SXSW Wrap up - Pretty Purses, Crazy T-Shirts & WILD Dancing!

Uwi - what a weekend. It's been awhile since I have set up a booth for a marathon show - from Thursday to Sunday we had a group booth, courtesy of the Austin Craft Mafia, set up at Jo's Coffee on South Congress.

The reason, of course, was the city's number one tourist draw - SXSW. Jo's Coffee and the San Jose Hotel teamed up to provide a parking lot showcase of bands all day each day, and a little row of tents with local vendors.

First off, I have to say I was VERY impressed with the staff of Jo's and San Jose - I saw these guys and gals out there busting their butts all day each day - and they were really, genuinely friendly. They cleaned the bathrooms all day, they had our booths set up for us, they were just freakin' amazing.

Mostly I have a few pictures for you to peep...

The booth:



Shoppers in my corner:



Amy's corner of the booth - that's Amy Barber of Sweettooth Bags!



Close up of some of Hope's Badass Dresses - that's Hope Perkins of Hot Pink Pistol



Meanwhile - as the weekend wore on and our delirium mounted - we planned our free t-shirts a day in advance. You see, Free YR Radio had a freebie booth set up where you could get a t-shirt custom pressed with vinyl lettering of your choice. Since Amy was "fluffing" our booth merchandise just about every minute of the day - I crowned her the "Number One Fluffer" - he he he.



Me, being me, decided that "Bow down b*tches" would be rather raunchy. However, when I got to the t-shirt booth I chickened out, and got one with "AMBIE" on it - my nickname. Amy, keeping up her end of the bargain, ducked out of the booth for a long long time. When she returned, she proudly showed me the t-shirt she made! She had to find scraps on the ground to piece together the phrase, as the free t-shirt booth was packing up!



As the two of us tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to take some "hot" pictures - me, very sweaty, tired, covered in sunscreen, and Amy, super cute but still tired - Travis decided to surround his glasses with clothespins!



Yeah, that's Travis Nichols of I Like Apple Juice. I didn't manage to get any shots of his stuff in the booth, or that of Sublime Stitching, but it was a blast working with him & the Sublime Stitching Gals!

The big finale - one of the crazy flailing ladies strutted her stuff on the "dance floor" Saturday afternoon - she's got moves!!!

*annemarie* featured in the Austin paper

The fabulous store where I sell on Austin's South Congress shopping strip, Parts & Labour, was featured in the Austin American-Statesman today.



There is a write up about the store, and pictures of my bags in the print version! Looks like my pic didn't make it on the web, but my good friend Wendy Irwin's bags did! She is the uber crafty owner of Ballistic Sweater Girl.

Off to South Congress today to set up in my booth at Jo's Coffee shop... I am expecting to see all kinds of cool outfits and SXSW brings thousands into Austin for the weekend!

xo
Anne Marie

Photoblog: From Luggage to Art to New Spring Bags!

I am off to San Diego tomorrow! I have been so uber busy sewing and cleaning and making hangtags etc.... that I kept forgetting to blog. So to make things easy on myself tonight, I emptied my camera of images and chose a few to share with you!

First off, I finally finished my display luggage. That's right folks, I made this sweet puppy all on my own - it's really just an envelope style bag with lots of velcro and fancy webbing and buckles to hold everything in... 2 pieces of gridwall, shelving, etc...





Next, a sneak peek at my pattern development. I am working on a line of patterns to publish for other crafty people - and a big part of the process is started. Soon enough I will be teaching classes, so to prepare I took pictures of my pattern pieces on fabric for a cutting layout and to determine the amount of yardage to use.



I also snapped lots of photos of my new Spring Bags!!! I have been working on them for a few weeks, and they are all finally finished. I took a huge batch to Parts & Labour today, and packed the rest for San Diego. I will post some for sale on Etsy next week, but you can see a sneak peek preview below!

The Rosie Bag...


The Paige Bag...


Finally, after a lot of hard work, I relaxed and made some art. I wanted to show you how messy making a tiny piece of art can be - paint, fabric scraps, glue, glitter.... how do I fit all of those crafting supplies in my tiny apartment?



Then - the finished piece of art - just a fun little canvas square to let my creative juices flow.



Wish me luck at Appel & Frank!
Anne Marie

Thrift Thursday: New Goodies

So I actually went shopping on Tuesday - but waited to post my new stuff until today. I love THRIFT TOWN - and I was surprised to find they now have a MySpace account.

To me, thrift has always been hip. I like looking at a bunch of crap and spotting that one item that I just have to have.

This week I scored stuff for bags! I got two gorgeous vintage brooches, which I plan to put on some evening bags, and 6 plastic containers I will use in my display. I have all these little acrylic boxes that I use, and they were pretty pricey at the Office Supply - so at $2 each, these new boxes will come in really handy!



I am also about to finish my latest book - Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver - and I can't wait! I have been reading a lot lately, and this book is especially good.

Tonight is the monthly Babes in Business meeting - it's a local networking group for crafty biz ladies in Austin - and I am the new leader! I can't wait to see all my friends and meet new ones...

Happy Thursday!
Anne Marie Beard

DIY Wednesday: Makin' my own Luggage!

I recently got accepted to participate in a neat shopping event called Appel & Frank. They do shows in California - and this is their first one in San Diego. Lucky lucky me, my sister lives there, so I have a free place to stay!

So, I have recently invested quite a bit of dough in new, pretty, fancy display equipment! I have gridwall, waterfall arms and now shelving for the gridwall too. I decided to make my own travel case for this equipment, as show season is about to kick off!

The plans so far are to make a big envelope style bag, with foam sheets laid in as padding. Here is the GENIUS part of it - I bought a collapsible dolly, and it will go in the bag on the plane, then come out and become the bag's own method of transport! Lots of sewing of webbing, velcro and hooks tonight folks - you'll see the results soon!

As a special treat, folks I want to share one of my best wholesale resources - Ralston Cunningham (425) 455-0316 - they sell webbing and hook and loop tape ("velcro") VERY inexpensively. Super nice sales guys too - I've been using them for 6 years. They don't have a website - so just call them up and ask for samples!

Anne Marie Beard

Sunny Sunday: Stitches & Greasy Food!

Ahh, once again, Sunday has rolled around.  This past week was a good one - I went to my firsrt Austin Area Quilt Guild meeting of the year - scored some awesome trim from the free table and listened to a great lecture by Sally Schneider on her built-in-borders technique.

I am starting to realize what a math head I am - I HATED math in school.  My grades were always B's or higher - but it was a real struggle.  But since I draft patterns and sew and deal with measurements on a daily basis - I realize that I love that kind of math.  It's creative math!  I especially love looking at quilt blocks or purses or anything pieced together, and taking it apart in my head - and then putting it back together in the proper order.  Fun!

Tuesday was the 4th year birthday party for Parts & Labour - we had delicious cupcakes and tunes by DJ Chicken George at the Beauty Bar.  But Wednesday was my favorite day this week - because that was the day I decorated the P&L window!  See my previous blog for pics of that.

My friend Ann Randall used to help me out sewing one night a week, and left me (boo hoo) to start her own business (oh, I mean, YEAH!).  The Stitching Studio opened its doors over a year ago - and Ann teaches classes on beginner sewing, tote bags, beginning quilting and more.  She also uses her studio space to sew much needed hospital items with a group of volunteers.

I was thrilled to see her after a long hiatus - and we talked for hours about her business and came up with some ideas for me to get the ball rolling on my pattern publishing and teaching classes!!! So I will hopefully be teaching a class to some ladies in a month - just to test the waters.  My goal for this year is to have a line of patterns ready for sale at Stitch in November 2008.  Did you know I have drafted over 90 original purse/accessory patterns?  Wouldn't you like to make your own super cute bag too?

(I am so growling right now because I wrote this whole blog, inserted a ton of links and pictures and clicked SAVE a million times and it didn't save!!!)

So to wrap up the week my Mom and 2nd Mom Cheryl took me to the Austin Stitchery Guild Show - tons of fabulous creations!  These ladies made all kinds of stitched items - from traditional samplers, small cases, art quilts, jewelry and more!  See pics below. Afterwards we went to eat at the Frisco - super yummy traditional food!

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Tags: Sunny Sunday, Anne Marie Beard, Austin Stitchery Guild, Austin Area Quilt Guild, Inspriation, Stitching, Thread, Art, Fibermana

Sunny Sunday: Stitches & Greasy Food!

Ahh, once again, Sunday has rolled around.  This past week was a good one - I went to my firsrt Austin Area Quilt Guild meeting of the year - scored some awesome trim from the free table and listened to a great lecture by Sally Schneider on her built-in-borders technique.

I am starting to realize what a math head I am - I HATED math in school.  My grades were always B's or higher - but it was a real struggle.  But since I draft patterns and sew and deal with measurements on a daily basis - I realize that I love that kind of math.  It's creative math!  I especially love looking at quilt blocks or purses or anything pieced together, and taking it apart in my head - and then putting it back together in the proper order.  Fun!

Tuesday was the 4th year birthday party for Parts & Labour - we had delicious cupcakes and tunes by DJ Chicken George at the Beauty Bar.  But Wednesday was my favorite day this week - because that was the day I decorated the P&L window!  See my previous blog for pics of that.

My friend Ann Randall used to help me out sewing one night a week, and left me (boo hoo) to start her own business (oh, I mean, YEAH!).  The Stitching Studio opened its doors over a year ago - and Ann teaches classes on beginner sewing, tote bags, beginning quilting and more.  She also uses her studio space to sew much needed hospital items with a group of volunteers.

I was thrilled to see her after a long hiatus - and we talked for hours about her business and came up with some ideas for me to get the ball rolling on my pattern publishing and teaching classes!!! So I will hopefully be teaching a class to some ladies in a month - just to test the waters.  My goal for this year is to have a line of patterns ready for sale at Stitch in November 2008.  Did you know I have drafted over 90 original purse/accessory patterns?  Wouldn't you like to make your own super cute bag too?

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