The last minute breakthroughs

When it occurred to me today that I had offered to provide something for a raffle at my son's school, and it was due tomorrow, and I hadn't put the raffle item together yet, along came the very familiar scramble. My usual work style is a little rushed, and rarely well planned. But I find that during my rush, sometimes it fuels my creativity. The sense of deadline is almost a must for me to get motivated at all. I work best with a due date. Assigning me something with the instructions of "whenever you get around to it" is most certainly a guarantee that I will never get to it. So if there's one thing I've learned about my personal work style with my business is that I work best under deadline, and under a little bit of a rush. When I say rush I don't mean pulling an all-nighter pressing coasters and printing invitations. I mean, rushing over the course of a couple days.

One of the hardest parts of running your own business is being in control of your own work schedule. But like I mentioned above, sometimes the sense of deadline fuels my work. While sitting here staring out the window wondering which item of mine I was going to donate, I realized that I wanted to prepare something new and fresh. Again, these feelings of wanting something new and fresh always occur to me when I'm under the gun. While I do wish these ideas came to me with plenty of time ahead to actually work them out, I'm glad they come at all.

While this wasn't a ground-breaking idea considering I use the antique illustrations on my invitations and cards, I recycled the idea for use on the coasters I have been doing as of late. Here's how they came out:


And now, looking at the photo, I want a glass of wine. So that's what I think I'm going to do.

Are you a pressure person?

New loot

So I've been busy crafting some new things to add to the shop. During the last craft show I did, my friend Alissa was chatting with her show neighbor Spacedog Studios, about Etsy. We all have Etsy sites and wondered how her traffic was and how she generates sales. She says one thing she does is try to post a new thing everyday. I've been trying to do that, as I have lots of stuff on the "new product list" in my back pocket, and it's a matter of getting ideas on paper or tile or wood or whatever the medium calls for. I've gotten the best feedback so far on the coasters I've made, so I added some new designs.

My first new set was actually requisitioned by my friend Alissa. She wanted a set of coasters with a sewing theme, and wanted her grandmother's old Singer machine as one of the images. So with that, and other vintage images I was able to gather, Voila! The sewing coasters were done and delivered, and henceforth uploaded to the site for sale as well.


The next new set of coasters are for train enthusiasts. My husband is a collector of many things, and happens to have old matchbooks and buttons of all sorts. His grandfather was a train conductor for Chesapeake and Ohio, so he also happens to have some train memorabilia. So, I designed some coasters with these old train company logos. I think they turned out neat!

And then my son was gracious enough --- or should I say enough of a ham --- to pose for me in the new children's t-shirt, designed with an old Howard Johnson's children's menu. A throwback to old 60s design, this menu was made in 1965 and colored in totally retro teal and orange. Printed on a white t-shirt with black trim, it is totally cute and adorable.


Oh, and if you're feeling crafty, feel free to check the archives for the how-to on how to print on the tiles. They make great gifts!

Our happy customers

Wanted to share the great feedback we have been getting from the most recent sales we've had this week.

Here's one from Florida, sporting her new "girly girl" t-shirt that was purchased...


And another woman from Illinois who just loved her new camera coasters so much she just had to blog about it! Check it out.

Huge kudos to everyone for liking my stuff so much they want to share it with me when they get it. Gives me goosebumps. And makes me squeal slightly. *squeal*

Ahhhhh.

OK, now back to making more coasters and t-shirts.

Shiny metal: close up

1964 VW bug.
Ricoh KR-5 SLR, 100 T-max film, natural light



Steam engine.
Pentax ZX-5n SLR, 100 speed Kodak, natural light
Color desaturated

Saturday morning block building

Art room re-do

If there is one thing that I didn't look forward to with my newly found life of working from home, is having to organize my work space. We have a spare bedroom in our home, called the "art room", and it is where there are 3 desks, 6 bookcases, a large closet, a desktop computer, 2 printers, artmaking machines and supplies, and lots of crap on the floor. Crap meaning, dried up play-doh, little bits of cut paper, lint, stickers, and piles of books and boxes. We're not an organized bunch, and the room seems to go through a rotation of clean-messy-cleaned up again-disorganized-messy-clean. I'm OK with things being a bit disorganized around me, but when I have to move piles of paper in order to use the mouse on the computer, it's time to get it clean again.

Last month when I was scurrying around like a crazy woman getting ready for the craft fair, I really let the room go. The room today:



I know, it's bad.

But there is tomorrow!

There is always tomorrow for cleaning.