I'm a Winner

When I went to the One of a Kind Show in NYC this Fall I entered a raffle at the etsy.com booth and I won!  Today I got my winnings (a little peak in the collage above, sorry for the bad lighting).  As you can see, Lilly loves the tote.  I am so excited about all of these things!

1. An etsy.com tote bag, t-shirt, keychain, button pins, stickers, lip balm, and bumper sticker
2. A 2011 calendar from dutchdoor.etsy.com
3. A note card set from zoetropa.etsy.com
4. A thank-you card written on a cool orange cat letterpress notecard from sesameletterpress.com
5. A cup and saucer from takemehomeware.etsy.com
6. A little make-your-own mini bunting cut-out from spoonflower.com

This is the first time I've ever won anything in a raffle!  Hooray!


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Crafty Bday Presents

JewishGuy and I had swine flu on my birthday so we didn't get to go out and do anything... just sat at home and ordered in Cheesecake Factory (apparently they deliver... it's expensive, but they deliver, and it was my birthday and I wanted cheesecake).

JewishGuy bought me a couple of things from my etsy wishlist :)


One was this textile pendant from cricketapollo :) I've gotten so many compliments on this necklace it's awesome... the only non-awesome thing is that people think this pendant gives them license to touch my chest? When I wear it it's quite big and I have literally had people come up and poke the buttons on it. Weird.



The other was this beautiful little bird pendant from westbyron. It's very subtle and pretty :) I am into bird things right now: I had this great bird mug that I destroyed due to pouring boiling water on my hand, I also have bird earrings that I wear practically every day. Birds and flowers. I am keeping it perpetually spring in my accessories.

I have two complications with necklaces: #1, I never know how to wear some of them, like the big pendants I have seem to look good with v-necks, but can I wear them with other styles? and #2, I try not to wear necklaces to work because we learned in one of our training sessions that you should never wear anything around your neck when working with clients. So I've been wearing them to class and synagogue and basically anywhere I can.

I have some other cute accessories I've purchased recently... one day when I have a camera I will post pictures!

Craft Fair Finds!!!!

Today I went to the Renegade Craft Fair, which I had been looking forward to all year. Last year it was cold and rainy and all I came back with was my favorite mug that I used almost every day until it broke when I poured boiling water on my hand. D'oh. Anyway, here are some of my finds from this year's fair!


I didn't get the card from the place where I bought this awesome necklace, which I regret! They were selling a lot of jewelry made from recycled or found materials. This is a flexible wooden necklace.



This fried egg hair pin was a huge hit. I bought it early on and wore it right away. Everyone was complimenting me! At first I thought maybe I looked really dorky, but I guess I looked dorky in a good way. I'm wearing it to school tomorrow! I got this from spinalfusion.etsy.com.



Since most of my newer jewelry is big and chunky I decided it would be a nice purchase to get some jewelry that was a little more subtle. This is about an inch long and looks like a little bundle. It's also made from recycled metal. I got it from pearandpeacock.com.

I also got some fun earrings I didn't take a picture of, and a present for someone who might be reading this blog so I won't post it.

LOVE the Renegade Craft Fair! Maybe I'll be in the Renegade Holiday Fair....

Little Plastic Charms

I have been having fun with this great shrinking plastic film I bought ... aka ... SHRINKY DINK FILM! I made a bunch of charms and put them up on etsy. I'm not really sure anyone would want to buy them, but why not? And it was really fun to do, so I'm going to keep making them. However, next time I am going to buy some non-clear shrinky dink film because clear is cool but some of them are hard to see when you don't have light shining through.


This gefilte fish charm is about an inch and a half long, but this picture is HUGE.


And here you can see the rest of what I have and exactly how big they are!

See some more detailed shots on my etsy page.

I just love making these so I am definitely, definitely going to make more. I will get the hang of this clear film someday.

(This is my biggest updated because I am waiting for screens to dry... so no new prints produced yet)

More printmaking!

Today I made another screen, a teeny little one, so that I could have more than one screen going at a time. It is kind of a waste of time to just have one screen and having to wait for the paint to dry each time I want to start a new print. I did the same thing as yesterday, where I took an old picture frame and stapled some screen fabric to it.

So this is today's print! It is a set of 5 cards.

to

New (screen printed) Cards

New in my etsy shop! Since I'm on break I am kind of hanging out around the house and today I had this crazy idea to MAKE a screen. Both of my screens are currently at school locked in the screen printing studio so I have nothing to screen print with. Printing is kind of time-consuming with linoleum prints unless I want to reprint old prints.

So I found an old picture frame that I bought from Target for probably $2, took out the picture and glass, and stapled some screen material to it (I had some from undergrad that I used to make collograph prints). It wasn't as tight as the ones you buy at the store but it worked. I cut some contact paper into my usual pomegranate shapes and then did a monoprint with watercolors (you paint with watercolors on the screen, let it dry, and then reactivate it when you print it with transparent acrylic base).

Because it's a monoprint, each time I pulled a print it made degraded prints (called "ghost prints"), which is kind of cool. I included them in the set and reworked the cards with pen to make them look a little more finished. So you see, a set of three cards!

Also ... as a kind of secret ... so a few weeks ago I bought some plastic covers for the smaller cards that I make so that I can transport them and protect them while looking more professional. Unfortunately these cards that I printed on are larger than the bags I bought, but I made my own bag for them using a quart-sized ziploc bag. I cut the seal part off and cut the bag in such a way that it creates a perfect envelope that I will just tape closed.

AHHH I am really excited about it.... today I feel very resourceful.

To sell or not to sell

I had an etsy. I still have the etsy thing on the side of this blog because I thought one day I would revive it. I had an etsy and my mom and my friend were really supportive and bought my paintings from etsy, but they were the only ones. I got a few views, but no sales, and all my listings expired. I felt a little sad.

I've made some more cards since then. To make it profitable I have to make a card in less than 15 minutes, because I need to make more than $7/hour. When I say I made $4/hour making those cards, I broke it down by supplies, time spent working on it and setting up etsy, the money paypal and etsy took out of my sale (and posting), and shipping. In the end I was making less than $4 for each card, which was a hand-painted watercolor painting with hand-drawn Hebrew calligraphy, and I could make about a card and a half in an hour. I've since learned a little bit about making those cards so I can speed up the process and also I have simplified the imagery to speed it up.

I've heard that etsy really isn't the best place to sell work but rather to get exposure and an easy way to refer people to your work (like on a business card "check out more of my work at tzipi.etsy.com!"). So the best place really is to go to craft fairs. Craft fairs charge a LOT for booths, like $400 for some, although if you split a booth with someone you could get it down to less. So I could probably spend $75-100 for a booth at a fair (I know someone who might want to share with me), and that would mean I would have to sell about 11-12 cards at $10/card to make it worth it (to account for supplies and stuff, but no shipping or etsy or paypal).

You might say, well, that shouldn't be so hard! But I don't think people buy little watercolors so often at craft fairs. AND that is just enough to break even, not even to make a profit. (Also remember that I can't sell on Saturday, so I only have Sundays to sell my work, unless I can get someone else to sell my work for me)

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This Shabbat some of my friends were asking me why I wasn't selling my work. I told them about how it wasn't really profitable. I told them all of the things I wrote up there. I told them how I don't have any sleeves to make them look professional, I don't have nice business cards. It's not worth the money.

They said, "but what about your dreams?"

"Yes, my dreams of selling little watercolor paintings at craft fairs!"

But I thought about it a lot, and today I had some free time and ended up at the art store of course. I started looking at packaging for little cards. Tonight I bought some little polypropylene sleeves to store my cards. I painted a bunch more cards a few weeks ago, so I've made it so I can work a lot faster. I've made some abstract paintings so they look like little paintings instead of Judaica cards. So maybe I will give it another shot. Maybe I will ask my friend if I can buy space in her booth on one of the days at the craft fairs. Maybe I could get a booth at the American Art Therapy Association Conference craft fair (booths are free to attendees). Maybe I could package the Judaica cards and sell them to some of the Judaica stores in the city or other cities.

I wondered why I was so resistant to their helpfulness. I know they wanted to help and wanted to be supportive but I resisted really strongly. I gave them so many reasons why it wasn't worth it, but really I was scared of not succeeding. I think there is a good chance that I won't make any money, but this is a relatively inexpensive hobby. I have all of the supplies from various classes and just for hobby reasons. The only extra expenses would be making business cards (which maybe I should have anyway) and these polypropylene bags and the few cents etsy charges me to post things on their site.

So ... I'm going to do it. I'm going to post things on etsy and maybe someone will buy some of my abstract pen and watercolor paintings and maybe they won't. It's kind of scary to put myself out there again, and maybe to put myself further out there with craft festivals and stuff. But....... it's doable.

Resolved(ish)

I spent a lot of time today working on the cards and I think I've come up with a good solution to the text.  Here is one of the cards I made today:

You can purchase one for yourself at my brand new etsy shop!  (Click the images above to visit me!)

Need help! (cards)

I decided that I liked watercolors so much I was going to make some little cards and paintings to sell on etsy.  It's really fun making the cards and I think the little paintings I made came out well.  The problem is the text looks terrible (in my opinion).  Well, judge for yourself:

This one I tried to paint block letters with a brush... my hand was shaking as it always does.

This one I used the same technique to make the text as I did to make the lines on the outline of the pomegranate.

This one I did the same as the card above. This isn't a card, though...

JewishGuy says the text looks better with the second technique.  I think my handwriting isn't nice enough.

Definitely, I will start writing before I paint, because I spent a good amount of time on the pomegranate in the first card and then the text looks like crap.

I was thinking, maybe I could print the text on the paper first and then paint around it, but the problem with this is that I need to soak and stretch the paper before I paint on it.  

• I can't put wet paper through the printer, 
• I can't put it through the printer once it's stretch (because it's taped to a board), 
• if I put it through the printer before I soak and stretch then the ink will run as I soak it.  
• If I print on it after I paint there is a chance it will print on top of my painting, although this might be the most feasible solution.  I could plan it so the painting doesn't go above a certain line on the card.
  

I wonder if this would be different on a laser printer?

I just don't know!  But I am excited that I am being productive!

For those who can't read Hebrew, the first two cards say "L'Shana Tova" which is usually translated to "Happy New Year" although it's really "To a good year."  The bottom painting is an excerpt from Song of Songs:

Let us go early to the vineyards
Let us see if the vine has flowered
If its blossoms have opened,
If the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give my love to you.

I'll just have to keep experimenting.