Oh the Cuteness!

Hi everyone! I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted here, but I have a very good excuse this time that I think you will all be very excited about. Big changes are happening and big plans are being made! First of all, I'm no longer living in Campbell (And yes, this means I had to disassemble and box up  the amazing craft room ... Le sigh.). At the moment I've got everything I own except for the essentials put in a storage pod, and I've spent the holidays with my mom and dad, and the new year with my sister, and now I'm planning on returning to my beautiful city of Oakland to finally start working on my big dream... I'm very proud to introduce to you The Black Squirrel , a brick-and-mortar and online fabric, yarn, and craft supply boutique! It's been my lifelong dream to own a little craft shop and I've decided it's time to go for it! The shop will stock a variety of beautiful trendy yarns and fabrics, with a focus on s...

Hi everyone! I'll be selling my wares this coming Saturday, March 8th at the Jack of All Trades Market in Oakland at the beautiful Jack London Square waterfront district! As always, if you're a blog reader and you come to say hello you'll get a sizable 25% off discount on anything you buy, because I really love meeting my fans and I appreciate you taking the time to come support not only me, but all the other wonderful artists and craftspeople who sell at these events. I'll be selling quite a few new items that haven't made their way to my online shop, including these fantastic herb and spice filled trivets that I'm completely in love with, as well as some new surprise balls, tiny taxidermy, and other fun goodies! Hope to see you there!

Yay! Another local shop has started carrying my items! Rebooty is tucked away on upper Grand Avenue in Oakland , and is a wonderful boutique committed to selling eco-friendly items made from reused materials by local artists. The owners are super nice and really care about people's impact on the earth, and the lovely variety of art and home decor in their shop reflects this passion. I'm very proud to say that they now carry my owl pincushions, feather hair clips (which haven't been sold online yet), infinity scarves, and steampunk rings! And hopefully they'll have a few more things of mine coming soon too! Please go check them out if you're in the area, you won't be disappointed!

I don't know how I forgot to post about this (derp) but the stitch & bitch group I created over 4 years ago had a booth at the Oakland Fiber Festival  this past summer. Unfortunately the fair is taking a hiatus this year, but will hopefully be back the next. We had about 6 of our members come together to sell their wares and it was a great success, not to mention a great time! We'd like to do another fair this year, so if anyone knows of a good one here in the bay area please let me know! We did a free make & take, teaching people how to crochet a chain and add a button to make it a wrap bracelet. I spent most of the day manning this particular part of the booth and I had a blast!   Carolyn stepped up as the main cashier when I got swamped by people for the make & take.  It was so nice to see everyone's different styles come together to make an eclectic and crowd-pleasing booth. Go Oakland!  Suzanne made these brilliant starched ...

Well, the holidays kicked my butt yet again this year but they were, as always, completely amazing. I had tons of work to do between  WSPS  and  WCM  this year, as well as getting ready for the  RAC's  holiday fair (which went REALLY well, photos to come), hence the posting drought. But, as part of my new year's resolution I'm going to focus more on my own business and crafting, as well as a huge project I've had in the works since last year, and as part of that I'm continuing to play catchup on here. Anywho, on to the holiday at hand: Thanksgiving! As some of you may know I host a Thanksgiving dinner every year and invite all my friends who can't make it home to visit their families. I started it 3 years ago when my parents decided they didn't feel like celebrating it anymore.  The original had 7 people ,  then there were 12 , and this year there were 18 in all! It was so big I couldn't host it at my place anymore, but my best frien...

I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post. I listed all of the craft fairs I had planned for the summer, which I knew would take up a good amount of my time, but I had no idea how full my schedule would be or that this would turn out to be one of the best summers of my life! I have so, so, so much to catch everyone up on. I just finished editing the last of the photos and am trying to figure out where to start... (By the way, the photo counter on my camera rolled over this past weekend, which means that I have taken over 10,000 photographs with it in less than two years. That feels like a fun milestone to me.) In the past couple moths I have been working my butt off for both of my jobs, as well as running around to tons of fairs. I've camped, I've explored, I've kayaked, I've gotten tan, I've partied, I've made new friends and become closer with the old ones, I've got a lush and successful garden for the first time in years, I...

My schedule has been filling up quickly and is about to get absolutely insane! I've got craft fairs and social events galore, but to start off don't forget that this upcoming Monday is International Yarn-Bombing Day, and the entire week is Knitting in Public week! So get out there and show the world your skills, brighten up your cities, and have fun! I'll be spending it with the ladies from my stitch & bitch group, making mischief of course. Anywho, I'll be selling at quite a few upcoming events this summer. Be sure to "like" the  Oh the Cuteness Facebook Page  to get more updates, or follow me on Twitter .  Upcoming in June and July:  Maddie's Matchmaker Adoptathon  on Saturday, June 9th at the Petco in El Cerrito. It's a wonderful event that helps needy animals find good homes, and I'll be donating 25% of my profits to the cause!   The Art Beat Bazaar  on Sunday, June 17th at the Starry Plough Pub in Berkeley. Great loca...

Here in Oakland we have a monthly event downtown we all affectionately call First Friday. It's when all the galleries are open late to debut the new collections, and over the years it has become quite the place to be, especially for hipsters. We like to go for the people-watching as much as the art. Parking is a pain so we decided to ride down instead, and we were invited to my favorite local bar for happy hour beforehand by my dear friend Vanessa ... Needless to say we never made it downtown. We spent the whole evening at the Heart & Dagger Saloon , munching on goodies form the nearby restaurants and having a super goofy time. Dennis always makes me laugh so hard when he takes my photo. Actually, he always cracks me up. Anywho, this is one of my favorite outfits. I tried doing my hair up, but it just wasn't working so I let it be. The dress is old from Target, the belt was on sale at Urban Outfitters for three bucks, the scarf and sweater are from my mom, as well as...

Dennis and I had a little date at the lake, going to the new Oaktown Spice Shop (love love love), and grabbing some Ethiopian food for lunch. I brought the camera along and let (okay, begged) Dennis to play around with my fancy new lens and snap some pics of my fancy pants outfit. (My friend Vanessa says if I get more colored jeans my new nickname will be fancypants. Swoon!) I must say he took some good ones! Pants from the Gap, shoes from Urban, purse was second-hand from a Crossroads in Berkeley. Shirt and tank from Target, Necklaces and rings are all handmade from various local places, watch from Anthropologie, and bracelets were a gift from my mom. The knitting needles in my hair are vintage acrylic.  ^_~ Oh! By the way, I figured out how to put my hair up with those knitting needles from a pic I found on Pinterest. I'm so terrible with hair, so if I can do it, anyone can. Here's the link:  http://pinterest.com/pin/147000375307048558/

Hmm, I wonder who did this lovely piece of yarn bombing? It had to be more than one person, all the strips are so different... Isn't it just the cutest thing ever? If you're local you can go check it out on the corner of Piedmont and Linda, across from the movie theater. ^_~