Lish, Crissy and I left early Thursday morning and flew into the city in the afternoon – a nice, short flight! After an interesting cab ride (our taxi had spinner rims, ha ha), we arrived at the Hilton and were thankful that they let us check in early.

Things went downhill from there….

I wasn’t feeling all that well that morning, but took a major turn for the worse after we ate lunch. Hours before our Etsy panel was about to begin, I was throwing up in the bathroom. We made a trip to the drugstore and I took every kind of medicine I could (and actually managed to keep most of it down). I was so worried I was going to miss our panel, but decided I wasn’t going to miss this awesome opportunity, and sucked it up and went.

SO glad I did! It was a lot of fun, and whatever was wrong with me subsided a bit, and I began to start feeling a lot better by the end.

The panel was amazing. First off, the other panelists – Rachel from Swap-bot, Tonya Staab, Amy Schroeder of Venus Zine, Lish and Crissy – were a group of really amazing and inspirational gals. I was taking notes during the panel in my notebook, and learned a lot myself – both from the panel and the audience!

These photos from Lish

It felt  much more like a conversation between friends than a panel, and we had a number of laughs. We also got a tour of the new Etsy office, ate some amazing cupcakes, and I got to catch up with Danielle from Etsy a bit, which was really nice (Danielle is originally from Detroit, and we both were sellers at a number of shows before she became Etsy’s seller education lady).

This is a wall behind a DJ booth at Etsy…hard to see the detail, I know, but all these album covers are grommeted and held together in a big chain with the same ring binders I use on my notebooks! I totally loved the look of it, and it made me feel right at home…and also that I need to do this IN my home.

Afterwards, we went to dinner down the street at Rice, and I had some really great Miso soup and Watermelon juice. Yum!

Friday was the first day of BlogHer, and it was incredible! 2500 bloggers all in one building, it was awe inspiring!

I attended sessions on the new FTC guidelines on blogging (something I really didn’t know much about), fashion blogging with some of the most awesome fashion bloggers out there – including my favorite, Jennine Jacob from The Coveted) and taking better photos for your blog (can’t wait to start applying what I learned there!).

In between sessions I got to check out the swag areas. A lot of it was geared towards mommy bloggers, but I guess that is to be expected – mommy bloggers make up a HUGE portion of the BlogHer community. Some of my favorite swag items were a really nice water bottle from Filtrete that I used all weekend, Ipod speakers from AOL, and a huge Play-doh gift set (hey, even adults love playing with Play-Doh!). The best was P&G though – they really went the distance, giving us products from Olay, Tide, Febreeze, Venus, Swiffer and more! I buy a lot of products in the P&G line, and it was really cool that they gave us a lot of new products to try out, some that aren’t even on the market yet!

Friday night we went to a private party for a new wine debut from Kendell-Jackson, and snazzed it up a bit. The wine was awesome, and the conversation was great. Loved it! Then Crissy and I headed to Times Square (This was Crissy’s first trip to NYC, had to go – plus there is a HUGE Forever 21 there…that was a must!)

Saturday was my most exciting panel – Editing Pictures. While I think I am pretty dang good with Photoshop, I was really excited to learn some more tips and tricks from professionals, and I did! The panelists were Ryan from Pacing the Panic Room (who I ended up speaking with a couple of times during the conference and was just the nicest guy), Pauline from Classy Chaos, and Amy from The Bitchin’ Wives Club – each were very entertaining and very insightful!

I unfortunately had to skip the other two sessions I wanted to attend, because Lish and I had to finish up making a Cheeseburger bed for the CheeseburgHer party. We took a break from it to go to lunch at Bistro 61, which just so happened to have menus made out of album covers! I really started wondering if all these record themed items were signs from God that we should move to NYC…

Once we finished the Cheeseburger bed (wow, over 20 hours of work altogether!), we had to sneak it downstairs incognito.

Then it was party time! Lish, Crissy, Rachel and I went to all the parties, ate the best cake ever from Ace of Cakes, and also spent much of the evening in the hotel bar. I LOVED it.

The Cheeseburger bed seemed to be a big hit with all the party goers – there were constantly people laying all over to take pictures!

I was sad to leave on Sunday, but also really excited to see Dan, and sleep! It was such a fun, awesome trip, but it was also really great to just relax on the couch that first night back home

Overall, I give BlogHer 4 out of 5 stars. I wish the sessions were available online afterward; I felt like I missed so much that I wanted to see and learn! I met a TON of stellar people (most of them while us smokers were outside on the sidewalk) – and now I am going to struggle to find their cards in my mess of a purse, ha!

If you wanna see more pictures, check out my Flickr set and Lish’s Flickr set!

It’s been in the works for months now, and I’m so excited to finally announce it now!

Etsy is hosting a Crafty Blogging panel next Thursday, August 5th from 7-9pm (ET) with a number of really fantastic bloggers, including me!

Lish, Crissy and I are flying together to go to next weekend’s BlogHer in New York City, and last time Lish and I went to New York we had a fabulous time hanging out in the Etsy office and meeting everyone there. We thought, wouldn’t it be great to kick off our this trip with Etsy again, and it all began.

The panel will be moderated by Danielle at Etsy, and the bloggers on the panel are:

Crissy Herron from Indie Biz Chicks, and one of my favorite Michigan gals!

Lish Dorset, another founding member of Handmade Detroit

Amy Schroeder, founder of Venus Zine

Tonya Staab, crafty blogger extraordinare

Rachel Johnson of Swap-Bot

Alison Feldmann, a writer and editor of Etsy’s blog

and Me!

We’ll be discussing self-promotion through creative blogging, and taking questions from those in attendance. Won’t be near Brooklyn? No problem, it’ll also be broadcast live in Etsy’s Virtual Labs!

If you will be near Brooklyn next Thursday, won’t you join us? There are only 200 seats available, so RSVP right away here!

For the fourth year, Reware Vintage is on the nominations list! Please cast your vote in the comments of her blog post, and tell Lulu why you love shopping with me! While you’re at it…might wanna remind your friends to vote too?

Now, I want to tell you something else about this skirt…It is in fact one of my favorite vintage skirts, as I told them in my email. It’s a great A-line cut, perfect length for me, and it’s a golf skirt (shorts built in underneath) from the 70′s – all great reasons to love it. But the #1 reason? It’s an “Oh Shit” skirt. See all those cute little squiggles on the skirt? Here’s the close-up:

This fabric is printed with cursive, mirrored “Oh Shit” all over it. It was used (and it’s sister, that read “F*ck Me”) to make ladies skirts, shirts and dresses, as well as mens shirts in the late 70′s and was carried in a number of major department stores before they realized what those pretty squiggles said and yanked them off the racks right away. I found this skirt nearly 10 years ago at a thrift store, and it’s been a favorite of mine to wear ever since.

I think it looks great with the teal tights! Thanks, We Love Colors for giving me another way to wear it, and for including my picture on your blog!

I’m a bad blogger…getting ready for the Craft Revival this Saturday, and working round the clock! In the meantime, check out this week’s Real Detroit Weekly “Delicious Vinyl” article (featuring my Record Notebooks) and some great write-ups of our local record stores in support of Record Store Day!

I love that last line!!

I’m so excited to have been featured in MetroMode’s article “Metro Detroit’s Homeprenuers” today! Reporter Amy Kuras was so great to talk with – it was one of the easiest, most fun interviews I’ve ever had, more like a conversation with an old friend than an interview, really and photographer Marvin Shaouni was fantastic (and so are his photos!). Kona and I had a great time, and I’ve never seen my home look so great in pictures before. Kona adored him to no end, and was a perfect model that afternoon.

Thanks so much Amy and Marvin! And welcome to my labor of love to all our new visitors from the MetroMode website!

Something Like a War (SLAW) by John Kalogerakos. See this and more comics on Motor City Blog, and more from John Kalogerakos at Pointe East!

I can’t believe that the Holiday Baar Bazaar is tomorrow night! I’m so excited!

Seriously, this Baar Bazaar is getting a lot of love from the local bloggers and happening peoples. Read what they are saying below:

Angela’s Eye – Weekly Fave Five

Detroit News – Events

Motor City Blog – Free Free Free

Detroit Moxie – Weekend Roundup

My record notebooks were picked for RedPlum’s Editors Choice Chic and Cheap Holiday Gift Guide! Having used RedPlum‘s gift guides in the past for holiday shopping ideas, this is a thrill for me! There are 30 great gifts in this list (including Demeter Fragrances, which I LOVE), be sure to check it out!

Thanks so much to the RedPlum editors for picking my notebooks, and to celebrate I’ll be including a free refill pack of paper with every record notebook purchase on RewareVintage.com through Friday, December 4th! No coupon necessary, one refill pack for every notebook you buy!