Glorious Laborious

I've been sweatshopping myself like crazy in preparation for the Treasure Island Music Festival. I've hand cut thousands and thousands (no exaggeration) of fabric circles, had a bunch of help pressing them all, and have sorted each 'dot' according to which Vivi Dot product they'll become. It was truly a LABOR day weekend!

Lucky for me I was able to get some sun while I pumped out tons of dots. Check out my warm weekend set up below as well as our spread of summery refreshments.


Up next- My first trip to Montana for my sister's wedding this week! I'll be sure to post the many ways the lovely bride incorporated Vivi Dot into her wedding.

Now I'm off to work on my wedding toast!

Organization

I cleaned up and organized my fabric a while back and I just had to take a picture. This is a rarity and I’ll be the first to admit that my workspace is usually in various stages of disarray. Here’s the nice extreme -how I (and especially Duncan) would like it to look more often.



I refolded and organized my fabrics so they were perfectly stacked. This lasted about two days.

The office Duncan and I share has a lovely view of our garden (also known as Olive’s Garden). Here she is posing for this shot right next to the hot tub.


If you look straight down from the window you can see the area where the extra flowerpots are kept. This is also where Duncan goes to feel like a real man and chop the wood with his big manly axe. This area is hidden from the rest of the garden by a big wall of greenery so this is the best vantage point for the wood chopping action if you’re into that sort of thing.

Oxymoronic

Today's oxymoron is: sweatshop party**

Thanks to Allie and Summer for all of their hard work this past Sunday! They came over and helped me pump out a bunch of buttons for the upcoming Capsule show. We've coined the term 'sweatshop party' for these get togethers, but lucky for us the conditions are actually quite comfy. I had strawberries, veggies, crackers, horseradish dip, and bloody mary's waiting for them when they arrived. We also finished the long day off with a nice dinner at my new favorite sushi place, Shimo in the Richmond.

Now I've got a ton of gluing ahead of me and I'm hoping to completely redesign my booth set up before the big event. Speaking of the big event...
If you're in San Francisco on Memorial Day weekend make sure to come by the Capsule Street Fair on Sunday. I'm in booth number 1 on the corner of Hayes and Octavia. Duncan, Allie, Summer, Ryan and I will be hanging out, drinking sake from True Sake down the street, and slangin' Vivi Dot from 11-6.

Just to be overly, overly cautious and clear:
** Please note that Vivi Dot is wholeheartedly against sweatshops and would never force anyone to work in difficult or dangerous conditions. Everything from Vivi Dot is handmade with love, voluntary sweat, in the company of friends and sometimes fueled by an alcoholic beverage or two (though never enough to compromise our quality control).

And to hopefully offset my 'humorous' misuse of a very serious subject, please check out Sweatshopwatch.org. It's an organization aimed to empower workers and educate consumers about how to be a conscious shopper!

Save the Date!

My sister is getting married! Being the awesome, supportive sister that she is she wants to incorporate Vivi Dot as much as possible. This started out with the save the date cards. I've always thought that magnets that can act a reminder for the details of the wedding are a great thing to include with save the date cards. I thought I'd put a Vivi Dot twist to what's normally a flat business card sized magnet. My sister went to Paper Source (one of my favorites) and designed the note card with the '3 dots' in mind. She let me know what she wanted each magnet to say and then let me run with the rest of it. Here are some photos of the process and the finished product too:

UPDATE: related post located here.

Vivi Dot workspace:

We chose the round paper source labels for the addresses to keep the 'dot' theme consistent.

The finished product:


Save the date magnets- close up: