Loose, but demure produce

I have some old news from South Dakota if anyone is interested.  Maybe?  Come on.  So there's a store in the town I'm from called The Plaza.  At The Plaza, you can get gas, buy groceries, beer, household goods, meat cut by the Meat King of Whitewood (who is also my step mom's dad), basically any of your legal vices except hard alcohol, etc.  The Meat King makes the BEST BACON, which is one of the many reasons I am proud to call him Papa.  My favorite part of this is that he is not really old enough to be my papa.  I found this incredibly hilarious.

Anyway, while I was in South Dakota at the beginning of the month, I stopped in to buy myself lunch one day.  I think I got a roast beef sandwich, some chips, and a fistful of my favorite fizzing delicacy, Zotz.  Dear universe please give me the power to ignore my yearning to purchase a whole box of Zotz on Amazon amen.

I found myself in the produce section and noticed one of the vegetable names was spelled wrong, then I started reading the rest and discovered they did it on purpose.  Check this out, ya'll.



Coleslaw for lazy folks!  Perfect!  No thanks, but great marketing.



They also have a whole section dedicated to helping people with pesky vampire problems.



The peppers were marketed as Shrek's teeth.



And my personal favorite, loose but demure braeburn apples.

I should probably send Kris in once a week to be my produce investigative reporter.

I hope everyone is having a super happy long weekend.  Chainsaw and I celebrated our FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY yesterday.



Here is our official five year anniversary photo.  My very favorite anniversary photo was the official two year anniversary photo.



Anywho, I've got to get ready for my dear friend Glory Hole's 24th birth anniversary tipi celebration located in The Middle of Nowhere, Mountain Division, Colorado.  Party on, Wayne!

The Triumphant Tale of the Cat Maxi

As I may have mentioned, I've been on life vacation (ok, just lazy) for at least a week.  It's been pretty luxurious.  My house is kind of a mess, but we all know I'm not good at getting my chores done unless my mom is ordering me anyway.  I interrupted my week of laziness to actually do something.

I briefly mentioned that I am sick in love with cat clothes.  I haven't exactly been secretive of my cat love in these parts or in any parts of my life if we're being honest.  So I made myself a maxi cat skirt the other day, using a vintage jersey with a large cat print.

I know you guys want to hear all about it because I got a notification from Facebook saying my recent post "Oops, I just made a new cat skirt." was performing better than 95% of the rest of my posts.



Oh yeah!  Here I am rocking it!  Foto by Felix.

One of the very, very last things we did in Brooklyn before catching a car to the airport was go to this cool vintage shop close to our apartment.  I pretty much stopped buying vintage clothes on account of I have infinity and don't really wear them, but when my eyes met this pile of fabric on a shelf, I was super excited to see what it is.  There are also witnesses to me exclaiming, "Kitties!"  I picked it up, and it was probably two yards of this glorious cat jersey that I simply had to take home.  I held it up on my body and knew its destiny.



Um, yeah.  My only annoyance with this fabric is that the cat faces aren't all in one direction.  I had to choose if I wanted purple or tan cats to be upside down.  It was a hard choice, and Chainsaw was of absolutely no damn help.  Pretty sure he thinks it's a crazy skirt, but I'm pretty sure he knew I was crazy when he married me (he'd already had around 4 years of experience).  I only used half, so the universe only knows what's in store for the other half.

So now my life is a little more complete in the cat skirt department.  I am now the owner of three:  a mini (made it myself, it's floating around on here somewhere), an above the knee, and a maxi.  CAT SKIRTS FOR EVERY OCCASION!!

In case I haven't shoved enough cat biz in your face, here is an awesome picture I caught of my kitties (who are mostly friends again).



Ok, let's make it two!



I also got to pet that gigantor calico that was the start of all the cat fighting ruckus, whom I refer to as Big Bad Bertha, this morning behind our garage.  She was a first degree lover, practically pounding her head against my hand and rubbing all over me.  So I forgive her for inciting drama in our dojo.

Peace outside!

Things I'm good at lately:

In case you guys were thinking that I'm only good at making wallets and talking about wallets, YOU'RE WRONG.  Some other things I'm good at lately in no particular order include but are not limited to the following:

1.  Not calling my mom.  Dude.  My mom got on facebook, which she pretty much uses only to spy on her 10 friends who are pretty much all family members who reside in the same town as her.  DAMN, girl is up to 41 friends!  So there I was, on my way home from a 2 Bloody Mary brunch (at lunch time, yo!), minding my own hangover (we'll get to that), when my phone makes a beep like I got a message on facebook.  I did.  It was from my mom, telling me that a good daughter calls her moms sometimes.  AHHH!!  That's what text messages used to be for!  Also, just call, mom.  It would have taken less time than writing a facebook message on your phone!  I'm making her wait for my call until tonight on principle.

Sorry mom, I'm busy playing Chippendale's Go Fish for creepy cards with lady's hands on dude's faces.

2.  Dranking a whole bottle of "Fermented Jooose."  You guys might know it as wine.  I have been pretty bad at being a grown up booze-wise lately.  And by that I mean I pretty much don't drink unless Chainsaw takes me out to lunch.  Then I have two drinks and the rest of my day is spent on the couch wishing I was taking a nap, but how can you nap when there is tv to watch?!  I'm also really good at drinking on vacation, but mostly I ain't into it.  Saturday night we went to our friends' house for Bring Your Own Meat and also Bring Your Own Beer night.  I had successfully spent the whole day in my pajamas feeling bloaty all day Saturday, so I decided a nice cheap ass wine would be a good companion to my mood.  Wine and fancy wieners.  Ok, BRATS, but fancy ones, bitches.  Anyway, the point of this story is that I drank a whole bottle of $8 voignier that was on sale for like $7.35.  The last time I drank a whole bottle of wine in one night was a fateful night in Paris.  I threw up for hours under the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower.  Chainsaw and Laura said some army looking guys with big ass guns even stopped to see if I was cool, and they said yes, hoping the army guys wouldn't notice that there was a white wine vomit lake around our trusty park bench.  Almost 9 years later, and I'm way better at drinking a whole bottle of wine.  Didn't puke once!  Although I did spent like 5 hours drinking it instead of 15 minutes like that time in Paris.

Here is me being a grown up taking shots at the nudie beach a couple summers ago so you know that I'm good at this shit.

3.  Wearing my pajamas all day.  I briefly touched on this in number 2, but I am giving it its own point. Right now I'm wearing my pajamas.  Some days I wear my pajamas until bed time, when I take them off to put on clean pajamas.  Boom!  I make an effort to get dressed at least a few times a week.  I can't believe I did it before noon yesterday after all that wine, but there were pancakes with BACON IN THEM and 99 cent Bloody Mary's at stake.  I whore-bathed and threw on a cat shirt, a touch of concealer, and then rubbed my eyes really good so Saturday night's eyeliner would give me that sexy Sunday morning hangover smudge.  This got all messed up.  It was supposed to be about my close personal relationship with pajamas.

Here is a picture of me from last year.  I look like I'm probably wearing pajamas.  Why am I not doing daily pajama outfit posts?  Right now I'm wearing a large Found magazine shirt with pink plaid pants.

4.  Wearing clothes with cats.  Can you believe my luck that shit with cats on it is trendy right now?  Thank you thank you thank you universal fashion overlords.  While on vacation, I bought no fewer than 3 items of clothing with cats on them.  Once cat dress, check.  Cat skirt, check.  Weirdly shaped cat tank top thing that's cool right now, check.  I can also recall with vivid detail how psyched I was to buy my super sweet laser leopard tshirt right before my birthday in addition to my leopard print sweatshirt.  Come on fall, mama needs to be wearing that sweatshirt all the times again.  Be forewarned, I'm probably going to have to do a cat wardrobe post in the future.  I can't wait for the trend to be out so I can be the only one rocking pussy gear.  Some day!

Nice kitty!  (I know that ain't no kitty, ok?)

Ok, I'm also good at being done with this post.

NYC Adventure Time

Chainsaw gets to go to New York for work all the time.  ALL THE TIME.  Ok, I'm exaggerating.  But probably like at least once per year.  He always talks about taking me with him, but these trips are usually over the school year.  Living 400 miles from my family means that I can't possibly go on a trip during the school year without Felix, short of leaving him home alone with a cupboard full of fruit snacks and cereal and leaving the milk on a lower shelf in the fridge.  Probs shouldn't do that, right?  I mean, he doesn't know how to work an alarm clock yet.

Anyway, Felix spent approximately a month in South Dakota this summer, terrorizing my family and catching frogs.  So Chainsaw and I went to New York City and had a heck of a good time.



Here is me being a boss in Times Square.

We rented an apartment across the street from Prospect Park, which was beautiful.  First thing we did was explore the park in the blazing sun.  Ok, second thing.  First thing we did was drink beer and eat mac and cheese (me) and a fish sandwich (Chainsaw).  Then we went to the park, where we watched a swan take a bath in a lake.  It was like a cat bath online with feathers and a longer neck.  Then a mom duck and her ducklings walked right by us.  The ducklings pecked at my shoes and shit, no lies.



Let's see.  We went to Mood, which was AWESOME.  I don't sew a lot of clothes, which is predominantly what their fabrics are for, but I did find some nice remnants and bought some expensive yards of super long fringe.  I hope to turn that into a slutty, fringy skirt in the future.



My fave part of Mood was the leather section, in which you could purchase a whole anaconda skin, a whole zebra (with face!), a fox's tail, a cow skin.  Pretty much whatever if you have a zillion doubloons.



We rented some bikes and spent a few hours biking around Central Park.  First awesome thing I saw was BALTO!  You guys know Balto, right?  He led the sled dog team in Alaska that brought the medicine to save the sick folks?  There was an animated movie that I loved as a kid.  Now Felix loves it as a kid, and I was psyched to see this fellow in all his statue glory.



We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was pretty rad.  Then we got lost trying to find the metro station on the other side, but you know, whatever.



So we mostly just walked around everywhere to see as many things as we could and hang out with as many awesome people as possible.  We also ate all the delicious foods, and I was a bloated mess jonesing for a home cooked meal at the end of the week.  My favorite feasting was brunch feasting because the bloody mary is a savory nectar of the gods that is acceptable to drink for breakfast.

Today is the first of school, so I'm off to enjoy my first day of quiet in the house.  I was SUPER LAZY yesterday, and no promises anything much different is going to happen today.  I've been so busy since we got home that I think I straight up deserve some laziness.  I better get busy on that!  Peace outside!

Big Butter News and Festival in the Park Pictures

I'm combining my Big Butter News with pictures from the Festival in the Park because I don't have any pictures of the news.  Sometimes you can take legit news photos, but in this case, unless you want screenshots of my email and dramatic recreations of conversations with my grandma (oh shit, you probably do want that!), I don't have photos of this news.  Oh man, are you guys bored?



Well here is me at the Festival in the Park being a certified Booth Boss, rocking a galaxy print body suit (which was perfect when my mom suggested I untuck my shirt), and standing next to my dad's half naked girlfriend.  Half because she's half a lady and naked because that's how she was until I decked her out in my shorts (with pins to hold them on, because girl is skinny).  For the record, my dad harbors no romantic feelings towards her.  She lives in a dark corner of a storage room, and I call her his girlfriend because it annoys him.  He taught Felix annoying things while he was there in payback, so we're even.

Ok, Big Butter News interjection.  I quit my day job in June.  Not necessarily to work more on Hot Butter, but the universe is definitely pointing me in that direction.  I worked for a month to get ready for the Festival in the Park, went to the festival in South Dakota, and then went on vacation to New York City with Chainsaw for our first no Felix vacation not involving a wedding since our Honeymoon.  Then I drove back to South Dakota to retrieve Felix and hang out with my crew.



Seriously, check out this crew.  That's Felix, my uncle, and my dad out at my uncle's mobile castle.  I have the best crew.

Since I've been home, I've had three separate wholesale offers in addition to a new consignment possibility.  So far, I've only worked with shops on consignment, and wholesale is apparently a whole new ballgame.  In the past, I've treated HB more like a hobby than a job, and I priced my items at a number that felt right to me.  In order to get this wholesale ball rolling and actually make this worth my while, I'm going to have to raise my prices a little.  It's not going to be a huge raise, but I just wanted to let you know.



Here she is again in case you were getting bored.  This is kind of a long post.

Anyway, I feel pretty confident that I'm making the right decisions to take HB to the next level.  I'm raising my prices a little bit after my 5 year anniversary sale, so now is the very best time to pick up some Hot Butter.  Use code HBis5 (the "is" is officially in all caps on the site, but the I looks dangerously 1 like, so I'm warning you.  it probably works in lowercase too, just covering my bases).  If you're personally set on HB, they also make awesome gifts if you're going to be needing any in the future!



Oh man, I'm almost sorry that every Festival in the Park picture I have features this lady.  My friend Ben from high school came to hang out for the last couple hours, and boy was I lucky to see him.  I think we talked about Ninja Turtles and some other things I won't mention here, and my stepmom Kris took pictures of us undressing the half naked girlfriend.

I already thanked them a million times, but thanks again to Kris, all around awesome, giving person and best stepmom ever, and my sister Alyssa, who is a super awesome hard worker and took a day off to help me in trade for loot and my company.  And thanks to everyone who came to say hi or hang out or share their root beer (mom!).  And to everyone who bought something, funding metro cards and big city fabric purchases and BEER (thanks for the beer, ya'll).  I had a great weekend!

One more thanks, and I'm out.  Thank you to everyone who has supported me over these past 5 years.  Thanks to all my customers, the market juries who have accepted me into shows, and the wonderful people who have invited my work into their shops.  And thanks to all my friends and family who have helped me!

Hot Butter is Five, Ya'll!

Yeah, you read that right, Hot Butter is Five!  Hot Butter is old enough to start kindergarten this year.  We're talking full day kindergarten with nap time, and we hope we get the honor of being the wake up fairy.  That was a cool wand.

These were the first bags I made, and I've come a long, long way since then.



Anyway, to celebrate I'm having a sale in my etsy shop.  25% off everything for the next week in celebration!  In addition, anyone who spends $40 or more will get a bonus birthday present from me in the form of one of these adorable pouches.  Coupon code is HBIS5.  That's HBis5 in lowercase terms so you know that is an I and not a 1.  Ok?  Ok.



This is the perfect time to grab something, as my prices will be going up a bit in the future after the sale.  I'll explain more in an upcoming blog post of BIG NEWS and shit.  I have had a very, very busy summer and can't wait to tell you all about it!



Let's just say I met this pink velociraptor and lived to tell the tale.  Thank you all for your wonderful support these last five years! Be back soon!