My friend Theresa from work is a great artist, which she never really told anyone until one day she was bored and decided to draw me.  I think she did a great job – looks like me a lot, doesn’t it?  She even incorporated my vests which I am so into right now.  I scanned it and did live trace in illustrator to turn it into a vector graphic.  I just love it!  Thanks Theresa for making me look so cute!

On other notes, it’s been way too long since I have written and updated you on all that’s going on!  Let’s see, last I think I wrote I was just leaving for my tradeshow in Philly.  The show went really well and we had a successful time.  I fell in love with Philly and want to move there if I could only take Denver’s weather with me.  I don’t think I could do the winters or summers there.  Too hot and too cold for me.  I’m continuing to move forward quickly with Funklectic.  Lots of holiday orders have been coming in during September and I expect October to be even busier.  I’ve got the girls busy making loads of earrings and necklaces to keep my inventory full.

A few weeks ago Marc and I discovered a reservoir up in Longmont where they have a dog beach that has water that’s clean enough for humans to swim in too.  We made 2 trips up there before they closed (they close Labor day for the season) and swam all day with the dogs.  It was such an amazing time!  Kavi definitely liked to swim more than Barak (he would only go in to where he could still touch, and only to cool down or “kind of” chase a ball) but they both had a great time and were pooped for a day and a half after.  We also just discovered a dog day care place that has a dog swimming pool open year round where you can take your dogs to swim for $5 each.  We’re going to venture over there this weekend weather permitting.

This past weekend my good friend Lindsey came into town from LA (our mom’s were in the same hospital room as they gave birth to us, so we have actually known each other since birth - crazy huh?).  We putzed around Denver and Marc did an amazing job giving her a tour (he spits out all this info as we drive around town about Denver and I just don’t know where he stores it all).  I was also excited to learn that she, like us, is a vegetarian so we took her to City ‘O City and Watercourse to eat.  She enjoyed both immensely.  On Sunday we went up to Golden Gate Canyon State Park per the recommendation of my boss Eric, and it was so awesome.  We hiked around and saw some beautiful sites up in the Rocky Mtns.  We also drove up to this neat area where you can see 130 miles of the continental divide.  Wow!  It inspired me to do more hiking (nothing too hard core though!) since we have such easy access to it.  We took the dogs too and they had a great time!

My friend Theresa (the same one who drew my picture above) started a blog - http://be.funklectic.com/.  We are taking pictures of our outfits everyday and then posting them and writing about them.  It’s a sort of style diary thing that we both have always wanted to do and finally can since we see each other every day at work!  When we are old and grey we can look back and think either “wow, I was super cute and funky” or “what the heck was I thinking wearing that out of the house”!  Hopefully it’s the former!  Ok, well I think I’m off for now.  Talk more later!

I started off my 4th of July holiday nice and relaxed in Glenwood Springs where Marc and I were visiting his parents.  Soon after our arrival I was suffering from extreme abdominal cramping.  It was finally so bad that we went to the hospital where they discovered I had some sort of abnormal mass in my abdomen and they would need to operate.  I was a little freaked out as I had never had surgery, but they said it shouldn’t be anything too bad.  That was Saturday night, so I slept there through the night with Marc at my side (the poor guy slept in one of those terribly uncomfortable hospital chairs).  Sunday AM I went into surgery (crying as they wheeled me in with thoughts running through my head of “what if I never wake up?”) and before I knew it I was in the recovery room and Marc was there immediately.  Everything went well and it turned out to be a cyst on my ovary that had ruptured (it was the size of a baseball!).  They got it all out and luckily were able to leave my ovary (they also removed my appendix so the good news is I’ll never have an appendicitis).  I stayed in the hospital one more day and with the amazing support of Marc I was able to go home on Monday night.  He was more than I could ever have asked for, calming me when I was in pain, getting the nurse for more medicine, and never left my side.  I am grateful to have such an amazing partner in my life.  I could not want more.  We drove home from Glenwood on Monday night as Marc had jury duty in Denver on Tuesday AM.  I was still feeling pretty groggy and in pain but the 3 hr trip wasn’t too bad.  I stayed home from work the rest of the week and by the end of it I was more sore from laying on the couch for 5 days straight than I was sore from my surgery.  Luckily they did it laproscopically so I only had 3 small incision.

I’m glad to report I’m pretty much fully recovered and back to the normal grind.  On that note I’ve been getting ready for my trade show next weekend in Philadelphia.  I am introducing some new products so I’ve been spending lots of time building new displays for them.  Plus, I got a corner booth (I signed up for the show a bit late and that was all they had left - I was stoked as they’re more expensive!) so I had to rethink my booth layout.  I’ve got it all figured out and am really close to being ready, although I do still have some things left to do - and we are already T minus 4 days…  I shall drink lots of coffee and not sleep very much.

Around the house things are good.  We are almost done tackling a major project which included scraping paint off the walls in one of the 2 bedrooms upstairs (it was red paint with black splatters on it - this is waht a guy does when he buys his first house…).  Once we had scraped all the paint, we had also scraped all the texture, so we rented a hopper from home depot (basically a drywall mud spitting machine that sprays texture on your walls) and after masking off the ENTIRE room, we sprayed texture.  Yesterday we painted 2 coats of primer, and today we shall paint 2 coats of paint.  Turquoise blue on 2 walls and dark brown on the other 2.  We got a nice new bed frame for a screamin’ good deal at this funky modern furniture store that was going out of business, it’s a platform bed with a dark brown headboard.  I love it - will take pics when it’s moved into the bedroom.  That also meant that we needed a new bed, as our last one was a full (can you believe - 2 adults and 2 dogs in a full bed?) and this one is a queen - can’t wait!  We got a memory foam mattress and I’m quite excited.  Tonight will either be spent on the new mattress or the couch, depending on how much work we get done (they hauled the old mattress away).  So speaking of, I better get back to the grind.  Hope that was a good update and sorry I’ve been MIA for so long.  I will try and post some pictures from the trade show and our new bedroom soon!

Until then…love, Heidi B

On another note, I’m slowly getting ready for my next show, the Buyers Market of American Craft (BMAC) in Philadelphia.  It’s much bigger than ACRE, the last tradeshow that I did and it’s also been around for 30 years and has a huge buyer attendance.  My expectations are high (I’m trying not to let them be but they just are) and I am excited as I’m debuting some new products.  First, I’ve been collecting those plastic credit cards that litter your mailbox from credit card companies for years, and was never sure what to do with them but knew I couldn’t throw them out.  Good thing because I finally found a use!  I did tons of research and got lots of quotes (some way out of my budget) but finally found a cool company to make me a punch in the shape of a guitar pick, and I’m turning the credit cards into earrings!  So on that note, if you have any lying around or are interested in collecting them instead of tossing them into the trash, please get in touch and I will take them off your hands!  Check out some of the designs:

I’m also taking some vinyl records to my laser cutter this week and am getting guitar picks cut out of those for earrings.  I’ve been wanting to introduce a green line to my earrings for quite some time but was never really sure and I didn’t want it to be something that I forced to be green, or did it just because it was green, but was something that I truly believed in and thought was a cool product.  Finally I have come up with two, and I’m really excited about both.  I’m also adding a line of guitar pick necklaces with chains made from broken guitar strings.  It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while and am finally getting around to.

Alright, well I’m off now to finish off a few things and then get to bed.  Good night!
Heidi B

I also am learning how to use Quickbooks, which has been such an amazing asset to my business. I can’t tell you how much easier it is to manage my finances, see how much money I’ve made (I’ve already made more in the first 5 months of this year than I made in all of last year!), see how much I’ve spent (ouch, but I’m still doing some major investing in my business, especially considering that I had major expenses for ACRE since I had to build my tradeshow booth for the first time). I had to hire a tutor to get everything set up because I couldn’t figure out how to use certain things (like inventory tracking) for the life of me, but it was great because we had a 2 hour session and she got me all set up, so I’ll be starting from a strong foundation instead of realizing in a year that I set everything up wrong and having major problems to fix. So it’s all good and I feel much better about how I’m handling Funklectic’s finances.

Work is good, did I tell you I got a job in the fashion department? I’m now working full time as a fashion designer, and it’s been fun. I’m learning tons about all the steps and aspects of producing a full line - cool!

I dyed my hair too - nothing new and exciting, but since my friend Jason moved away (Aveda hair stylist who used to dye my hair for super cheap) I haven’t wanted to cough up the money to get it done, so after some tips from my hair dresser (how great is she to give me tips on how to dye my hair at home!) and some confidence from my coworker Theresa (who also periodically cuts her own hair - now that’s somewhere I don’t think I’ll ever go) I bought the dye and did it. Just a dark reddish color, and it came out nice, but it was so easy I’m getting tempted to go crazy and do some fun stuff…we shall see though, I want to take it slow. I’ve gotten carried away with my hair before and then looked back at pictures and wondered what the hell I was thinking. Funky yet tasteful, funky but in a “hey that’s cool and fashionable” way, not “hey that girl looks like she’s in high school and rebelling” sort of way, you know what I mean?

Ok, well I’m pooped. I was at work until 7pm tonight and tomorrow will surely be a long day as well - at least it’s the weekend after that.

Toodles!

Heidi B

Thanks dad, you rock!!!

http://www.funklectic.com/acre/

The show was an amazing and absolute success. I wrote orders, met great folks, learned more than I ever could have imagined, and had a blast. I got into some new states, including North Carolina & Alaska, plus I have some great leads that I am going to follow up on this week or next. Ah sales calls, you gotta love em! The other exhibitors were amazing and had great advice, ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism about my products & booth. The feedback I got from them alone was worth the venture out to Vegas for the show, and I look at all the orders I got as a bonus. I had gone into the show thinking that worst case scenario I’ve invested in a learning experience and this was a time to get my feet wet in the trade show world, but I came out totally ahead on every other level too. I learned about a show in Philadelphia in August that is much bigger and more established than ACRE and I even got to meet with their rep out there to discuss the possibility of me doing that show. It’s juried and hard to get into, but she seemed to like my product line, the ideas I have about the direction I want to take some of my products, and thought that I had my path pretty clearly set. More on the show later, and I’m going to post some ideas on how to do a tradeshow booth on a budget as I really could have used that when I got ready for mine, but luckily Marc is ingenious and thinks of the best ideas!

Other things that are going on…changes at work are happening but I’ll touch on that later. I’m prototyping some new products and have some really great ideas about a few new things I’m going to be making. Get ready because they are going to be kick a$$!!!

Oh, one thing I did forget to mention - Marc bought me a new laptop as a nice treat (he got a pretty good discount at work but it was still an amazing gift!). My old one was so slow and clunky, and for the amount of time I spend on the computer, I was really wasting a lot just waiting for the computer to process the smallest project. I’m a believer of “well it still works so I don’t need a new one” and was too cheap to buy a new one. It was too painful for him to watch me work on it, so I got a new one (yay!!!) and it’s amazing, super fast and has already paid itself off in the amount of time it saves me when I’m doing work. Here it is:

All right, well I have to check some of my inventory and see what I need to order to fill all of my orders… I can’t tell you how glad I am that I have some great girls helping me to make my earrings - there’s no way I could physically do it all! Thanks Margaret & Cindy! Toodles! Love, Heidi B

It’s those over the door shoe storage thingies. Each one has 24 pockets, so I got 4. I’m trying to stock 10 of each pair, so as you can see, some of them look quite full. I always knew these would take off!

I’m also getting my vinyl record cuffs cut for me now, which is great since they were so labor intensive to do myself and the quality wasn’t always quite where I wanted it. I’m picking up 100 cut records tomorrow - all I have to do is shape them! Woo hoo! QUite a relief that I don’t have to cut them all by hand any more!

Ok, well I’m off to do some more work! I ahve already had quite a productive evening, but my list still has things to do on it, so I shall continue on my merry way.

Toodles! Heidi B

My sole concentration lately has been preparing for my tradeshow, ACRE. It’s coming up so soon (we leave April 24th) so I’m trying to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. I just got my custom guitar picks (they’re hot pink pearlized with my logo in black on them and they look HOT!!) in the mail, my 5×2 foot vinyl banner (it looks SOO good - I can’t beleive how well it came out, all for $34.95 - gotta love cheap online printing). I’m working on getting my guitar pick earring collection completely finalized. I’m dropping some styles that just never took off and adding some new ones. I’m going to make a new high end line using all sterling silver components and swarvoski crystal beads. I need to get these all done soon, photographed and retouched so I can put them in the catalog I’m printing (which needs to be laid out and printed before the show). I’m also working with a great company here called Stryker by Design - they are helping me with my vinyl record purses. We’re doing some prototypes on different ways to attach the handles and sew the bags, then they’re going to make my samples for the show. Needless to say this is all keeping me swamped in addition to my full time (actually often more than full time, last night - FRIDAY - I was at work until 8pm! Argh…) job. Nonetheless I like my job, my life, my family, my friends and everything else I’m involved in and surround myself with, so I suppose I don’t really have too much to complain about.

Last weekend was a mass production guitar pick earring making party at my house (ok, so the party only involved Marc and I, but was it was a major assembly line production). I’m actually going to start looking for someone to make my earrings for me, so if you are interested or know someone in the Denver area, get in touch! I got 3 huge wholesale orders the week before that I had to fill. One of these was from Hudson, they own the Hudson News stores that you see in all the airports. They ordered a ton of stuff for their Memphis stores, so hopefully it goes over well and they decide they want more stuff for their other stores. Anyway, I was excited because it was my first order from “corporate America”!

Oh and a few weeks ago Fancy Tiger had their grand opening for their 2nd store, where I was one of the featured designers. I brought along some of my greatest models, Molly and Michelle, who wore my outfits and mingled with peeps all night. I sold a dress and a shirt, so all in all I was happy. My other wears are currently for sale at Fancy Tiger, so go check them out if your in the need for some funky fashions for spring!

Alright, well I’m off to get some work done as I finish my 3rd cup of dang good coffee.

Toodles! Heidi B

I just spoke with Chris Lawhead this weekend and we decided to push the Mixed Bag Festival back to the fall. I can’t tell you how releiving that is for me. We were talking about doing it end of May, and I was really stressing that it was going to be too close to my tradeshow (ACRE) in April. Who knows how many orders I’ll have to fill after that - hopefully a lot!

Oh, and you know what I think I forgot to talk about? Pool and Magic! No, not the swimming kind and the pull a rabbit out of your hat kind, but the tradeshows! I’m going in Feb w/ Matthew from Fancy Tiger. I’m so excited to check out those shows, I think it will be a great learning experience for me and give me some wonderful ideas for my show in April.

So I think that’s most of what’s going on. Working on getting my vinyl record bracelets and purses made for me. They are just getting too labor intensive for how many I need to make. That will be so great when I have people making those products for me! Finally! I’ve been waiting for that day for a long time!

Ok, I need to go spend some time in my studio. Toodles!

Love, Heidi B