Renegade Chicago 2013!

Hi friends! I know I'm a few days behind with my animal posts, and I'm going to have to postpone the next few days too. I've been a busybusybusy bee prepping for Renegade Chicago and finishing up some other deadlines before I head out onto the road. Yep, I'm driving. By myself. I drove last year by myself too, and I'm pretty sure I said something like "I'm never doing THAT again," but yeah, here I am again driving by myself (12ish hour drive + lots of breaks.)  I have lots of snacks and a few audiobooks and lots of music, so I'm hoping I'll be okay. I'm staying with one of my BFFs in Chicago, so I'll have someone to help me at the show and whatnot. Woo!

I'm psyched for this year's show! This will be my third year at the Chicago fair, and I'm hoping for sunshine and no wind. :)

If you are in the Chicago area, I will be at booth #82, near N. Honore St.  Come say hi!!!

I'll be back on Tuesday and will play major catchup with the daily animal posts. Thanks!

xoxo,
Michelle

Chicago Road Trip, Part 2

Annnnd here are the rest of the (phone) photos I took on my road trip to Chicago last week. Turns out, it's hard to take photos driving, but the scenery on the drive wasn't anything spectacular anyways. The prettiest part is from western NY-->NYC, near Naples NY. It's super-pretty there, especially in Autumn. The leaves were just hinting at starting to change color when I drove through. 

In Chicago, my friend and I went to the Swedish-American Museum in his neighborhood. There was a special exhibit on the first floor, paintings by Jennifer Saxell. They were nice, and reminded me of quilts. Upstairs in the museum were lots of cool relics from the passage of people from Sweden to America. 

Left poster shows all the food each person was given at the beginning of their voyage to America, Right shows the clothing/utilities they could pack.

This blew my mind! It's a terrible photo, but it's called a "Spit Cake."  They dripped cake batter over the spit, shown on the left, over an open fire, and it made the cake on the right. 

West Side Market in Cleveland, OH. My friend took me here for the best ever falafel and hummus. 

Lake Erie

Took my Mom and sister out to lunch to a favorite place from college. Veg platter from Aladdins, in Pittsford NY. 

Aladdins is right alongside the Erie Canal. Pretty!

I love this time of year when summer is kinda lingering, but with a hint of Autumn in the air.

My mom's pretty flowers

Bam and my sister, Jenna.

Renegade Chicago 2012

Hello! I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Chicago for this year's Renegade Craft Fair! It was crazy-successful and I packed a lot into my week-long trip. I drove to Chicago solo this year, and let me tell you, that was a LONG drive. I stopped in Cleveland, OH for an hour to have lunch with a friend, and then continued on my journey last thursday. After 3 hours of sleep the night before, leaving at 4:30am, and drinking a crap-ton of coffee, I finally made it to another friend's home in Chicago around 8pm that night. Phew. I had a free day on Friday, in which we stayed local to my friend's neighborhood in Andersonville, checking out the local Swedish-American Museum, and then heading to the Chicago Diner later on. I had a heart-attack-scare that night when we went to go to my rental car, and found an empty spot and a paper sign suddenly saying that it was now a tow-away zone (wasn't there in the morning when I moved my car there!) We freaked out, I called 311 and gave them the license plate number, to which they told me it wasn't in the system. They transferred me to the towing place and the same thing, no record of it in the system. I was beginning to think the worst, that it had been stolen, until the lady on the phone asked me if I had looked around the area for the car. Um, no? Apparently it is common for them to just MOVE the car instead of towing it away. I thanked her and my friend and ran around the blocks looking for the car. Found it a few blocks away! No ticket or boot or anything. Crazy. And weird! I've never ever heard of that happening before!

Renegade was awesome! I was so happy to have my full display this year (I flew last year, so basically only brought inventory and not much in terms of display items.) I was matched up with the same awesome ladies that I shared a booth with in Brooklyn this year, Mr. Sogs Handmade Creatures. Our stuff goes well together and the sisters are super-fun booth-mates. The weather was absolutely amazing and the crowds really came out. I sold so much stuff and all my new stuff went over really well. You can peek at my new Dogs and Cats calendars here, as well as the 24 new illustrations in it, and they will all be up in the shop in a week or so. Turns out, Chicago loves cats more than dogs! I'm pretty curious to see what is more popular in Brooklyn during upcoming holiday shows...

After a great weekend, I hit the road again Monday morning and headed to Cleveland again, to have a longer lunch-dinner with the same friend, and afterwards driving to Livonia, NY to hang with the family for a day or so. I finally made it back to Brooklyn Wednesday afternoon and it was utter relief to return that rental car and get back on public transportation. I'm still playing catch-up being home and trying to get back into the groove. I have lots of new things to show you! I'll have another post soon with some of the sights from my trip, other than my booth. 

xo,

Michelle

Texas Flowers

I like flowers, and there were lots of wildflowers in Texas, so obviously this worked out well for me!

Some pretty findings:

Agave plant

Spot the grasshopper!

I got one of these gigunda thorns stuck in my foot...

Cactus flowers

Texas Photos

Cement hands

     After Renegade in Austin, my Mom, Sisters, Uncle, Aunt, and I drove to my other Aunt and Uncle's home a ways north of Dallas.  I loved it so, so much there!  They are caretakers for a holy-huge-house and preserved land for a family that usually lives in Dallas, but has this really great vacation home in the middle of nowhere.  My Uncle and Aunt are such great people (and she is a super-great artist and photographer), and I loved their eclectic home decorated with such fun and different things.   It was so great to spend time with family that I never see, and even meet some I haven't met before!  

I have a thing for photographing flowers, so I have a separate post with those in a bit!

Findings hanging from tractor steering wheel

crystal mobile

Buddy

Handmade mosaic in the garden at the Big House

My Sisters, Mom, and I 

Rocks I collected.

Oh yeah. 

Back attack!

Street graffiti in Austin.  I wish it didn't say "weed," 'cause it kinda ruins it, but I didn't wanna photoshop it out either. 

Right near the street graffiti was this sign.  Aww!

Hello!  I'm home sweet home in Brooklyn today, after a crazy-awesome two-week road trip to Texas!  It was really, really great.  Renegade Austin was super-fun, it was cool to see Texas for the first time, and most importantly I got to spend lots of quality time with my family.  Woo!  I'm getting back into the swing of things today, but I have lots of photos and news to tell you this week. 

Happy Monday, let's make it a good one!