted space for your booth? Does that size include access around your space or do you need to provide access behind your tables from within your space? Will you have vendors on both sides or do you have an outside corner space? Will you back up to a wall or another vendor? What is the lighting like in the hall or are you outside? Is there electricity available and if so is it free? How much time will you have to set up and tear down? How close can you park to your space? Are tables and chairs provided for free or a fee or not at all? All of these questions and possibly others will determine what you want to pack in your vehicle in addition to your priced product that is ready to be placed on your attractive pre-planned display.

You will need a base for your displays. For most products that means tables and then some props to create different heights to show off your product. If you have larger artwork or quilts your bases might be walls of some type. This post will assume that you either have or are using the design step to figure out the elements that you need to acquire to be the foundation for your products.

The most important part of your pre-show design is to figure out what pieces will fit in your space in an arrangement that gives good access to your products and a secure checkout and out of sight storage for things like your lunch. You can go low tech and use graph paper, assign a scale and cut out scaled pieces to represent your tables, etc. that you can move around or use software that allows you to do the same thing. I use Adobe Illustrator to create my plans. You don't want to haul more stuff with you than you can fit in your assigned space. I was at one show where it appeared that a vendor had set up at shows with a booth space of at least 10x10 but failed to notice the one they were attending only had a 6x8 space assigned to them. I don't know what would have happened if a nearby vendor had not been unable to attend, which allowed them to spread out into what was now a 6x16 space.

In addition to knowing the size of your booth space in which you can set up your tables and other things, it is important to also know whether that space has any buffer area around it or whether it bumps right up to your neighbor's space. In my experience, most bump right up against your neighbor so any access to behind the table space must be included inside your footprint. In addition to your tables and/or walls that are your basic set up, it is a good idea to know where your major smaller product props will go. I have included an image of one such layout utilizing my tables and props for a 10x10 outside corner booth setup as well as a picture of part of the set up at the show. Having this print out with me at set up helps me, and especially a helper if I have one, quickly get my layout in place.

For those of you that use walls of some type to hang art or other large items, it can be handy to set up the wall and mount your items on it at home. It can take some time to figure out where each piece of your product puzzle goes and when you are setting up, time is not a luxury. I take a picture of each wall set up and take note of where each hook is placed. I label a print of the picture with where each hook goes and place the hooks for a specific wall in their own labeled baggy for quick assembly at the show.

A bit of time spent on design and organization before a show will reward you with a smoother set up and also hopefully help you pack everything you need without hauling a bunch of extraneous stuff along.

More Photographic Art to Debut at Funky Finds

I recently finalized additional photographic art prints I have been working on over the summer. I have some additional matted images of Penelope the Flying Pig in which Penelope and her twin become part of a mountain rescue squad. Shown in this post is a sneak peak of a new blank note card offering and a mythology themed matted print that will both be added to my EclecticSkeptic Etsy shop. The new items will be available in person for the first time this weekend. You can check them out at Funky Finds this coming Saturday and Sunday at Cattle Barn 2 in the Will Rogers Complex in Fort Worth.

This new note card expands my popular psychedelic gazelle with flying pig earrings note card line. Ms. Gazelle models my flying pig earrings for my EclecticSkeptic shop. I enjoy creating fun photographic art images from these product photos. My new matted print will become part of my mythology offerings. This photographic art creation shows a dragon emerging from a lightning storm. I created this image by combining one of my lightning photos with a photo I took of a blinged out dragon that hangs from the ceiling in my husband's office.