michelle my belle

Los Angeles to San Francisco

The whirlwind of show travel, meeting lots of new people, exhaustion, boredom, friendships, stress, excitement, missing family and home.

Thank you for missing me. I've received many emails and comments wondering where I am, how very kind of you! We all want someone to notice when we're not around, don't we. Well, I have missed you too! I've missed keeping up on my friends blogs/lives, wondering what you're all doing! I'll be scheduling some blog catching up time when I return home, with my hot, yummy, homemade by my honey coffee (he makes my coffee every morning, makes my heart warm thinking about it : )).

This guy above Katy and I met on the Marta in Atlanta. He is an amazing artist! We had so much fun looking through his pile of art and chatting with him. I can't find the paper I wrote his website on... erg! What a great guy! Katy and I walked away with huge smiles on our faces, amazed at how God brings people together at just the right times.

Off to Los Angeles for the CA Gift Show. This was a sculpture outside the YMCA near our hotel. Symbolic of my new work out regimen! Thank you to young, disciplined Katy I have been getting up in the mornings and working out. It was very hard at the beginning and was really wondering why people do this for the health of it. I grew up very athletic, remember my husband and I met racing bicycles, but I always worked out for the competition not because it was good for me! Not having the time to be competitive in a sport I have gotten lazy, fat and out of shape over the years. So, once again I'm trying to get in the groove of it. I can say I am actually starting to enjoy the feeling of working out and even kind of yearning for it when I miss a day.

I remembered that our friend Aaron was living in Los Angeles and called him up to see if he had time to get together. It happened to be the night that would work for him and us was on his birthday! It was a treat to see him and celebrate his birthday with him and some of his other friends that were from the Vancouver/Portland area. Mind you, they are all about 24-26 years old, I was by far the elder of the group. Kinda weird being the "old one"!

I had to post this of Katy since it seems to be a reoccuring theme!

Lastly, here I am trying to get through the 180 neglected emails and an extra long blog!!! The show here in SF is going well. Sat. and Sun. are generally a busier than Mon. and Tues. so I am taking the day to catch up while Katy went down to the show. What a blessing it has been to have her traveling with me. It takes the stress and some of the loneliness away.

Much love,

Michelle

Atlanta Gift Show Day 3

After the show yesterday we went to Anthropology up in Buckhead, GA. They had a whole number and letter section! This all goes along with one of my New Year's Resolutions.

One step closer to my goal. I plan on trying to make most of my letters out of different materials being frugally creative.

I love, love, love their displays. Going to the counter to pay for this "A" I noticed a wonderful display of drinking straws, I asked the gal if I could take a picture and she said "no" they don't allow photos. Oops, sometimes it doesn't pay to ask!

Another great display, these are books cut and folded and mounted somehow to boards. Notice the old skis. (I did take this pic BEFORE I was told "no photos"!)

After the show today we went to my favorite place to eat in Atlanta, Spondivits! I would highly recommend it if you ever make it down here. yum yum

Another good day today. A lot of reorders and a lot of new orders. People, buyers and exhibitors, seem to be optimistic about the economy and sales. It will be interesting to see how the year plays out.

Thank you for all your prayers and kind emails and comments. It's so nice to hear from friends when I'm away from home and family.

Atlanta Gift Show Day 2

While my family was up on the mountain (Mt.Hood) with 150" of base Katy and I were busy writing up orders here at the gift show. Today was a great day. I really think changing up the look of the booth and making it a little more "home decorish" caught the eye of a different type of customer for us. Which has amounted to a lot of NEW customers! Which has been a blessing! It's nice when hard work and a lot of expense (booth materials and new crates) ends up paying off.

I have been meaning to share with you the new logo. I know it's not the one you voted on but because of your votes we decided to stick with the basic format of the original logo but "young" it up a bit. Didn't Katy do a great job?! Thank you for taking the time to vote.

Off to bed. It's 1:05 a.m. oops! ergg! Pleasant dreams to you.

Atlanta-booth set up day

Yes, it's that time of year again. Off on the whirlwind tour of shows. My kids sad with me leaving, my feeling guilty, tired and not wanting to leave. All just the part of the process I guess.

On the brighter side... Our new crates with our new booth showed up nicely : ) Thank you Lord!

Katy got right to work hanging the beautiful fabric panels my mom made and my dad got a blister riveting for me. I'm lovin Katy, she's probably not lovin me since the night before we left she was up till 3 a.m. with me finishing stuff for the show. And I tell you, misery LOVES company!

Three crates that were designed to stay in the booth and act as our tables.

Me looking fresh as a buttercup.

Super excited to share with Katy the Corner Bakery. We went there for lunch right down the street from Americas Mart. yum, yum btw-it's 68 degrees here today!

The idea of nails didn't quite work with the new panels so we were off to Home Depot to buy some screws. I love the public transportation (Marta) here in Atlanta. On the way back, chatting away, we missed our stop by seven stops!

And Wa La. 11 hours later our booth is set up! I'm pretty excited to have a new look and a more functional booth set up. Here's what our booth used to look like. The show starts tomorrow @ 9 a.m. and we need to get there about 7:45 to finish sweeping, price tags and get our electrical hooked up. We have some new neighbors I'll introduce you to later : )

One of my New Years Goals...

I should be getting ready to leave Wed. morning to the Atlanta Gift Show but I'm daydreaming here for a few minutes of some of my new years goals. I just got off the phone with my mom, who just returned from a trip back to Quincy, IL for her sisters 60th birthday. We were talking about how the airplane is one of the best places to set goals and make lists. So, needless to say, I will be finalizing my lists of goals (business, personal, family, house) on my flight to Atlanta.

But for now, one of the goals on my list is to do a "letter wall" like this one from Say It With Letters. What a fun collection and something that you could involve your kids in. Shannon from Eight Crazy should do a wall of eights!

Here are some other super cute inspirations from Deb's blog!

Maybe I should concentrate on my goals for the day...

1. new designs for show
2. send money for IRA (not that I'll probably ever be able to retire!)
3. order flame proofing product (since the Los Angeles Convention Center has the fire mafia after you if you don't have all your fabric fire proofed!)
4. bank deposit
5. NCR's of 2008 price sheets
6. Fred Meyer to buy paint for the last panels of my west coast display that needs to be shipped off on Monday to the CA Gift Show!

Goodies in the Mail!

I love surprises! My dear friend April from Catching Fireflies sent me a box of goodies. Boy, did I squeal with delight. She knows of my little obsession with owls. I love these little ceramic tiles! Also, you can't tell cause of my terrible picture but these earrings and ring are darling. I was drooling over them when she wore them at the shows in the summer. THANK YOU APRIL!! Check out her amazing website with all kinds of cheeky gems.

Today on her blog she also features some great ideas to reuse or save your Christmas cards. The one I'm going to do is "Punch a hole in the corner of all your photo cards and put them on a ring. Every year during Christmas put the "rings" out on your coffee table. It is a great conversation topic when family and friends come over for the holidays. Everyone loves to look through the old pictures and see how people have changed over the years. (taken from a comment on goody blog)" via aprils blog!