Superbowl Sunday!

I got up kinda early this morning so that I could get a head start on the day and all the work I wanted to get done.  I went to Ikea.  And it was quite possibly the fastest Ikea trip I have ever done.  I was in and out within 20 minutes.  I then headed over to get more ink for printing and get gas in the car, and then back home to get back to work.  I decided that I would start with the ties.  By the time I finished I had about 20 ties done in less than an hour!  Here’s just a little sampling of the ties.

After I did the ties, started the water so I could tea stain some more fabric and then I got back to printing.  I printed up a few more towels.  Here’s one of the other designs.

Then I took a small break and made some pizza.  I know this week is going to be a busy one so I figured, why not whip up some pizza.  I did all this while watching the Superbowl (Way to go Packers)!   I got a bit tired of printing so I switched it up and got to work on a few more launder/care tag instruction cards.  I want to have a few cards that can be given to a guy.  So something not so feminine.  Which is where the two designs from yesterday came from.  Granted, the flowers are still a little girly, but what can I say…

So here’s the first design:

And here’s the other.  I kinda see this one more for little kids, or those of us who haven’t grown up yet

So as you can see it was a pretty busy weekend.  I only hope my work week isn’t as busy!  Next weekend is the Valentine’s Day show, so all of this new product will appear in my etsy store after the show.

One really big present

I love my computer.  I have an ibook g4.  We have been thru a lot together.  But for some reason, Steve Jobs has said that my poor little ibook is now going to be obsolete.  So I have to get a new computer in order to be able to keep up and use the accounting software I need to use.  I wasn’t really thinking I was going to be buying a new computer anytime soon.  I was planning on some time next year.  Unfortunately, or fortunately it was today.

At the new year I was chatting with my aunt about the upcoming yarn train and saying that I was probably not going to spend a whole lot of money on yarn.  And that I was thinking that I would save my yarn money and buy a new computer.  Well, being the aunt that she is, she sent me some money… for yarn and for the computer.  Today I finally bit the bullet and bought the new computer.  Let me just say this.  That was one tough”process order” button to push for two reasons.  One – that was a lot of money.  And two – I love my ibook.  But I believe my ibook will now have a better life as my “internet surfing in bed computer.”  And let’s be honest, it might still get more use than the new computer

I ended up buying a refurbished iMac from Apple.  After talking to a couple of people that I know, know there computer and mac stuff, I felt confident that it would be a good deal.  I still get the same warranty that I would have got with the brand new iMac, I just paid $200 less.  So I feel a little better about that.  That and I don’t feel like I need to give Steve Jobs any more money than is absolutely necessary.  He’s made enough off of me over the years.  I don’t think that $200 is gonna rob him of the lifestyle that he and his family have grown accustom to.  It will however rob me of a few things.  I’m just sayin… Come on Steve!  Can’t we drop the price a smidge on your computers?  Whatever happened to the “computers should be affordable to everyone” philosophy?  Sorry about that.  Let’s get back to talking about the computer and not how much I hate paying large amounts of money for something that I could probably get cheaper if I used a pc.

For all you Apple geeks here’s the specs on my iMac:

• 21.5-inch LED-backlit glossy widescreen display
• 4GB memory
• 500GB hard drive
• 3.06 GHz Intel Core i3 processor
• 8x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics with 256MB memory
• Built-in iSight camera (mom this means that if we want to video skype, we can use dad’s mac book to talk.  Or probably more likely Kink will have her own Kitty webcam.)

Now I just need to get a new desk to hold it.  I may end up making something out of something else.  I don’t have a huge amount of space.  I think a lot of the manufacturers seem to think people have a ton of space for a full sized desk for their computers.  Either that, or they think everyone has a laptop.  And since I’m such a crafty dork, I think I might sew a little cover for it.  Kinda like a sewing machine cover for my computer.  I like the being able to “put the computer away” when I’m done with it.

So thank you Aunt Marilyn!  My ibook may be a bit upset with you, but I love you and thank you!  And if Kink starts some strange kitty webcam, I’m going to send her off to you for rehabilitation.

And while on the subject of purchases, I also bought a couple of screens so that I can get some new designs rolling.  I also bought some tea towels to print on.  I would like to get some of the flour sack towels too.  I have an idea for more manly themed towels.  And I don’t think most guys will go for the stripes of the ones that I purchased.  Since I spent a fair amount of cash today.  Perhaps I’ll hold off on those until next paycheck

Tomorrow night I’ll be attending an Accounting for Small Business workshop sponsored by the Grassroots Business Association.  I’m currently not a member (refer to the computer purchase about as to why I’m not a currently not member).  I’ll let you know how it was when I process all the information they give us

Screen printing, my new favorite art

I spent the afternoon over at the Vera Project.  They are an incredible non-profit, so support them with some cash, go see a show there, or just volunteer.

Since i don’t have the space or the money for a full on silk screening set up, I pay for studio time at the Vera Project and burn some screens and if the studio is quiet, I’ll print up some stuff.

Today I walked in there just wanted to burn a screen of Martin Van Horn so that I could do some printing at home.  I ran into a few problems (mainly not having a high enough mesh on the screen) and Bruno the tech there was a huge help.  I think he was starting to take it personally that it wasn’t working properly.  Thank God he got a bit OCD because I was able to walk away with some pretty cool prints. Check ‘em out.  And a bit thanks to Bruno for being OCD and helping me out.

and here’s another one

and another one

and another

and one more

and the last one

And of course all of these are up on Etsy and are for sale… just in case you’re doing some early Christmas shopping.

And as an aside, the paper that I printed on is scrapbooking paper by a company called BasicGrey.  I think they are my new favorite company.  The put out some seriously good stuff.  I can’t wait to do some more shopping around their website.