Betty White advertises the next event we're going to!!!

Our first event of the year is quickly approaching and one year ago Renee and I we're still joining forces. I'm excited to see the difference in sales and in excitement  this year... as one business! I'm really excited for this one! Feb. 18. 9am-noon - San Marcos, CA - K9 Cancer Walk. Raising Money to help find a cure for canine cancer. The walk is only one mile long and it's really powerful to see people walking and representing the dogs they've lost to cancer. They wear t-shirts, hold pictures and signs and some are even walking (or pushing in strollers) dogs that are currently fighting cancer! It's beautiful and makes you wanna hug your dog really tight! 


There are also speakers that share and great vendors! This year is sure to have more than last year too! Oh and last year it rained and a lot of people came out. I hope the weather is better this year though. You can register online and it's only $30 for adults before Feb. 8, $35 after. Kids are $15 before Feb. 8, $20 after. You can also donate! Check out more details by clicking here. The event starts at 9 am and the walk starts at 10 am. The event is taking place at Walnut Grove Park 1950 Sycamore Drive, San Marcos, CA 92069.


Betty White did a public service announcement for the event too!! Freaking Betty White people!!!! This event is worth going too and worth donating towards!!! The commercial is pretty funny too! Below is the commercial. Check it out! Oh and Renee is going to put together a really nice raffle basket too! Lot's of fun stuff going on for this event!

I just finished working on our website too. Well, it's far from finished, but I worked on it. We really need to up our online sales. I'm going to try and find websites that will let us advertise our website to see if that helps... craigslist and so forth. Fingers crossed it helps because we have to pay for our website and I've busted my butt trying to make it user friendly and easy for customers to find what they're looking for/buy stuff! Check out the store and let me know what you think!!!  I added treat bags, more poop bags, a make your own necklace option.. and more!


Well that's enough for now. I'll blog again soon! 

Year in review, kinda...

I suck at this whole regular blog thing. If it makes you feel better I have a personal blog too that I rarely get too... Once I'm doing it I like it but getting the motivation to get to that point is not something that comes easy for me.. I say all that so that you feel bad for me and forgive me for not blogging more often. I guess I kinda feel that if the blog is short than what's the point.. so everything has to be thought out and meaningful... Guess that's just how I roll. I'm hoping you're picking up on my sarcasm.

Well, enough with that. On to the meaningful stuff. Renee feels that this is our year. Bop and Rocksy will rock the pet industry this year. (To what scale, who knows but as long as it's better than last year). That's not to say we had a terrible year or anything. In fact looking back on the year I remember mostly fun times with one of my now closest friends! Renee and I are an awesome team. Money is tight and we both wish we were able to make more, to sell more, to bring more in... only to buy more stuff to make more stuff to sell more stuff... We really just like to create awesome stuff. When the money doesn't come in that's when things suck. So is life I guess. It's like that in my personal life too and the same goes for Renee, I'm sure. Blah blah, it was an awesome year. We figured out alot, we know of some solid events that we plan to do this year. We're both great at making towels and collars and we're constantly building inventory. I mean it was a great year as our new business together. I am just grateful to not be doing this alone anymore. (When we both met we both had pet related companies and we joined forces.. in case you missed that blog).

It's going to be a great year and I'm excited for what the future holds! Oh that's enough for now. Both my boys are up and starting to do boy-like things....

Audrey

Ready for VILLAGEFEST

Man Ohhh man I've been making towels like a crazy person all this week. Hopefully it pays off and we make some money tonight at villagefest. Renee and I could really use an awesome night! If you're in the Palm Springs area tonight, come visit us!

Oh and if you haven't "liked" us on Facebook, be sure to do so! And look on our wall for a special free shipping code. Expires December 31st. Free shipping is for USPS ground only. You wont get it in time for Christmas but who cares! ITS FREE SHIPPING PEOPLE! (cue crazy laugh). Fyi, for small, struggling business owners, free "anything" is a big deal... so feel bad for us! ;) just kidding y'all. Oh and Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah for us Jews!

Talk to you soon!
Audrey

Blanket Drive 2011

Well it's been too long since my last post so I better get back on the ball!! (Whatever that means). I am currently making a Pekingese towel for a order that was placed. Speaking of orders, we have been getting rave reviews from people about our new store! It's easy to use and you can customize your embroidery items by adding a text (pet's name, nickname, etc.). It's really neat and makes a great gift even more special! So you should check that out. We are working to get all our items up but if you don't see something you want just contact us! 


Also, I'm not sure I mentioned this yet, but we are doing a blanket drive to Benefit the Palm Springs Animal Shelter! We're asking that you please bring us your new or gently used blankets! As the weather gets cooler here in the desert it's easy for forget the shelter dogs and cats that don't have a warm bed to sleep on or an owner to cuddle up with. We've all got some blankets in a closet or chest that we don't use. Well these animals need them!
For every blanket you bring us you'll get a raffle ticket for an amazing gift basket! It's going to be filled with lots of goodies, some things we make, some things we've purchased to go in there and we're also trying to get some other local vendors to participate! As we get some involved we'll add them to the list. You can bring blankets to our booth at the Palm Springs Villagefest every Thursday (we're in from of Las Casuelas and Lulu's) or contact us and we'll arrange something. 

We really want to make a difference in the lives of shelter animals. We urge you to do the same. We will have the raffle basket ready and you can stop by Villagefest to see it! Ticket draw date is too be determined. 

Weekend Recap

Here we go again, another weekend recapped. Saturday's event started later than most of our events so we didn't have to wake up at 0 dark 30! However, this threw my internal clock for a serious loop and as a result I woke up 15 minutes before Renee was going to be there to pick me up. Of course! Thankfully my husband is wonderful and he helped me throw all my stuff in a bag and helped get me out the door.

Renee always drives because I am terrible with directions. Here is B-Bop, who makes a better co pilot than I do! 

Also, thankfully, Renee had a not-so-smooth morning so she wasn't as punctual as usual (which means she was slightly over 5 minutes past her projected arrival time instead of 5 minutes early or right on time). So even with an "off" morning she manages to be punctual (something for me to aspire to I guess). So we get my stuff loaded up and we head to Starbucks for our usual breakfast items.

We arrived to the So Cal Dachshund Relief event with more than enough time to set up and we got to work. We had a so so day and we enjoyed being together.

I even met a DJ that can make mix cd's for my fitness instruction (my other job). He was super friendly and he and his wife were there supporting the Doxie relief group! His name is DJ Ruckuss and his mixes are awesome!  I also bid on some of the silent auction stuff and won! I got a big dog crate for $11 and a big basket perfect for a big dog bed for $5! It was fun. UNTIL it was time to pack up and this almost attacked me!...

When I showed the picture to Renee's mom she was unphased and calmly referred to it as a common garden spider!!! INSANE! 

It was so friggin scary! I was rolling up our banner with my back to it. Renee shouts for me to stop moving and step forward. She was calm but I could hear the panic in her voice. I stepped forward and she had me turn around and this was just about shoulder height from landing on me... dangling on a web! It was at least the size of a silver dollar people! Renee was so funny she shouted "that's straight arachnophobia status!" It was hilarious!

The spider landed in the grass. We pointed it out to some people next to us and they were not as shocked as we were. A big guy and a buff looking chick didn't even help us kill it or remove it. So I was forced to take matters into my own hands... At this time Renee and I have our hoodies pulled up to our necks, hoods on and draw strings pulled! We look ridiculous! I tapped the spider with the pictured lid from one of our totes and rendered the spider unconscious... I scooped him into the lid and kept a close eye on him... Our hearts were racing and it was not a fun experience.  I did forget to mention that once it landed in the grass it was making a quick effort to get us! It was crawling over the blades of grass in a furry to eat us!!!! Once we were loaded up I tossed the sucker into the street. Renee made a comment that it would probably cause an accident because it was so big! Stupid spider!

I tried to get a picture of it's belly but when I managed to get him on his back it kept doing this....

gross, right? Is your skin itching yet and are you getting the chills yet? I am!  And I know Renee will refuse to look at this entire blog entry!

We practically ran from the event because of this spider and made ourselves feel better by eating In-N-Out. The strawberry milkshake made our day better. After a few errands we got to our hotel and got back to work. Of course this awaited us: 

Renee's sewing box was a hot mess!  It took some time but we got it cleaned up and continued crafting. 

Shortly after, my machine wigged out and when we opened it up this had happened! 

Broke the needle and it had gone straight through the hard plastic bobbin case. I was crushed because I thought it was my last embroidery needle! Thankfully it wasn't. This time Renee had to help me because I couldn't get it back in order. 

We eventually got my machine back up and running and by nights end we had made 22 collars! It was my first adventure in making the collars myself (I was supposed to make towels but I forgot my hoop at home!!!). It was fun, frustrating and exciting all at once. We ended up going to bed at like 2:30-3 AM and had to be up at 5:15... I knocked out and for our 3 hours of sleep Renee had to listen to my phone make noises (email notifications and such). We were tripping out when we we woke up and headed to the car because it was pitch black! It was like we were leaving the hotel at midnight! 

We got to the event and a volunteer awaited us to help us unload! It was great. The event was the Race for the Rescues. A 5K or 10K helping raise money for homeless pets. It was a really cool event, although we were exhausted. The Rescue Train put the event together and it was pretty big! Be sure to check them out! 

I forgot to mention that Renee's parents came out and hung out with us on Sunday! It was great! We went to lunch and ice cream after the event at Old Town Pasadena. Good times! 

Here's one of Renee's parents Whippet's. His name is Conan and we bonded. He loves me and I love him. :) Isn't he beautiful! 

Well I guess that's all for now. I had to pause mid blog to go pick up my son Dylan from Kindergarten so whatever I had planned to write pretty much got flushed down the mental toilet. Oh I guess I should mention that it was fun coming home to my man and my little boys. We made homemade pumpkin muffins and a pumpkin roll with a fresh pumpkin we got from the pumpkin! (If I have to write the word pumpkin one more time I'm gonna freak out! ;) 

Until next time, 

Audrey

www.bopandrocksy.com

On our way...

Off to our eventful weekend. Today is the so cal doxie halloween event. Check back later...

What I think I haven't posted...

Well, I'm sucking at this whole blog once a week thing. And even as I type this now I am thinking of all the other crap I should be doing.... I am, for lack of a better word, overwhelmed. Finding the balance in life is probably the hardest thing I've yet to master.... Not sure anyone ever really masters it anyway, but it's hard not to strive for some sort of perfection. I wouldn't even consider myself a perfectionist, more of a competitor and I have no problem competing against myself... I think you will only really understand that if you deal with the same problem... blah blah blah, I'm sure no one reads this "happy go lucky" blog to hear me complain about my woes in life... SOOOO moving on...

We have a twitter account now, so if you're into that kind of thing find us. It's Bop and Rocksy.

We also are working on a new store format for online orders. Should streamline the process ALOT since our last host was a jerk and I was practically writing HTML codes to build a store suitable for what I wanted to do. This posed a problem when it was something I had to do PER product... We have over a hundred embroidery designs people!!! What are you thinking! So I convinced Renee to switch to another store... Still alot of work but it will be better in the end. So be sure to check that out! 

Well I guess that's all for now. Blogger is being stupid and wont let me type after the pictures I posted below so this is where I will put my salutation... ANNOYED is the emotion I leave you in and I hope your day has been better than mine!

Audrey

Here are some things I've made recently:

Not sure if I shared this when it was done, but it's a beanie. A lady asked me to make one for her Doxie that has bad ears. I was happy that it came out. :)

Travel treat bags will now feature a strap for your wrist. Nice and easy to tote with you for walks, etc. They are still lined with vinyl and all you have to do is rinse and air dry to reuse. They are great!