carolyndraws did the Beach Arts & Crafts Show this past weekend and despite the weather, had a pretty great time. (the cooler full of Diet Coke and Nibs came in really handy. so did the two rolls of paper towel and large tarps)

Here are some pictures of the Big Weekend. Unfortunately there are none of the enormous number of Fans, Friends and Family who came by, wished us well, ducked in, dried off and picked up a few super magnets -- but we were sure glad to see them!

Quite a learning curve, it turns out, doing a Show. Here are Five Things I Learned From Doing My First Outdoor Craft Show:

1.  One cannot overestimate the value of a good tent. And an emergency tarp.

2.  People may think your art is "really great", but they go bananas for little tins of cute magnets.

3.  Craftspeople work tremendously hard. I put in six weeks of insanity prepping for this one show, but most of my neighbours said they do anywhere between 30 and 60 shows a year! (A YEAR!! That's a lot of packing and unpacking of cat pottery ...)

4.  Being IN a craft show is a tremendously cost-effective way of attending one.

5.  If you have a nine-year-old who likes to wrap things and knows everyone in the neighbourhood, she's worth paying to come along. Especially when the thermos of green tea you've consumed comes back for a reckoning.

Enjoy the pics!

Setting up. Getting expert opinions on fairies.

Stock Girl hard at work making sure magnets are perfect.

Ready for business. And rain.

Magnets and gift tags and cards, oh my.

Magnets in little tins were a huge hit!

What they looked like inside ... and what the few sets leftover will look like on Etsy later today!

Kids are painting rocks. Kids are cutting ribbon. The Best Husband Ever is getting out the power tools and our 6 year old Quality Control Expert is giving me the thumbs up at regular intervals.

It's my first ever Craft Show and it's taken over the House.

Check out Booth #26 at The Beach Arts & Crafts Show this weekend, June 12th and 13th -- that's where I'll be Saturday and Sunday with lots of carolyndraws stuff. I'll be the one in the blue striped tent subsisting on Diet Coke and Nibs. With the "carolyn" t-shirt on, curled up in my lawn chair hoping I don't have to get a part-time job at Starbucks on Monday morning.

Here's a quick glance at the state of affairs at my house this past week. (So it's not that I haven't wanted to post, it's that I couldn't find my keyboard.) I'll be back on track (and online) Monday with a full recap of the weekend's events!

Fingers crossed for sunshine (and lots of people who like fairies, freezies and magnets)!

Prints, prints, prints -- all needing framing or bagging!

Miles of magnets, waiting for ... magnets.

Even cuter in a little tin, with a sweet label.

My new display walls ... BEFORE.

and AFTER!

Those sticky super magnets again, all labeled and ready.

Prints lining up too.

 Handmade gift tags for birthdays and showers and everything in between.

Getting ahead ... Holiday cards (only six months to go!)

 Did I mention the perils of working with super magnets?
(Don't try this at home.)

If you're in the neighbourhood this weekend, please pop by Booth #26. I'd love to see you!

Here she is ... the classic Teflon Girl. She stirs up trouble and evades  authority with skill only a little brother could muster. And she always leaves someone else holding the bag (of empty cookies).

She's for sale at the Beach Arts & Craft Show too -- we can't have the kids learning her tricks.

This little imp is a very, very regular visitor at our house. She pops in precisely 5 minutes after bedtime and makes havoc, rattle-bing-banging her way through bedrooms -- sometimes for an hour or more. (she's very inconsiderate!)

Strangely, she avoids our cottage completely. Only there do we find peace from her rabble-rousing.

Perhaps it's the hours of squirt gun wars, frog-catching, fort-building and marshmallow-roasting that scare her off?

Or the outhouse. Could be the outhouse. That keeps even the hardiest of souls away.

It seems the truck has backed up around here this week.

Instead of drawing and packing and cooking for the Long Weekend and catching up on series and season finales, I'm designing brochures and stuff. You know, doing my day job.

And procrastinating just a bit. Between trips to the fridge (just to look, I swear!) and visits to Twitter and Facebook, I've got putting off the unpalatable down to a veritable art.

Do it like a pro.

Happy Wednesday!

It's laundry night again and time for a visit with my missing socks collection. Most of the week, I ignore the large pile, but every time I sit (ha) down to fold, they confront me. Again.

My family misplaces socks by the dozens. And I turn the house upside down, refusing to accept that they simply vanish.

Over the years, I've stubbornly blamed (not necessarily in this order), my children, the cat, the wind, the dryer, my husband and the raccoons for the strange and unexplainable disappearance of approximately 83 single socks. (I've also kept the lonely matches, thinking there had to be a logical explanation for this phenomenon, and thus that their mates would eventually be back.)

Now I know this problem is definitely not a new one. And I'm sure I'm not the only Mom who's picked through drawers, hockey bags, cars, toy boxes, sofa cushions and under the beds in an effort to find lone socks over the years. (All for naught, I might add.)

So I've come to the only conclusion to be reached here: the 'i've-lost-my-socks' fairy.

And who am I to stunt her wardrobe creativity? Actually, I think I like the look.

And at least now, I can throw in the towel, finally, donate the extra socks and move on.

Happy Monday!

Recently, a good friend contacted me about creating a couple of custom illustrations for her son. I was thrilled to help out and created two, one personalized, for Jack's aviation-themed room.

Interested in custom work? Contact me here.

Sometime last week, I realized that it had been a whole year since I started this little space. Wow.

I'm not sure there's much, aside from child-rearing and marriage, that I've ever stuck to for a whole year before. (Well there was the eighties hairdo, but in my defense, it was the eighties.)

carolyndraws.com began as a way for me to transition between life as an art director in advertising to life as an art director with an illustration portfolio. (Thanks, Mom and Amy, for visiting most days and emailing to see if I was dead when I didn't post.)

Here I am, 364 days and almost 100 drawings later.

If you're new here ... welcome aboard! Visit often as I'm wearing out markers putting together lots of surprises for the coming year. To come? Greeting cards and all kinds of goodies.

If you've been here since Day One, a big thank you and I owe you a cupcake.

In honour of the Big Day, I'm holding my very first GIVEAWAY!

Simply leave a comment telling me what you'd like me to draw next and you'll be entered into a draw for one of my favourite prints "Anatomy of a Jumbo Freezie". If you don't have a clue what I should draw next either, leave a comment telling me something else. Something you won't mind my mother reading.

Contest closes Friday at 6 pm Toronto time. Winner will be announced on Monday! Happy commenting and many xos.

Update on May 14, 2010 at 6:42 PM by carolyn

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Congratulations, Amy! Random.org has selected you as the winner of the "Anatomy of a Giant Freezie" print! You'll be contacted via email to arrange delivery. Thanks to everyone who commented!

 http://www.random.org/draws/details/?draw=2147

 

Last Friday, I helped the Grade Two class bake bread.

Me.

(I know.)

A few Moms were asked to show the kids how it was done, with prop dough and all, and tell everyone about the difference between leavened (with yeast) and unleavened (you got it, no yeast) bread.

(In a word, my daughter informed us -- with apologies to the Mum in charge of unleavened bread, and Jesus -- that one tasted like 'rock' and the other was super-yummy.)

The poor teachers just about went insane with the smells coming out of the staff room and many people asked for the recipe so I thought I'd pass it along. It wasn't mine, after all. 

This recipe (thank you, Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery!), took all the scare out of baking homemade bread for me -- so much so that I knew I might never buy store-bought again. It lets time do all the work. And seriously, no kneading.

Give it a go at your house. It really is simple and quick. And you can make it with any kind of flour you like -- whole wheat, white, organic, cheap, fancy. It doesn't matter.

But do beware: you should probably make two at a time. In our house, homemade bread has a way of disappearing on its way out of the oven. Kind of like cookies and socks.