Winter Inspiration
Despite the fact that I’ve done half of my seasonal shows already, it’s been a little hard to get in the winter holiday spirit! The fall has been unseasonably warm for Calgary.
The peek outside my window this morning should cure that though. I can almost feel the urge to pop some Christmas carols in my playlist and pull out the “in progress” angel cane I’ve had sitting here for WEEKS. Here is a little blue heart on ribbon that somehow came back with me from this weeks show. It’s sort of winter coloured, no?
This week has me teaching my first class at the Sheep Creek Weaver’s Guild. I’ll be covering the basics of clay and helping the talented group make up some beads, buttons and other embellishments that can be used in their fiber arts.
Saturday is the Craft and Bake Sale held by my own community. It’s usually a leisurely thing with time to chat with friends, drink coffee and do crafts. They are in a busy part of town and, at my last glance, still had space for vendors. If you are in Calgary, give the Albert Park Radisson Heights Community Association lady a call! Or, drop me a line and I’ll forward you her email.
Come Wave at Me
When I was younger I looked forward to the fall because it was a chance for me to hang out with my grandmother, one of my favourite family members. She did craft shows throughout the fall and my grandfather was not the most patient of company. So I went along, made change, kept her company and along the way fell in love with the whole concept of the small, community based craft shows.
Fast forward about twenty years and now I do these mostly on my own or with my mother and daughter (who is about the age I was back then!). My grandmother still comes sometimes to keep me company and demands the stories you collect from these events.
There is my table at the show from last weekend, held by some of the sweetest, best organized folks I have ever met at the Robert McClure United Church here in Calgary. The unsmiling person there is me because I just turned around to face a chortling 9 year old. I promise to smile if you come wave at me this weekend at the Elbow Valley Art and Craft Market!
For the rest of my shows please see my calendar. If you’d like to know where there are an awful lot more Calgary and area craft shows check out my friend’s huge list!
Bloggy Giveaways
My very first blog giveaway! Since this is my first time with this, I think I will keep it simple and offer a $20 shopping spree at my Etsy shops (feel free to mix & match between the bead shop and the cane shop) or website shop. There’s all sorts of good stuff! And to make it even sweeter, free shipping, so the shipping is not counted against your spree.
To enter the giveaway, simple post a comment on this post. I’d love to hear any opinions about the blog re-design, any requests for colours, patterns or shapes for my future work or even clay how-to questions! It’s all good! You can even just say ‘Hi’! You do not need to be a blogger to enter, just need to make that post and use a valid email address in the form.
On Friday, after I’m back from taking my little goblin out trick-or-treating, I will close comments and pick a winner. This should be somewhere around 9pm mountain time. I will announce the winner on Saturday, after my show (wish me luck even!).
I’m happy to ship anywhere, so I welcome entrants from around the world. The more the merrier! And don’t forget shipping is free 
For a truly awesome list of other bloggy giveaways check out the Blog Carnival on Bloggy Giveaways. There’s an expected 1000 plus participants this time around! That’s an awful lot of free goodness! Bloggy Giveaways also does regular giveaways even outside of the Carnival and it’s always fun to watch.
* The very fine print: the $20 is face value - you’re welcome to buy from my web shop or my Etsy shop but in the interest of keeping it simple, I am going to consider the $$$ equal. So you could spend $10 on my Etsy and $10 here and that would be the gift certificate.
Upcoming Shows!
I just had a show at Tom Baines Jr High yesterday, in support of a local breast cancer patients group at Wings of Hope. The students who were the bulk of the organizing and fundraising committee were fabulous - there were jugglers, lots of student crafts and just generally a lot of creativity. This is my assistant (Hi Mom!) at my table / booth.
In the next few weeks there’s more of these coming! Next weekend I have a two day show. Raddison Heights / Albert Park (my community) is having a big craft fair / spring tea / garage sale event on April 19 and 20th from 10am to 6pm.
I get a week off before the next show, at Abbeydale Community. That one’s on May 3rd and runs till 3 pm.
Then, at the end of May, I have the Lilac Festival. This will be my first Really Big Show. The Festival is actually the 4th St. Street Fair (a community near the city center of Calgary) and it brings more than 50k people. Last year, I think they said more than 80k. It runs 10 blocks or more and for a show that size the fees for individual artisans are very modest. That runs 10-6 on Sunday, May 25.
Saturday June 14 is the Village Fair @ Village Square Leisure Centre. It runs from 11-3 and the one last year was great, not just as a seller but as a fair goer. There were food samples from the local communities, all sorts of dance groups, reduced rates on swimming and other activities and the attached library had programs as well.
All of these are in Calgary - I have one slightly out of town show coming up in the Fall but I’m not that brave yet!
Craft Sales & A Calendar
The dates for my physical craft sales are now finalized. If you want to find some Tooaquarius Polymer Clay goodness in the real world sometime this fall I’ll be at:
- Fairview Community Association, 8308 Fairmount Dr. SE, October 28, 10-3
- Marlborough Community Association, 636 Marlborough Way NE, November 25, 9:30-3:30
- Erin Woods Community Association, not quite sure where yet, December 2, 10-4
It’s also a good chance to get a look at my Grandmother’s knitted items. She’s always been my crafty partner in crime and this will probably mark 15 years or so that we’ve done fairs together.
For those Calgary types who’d like a list of Calgary fairs and shows there’s a few listed here in the Calgary Area Craft Fair and Farmers Market list.
I’ve also gone and added a calendar page to my site so that I can keep everyone up to date on my (not so active) activities.
Ivy Leaf Cane Demo
This Friday (May 5) I’m going to demo a simple leaf cane using a green to light green Skinner blend. From the simple leaf I’ll make a more complex ivy leaf and from that, time and resources permitting, I’ll make an ivy sprig cane.
April 7 Demo
CATherien is in Chicago for this Friday’s demo so I’m volunteering to do a demo in her place. The location is a Yahoo chat, Friday April 7th at 2 EST. To gain access you must have me on your yahoo list. Please email me to request my ID. My email is erobitai@shaw.ca
Categories
As I’m using WordPress as the CMS for the site, I get to set categories to organize my blogging and content by - for now, that includes community, events, news, reviews, studio and tips&tricks.
It is my hope that the site is a combination of things - my venue to sell my work eventually, as well as show it off, a way for me to keep in touch with my community of clayers and to give back a little in terms of tips, reviews and listing of resources.
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Groups
