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renegade prep time

By on May 14, 2013 in Art : Craft : Design, day in the life

I know, I know… MORE talk about Renegade Craft Fair?!?! Well, this is the life when you are a designer that does shows. Prepping for a big show like Renegade takes months of planning and creating. Here is just a little peek behind the scenes.

Robo Roku Magnets

Making Cupster magnets. We haven’t sold magnets in years. The request for magnets is one we ignore a lot. It has been so long since we made them I forgot why we stopped… until I started making them. Those Cupsters without a magnet are not just waiting to be finished, they are acting as spacers to keep the magnets from trying to connect with each other. You think just because you glued them down you don’t need to worry about magnetism… well, that’s sorta true, AFTER they’ve dried. There’s also the matter of transporting. Things get a little chaotic when magnets are involved. Josh has been given notice that if we are going to offer magnets in the future it will not be this kind, or he will be the one making them.

Free Robo Roku Stickers

This batch of stickers are going to be FREE! That’s right! Free. The stickers we normally sell are laminated, waterproof vinyl stickers. They are made to handle being on your car, scooter, or bike and last for years, taking the sun like a champ. These stickers are not laminated, and will probably fade within a year if exposed to the sun constantly. I’ve been wanting to give out free stickers for a long time. This year we finally have access to equipment to make them and not go bankrupt. I am so excited to give these freebies out.

That’s all for now, I have to get back to prepping. I’ll have a D.I.Y. coming soon for an element we are going to have in the booth that I am really excited about. If you are in Austin, TX this weekend stop by our booth (#59). We’ll have free stickers and smiles!

RCF

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sharing sunday: attempting renegade prep

By on May 12, 2013 in day in the life

Renegade Craft Fair is six days away. I am not as ready as I should be. My lack of preparedness is not due to a mismanagement of time, but to dealing with an unforeseen circumstance being more time consuming than it should be. My brother, dad, and I are supposed share the responsibility of helping my mom recover, but it seems that my brother and dad are not cut out for it. It’s causing a lot of family drama, and I am so stressed out and just doing my best to not explode all over every one.

When I called my mom today to see what she wanted for lunch she sounded funny. I asked her what was wrong, and it turned out she had been throwing up. The only other time she has thrown up since getting home was the first night when my brother ate the dinner I brought her. My dad made her something to replace what I brought her, but it was too insignificant to handle the pain meds so she spent the night throwing up. Today my dad wanted to make her Mother’s Day breakfast, so I didn’t go over early to make her breakfast like I normally do. Again, it wasn’t substantial enough, so she ended up throwing up. He ruined what should have been a special day for her. There have been other incidents, but I’m already crossing over into T.M.I. land. My brother and dad are not bad people, just a little clueless about how much pain she is in, and what recovery should look like for her. They seem to think that since she’s home from the hospital everything is cool. She got a new heart valve. They had to break her ribs to do the surgery. Her recovery time is two months, and she hasn’t even been home two weeks! It seems like simple math to me. Sigh. I just have to remind myself we all handle stress differently. Josh and I delivered her a “double rainbow” bouquet of roses.

rainbow roses

I’m still using Sierra‘s
“sum it up” posts layout for my “sharing sunday” posts.

WORKING ON: Renegade Craft Fair – Austin prep.

THINKING ABOUT: How frustrated I am that my booth is not going to look the way I planned, that I had to skip printing kids tees, and that some new goodies will not be at Renegade because there just isn’t enough time.

ANTICIPATING: May 19th. It will be day two (and the last) of Renegade Craft Fair and I will be seeing Toad the Wet Sprocket (one of my fave bands!) that night.

LISTENING TO: Chromeo. I needed some upbeat music.

EATING: Lots of pizza and candy…can we say stress eater?

THANKFUL FOR: Sierra. She is my anchor right now. In the little over a year that I’ve known her, it has been great to see how well our friendship works. When she was crazed prepping for Pool I was able to help her out, and now that I’m overwhelmed with everything going on, she is there to keep me calm and focused. I like that she’s a fixer, like me. I respond well to making action plans.

PLANNING FOR: Renegade Craft Fair… and the end of it so I can take care of my mom without being stressed out on the prep time I’m losing.

READING: Food packaging. Shopping for someone with diabetes sure has me reading those labels. Did I mention my dad bought my mom a six-pack of coke and some pan dulce? Of course I took them away from her, and reminded my dad that I had stocked their fridge with sugar-free jell-o and pudding. Oh! And @80sDonDraper on Twitter… the tweets are pretty funny.

WATCHING: Not much of anything. Sorta still on Mad Men, but I haven’t had time for watching anything. I still haven’t even seen Doctor Who this week. GASP!

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sharing sunday: whew!

By on May 5, 2013 in day in the life

I am trying to participate in Fat Mum Slim’s Photo A Day in May challenge. You can follow along on my Instagram feed @roboroku.

FMSphotoaday

To make my “sharing sunday” posts a little easier to digest I am borrowing from Sierra‘s
“sum it up” posts. I really like her clean bullet points.

WORKING ON: This weekend is all about booth prep for Renegade Craft Fair – Austin. I try and come up with a new booth set up for each year to unveil at Renegade and then we use that set up (or variations of) for the rest of the year. I like have something fresh for returning customers to see, and I enjoy flexing my creativity muscles that way. Truth be told, I am a little obsessed with booth set ups, they are just so fun to design!

THINKING ABOUT: How calm my life will be once May is over, I’ll finally have time to enjoy how well things are going.

ANTICIPATING: The summer. Josh and I decided to cut back on shows this summer to have time to release all the designs that have not seen the light of day. When you are the artist and maker it’s hard to release as many designs as you’d like because you lose time making all your products. To get even more design time back we are no longer doing one day shows, aside from The Austin Flea.

LISTENING TO: I’m switching between my Kaiser Cartel station and a Classical station on Pandora. I really think more people should listen to Classical music, it’s really nice when driving alone.

EATING: Lots of fruit, eggs, and carrots.

THANKFUL FOR: My mom pulling through her surgery. My brother offering to build some of my booth components, allowing me more time for production. My friends and family that have been praying for my mom. Being blessed with love, good friends and exciting opportunities.

PLANNING FOR: Renegade Craft Fair, having a massive sale of Robo Roku products that are being discontinued to make way for all our new goodies, a summer full of happy designing and making.

READING: I haven’t had much time for reading lately. I took books and magazines with me to the hospital, but never read them.

WATCHING: Mad Men. We’re almost done with season 4. We were too busy to watch it when it first came on, then tried to catch up when season 2 started, but only got half way through season 1 and got busy again. Now that we’re managing our time better we’re almost caught up.

I have to say, I don’t know what people see in Don Drapper, I think that guy is a schmuck. Also, Betty is cray-cray. Peggy annoys me to no end, and that little girl Sally is a total brat. The people I like are Pete (because he makes the best faces and is so ridiculous), I love Sterling, Cooper, and Joan…. I find Trudy interesting, too. I like the way she stands by Pete. I really couldn’t care less about Don’s family life. I wish the show was 97% office related, and 3% personal. I am a little nervous about any reactions to my opinions on Mad Men considering I’m not caught up. I’d love to hear your thoughts, no spoilers, please.

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