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

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.

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!

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

The UCSD Craft Sale starts today!!!!!

I am very excited because the UCSD Craft Sale starts today! I just set all my stuff up, the best part about that is I get to see everybody else's stuff before it goes on sale!

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! No 2 artists have similar items, it is nice to see how everyone has a very different style and you can really tell by looking at their work!

Today is the 'preview day' of the sale so the hours are only 2pm-6pm but Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the hours are 10am-6pm.

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

Crafts, TV, Karaoke, & City Beat

Well my Craft Mafia has been very very busy!

We have monthly craft shows the first Sunday of every month (that's THIS Sunday)!!! And the TV station Fox 6 asked our founding members, Svea, Penni, and Teresa to come on and promote our craft show! They got a whole 5 minutes to demonstrate how to jazz up some eco-friendly shopping bags! It was awesome!

Our next craft show is this sunday:
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
1 2 Noon to 5 p.m.
@ Filter coffee house
4096 30th St., SD 92104

I am so bummed I cannot be there, I will be getting ready for my UCSD craft show which runs Monday-Thursday on the UCSD campus. But there will be many other neat vendors, check out our website for a list! http://sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com/events.html

We were also asked to sponsor a karaoke night at U-31, a neat bar in North Park. So that will be lots of fun, it is Tuesday June 10th, but I will have more details soon!

Also we made it in the City Beat's "Summer Guide" as one of the 6 coolest Summer Shopping Events! (we were number 2, yayy!)

What an exciting 2 weeks it has been!!

An Early Weekend is Coming!

Escondido Street Faire is this Sunday!! I am very excited, I think my spot is quite well located! I am on Grand Ave, right in between Escondido and Maple, closer to Maple. I am on the South side of the street. Overall this seems quite centrally located so I am happy! I am ~not~ happy about my set up time, by oh well! My st up time is 6am, which means I should leave my house at 5:30am, which means I should wake up at 4:30am. EEEKKKKKK!!!!!! Too early! Oh the torture I endure for my art!!!! If you are in the area com check me out! The faire is from 9am-5pm in downtown Escondido on Grand Ave. It is the 2nd biggest street faire in the whole state with over 600 booths! Cool, huh?

And Saturday I am having a garage sale at my house, so I have to be up by 6am!! So it is a very early weekend for me!

I'm FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I am always a busy person. I am an only child and I think that being an only child has been fantastic! People say, oh weren't you bored or lonely as a child? No! I could always come up with something to do, this led to several robust hobbies that I have kept on into my adulthood, like crafting, cooking, gardening, video games, reading, costuming, theater, ect.....

Well this past month I took being busy to a new and unholy level. But I am FINALLY finished with my crazy commitments and I am FREEEEEE! Don't get me wrong, I am still quite busy, trying to schedule anything on a weekend for the next 4 months is a joke (I do have some free days coming up in August). But that is my normal state, rather than the work all say, stay late, then go home and work until I drop from exhaustion! I normally don't have this many CRAZY huge things all lumped at once, here is what I have been up to:

March 25th was our "site visit" at work. I work in a Bio lab at UCSD and every 5 years the federal government (NIH) comes to inspect us to see if we deserve more money for the next 5 years. So needless to say this is a HUGE deal for my work, we have to have everything ready and perfect.

Then March 30th was our Spring Line Up! Craft Show. This was a blast! I can't believe how many people came! I was on the PR committee so I am glad to see all our hard work getting the word out paid off! The only downside is right when we opened the doors it was so crowded people could hardly shop!!! If you stopped to buy something everyone behind you bumped into you!!! Well we are working on that for next time! Check out my pictures! I also hate to say I am glad it is over! I enjoyed doing it, but it was also hard because I was simultaneously trying to start up my business so I had to also do things like design and order business cards, get my tax license, try to make a website, ect.......... I also had never done PR before so I had no idea what that would be like! Then I made a 100 pairs of earrings to give away in the swag bag, and I had to make stuff to sell too! So it was pretty crazy, but it was worth it. Also I bet it will get easier with each show I do!
Then on April 5th I had to cook a medieval feast for 80+ people!!! The UCSD medieval club (otherwise known as the College of St. Artemas in the SCA) was having it's 20th anniversary extravaganza so I wanted to do an extra-special feast this year! I decided that the main course would be a beef Tri-Tip roast, it came out SO GOOD! The beef melted in your mouth! We had two ziploc bags of meat leftover which they decided to auction off and they went for $40 each! I cannot believe we made $80 auctioning off leftovers!!! A lot of people told me it was the best feast that they ever went to so I guess I am pretty proud of myself! We did not quote sell out, we were selling 80 seats and we were about 15 short so that means we had about 65 people. Well I cooked 120lbs of meat! And there was not very much leftover! So that means on average people ate 2lbs of meat each PLUS side dishes. We did not have many side dishes left either! It was crazy! Here, check out our crazy menu!

St. Artemas 20^th Anniversary

Feast Extravaganza!

~Course One~

St. Artemas Veggie Platter

Featuring green veggies and special yellow St. Artemas carrots!

Tzatziki Dip

A refreshing yogurt based dip with cucumber and dill

~Course Two~

Capon Rosted

A roasted chicken where lemon and rosemary infused butter is rubbed

under the skin with moist and delicious results

Fenkel in Soppes

Fennel and onions are sautéed in olive oil and seasoning and then turned

into a very light and tasty soup

Bread & Butter

A classic staple! The butter is flavored with honey, fresh parsley, and basil

~Course Three~

Malaches of Pork

With eggs, pine nuts, currants, ground pork, and seasoning this medieval

quiche is basically sausage pie which is extremely scrumptious

Salat

A salad of mixed greens, red onions, glazed walnuts, gorgonzola, and

a balsamic vinaigrette dressing

Couscous

A grain dish that is actually made of very small pasta spheres, added to

this is dried apricots, almonds, and olive oil for a pleasantly sweet flavor

~Course Four~

A Roste

Beef Tri-tip is roasted to perfection for a melt in your mouth consistency

and covered in an exotic array of sweet and savory spices

Garlec

Garlic cloves boiled with a rich array of spices

Hummus

A dip made of mashed chickpeas, garlic, tahini, and pine nuts

Pita

A slightly leaved wheat flat bread with a subtle onion flavor

~Course Five~

Fyne Cakes

These cute little cakes are shaped like mini castles and taste similar to modern

shortbread with cinnamon

Glazed Nuts

A delightful mix of sweet spiced pecans and walnuts

AWESOME Swag for "Spring Line Up"

Ninjas, Robots, and Earrings, OH MY!

Look what fabulous swag we have to give away at the "Spring Line Up!"

If you want to see more great pictures check out my Picasa Album!


My kitchen has literally been overrun with swag!

So for my part in the great swag giveaway I decided to make earrings! We are giving away 100 swag bags to the first 100 people at the Spring Line Up! Well that sounded fine and good, but I had no idea how much work making 100 earrings would be! 100 pairs of earrings actually means you need to make 200 individual earrings! (duh) But man are my hands tired!
I think they came out pretty cute, so it was worth it!
I wanted to show off some of the other great goodies we recieved! These are some of the plushies and cards from www.sweetandsourgoodies.com I am just amazed at all of the cool things she is giving away for FREE in our swag bags! I cannot imagine the time she must have put into these!

She just has such a neat variety of stuff, there are tiny ninjas, medium ninjas, and huge ninjas for our raffle (not pictured). My personal favorite is the geisha! there are also neat cards and pin cushions!

These SUPER cute cards from www.heartsandlaserbeams.com They are so funky, I love it!

BEADS!!!! The pack on your left is a "build-a-bracelet" kit from www.p-starr.com (what a cute idea, now people can participate in the DIY fun!) The pack on your right is a huge bag of beads from www.southsunproducts.com a local bead shop here in San Diego

These elegant cards are from www.invitapaperstudio.com I love the sift colors, it makes them so classy!
Fun stickers!!! From sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com www.bellepeppercouture.com www.velvetklaw.com and www.iwishihadapenguinfriend.com
I love the UGLY=CUTE movement, and I think these darling little monsters qualify! They are from www.bognogginz.com
Everyone loves buttons!!! From www.madewithluv.com www.longbeachcraftmafia.com and www.poseurink.com
The comb is from the fabulous stylists at www.hairdrezzersonfire.com and the cute candy bracelet is from www.jewelrybyallison.com
These are SO CLEVER! It looks like a little matchbook, but it is actually a cute little notepad! They are from shindigshirley.etsy.com
These cards are so witty and clever! They are from www.iwishihadapenguinfriend.com
What a funky and fresh card! It is made by staceywinters.etsy.com
I am sad that you cannot see these earrings more clearly, I tried to take a clear picture but they are wrapped in parchment paper and I did not want to open them! They are from asilomarworks.etsy.com and I cannot believe sh made so many, I love them!
This cute little magnet is from alteredprovisions.com and this yummy smelling soap from sparkledarkko.etsy.com is fantastic!
Well www.pixelknit.com makes these coffee cozies to go on your coffee cup, but quite frankly I think they make excellent arm warmers too!
These are cute little stitch markers from itscute.etsy.com
Great coupons from www.theweeset.com and sewhut.com
These are lip balms from naiad.etsy.com and they come in such neat unusual flavors! each one also comes with a cute little button!
Ohhhh, I am soooo jealous I don't get a swag bag! I'll have to see if my friends get any, maybe I can do some trades, heheheheehehe.

Calafia/Gyldenholt Friendship Tourney

Well I had a fun day Saturday! One of my many hobbies is the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) which is a medieval and renaissance reenactment club. It is a lot like a Renaissance Faire, except we are a non-profit organization so we do it just for fun and education. Like people seem to think in Medieval Europe that the King sat around eating giant turkey legs,.... well no, turkeys are from AMERICA. That's why we eat them at THANKSGIVING! We are 100% participant driven, at a Faire they put on a show for you, for example they might sword-fight. Well in the SCA if you are interested in sword fighting, you pick up a wooden sword and you learn how!

I was merchanting! Here is my cute little booth:

My other pop-up was missing poles so I just had the one, but we had a nice little tree so it was ok. It was a good practice run, I have my big Spring Line Up show on March 30th and I have to make all my jewelry fit onto one table so I was able to test that out here!
I think my new PVC earring rack is much better on the table, at the Crafty Debs I had in on the floor and it looked awkward for people to have to squat!

The event was at Bates Nut Farm in Valley Center, CA. This was fun because they have a cute little shop, I bought English Toffee (YUM!!!) and a cute new tea strainer (I seem to have quite the tea strainer collection these days).

Crafty Debutantes was FUN!

Well we had our first San Diego North Park Craft Mafia show of the year! It was the "Crafty Debutantes!" craft show! It was named thus because we were "presenting" our new members (including me!) to society! We all dressed up for the event and our founding Mafia members presented us all with tiaras and the most beautiful corsages!!! It was silly but very fun!!! It was a small show, very casual, but it was a good trial run as our group gets ready to host the Spring Line Up on March 30th which is going to be a HUGE craft show, we have invited 50+ vendors, we are having some really great local bands play, we will have a fashion show, we are going to serve beer & wine, and the Other Side Coffee House is going to serve coffee and tasty treats and sandwiches! I am so excited, but I have a lot to do first!!!

Crafters Needed!

The North Park Craft Mafia wants you in our Line Up -- the Spring Line Up craft event! Vendor applications are being accepted until February 22nd. Sign up now! Go to: www.sandiegonorthparkcraftmafia.com