Big Mascots & Big Costumes

Archives for April 2016

Mascotland on TV

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Lauren Casey as a fish

We’re colorful, buoyant and a bit show-y off-y

…and when a stylish, lively interviewer with a TV camera comes into the studio it brings it all up to a new level. It’s MascotLand on TV!

Lauren Casey, from WRTV6 came by the other day. She is a one woman band.

She took out a tripod, put an ipad on the tripod, attached a camera lens, and away we went. Lauren does it all. She is fearless. She even tried on Simon the Soybean’s gloves, and later doffed the Loudmouth Fish.

Here ya go!

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©Jennifer Smith 2016

 

Biz, Blessings & a Martini

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JQBossLadyAvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.
I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.
From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years. AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.
Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and toes painted, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.
This is crazy thinking.
When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching fleece onto fur on the latest mascot head, I’ve taken to counting my blessings.
Here are some of them:
  • I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
  • I  love my biz – making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
  • I’ve traveled everywhere–okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places – Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can’t speak the language.
  • … however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
  • I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
  • I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
  • I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
  • …and right now I’m listening to the general chatter in the studio as Joseph drafts patterns for a very buff mascot, Mike finishes the electronics for a ventilation fan in a Giant’s head and Anne finishes 3 pairs of really big mascot shoes for 3 very different mascots – a Griffin, a Tomato & a Parrot!
  • Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
  • Every Friday I come home to a really good martini with my husband
I have imagined my life, and it became real.
I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.
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