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A wee bit of catch up to do here I’m afraid. First off, in my own defence, I’ve worked on average 75 hours per week since my last blog post. To put it in perspective, that’s more than twice what the average person works in a week. When I work an eight hour day, I feel like I’m getting off at lunch time. So, think about it… what does that leave time for? Well, I have to sit down and pay bills, make invoices, go to the bank, and get groceries. I have to make meals for my daughter and I, clean up after, feed my cat, do laundry, and vacuum. I have to shower, dress, sleep and do pilates. I have to fill Buggy Bag orders, tweet and post to the Buggy Bag fb page. Yeah… you get the idea…there’s not been a whole lot of time left to blog! I’ve been off now for 2 weeks. Some of that time was spent recuperating from the last 5 months. Some of it was spent blowing off steam with my friends. I went to the Cloverdale Rodeo, several parties and over to the island for a night.
I’ve sold out of Large size Black Lap Blankets! I’ve put in a new PO with the factory and should be receiving the new shipment by September, just in time for the cold weather. Toys ‘R’ Us (.ca) has increased their re-oder amount steadily since they took on the stroller and jogger blankets, so that’s good news for me, however, I still can’t for the life of me find the product through any search on their site!!! I wonder how they’re selling them.
I missed the Abilities Expo at the Roundhouse this year because I was working on a movie, which upset me, because I really enjoy that event. I did get to go to the Recreational Resource Fair at GF Strong
though, which was really fun. The pic above is of David from Vivify. It was nice to see his big smile from where I was sitting this year. I also, had a great chat with the author of a blog called Priority Seating. Check it out.
I have done more than that, obviously, but, it’s past my bedtime, so, that’ll be for another day.
I look forward to this each year, and this, my third year was no different. (more details on the project in last years post) I got up early (for a Sunday), got showered and dressed in black with my jewels and headed downtown to the Rennaisance Hotel. It was a glorious, sunny Vancouver morning as I cruised along Hastings St. with a big smile on my face. A cup of coffee, good music, sunshine, the expectations of a fun-filled day, compiled with the fact that the big vehicle cruising along beside me, contained an unusually comfortable looking passenger.
This year Deb told us that the parkade across the street was only $6 on Weekends, so I pulled up in front of the Hotel and unloaded my two sewing machines and my sewing kit, went to park and then skipped back across the street into the Hotel Lobby. One of the guys there gave me a hand up to the event, which was great, because I would have had to make 2 trips otherwise, since my coffee was taking priority.
Every year the alterations area is set up on the stage by Deb, the day ahead, then everyone who comes brings a machine or two. I was the last one to arrive and I think there were about 10 of us this year. It’s alway so much fun to see everyone, and it was particularly nice to be asked by several people how the Buggy Bag business is going. We had a chance to catch up with each other for the first half hour and then it was dress time!
The entire Ballroom is transformed for the day. There are racks and racks of dresses and suits, tables and tables of shoes, accessories, undergarments, there are hair stations and make-up stations, rows and rows of change rooms and food and drink stations. It is amazing.
Our job is to alter the dresses that the girls pick out. Our team is made up of volunteers who are professionals in film costume, or the garment industry. Deb does all the fittings and then hangs the dresses up where we then choose which one we want to work on.
Here’s a picture of Deb at work marking a dress for alterations.
Here’s a shot of Petra working on a silver lame dress.
I think it was while I was working on this dress that a very sweet ‘godmother’ came up to me and said, “I’m looking for the dress my ‘goddaughter’ picked out… it’s got a crinoline and glass beads”. I looked around the room and smiled back at her and asked… “can you give me any more detail?” Then she laughed, as she realized she had described all the dresses that were up there.
Here’s a shot of me working on the pretty lace dress with six layers of tulle to be hemmed.
Here’s Ruth, enveloped by frothy tulle….
Often we had to get down on the floor to get the hem straight through all the layers. Here’s Rosalie doing just that.
Here’s a picture of Sarah and Jayne working together on a piece.
One of the team, I wanted to take a picture of because she had the cutest shoes with tape measures for bows on. Her name was Kathryn and she designs very elegant bridal wear.
All the photos with black frames were taken by the incredibly creative Enigma Arcana Designs.
The whole day ends with a wand with a chocolate star on the tip… a thank you from the amazing organizers of the Cinderella Project.
A whole week has gone by already since the shoot… I feel bad that I haven’t talked about it yet, I’ve been really busy this week… fittings for SGU, alterations, volunteering at the Wheelchair Rugby Games, getting fitted for contacts… many stories to come!
Last Friday, Rina from LiddleWorks, organized a photo shoot, so we would have some more shots for the new website. I don’t know how she did it, but, it all came together really fast and without a hitch. We had seven models, a dog, a photographer and Rina and me. Rina chose a wonderful park just to the east of Granville Island. It’s got a duck pond, a wooded area, and sea wall with city background. We got some really different looks without having to change locations.
Georgina, and Duncan were the first to arrive. Duncan was fairly worried when Georgina was off with the photographer…. he stayed with me at our work table/bench and whimpered while keeping a close eye on her. Duncan is a working dog and he obviously takes his job seriously. Although, I have to say, I had a hard time taking him too seriously. I’ve never seen such “puppy dog eyes”… dark brown pools…sooo, cute!
This was kinda funny… Derek was trying to get Duncan to go back over to to Georgina… Duncan had other ideas about how the day was going to go…
Sylvi was the second model. Now there is some talent, and I’m not referring to her modelling, although she was great at that! She is a multi-talented performer and composer of modern music. Sylvi has generously offered to let us use her music on our site, which we certainly will when we get to that point in its development.
The next models were a team, my friend Samantha and her darling little Elizabeth, who is now about 10 months old. Elizabeth is just one very patient child. We had her in two different strollers and lots of pics were taken, she gave us smiles and was just a great model…. (so were you Sam)
June and Ken showed up next and went off with Derek while I hung around the table with our stuff.
Kent was the last one for the day and while Derek was shooting with him, Rina and I packed up all the things we had brought and folded up the table and started to move in the direction of the cars.
It was a good day. The light was flat, the rain held off, and there were lots of laughs. I feel so lucky to have such great people coming into my life…. Thanks to all of you…Rina, Derek, Georgina, Sylvi, Sam, Elizabeth, June, Ken and Kent… oh, and Duncan! …and of course Lydia from the British Columbia Paraplegic Association for helping us with the model search.
It’s been how many days since my last post?… Wow, 3 weeks, too long… Today, was the first full day I’ve been off in at least three weeks, but, I’m thinking that in reality it’s more like 6 weeks. I can’t really remember. What have I been doing?… I can’t really remember that either, but, I’ll try.
Let’s see… oh yeah, 26 costumes for Red Riding Hood, 9 costumes for Fairly Odd Parents, one suit, with long coat for Jim Byrnes‘ character on Sanctuary, 2 jacket linings for my friend, 10 pairs of pants for Sanctuary, 6 T-Shirt for Stargate Universe, and a skirt for myself…I draft the patterns, cut them out and construct them, so it’s fairly time consuming. As you know, I’m also working on my Buggy Bag® business, which has, for the most part been phone calls, emails, filling out forms, approving samples, Trademarks, Patents, manufacturing, Stuffed Articles Act Registrations, Duty Judgements, PO’s, Proforma Invoices, working with designers on hang tag designs, trying to line up bridge financing….shelling out much, much money…. which leads us to the real reason that I haven’t taken any time off. I need to finance my business start-up costs and, support my daughter and myself, at the same time. The build up to this falls commercial airing and it’s outcome is absolutely exciting! I have put so much into this thing… especially the wheelchair lap blanket, that I just can’t wait to get it out to more people. The feed back on last falls batch was so positive, that I just know that this falls’ line is going to be met with even more enthusiasm….it’s even better than before! The Stroller and Jogger models are really looking fantastic too. The commercial is going to focus mainly on them, with a 10 second spot on the wheelchair. The idea is to get a demographic read on the market based on the purchases made, through 150, 1 minute spots… This is going to be really interesting.
Because I work as a contractor, for the film and TV work that I do, I feel compelled to take everything I can possibly manage to do, and sometimes it gets so busy that I don’t see any time to relax… this has been one of those periods. It’s great though, because it is one of the things that I simply love doing.
Ok… well, that’s not quite true… even if I haven’t had a day off, I’ve taken many evenings to enjoy live music, dancing, friends and playing my guitar…. it’s just sometimes hard to squeeze all this fun into one lifetime!
Before I go, I just have to say that last night I went to see a Cuban band by the name of Wil Campa…. an absolutely sexy band and music… fantastic…. Which leads me to my next question… Why don’t more men learn how to dance cuban salsa? It is sooo sexy and at most events there are usually about 4 women to every guy. Last night the place was full of women wanting to dance… here is a link to a fantastic Cuban dance instructor if any of you guys want to learn… Latidos!
Last Saturday night, 3 of my girlfriends, my brother and I, went to the 2010 Spring Frolic. It’s a fundraiser for the InterFit Integrated Fitness Society in North Vancouver. If you’ve ever come to visit Vancouver, or you are lucky enough to live in this amazing place, you know, that there is nothing that takes you closer to the wonder of this planet than a walk in our great forests. That is what the Integrated Fitness society is all about.
We got all dressed up and headed out to the Delbrook rec Centre. I didn’t know what to expect, because I had never been to one of their events before. The event used two large rooms, one of which was decorated in a magical way with twinkle lights and tables of 6 or 10, each with white linens and the most lovely floral arrangements. The floral arrangements were mostly indigenous flowers, placed into a wide bamboo tube… really beautiful. Surrounding two sides of the dining room were about 10 gambling centres… if that’s what you would call them… there were Black Jack tables and Roulette and Craps and a few other games…. by now, you probably have guessed exactly how many times I’ve gambled… well, I did win 10 cents when I was in Vegas at a slot machine! Anyway, it turned out that I had some kind of magic touch with the dice that night and ended up winning $500! When we arrived at the event, we were given $300 worth of “funny money” to gamble with. It was so fun! There is something really great about gambling with pretend money…. I just loved it.
One end of the room had a stage where Adam Woodall entertained. I really enjoyed him. I had never heard him before and am pleased to say that he was really great… and, as a one man band, he had people up and dancing. Nice work.
The other room harboured the food, and the silent auction items. I had put a few Buggy Bag Lap Blankets in, so I was hoping they would get some action. Both of them sold and I got to meet both of the people that bought them, so that was really cool. It’s always exciting to get to talk to and meet the people that use the product.
There was also a live auction with a very good auctioneer. What makes a very good auctioneer you ask? Well, to me, if I can understand what they are saying… they’re good! MC Denny Williams also had my girlfriends and I chuckling numerous times…. oh, yes, and, did I mention the bar tenders? There’s something about a man in a Tux…. 🙂
My only regret about the evening, is the fact that I got so wrapped up in the fun, friends and food, that I forgot to take pics for my blog… I did put a plea out to people, for some shots, and, if any come, I will insert them later… sorry! Pics are always the best part, especially when you are weeding through the banter of my brain….
… come to the next event… I’ll be the one blowing on dice at the craps table!