Well I have not written anything since February and that is a while considering it’s now June already. Amanda and I have done a ton of things since then…
In February we were working on all the tie dye beach towels for the Bears and that ended up turning into a huge process of rearranging our whole house around and setting up our art studio in what was before our living room and the end result is we have a bigger nicer bedroom that we freshly painted and an awesome tie dye workshop. It’s the most professionally we have been set up ever for tie dying. We finished working on all the towels in March and ended up making 225 all together.
After we finished the towel project we moved right into our plan to tie dye 1,000 t-shirts and we have this big master plan to have some of each cool pattern in a variety of sizes and colors. So we were working on that and tackled the smiley face shirts and the peace sign shirts first. They all turned out great and we have come a long way in our tie dye design evolution. That is the best part of making things for me, is to know that I am becoming better at tie dyeing all the time.
So March and April rolled along and we were working at our house tie dying and trying to relax some. I ground out the big tree stump in my backyard that was left over from the evil Black Locust tree I had cut down last year. Lars helped me grind it out with a stump grinder we rented.
Well then it was May, man this year did go by fast, and we started selling at the Gresham Farmers Market on Mother’s Day weekend. We even started our own market too, called the Hawthorne Artisans Market. We set up on Sundays where my family used to have the christmas tree lot and my fireworks stand back in the day. It has been a little slow to get going at first, mainly just pulling in some passerbyers to check things out. But I have to admit that it makes me happy because I have still been doing ok selling tie dyes and some of the other vendors that are newer to the vending scene have not sold anything. But we have been letting people set up there for free so they can have their own personal chance at the American Dream. Or the american hippy dream I guess, haha!
But we have been doing great at the Gresham Farmers Market and it continues to be our best retail venue yet considering vendor fees, ease of set up and location. We love going to the music festivals but those moms and teenage daughters in Gresham are great customers!!!
So yeah, selling at the markets and making tie dyes! Amanda and I took a trip up to Seattle in May to visit my sister Sarah and then we went to the Washington & Oregon coasts for a couple nights for our long delayed Christmas Vacation to the beach. We had lots of fun then Amanda went back to Buffalo, NY for the first part of the Summer. She was selling her Shibori Scarves at the 100 Craftsman show in NY and had lots of fun and set up a whole new layout for her booth that we thought up before she went home, where she had scarves hanging on display necks along the walls of the booth. Now she is with her family on vacation in Key Largo, Florida. I am headed to NY at the end of June for a vacation with Amanda then we are both coming home in July and back to more market selling.
We have some cool summer plans. On July 26th weekend we are headed to Bend, Oregon to be vendors at the Four Peaks Music Festival. Then the next weekend after that we are driving to Salt Lake City, Utah for Amanda’s friend’s wedding. Then the week after that is the NW World Reggae Festival near Eugene, Oregon on August 8 – 10th, 2008. We were vendors there last year and had a great time listening to all the cool reggae music. Then the week after that we are going with a group of 11 people to the Tom Petty concert at the Gorge in Washington. Then the week after that is both Amanda and I’s birthdays then we get into September and we will be starting up the christmas wreath shop and be working like crazy until December.
Man, that’s like the whole year right there. Sounds good to me.
Oh, I forgot the best part. I made a new friend at the Hawthorne Artisans Market who is a professional glassblower and he is going to give me a few lessons and help me set up my own glass blowing studio at my house. So stay tuned for the next level of goodness from Made By Hippies.
Double Oh, check out the website, I have been working on it lots lately. http://www.madebyhippies.com
Peace!
-Erik