Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a safe and wonderful holiday, what ever you may celebrate and Happy New year to everyone. I hope that 2013 bring you all joy and happiness without any strife.

Cindy & I at HRM Steampunk Symposium

 2012 was a big year for Wyng'd Lyon Creations. We started off the year vending at HRM Steampunk Symposium on the beautiful Queen Mary. Our review of the event can be found here.  From there we did a few craft shows with the North Park Independant Bazar over at The Queen Bee Arts & Cultural Center and then prepped for GasLight Gathering in May. This was a second year at Gaslight Gathering and as usual it was a great time. The staff and all the participants are all so wonderful to be around. I did however slack on a review this year for the event. 

The next event was the North Park Festival of the Arts. The weather was beautiful and there was so much to see and fun to be had, though we ended set up near one of the stages and at times the volume was a bit unbearable at times. We're hoping to vend at the event again this year, but will have to see what the rest of the calendar looks like. 

Tawmis and his cool dog Odin

I actually took a couple big steps forward this year, the first was swallowing my pride and admitting that I really have too much stuff on my plate. I  asked my dear friend Tawmis from Pirate Booty & Neverending Nights to help out with the social media stuff for Wyng'd Lyon. For anyone who has a small business, you know how difficult it is to turn something over to someone else, but really I couldn't have picked a better person to handle it all. In addition to being smart, creative, and fun to be around, Tawmis has been there with lots of encouragement and to help life my spirits or talk me off a ledge when I'm on the verge of freaking out. 

Booth setup at SD Pagan Pride

For the first time I also vended at SD Pagan Pride. It was their 10 year event and to be honest it was the first that I have ever heard of the gathering. I vended with Sarah from Sinda Aran Glass and as always had a great time.  The recap can be found here. The people and the weather were amazing and I'm looking forward to getting out there again this year. 

Grand Opening Celebration

The second big step this year was signing a 6 month least for studio/retail space out in Casa De Oro. August was a full month of painting, moving and organizing the new space to make it workable. Not to mention nerve wrecking since it was such a big step for me and the business. We held a Grand Opening Celebration at the end of September and had a great turnout. 

SD Comic Fest Booth setup

Another new event that we participated in was SD Comic Fest at the Town and Country Hotel in Mission Valley. The event was a blast and was reported to have over 800 people for it's first run. The booth setup was quite attention getting because it was so out of the norm for a Comic Convention, but we had lots of people stop by and check us out. This is another even that we're looking forward to giving a second run in 2013. 

We had one more small craft show in November at Qualcomm Inc, which was our 8th or 9th year doing the event. This year we shared booth space with Elizabeth from Atomic Kitty and were blessed with beautiful weather and lots of great customers stopping by. 

Sewing on patches for a client

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was Small Business Saturday and we had an open house at the shop and had a nice amount of customers and friends stopping by to help support us and all the artisans that we feature at the shop. 

We wound down the year with family and friends for the holidays and then started up production for 2013. 

We're starting off 2013 back at HRM Steampunk Symposium, and then in March we have the honor of vending out at Wild West Con in Tucson, from there we'll be back at Gaslight Gathering and then who knows what the rest of the year is going to bring. 

Thank you to all the friends, family, customers and patrons for all the support and business that you gave us in 2012. We look forward to seeing you all in 2013 and joining us on the ride that we're about to embark on. 

We have some great things in the works for 2013 and we hope that you will be as excited about them as we are!

Best wishes in 2013,

~Colleen

PS: And because it was too cool not to post, here is a photo from Halloween of me as Mina Harker and Tawmis as a Pirate.

Mina & Capt'n Tawmis