Snowy Christmas in Walla Walla

Some photos I took while on vacation in Walla Walla, Washington.

Everything Handmade News

I recently learned of Boston Handmade, a group of local artists, artisans and craftspeople. Boston has granted them a temporary storefront in Downtown Crossing (505 Washington Street). They are open November 28 through December 28, Thursdays through Sundays, 11am till 7pm. If you are in the Boston area, check them out. I stopped by the store today, and it was busy busy busy. It was nice to see Tactile Baby items at the store, since I met the artist at the MathWorks craft fair.

My Vasilek Peacock card received a positive and rather encouraging review in the Modern Sentiment blog. The blog is written by a fellow Etsy shop keeper, who makes a variety of items including cards, clothing accessories, and handbags, which you can find in her Modern Sentiment shop.

Last but not least, my friend just started a new Etsy shop, selling the cutest hand knit items.

The Craft Fair Report

Thank you to all of you who stopped by my table at the craft fair yesterday. I received tremendous support and lots of encouragement from coworkers and other crafters at the fair. So the fair was a success in every way.

Here are some quick stats for those of you who are curious: I started out with 101 cards (89 + 12 seconds), and sold 56 (52 + 4 seconds).

The snowflake was the top seller by only by one card. Nick and I expected that it to be a runaway winner. More surprising was the fact that people seemed to be more attracted by non-blue snowflakes—the golden/orange/red ones that I made more as an experiment rather then for public consumption. The close second was the peacock card. I think people liked the fact that this card comes with a printed envelope.

Thanks to my friend Helen who watched my table for awhile, I got to walk around and check out other tables at the fair. A lady next to me was selling super cute handmade wooden toys as well as other baby items. A fellow MathWorker was selling great looking handmade tote bags. Another lady was selling necklaces handmade by women in Uganda. (All the proceeds from her sales were going back to these women and the villages they were from.) The individual beads in these necklaces were handmade from recycled magazines!

Of course I cannot list all the tasty and beautiful things sold at the MathWorks fair, but it was great to see what "artsy and craftsy" things my coworkers do in their spare time.

Snowflake

Preparing For The Craft Fair

Optimistically I signed up to participate in the Craft Fair held every year at the MathWorks, and it is coming this Thursday. In the past several weeks I have been pushing the limits drawing, cutting and printing in the evenings and over the weekends. I have not posted my progress because that would take precious time away from the drawing, cutting and printing that I could be doing instead (like right now!). So, if you, your family or your friends work at the MathWorks, please stop by the Craft Fair on Thursday! I will try to post a preview of the new cards before then.

Swirly Buffalo Is Back

This is the design I made for our personal holiday cards last year. The buffalo was very relevant at the time because we were getting ready to visit Yellowstone National Park for New Years. Looking at the swirly buffalo now makes me think about our trip.

Cards with this buffalo holiday design will be available in my store as soon as more card stock I ordered arrives in the mail.

Vintage Fabrics Lead To Peacocks

Recently I have come across a vintage fabrics blog and a multitude of vintage fabrics photos. Inspired by the beautiful swirls, flowers and paisley, I decided to try making some cards using the same style.

Here is the first pull from the block above. It was not meant to be green, but I decided that any color will do for the test run.

A peahen and another peacock are coming soon...

Little Red Rooster

A software developer by day and an aspiring artist by night, I decided to make my crafts available to you. I would like to see what you think.

I just listed my first item--Little Red Rooster greeting cards. Each card is a linoleum block print, a medium I just recently decided to try out.

I have no good explanation of what inspired me to make a rooster, other then my several-year-old dream to embroider red roosters on our white kitchen curtains. To my husband’s delight our kitchen curtains are still plain white, but at least I got my wish to make little red roosters.

One bird inspires another, inspires another… So look forward to more birds coming to the shop soon.