The mix tape screen printed paintings sold like crazy at Renegade Craft Fair in LA. People were really happy to hear that a record painting was coming, too. My first batch after the show had to go to the gallery, because our space was quite empty, since we had taken a lot of stock from there to LA. We will be posting paintings for you next week. If you are interested in a mix tape (8×10) or record painting (10×10) in a particular background color, let me know. I had several orders for colors that matched people’s homes.

Sorry the paintings won’t be up until next week, but I won’t be in town until late August 15th, which happens to be my birthday. Yay! My favorite things about birthdays are cake/cupcakes and getting to have fun with my friends. I won’t be celebrating until next weekend, but I am excited nonetheless.

What do you look forward to on your birthday?

I must say that even though we are older now, we still love to rock out.
What tunes do you love to hear in the car?

Are there any projects you have been learning or relearning?

Do you think this video is as cute as I do? Share with me any cute music videos you find, please.

Do you have any interesting thrift store finds to share?

Do you have any fun games in your house?

What are you currently listening to?

We are starting off Sharing Sunday with a look at one of my loves….my cat. Her name is Ami (ahh-mee, not amy). Here, you can see her on my chest, on my red & white comforter from Ikea & get a peek at my pink bedroom walls. Yes, my bedroom walls are pink. Wait ’til I share a photo of my bathroom walls (totally not pink).

What color are your bedroom walls?

It was nice to share my encaustic work with so many people. I enjoyed explaining the hot wax painting process. I really need to paint some more to share with you. A few of the ones that didn’t sell are going up at Whole Body Studio Spa, here in Austin, TX.

We were able to step away from our booth for awhile to shop around on the last day. Here are the awesome things I picked up!

I bought these adorable earrings from Figs & Ginger. I had been eyeing the deer on their site, but I didn’t see them, so I bought the bunnies. After they gave me the bunnies they noticed there weren’t any deer out & I waited as they restocked & bought those too!

I stopped by Cut Out Collect to see if she had a cutie apple pouch I saw on her site, and she did! She only had one, and it was waiting just for me, or so I like to think.

I made it down to Naughty Secretary Club’s vibrant booth and we made a sweet, sweet trade. She got a PB & Jay notebook from me and I got a delicious strawberry bracelet from her. I was looking for a particular bolo I wanted to buy, but it had sold. =(

Shu picked up this awesome Tanooki Mario pin from Pixel Party. I wanted to get one of the Fire Flowers, but I couldn’t think of a place to put it.

I wish I would have had time to see more things, and to support more people. I hope to do that at Renegade Craft Fair – LA. If you live in the LA area you should come by and see us in July, we’d LOVE to meet you!

After Renegade Craft Fair we made a decision to have fair exclusives. I have three ring designs that sell really well, that we are making exclusive to any event we participate in, or you can get them in Austin, TX at The Wonder Craft….only. That’s kinda fun, huh?

If you were at Renegade Craft Fair in Austin, we’d love to hear about your experience there, and what fun things you picked up.

I am most excited about Craft Academy! I have been planning out these courses for months! Craft Academy is my way of becoming a teacher without having to work for someone else.

The design of Craft Academy is kinda like a mini art school, with even more fun courses. There is a summer session called Summer Lovin’, the Fall Semester, a winter semester called Holiday Hits, a spring break course called Spring Fling, an actual Spring Semester and some single day/weekend courses. The planning has been super fun.

I started asking people last fall if I could film them for a video tutorial for my site as a way of practicing, to see if I could get the video and audio to where I would be happy with it. With each video I’ve done, my skills have improved.

I asked my Twitter friend AJ if she’d like to join me in my quest, and she said yes! We’ve had quite a few meetings, and countless email exchanges working out the logistics & logo. The logo was tricky because we were never fully happy with anything we’d come up with. It even took us awhile to come up with the school colors! I suggested red & purple, for two reasons….one, I’ve always liked that combo, and two (most importantly), purple is her fave color & red is mine!

One of the key things I do for my main job is teach social media tactics to small businesses. In a training I went through to learn about those things we had this amazing community forming. Through that course I made some amazing friends and we all help each other out. I loved it so much, I wanted to build that for artists and crafters, so I could spend time sharing and learning with like minded people. Thus, Craft Academy was born.

I have been working hard on the main site. I should have worked on it before the classroom site, but the classroom is what I am most excited about. We opened registration for Craft Academy yesterday, it was a great day! Now I am furiously working on getting the main site live.

I am just so excited about it all! If you’ve read this far, it would be awesome if you joined Craft Academy. I promise it will be a lot of fun! I’m going to get back to work now, but I hope to meet you soon.

-Renée