Put that glue gun away Pam!

Okay...so craft fair season is coming to a close. I was boxing stuff up at the end of the last craft fair and said to April "Wow! We still have so much stuff!" You can fill in the blanks on that comment. The good news is that I gained new friends, new customers, a new display

AND a new pink Christmas Tree!

On top of that I already have inventory for next Christmas Craft season!

I have family flying in all next week to stay with us for the holidays, so perhaps it is time to clean the house (do ya think?) and put up the tree and start feeling the true meaning of Christmas.


Here's to hoping everyone's season is merry and bright.

I can't help it!!!!

Sometimes I just like the bling...

NBC and 1,2,3.

A friend of mine called this my "aha" weekend (and she doesn't even like Oprah - at least she says that she liked her better when she was fat)!

A few of my "aha's":

AHA #1. When a show advertises 25,000 buyers, you also have to check how many vendors will be there. In this case there were 1,000 vendors. That means that over 3 days I had an opportunity to sell to 25 people (8.35 people per day).

Another caveat, "buyers" doesn't really mean "buyers", it means bodies through the door, even bodies who are too little to walk or have a bank account, or people that like to play with turnstyles.

AHA #2. The money is always with the organizer. 1,000 vendors paying an average of $500.00 is $500,000.00. No wonder this organizer was eating malasadas everytime I needed a question answered(and she's getting pretty fat I might add!)

AHA #3. I already did my market research and I know my buyer. They were not at the Neal Blaisdell Center (NBC) last weekend. They were in Kailua, Lanikai, North Shore, Kahala, Maui and probably Rancho Santa Fe and La Jolla. I should try to remember this.

AHA #4. These buyers didn't really "get" the Betty Tags, but they sure got my Queen and Princess goodies. I wish I had had 25,000 of them. I probably would have sold them even to people who couldn't walk or have bank accounts and liked to play with turnstyles.

Celebrate and be Grate...ful

Thanksgiving is almost here and boy oh boy am I thankful for a kazillion things. The list is long. I keep a little book called "my thankful book" where I write all of these kazillion things down on a daily basis but I just wanted to acknowledge it here.
I'm also thankful that we're going over to the Orme's house for T-day dinner. I'm finally at the point where I don't feel like a total sinner for not cooking on the big day. No doubt Sal will cook up one of the turkey's in the fridge just for turkey tacos. His form of leftovers are to cook an entire bird and eat it!
Meanwhile I'll be making more of these glass blocks (not Betty Tags I know, but I love them just the same). There will be about 30 of them at the NBC the day after Thanksgiving so if you really really like them...come and buy one! That way I can afford more turkey tacos!

Something New

Almost finished with a few wine glass charm sets. I really like them - I especially like the way they close...with some super dooper magnets! So easy, just wrap them around the glass stem and WHACK! They close by themselves. Cheap thrill, minor crowd pleaser, hours of self absorbed entertainment. What more could you ask for?
If they sell well at Blaisdell, I'll make more. I made 7 sets with 6 charms in each, all different, but all Hawaii themed.
Also new...Wine/Martinelli markers. This one says E Pili mau na pomaika'i me'ue! (May you always have good fortune)



Way more where that one came from. Come see for yourself at the Islandwide Christmas Craft Fair, Booth 627!

Last Hurrah

I've got a million and one projects up in the air. My Cone 10 gas kiln at the YWCA is undergoing major refurbishing and will be out of commission for at least a year (!) so I have had to go to plan B...wait...there is no plan B? Oh yeah. I'm switching over to a lower cone because I picked up a little jewelry kiln for at home. The one good side is that the colors will be brighter.

Meanwhile the Blaisdell show LOOMS large w/not even my display built yet, let alone the product that I'll need.

Auwe...I'll think about that tomorrow. Today I think I'll just go to the beach.

NBC Thanksgiving Weekend

3 days, 25,000 people 2 weeks from today.

What?? Have I been sitting under a coconut tree?

Nooooo, just been busy with the Betty Tags! But here's a hint...Whenever you visit the Islands, make sure you look up before you sit under a coconut tree. If you read the obits in Polynesia, a few times a year there really are fatalities from falling coconuts.

Spent this past Saturday at the North Shore Farmer's Market.





I'm getting ready for the Christmas season and keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a healthy response (saleswise).

Please keep checking in. I'll keep you posted as often as I can and I'll try to remember to look up everytime that I sit under a coconut tree.

A Dog Day at the Bay

I don't know what my expectations were for this last minute show, but I think that just possibly, they were maybe, just subconciously, a little higher than the reality of the thing.

Last weekend I was trying to decide if I should go to the North Shore Farmer's Market or just take a weekend off.

I was at the studio and someone came by with a flyer about this "A Day at the Bay" show and ONLY $35.00!!

"How can you go wrong?" they said.

Well, let me not so patiently explain to you how you can go wrong - you can spend $35.00 and then you can get up at 5am on a Saturday morning and then you can load your vehicle and pay $3.29 for a gallon of gas and then you can drive for miles and then you unload your vehicle and set up your spot and then...you can wait...and wait...and wait....and then....nobody walks by!

And then you can look outside the hot and stuffy cafeteria and what?....it is beautiful and colorful and there are people out there and...they are having fun!

That is how you can go wrong (for only $35) !

P.S. I actually made $40.00 (Wowza Yowza!!) PLUS...my friend Ginny came by...PLUS...some people from last weekend at Kapiolani Park came by to look me up...PLUS...they had the best Laulau and Kalua that I've had for ages.

They pulled it out of the imu on the spot!




Add to that some lomi lomi, two scoop rice, breadfruit the Marine Corp Band playing live...and au'we...whose complaining?

The North Shore Marketplace will always be there next weekend.

If Only

If Only I could find a way to add animation to my beloved Betty Tags...



This was Betty Boop at her sexy cuttiest in 1932 - dancing in only a hula skirt and a lei. The footage of the Samoan girl who dances at the beginning (Miri) is the same footage that was used in rotoscoping Betty's "watch ME" dance for Bimbo at the end.

Betty Boop pushed the envelope and it was hot little numbers like this one that set off the censorship laws of 1934.

And now, a little personal sidebar that has absolutely no meaning to anyone but myself:

(Oh, that's really Pam)


My uber talented college roommate's mother, was the original radio voice of Betty Boop so.......

Boop Boop bee doop that!

Jack, Jake, Betty (Tags) and no memory

This weekend I was again reminded why I moved to Hawaii in 1977 and never really left. I mean really...where do you go from here?

The morning started out with a few light showers and as we drove, the showers turned into rainbows and then sunshine and then sunshine and tradewinds.

If that wasn't enough our event at Kapiolani Park was combined with a Starbucks sponsored event (yes, that meant $1 cups of coffee) and music that came like mana from heaven by way of the 37th annual Uku lele festival.

People kept coming and coming and coming. On the lawn surrounding the open pavillion they set up their tents and put down lauhala mats. They brought their little hibachi's and coolers. They met with friends and family. They brought the keikis. But most of all today, they brought their ukuleles.

Music filled the air.

It was so pleasant, sipping Starbucks, selling Betty Tags and listening to Danny Kalikini as he sang and introduced one group after another, all on stage and filling the air with incredible sounds.

Then something changed.

There was a different sound.

I turned to a customer and said "How weird! Why are they putting on a CD in the middle of a live music festival?"

And he said "That isn't a CD. It's really him."

"It can't be him, " I said. "I have no memory left on my camera!"

"It can't be him," I said. "Not today!"

But it was him...and this is all I got...

(on the back of an ABC store receipt.)


And then there was more wonderful music from sweet Japanese voices and baritone manly men and then it happened again. A sound that was heaven sent. It couldn't possibly be coming from a little ukulele. It sounded more like a full orchestra. But it can't be happening again. I have no memory on my camera! I got only this...



(On the back of another ABC store receipt.)

Luckily for me, I don't need a memory chip in my brain just quite yet.

Luckily for me, even though I don't have the photos - I'll still keep this memory in my head for hopefully a very long time.

Mahalo Jack.






Mahalo Jake.

Melancholie Lolly

I was feeling just a little sad today (I won't tell you why) but I kept working and working and working. I looked up, begging for inspiration and this is what I saw from my window...

Okay...so try not to feel too sorry for me.

Rain, Rain, it's okay.

Saturday morning looked like it was going to be sunny. I mean it is July and even if there were a shower it would pass right? We loaded up and headed out at about 7am and just as we got about to Turtle Bay, sheets of water started blasting us from the heavens. We continued to Sunset Beach. No blue sky in sight.

Do we or don't we?


It didn't stop the flower vendors. The flowers loved it.

I mean Betty Tags can take it. If they can take 2500 degree fire, then they can surely take a little rain! No rain, no rainbows right?!

And then, out of nowhere...this...


I Love the North SHore.

Out of the frying pan

and into the fire! I love love love seeing how colors change from one firing to the next. It is always unpredictable, just how I like it. All the colors here are a drippy sun valley caramel. Look how the colors change with the third firing! They've gone from dulce la leche to marble mocha. Mmmm...YUMMY!

Tomorrow we're going to head closer to home and try the North Shore Farmer's Market at Sunset Beach Elementary school (across the street from Pipeline). They have quite a few crafters mixed up with the passion fruit and mangoes (and maybe lychee still?) so we'll give it a go.

April started a job as a Nanny today (YAY) but she has the weekends free, so maybe she'll find it in her generous heart (yes, you can read BEGGING from her mother) to still come and help.

Fun time reminiscing with my nine life nephew Ross last night. Business trip to the Islands...I know, it's rough. He hadn't been back to his childhood home in Kailua for years and was more than a little bummed that someone cut down the massive Banyan tree that he had many a happy memory and broken bone from.

He spent the last hour of his visit on a midnight flash photo safari in search of the goony birds that are nesting in our backyard right now - they make noises that Steven King would love - a morph effect of cats, babies and cows combined. Ross looks grown up, but really he's still 12.

Flushed Away

No...there were no tsunamis, flash floods or weather disasters this weekend.
I'm not even talking about the inner workings of the three toilets that were repaired in our house this past week.
"Flushed Away" was the title of the movie playing on the kazillion foot screen on Waikiki Beach this weekend while I was busy selling Betty Tags.
I think I liked "Dream Girls" better.


Sunset on the Beach is great fun and for anybody planning a trip, you should try to schedule it during this FREE event. Your tax dollar at work.

Now that I'm becoming a seasoned professional (!) I have a regular spot. There are two big tents that the city puts up with about 8 vendors under each tent. I have THE BEST location - I'm in the first tent with the primo beach real estate.
If we're not making a sale, we're watching the surfers or the parasailers or the boats or the beach goers or the sexy bikini girls or the speedo men and boys and sometimes we even get to see fights, but that is another story.

We did sell my favorite tassles this weekend to a very nice geisha lady who collects them. Weird thing to collect, don't you think, but then who am I to say?

Shake those TAIL FEATHERS!!!

Au' we!! More pics than you asked for I'm sure, but who can resist the color in a POW(IE) WOW(IE!)!!

As I heard many, many times over the loud speaker this weekend..."We are all children of the same creator", but come on...who is REALLY REALLY your designer? I want names...and contact numbers....I mean...can you imagine a runway show at Fashion Week with these dresses?!!!! Memo to Heidi Klum..."you need to get yourself an AMERICAN INDIAN into that competition of yours!"

A few vendors grumbled (Oh..you're kidding right...vendors grumble?) about this being a "cross cultural event" but you've gotta admit that mixing Chinese Dragons with Koombaya can have an interesting effect.

Most importantly, Betty Tags had a fantastic showing...even if little Miss April was busy with a photo OP instead of attending to her customers...yes...look in the background...is that poor poor woman WALKING AWAY without a Betty Tag sale?????

SWEET DREAMS for everyone...Pretend you have a dream catcher in case you don't...and Pray for Trade Winds, perfect waves and spaghetti!

And yes, the universe was kind...there was REAL fry bread!

Fry Bread and Betty Tags?

Waikiki is having it's first real POW WOW this weekend - at Kapiolani Park. Really. It is being billed as a cross cultural affair, so there will be hula AND hoop dancing AND... BETTY TAGS!

Last month we drove through AZ, from Prescott to the Grand Canyon, then past Tuba City and up to Lake Powell - the entire time I was looking for Fry Bread and couldn't find any anywhere...what's with that? Zoikes - my mouth is watering just thinking about the F** bread word. My taste buds came home sooo disappointed.

Now look - The Universe did not let me down! There will be Fry bread on this very island. (Please, please, please, Universe...let it be the real thing! )

I will be there selling BETTY TAGS. I hope that they put me next to a F** bread stand. I also hope that I don't have to cook the books because I have spent all the sales money on the aforementioned delectable item.

Hmmmm.....maybe I shouldn't have signed up for this POW WOW afterall?