May 16th - The SpringLine Up at the North Park Festival of the Arts - Vendor Applications Now Being Accepted!

That's right! The NP Craft Mafia will be hosting our Spring Line Up (SLU) at the North Park Festival of the Arts for the second year! Last year we partnered up with the North Park Main St. to combine our SLU event with their Festival of the Arts. Two great events that came together to be even better! The SLU is a combination of artisans, crafters, and entertainment. The Festival of the Arts brings a ton of musical and dance entertainments along with food and more artists. We'll be bringing together a fabulous collection of artists with fantastic products for sale. The 14th Annual North Park Festival of the Arts will place on, Sunday, May 16th, 2010 from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. This FREE neighborhood event takes place in downtown North Park, along University Avenue between 30th and 32nd Street. Past year's events have seen more than 35,000 visitors coming to see the more than 100 specialty booths. Think you might want to have a booth this year? We are now accepting vendor applications! Get in on the "early bird" discount - offer ends Jan. 31st! Visit the NP Main Street's website for more info. about the event at - www.northparkmainstreet.com and use this link to get the Spring Line Up Vendor's Application!

Sunday, May 16th
10 am to 6 p.m.
University Ave. between 30th & 32nd- 92104

Sunday Crafty Sunday, Valentines Edition, Jan 31st

Our crafty gift bazaar's return in January with a shopping event especially for your Valentine! Come and see us at our new venue - Queen Bee's in North Park! Find some fabulous gifts and meet the members of the Mafia.

Please http://sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com/events.html for the latest info. on which vendors you'll find at this event!

Sunday, January 31st
12 noon to 5 p.m.
*New Location!*
Queen Bee's Art & Culture Center
3925 Ohio St.- 92104

I'm Back!

Ok, so I haven't written since before Christmas. I kept wanting to post and the I would think gosh, it has been so long since I have posted what do I even say?! Well Christmas as usual got a bit hectic so I didn't have time to write. Then I spent January exhausted and simply trying to recover from Xmas. Then in the beginning of February I hurt my spine again. I was out of work for a few weeks and pretty much just laid up in bed so then I didn't post anything either. Well now I am starting to recover and I am back to work again so I have no excuse! I am not really sure I have anything important to say, but I figure just writting something was a good first step!

We had our monthly Craft Nite with the Craft Mafia last night. It was fun, saw some new faces and some old ones! I made a cute pair of feather earrings and I tried to make a cute feather hairband, but somehow the craft gods were not with me on that one and after an hour of trying to decide which arangement looked cutest, I just gave up!

We have a craft show coming up the first Sunday in May. It will be a mother's day theme. I am in charge of running this one so I am excited, hopefully all will go well and I will post more details when I have them!

Craft Night and TV

So tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 16th) is craft night where you can come craft with the mafia!! I will be showing people how to make cute glass ornaments! You don't need to bring anything, just your cheerful selves! And if glass ornaments aren't your thing feel free to come one by and work on whatever crafty project you are currently making, or even just hang out and have some coffee or tea!

Here's the details:

Tuesday, December 16th
7-9pm
Filter Coffee House
4096 30th St., 92104
Free Event

And here is a sneak peak at the ornaments I will be showing people how to make!

I will also be on "San Diego Living" on San Diego CW Channel 6 tomorrow, Tuesday, 12/16/08 sometime between 9-10am showing San Diego how to make a fun countdown to Christmas calendar using stockings, so tune in!

The Holiday Hit List was a Hit!

Well we literally had people lined up around the building waiting for the doors to open! So I would sure say that is the sign of a successful craft show!! It was a very fun but busy day! We had raffles every half hour, a fashion show which had some super cute things in it and the 70 vendors that were selling had some super cute stuff! They had iPod cozies shaped like monsters, some awesome jewelry, shirts, plushies, there was a little bit of everything! Well I had fun, and I am sad it is over, but I need a rest so I guess I am also relieved!

Holiday Hit List!

So I am putting on a HUGE craft show this Sunday, 12/7/08 from Noon - 6pm at the NTC Promenade at Liberty Station down in Pt. Loma.

If you came to my huge show last Spring, this one will be even bigger and better! This time we have 70 vendors! Also the aisles will be wider so there is more room to move around and shop! And we will have a DJ (live bands were just a bit too loud inside!). So hopefully we have improved on the Spring Show in every way!

We will be giving out free bags full of goodies to the first 100 customers again, people started lining up an hour early! If you want free stuff, I suggest getting there early! If you don't care about free stuff, then I wouldn't get there right at noon because that is when it will be the most crowded.

The website is www.holidayhitlist.com

Let me know if you have any questions! Hope to see you there!
~Amy

The Holiday Hit List will be held at the Corky McMillin Event Center located at the corner of Truxtun & Dewey Roads - 2875 Dewey Rd. S.D., CA 92106 . It's a large event hall with lots to offer.

UCSD Holiday Sale

It's time for the UCSD Holiday Craft Sale again!

It is a really fun sale, there is TONS of cool pottery, plus jewelry, handblown glass, paintings, ect... Everything at the sale is handmade! It is a really great way for some of the teachers at the Craft Center to also show off and sell some of what they have been doing. I am also blown away by how good some of the prices are! The pottery starts at $1!!! Can you believe that? And they have everything from $1 - $100 and every price in between. Last year I got a neat handblown glass cup for only $8, I ws so excited! Ans the jewelry is neat too! Especially mine, hahahahah!
The sale is Tuesday 12/2 - Thursday 12/4 from 10am - 5pm each day.

The sale is located in the UCSD Craft Center which is part of the Old Student Center complex, here is a map!

I am also getting ready for the Craft Mafia's Holiday Hit List which is this Sunday, 12/7 at Liberty Station in Point Loma. What a busy week! www.holidayhitlist.com

Tonight!

Tonight from 7pm - 10pm my Craft Mafia is appearing at the "Best of City Beat" because we were chosen as the best shopping event in town!

It sounds like a really cool event. It is $15 if you buy tickets online (and $20 at the door) but all of the proceeds go to benefit the Children's Museum!

For $15 you get to have beer samples from some of the City Beat Best local microbreweries (like Port Brewing Co, mmmm, my favorite!) And you get food samples from some of the City Beat Best restaurants (and there are some pretty upscale places included in here!). You also get a free CD of Best local music. And there will be entertainment including circus acts and music. So it sucks that it costs money, but a lot of similar things I go to (like a "Taste of Hillcrest") cost like $30 so this doesn't seem to bad. And it is for charity! It is being held at the brand new Children's Museum!

So if you are interested you can go to http://www.sdcitybeat.net/bosd/ to buy tickets.

You can plug an iPod into just about anything....

Today I saw this advertised on the JoAnn website and I could not stop laughing!


It is the "Rock Paper Trimmer" by Friskars. It is a paper trimmer (like for scrapbooking) and you can plug your ipod right into it and play music on it's speaker. It's $99, but it is currently on sale at JoAnn's for $69. I mean I guess that is cool if you like music and cutting paper, but for $10 you can get a regular paper trimmer and for like $15 you can get ipod speakers, so I am just not sure I would pay so much to get them combined, but hey, I am a cheap bitch.

PARTY!!!!!

The San Diego North Park Craft Mafia is celebrating our One Year Anniversary!!!

Yayy!!!

So in honor of this momentous occasion we are throwing a party!!!

It is tomorrow (Friday, October 10th) at the U31 Bar & Lounge in North Park from 7-9pm.

We will have cake, catered appetizers, and of course great shopping! We are not providing alcohol, but there are great Happy Hour Specials!

So come on by and celebrate!!!

Costumes

Not sure what I want to be for Halloween yet, but this is a cute idea! hahahahaha

http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-lego-brick-costume.html

Crafty Vendors needed!

It's that time again! We've getting ready for our Holiday Hit List event happening on December 7th in San Diego! This is a holiday shopping event that is sure to please. We have a new venue this year - the NTC Promenade in Pt. Loma! Interested in being a vendor? Visit our website for all the FAQs ! http://www.sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com/ There's a link to the online app. on the FAQ page. Hurry, the deadline for apps. is October 3rd.

This is going to be a great show with entertainment, giveaways, craft demos, fashion show, and more!

Art + Fish

Ok, so my UCSD annual performance review was yesterday so I worked all week last week on my presentation for it which is why I have not posted anything here!

So the weekend before last Trevor and I drove up to LA to see his parents. On Saturday we went to see the La Brea Tar Pits, I went once when I was like 5 years old and I remember there being dinosaurs. Well Iguess the tar pits are only like 40,000 years old and Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, so bummer. When I went when I was 5 I also went to the LA Natural History Museum that day, I guess that must be what I am remembering....? Well the La Brea Tar Pits are neat and all, they have a giant lake of tar and the animals used to think mmm that looks like tasty water and they would walk in and then get stuck so now we have a ton of fossils. They had lots of Wooly Mammoths and literally 1000's of dire wolves, but the museum was actually quite small overall and a bit disappointing.

So then I also wanted to go to LACMA (the LA County Museum of Art) because my co-worker told me they have an entire exhibit on costumes and textiles (yayy, you know me I love sewing!). And how perfect, LACMA is in the same park as the tar pits (I know, lets put an art museum on a field with tar seeping out from under it....). So we went, but the textile/costume exhibit was CLOSED for renovations! hahahaha, just my luck! Well we walked around other parts of the museum, it is pretty big, there are several buildings. I really liked it overall. It had a lot of variety, like they had Asian Art, and a lot of times that just means Japan and China, but they had pieces from Indonesia, Nepal, Tibet, Malaysia, ect..... They had a lot of neat Islamic Art, African, European, American, ect..... I went to the Ghetty once, which is world famous I guess, and yeah it was neat, but they had very little variety, they would have an entire floor with 17th century paintings of animals, it was just row after row of the same thing, ugh! They had really neat European furniture that was just completely over the top and lavish, but after seeing 20 rooms of this stuff eve that got old! So I liked how LACMA had just a little bit of everything!

Then Sunday we went to the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon and saw Shakespeare's "As You Like It." It was cute! And then after a long weekend we drove back to SD! Then I spent a long week reviewing resumes for a new assistant at work and preparing my presentation for my annual performance review. but phew all of that is over.

This past weekend I went snorkeling in La Jolla Cove with Trevor and Analee. I LOVE to snorkel, but I don't go very often here. Even though San Diego has nice weather the ocean is still really cold because our water comes from up in Alaska. Also the water is somewhat choppy so the visibility is not very good. I went snorkeling because the leopard sharks were supposed to be in town, the migrate here once a year to reproduce. One of my coworkers went a week ago and saw tons. Well I did not see any sharks, but I did see tons of garibaldi which is a neon orange fish with a really angry looking forehead, hehehehe.


We only went for like an hour since it was cold and the visibility was poor, but it was fun! Then we met my friends Evelyn and Katie for lunch for lunch at Lotsa Pasta which was fun becasue I don't get to see them nearly often enough. Evelyn has 2 kids and Rhiannon is 3 now which is CRAZY and Michael is almost 1, where does the time go!? Then I spent most of the rest of the weekend cleaning my house which was not very exciting, but I feel I got a lot done. I had an impormptu party where we p layed Wii Mario Cart while drinking, hahahaha. Driving drunk is hard, even on the Wii! ;)

This Weekend

I am STILL just a little bit sick! Ugh! I have a lingering cough that just won't go away! I have been sick for TWO weeks!

Well the lovely ladies of the San Diego North Park Craft Mafia are having another great show this Sunday, it is part of our monthly series, the first Sunday of each month we have a craft show at the Filter coffee house in North Park. I am so bummed, I won't make it to this one (I have to go visit Trevor's family in LA for the weekend) but the rest of you should go have fun, drink some coffee and check it out. (Ok, I don't drink coffee but I highly recommend the white hot coco!)

For detail check out http://www.sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com/

Sick....ugh

Well, I have not been very active on my blog lately. I have had a sinus infection all week so that has been a bummer, then on Wednesday night for no apparent reason my entire ankle swelled up!

It sucks being sick when it is hot and you have no air conditioning, ~sigh~

Well I am on the mend!

Ups & Downs

Well all in all it has been a pretty horrible month. I went to the emergency room for my spine, then my turtle ran away, then my Grandpa passed away. So just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. So Friday was pretty awful, but Saturday two of my good friends, Kean + Tammy, were visiting from Seattle, and I haven't seen them in like a year so that was nice. I spent pretty much the entire day with friends and I think I needed that. Sunday, Aug 10th I have a art show, it is called "More Super Sundays" and it is in Hillcrest, we are on University + Richmond right in front of the Alibi so I am hopeful about that. For more info check out my "events" page.

Trying to get my sh*t together

Ok, so we had our "Sunday, Crafty Sunday" this past weekend at the Ken Club down in Kennsigton. It was pretty wild! This is the first craft show that I have ever participated in that was 21&up so that was very different. It was in a bar, so everything was all dark and crazy and stuff. The music was really good! I REALLY liked both the bands, but it was a very small space so my ears were still ringing on Sunday! The Burlesque dancers were both fantastic! That is not something you normally see at a craft show!
Well, just being at a craft show has me all fired up to get more of my crafts on the internet. So I took a whole bunch of photos and I am going to list some stuff on Etsy this week. I also looked into taking community college classes so I can learn more about Dreamweaver so I can make my own website! Yayy!

Sunday, Crafty Sunday

I have a craft show coming up this Sunday! I am pretty excited, it has been a while since I have done craft shows I have been so busy with other stuff lately! I think the last one I did was the UCSD Craft Show at the begining of June!
This craft show is also quite different from anything I have done before! It is in a bar, hehehehehe, so it is a 21 & up craft show which I find funny. I think it will be pretty cool, I am excited just to go and hang out even if I don't sell anything. We are having a bunch of cool bands, DJs and even a burlesque show! My friend Lyn is in a burlesque troupe here in San Diego called "A Bit o' Burlesque" and she was saying she might be dancing this Sunday and I was like oh where and she said at the Ken Club, which is where my show is! hahahaha So my friend might be dancing at my show and I didn't even know it!

Well what a better combo? Crafts, alcohol, music, and dancing, YAYYY!

If you want more info, check out our website: http://sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com/events.html

Comic-con 2008!

Well Comic-con was pretty fun overall this year. I was a bit worried because of my injury that I would not be able to go, but I did manage. I maybe did not stay as long as I would have liked to, or gotten to do as much as I might have wanted to, but at least I got to go at all. On Tuesday I had absolutely no feeling in my foot and I couldn't walk so at that point I figured no way could I go, but then I regained feeling in my big toe, now I know that does not sound very important, but even if you only have feeling in your big toe, at least you can feel where you are putting your foot and then you don't accidentally twist your ankle.

Well my friends and I did decide to cosplay this year, I dressed up as Princess Peach from "Super Mario Brothers." I look kinda creepy as a blonde!

My friends went as the video game "Super Smash Brothers" which is neat, it is a fighting game with all sorts of famous video game characters in it so it allowed us all to go as things we really wanted to go as from different video games. With such a large group it can be hard to pick just one thing to dress as!

So starting from the left I am Peach, Sherief dressed as 'Snake,' Megan is 'Daisy,' Blue-gelica is "Ice Climber", Eirikr is "Mario", Brook is "Pit", Sean is "Ness", Sarah is "Zelda", Brion is "Marth", Josh is "Ike", and Trevor is "Link."

It was fun! I had so many little girls go, 'look look mommy, a princess' as I walked by, and I would wave at them and they would get SO EXCITED. It was funny!

Our friend Analee also came as Aeris from FFVII, so cute!



I have sooo many photos, I will have to upload a slideshow or something, maybe later. Well all in all it was a fun year despite the injury and despite the fact that there were not as many panels that I wanted to see as normal.

Last year I was angry because it was SO crowded, but I don't think it was any worse this year, so that is good at least.

Emergency Room Woes

Well I saw "Batman: The Dark Knight" on Friday evening, it was ok. I liked Batman Begins better but this one is still worth seeing. I was in a lot of pain when I got home (sitting in a movie theater can be difficult on my spine sometimes) so I took some vicodin and got a ziploc bag filled with ice to put on my spine. I woke up at 4am in HORRIBLE pain (and I was wet and laying in a puddle, I guess I fell asleep with the ice still there). Normally when my spine is in pain, laying down is what feels best. But this time it hurt to lay on my back, it hurt to lay on my side, and it REALLY hurt to lay on my stomach. Well I guess I was crying so that woke Trevor up. Then we were trying to decide what to do. With my insurance the emergency room is $50, but if I waited until the normal offices open at 9am then I can get an urgent care appointment for only $15. Well I thought about it for like an hour and decided I was in too much pain to wait so we went to the emergency room. We got there at 6am, it was EMPTY! My biggest fear was going to the emergency room and then having to wait several hours to be seen anyways. They admitted me immediately. They said my spinal disc was probably inflamed, normally when my spine is bad I have pain shooting down the from of my leg and into my shin and foot. This time I had pain down the back of my leg shooting into my buttock. Normally it hurts to sit, this time sitting actually felt 'good' and it hurt to lay! They gave me a injection into my butt of some pain reliever. It made me sooo nauseous, but it also made me sleepy so that was nice. They didn't want me to stand because they were worried I would pass out, but I told them I didn't want to lay becasue it hurt, but they made me! I had some interesting times flopping about the bed trying to get comfy, I flashed everyone my underpants 100 times (I was in those stupid ties-in-the-back hospital gowns) and I almost feel off the gurney once! After a few hours of observation and tests they sent me to the pharmacy, they sent me home with steroids to helps the inflamation and to strengthen things up, they also gave me some percocet for pain. When I got home I was able to sleep for several hours, that was nice. But when I woke up I was in terrible pain again. I took the percocet and it did not kick in for 1 1/2 hours!!!!! It only helped the pain barely, plus I think it made me nauseous again! So I tried to lay down to go to sleep that night, but it hurt soo bad. I tried sitting in my computer chair, which felt better, but I just could not fall asleep sitting up (it is too bad I don't have a recliner chair). So I got into bed and was in and out of sleep all night.

I decided to go back to the doctor on Sunday, this time I waited until 9am to go to urgent care (I just couldn't afford $50 again for the emergency room). The funny this is even though I had an appointment it actually took me longer to be seen this time! I told the DR. the percocet wasn't helping at all. Also Saturday the pain was just in my spine, butt, and the top of my leg, today my whole right foot underneath had gone numb. It made it very hard to walk, I am very worried I will twist an ankle before all is said + done. He gave me another shot in the butt (I guess it is a hydromorphone solution) and then he sent me home with MORPHINE and muscle relaxants (flexeril I think). Well this time the injection helped a LOT. I went to bed right away, stayed asleep for hours and never felt nauseous! It helped so much I did not need to take pain killers all day! I did take a morphine and flexeril as I went to bed that night, but I fell asleep right away so I did not know how much they helped.

Now it is Monday and my Dr. told me to stay home all week to rest up and get better. Makes sense, especially since my foot is still numb and it is hard to walk. Also for some reason, they did not want me to go to work on Morphine, heheheeh. Well at noon I took a morphine and I did not notice any difference until 1:48. Then I felt a slight flush and my pain was slightly better. I am somewhat disappointed. I thought Morphine sounded very powerful, hey now I am finally using the big guns I thought, but nope!!! Morphine helped a little, but it was hardly much better than anything else I have taken! At least I am not nauseous today! So I am not loopy, or anything, does that mean someday I can go to work and take morphine!!! Still seems kinda weird! I really think there must be something wrong with my metabolism! Well all-in-all I do feel better than this weekend, still in pain, but nothing like before. Maybe the injections helped? Or maybe the steroids are starting to take effect, who can say?

Well one other thing I wanted to say was this last weekend was Gay Pride Weekend in San Diego, and obviously I did not get to participate in the activities and show support for my friends that are walking a different path in life than I am, but I did want to say to everyone, "Have a Gay Day!"