uhhhhhhhhh, yeah

See those? That's part of the reason why there will be no shop update today. I was so engrossed in finishing the ones you see in the photo above and five more of their friends that I didn't get to stuff and seam the critters in time for a decent photo session. 11 AM in the magic hour here; that's when the natural light in the apartment is perfect for photographing softies. Any later hour and you're risking bad photos. Once the sun sets, well, it takes a lot of fussing setting everything up next to an available outlet with the one light I have. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I need to get myself a tripod. I know there are decent inexpensive ones to be had. I just have get off my butt and find one. So yeah, long story short, I have no decent critter photos to post. In fact, half of the them are still unfinished. What to do? I keep vacillating between updating the shop every day and doing updates on Mondays and Fridays only. Didn't I recently say that I was sticking with those two days as my update days? So much for being firm and sticking to my plan. I am only stressing myself out by trying to update every day and feeling bad when I don't because there's a ton of stuff to do in preparation for the Bazaar Bizarre and the holidays. I'm sorry if I disappointed any of you today. I will make it up to you, I hope, with Friday's update.

Let's focus on Bazaar Bizarre for a moment because I am actually ridiculously excited about that (and that's what all those mice are for, in addition to almost everything else that I am working on at the moment). Bazaar Bizarre is coming up in just a couple of weeks. I really need to buckle down and work for that because I want to be well-stocked. It will be on December 9th at the Cyclorama, 539 Tremont Street in the South End. If any of you good folks are in the Boston area, please do stop by. I would love to meet you, and I hope to have a ton of stuff there. I will be at table 31, which is towards the back of the Cyclorama. Lesson learned the hard way, folks - when a craft fair is kind enough and generous enough, as the lovely people at Bazaar Bizarre were, to ask you if you have any location preferences where you would like to have your table, you respond right away and ask for the front of the venue. That's what all the smart people did. I am not one of the smart people. I figured, having been to the Cyclorama before, that there really isn't any bad location there because everything is out in the open. The room is round, afterall. Oh how very wrong I was, how naíve of me to think that. I didn't count on rows on tables creating a grid in the middle of the space. DOH! How could I have not imagined that? Do you see just how important a little imagination is? All the well-known softie makers who have craft fair experience knew to ask for locations in the front. They will be the first people you will see upon walking into the Cyclorama. You will gaze upon their fabulous creations. You will buy their wares and cross names off your holiday shopping list. You will be satisfied with your softie purchases and perhaps look no further. If you're looking for me, you will find me near the men's room, all the way in the back and to your right. Yep, the men's room. Oh man, I messed up big time in not asking for a front and center location right away. Please don't think this is a "woe-is-me" or "pity-me" post. This is a "wow! I can't believe I was so stupid! What was I thinking?!" post and perhaps a "please learn from my stupid mistake" post. Anyway, I hope there's a great turn-out, and more importantly right now, I hope to finish all of these half-way completed projects that have totally taken over my work-table by the end of this week so I can start on new stuff. Because ultimately, it doesn't matter where I am located; what matters is that I bring the best that I have to offer.

P.S. Also, as I have mentioned on here before, I am planning one giant update of the good old etsy shop on Monday December 10th. Please stay tuned for that.