Rec Room Craft Co!

 You may remember Kri-STAR-iffic from the Kitshickers kickball team and GLOK (Gorgeous Ladies of Kickball) Vintage Vantage modelfests. 

She (real name - Krista Bach) took her talents from San Diego to her home state of Wisconsin and started a family and last year opened her very own DIY studio and crafting bar - Rec Room Craft Co! 

 

And 4 months later COVID hit and she had to pivot or lose everything. 

 

 

So she thought of ways to keep a DIY Craft business going in a contagious pandemic and what did she find? 

Kits! Do it yourself AT HOME Craft Kits! 

 

I ordered a small String Art kit!

 

The instructions were so easy to follow. 

 

I had a blast hammering nails into a dog shape.

 

Tying knots from nail to nail, suddenly a dog appeared!

Twins! 

 

Beautiful and fun new dog crafts!

These are great for older kids and adults. All the kids on my holiday shopping list are getting something from Rec Room Craft Co. this year.

It's not just string art! Check out the Indigo Dye Kit! 

And the Paint Pour Kits!

Order something for yourself, or someone you love who's crafty and creative, support a small business, and everyone will be so happy! 

 

Rec Room Craft Co! 

 

olive and friends

i think photo calendars are a FUNctional and often hilarious present. i like them.

dogs like them too!

big thanks to betsylife for sharing a yearful of puppy pics!

starring adorable black lab puppy olive, and her big sister tally.

nacho approves.


pouncey approves too.

the dachshund i think is named boozer. i have no real life experience with dachshunds (weiner dogs), though i know that one of them bit kevin in the nose when he was a little kid. so now i think they're pretty funny and awesome.

check out betsylife for more puppy pictures, great recipes, and moooooore! 

*ps - dogs were enticed into kissing olive through the magic of coconut oil. 

roller derby

this weekend the WFTDA (women's flat track derby association) held a tournament at the civic center downtown asheville.

my old friend A-lisa from your favorite kickball team, the san diego kitshickers, is now a member of the chicago roller derby team, the windy city rollers. she goes by 'sargentina' and her job is to kick ass, and she is really good at it. she was an all-star from day one on the kitshickers, and nothing is different on the windy city rollers. 

last i saw alisa, (right) she was ho-downing, now she's downing ho's

i got to hang out with her for a couple of days, and pouncey was allowed to sleep outside of his crate for one night and snuggle with her. he fell in love and will never be the same!

pouncey drooling over sargentina's playing card

windy city had to finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd this weekend in order to make it to the championships in november. they lost in a white knuckle heartbreaker saturday, but last night they squeaked by minnesota to clinch the 3rd spot!

it was really mind-blowing and exciting watching their bout. these women are extremely intense. extremely agile. extremely powerful. the score is constantly changing, as they get a point for each player that their 'jammer' passes on her trips around the track. it's pretty confusing for a new fan, but very exciting. i can't believe the small amount of padding that they wear, considering the speed they're moving and the concreteness of the floor.

i wouldn't want to try to break that line!

 it's always great to see old friends, especially when they're doing interesting things!

RIP grace haley

grace was the black lab bitch of my friends jimmy and betsy in san diego. 

it's because of grace that i even have those wonderful friends from san diego. she lived across the street, and of course was so cute that she was irresistible, and in a crazy tiny world coincidence, we realized she had lived in chapel hill the same time that i had, i remembered seeing her outside jimmy's house in chapel hill, and she had been bred with a dog from holden's very kennel in raleigh.

grace was so eager to please. also eager to eat, eager to swim, eager to snore, eager to ride in the car, eager to dive for koozies, really just eager to please.

she was the only dog deemed well-behaved enough to be the kitshicker's mascot. she came to all the games and practices, wore a t-shirt, and never chased and popped a ball, unlike nacho and holden.

she wore a mini sombrero.

she checked to make sure friends were alive after wine tours. 

 

rest in peace sweet doggie!

new good things

gonna get back on the blog horse from the new house with a list of good things:

1. the internet here is fast and reliable. this may seem like a small deal, but for somebody who had aggravated charter repair visits on a more-than-monthly basis for the last 2 years, this is a Big Deal.

2. the water pressure is awesome. my shower is no longer a clawfoot tub designed for a child. the plastic shower liners do not sweep in and give me unwanted mildewy hugs.

3. kid D's sweet little girl teylor scores a soccer goal.

4. betsy's " great list" - i love this idea. i love her attitude of gratitude. i love her link to our old friend from san diego dr. adam tibble's letter from afghanistan to anderson cooper. 

5. there are surprisingly good restaurants around here in east asheville. who knew? i didn't. east village grille. cafe azalea. pomodoro's (which i mistakenly thought was 1. a chain and 2. like olive garden based on their signs. note to  restauranteurs - be careful of too-slick/clean-looking marketing material!)

6. my biggest t-shirt order of all time came this week: 10 t-shirts to a girl in texas. yee haw!

7. the amaryllis in the photo re-bloomed 1.25 years later. i kept watering it and the leaves kept growing for a year and then a new shoot shot up and now BOOM giant pink flowers towering many feet in the air above the pot.

8. had a couple rugs and couches cleaned today. they look and smell like new, now with 98% less dog fur. thank you five step carpet care

9. eli turned 8 this week. he got a big ball of raw hamburger meat. he enjoyed this. nacho got a miniball. he enjoyed his, too.

free shirts, spam, cheers to betsy

in an effort to keep this blog un-spammy, i started a new blog just for the vintage shirts i'm selling.

skippy haha vintage blog

it doesn't mean i'll never post here about shirts, or peanut butter stash safes, or whatever, but i'm going to try to keep them separate.

BUT the bloggers who so kindly took me up on the offer of free shirts in exchange for bloglove will be posted over there and here, because i think they're interesting.

without further ado, it's betsylife!

betsy is awesome. she will make you smile, smile, smile. in real life and on the internets.

she posts daily. super fresh recipes, some simple, some not. all with mouth-watering photos. she's full of tips on cooking and enjoying life in general. she's also an amazing painter. totally inspiring.

back when i lived in san diego, she was one of the most beautiful and creative t-shirt models around - always willing and able to go the distance for the shot, so help her jesus.

she's the first to take me up on the offer of free t-shirts for bloggers.

check out her post here.

thanks so much and cheers, betsy!

wine country

it's noon on a saturday.

you're in an SUV limo with 15 people you just met, going from winery to winery in temecula, california.

you start making out with one of the people in the back seat.

this is the reaction.

morning has broken

my friend michelle had a perfect baby girl this morning. this makes 4 baby girls born to good friends of mine in the past 2 weeks. last january must've been extra cold. found out 3 more friends are with child this week. it's nonstop procreation around here!

i am so happy for all of them, but now more than ever i feel this way.

RIP Vintage Vantage (2001-2010)

it's a sad day over here.


the vintage vantage death announcement was published this morning, announcing an everything must go liquidation sale, all shirts are half price or less. the 40% off coupon code 'skippyhaha' still works, on top of the discount.


it has been a wild ride full of chaos and chuckles.


vintagevantage started as lone ebay seller john keddie selling vintage t-shirts out of a tiny garage in ocean beach san diego california in 2001.


in 2002 i was about to graduate law school in chapel hill and selling vintage myself on ebay for some money, and emailed vintagevantage fanmail because I thought they were doing a great job.


one email led to another and i met up with john a month later at a widespread panic festival in colorado. we couldn’t find camping and set up tent in a taco bell, were woken up by the Denver sheriff who ran our licenses and let us stay.

2 months later he moved to charlotte where i just started working for a law firm uptown. we came up with 'we be illin' sacred hear

t children's hospital'  and urban outfitters ordered 5,000 of them, along with 'get high on yourself,' and we were off.

1 month later i quit my job and we moved to ventura california, driving nonstop for 2 days with holden on the passenger's lap.




we sold mounds of dirty old t-shirts on ebay, and modeled every one of them. we started coming up with more and more 'originals' and working with factories to make supersoft t-shirts in flattering cuts. that was a shitty process, i didn’t really deal with it.




we got recognized by strangers at music festivals and on the streets. i didn’t like that.


we got married.


we got nacho.

American eagle outfitters copied our ‘

detroit is for lovers’ shirt and we sued them and settled. It was awesome. 

people asked heather. 

we hired happymexicansock, aka socky, to stuff packages.


we moved to pacific beach san diego.


we met a bunch of awesome people across the street.


we hired matt duerr to manage the growing warehouse and do sales.


we made up the ‘voting is for old people’ shirt and caused quite a stir, Russell Simmons hated it, MTV hated it, the san diego news came to our house.  it was awesome.

we had an online dating contest for matt (get fresh with mateo), won by none other than kid D, and flew her out to san diego from oklahoma for a weekend. It was awesome.


we moved to hillcrest for a couple months, and then moved to encinitas, where we had a pool and a living room full of trampolines and a bitchin 80’s homecoming dance.

we outfitted the kitshickers.

and the kitshakers -

we had a contest and took 8 people to amsterdam for 4 days to film 'vintage vantage and the disappearing corn dog.'  there was a lot of footage but no movie came out of that trip. yet. i peed myself on the street in amsterdam laughing so hard, at what i have no idea.

we got divorced.


Matt quit for a more stable job, and John moved the warehouse and operations up to San Francisco.


I moved to Asheville.


Things quieted down, but we kept coming up with newer better funnier t-shirts, and selling the best real vintage from the 70s and 80s online. We started making t-shirts for bands – ALO, Tea Leaf Green, Guadalajara Joe…awesome shirts for awesome bands.


The inventory was hugely swollen and the sales were down. We are not good business people. The economy went to crap. We didn’t adjust. The interest on a loan from Bank of America ate all our profits. No good offers to buy the business materialized and now we have to liquidate.


I plan on selling vintage t-shirts on my own, on ebay and on etsy, possibly on the vintagevantage.com website if I can arrange that in the next few months. And I’ll keep making peanut butter stash safes.


John is starting a new t-shirt company with a well-established LA partner and their future looks bright.


Nacho will continue hopping through life like an arctic bunny.


All is well.






Some of my favorite t-shirts over the years have been:

Solar power turns me on -

Let’s hear it for sign language -

the pantychrist -

Fork my life -

Duluth, Duluth Duluth is on fire (burn Minnesota burn) -

Minivan Mega Fun

Polite as fuck -

Jesus loves immigrants

I’m not fat husky-

French canadien

Made a shirt with my dad on it -

And one with holden on it -

it was a good ride. keep it fresh, amigos.

kickball

a lot going on, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

kickball in asheville is a lot different from kickball in san diego. it is much more laid back, there are no set teams, 2 new captains pick boy girl boy girl from whoever shows up every time. there are babies on the field. there are no uniforms or cleats or refs. it is absolutely just as much fun.

i tried to spread the catching technique of 'the tuckoop' yesterday. when a pop fly is coming, get in a tuck/scoop position, and finish with 'squeeze the pillow.' there's no reason to fear the big red ball!

there'll be peace

bob seger is america! here's a great video for "In Your Time" some guy mike made for a class




i had to pull over while driving on grand ave. in san diego one time listening to this song because it made me weep & i couldnt see

seger sundays at the silver fox = $20 in the jukebox, nothing but seger...until the bartender pulls the plug...an act of treason