Exciting Black Lilly News!

I think that 4 e-mails in one week from people who were wondering if I ever going to finish the tarot deck, plus listening to "witches Abroad" my Terry Pratchett finally pushed me over the edge and I finally got off my lazy ass (just to sit it again on the floor where the books and pens are) and finished the last Suite of the Black Lilly deck, which I started working on about a year and a half ago.

By now, a lot of the first cards looks sort of too simple to me and not at all exciting, plus there is a lot in the process of both making the original designs and the actual production I would have done differently.

I wonder how long before I start a whole new deck, which I'm already starting to think about...

I still need to write the instructions and probably take a trip to the paper store, and maybe also the fabric store, but I hope the have the first deck up for sell in the beginning of next week.

Mounting Spray

One of the things that I got really used to over the past couple of years is finishing every project before going to sleep. It's the advantage of making my own hours and working for myself - I don't have to wake up a certain hours on most days, and so every craft project or art piece can be finished before I turn in.

It means I get to see a lot of sunrise, and also that I wake up sort of confused and disoriented, but with a metaphorically (though very rarely physically) clean desk.

So tonight I was working on an order for new tarot cards, a very nice buyer ordered the 3 minor arcana decks and I decided to make 2 of each, one for her and one for the store.

Making cards is a strange process - I already done the design and also, know what works best color wise, there isn't that much creativity in making them, just a series of small tasks: printing, painting, cutting, mounting, cutting again. printing, cutting pasting and painting the instruction. cutting fabric, ironing, sewing, ironing again and putting it all together.

So tonight, at around 10:00 I was done with the painting of the cards and as I was mounting, I discovered that the mounting spray is basically empty, there's just nothing in it, I manage to paste one deck, but the second is still sitting on the floor having to wait till tomorrow, till the art store opens and I can get some more.

I really hate not being able to finish those, it feels as if they are looking at me...

Inspiration cards

I had a small idea on Monday, I planned to give the whole thing about 2 hours work and see how it goes.

Well, that's how it started and before I knew it I was in illustration craziness, producing about 15 illustrations par day, scanning and working from noon till sunrise.

This is the story that started the whole thing, a memory from a really moving moment a few years ago. I was in a dinner party for a friend who was getting married the week after, it was an all girls evening in some restaurant in Israel. One of the girls brought a deck of tiny cards and each of us took one, each card had a word on it that was supposed to be relevant for that specific moment.

The girl who was getting married picked up a card but only after the whole deck was passed it turned out she had 2 cards in her hand, one was "birth" and the other was "independence" it was just so right, especially a couple of weeks after the wedding when we all found out that she was already pregnant at the time of the party.

So, I decide to make my own deck of small massages from the universe deck of cards, and I call them Inspiration deck - it's a 52 cards deck, each illustrated by me. and they are meant to give people inspiration, direction and interpretation to a moment in life. All it take is just take a card out of the deck and contemplating the massage it brings into your moment.

And this is the result! a 52 cards deck! If I knew how complicated this project would become then I would never have started it, but I'm so glad I did! because I love the result.

Some cards

I've been reading a book by an Israeli therapist called "Tarot in psychotherapy" which I got on my trip to Israel. It had a lot of pages and I was scared it would be too technical for me, but sadly, it was quite the opposite. Maybe I expected a book for tarot reader who want to connect it to therapy and end up getting a book for psychotherapist who are interested in divination - I found the interpretation she offered on the cards to be very simplistic and also, very much imposed on alchemical notions and other myth, in this odd post modernistic approach in which when you simplify things enough everything is connected to everything.

The only really interesting part was the preface which was very well written and really inspiring in the writer quoting from Jung and other psychoanalysts and philosophers in relation to mystics and divination.

I'm disappointed that this book wasn't what I wanted it to be, but since i moved on to reading "whale rider" now, I don't mind so much...

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...

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.

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!

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.

A little Better!

Sales today: 1
Items posted: 3 (a fox, a deck of cards and a weasel )
packages send out: 0
Main source of inspiration: A shoot we had yesterday, nothing concrete came out of it, but I have some cool ideas.
Best thing to eat: Man, we totally let loose today - 3 meals out and non of them healthy! but the best (and worth) was dessert at Blackbird Parlor - I had the Baklava!

After the excitement from the shoot and last week being so strange that I couldn't bring myself to do much, I finally manage to dedicate a whole day to the Etsy store - and there are some results!

Last week Eliza Fox was sold to a nice lady in Ohio, she mentioned that if I make another guy she'd be interested. So when I finished making Edward Fox I send her a convo and she bought it right away. I'm sad to see him go, he's the best fox I made so far and I'm especially proud of him.

Also posted today - the first of the low budget tarot deck, basically, the same cards I've made in the past, but because they are unpainted and the case is simpler to make, I could knock the price by quite a bit. So that's good... I hope that some people who wanted them before but could not afford them, might buy this deck.

The Weasels always take so much more time then I plan for them, but I enjoy making them so much. When I made the first one, I named it after my neighbor's son, since then I created the whole family across the hall, 4 weasels in all. So now I had to find a new resource of names... I decided to name this one after the downstairs neighbor, a really nice shy girl called Laurel. I'm going to name the next one after Laurel's dog!


And last, but not least - I manage to get a treasury, as today was dessert night - I named it after my favorite dessert ever - peanut butter chocolate pie.

So - one sales and a lot of promotion and crafting, over all a very good day!

Thursday

Sales today: 1
Items posted: 1
packages send out: 1
Main source of inspiration: a shopping mistake
Best thing to eat: Eggs Benedict in Pastis (it was so decadent, but so worth it...)

I just realized that for the past week or so I've been managing 2 blogs that are basically the same, both were made to share the experiences I have through running the Etsy store, one on we-love-etsy and one on indipublic and that on top of the not very used personal blog Homeworld and a couple of website and a flickr account.

It felt really strange to have to split the store blog info into 2, so I decided that what I need is yet another blog to have all that info in (plus I really hate NING's graphics - it's too overpowering and sell I say - ugly).

So here it is, in all it's glory - new blog weepee!

And without farther a due, today's Etsy news:

A Sad Story of Shopping and Returning
One of the things that I really like about the store is that it pushes me to do stuff that's really hard for me, like being assertive. So this is what happened - a while ago I went to Staplers and got 3 packs of cover stock paper in green, gray and cream, I thought I'd use them for pages in books I made, but they were too heavy and so they were left aside. Then, when I started prining out the Tarot cards I remembered them and the cream was just perfect for this.
So, eventually, the paper was over, after about 15 tarot decks and I needed new one. I went to the store and got some new one, but, coming home, it turned out that the different brand doesn't work well at all with the printer and I can't use it.

If this was just for a personal project I would toss the paper away and forget about the whole thing, however, because this was for the store, I felt more responsible and assertive and me and Ned went into the city today, and though the package was open, they were still able to refund the money.

This story is boring, but it has 2 important morals - the first is that it's good to be assertive, cause I feel much better about myself after I returned the paper. The second is that necessity is the mother of invention, because, having no cream paper, I tried the gray and it came out really really great.



A Happy Story About a Weasel

We both woke up early and in a really bad mood this morning. We didn't feel like eating anywhere in the area and eventually took the train to Ned's old neighborhood just to have breakfast in a really fancy place he loved going to when he was living there. It was a really nice breakfast. On the way back I asked "do you think something sold in the store?" and he said "yes" and then I asked "what" and he said "Everything!" and I said "I wish the weasel would sell, it's really cute and it makes me sad when animals that I make don't sale.

I got home and what do I see?! It did sell! that was really cool. I send the package out right away.

Also, a tutorial I made in the morning about making weasels got published on Cut Out + Keep.