Scribble Nation

The Small Business Blues

The other day i was thinking about a lot of things; carbon footprints, climate change, ethical consumerism and came to the conclusion that I've been missing something big. As much as I love the adorable style and low prices of Target, the convenience of having a Kmart 5 minutes away and the ubelievably low prices of Walmart's generic brands... I'm supporting big business every time I go there. In the meantime small business struggle to make ends meet, unable to compete with the mass buying power of corporations. Not to mention the massive resources that are being taken to fly all this junk all over creation so that Walmart can save a few bucks. There was nothing for it - I decided the best thing I could do was to start buying locally. Sure, things will cost more. I'll just have to buy less stuff, a decision that I 100% support anyway. I'll be supporting small business owners and local economy. I'll be eating seasonal food, grown locally which is fresher and higher in vitamins and nutrients. Viva Local!! End mass production!! Woo Woo!! I was all hot about it.

Then the other shoes dropped. This morning laying in bed daydreaming the plan for the day ahead of me. I recieved my wooden soap mold in the mail this week and am getting ready to make my first batch of homemade cold proccess soap that will hopefully (cross your fingers!!) begin the backbone of my inventory for selling at local fairs and markets. I need a stick blender. No problem I'll just head over to... to... Oh shit. Where the hell do I buy a stick blender locally? OK, what's next on the list... Scott threw away the toilet brush when he painted our bathroom. It SERIOUSLY needs replacing... shit shit shit. They aren't going to sell toilet brushes at the farm down the street. Nor will it be easy to find micro-fiber towels, cooking thermometers or hiking shoes!! What's an ethical consumer to do?

I eventually came to a compromise with myself and decided to axe the following stores: Walmart, Target, Kmart. (Sorry Target I'll miss you so!! OH the pain of it all... The one spot!!! How can I live without you!?!!?)  That's a pretty good start. In the meantime I will have to continue shopping at the inbetweenies like Bad, Bath & Beyond, Bobs and  the like... For groceries  I'm going to try and get my produce from the farm down the road and the Farm Market that comes every Tuesday and is also down the road (the other direction). The rest I haven't figured out yet. The three places that sound the most sensible would be Bethel Food Market (owned by a local family - but about twenty minutes away) and Stew Leonards (another family owned chain that is about thirty minutes away.)

I foresee many many many pains and annoyances from this experiment of mine. I don't know how long it will last or if I'll really be able to keep it up. I'm not even sure if Bethel Food and Stew Leonards will have the groceries that I buy. So we shall see how this goes. Wish me luck everybody!!

It's Gettin' Hot in Here...

Looky what I got. It's Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease. Not to be confused with the Carmen Electra Striptease that is surely purchased in a sotre with black curtains. The tagline for this video is hilarious. The front cover reads (I kid you not) STRIP YOUR WAY TO FITNESS! Sounds like a plan, Carmen. Now if only I could get out of bed before 8:00 am.

In crafty news, I finally completed a long overdue repair project over the weekend. Ladies and gentleman it is my pleasure to introduce to you my all time BFF. (Sorry Michelle & Melissa, this guy outdates you both) I met Mr. Chimpy on Christmas Day, 1986. We've been inseperable ever since. Years ago a certain someone during her puppyhood decided to take a big bite out of Mr. Chimpy. I couldn't bear to patch it as I couldn't imagine him with a different eye or a different colored face. I was just too upset over the whole thing I guess. Well, the other day I got over it and patched him up with some wool felt and a classy wooden button. Mr. Chimpy thought it was about time. I think he's pretty happy with the result, although it's hard to tell... He can be pretty stoic when he gets emotional. 

Drum Roll Please...

And the winner is Christine with "Fantasamazacrafty". Just goes to show posting first can be lucky. Though I'm not sure if I'm going ahead with the street team thing just yet I am happy that I got so many cool idea. You guys are spifferiffic. As promised below, Shteeni will be recieving a fab prize. :) I hope shefinds something she likes.

I Almost Forgot!

In case any family members happen to see this post, :) I forgot to add to my BDay wish list the thing I want more than anything else!!! DUH. (Only I would forget what I want). I need a scanner! Small, large, doesn't matter. If it can scan then I will be in seventh heaven. I have so many fantastic artistic ideas that require this one particular piece of equipment. It's maddening. I have to just bite the bullet and go buy one sooner or later but I thought I'd just throw that out there and cross my fingers. What the heck, right?

*** EDIT *** I just scrolled down to see that I DID mention a scanner on my original list. I just forgot that I did. Hmm... Me thinks me not so smart no more. You know I forgot my groceries at the grocery store on Saturday!! Unbelievable. I went home, opened my trunk to find... no groceries. Gah!! THEN when I went back to the service counter where the nice lady at self-checkout had stashed them for me - the service counter lady MADE FUN of me. She actually called me "stupid". Hmmf... I can't be the ONLY person who ever left their groceries behind, right? It is a GROCERY store. Dang uppity grocery stores. Think they're soooo smart.

O... M... G...

Are these not the cutest things you have ever seen? I am dying to make some up for the Hat City Scissor Squad's annual Yarn Swap this year. And guess what? The genius inventor of these darling little morsels have released a tutorial!! Head over to Vegan Yum Yum for a lesson on edible knits and about a gabillion other posts that will leave you open-mouth drooling.

Small Town has Big Idea

The small town of Great Barrington Massachusetts has come up with a brilliant plan to keep locals buying local. They have printed and circulated over $800,000 worth of town currency. The money is used by locals and accepted at local businesses. Some businesses even offer discounts to customers that pay in "Berkshares", encouraging people to keep small businesses alive. What a great way to encourage people to support independant business instead of popping by at Walmart for their everyday needs. Wouldn't it be great if this trend spread? I can see them now - plastered with my face. Scribble Bucks. <sigh>

Will Wonders Never Cease?!

Guess what this is? This, my friends, is MY new JEEP. Oh yeah. 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. Can you say "Hot"? I drove it to the grocery store yesterday and was filled with the deep satisfaction that goes along with knowing that you are no longer driving the crappiest car in Newtown CT. Jeepy here won't have to feel ashamed of herself when I park her next to one of the 55 gabillion Lexus SUV's at the Big Y plaza. She may have 170,000 miles, she may have a dented front end and she may leak oil like its going out of style but I'll tell you one thing - Jeepy's got CLASS. Can't put a price on that, now can ya?

Hold on to your butts people, there's MORE. We had cable installed today!!! We decided to leave TV out of the equation qhen Scott and I first moved in together. We really didn't miss it for the last two years. And there was a good long while we were quite happy to keep our money and watch our 2-3 TV shows a week at Sarah's place or Michelles. I've never been a big fan of sitting on the couch wasting hours away in front of the idiot box so honestly, I could live without TV at home indefinately. Scott, however, is ready to have TV again. It will be fun. We got the DVR since we will probably still not be big channel surfers... We watch more movies than anything else so between on demand and the DVR we should be stocked up. And as an added bonus - I think I made Green Dreams customer out of the cable install guy. I even gave him a promo lip balm to take home. Heh heh.

Oh! And we will have long distance as of Thursday! (we're moving on up over her at casa de McBobleo) Speaking of the Bobleo - have a look at this hilarious pic of my main squeeze. He looks oh so squeezable here, doesn't he? We spent Saturday visiting with his family in New Jersey. His cousin Matthew  has autism and graduated from High School after ten years of work. It was really moving to see how much his family supported him. They through a wonderful party in his honor and had over one hundred friends and family members attend. It was really great.

We car pooled to Jersey with Scott's brother, sister and borther and sister in laws - on the way up I got a chance to finally snap a shot of the custom kitty condo we made for Liz and Chris. Scott and I have pipe dreams of making a little business out of these creations so if you know anyone who would want a custom kitty condo built let us know! We'll give them a great price since we are just getting started. We need to compile a portfolio more than anything else. We've made two so far and learn something new on each project.

T Minus 25 Days and Counting

That's right. My goold old B. Day is coming up so I've made up my good old fashioned birthday hint/wish/unlikely dream list. So if anyone out there was trying in vain to thinkof fabulous gifts for wich to shower me with - it's your lucky day.

First, I have compiled this handy StyleFeeder that links to some of my favorite online goodies.

• A proffesional 1 inch button maker (those things are pricey!)
• A stop animation camera and software to go along with it. (Michelle and I have some pretty great ideas for some stop animation movies - but no camera that would be efficient for that purpose)
• $$ For my goldfish tattoo. (One day you will be mine)
• The lampwork beading kit on the link up there OR $$ for classes at the Glass Source art studio in Shelton, CT.
• Fancy Paper crafting supplies like the ones on the feeder :) I am not into scrap booking but I LOVE paper crafts - collage, cards etc
• A scanner! I really need to find something small to scan sketches into paintshop.
• Adobe Suite :)
• A good book of scientific type illustrations of flowers. I need something really detailed, but still in drawn form.
• $$ for classes at the Village Center for the Arts in New Milford (mmmmm, metal smithing....)
• Other things I've been thinking of dabbling in: slik screening (rad!) sculpting from ROCK. Coooool, huh? I have no clue how to begin but I saw these bighunks of rock being sold at a local art store and it set the dream drive into freakin overload.

As you can see I am in full out crafty bandit mode lately and will not rest until every craft on earth has been tried out at least once.

Phew

He's waaaaaaaaatching you..... hehhehe

Over the last few days I have posted a massive amount of new stuff on the Scribble Nation Etsy shop. I still have a ways to go and between Michelle and I we will be swimming in merchandise by the time we decide to finally go to a craft fair. Hopefully it pays off!

Contest - Street Team Name

I need a little help brainstorming. I'm thinking about trying to start an Etsy Street Team for shops like Scribble Nation. Basically anything retro, kitschy, wacky or koo koo. Before I take this to the forums to see how it goes over, I need a really great name. I was thinking of naming it after the kind of thing you'd find at a flea market and go ga ga for! Like:

The Drinking Bird
Coconut Monkeys
Plastic Covered Sofa
Q-P Dolls
Tiki Heads

-OR- Since I cannot seem to come up with anything catchy enough in that vein. How about combining two snappy words into one fabulous new word! Like:

Kitschylicious
Fantasterrific
Craftabulous
Ridiculopathy
Ridickerific
Fantasmatastic

I know how you people like your made up words. SO, let's make this interesting. Whover comes up with the best (according to me) Street team name by Monday, June 18th will win a $10.00 shopping spree on Scribble Nation. I know - it's quite a FABULOUS prize. I'll even throw in free shipping (or delivery if you happen to be so close by). So put your thinking caps on folks! Meanwhile I will try to find out exactly what running a street team entails.

      ******* RULES ********

• Please post your entry in the comments below this post.
• Include your email so I can contact you about your faboo prize, should you win.
• Post your comment/entry before 12:00pm Monday, June 18 Friday, June 22
• I'll pick a winner and announce it ASAP!!

** Update** I decided to extend the contest to make it a week long, instead of 3 days. In hindsight - it doesn't give people much time to enter if they wanted too soooo.... I hope my two awesome first contestants, Christine and Allyson will forgive me extending at the last minute. :) You guys rock.