Celebrating 92 followers!

YEAH! And after only blogging for a little over a year! I must say that I might find blogging a little more challenging now that the toilet seat carving business is no longer... However, there is always Allenbrite to play around with. But since it is more about Cheryl and not much about me, I guess I will be more like a Narrator. Still, it gives me something to do. I'll still try to post a little bit on this one as well. And, Of coarse, any carving or woodworking projects I might come upon. Thanks to all who have found me interesting enough to follow up to this point. For tonight's anime Karau Phantom Memory Opening. I have revisited this anime because Netflix is booting it off the watch instantly part of their website. So, I'm catching it one last time. It's a great Anime!

Fulton street Craft market. Results...

Ok, I was not going into this show thinking big to begin with, but It was moderately successful. The fact is that carvings just were not the "flavor of the day" there. Oh! I did get lots of compliments, even handed out a couple of business cards, but the real flavor of the day was my wife's Wristlets! She did awesome! Which means WE did awesome! So my carvings were not a hit there, I didn't really think they would be since it was an ongoing weekly market instead of a show or festival. I DID manage to sell one box, so I was not totally skunked. The crowd was pretty good and steady, and the show only lasted 4 hours at a cost of $10 to enter! ( pretty good deal if you ask me) They even provided 2 eight foot tables to help display your stuff. We have went to craft shows that were more expensive, less organized, and sold less than this one. ( to put this in perspective. I may have been a little over optimistic with my carvings because I could not even display them all! If we go again ( I doubt we will go to another one since it closes after next week) I may bring my carvings again, but I might show them off a little better. I still was not "feeling" the crowd there, but you never know who might drop in and buy something. Cheryl's story was much brighter, so you can read more on Allenbrite... Enjoy!

The Grand Haven Salmon Festival

So today Cheryl and I checked out the Grand Haven salmon Festival to see if the attached how was any good. It was Cheap ( $35 entrance fee) to get into but we heard about it too late. Well, on our tour, we saw some pretty cool art and carvings. The two carvers that I found were of opposite sides of the spectrum with hugely different styles. As you can see: One is VERY detailed. So detailed in fact, that his fish look more like taxidermy! ( I should know as an old taxidermist) They were very nice but almost looked like the fiberglass replicas you can buy from a taxidermist catalog. They were priced in the $400-$600 range from what we could find. ON the other side, was Bear claw Jack who keeps things rustic. I'm not sure if he uses chainsaws or chisels exclusively, but he was using chisels while at the show. We didn't catch any prices on his things, but I don't think they were as high as the other guy. There was also a marble top table maker, Very cool, but not sure if he made any sales since we saw no one lugging around a large stone top table at the show! All in All, the show looked small with plenty of foot traffic, I'm not sure if the people were buying but the salmon tent was $18 to get in to sample the food, and it was packed! Tomorrow is the show in Grand Rapids, Our car is loaded and ready. Oh! Some origami from yesterday that I didn't post, I'll probably have a lot of time to make some tomorrow. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Panels to the show

So since the panels are languishing on Etsy, And since Cheryl is going to a show this weekend, I thought I might show off a couple of my panels while we bake in the hot sun. I'm going to try to bring as many as I can, but I guess table space is limited so I might have to work on my presentation. The show is Sunday afternoon so we'll have to get up early and see how it goes. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report!

New Blog!

So tonight I started a new blog(http://allenbrite.blogspot.com/) in our new venture. Allenbrite was the company we started several months ago when we figured that toilet seats were on their way out. So I will probably be posting more there than here at the Midnight carver, Unless I do some woodworking or carving. As for tonight, I worked in my new shop for a little while making a couple of display stands for Cheryl's stuff for the weekend. Nothing fancy or special. Just functional. Come on over to Allenbrite and watch as Cheryl comes up with new designs and hear about our triumphs and failures. Oh! Tonight's Anime is S-Cry-Ed Not a bad Anime even if it is a little old. Enjoy!

What planet is this from? Star nosed mole.

So last night one of the cats, ( probably Hiro) brought us one of the strangest looking space creatures I have ever seen. I didn't take a picture of it so I had to find one online, But I knew what it was right away. ( I used to watch WAY too much discovery channel and animal planet) A Star Nosed Mole. Now, even though I knew what it was, I still have never seen one in person. What a strange looking beast! First of all, forget the nose, It has a LONG tail! I mean rat like! The voles, shrews and normal moles have only short stubby ones. Then it had these big meaty paws, I can't see how they can dig with them since they are so chubby! but they do have long claws, Then the nose, it looked like it had some nuclear genetic melt down forming a strange grown on it's nose. ( the nose was black BTW ,not red like most of the pictures online suggest.) Well, Cheryl didn't want the cats to eat it so I had to dispose of it before it started to smell. So mark one up for the strange and unusual night creatures. Hiro must have used this scare face to catch it!

The BIG MOVE! Fin!

So tonight we both finished up with out shops. I think it took me longer to get all my stuff set up, I would guess I had more "stuff" than Cheryl. Anyway I think it turned out pretty good. The cats approve! I will probably do some minor adjusting with the wiring and light placement later, but for now, at least all of the stuff is not all cluttered up. I'm happy that I managed to find a place to put stuff when I took my dust table apart. It held a lot of cluttered crap. There are a couple of shows this weekend where Cheryl and I are thinking about attending. We need a little seed money to help her fill out some orders she has lined up for her Wristlets. My new shop allows me to gaze upon some of my previous work. YEAH! For tonight's anime. We'll continue with School Rumble. Cheryl and I just finished season one. She now wants to move on to season two. Enjoy the closing theme of Season one!

The BIG MOVE! Part 2

OK so I started moving stuff out of my shop and cleaning things up a bit. I have to get out so Cheryl can get in. SO....Here are the pics of my dust bomb! Yes the walls are suppose to be kinda off white. Not really the brown that the dust makes them. We had a little challenge moving out my special custom made dust table. It would not fit out the door. SO... Plan B You probably guessed what plan B was. What do you do with the table after Plan B is implemented? That's right! TO THE FIRE! So now Cheryl is in charge of fixing the Swiss cheese walls and touch up painting. It is turning out pretty good at the moment. Cheryl currently is moving small bits of furniture in there so that she can work with the arrangement. Once her stuff is out of the garage, Mine will move into the open space. We'll think of the next step after that. For your Anime pleasure: School Rumble! It is a very funny show! I feel for Harima and think he shodul end up with Eri, the rich girl who hates his guts but is strangly attracted to him. Tenma on the otherhand is just clueless, and unatainable. But that is what he wants. Here's the openning. Enjoy!

The BIG MOVE! "Before" Pics!

Well, this week will be the beginning of a few changes around here. Namely we are retooling our business to match up with the changing times. And to start things off, we will be closing up my old shop and moving my stuff into the garage while we fix the place up for Cheryl's shop. I should say "Cheryl and Ethan's shop" since I will most likely be drafted for unknown manual labor. But bottom line is that the shop seen in the pictures before you, will be changed, so I'm posting the "before" pictures of the progress. I feel pretty good about it surprisingly, since for the past three years I've been doing all of my magic in this tiny little room. We'll see as the week goes by! Oh! And you should have seen it before I got it. Blue shag carpet is not the best for carving! I think Cheryl will find a really good use for the wood floor. Please note: This is a 12' X 12' room. Don't be fooled into believing it is this huge shop! If you remember me carving the bed, you will remember the challenge it was moving that monstrosity around this little room. So I may have to start a new blog to

begin the cataloging of the new shop and how it goes. For the Anime sellection, we have been watching Rah Xephon. A great anime about tuning the world with sound. Enjoy!

Listing the yellow bird!

Just listed the yellow bird on the cherry blossoms. It's true that cherry blossoms are not blue, but I just wanted to be different. Maybe it will match someones living room decor. Kind of a boring post tonight. Ah well, It's the weekend!