Eye Pop Art: Holidays, holidays

Hello! I hope you had a lovely holiday - and if you had snow like we did, I hope you had a nice, relaxing vacation! We did! Not only were we "snowed in," but I was also without a computer for about a week (did you notice?). So there was much baking and eating and playing of board games, and reading and going for walks in the snow to do our last-minute Christmas shopping at Value Village and the pawn shop on the corner! (Since we couldn't drive anywhere, and it's not like I would go to the mall anyway.)

We watched VCR movies and played long games of Rail Baron with the kids. It's a game where you buy railroads and travel to destinations and collect money when people ride on your railroad and stuff. We are really into it. We played the UK version which took three days and we are now playing the Australian version.

We also had a great time with my old friend Michael Cordova, who lives and works in San Francisco (oh my gosh, he is a digital artist and he worked on the new Star Trek movie!) but was in town for the holidays. He and Melodie and I all became good friends back in high school. The three of us, and Chuck, had an excellent dinner at Bamboo, then caught the Bloodies' set at Plan B, and took a cruise down Peacock Lane before landing back at my house where this picture was taken:

Just like the old days!

I am getting ready to ship my big wholesale order TOMORROW - the 100 record bowls for Viva Terra. It's been ready to go since Thanksgiving, but they didn't want me to ship until after Christmas. I'm excited to get the boxes out of here!

Also, I have about five working days to design a new spring line to offer at the Portland Gift and Accessories Show, which is coming up January 10 - 13. I am totally procrastinating. I also need to come up with line sheets, order forms, business cards, and a display. (I'm allowing two additional working days for these tasks.) I am sharing a big triangular booth with five other artisans, and we will each get about 2' x 2' to display our samples.

I really need to get to work on that. It is hard. I seem to be stuck in holiday mode. More cookies!

For once, we are not planning to have a New Year's party - so we might be staying in! New Year's Day will be Chuck's and my 13th wedding anniversary - but we've actually been together for almost 18 years. And I might add that it will also be my one-year anniversary of not drinking. Feature that. Then January 5 is my birthday, and the day the kids go back to school!

I do have some ideas for the spring line, it is going to be very simple and cute.

In the meantime I've listed a few new cuffs in my Etsy shop! Take a look: