Like Birthday and Christmas all at once!

I was trying to find a specific quote by Oscar Wilde that I always liked, but can't seem to place it now. It was something about how artists should always surround themselves with beautiful things. I always felt like having a lot of art around and beautiful things, is a good way to protect one self from the harshness of reality.

I'm not much of a collector those days, I moved to NY with 2 suitcases and a box full of books, of course some stuff had been collected in the past year and a half - books, art, cloths and so on, but we do try to keep it simple and not hang on to too much stuff.

Why am I writing all this, because today an amazing portfolio of 30 (!) amazing art print arrived in the mail. I send 30 of mine a long long time ago, for a Baren Print exchange and today I got back the prints from 30 other artists.

While working on my print, I though to myself, that I really don't need 30 prints back and that I hate printing so many, but today, when I'm the proud owner of an extensive print collection, I realize how important it is to be exposed and own other artist's work. I feel so inspired I really want to start working on a new print.






List of participants: Barbara Mason, Robert Simola, Jeanne Norman Chase, Tiberiu Chelcea, Viza Arlington, Ld Lawrence, Su Tamsett, Loren Letourneau, Charles Philip Brook, James Mundie, Lee Churchill, Mary Kuster, Linda Hornberger, Wimberley Burton, Michelle Morrell, Robert Viana, Diane Cutter, Sharen Linder, Barbara Patera, Julio Rodriguez, Monica Bright, Jean Womack, Joseph Taylor, Claudia G Coonen, Eli Griggs, George Jarvis, Judith Kornett, Kolene Dietz, Mark Mason, Linda Mcphail

Some thought about promotion

I posted a thread in the etsy forum today, it has to do with the good feeling of actually making money on Etsy and feeling like I'm doing well (it's a whole different story and might be told in a different time). I got a lot of really kind responses congratulating me about the making money thing. Also, it was really nice to see people referring to my success as something to aspire to. Also, I got a really nice e-mail from a fellow selling asking me about where do I promote my etsy store.

This made me think, I mean we are all looking for places to promote our stores, however, that very allusive "promotion" thing that we all want to know, it "where" and not "how".

So I'm going to write a couple of thought about promotion and the how rather then the who that I was trying to put into words while writing that e-mail.

The How of promotion

2 restaurants opened up in my neighborhood this past summer. One's called Blackbird parlor and the other is called paper moon cafe. Now they both sell very nice food and both are owned and managed by very nice people, however, the first is doing really really well, while the second is totally empty.

Why is that? honestly, there is not one reason, it's location and it's the fact that the one who's doing well is owned by someone with experience in the restaurant industry and the other isn't. But the main thing, at least for me is this:

While the owner and manager of Blackbird parlor became a part of the Williamsburg community, the owner and manager of Paper moon has not.

Taking to the first means I'm hearing news about people who lives here, how other restaurants are doing, different things that happened on Bedford st. and their plans for the future. When he's not busy inside, he stand in the street corner and talk to people, make friends.

Looking at Black bird it's obvious that there was a lot of research about what people in Williamsburg, like, both the design (sort of a log cabin with French inspiration) and the menu were made to accommodate what people here already wanted and like.

Papermoon is empty almost all the time, both the design and menu are very foreign to the area (county cottage and meat loaf?!). When talking to the owner, I always got to hear about what's wrong with all the other restaurants in the area. He lives out of town and doesn't know most of the restaurants in Williamsburg.

There is so much to be learned form this. However what I really want to stress, with relations to my etsy store, is the importance of being a part of a community.

In a book about marketing called get back in the box by Douglas Roshkoff, the author describe a conversation he had with a client, the client wanted an advertising campaign that would be "less Saatchi and more craigslist".

What is the difference? the difference is that in a typical advertising campaign, the voice of one - the advertiser speak to many. One person or organization produce content and the viewers give that person their attention, later on, they might also give him their money in exchange of goods.

Craigslist, however, is a community based website, much like etsy, people who sell on it also buy on it, you can find yourself looking for a roommate one day, selling your old stereo the next. which means, that you are both the viewer and the advertiser.

This means there is a huge difference between advertising and online promoting. In advertising, all you do is create content for people to look at, in promoting, you become, much like the owner of blackbird - a part of your community. The difference is, that you don't just expect attention, you also give it. You become a persona in your own online world, not in order to sell a specific scarf you made, but in order to produce an online imprint who will generate attention and traffic to your store.

I know it sound strange, almost imperceivable, but a comment on someone else's blog may generate more traffic then a blog entry. Featuring another artist's work in your blog will also probably generate more traffic to both your blog and your store (first of all that person will want to read it and then probably will direct other people to read it, and feel more incline ot wrote about you in forums and blogs and so on).

A picture of your cute cat on flickr will probably generate more traffic into your flickr page and as a result, probably your etsy store then a photo of a scarf you made and a "check my profile for details" link. Reason being that a cute cat is more interesting and cute for people to look at then a scarf. A tutorial would probably get more then both, because it's also useful and interesting.

The goal of promotion, strangely enough is not to generate sales or traffic, but to generate attention and a large as possible web imprint that leads to you and to your store. not to attract "buyers" but to attract people, make friends and be known. And just like being active in conversation will make you more friends then just standing around - being active as both a viewer and an advertiser will be more effective then being just an advertiser.

Places to promote (again, make yourself a part of those communities, just throwing some pictures around once, doesn't help at all):

Flickr
We Love Etsy
IndiPublic
Cut out+ Keep
Trunkt (if you can get in, I haven't...)

Trade Up!

2 new books arrived in the mail in the past couple of days and I wanted to show them off! I approached two book artist a couple of weeks ago and offered to trade, it's a nice way to move stocks about and also to get wonderful stuff from people that i don't know how to make myself.

I'm so glad I offered the trades, I really couldn't be happier with what I get, also, seeing how other etsy seller wrap their stuff and what they send the package with is very inspiring and educational.

So, without farther a due, my new books!

AnneClarkDesigns




This books comes from a beautiful jewelery makes and a book artist called Anne, this book is made of beautiful marbled paper that i love, I've never seen this binding before, it's a cross between long stitched and regular European style binding with the stitches exposed. I really love it, it's inspiring me to learn more binding method and already gave me a cool idea for a book.

The end paper is beautiful red pattern and the pages inside are nice and soft. I knew it was going to be a nice book but really, I never expected it to be so awesome! This is going to be my Trip-to-Israel sketchbook, I hope I can fill the whole thing in the 2 weeks I'm going to be there next month.

Really, I can't stress enough how awesome this book is, you should all get one at Anne's store

Painted Fish Studio


This is the second book I got, the price on it was really really low, and I couldn't understand why, I thought I might be reading the measurement wrong or something, however, it turned out that i didn't, this is amazingly made, the materials are really top quality and the whole thing is so awesome I still don't understand why she doesn't charge 5 times more at least for it.

This is a beautiful old fashion style album made from black paper and bound in beautiful mustered. the end paper is cool yellow on mustered dots. I'm especially excited about how amazing this is because Ned's going ot use it for a small version of his portfolio to take for meetings with Model, so I'm glad it's going to look great (well, unless I decide I'm taking over).

Jen's store have beautiful books, albums, art prints and other paper craft, her pictures are beautiful and the whole store have a beautiful clean look. Visit painted fish studio!

Illustration Friday - multiple

I used to take part at the Illustration Friday site a few years ago. It was when I worked in an office and it was a good way to jolt my creativity and waste some office time as well as free use of their scanner (I didn't have one at home at the time) Then I started doing other stuff and forgot all about it.

But, over the past couple of weeks, I've been highly inspired by the beautiful work of Gennine and the beautiful way in which she is inspired by the Illustration Friday theme to create beautiful artwork in her style. So I joined again.

I got a difficult word for my first week - Multiple, At first I wanted to do something with the periodical chart, much influenced by a Making history podcast I was listening to, but nothing came up really. Eventually, I decided to just go with multiple drawings and created 3 of them for this artwork.

For a while now, I want to bring myself to list a painting or a drawing on the Etsy store. It's somehow a lot more scary to me to sell art then it is to sell craft stuff, probably because I value the art more then the craft creations. I take myself more seriously as an artist then as a craftist - but I am going to live up to the challenge and list those 3 pieces.

What does one do in a day of no crafting?

I didn't make anything today, usually I don't make stuff in a day before a shoot. Ned's shooting a beautiful model tomorrow and we are trying to get over the mass in the studio and turn it from an artist studio, a very messy place indeed, to a photography studio, which is basically a lot of free space. So what did I do today?


Well, Ned when into the city for a meeting and I came as well, we agreed to meet back at coffee shop in an hour and a half. I'm almost out of cool fabrics for the lining of the tarot decks, so I walked to PurlSoHo to get some new ones. The store was really crowded and it's tiny, but found some good stuff. It was cool to listen to all the conversation and how people are dealing with crafting problems and what they are making.



It was very cold and i was getting tired walking out, so I stopped in some tea shop and had some tea. I didn't have my MP3 players and for the first time in a while I got to sit on my own and listen to people's conversation that were very strange, There was 2 women in some meeting on one side, one of them were a voice coach or an English teacher and this was their first class, she made the other girl read out a poem lout loud in the middle of the cafe and they went over the difficult words.

On the other side, a girl was telling her friend about her trip to Pushkar, India. one of them watched a TV show about Pushkar and they were comparing notes and talking about guys.

While I was having tea and listening to conversations, I was finishing a painting I was working on for a while.



We went back home and Ned fell asleep while I was trying to clear the mess in the apartment so that we can shoot tomorrow. After a while I stopped, we didn't do the image research we usually do before shoots and I didn't know if Ned's going to wake up in time to do it, so I made one myself, after an hour of finding and downloading pictures, I went back to trying to clear the mess.

Ned woke up and we went out for a late late dinner in Kellogg's coming out, we saw the most beautiful snow falling. It looked like tiny shards of glass or the small tinsels in a snow glob, all tiny and shiny. It was very cold and the snow was staying on the ground, all dry and stiff, like powdered sugar.



In Kellogg's it was warm and crowded, and we had some sandwiches and talked over the photos I downloaded before, thinking about different ideas for tomorrow.

Stab stitching tutorial

This is a tutorial for my currently favorite book making method. A Japanese style stab stitching cook, it's perfect for making small notebooks, sketchbooks and albums, as well as bigger hard cover books (though I personally haven't tried those.

The benefits of stab stitching books are - since all the pages are stitched together, there are no signatures and so you can bind any number of pages together. Also, there is no glue involve which make this craft a lot less messy (though you won't be able to judge that by how the studio looks right now.


Materials
A rubber ballet or a hammer, paper cut to size, I used about 25 pages for this one, nice paper for the cover and pack cover, also cut to the same size at the pages inside, an awl, a ruler, craft knife, pencil, floss, needle, 2 clips.

Step 1. Attach all the pages together using the clips, put the clips in about a third from the top, leave at least 1"-2" clear to work on.
Step 2. with the ruler and the pencil, mark a straight line on the top part of the book (where the stitching will go). Mark 5 points in equal intervals.


Step 3. Using the awl and mallet, puncture 5 holes where you made the marking. make sure the awl made it all the way through all layers of paper and that the holes are nice and even. If you down have an awl, this can also be done with a nail.

Step 4. make a knot at the end of your floss and thread it through a needle. Start by passing the needle through the center hole from the back of the book to the front, then loop around the top part of the book and insert the needle again through the same hole.

Step 5. Then, pass the needle through the hole to the right of the center hole, and loop around the top part again. turn the book to the back part and move to the next hole to the right (the last one) and loop around it as well. Loop around the side of the book and insert the needle through the first hole to the right again. Then stiched back to the center.
Step 6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to the left side of the book, then tie a knot at the end and trim the floss.

Ta-Da! the book is done, you can decorate it with rubber stamps, bits of paper, beads, drawings or whatever you like. Or, if you are too lazy, you can hop on to my store and buy one. Writing the instruction is honestly more complicated then actually making one, there are very few options to where the needle can go and it's really really easy to make.

More book binding information
Book binding glossary
The how to make books book
Japanese book binding
Center of book art
The Arm - a wonderful gallery and letter press shop, that offer classes and is just a great place to visit.

Weekly Summery

Sales This week: 11 (but I'm a day late in writing this)

Hearts: 391

Treasuries: Curated 2, one was dedicated to tarot cards, though i didn't include mine, and one to being sick. I was also featured in 2 treasuries, both dedicated to the color red!

Main source of inspiration: Sadly, non! I was sick all week! the only thing I made for the store were deck of tarot cards and nothing new...

Best thing to eat: just soup and tea!

Shopping: 30$ were spend on about 11 sheets of paper at New York central art supply.

Greatest achievement: Being sick and still manage to get the store going.

Disappointments: didn't do any promotion this week. Also, trying to put down some boundaries to a problematic buyer and failing.



Last week's goals and how I held up:

1. If I can make those 6 sales this week, I'll be happy.
I did much better then that! I made 11, which makes the month total so far at 25.

2. Get my hands on one more treasury at least and if possible, be in one.
Double the fun - I was in 2 and made 2.

3. I got a very nice e-mail from the woman who wrote the Etsy article in Ynet. I want to answer it and write her about my favorite Etsy store.
Nope i didn't do that one, correspondence is really hard for me now.

4. List a fine art piece.
Nope, didn't do that one either.

5. Odin the wolf sold, so I want to make another wolf. And possible another fox.
No wolfs or foxes were made.

6. Make another cups deck and another major deck.
That actually did get done, and I'm pretty susre they both sold.

7. I want to write a blog entry \ article about my experience in Tarot and the history of them in my life. Possibly the first of a series of articles about my personal view of Tarot card. This would be a perpetration to a fuller instruction manual I intend to make about cards.
Nope!

8. Go see those exhibitions!
Nope!

Over all, though sales were great, I didn't do enough to promote or take care of my store as far as stocks goes. I hope I'll be a little bit more energetic in the next few days after I recover some more.



Goals for next week

1. Make one more major arcana and one more cups decks.

2. Make a new wolf and a new fox - there are very few toys in the store now...

3. get a treasury and be in a treasury.

4. Write that tarot article I wanted to write last week.

5. promote more - write in the blog, in indipublic and we-love-etsy

6. make some new small inspirational notebooks and make a tutorial about how to make them.

7. List something every day

Still sick

Still sick, 3 days in bed and going nuts! I can't stand it anymore - I have so much stuff I want to do and absolutely no energy to do it with... I just sleep all day, drink tea and feel like there's a big dog sitting on my chest. I feel like an old woman complaining...

In a few hours of relative health yesterday, trying not to sleep so I can actually do sleep at night, I did manage to finish one deck of cups, it took me about 4 times more then my usual amount of time, but at least I wasn't completely useless that day.

Also, finally manage to finish Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man since I was in bed all the time and couldn't do anything but read. It's such a complicated book I'm not quite sure what to make of it, I'm not even sure what the whole thing was about. However, I did find a lot of parts of it very inspiring and made a small photo project on flickr inspired by it.

Sick As a Dog

I'm so so sick! I can't believe how bad I feel, I have the flue, but as usual it feels like near death...

I have fever and snot and the whole thing.

I haven't put anything in the store for 2 days, because I didn't have the energy to make it, actually I slept all of yesterday.

The only thing I manage to do is get this treasury.

Weekly Summery

Sales This week: 11 (!)

Hearts: 358

Treasuries: Curated 2 (the art of war and Original sin)

Main source of inspiration: A fabric shopping spree in PurlSoho and a paper shopping spree in NY central art supply gave me a beautiful new thoughts about colors.

Best thing to eat: Not an amazing food week, but I just had some amazing chocolate.

Shopping: Oh my god! so many cool things were bought this week - about 20$ in Purl for 2 pieces of linen and 4 pieces of cotton, then about 10% in dickblick for 3 sheets of paper, and then about 30$ for 11 sheets of paper, all for the back of tarot cards. Expensive - but so beautiful!

Greatest achievement: 11 Sales! the most I've had it a week so far.

Disappointments: Still not brave enough to list any pine art pieces.

OK, so lets see how I did with this weeks goals...

1.List something each and every day I think that aside of one day, I have indeed list something everyday. On top of that I'm learning to use the Etsy listing exel document so I'll be able to follow my listings better.

2. And make a fox! - Nop! I was too busy making Tarot cards.

3. finish the cups set production and list it, and make at least one tarot deck of the major arcana this week - I made much more then that! one of my nicest buyers wrote about "the cups" deck in a collectors forum which got some cool people seeing them (and buying them!) I made 8 of them this week - and sold 6 of the ones I made.

4. get one treasury, at least, and be in one (hopefully) - I got 2 treasuries, but were not featured in any - sadly.

5. list a fine art item - Nop, I'm still not brave enough for that. I'm going to try that next week.

6. write a store review about someone else's store - Didn't do that either.

7. see the Irving Pen exhibition in the Morgan library and also the Horst exhibition in the Forbes gallery - And no exhibitions!

I guess I didn't do so well on the tasks for this week, however, it doesn't matter so much cause I was really busy making tarot deck and taking care of orders. I'm so happy and excited about people's reaction to the new cards and all the sales. I just hope it keeps going like that.

So, most of the goals move to next week and this is what I plan to do:

1. There were already 14 sales this month, I'm very happy about that. My target was 20 sales this month, so I hope to have to revise that, If I can make those 6 sales this week, I'll be happy.

2. Get my hands on one more treasury at least and if possible, be in one.

3. I got a very nice e-mail from the woman who wrote the Etsy article in Ynet. I want to answer it and write her about my favorite Etsy store.

4. List a fine art piece.

5. Odin the wolf sold, so I want to make another wolf. And possible another fox.

6. Make another cups deck and another major deck.

7. I want to write a blog entry \ article about my experience in Tarot and the history of them in my life. Possibly the first of a series of articles about my personal view of Tarot card. This would be a perpetration to a fuller instruction manual I intend to make about cards.

8. Go see those exhibitions!

Productive Night

Ned's back was hurting and he was feeling sick yesterday, he spend the day in bed in a colossal sleep of 27 hours (well with a few breaks for food). It was weird to spend a whole day with barely a conversation with a living soul...

So, I listened to Israeli podcast, that I like, a show called "making history" by Ran Levi, which is about the history of scientific discoveries and invention, and i made Tarot for the store. the 3 decks I made before was gone, so it was time to make some new ones. The fabrics that I bought on Friday were great for color inspiration and I enjoyed the podcasts and painting, cutting and sewing.

Ned took pictures of them today, so now there's a new Cups Deck and a new Major Deck in the store.

Tonight, I was working on a gift for my sister, however, it came out so nice, I just had to keep it for the shop, I'll make her something else tomorrow...

3 beautiful packages

I resurrected the Etsy store almost 3 months ago, it was standing there, empty aside of 4 expired listings I put in almost a year before. I had a bit disagreement that somehow manage to get into a full scale war on a swap group I was in, and I decided I will never swap again... The first thing that I missed after 2 weeks of being upset about the war, was the insensitive to craft on a deadline, I realize that unlike making drawings and painting, there's no way in hell I will saw a handbag or make a sock puppet unless there's someone on the other end who wold take it off my hand.

So, I decided to list something in the store every single day for a month and see what happens. And it turned out that not only, I was really creative and learn a lot of new things, but also, people are actually willing to pay money for it, so now the store is just like the swap site, only I swap stuff i make for money!


Which only leaves out one problem - I used to get a few very cool packages every week, and now, though I love seeing the money I make in my paypal account, I almost never get any cool mail anymore... And I miss that!

This week however was different, I got not one, not two but three really amazing packages which I'm really happy with!

The one on top came from a good friend of mine from Israel. She send me stuff that would remind me of Israel, which it have. Isn't it the best feeling in the world when someone know what will make you happy?! especially if those things are such a strange collection of stuff!

Top left - a cool handmade pouch full of charms she found in the flee market. The Hamsa, fish and blue eye are all so Israeli it makes me want to cry, they are all good luck charms, the red oval one is a Christan symbol and the white dove with "peace" on it, is really Israeli as well, somehow the way she manage to put the 3 greatest religion of Israel in a tiny pouch is really beautiful to me.

Top Right - 2 negative envelopes form an old famous photography studio in Tel Aviv, that place is as old as the city, I think those are probably from the 60's or 70's by the design.

Bottom left - two baby shirts in vintage patterns, I remember having those pear and apple pattern underwear when I was a toddler. I'm not sure what am I going to do with them - I love the fabric and would love to have something I could wear made of it.

Bottom right - the best thing in the world! a drawing that she made of an Arak label, my favorite Israeli drink!



The second package that came in is my first trade on Etsy, I've been wanting a coptic stitched book since forever, and i really like this one - look how cool it is! The cover is made of soft suede and the stitching is beautiful. This girl's store is really too cheap and I suggest everyone go and buy a lot of stuff before she realize that and push her prices up (as she should!).




The last packages was a total surprise! apparently, I made a package for this person back in August as a part pf a swap, for the life of me I can't remember what I send her. She wrote a very nice letter saying she was inspired by my package and wanted to make something for me! I'm really touched by the hard work she put into the quilted scarf - I love it, the colors are beautiful and IT GOT POCKETS! which is very useful and cool. I was relaly touched by her letter and by the thoughtfulness in making this for me.

I'm going to wear this scarf for a Bar Mitzva today!

Good night!

Sales today: 3
Items posted: 3
packages send out: 1
Main source of inspiration: A fabric shopping spree at PurlSoho made me think about colors.
Best thing to eat: jambon de bayon Sandwich at Blackbird Parlor and Baklava for dessert.
Listening to: The deathgate cycle audio book.

We were sick all week, however, during the night I feel better and then - I work! and so tonight, Ned took photos of a cups Tarot deck I finished last night. And I manage to make another 2. It was a very good night.

The cool thing was this - I listed the deck, then, I posted a photo in flickr, then I opened the new Exel work file I downloaded from the Etsy site to try and keep better track on thing and, well tried to figure it out since I've never worked with it before (I'm still not sure it's working...) and then I went back to my etsy page to check the view - and the deck was gone! it was already sold!

It's the best feeling in the world.

Etsy on Ynet

One of the things that I do almost every single morning is check the Israeli news on Ynet. Truth be told, I never used to read the news when I was in Israel and I don't even care so much now. I usually scan the site and read some recipes or a complaint about dating or about new books coming out. It's mostly just nice for me to have some Hebrew to look at and feel like I know what's going on over there before I start my Brooklyn day.

So today, I was doing just that, when the familiar face of Lester from Kitlane's store greeted me, I thought I was getting confused and clicked the link, to see a whole article about Etsy! I'm going to translate it in favor of people who are interested, but alas - can't read Hebrew:

Love gifts? You have to see this on line store!
By Natasha Haimovitch

Natasha invites you to visit the hottest craft fair on the net: Etsy. a 100,00 virtual stores that sells every type of art and craft, from everywhere in the world.

Imagine the Nahalat Binyamin market (a weekly craft fair in Tel Aviv) with a 100,00 stalls that are open all the time, 24/7. Not only that, but the stalls belong to gifted artists from all around the world. Now meet Etsy, a website that brings together art and craft stores, that you should know whether you are making things yourself or just enjoy creative ideas.

Some Facts you should know about Etsy:

The biggest:
One hundred thousand people opened virtual stores on the site, and sell their arts and crafts through it. there are "stores" of creators from Australia, USA, France, Canada, Japan, and other places. There is also a strong community of Israeli artists that exhibit locally made creations.
By the way, 90% of the exhibitors are women.

The most Ideological:
The person behind this relatively young site, only 2 years online, is a young gay called Robert Klain, only 27. In this video clip, on the site, Klain explain the moto and ideology behind the site and tells about the "art and craft revolution" that's happening online. The goal, Klain say, is not only to sell and buy art and save the go between fee, but that you'll connect to one another. As far as he's concern he's a builder of an online community.

The most Revolutionary:
The New York times stated over a year ago, that this the "cyber craft revolution". After December 2006 in which 2 millions items on the over all value of 4.3 million dollars were sold on Etsy.

The most Variety:
In the category dedicate to art for instance there are 8,368 pages of pieces in different medias. In the needle craft category, there are 8,461 items. If you don't feel like digging deep you can take a peek at the homepage that changes everyday and show new pieces selected by the sites editors.

The most Bizzar:
Long existing craft are gaining revived in a contemporary twist, edgy and very colorful. Yes, people still knits like grandmother, but instead of knitting a teapot cover, they knit thongs, instead of sewing a pillow, some artist would rather saw a Japanese style Manga robot and instead of crochet doilies you can find crochet bacon. Yes, it's decorative, yes, it's cool, and it's also a protest against mass produced consumption that kills individualism.

The most Martha:
The offices of Etsy are located in a 6 stories high building in Brooklyn, NY. They have a giant lab for arts and crafts that have all the tools and appliances Martha Stuart can only dream of.

The most popular:
You will not believe what one of the most successful items in Etsy is: cute illustration of Fifi the bunny wearing designer cloths by dolce gabbana and stella mccartney, 30$ for an original illustration. This store, though very popular is closed till April, it's worth waiting, Because those are collector items.

Also in the article, photos and links to KitLane, NeedleNoodles, Collagelab, dvrdown, and AliciaBock

Congratulations to all the featured artist!

A story about a skirt

A while ago, Ned and I were shooting for a fashion designer, her Name's Emily and she's an artist and a designer. She designed 2 beautiful Jackets, one very natural looking and the other, metallic and shiny. She said she'll bring some jumpsuits for the bottom, but we wanted to get some stuff, and the day before the shoot, I went to the Salvation Army store and bought a really nice mid length suede skirt, which I thought would look nice with the natural looking jacket.

Coming home and putting the skirt on the rack, I saw found a really wonderful find, It turned out it was an Isaac Mizrahi Leather skirt.

We never got to used it in the shoot, but I decided to keep the skirt for myself. Somehow, though it was beautifully made and very nice to touch, I only wore it once, it was a little too big and didn't look that great on me. So it set in the closet for a while, and seem would go on doing so until spring cleaning when I'll take it back to the Salvation army store.

However, a couple of day's ago I got an e-mail through Etsy, someone asked is I can make a traveler art kit from leather, and later that day, I remembered the skirt, so 2 days later, and the skirt is reincarnated as a nice folder for sketchbooks and pencils.

I have a bit of a problem using animal products for crafts, like leather, I love working with it, but feels it's immoral, using reclaim leather makes me feel a little better about it.

Odin The Gray Wolf

Funny how inspiration works sometimes!

The pat couple of days had been full of fairy tales, Between watching "stardust" and reading "stardust" and listening to the "deathgate cycle" with Ned, I really wanted to make something mythological and legendary today.

We are both a little sick, and when Ned was sleeping this afternoon, I as listening to another book, that actually happening in modern day England, it's called "dirk Gently, holistic detective agency" By Douglas Adams. Without giving too much away, one of the characters in the book is Odin, the god, who spend his time in a privet hospital doing what he likes best which is sleeping.

It got me thinking about Odin and Rune bones and other Nordic mythology and While listening to the audio book I started working on Odin the wolf.

You can see him here!

Finally...

Tarot cards - cups, originally uploaded by lilly1975.

Finally, they are done, photographed and listed in the store! A new series of 14 cards, the cups from the minor arcana decks. I'm really proud of myself for finishing those, the illustrations turned out really elaborate and I like them very much.

The minor arcana deck is a set of 56 cards, an old version of the today known playing cards. each suite is made of 14 cards (unlike playing cards that have 13 in each suite). 10 of those are number cards, starting at Ace and finishing at 10, and then 4 royal family cards. usually, those are "page", "knight", "queen" and "king. Though in my version of it, It's "page", "knight", "princess" and "queen.

Each of the suite have an object that represent a certain element and a facet of life or a type of energy. In this case, cup represent the element of water and the energy of love and emotions.

I chose to use the same model who's also a friend for this suite. By working with the same person, I hoped to express how we move through all type of emotional related situation through life and how different types of love and the expression of it change as we change.

The cards are hand painted and come in a nice handmade bag with a short set of instructions.

Check it out!

Weekly Summery

Sales This week: 3

Hearts: 329

Treasuries: Curated 2, appeared in 1

Main source of inspiration: prints that Ned made of a shoot we had with Candice a few weeks ago.

Best thing to eat: A mason figs and goat cheese sandwich at Urban Rustic.

Shopping: This had been an annoyingly expensive week - I spend 30$ on cream paper hoping it'll work with my printer, it hasn't then eventually I broke and ordered the paper I already know works form amazon, since staples discontinued having it. The shipping was expensive and now I have to wait...

Greatest achievement: Finishing a really big project!

Disappointments: Not finishing a lot of the projects I was planning for this week.

OK, so lets see how I did with this weeks goals...

1. list a new item everyday - This really didn't happened this week, I started working on the minor arcana deck and it took most of my free time. I renewed some items but actually listed only 2 new items. The fox and A valentine's tarot deck.

2. Try and get the cream paper I was using originally for the tarot - I tried 2 very fancy type of paper, however the ink just doesn't seem to stick to them too well, and the black imprint parts of paper it shouldn't. They were unusable...I finally located a supplier through Amazon, shipment was really expensive and that sucks! however I ordered 3 packs so that's enough for a lot of tarot. I will have ot make up some project to use the extra fancy paper though.

3. Make another fox and get some red felt for a weasel like fox and make one - I made the weasel-like fox, it's still in the store. But I didn't make another big fox yet (so that's half of a goal achieved I guess)

4. list at least one art print \ drawing \ painting - nop, I couldn't bring myself to it, I'm going to make that a monthly goal, hopefully, I'll get a little more brave next week.

5. get at least one more treasury and hopefully, be in one - horay! I got 2 of those, one treasury and one treasury west and I was in one. so that one is certainly completed!

6. Write a blog review about another store - nope, not yet...

7. Get those minor Arcana cards going! - I did really good in that one, I finished all the illustrations and scanned them and the first deck is in production now. 14 illustrations! that was massive... I hope to start the next suite (which will probably be the wands) this week.

So what do I have in store for next week?!

1. seem like the slow period of the end of January is finally lifting, or at least I hope so. So this week I will try to list something each and every day.

2. And make a fox!

3. finish the cups set production and list it, and make at least one tarot deck of the major arcana this week.

4. get one treasury, at least, and be in one (hopefully).

5. list a fine art item

6. write a store review about someone else's store.

7. see the Irving Pen exhibition in the Morgan library and also the Horst exhibition in the Forbes gallery.

Valentine's

I thought tarot would make a great Valentine's gift - check out how your love life is going to go on the up coming year. Plus, the illustrations are mostly of nude or semi-nude ladies so that's good for the whole sexy factor. However, all the colors available in the store right now were green-blue and black and white, ot very valentine oriented.

Usually pink is not my favorite, to say the lease, I find it too sweet and girly, but the gray paper balanced it in a really lovely way and it finally gave me the push I needed in using the most beautiful fabric ever that I have been hording for the past month - pink and red large mums with a brown center on cream.

This is really the most romantic and special valentine's present I can think of. If you want to go beyond the random chocolate and jewelery and give something unique and wonderful, this is the way to go...

Check it out!

Treasury West is Back!

And with it, the awesome possibility to get one right as you want it like I did last night when I heard the good news. The main problem was that I had nothing ready to go so it's a bit theme less, however I think I manage ot build a pretty respectable one out of my favorite store list, It manage to get a strange color look which I'm not even sure that I like.

Still - no sales this week, it sucks. I haven't put much in the store since the fox, but renewed a couple of items, even with the slow week and a half, I'm still really happy about January, I had to pay 55$ in etsy free for January and half of February Which 'm really impressed with. Also, I finally started illustrating the new Minor arcana tarot deck, I'm half way into finishing the "cups" element. I'm still not sure whether I should sell each element on it's own or wait till the whole set is done and sell the 56 together, or wait till the whole set is done and sell the whole 78 together including the major arcana.

It's very strange to find myself thinking in terms of marketing and cost effectiveness. I know that waiting till the whole set is done probably make more sense but I'm still probably going to try and sell each element on it's own because I can't bring myself to commit to finish the entire project, for now I'm saying "I'll do 14 and see what happens..."

OK, breakfast and back to work. I made another Tarot deck last night that need to be shot and listing, and I have every intention in the world of finishing those illustrations today and perhaps, make the first "cup" deck and put it in the shop.