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.

Charming Charm Holder

The unveiling of Hopie-Jo’s first charm holder:

IT'S SO CUTE!

And it looks fabulous with charms and necklaces hanging from it! So functional, so fabulous!

We have been going back and forth with charm holder ideas. Trying different materials, throwing around different ideas, and this is our first success! We are so excited! Not only is it cute and functional but the material in the center was once a fabulous shirt, no longer worn, looking for a new meaning in life. We feel really good about reusing/upcycling old clothes. We’ve decided this is our charm holder calling, reusing/upcycling forgotten, outgrown, vintage, thrift store find clothing.

Since we both have pack rat tendencies this is proving to be a great idea for us. We both have this habit of cleaning out our closets of clothes we no longer wear just to put them in a big plastic container and stick it in the basement. You never know when you might need something again. The black floral velvet dress worn to a college formal too many years ago to admit, yeah, that will be worn again…NOT! How exciting to find that dress and realize how cute it will look as a charm holder!

Check out this pile of treasure!

It might not look like much now, but just wait until they have new life as charm holders.

Clothes may go in and out of style, but there is always a use for fun and funky material.

The charm holder will be going up on our Etsy shop soon. I know, I know, we’ve been saying that for awhile, but we promise, Etsy shop will be open this week!! Also, we are planning an Open House to showcase all our great stuff. If you are interested in being added to our email list to be notified of the Open House, emailed coupons for our Etsy shop, and general news on Hopie-Jo, please send us an email to hopiejo@gmail.com and let us know you want to be “Hopie-Jo in the Know.”

On a personal note, Jo will be having back surgery on Friday, so please, everyone send good thoughts and prayers her way. Once she is back on her feet we have so many plans for Hopie-Jo!

Family = Friend, Air Bubbles = Enemy

There is one enemy of the perfect bottle cap. An enemy that can strike at any time once the glaze goes into the bottle cap and can completely ruin a fabulous charm. We have the perfect design, we fill the bottle cap with glaze, all seems well. Moments later, a glance at the drying bottle cap reveals a bubble peaking out from under a flower pedal, or a cluster of little bubbles have gathered around one edge. URGH, frustration! We have been fighting air bubbles! Trying to find the perfect glaze that will not produce multiple air bubbles is not easy. We have tried four? Yes, I think we've tried four different kinds. We've gone back and forth on some, and thought we had it figured out. We were so excited to receive our most recent shipment of glaze thinking our bubble troubles were over. However, it has been air bubble madness this past week since our recent shipment. URGH! So now, we are anxiously awaiting yet another shipment of glaze that will solve all our problems! Or we hope anyway...we might lose our minds between now and then. We glaze our bottle caps and we have to watch them...for hours...because air bubbles pop up...seemingly out of nowhere...one minute no bubbles, the next, a HUGE one....or multiple little ones...either way, it's a nightmare. AND, if we don't catch an air bubble in time, and the glaze sets, we're screwed. Oh the trials and tribulations of a fledgling business! We'll figure it out.

We have to figure it out, because we have SO MANY NEW DESIGNS (and so many charms in need of a coat of glaze)!!! We are so excited about our latest group of bottle caps. Now, if only we can keep them air bubble free. For those that don't know, Jo ruptured a disk in her back a few weeks back. The poor thing hasn't been able to sit up in weeks. One good thing has come out of her misery, however, and that is her creativity!!! While being confined to her recliner all day, she has been a bottle cap charm making machine. Her creative juices are flowing and she is producing amazing stuff! While Jo is being uber creative, Hopie is popping air bubbles, keeping spreadsheets, and photographing bottle caps for Etsy. Here is a sneak peak at some of our new charms that will be debuting on Etsy, hopefully within the week!

Notice the tweezers? Tweezers are great for popping air bubbles!

Remember, you don't have to wait for us to open our Etsy shop, you can order direct at any time!

Hopie and Jo traveled to Avilla, Indiana on Sunday for our nieces birthday party. The birthday girl, Mya, received 2 charms and a pink choker necklace as a gift from her Aunt Hopie and Aunt Jo.

Here is Mya sporting her new necklace while blowing our her candles.

She also received a charm from her cousin Abigail and proceeded to wear that charm most of the afternoon (as seen in the above picture). We have the greatest family support team EVER!! Our sister-in-law Amy (Mya's mom) proceeded to buy more charms and choker necklaces.

Picking out the perfect charms!

Cousins all wearing Hopie-Jo bottle cap charm necklaces! Aren't they cute?!

AND, Amy's sister-in-law Julie also bought a couple charms. Hopie-Jo scored! We need to have family birthdays every weekend. :) AND, sister-in-law Tina placed a custom order for charms to use to hold up notes at work. She promised to post pictures when she receives her order. We love our family!! But we really really don't like air bubbles....

Seat heaters and fun errands

Living in the Indiana suburbs of Chicago, a seat heater in the car is a must! Typically running errands isn't a fun activity, especially when it's 10 degrees outside with an even colder windchill. However, a seat heater makes it all so much better! :) And yesterday was fun errand day! Fun errands + seat heater makes the cold bearable.

First stop, Wrights Flowers and Gifts in Michigan City, Indiana (gotta plug Wrights as often as possible, they carry Hopie-Jo afterall!) Look how good our display looks in the store:



Our display was just restocked with our newest bottle cap designs. We love how full and colorful the board looks!

Second stop, Hobby Lobby. We love Hobby Lobby and we love that something we need is ALWAYS on sale. Paper, stickers, unfinished wood products, and sequins filled the cart. Rummaging through the aisles of Hobby Lobby always causes fun and creative ideas to play delightfully through the brain. It's easy to lose track of time.

Third stop, Michigan City Antique Market. Losing track of time is easy to do here as well. No wasting time yesterday, went directly to the booths with the vintage jewelry to see what bargains were waiting. Not a wildly successful trip, but a precious pair of silver flower earrings with a purple stone in the middle will soon find themselves upcycled into two fabulous bottle cap charms.

With a toasty warm seat and bags of treasures, it was a successful morning of fun errands. Look at all the great stuff we have to make more charms and charm holders:




Today is a creative work day. We love work days...bottle cap making work days anyway. We want to thank all our fabulous friends who have already become fans of Hopie-Jo on Facebook. We just started the fan page on Wednesday and we already have 50 fans!! AND, on top of 50 fans, we received one custom order and 2 other orders!! Thank you Kristy, Robyn, and Amy for your encouragement and support! And one more thing, Wrights Flowers and Gift Shop also has a Facebook fan page. We love Wrights Flowers! Not only do they do gorgeous work with flowers, they have an awesome gift shop! Check them out on Facebook and become a fan!

Who are we? What do we do?

Simply, we make magnetic bottle cap charms. Super cute, one-of-a-kind, bottle cap charms. The charms are worn on either a nylon choker or a ribbon necklace (those are the 2 types of necklaces we currently sell.) A magnet on the back of the bottle cap connects to a washer on the necklace. SO CUTE! This is what our choker necklaces look like:

Everyday can be a new necklace, just pop off one charm and pop on another. Easy!

And we have so many to choose from! These are some new ones we just finished working on.

Currently, we mainly use paper, stickers, and cute embellishments to create our charms. It's always something new and different. We don't often make the same charm twice. We have, on occasion, used vintage costume jewelry, beads, and earrings that we find in antique shops and tag sales and reuse them in our charms. We really want to do more with vintage in creating our charms. We are looking forward to hitting tag and estate sales this spring in search of usable pretties for our charms.

Although these charms make the cutest necklaces EVER, (at least most elementary school aged girls we've talked to think so) they can also be used as refrigerator magnets. If your refrigerator looks anything like ours do in our homes, magnets are a must for holding up notes, reminders, and pictures. Our charms are so strong they can easily hold up pictures and notes. Take a look:

Functional art is so fabulous!

Or, for the older girls (and guys too of course, we can make manly charms) they also make great magnets for school lockers. A fun way to hold up photos and decorate the otherwise boring interior of school lockers! Genius! Possibilities endless!

So, that is what we do. And we have so much fun doing it! We plan on launching our Etsy shop within the next couple weeks. Once that happens we have all sorts of ideas for cute and stylish ways to display and organize charms. Here is a sneak peak at a shelf display:

Oh yeah, we've got lots of ideas!!!

You really want to buy a couple charms now, don't you? Don't fret, even though our Etsy shop isn't open yet, you can still buy our charms! Our charms and necklaces are available at Wrights Flowers and Gifts in Michigan City, IN. Stop in and take a look! It's a fabulous store. If you aren't local or want something custom made, email us at hopiejo@gmail.com. We are also on Facebook, so swing by and become a fan of Hopie-Jo!