While I was out on Tuesday getting my hair coiffed and back to school shopping with my daughter, my website went down. I returned to find only two lonely emails in my in box and I knew something was amiss. When folks are surprised at how quickly I email them back, I explain that the volume of email in my inbox on a daily basis is such that if I don't email them back immediately chances are their email will be lost forever. Yes, it's that bad people.
I was scratching my head thinking that maybe it was just a slow email day or something was wrong with Yahoo. Then my mother called us to explain that she had emailed me twice and gotten a bounce back with a permanent error code.
Oh...that's not good.
Thank God for moms! If we didn't worry so much, nothing would ever get done. It took me a half an hour of poking around to find an actual phone number to call Yahoo. Is it just me or does everyone make it impossible to contact them these days?! Sheesh. While on the phone with a very patient customer service representative who was actually in America and not India (kudos to Yahoo for not sending their customer service overseas), we deduced the problem was with our website. We had it fixed and my website and email were back online by 8pm.
So really we're talking eight hours of no email. No biggie, right?
Wrong.
Yesterday I had no less than five people tell me they had attempted to email me on Tuesday. Who else emailed? Oprah? Martha? Publisher's Clearing House? The Travel Channel? One quarter of one day of email issues and I think I may have missed out on every golden opportunity I've worked towards for the past five years.
Damn.
I figured I'd post one last time about this situation in the slim hopes that anyone who emailed me Tuesday might Google me and end up here and give it another shot. What more can I do?
Email, the world's most highly imperfect form of communication has taken over my professional life. It is holding the key to my success or failure. One of my very important contacts in a new venture has a recently implemented spam filter that has decided my email is spam. This has me in a dither, what to do?! I tried emailing from my personal account, but who knows if it reached them. I mean let's face it, our emails may not reach their destination a good ten percent of the time and we have no clue. It's almost like sending out a message in a bottle. Then we sit around chewing our fingernails wondering why they've not responded or if they did and it got lost in the ethers or if maybe they don't like us and think us smelly.
I read recently that we spend so much time emailing people it's become the great modern time sucker. Probably closely followed by the text message, which is as far as I'm concerned like having a ball and chain around one's leg. People are obsessive about this texting, they're texting while driving, they're texting while conversing with other people...which is so far beyond rude it needs another category. It takes me ten minutes to text ‘OK' and quite frankly I'd like to keep it that way. We are far too connected and yet more disconnected than we've ever been. We have more pathways of communication, yet we have more communication epic fails than ever before. It's a conundrum to be sure.
We are going to the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee next week. This means no internet or computer for six glorious days. You can email me all you want but I won't email you back. Try not to take it personally, I won't email anyone else back either. I won't be able to approve comments or respond to them. I won't blog, Twitter, write on your Facebook wall, read your MySpace bulletins or participate in any form of viral marketing. I'll be sitting on a porch on a rocking chair sippin' some moonshine and pickin' a banjo. Then I'll be going to Dollywood and a few huge flea markets in search of some kick arse ephemera and vintage jewelry. We have an 8 bedroom three story cabin, but unfortunately none of our friends or family were able to come along. So it's just the three of us and our dog Mrs. Fellerbee. Our Amish neighbors will be caring for the pigs, chickens, tomatoes (which have cruelly waited to ripen until the week we're away) and watching our house to make sure all is well. Tomorrow I'll blog my weekly links and then it'll be no Madge until the 25th of August when I'll post more links and maybe a photo or two from our adventures and I will be another year older and hopefully wiser.
PLEASE DON'T FORGET! The deadline for 1MB or smaller jpegs of your Kewpie Doll Contest projects is due to my inbox by September 5th! margot@margotpotter.com
When Creativity Knocks. Back at Winter CHA I filmed a segment for Ana and Megan Araujo for their new web show When Creativity Knocks. It just this week dropped on the site, I guess on Tuesday when everyone in the free world tried to email me and got a permanent error code back. Ergh. My husband said the Pope emailed 3x and gave up. I thought that was pretty funny.
I just found out yesterday that my idol Julia Child is even cooler than I previously imagined. It's been revealed that she was an OSS agent...a female spy! HOW COOL IS SHE?! She wasn't always a cook you know. She was a journalist. She got married and moved to Europe and she studied cooking in Paris in her late 30s. It took her ten years to get her book published (in her late 40s) and then the TV show deal came when she was 50! Which just goes to show you that it's never too late to do anything you can imagine.
When I grow up, I want to be the Julia Child of crafting! "With enough glitter, anything is good." Madge paraphrases her idol Julia Child
PS: My friend craft and jewelry making guru supreme Tammy Powley has a free project on her blog today! Go see!
(Two quick pre-post heads ups: I've got 1-3am EST and 1-3pm EST Suspicion Marcasite shows tomorrow at QVC so I'll be back to blog again on Thursday! We're going on vacation next week so after Sunday the 17th there will be no further posts until we return on August 25th as I will be totally lacking in internet access! And for those of you who like to plan ahead, August 22nd is my most auspicious 45th Birthday, so that means only 9 shopping days left! I like ephemera, books, vintage jewelry, apothecary chests and other repurposable vintage storage units, craft supplies, sparkly things and shoes, in case you were wondering!)
Several weeks back I mentioned a special guest coming to the little school house to film a The Impatient CrafterTM video. Any of you who read her blog may already know, but those of you who don't (who should by the way because she rocks and she makes the coolest kid food and plushies I've ever seen)...those of you who don't may be scratching your heads and wondering who it is. Today after an epic editing effort by my ever patient hubby (and me) we have taken one hour of footage and carved it into a little over 9 minutes of craftertaining fun and frivolity!
So without further blather, we are overjoyed to present the one, the only, the delightful Jenny Harada! Jenny is shows us how to create our very own huggable, lovable and not too stiff Moldy Cloud Monster! Insert the roaring of the crowds here!
We had a good weekend, played some, did most of the editing on our new The Impatient CrafterTM secret guest star video, got some work done, cleaned my studio and unpacked boxes from manufacturers and my recent show demos. I wish I had a studio like Heather Bailey or Sally Jean Alexander, but alas and alack I do not. In my mind it is filled with deliciously distressed antique apothecary cabinets and funky armoires made from old barn wood, a huge old neon sign and some cool vintage sheet music and magazine images framed in funky old wood frames. In my mind I can find everything in a hot second and I'm dressed like Audrey Hepburn with perfect hair, a tiara and thick cat's eye liner and I'm dancing around in stiletto pumps and a wasp waisted floral chiffon dress while making absolutely fabulous creations.
This is in my mind.
In reality it's mostly cheap furniture from Ikea and Office Depot and I'm in rubber flip flops from Old Navy and a Tab t-shirt. There are boxes of crap that need organizing shoved under table tops and plain pine shelves bursting with disorganized findings in large plastic bags. My books have exceeded my book shelves and some are piled on top of others in a hap hazard manner. I have a strange array of vintage and natural trinkets and treasures in the windowsill in front of me and along the little raised shelves at the back of my long desks. Old necklaces and bead strands hang off of the tops of shelves along with aprons and purses. In short, though it's not a disaster zone, it's also not a candidate for a page in Martha Stewart Living or The Incredible Studios of the Design Stars.
Have I mentioned that cleaning is not my thing?
I buckled down and got the floors and the desk cleared off and it feels infinitely better in here. If it gets too cluttered I can't think anymore good thoughts. It's funny how much our environment can affect us. I think if you work or live in a chaotic environment it tends to spill over into what you're doing. I've become a huge fan of less is more, except in my shoe closet, but I digress. I'm blessed to have a studio in which to make my art and I don't forget that for a moment.
Life is good.
Until tomorrow, straight from my funky studio in the little olde school house...rock on with your bad selves.
TastyLinksTM Saturday Linky Love Moxie Energy, pep, courage, determination, know how. Chutzpah Unmitigated gall, generally unacceptable brazen behavior. In some types of business, it is regarded as an asset: a positive quality of heroic audacity or guts
Well...the big meeting went very well. WOO HOO! I went in there full of moxie, chutzpah and unmitigated gall and they seemed to be very impressed. This is only the first in a series of hurdles I'm going to have to leap before I actually have something concrete to share. Until then, it's mostly in my head and I have to convince a lot of other people that it's a viable proposition. Believe me, when I have something to share, I'll share. Until then, knowing you are all cheering me on is an amazing feeling. No dream ever comes true until you start moving the energy to make it happen.
This is a photo of me after the meeting in the bead aisle at our local Michaels. The books are still there, for how long I can't say, but it sure is cool to see them smack dab in the center of the aisle facing out so you see them as soon as you turn the corner. I surely hope folks are buying them!
A huge thank you to Brenda Pinnick for the mantra she gave me. I did feel like a rock star, in a denim suit with a giant poly clay poppy on.
A shout out to mixed media artist Ann Butler who is the person I'm signing a book for in our Crafty Rock Star video! Yay Ann! Check out her blog!
Huge THANK YOU to my dear friend Jean Yates for blogging about our MindBites Video win! Jean kicks down a mean blog and if you've not checked it out, ya should!
Big thanks to Crafty Chica who helped me begin to unravel the confusion that is getting a Press Kit out to the right people in the media this week. She's a smart cookie that Chica. You know, you can ask your local Michaels to order her products, it's a great way to help boost her new line!
I love her idea of making your brand into a three pronged Hollywood style pitch so here's what I came up with: Lucy meets Julia Child meets Ginger Grant...at Pee Wee's Playhouse. I had to add the fourth element because it gives it the perfect context. Isn't that a fun way to look at your brand?
It's time yet again for a heapin' helpin' of TastyLinks! Here's what the Crafty Bloggers have for your reading pleasure this week:
Aileen's Musings Come take a peek at MMCA Marketplace's Grand Opening! Peruse the talented artists' shops to see some fresh, new and exciting works of art! You will find jewelry, collage, purses, hand turned bowls, prints, fabric collages, assemblage and more. Also find out more details and enter Aileen's 2fer Blog Giveaway!
Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world The paper and fabric are flying this week with origami napkin rings, T-shirt jewelry, inchies set in hot wax, free envelope and Japanese paper downloads and even a recipe thrown in for good taste!
Layers Upon Layers Would you like to stretch your collage muscles to include more abstracts?
The Impatient Blogger The Impatient Crafter Presents: Summer CHA Fabulous Crafty Rockstars! Join Margot as she schmoozes with some of the craft industry's biggest celebs in this fun YouTube video!
Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Sweater Surgery Flower with a little Help from Sherri Haab's New Book- Felt, Fabric, and Fiber Jewelry
About.com Cross Stitch Get your creative juices flowing with these ideas for Cross Stitch Projects.
Crafty Princess Diaries That little voice inside of you has something important to say. Listen to it no matter if it has to do with crafts or your life in general.
Art Bead Scene Have you got something to say? Enter the Art Bead Scene's monthly creativity challenge to win some awesome prizes!
About Family Crafts There comes a time every summer when our thoughts must turn to going back to school... You can make it fun!
