One Month

So, this has been a quick month and a lot of crafting has happened. I am now gearing up for Handmade in New York: A Craft Fair for Local Artists this Saturday. Visit if you are in the area.



I had a local order for the red ornament cards due this Tuesday and just got a very nice follow up note:

Hi Kristin,

Everyone I showed the cards to loved them and commented on my good taste.

Thank you so much!

-Will

Thanks, Will! This made my day, which was pretty long, and geared me up to go back to work making cards for Saturday right now! I'll post after the weekend with a HINY update. (Should be awesome- 46 exhibitors and a letterpress demo. My heart almost exploded when I heard I could learn about letterpress!)

Also, have big news on the amazing friend front coming next week!

Handmade Christmas

The budget is tight this year. Even though we're normally not extravagant and actually pretty low budget, this year it's reigned in even more for me. So, I'm going to experiment in creation. I've been giving a lot of handmade gifts over the past year and think they've been working out. Picture frames, cards, and pictures. I'm testing new things, but can't post them or they might ruin the surprise!

I also got a new dress pattern, that I hope to finish before (and maybe wear on) Christmas.


I fell in love with the green, a vibrant emerald, on the pattern cover, and tried to find the same color and material. No luck- but I am pretty close. I have a few alterations in mind and I hope they work out.

I Can See You

I decided to branch out... 5x7. With some of my favorite words and phrases from my research/academic work. I didn't think I'd be able to get the iris detail and am pretty pleased. There are a lot of places that need improvement, but I definitely pushed what I thought I could do.

Pop Up Nation

I've had a few pre-Thanksgiving pop-up themed days. Here's a little of what I've been looking at.

Majo, picture taker extraordinaire, sent this to me. I am in awe.



I also stumbled across another video this week, on WSJ.com. It's Robert Sabuda, the current go-to pop up guy, talking about his new books and a little process.



And finally, one of the daily emails I get had a pop-up list (I love lists) as a way of remembering Wally Hunt, a pop up legend. The article, by Isis Madrid on Flavorpill, is here.

I think that I love pop ups because they combine picture books, paper play, and movement. They challenge us as readers to see more. Plus, they're just cool.

Treasury

Every now and then, or all the time, I wish I could go accumulate art and other things that make me feel (unqualified, I like to have lots of feelings). I try to quell this materialism and consumerism and don't actually act on the impulse but admire. So, while working some things out this week, I decided to make a treasury on Etsy. I've made a few, maybe four, in the past and was on the front page once. That was the highlight of my pre-selling Etsy days.

So, check it out. Just click right here and let me know what you think.

Shoes

Shelley sent me some pictures of her shoes to share, and they're even better than I remember. Let's admire:

Discovery!

Last Thursday was a rough day. I made a pretty big mistake at work and then got home to discover my bike stolen. Silver lining: I was jostled out of my ordinary reserve and had a great chat with fellow bocce baller Gus after Sunday's match. We started talking about illustration- he's currently a fashion illustrator- and his new team t-shirt designs.

I think I have to take a moment to explain our bocce league a bit more. We play in a bar in Brooklyn on Sundays, though there are also Saturday and Monday divisions. My friends and I formed our team, Boccenalia, and joined the league in its second season and we're now stalwarts, with a few member shuffles as people move. Our first season, we saw that some teams had costumes and decided this was the place for us to excel while learning the game. We've had various incarnations (wreaths, tutus, chains) but right now were felted. We also have tshirts, all designed by one of our founding members, Christina, and screened first by another fab friend Gina and then by me. Here are our shirts, v1 then v2.



Beyond being a really great group of people, our team, in our inaugural season, won "Best Team Style". I believe the award was retired after that, but we've kept our overall style high.


Iris, our first and fearless leader, made flyers for our matches when we started.


This one was the inspiration for our MIA flag (those are bunnies chasing bocce balls, hand appliqued by Iris).


Team tshirts have become a big deal, about half of the teams rock them now. And we got a huge compliment when Gus told us on Sunday that one of his new designs for the Mud was inspired by our bunnies! Though, looking at the bunny getting crushed, I'm not sure how to take comment on our skill. I guess I can forgive it as the Mudskippers (go look at Gus's other designs for the Mud) are a great team, in sport and spirit.


Whew... that was more than I thought I was going to lay out. Anyhow, Gus and I were chatting with Michele, fellow Boccenalian and editor extraordinaire, and I think I shared by love of children's books (hey, I'm a literacy person) and maybe we decided to make one. I'm excited to at least talk more about it. Gus's style is so different than mine that I think we'll have some interesting ideas.

I pulled out some old illustrations I made and started a new one- buy far the most complex yet. It feels good to work on a larger scale sometimes... the little cards are a challenge to get details in and larger paper means less very tight spots. At least so far.

Moral of this long and winding tale: new projects and things to be excited about pop up when you don't expect them.

On a more related to the purpose of the blog note, I found a super cool site: CraftCult. The heartomatic feature is too cool, especially since I love love love finding out more about people who have visited my Etsy shop. It pretty much pulls up stats and hearts for your shop and items- Etsy centric analytics. And it saves me from the click pattern if I want to check this actually on the Etsy site.

And the shop has a secret admirer. I don't know anything about you, but love you back!

I'm a nerd

It was obvious at the craft fair. Talk of craft knives (my mini X-Acto was a hit) and paper storage kept my energy up. Corina's daughter was there, and we talked a very little bit. She's a student at Choate, a private school in Connecticut. My contribution to that part of the conversation was, "I went to summer school at Choate. I really wanted to go. (Sigh and shoulder shrug) I'm a big nerd." And yes, way back in high school, I actually asked to go to summer school. Not at my high school, at a prep school.

And I loved it. I took Econ, Creative Writing, and an SAT Verbal Prep class. You also had to do sports, and I played soccer after classes (I love the sport, but hadn't played in years and was surprising ok). I also learned how disastrously bad I am at pool in the Student Union. And I cheered on the Dutch team in the World Cup that summer.

So, I owned my nerdy ways, to a 15 year old, and have been in a geek-rut since Saturday. I read an article about a new bike-commuter facility in DC and put it on Facebook, asking what the overlap between rail commuters and bike commuters is, and suggesting we map it out in a Venn Diagram.



Being a nerd, however, does have some clout. I loved Venn Diagrams in school, and clearly I'm not the only one. I love the word, math, and pop culture play inside "Venn That Tune". I first ran into these images as cards on Moo and had fun looking through the graphics. I think it's great that moo has embraced the images, too. There is such much fantastic illustration on the site available for you to co opt for your own purposes (business cards, note cards, post cards, etc.), and the inclusion of these math based images makes me love Moo more. (My anwer to the Venn That Tune below is The Holly and the Ivy. Feedback, please. I'm not so confident in this answer.)



On a sadder note, I was going to finish my first order yesterday, but my evening was thrown off because my bike was stolen. I'm a little heartbroken. I've had it for almost 18 years. So, I'll finish the order tonight. I also have another order in! My friend Christine went on the Etsy shop and wants a small set of the ornament card as well. I think I have amazing friends. Thanks!!

To end happily, I took at look at my Google Analytics for the Etsy shop, and I've had visitors from 11 countries! As I said earlier, it is addictive.
Australia (x3)
China (x1 - I suspect this is a good friend)
UK (x3)
Latvia (x1)

Another first

Hooray! I have two orders.

The first was orchestrated by Majo, my fantastic friend who took the pictures. She showed the pictures to a coworker who loved the ornament cards and wanted a set of 10. It's all official and I'm working on them now. I'm a little behind because, duh-duh-dun, I ran out of cardstock! I've made so many cards recently, I need to restock. Again! Not a huge deal - I'm off to Paper Presentation and Print Icon tonight to get cardstock (cream, red, white), yellow paper, and look at pricing on metallic black papers. I'm about 3/4 done with the order, just need the red and cream to finish it. And I need to make a decision on envelope coloring, sand or grey.



The second order is 5 lemon themed flat cards (front only), and the reason why I need bright yellow paper. These will become recipe cards to go with a holiday gift of limoncello. Shelley called me after the show, said more nice things, and asked if I can make the recipe cards for her. I naturally demanded a bottle of her homemade limoncello in return.

We also talked about where to get bottles- I've gotten them at Pier 1, Christmas Tree Shops, and Broadway Panhandler in the past. The chat made me want to go back to my liqueur gift roots this year - a few years ago I made a cranberry liqueur, recipe courtesy of Cooking Light (Photography: Becky Luigart-Stayner; Styling: Lydia DeGaris-Pursell). I followed that up with a strawberry version- I reduced the amount of sugar significantly... maybe by half.



When I have the recipe cards made (and a new battery charger for my camera so I can take pictures again), I'll post some images. I think I have a design figured out, but sometimes there is discord between my head, my drawings, and the result.

I am also investigating paper pricing to contact someone from the craft fair about a large order for bridal shower thank you cards. She wants a specific black metallic paper instead of the silver pictured. This would be great, but I have a feeling I'm going to be charging more than she wants to spend.



I'm feeling good with two (one real sale and one barter) orders. I'm also getting a fair amount of traffic on my Etsy site. I even had a visitor from the UK! I totally love Google Analytics, though it's a slippery slope. I keep trying to find where people are coming from- I don't quite understand the referral site section. Like so much else this venture, a learning process.

It was a start

I went to a small show/craft fair on Saturday. It was very small, but was my first time really selling anything I've made (except for that brief friendship bracelet/embroidery floss fiasco in 1st Form, aka 6th Grade, at Mount Carmel). So, I brought most of my cards, and my one big ticket item, home. Did I roll in the dollars? No. But I did make some spending money with the potential for more. Not bad. Definitely beats the worst case scenario.

There was a lot of lead up to the event. About a month of my trying to fit card making into my routine so I'd have a large selection, slightly derailed by the flu. A wonderful friend helped me out and took beautiful pictures of some of my cards, which wound up with an order from one of her colleagues. Thanks, Majo! And I started planning on actually putting things up on Etsy after the show.

Now, I have a lot of follow up work. And though it wasn't quite what I thought, the show at Aux 3 Pommes was a great experience. I have shop links to two other sellers and I want to take a moment to appreciate their work. I can't link to Marie Jose's jewelry shop, but she was kind enough to open her language school, Aux 3 Pommes, to us as a venue and was showing bold, chunky jewelry with colorful and graphic beads. I can't afford her pieces but still spent a good deal of time admiring them. Debra Musto, known to me as Aunt Debbie, brought me into the show. She had her beautiful and jewelry on display and for sale, and I can almost afford hers. I wound up trading (bartering?) cards for a brooch which I'll have to take a picture of so you can see how beautiful it is. Copper wire (I love copper) and a large, round, greenish bead. Her Etsy shop is Jewelry Designs by D, and I think she's got a great variety of designs. I was also sure to grab the shop and blog info of Corina S. Alvarezdelugo because I was staring longingly at her work all day, specifically Lovely Darfur and Want, both pictured below. You can find her as Corinadotdash (Etsy, blog, website).




I'm sure I'll have more to talk about on this later, and I'm really glad I went. I really want to take some art classes, now, and get better. I think in illustration, though, novice that I am, I'm sure basic drawing is necessary, too. It was great for artists to look at my work and note the time, energy, and decisions that go into a little card.

Here's a (very) little of what I had out on Saturday, and please note Majo's wonderful photos.






"Weekend Ready" was in my first ever official sale, to my great friend since high school, Shelley. I was so glad to start the day off with a friendly face who came just to see and support me. And all the nice things she had to say were probably undeserved, but totally awesome to hear from someone whose sense of style I really love. In fact, I think she was wearing some of the coolest shoes I've ever seen- 40's inspired mary jane heels in a very fun red plaid material. I should also find a picture of these because they were such a great mix of shape, texture, and pattern. Hmm... email out to Shelley.