WARNING: WAY off topic!!

My husband and I are spending the weekend in Chicago celebrating our mutual 40th birthdays. I turned 40 last month and he turns 40 next month. So, his wonderful family put us up in the Four Seasons in downtown Chicago for a weekend birthday celebration...but I digress, I'm not writing to talk about my fabulous weekend in Chicago, but more specifically the fabulous concert we saw Friday night and some observations.

We saw Tegan and Sara at the Aragon Ballroom. First of all, this was my first concert experience at the Aragon Ballroom and I sincerely hope it is not my last. What a fabulous venue! Second, Tegan and Sara rock the most and if I wasn't such a fanatical fan before the concert, I definitely would be after the concert. Damn they're good! I've been a Tegan and Sara fan for a several years now. I became a fan right around the time "Walking with a Ghost" was released. I love their music and lyrics. I'm one of those people who uses music to help me get through various situations in life. Tegan and Sara have helped me through more situations, good and bad, than I care to recall.

An observation from the concert, call me old...or call me old school...but what the hell is happening to concerts these days? Not the performers, but the audience?! When I'm at a concert, I sing along, dance, move, yell, clap, scream, make a complete and utter spectacle of myself. That's what a concert is for, right? Getting into the music. However, last night, I think I was hanging in the mellow old lady section or something. I was the only one moving, singing, not able to sit still in my seat. All those around me were too busy recording, taking pictures, and updating Facebook with their phone. Really?! Why go to a concert to view it though the screen of your phone? Insane?!? Or texting or updating Facebook? Why? Watch the show!!!! There is a live performance going on in front of their face yet they are too busy recording it so they can watch it back later?!?! HUH? If I want to watch concert footage on my computer or phone, I'll search YouTube. I go to a concert to watch the show. If I want to see pictures of a concert, I can get that off some random website. Why expericence a concert through a phone? I just don't get it. I tried to join in and I took one picture on my phone, actually, my husband took the picture on his phone. He graduated from Duke so he spent most of the concert checking his phone for Duke/Purdue score updates (thankfully Duke won). Here is the pic he took:

Notice all the glowing lights of phones?

Not worth the time or effort and not worth taking my eyes off the action on the stage to look through the screen on his phone. Again, call me old school...but what the hell? Have we all lost the ability to live in the moment? Put the electronics away kids and appreciate what is going on around you as it is going on around you, not later when you watch it back on your phone.

I must admit, I was on the second level and not on the floor, so perhaps I was with the old/mellow crowd, but looking down onto the floor, I saw the same thing happening...phones glowing, recording, taking pictures. I just don't get it. Okay, tangent is over. I've said my peace. Tegan and Sara rocked! One of those bands that sound just as good, if not better live than on their record. I used the word record... I'm vintage!

Oh, and if you didn't know, we are Hopie-Jo and we make bottle caps and bows. Even though you wouldn't know it from this particular blog! Thank you for letting me vent. We have new bows and a new charm holder listed on Funky Finds. Make sure you check 'em out!

Hopie-Jo Loves Bows!

We are blog slackers. To our defense, we’ve been busy. What have we been doing, you ask? Making bottle cap bow barrettes! Say that five times fast:

Bottle cap bow barrette

Bottle cap bow barrette

Bottle cap bow barrette

Bottle cap bow barrette

Bottle cap bow barrette

Can’t type it fast very well either.

We are making two types of bottle cap bow barrettes, korker and loop.

This is a korker bow.

And this is the loop bow.

We are having so much fun making them!! We’ve sold 3 so far, 2 korker and 1 loop. We even did a custom order for Hopie’s neighbor.

This fabulous Smurfette korker bow will soon adorn the hair of a smurf loving 4 year old!

We love, love, love, custom orders, so don’t hesitate to send us an email, hopiejo@gmail.com if you want us to make something specific for your little bow wearing cutie.

The smurfette bow turned out so cute, we made a loop bow to sell on Etsy.

This one will soon be in our Etsy shop.

This fabulous bow is headed to Little Rock, AR

This super cute bow found a home in LaPorte, IN

We’re beginning to plan our summer. We want to rent booth space at craft fairs to sell our fabulous Hopie-Jo bottle cap products. For those of you local to NW Indiana we are going to give the European Market in Chesterton a try. We are hoping to be approved to have a booth on the opening Saturday of the season, May 1. If you live near by, make sure you visit our booth. Maybe we’ll do a coupon or something for our blog readers/facebook fans….hmmmmmm something to think about. We’ll keep you posted, we haven’t even filled out the form yet for the Market.

If any of you know of local craft fairs you think we should be a part of, please let us know. We are just beginning to look into this, so any help is greatly appreciated.

We’ve also set up another online shop! YIPPEEE!!! We are now on FunkyFinds.com, such a great website! Click here to visit our Funky Finds shop.

For those of you following Jo’s back progress, she is slowly getting around better. She is still in a lot of pain, but she is determined to fight through the pain and get herself back to normal as quickly as possible. On the positive side, she’s got lots of time to make bows and bottle caps!

Just a reminder, one of these days we would like to create an email newsletter, maybe include coupons for our Etsy and Funky Finds shops, so if you would like to be included on our email list, send an email to hopiejo@gmail.com and let us know you want to be Hopie-Jo in the know!

Paper, paper everywhere

Listening to Tegan and Sara, sun is shinning, time to write another blog. What does one have to do with the other? Absolutely nothing just thought you’d be interested in what music is playing and the weather. The sun feels good but the backyard has become soft and mushy, borderline mud bog, as the snow melts.

Look what Hopie-Jo is donating to the Kingsbury Elementary School Fun Fair raffle!

2 charms, 1 necklace and 1 charm holder. We think the charm holder turned out awesome!

This past summer Hopie moved. Because of the move, Hopie has found herself with a lot of packing paper, way too much packing paper!! Being all environmentally conscience, Hopie has saved all the paper. Jo will probably be moving within the year, so some of the paper will be re-used for Jo’s move; however, there is still way too much paper.

This is all packing paper. Each one of those boxes is full of paper.And there are boxes, behind the boxes!

We have been trying to come up with uses for the paper. The kids use it as scrap paper. They’ve painted many pictures on the paper. It’s great for protecting surfaces while crafting. But still, so much paper!!!

What about dying the paper and using it in our bottle cap charms? Since google knows EVERYTHING, it didn’t take long to find a DIY about dying paper. I found this webpage http://curbly.com/diy-maven/posts/1272-how-to-tie-dye-paper and decided to give it a try. I gathered the needed supplies:

And proceeded to get messy and dye some paper.

Who knew shaving cream and food coloring could dye paper. So much fun!!

The paper turned out great, unfortunately, the bottle cap glaze causes the dye on the paper to bleed, so using the paper in our charms isn’t going to work. But we can use it for cute packing paper when we ship our charms. And we’re trying to come up with a way to maybe use the paper for our charm holders. We’ll figure something out…cause did I mention, we have a lot of paper!!

Jo is slowly, but surly, recovering from her back surgery. Thank you to everyone for their thoughts and prayers.