Team shirts ... get your Team Shirts! Heeyah

Today I would like to discuss Team work and then I will get to the shirts. It is so essential in many things that we do. Tasks in life can be easier if done with others in a cooperative way. Having worked in Social Service and volunteerism most of my employed life, I more times than not had a great team to work with. Occasionally I did have the misfortune of working with a bad team. Usually, it only takes one bad member to affect the rest of the team.

However, that is not the case with the Maine Team on Etsy. We have a group of extremely over the top talented artists. This is a group that is helpful, friendly, caring and help each other through tough times. We give and accept advice, critique photos and listings for each other, give advice on wholesaling, packaging or prices. This is a great team and hundreds strong. Check us out at http://etsymaineteam.blogspot.com/

So in honor of our great team, I offered to make up team shirts with our new logo on them. We can now identify ourselves with each other and hope that others will notice the logo and go looking for us on the web. I had such a great time making this order and learned a few things along the way.







I especially learned that this group is very patient and understanding. I had a few delays due to health getting them done, but everyone was encouraging and understanding.

So I have decided with a little encouragement to offer up custom order team shirts to other teams as well…. I will be posting the listing soon. If you are interested. Email me at lizzyoos@gmail.com

I hope the Maine team members with post their shirts soon… so you can all see.

47 Days TO GO **************OH MY

47 Days to go

When I looked at the calendar today I took a deep breath and thought OMG. I only have 47 days until the first festival in May. I have lots to do before that week arrives. Get the camper ready for the road- tires, furnace, fridge, all need repair. Make product, lots of product to start off the season.

I mentioned in an earlier blog about my disappointment in the two local groups holding festivals on the same weekends. Well as a vendor and supporter of the cause, I was having a difficult time deciding where to go. For me it is about the vending, the music, the family and the cause, but now with the rise in vending fees and other costs, it is about the almighty dollar too. For each festival I would have to sell 60 tee shirts to make my rental fee. That is a lot of product to sell before making a dime. I really had to work through this in my head and decide what I wanted to do. People think it is only about loading the camper and setting up.

I am now writing for Far Out Magazine and was speaking with one of the folks directly involved about the festival season. We have set up next to each at a few festivals in the past and have become great friends. Last October, my friends Twister Sister and Sally and I helped the magazine out in New York at their Harvest Fest by putting out the magazine over the weekend. Bill, from Far Out, and I chatted and we have become collaborators and will be vending together at the various events. This will be good for us both as we will hang together and be able to reach lots of folks with our wares. As we chatted about our venture we made plans on where we will go together.


Below is my schedule to date for this Festivals season. I am sad that I cannot attend them all, as that would be my ideal dream. I wonder how science is doing with people cloning and if I would be as excited if I were a clone! However, I feel by spreading myself between them all I am allowing my family of customers to find me and to acquire their color for the season. I truly expect this to be a stellar festival season in Maine and I hope you all stop by and say hello… Anything custom you want done for a festival in hand dying email me and I will hook you up!

I am making shirts for the kid’s tent in Starks, doing tall banners to surround the stage in Harmony and more. I try to donate to each promoter and event in some way. Heck like all vendors, I pay a large amount for a ticket so to speak, with the vending fees, but I want the event to be fun and exciting for all…


May 22-24 Maine Vocals is gearing up for the first annual Peace Jam in Harmony on Freedom Field. This is a festival that is a month earlier than usual for us here in Maine and it should be a great time. I am excited about the music that will be here and can’t wait to meet up with everyone to kick off the season. FYI www.mainevocals.com

May 30 10:00 to 3:00
Spring Craft Sale Featuring Etsy Maine Team Artists Freeport Community Center, 53 Depot Street, Freeport, Maine I will be attending a one day event in Freeport, Me with the Etsy Maine Team. Look us up if you are in the area. This is an awesome group of Artists and there is something for everyone.

June 19-21 Harry's Hoe Down, Starks, Me. This is the first year for this event. It is being held in Starks at the Farm of Harry Brown. This venue has been used in the past for festivals and is a beautiful piece of property for an event. There all kinds of things happening at this event check it out! www.harryshill.com

July 17 - 19 Somerset County Jam Fest, Harmony, Me being held at Maine Vocals Freedom Field Another great weekend filled with music and activism toward legalization and patient rights! www.mainevocals.net


July 31-August2 Beltek Arts&Music Festival, Belmont, Me Beltek will be a first for me this year but I am totally Psyched for this show. I love techno! What better place to have dancing veils ribbon sticks, and hula hoops……See you all there!!!! www.beltekfestival.com


August 14-16, Be Here Now Another First for the Harry Brown Farm in Starks. Cow Pasture Productions promise a weekend to remember. www.harryshill.com

August 20- 23, Hempstock Fest Harmony, The Original Maine Festival of festivals. I have been attending this show for years and vended at many…. The music is awesome the people are great and I know my family of friends will be there www.mainevocals.net

September 11 - 13, Webejammin Fest (Reggae) Harmony, Me A great fest to hear some Reggae and more. This is a great time of year to hit the festival field… Warm Days Cool nights… Come sit around the fire…..www.mainevocals.net

October2-4 Harry's Harvest Ball, Starks, Me. Cow Pasture Productions is sharing the harvest with us all with another first. www.harryshill.com


October 16-18 Harmony Harvest Fest - This is the second annual Harmony Harvest Festival. Be sure to bring your woolies or come buy a sweatshirt from me it is a chilly one! www.mainevocals.net

SO that is the season for me so far. If you know of another show that I am missing out on locally let me know and I will try to make it. I hop ewe have a safe festival season this year. Be sure to listen to me on WMHB.org every Wednesday from 2-4. You will also be able to chat online live with me since our new website launch.

Maine Vocals will also be holding events on June 19-21 and October 1-4 that I will not be attending. They are musically packed weekends and if you decide to go you will have a blast. I just wish that cloning was available.


I can’t wait to HUG my festival Family I miss you ALL!

Love and light
Lizzy

Collaboration

March is here and hopefully that means that Spring is on the way. For me the first sign that Spring is coming is when the seed catalogs arrive. I am a hound for seed Catalogs. My son and I do a huge garden every year together we start our own plants making it more fun! This year he has added a 10 acre piece of land to the mix with his recent purchase so we have more garden space potential. I am really excited. I hope to can and freeze all we need for food this coming year. Oh an make my a famous comfort relish and pickled fiddleheads.





First I want to say that the ACEO challenge that the Maine team did was awesome. I am placing my sun and fun on my computer so that I can look at it often in this cold weather. Thank you, Lynncyrart.


Through all this financial hardship happening now and throughout their lives I taught my children not to expect and to always appreciate. I think that is something that is lost with a lot of individuals now. As a single mom, I learned to do more with less for years. Even when I finally had a job to support my family comfortably we never overextended. I was always concerned that the boys would dislike me in the future because they could not always have what they wanted. They always had what they needed though.
photo is of me and the boys in 1990 boy do I look young eeek!



My initial intent here was to talk about the Barter system and collaborations. My sons are both learning how much power there is in these two events. My youngest has bartered recently for garden tilling, half a pig, chicks for spring, and help with his building. He works in collaboration with a few neighbors for his live bait business; he sells worms and little fishies, and puts kids to work picking night crawlers in the summer.

My oldest is working with an elderly woman helping maintain her house while he lives in her guest house. He is getting 100 off his rent monthly and maintains the house and 20 acre grounds for her. Not all the acreage needs tending but enough. . He is doing much more than th$100 worth for her but he appreciates the opportunity.



So what can we do as Etsy Artists to be in collaboration? The above photo is something that a bunch of vendors did at a festival one weekend. We just put our names in a hat and I won! I was thinking about having a future challenge for us to create an item we could all share in We could send it around to the next person and they could add something to it. Not sure what we would do with it after Maybe auction it off and give donations to an agreed upon charity.


I would also like to work more with some of my Maine Team family to find things that we all make that could be used to give away with orders. I would love to have something small, created by someone else to add to my little freebies. What do you all think? AS THE Maine Team can we come up with a big collaboration!

4 Seasons in Maine 1945

The State of 4 Seasons…….

The Maine Team at Etsy is a busy team. We chat all day every day in our forum. We share our life happening and all of our creations with each other. Team meetings and get togethers happen often too.

Recently one of the team members challenged the rest of us to make something called an ACEO. Being a crafty person by genes, I thought I knew what I was doing. As I watched some of the Maine team members post their ACEO I was conflicted. What do I put together that will represent Maine? These gals and guys are so talented and I am not sure I can keep up.

So I made my decision and made this beautiful card with dried flowers from some of my grandma’s seeds that she gave me 25 years ago. I have moved them to different homes with me over the years and shared them with others. Well, needless to say my dog ate my ACEO. Yeah, I know that is a lame excuse, and I had enough materials to make another one just like it.

My plans changed on what to do today as I was looking through a box of items from my oldest brother. He was my best friend and passed away in 2002. I was extremely ill at the time and still have not officially mourned for him. He is with me everyday and I swear he smacks me when I do something silly. He was 17 years older than I, but was my closest friend.

I was so delighted to find an envelope of family photos mostly of him as a baby. I looked and looked through them many times through misty eyes. All of a sudden I found a little envelope with 4 photos in it with the words four seasons in 1945 on the front. When I looked at the photos, I found my brother at the age of 4 in every season of Maine. So I thought, as a tribute to my love for my Big Brother “Wendell Leslie Foster” I would make my ACEO for him so here it is! I used the back cover of an old cook book that was in his collection that I inherited to wrap another element of him into the project.

I hope you will feel his spirit of youth and innocence in a different time than ours.

Hoardevenger

hoarder - a person who accumulates things and hides them away for future use
pack rat, scavenger, magpie - someone who collects things that have been discarded by others. AM I both of these???? Is there one name for someone who is both
How about hoardevenger, or is it hoardrat……


I have so much stuff and I do mean stuff. My baby (he is 30 handsome ,single, owns his own land, business and can cook… any lonely ladies out there?!) laughs when I say stuff. I think it is more of a grimacing giggle because he would love it if my stuff became junk so that it would disappear. I am not a hoarder, or least I don’t think I am. (Am I just in denial?) However, I continue to make the promise to my sons that when I die they will have plenty of STUFF to go through! That will be my legacy…. hehheh



I watched a show on the Discovery Health Channel about Hoarders last week. I did see myself a few times but I saw an artist and crafters reason for the collecting. (I think there was something said in the special about people making excuses!) I did however realize that I do have tendencies to keep things just in case. I am slowly going through boxes of boxes of containers of bags, boxes, pill bottles, quart jars, altoide tins spice jars, shampoo bottles, tin cans, coffee jars, full or partial full of beads and baubles. I have yards and yards of wire, twine, hemp, string, lanyard, ribbon, threads, and more. I have jars and jars of findings, things that would work for something (can’t always remember why I have it) and things I accumulated at the few yard sales I went to in the last few seasons.


I am trying to organize all this stuff so that I can move it into my new place this spring in an orderly manner. I know I could get so much done if I could just find the right embellishment or finding. Couldn’t we all. I spend most of my time working with fabric and dye but I have a beading past and have actually found some of the necklaces I worked on with my Grandma well over 20 years ago. Maybe I should list them on Etsy and try to sell them. I have the ones I have worn over the years to pass on to my grandchildren, so I wouldn’t feel bad doing that.




I found a bag of appliqués and colorful patches that I picked up at a craft store closing in the 90’s geesh I guess I need to get busy. I make padded pouches with some of my tie dye and these would have dressed them up last year….. SO my customers at the festivals this year will hopefully have lots and lots to go through.

So, now I must decide what to do with things I know I won’t ever use. Should I have a craft item tub sale or maybe by the time I am done it can be a full blown yard sale…..I will probably save some (I know that is not the ultimate goal) to use in the kids tent at several of the shows I do this summer. I try to help out and give the kids some things to do. Last year they made guitars with old tie boxes I had purchased and didn’t use.

I am slowly straightening out this room where I should be sleeping. I sleep in a recliner for health reasons so the use of the word bedroom doesn't seem to fit. It is actually a room to store my completed products in totes piled high. I have piles of clothing to go through and sort. I have 7 different sizes of clothing depicting my weight changes over the past 4 years with my illness. I have the size 14 pile that will go to the clothes closet, the 12's that I will keep a few and different piles down the to the ones that I now wear. I need someone to come in and just say that it all needs to go to the closet. I keep things thinking I may need them, or I will make something with that and I don't. I need to just start fresh. I have kept a pair of jeans in each size just in case…

So for today I will continue to unpack sort and decide to keep most everything but of course I will use it soon!




The phases of the moon have curtailed my sorting slightly this week. I find that my body does react to the phases and I am more inclined to keep things when the moon is full. Here is a photo this week at about 3am when I let my pups out for a quick relief trip! Also a photo of the pups (100 and 93 lbs respectively and turn a year old next month) fighting over a piece of string I put in the throw away pile... see I have passed on the bad habit of saving....




So with the ending of this blog, I would like to offer a t shirt giveaway to the first 3 people to admit that they are a hoardevenger, or is it hoardrat and tell me why!


I hope you will all check out my Maine Team friends at Etsy. We are a jovial bunch that can chat all day and still create to sell…. We are an amazing bunch…. Once we all get our super capes (see you on Feb 22) we will be more of a force to reckon with!

Etsy Buy Handmade etsyMaineTeam

Etsy Buy Handmade Lizzyoos

BABOOM BABOOM BABOOM

baboom boom boom baboom boom boom baboom boom boom that is the sound of a heart with a double lead pacemaker beating..... and when it goes 180 beats a minute it is really loud! I sat for two hours fighting the urge to call 911. My son finally made the call totally pissed off that I waited so long. He is so mature for his young 30 years. Maybe too mature in this area. I hate going to the hospital although my contact with men, the ambulance guys, is the only contact with men I seem to have nowadays..... I am laying down on a make shift bed but nothing romantic about this time together. Blood pressure cup getting tighter, cold monitor leads sticking to skin, needle going in to my arm(please let the first stick be good). Damn ... 3 sticks later the medicine is running in the pressure seems to go a little but the pressure is not tolerable. F*ck this hurts Sorry I say give me the swear jar and I will put my quarter in..... Then he says it to the driver.....we need to go code 3 lights sirens and fast... so what does that mean I am looking at the monitor the heart rate is 235 that can't be good. Wait isn't my pacemaker suppose to stop it at 120...... is that why I keep feeling the leads kicking. Is that why my chest feels like I have an elephant sitting on it. Pain I don't have pain I have pressure... But that is a woman's pain. we tolerate it differently then men.... Pain level 1-10 with 10 being the worst Hell no it is a 20 right now! I am trembling like a leaf in a 100 mph wind.... I am not cold is it nerves or adrenaline.... My road is bumpier in an ambulance glad to get on the tar road... we are going so fast... do you think it is really necessary? can't we slow down maybe stop at the store for a coke... I could use a coke right now......
Fly into the ER familiar faces all saying hello... to many people this making me nervous... wait don't take off my socks my feet are cold.... I hear a baby crying and ask if it is real they say yeas Phew I didn't want to be hearing things that weren't there yet..... Xrays, blood work questions doctors more doctors talking to my doc in Portland Should we send her to Portland wait no beds maybe Bangor I say NO,,,,,,,, finally after 2 hours the heart settles down meds on board things are going better the pressure is a 4 now so I can tolerate it at this level. Can I go home now! what I have to stay.....
Finally in the Special Care Unit things get quiet. No monitors beeping, no other people screaming or crying... I have a nurse all to my self. She sits with me through the night.

This is the hardest thing for me to go through. I have always taken care of myself never relied on others and when I am in this situation, I don't have control. That is the worst feeling for me. Even worse than the pain. I guess it is all relevant though. I have to surrender and trust those taking care of me. Trust them to do what is right trust them to know when things are going south,,,,,,

OK so here I am home again after a whirlwind trip to the Special Care Unit at the Redington Fairview Hospital. I am a true believer in things happening for a reason and this was so true this week. Since I was suppose to be on a cruise in the Caribbean for the first time in my life this week but it was canceled. I met up with my past PA who moved out of the practice I use several years ago... She was a light in the dark for me at the hospital. We chatted through the night and she brought me back to being confident at the moment. She was with me 6 years ago when this heart condition surfaced, she held my hand many days in the hospital at the time and I was heartbroken when she left. But she was my savior this week.

I missed my daily dose of Etsy chat so back to posting and listing and selling I hope... Remember to love the ones close to you, tell them each day and take care of yourself....

Tye Dye Akins!

I always look my tie dyes over from top to bottom after I dry them. It is always a wonder to me how the dye makes awesome designs. Sometimes in those designs you can see things that appear. This past season I had what I like to call tye dye akins that have evolved in my work. Many of my silk scarves have had designs in them that look like little people or aliens or my new colony of tye dye akins! Check out my new items I made up from some of those scarves this week. I will be adding them slowly over the next few days... It is like bringing them to life.

This is also the time of year for me to I take a break from dying. I still do custom orders and the items for my monthly clubs but nothing to add to the general inventory. I try to do my major dying outside when the weather is at least 60 degrees. Although 5 years ago I did a huge order of 500 tee shirts for a school in North Carolina in March outside. It was a trip for sure. I used my vending booth and it sides with a heater. I do a large order (125 shirts) in February for a memorial ski race at the Kents Hill School, this being my 4th year and I tend to do it on the floor in my tiny dining room/ craft room. Someday I will have a house with a work area big enough but then again are they ever big enough.





Thanks for stopping by. I have just recently done my business plan for the upcoming year. Don't think I sound organized or anything because I am certainly far from that. But I am involved in a program called "ticket to work". I have to turn in paperwork over the year to the coordinator. It is for folks that are disabled and want to continue to work. I get to do my thing they leave me alone and I am allowed to make a certain amount without penalties. It isn't much but it gives me a continue sense of self worth. You can read about it here(http://www.webspawner.com/users/kyndlizzy/aboutme.html ). Becoming disabled in my 40's was not my plan but I have continued to work on adapting to this disability each day. To look at me you wouldn't know that I have a mechanical device to keep my heart going, my bones deteriorate everyday and I break fingers like spaghetti. I thank the goddess every morning for allowing me to wake up and breathe, and to actually get up out of bed. I hope to be able to continue with this business as long as I can and maybe pass it on to the granddaughter. She is so like me but her momma wishes she weren't such a artsy fartsy girl…..hehehe.

Well this is the beginning of a new line that I want to offer in my store. I have spent many years working with fabric and dying. I have done it all and always find something new and interesting in what I am doing. I guess that is why I continue on this journey. I have found a new venture and this is the beginning of my offerings.


My Tie Dyes became the apparel for one band I met on the road this summer from Mass .. ... and they keep ordering more.... I even did some reverse dying on some of their shirts. The band is lowercase p and that is me kinds scrunched in the middle of several men.. my favorite place to be...



Just a little humor for you all -- One day I was outside dying about 100 items and my oldest son called. I had a message on my phone that stated I was outside Dying and I would call them back as soon as I was done. Well my son called my other son who was working and made him come home quick cause I was Dying.... so I have learned to add the word Tie to the Dye!


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