By this weekend my work will be avilable for purchase at The Urban Gypsy in Polish Hill, right above The Strip District. The Urban Gypsy has a variety of vintage items and work by local Pittsburgh artists for sale, so if you’re into handmade or vintage, you HAVE to check it out. It’s fairly new, but they’re already doing great and drawing in a lot of local talent. You can read a write-up (and get a peek at the interior – fabulous!) on the shop that Pop City Media did here. There’s a festival in Polish Hill this weekend as well, so pop over and check out the action! Paulette, the owner, mentioned a wine and cheese event for shop patrons at the end of July – I’ll have some news on that when I get more details. ^_~

Also, you’ll be able to find me in person in The Strip District at the Artisan Market! ^_^ It runs on Saturdays from 9-3. If you’re familiar with the area it’s right across the street from that parking lot on the main drag. We’re even indoors so if the weather is bad duck in and see what’s for sale! There’s great glass and wire-wrapped stone jewelry by LZ and EJ, fabulous coin jewelry by Cha-Ching, and more. I won’t have any jewelry on me because, well – There’s a lot of it there already. What I WILL have are a few things not available on-line (yet) of the accessory and home decor nature. Also some crowd favorites, like D20 keychains, cel phone charms, and dreamcatchers.

So, if you want to check out some of my jewelry, head to Urban Gypsy, and if you want to see some non-jewelry items, hit me up in The Strip. Of course, I’ll only be in The Strip on Saturdays so keep an eye on my Etsy, as well.

See you this weekend! ^_^

Okay, I’ve had a week to work on commissions, put the house back together, and do that thing called sleep. Now to give you guys a post-mortem on the Wild Rose Renaissance Faire. ^_^

First weekend, well – If you’ve been here before you know that our tent got destroyed in a near-hit with a tornado. Luckily we were able to shack up with two other unlucky vendors in a wooden booth that was unoccupied so we at least had some shelter from the rain. So the first weekend was rainy, and some of us lost tents/merch/etc, but no one camping on-site was hurt and we got a decent turnout, considering the weather.

Second weekend, we were back in the building because our tent still hadn’t arrived. It was rainy, but not nearly as bad as before, and there was an even bigger turnout! It was raining enough to make things wet, but it was a warm rain and thus rather nice. The Little One had a great time running around in it. ^_^ She also enjoyed watching the SCA rapier fighters demonstrate some of their fencing techniques. Big thanks to you, if you are reading this! I also scored some amazing natural glass gathered by a local lady and her family. They find it all throughout the woods over miles and miles. It’s not obsidian, the colors are vivid greens and blues, so they’ve given some to geologists so they can figure out where it comes from. Anyone else ever heard of such a thing? I’ve heard of finding foundry glass, but tis’ always in a very specific area, not spread over vast swaths of forest. Strange.

The third and last weekend we had our own tent, finally! It’s a very nice tent, although we need to add grommets to the walls so that we can lash them on or pin them down well enough, but that’s an easy fix. The weather was beautiful, the crowd was great, and things went generally amazingly well! ^_^ I even managed to take a few pictures:

And yes, that is Lemony on the horse in that group pic. ^_^ That kid loves her some critters. Big or small, she’s not afraid, and they ALL need to get kisses from her. So yeah, we had a good time. As you can see, it’s a small Faire, but it’s young and this is its first time being held in June. Things went so well, they’re going to keep the June time slot, which makes it the first Faire of the season! So when next June comes around and you’re in the Northwestern PA or Southwestern NY area, stop by. ^_^ Admission is cheap, the food is delicious, the wares are nice, and the shows are wonderful! Fire-breathing pirates, Shakespeare like you’ve never heard before, a tireless Irish fiddler, buxom ladies singing naughty songs, Viking stories, swordfights… You could even get an archery lesson from the man in the siege tower. Not to mention that there’s a Fairy Forest for the little ones to play safely in while you enjoy said (possibly naughty) performances. Last but not least, you can stop by our tent and say hello! ^_^

Needless to say, I can’t wait for next year.

Okay, this past weekend was the first weekend of the Wild Rose Renaissance Faire, and it was a doozy.

Saturday was pretty calm, but we arrived late. Google failed us and sent us through a million small towns on the way there, which includes the towns’ red lights. Going home went much faster, because we stuck to the highway. The crowd was good, the weather was fair and a bit misty at times, but overall it was nice. Lemony had a great time, too. ^_^ A good start to the Faire. Huzzah!

We would have liked to visit nearby relatives for the night, but we had to get back here to give medicine to our newly adopted kitty, Pasha. (pics are forthcoming, I promise) We knew the weather here in Pittsburgh had been horrible all day, and we checked the overnight weather for the Faire. You see, we had left our tent, tables, displays and some merch overnight. No big deal, really. We had lowered our tent, covered our things, and half of the vendors were camping right there so the chances of anything terrible happening were pretty slim.

Oh, we were wrong. And so was Weather.com.

We arrived late the next morning due to downed power lines blocking our path. Not a good sign. Once at the Faire we saw that our tent frame was crumpled up like a dead spider! Most everyone’s tent had been flattened, but ours was destroyed. Then we learned that a tornado had touched down not far from the site! Things got wet and muddy, our tent bit the dust, but thankfully no one was hurt.

And to add to the good luck we learned that even though our tent got origamied (I now declare that a word), our tables with all of our stuff on them hadn’t budged. 0_0?! Which only makes me think, “Dude, our stuff survived a brush with A TORNADO! AWESOME!” The other Rennies, being good folk, took time from their own salvage efforts to move our tables and merch into an unoccupied wooden booth that we were allowed to use for the day. Rennies are awesome, like the kind otakus that stopped in the middle of a busy street in Baltimore some Otakons ago to help us clean up rings that had been scattered by a car colliding with our supply cart. You couldn’t ask for nicer people to meet! I love my fandoms!

And even though the weather didn’t really improve as the day went on (Curse you, Weather.com! YOU LIE! *angry fist shake*) we still got a decent crowd! It was slow, but that meant that everyone got a chance to wander about and socialize, which is half the fun of Faires. ^_^ I also picked up some sweet stone dice, some CZs and other simulated gemstones I can practice my silversmithing on. And a new bodice, which I kind of needed since my old one was bought before the Little One was born. I, uhm – Needed some more room up top, if you catch my drift.

The silver lining to the No Shelter cloud is that we get to buy a new tent. One that’s not so flimsy, and with walls (we couldn’t even GET walls for our old one – They don’t make them). I know a lot of other people dislike steel framing because it’s heavy, but in this area you need all the weight you can get when you’re setting up a canopy, so that’s what I’m getting. I managed to snag a good deal on-line for a tent with a much higher quality roof (500 Denier and UV protection, oh yeah!), solid walls, mesh walls, and I even got to pick a color for the canopy. *happy dance* To top it all off, it should be here in time for us to use at the Faire!

Despite how this all started, I’m pretty excited for this weekend. And I was cleared to take my torch and silversmithing supplies to the event, so long as I cordon off a little area for safety. So not only can you watch me link rings togather, you can watch me solder them, too. Let’s just hope it’s not too rainy so I can actually use them, eh?

See you there!

Yep – The Wild Rose Renaissance Faire is in THREE DAYS! *happy dance*

I’m super-excited, if you can’t tell! I’ve got some new things that have never before been seen by human eyes (I’ve been told I don’t count) and some crowd favorites. In addition to mailling, we’ve been hard at work disguising our plain white pop-up tent with some soft green brocades so that it looks nice. If it holds up well (and I think it will) I plan on using it at future events! ^_^ I’ll post pictures of our set-up when I get a chance.

As per usual, our Etsy and Facebook Fan Page on-line shops will be closed while we are at the Faire. Hope to see you there!

Welcome! I hope everyone had a fun time like I did, even though I didn’t get to wander around that much (and thank you Anne, for running around and being my personal shopper). I had a ton of fun talking with you guys and I hope my site can be of some use. I had some requests for info for my post-con post, so here it is:

On-Line and PayPal shoppers, my Etsy shop will be up and running on Tuesday. I need the rest of today (Sunday) to recover and Monday to go through my wares and do updating to reflect what was sold.

For those that wanted commissions and price quotes, you can e-mail me: brandyrabbitdance (at) gmail (dot) com I usually get back to people in a few days, but I can get to you faster if you can give me some vague measurements. My commission policy in a nutshell is: A non-refundable half down to start, and the other half when I’m finished. I have a calendar where I post commission times as well, so if you have a specific time you’ll need your item by I’ll make sure to allow for it.

I would like to put a huge plug here for my friend Kim, who stayed with us this past week and helped out while I prepared for the weekend. I thought I was attending the I Made It! craft show on Saturday so I was gearing up for that, but I was on the Dealer’s Room waiting list. We wandered about Tekko on Friday to take in the con and have some fun when lo and behold! An open spot in the Dealer’s Room! Kim gladly made dinner, watched the little one, carted in our heavy boxes, helped us set up… So if you didn’t see her in the Artist’s Alley or pick up a card for her website at our table, go to her site! She has an awesome webcomic as well. If you’re a 4chan wanderer she is the one behind the infamous “Angry Drunken Sailor Moon” drawing. So go to her site, look around, read the comics… She’s awesome in many, many ways. ^_^ You will not be disappointed.

And last but not least, I would like to thank all the cosplayers and other costumed folks walking about. You guys make cons so much fun!

And now I’m gonna sleep. Hopefully I’ll be more coherent later. ;P