Bridgepark this Saturday...

After quite the weekend at Joint Base Lewis-McChord we are ready to do it again. It was fun and a learning experience last weekend. We met some great people, made good sales and learned more from other vendors. They are just the best teachers, some with years more experience than we have and others with great ideas to share. It's sometimes as important to make these connections with other vendors as it can be to make a great sale. Each one teaches us something!

Connie and I worked hard to bring some of the best we have to these craft shows. One day I hope I can sew nearly as well as she does. Probably not going to happen but one can try! She is incredibly talented. The handbags were a hit at the show, as well as the new shaped Ta-Toe Baker. We also sold a good number of our new IdentiFly Bands. If you are a traveler at all you should get one or six of these for you and yours. A great stocking stuffer!

This weekend we are at Bridgepark in West Seattle for their 2nd Annual Holiday Craft Show. Shop LOCAL, shop UNIQUE, shop HANDMADE crafts from a variety of local artists! Enjoy the comfort of their home with hot apple cider, pumpkin bread and other scrumptious homemade treats while you do some stress-free holiday shopping!

There will be hourly door prizes and lots of free parking at 3204 SW Morgan Street. Turn East on Morgan St and travel one block to Bridgepark Retirement Community.

If you stop in at our booth and spend $50 you will be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift certificate for dinner at a restaurant in the area. We will give one away each hour of the show. Just think of that, one chance every hour to some lucky person who shops our booth! Don’t miss out, you could enjoy a great night out on us, or have another holiday gift out of the way that was free!

See you there...
Diane & Connie

Holiday Bazaar This Weekend @ Ft Lewis

It’s almost here! The biggest weekend of the year I think, for holiday bazaars anyway. They really get into full swing and we will be part of it all. The 30th Annual Holiday Bazaar, held by the Lewis Community Spouses Club happens this weekend on Joint Base Lewis/McChord. The Bazaar will be held on Saturday, November 6th, 10am to 6pm and Sunday, November 7th 12 noon to 5pm at the American Lake Club on North Fort, Building 8085 NCO Beach Rd.

We’ve made lots of new items. There are loads of new purses, both handbags and clutches. There is a new Ta-toe Baker® bag in a new shape with lots of new materials. We’ve sold out of these every year and hope that everyone will like the new ones as well. We have great new stocking stuffer gifts that you won’t want to leave without and of course the flavored nuts are back, better than ever! Bet you can’t eat just one!

If you stop in at our booth and spend $50 you will be entered into a drawing for a $25 gift certificate for dinner at a restaurant in the area. We will give one away each hour of the show. Just think of that, one chance every hour to some lucky person who shops our booth! Don’t miss out, you could enjoy a great night out on us, or have another holiday gift out of the way that was free!

Don’t forget to buy raffle tickets. Like always we will be contributing to the raffle. Raffle prizes include a spectacular quilt. The quilt will be displayed at various locations throughout the JBLM Community, at which time raffle tickets can be purchased for $2 each. There will also be a silent auction featuring various local and not so local items for you to bid on. Door prizes will be given away throughout the event.

Come out and support the JBLM community spouses’ club’s biggest fundraiser of the year. All proceeds go back to JBLM and surrounding area organizations. The bazaar will take place at the American Lake Community Center on JBLM Lewis North.

The show is open to the public and it’s not all that difficult to get on base Just go to the Main Gate at JBLM, show them your ID, Registration and Proof of Insurance and they will give you a pass. It’s as simple as that. Here are driving directions to get you to the North Fort and the American Lake Club. We are looking forward to seeing you there! Happy shopping…

Directions to the Visitor Center: From 1-5, take exit 120 and follow the signs for Lewis Main. The Visitor Center will be on your right.

Directions to American Lake Club: Turn left out of the Visitor Center onto the main road and go straight under 1-5. You will come to the Lewis North gate. Once through the gate, take the first right onto San Francisco. Follow the road around to the right, onto NCO Beach Road. After passing the Northwest Adventure Center, turn left into the parking lot of American Lake Club.

From I-5, take exit 120 and follow signs for Lewis North. Continue with directions above.

*Follow the gingerbread men.*

Pet Fest Today!

It’s Pet Fest at Arrowhead Gardens today. It’s happening from 10am to 2pm. Come join the fun, check out the animals (adopt one ?), talk with the vendors. We will be there with some great doggie items; scarves that the collar runs through so your pooch doesn’t chew it off; pet food mats, snuggle bags and the best treat bags ever! Also, handbags and our newest item, Identifly Bands© for your luggage!

Just a little over a week ago we were at the preview show at Ft Lewis for the day. The event is a sneak peek by invited vendors for a huge show that is the major fund raiser for the Officers Spouses Club at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. This year will be the 30th anniversary of this event. We were honored to be chosen to preview our new handbags. They were a great hit, we sold quite a number of them that day with loads of feedback and suggestions from the shoppers. The comments were most welcome and encouraging to us. They are great fun to make and certainly more fun to own!




We’ve been out buying trim! Now that’s a challenge I can tell you. I thought buying fabric was tough but trim is even tougher. What to choose? Do you put tassels on some and not on others? Will sequins be a hit? Does everything have to be braided? Oh yes, then there is the color matching! Do you match or contrast? Here I thought I was out of sewing and now I am deeper into it than ever before and find that I like it. Connie of course has been in love with a sewing machine since she was 10 years old, just the shopping is an adventure for us. It’s really been fun though and I am always excited when the finished items begin to multiply. They always look so great! The fabrics are wonderful, the colors divine and the trims are beautiful!

Keep the first weekend in November open. That is when the Holiday Bazaar happens at Joint Base Lewis-McChord! We will be on the North Fort at The American Lake Club. It is open to the public and entrance to the base is quite simple, id is required and the check in is quick. You won’t want to miss this show, some of the best vendors around, many who have supported this event for years. Let’s support our troops and support this great event. Come shop with us!

Diane & Connie

Holiday Bazaar....a preview!

Tomorrow is the big ‘preview’ day at Ft Lewis. As we mentioned in our last post the Lewis Community Spouse’s Club holds an Annual Holiday Bazaar as their major fundraiser. This year will be their 30th and now it is combined with McChord AFB under the new name Joint Base Lewis-McChord. The Holiday Bazaar will take place on Saturday, November 6th from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday, November 7th from Noon until 5pm. This is one great bazaar you won’t want to miss. It’s packed full of terrific vendors and wonder shopping for the holidays! Mark your calendars now!

Here’s a little preview of some of the newest handbags that we will offer at an invitation only preview show tomorrow for the Lewis Community Spouse’s Club! What great fun it will be to show off our newest bags ahead of the big show. The few bags we have shown to our friends have been well received. In fact the first two bags we showed at a b2b meeting sold before we could even begin talking about them!

We’ve been out buying materials for the bags and handles galore! We’ve looked at trim for hours on end trying to make sure the trim is the right one for the material and the style of the bag. It’s a different kind of fun getting all of this together and then sitting at the sewing machines to make them all come to life. We hope you like them and will want to own one or two of them yourself. In the next week or two we should have our etsy shop up and running as well as the new business page for Twisted Sisters on Facebook! Look for us soon!

Connie & Diane

Summer Fun at Go Dog Go...

Here in the land of Twisted Sisters life has been busy. In July we participated in the Go Dog Go event. It turned out to be the hottest day of the summer! The park was full of people and their dogs all wondering in and out of the vendor’s booths looking at all the wonderful items that were just for their furry friends.

Our booth was quite popular since we had participated in the Scavenger Hunt. Those that joined in the hunt had to come to a particular vendors booth and find out what they must do to complete their ‘card’ and be entered for the big prize at the end of them day. All dogs had to ‘shake hands’ in our booth. Now this may seem pretty simple on its face but let me tell you it was amusing in some cases, downright funny in others and most just a good time! We had dogs of every breed you can imagine visiting us during the day.

We had some good sales throughout the day. Our most popular item was the new treat bags. They are a small 4x5” bag with a Velcro closure and a clip that can go around your jeans loop! We also sold a number of pet mats, and scarves. The scarves were a hit because they are made to have the dog’s collar slipped through the scarf. They said great their dogs wouldn’t be biting them off!

Here a few pictures from that event!

We are headed to Ft Lewis next for one of two days there. The Officers Spouses Club holds a large fundraising event each November. It is a juried show and we were accepted last year and invited back this year. In addition we have been invited to a ‘special preview’ event on September 14th at Ft Lewis for a select group of vendors that will take part in the November event. We’ve got some great new handbags we’ll tell you about next.

Connie & Diane

After taking a break from all of last year’s shows it was time to gear back up with fresh ideas and start anew. During the last few months break we have gone out on several shopping trips around the area to buying new fabrics and creating more ideas for new products. We have had a lot of compliments from past shows on our selection of fabrics and the quality of our product. Satisfying all of our customers is our goal. We are really excited to be able to add new items to our collection. Of course we will still be doing our signature totes, but have several new designs coming in the near future. You’ll not want to miss them!

Twisted Sisters ventured out and did the 2010 Go Dog, Go! Canine Festival. It was a fundraising event held at Crestwood’s Park in Kirkland. July 24th, 2010. We sold many or new items from our canine collection including Doggie Bandanas, Food Mats, Treat Bags, Dog Tags and Cuddle Bag’s for our little friends that are always cold. It was a very hot day, close to 85 degrees but it was a lot of fun. We made several contacts with dog trainers who were interested in purchasing our treat bags in ‘bulk’ for their businesses. That’s the type of connection we love to make!

Our next date is the “Trash to Treasure” on August 14th. We will be at 2045 S 216th S Des Moines, Washington. The hours are 9AM to -3:00PM. The sale is a mix of crafted items and others treasures! There will be over 90 vendors there. I’m sure a person could find just about anything there. We will have our bags, totes, all of our canine line and some special closeout sale items you’re not going to want to miss! See you there!

It was quite a weekend...

What an adventure the bazaar turned out to be this last weekend. The Officers and Spouse’s Club has been hosting this bazaar at Ft. Lewis for 29 years and I am guessing that this one was one for the record books. We were located on the North Fort in a tent the size of a small gymnasium. We set up on Friday night after having driven there in an unbelievable storm. It was cold! Set up didn’t take too long and we found ourselves back on the road driving home in the storm. Saturday morning, we get up it’s not raining, yet. We hit the road, get some coffee and headed to the show. We were not in the tent five minutes when the storm hit again it began to rain sideways so hard you could not see anything. The storm lasted like this nearly the entire day, we were all cold and folks were wet, but let me say this everyone was having a great time!

The women running this show could not have been any nicer. They bent over backward to help us. They had hot coffee and tea for us through the whole show. They had breakfast muffins and fruit and then went out in the weather to get us sandwiches. This was way beyond expectation considering the driving conditions. Thankfully in the refreshment area there was a heater, giving us a reason to go get a refill periodically. The bazaar itself was great with a nice variety of vendors. Not much duplication was found and everyone seemed to be doing okay. We met some fun people and shared a corner in the show with a jeweler named Laura who made us laugh all day long. She was a riot. I discovered she is a painter so I booked her for an art walk in my neighborhood for January. She paints bugs in vibrant colors; I can’t wait to see them! This will be her first professional show.

The rain continued and so did the show. The traffic, though less than in past years we are told was still pretty good. A testament to the serious shoppers considering how wet everyone had gotten. Our grocery totes were a hit as were the shopping bags. We sold a good number of ta-toe® bakers and lots of favored nuts. We have another show this Saturday a few minutes from home. Hopefully the weather will be better!

Thanks again to the Officer’s and Spouse’s Club for hosting such a great bazaar. We look forward to next year with you and many more.