Wow… last week Circle Craft really took it out of me.

Hugely long hours from 9am to 9pm… late night packing of extra stuff, tear down and the eventual dumping in the home studio has taken it’s toll. The show was a success however, and we’ll be back again next year with more goodies!

Here’s a snapshot of the week so far, and what’s to come, starting with tear-down on Sunday night:

• Tear took 2 hours in the miserable cold and wet, with a nice dinner afterwards and more wet loading and unloading of boxes at home in the evening - show closed at 5pm, we were home and unloaded by 9:30ish pm.
• Monday dropped Becky off at the airport early at 10:30am, then the rest of the day was spent sleeping and trying to recover from vicious migraines and total CC exhaustion.
• Tuesday the rains and storm came leaving me teetering on the edge of yet another nasty migraine
• Wednesday the migraine hit, full force, leaving me reeling in pain once more
• Thursday I’ve mostly recovered from the bad migraine pain, just dealing with left over fatigue and general crappiness…
• Tomorrow: the trek to Point Roberts to mail out a few orders, pick up a few boxes and then home for the weekend
• Saturday and Sunday: ‘try’ to put my studio back into some semblance of order [just boxes boxes everywhere right now!]

So needless to say, it be busy ’round here! But as always it keeps me outta trouble and on the straight and narrow ;^)

Weather in Vancouver, and the ‘WET’ Coast in general, has been pretty bad. Can we all say El Nino together? Yup… That bad boy is bringing the rain, wind and oh yeah, rain. We’ve hit our monthly record for November already and it’s only the 15th - Ouch!  Thank goodness we dealt with that backyard drainage problem last year, we’d probably have been flooded by now if not.

Well, I’m off to the studio [aka Pit O’ Dispair] to try and complete a few orders. Ciao babies… I promise to get back posting regularly again =)

Lotsa fun and EXCITEMENT today at Circle Craft…

Much demoing and chatting today; buddy and best minion Sue came out to help today with her cashier/re-stocking duties and three of us [me, Becky and Sue] had a good time all afternoon and evening; but the booth visit from super-cute CTV Weather Girl [should I say Weather Person maybe?] Tamara Taggart was really the highlight of the day and probably the event for me.

Paul Yard organizer extraordinaire of Circle Craft called me a few weeks back asking if I’d be interested in Tamara doing a segment in our booth while doing a demo and some stamping. Sure! Who wouldn’t be interested?!?  So… skip ahead to Day Two at CC and at about 4pm this afternoon a techie-dewd shows up and lays down a huge roll of coaxial cable right in front of the left corner of our booth. My wee brain starts thinking - holy moley! they’re actually going to do it. COOL and OHMIGOD!

At about 5:45pm, Tamara arrives [as cute and energetic in person as on tv] we chat for a couple of seconds, sort out the plan and then dive right in… They ended up doing the LIVE segment in the booth with me stamping her right; she graciously and cheerfully introduced our company name, talked about the cool arty fun of stamping briefly, talk about our product briefly and reminded people that I’ll be teaching a workshop at Ruby Dog’s Arthouse… I thought I did ok with the whole thing, but I did look a little dorky at one point when I answered a question she asked and then quickly realized at one point she wasn’t talking to me, but someone back in the station.  DOH! It was a short piece, but SO COOL and a great opportunity.

The best part for me was how excited Tamara got about my albums, stamp designs and scrapbook kits. She really seemed to love everything and ‘got’ the whole artsy fartsy thing. It was so great to see her that excited about our products… a local celebrity all pumped up and excited about my art, my designs and product ideas - too cool!

In other Circle Craft excitement… I fell in love with a GILT painting by Holly Graff that after telling Terry about, I went back [with T’s blessing] and purchased. It is truly amazing… gilded 24K gold, copper and bronze, patinaed and tinted beautifully then encased in a layer of fired GLASS! Truly a work of art that has to be seen to truly be appreciated. It is spectacular and will be coming home with us on Sunday night!

Anyways, it was a fun night and made the evening fly by. Terry managed to tape it for me, so if I can figure out how to do it, I’ll upload the segment on either this blog or onto our website.

Ok… must hit the sack. I’m exhausted but had to share the super fun day we had today. Yippee! [yawn!] I’m off to bed…

One more thing… this is what setting up and working at Circle Craft can do to otherwise perfectly normal [if not shy] men…

Terry my wacky hubby wearing his mom’s Prada sunglasses… and looking way TOO cool for school!

David Graff with terra cotta pot on head a la DEVO [GILT Gallery]:

After two crazy set-up days… and the first full day of sales at Circle Craft I’m a little pooped - and have 4 more days to go!

Set-up was fast and furious with drop-off on Monday evening and set-up early Tuesday into the afternoon, then madly finishing packing a few things on Tuesday night. I have great pics of the before and after booth, complete with a goofy Terry pick you will just have to see to believe LOL!

Yesterday was fun and always a little nerve wracking… what did I forget, will they come and buy, are they interested in my new stamps? So far so good.

It was a nice day yesterday, steady… time to chat and have fun with regular customers and new ones. Was in at 8:45am left at 9:15pm and was home eating McDonalds by 9:50pm - WHEW! Looooooong day….

Just heading off this morning and will post the funny pics of Terry tonight if I get a chance.
Thank to all who have come out, and are coming out, to support us. We appreciate it more than you know!

Peace out - xoxoxo

Today is the big ‘load-in’ for us at Circle Craft…

We arrive at the Canada Place ‘dock’ at 7pm and will be unloading in two SUVs [ours and the in-laws] full of product and display furniture. WHEW! and over course, today the Lower Mainland [Vancouver and surrounding suburbs] are under a heavy rain weather warning with high wind. Typical…

Yes, I know we live in Vancouver and Fall=rain in the city - but come on! Couldn’t we do Circle Craft load in, just once, without the freezing, wet cold and high winds?!? Seems every year that we’ve done the show, load-in day is always miserable.The bay doors to the convention floor are open most of the day and into the evening for the load in, making it a damn chilly place [think meat locker!] to be working. Ah well… the cold and wet will probably make us move faster LOL! Thank god there’s a Starbucks in the building!

Becky arrives tomorrow too at 5:30pm - and I can’t tell you how happy we are that she’s coming to help out in the booth for a week. Purely selfish on my part [I love this girl!] and the fact that she knows and loves our product is an added bonus.

Becky… if you’re reading this [and I think you are] Terry is making FRESH Chai Chocolate cakes tomorrow night in exchange for that special plastic thingy-m-bob you’re bringin’ all the way from Salt Lake City [and also because he loves ya too].

So load-in tonight. Product and furniture arrangement tomorrow. Airport in the evening and giggling throughout the night. Going to be a long couple of days… and I’m looking forward to it!

Sneak Peek No. 3
All that Mush and You’re Framed!
After many requests for ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Thank you’ stamps and other more traditional card making words and sentiments, this year we have developed two fun and functional sets just for YOU!

The two new sets are called ‘All That Mush’ and ‘My Sentiments Exactly’.

Both sets are quite different with one being decidedly more on the funky/fun side and the other more subdued and proper.  Each unmounted, stamp set has at least 12 different sentiments per sheet and each sheet measures 4" x 5". This should provide a great foundation to any card makers stamp collection and is the perfect addition to any card creation!

In addition to these fun new sentiment sets, is another new set called ‘You’re Framed’. Featuring scalloped, label-like frame rectangles and circles, simply stamp your sentiment in the ‘frame’ and add instant charm and whimsy to your card design. These frames are also excellent scrapbooking stamps for journalling and titles!

These  quarter sheets will be debuting at Circle Craft 2006 from November 8-12 at Canada Place Convention Center! Be sure to say hi and visit us at booth number 315…

Lazar StudioWERX Newsgroup BONUS!
Special Coupon Offer…
All Lazar StudioWERX Newsgroup members are eligible for a special coupon discount during our retail event at Circle Craft Christmas Gift Market from November 8-12, 2006.

Simply print the adjacent coupon and present it to a Lazar StudioWERX staff member while at the Craft Market and you will receive not only 10% off your total purchase, BUT we will also waive the PST and GST of your purchase! YES, that means that this coupon in not only worth 10% off your purchases, but you will receive an additional 13% savings since we are waiving your PST and GST taxes at checkout.

Circle Craft Admission Discounts!
Visit the Circle Craft website and download admission discount coupons…

So cool! The Poppets(R) are being featured on the DIY Network’s Crafty Gift Giving special website section and tv show…

So to celebrate this great DIY opportunity, we’ve putting together special Poppet(R) Holiday Gift sets and paperWERX Collections for the holiday season, so check out some of the goodies while supplies last.

Love gettin’ the Poppets(R) on tv and the DIY web! So cool…