International Women's Day - March 8th

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I glanced at my calendar and realized that it is International Women’s Day today.  It is meant to be a day to celebrate the rights we enjoy and to bring awareness to the struggles of women, in a hopeful manner. 

While this day seems to slip by unnoticed in Canada, I have been lucky enough to celebrate this day in other parts of the world.  I first celebrated this day when living in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006.  I arrived at work on March 8^th and was presented with an outfit to wear on this day.  The ladies in our office had bought some special fabric that was produced especially for this day and had an outfit made up for each woman at the office.  We were so proud to wear these outfits, to show that we belonged to a group, and that we had the support of each other.  

The culmination of the activities celebrating this day was a parade down the main street which continued to the town’s sports field (fyi - the 'town' population is about 200,000).  We marched in, in groups, each group wearing matching outfits, and sang songs together.  

(Note the muddy streets...and that's the prison in the background that we walked by)

Some presentations and speeches followed, celebrating this day and the achievements of women, but also talking about some of the struggles that these women, and their daughters, still faced.  It really was an inspiring celebration and what an honour to be surrounded by these women, the heart of their families and their communities. 

(Photos are a serious issue in Congo - note how I'm the only one smiling!)

Besides my fetching outfit, which I still own, I still have a few scraps of the fabric in my stash of African pagne (pagne = (French) a piece of fabric).  

I really should remember to make a wee project with these scraps next year.  

Happy International Women's Day to each of you!

The craft is back!

Yeah, the woodland draft buster is done!

(it's actually be done for a little while now...I finally got around to taking a few pics.

I'm still not totally pleased with the snail - it just doesn't look very 'snail like' to me

I might replace it with Ric Rac Sew's racing snail

Or maybe I'll just try making the racing snail game. 

My crafty corner

Ta-da!  My crafting cupboard.  

It still needs a bit of organising, but it  sure is nice to have a lot of my supplies in one place. 

(Note: that I didn't say ALL my crafting supplies)

I've still got to work on a chair...


How great is my new hubby (a.k.a. the crafting widower) - 
For letting me take over the 2nd bedroom for crafting.  

Buttons, buttons, everywhere

See, I'm still thinking about buttons...

...the "target" is referred to as 'the button' in curling :)

The Olympics are so distracting!  

An “Etsy Throw down”

Let’s be honest…I’d rather be crafting than sitting in front of my computer at my workstation…but sadly, I have bills to pay.  So, until I figure out a way to make money through crafting…I’ve gotta keep my day job.    

As a challenge for me to start seriously thinking about doing some crafting as a side business, my big sis has given me an “Etsy Throw down”.  My challenge is to start my market research into how to turn my hobby into a business, and she has suggested that I should research the top 20 selling Etsy businesses.   

FYI – Etsy – is a fab website that was developed back in 2005 (sadly I only discovered it in 2007).  It is a crafters paradise – where members can buy and sell handmade items, vintage items and supplies.  Lots of fun!  I was first introduced to the site when I was doing humanitarian work in Indonesia as part of the tsunami emergency response.  A fellow humanitarian worker showed me some great sites with hand dyed yarn and pointed out that the sellers were willing to ship anywhere.   How excited was I to receive lovely hand dyed yarn on the remote island of Nias, Indonesia?!?  Anyway, Etsy is now my number 1 resource for great crafting supplies (fabric, notions, etc), and handmade gifts for nieces and friends.  I love it!

So, how can I turn my passion for crafting into a moneymaker? 

My initial research reveals that many of the ‘Etsy top sellers’ are those selling supplies…not a surprise.  Craftcount is a cool website that tracks top Etsy sellers – and you can filter the list by country or category.

And another interesting Etsy fact from Wikipedia:

“Etsy makes money by charging a listing fee of 20 cents for each item and getting 3.5 percent of every sale, with the average sale about $15 or $20 and mostly sold by women, who tend to be college-educated and in their twenties and thirties.” 

Hmmm…

-          Woman – CHECK

-          College Educated - CHECK

-          33 years old – CHECK

Now…what to sell?  I’ve gotta do some more research. 

Olympic Crafting Hiatus

I’ve been taking a bit of a blogging hiatus because there is a big distraction in my life these days… the 2010 Winter Olympics!  Yeah!  I live in North Vancouver, so have been lucky enough to partake in some of the Olympics festivities in and around town. 

Vancouver Olympic Cauldron (with improved fencing!) 

HBC Building all decked out

I’ve been doing a wee bit of crafting…but it has been slow.  I’m used to multi-tasking…where I knit/sew at the same time that I’m watching a movie or tv show.  As a result – I mostly listen to the program and occasionally glance up at the tv screen. 

My new hubby (a.k.a. the crafting widower) is convinced that I can’t really multi-task while crafting…because I’m always asking him questions when I glance up at the tv screen – since I’ve missed a key bit of dialogue or I can’t keep the characters straight.    

Needless to say, when Olympic events are often over in a matter of minutes or seconds, I can’t even kid myself into thinking that I can multitask – because if you glance away from the screen for even a few seconds, you miss the perfect sporting achievement e.g. the perfect aerial ski jump or hockey goal.  As such…my knitting and sewing are on the back burner…or being done sporadically at the moment.  Sigh. 

Elsie's Orange Button...

What an unexpected surprise I received today...

...aren't those the best!

Thanks mum.  xo