bah humbug-type sentiments

It has been a while since I consistently blogged, so let's catch up:
My sister and her sons are back on the East coast for their twice-a-year visit with our family there. This means I've had the house to myself (yay!) in order to work hard on my Etsy shop, but it also means I've missed the opportunity to be together with my family (boo!). Little MNJ and SL just turned one year old a couple days ago, a really touching time to be celebrating back east. I'll put up a "one year!" post when they return and we have our party here, but meanwhile I'm glad that they had a fun time eating cupcakes and having their first birthday party celebration.

Around here I've started off the downtime with more drawing than production of new items, although there are introductions to be had. I realized its hard for me to enjoy blogging without photographs~ I'm an illustrator at heart and really rely on visual interpretations to express what I see, think, feel. Posts may be spotty for a while due to my broken camera, but I'll do my best to keep stopping by. :)

I am, it must be said, not having the best summer ever... although many of my friends who are having similar frustrations are encountering much larger challenges than myself. The year after uprooting everything and moving cross-country, I was bound to dig my heels into the ground with some consequences. It is no surprise that my irritations are showing up in my drawings. Anyway, the good news is that I'm able to amuse myself with these little Phooey sketches, and hope they cause you to have a little chuckle through life's inevitable unpleasantness's as well.

DRAT!

ouou on Droolicious

It was an amazing weekend here, sunny and beautiful. The last time I folded laundry, we were still putting away fleece pants and heavy cotton overalls for the boys, now its sun hats and rompers in just a matter of days. Summer seems officially here now that we have a kiddie pool stashed in our garage, so although I've been away during its use (I worked out of the house this weekend) I'm still ever-aware that changes are happening around more than just my schedule, a corner has been turned.

The fantastic news from the web world is that Droolicious wrote up a spot for the ouou Etsy shop on Friday! I'm really excited about this, and so thankful for C's helpful push toward it. Droolicious is a design blog for the modern parent, and they support an even split between handmade or otherwise. C has bought from their suggested necessities and been happy with the items, reviews, articles. I was thrilled to be a part of their Etsy reviews! Check it out here.

Knitty

I've got some new ACEOs for the shop, but since I haven't had much photo editing time, I thought I'd continue on the Gocco theme. These shoulder tee's are the newest incarnation of Knitting Otter before his screen disintegrated. For now, all the baby clothes are one of a kind editions. The next step will be to collect several shirts of the same style and print all of those- but I've got a stack of mis-matched baby clothes standing next to the Gocco. At the end of the lives of these screens from last year, I'll be going through those and listing "Limited Edition" styles.

print print print

While my visiting family are enjoying the sunset on Mt. Tabor, I'm home alone with fresh strawberries, warm brownies, sleeping nephews.... time to sneak in a blog post!

Other than a week of uploading ACEOs, I've been behind the scenes using silkscreen, cutting and sewing. A nice, fruitful print run of last year's Gocco screens and the Knitting Otter left me with more than a few projects to stretch throughout the week. For the Gocco on fabric, neither my sister or I had any luck with using the press, so we squeegee our designs using a credit card. It makes for much cleaner, more uniform prints. It also kills the screen, which is meant to be used under the press but goes about as far as a handmade silkscreen would. This last run was the end of Knitting Otter. His screen peeled and tore. Seeing a screen fall apart of the first time was rather shocking, but I feel like I got a lot out of it.

"Knitting Otter" in brown ink

What a mess! I love printmaking.

Otter screen, peeling around the lines.

With any luck I'll be updating soon and bringing the clothing into the shop first, the sewn bits take a while longer.

While I'm online, I also wanted to mention Earth Mosaic. For those of you interested in Earth Day tomorrow, you can add an artistic and personal peice of flair to the holiday by contributing a photograph of a natural setting. The photo will then be used as part of a giant mosaic. They have a huge Flickr pool, too! The thing is, your camera has to record that the photo was taken on Earth Day~ so get out there and take a journalistic view of your big blue lovely Earth. If you read this, and have shared a photo- I would love a link in comments!

Happy Earth Day, everyone, and thank's for the strawberries Mother Earth. :)

Getting to Know a.c.e.o

Pirate Ship by jenbaardsen

The term ACEO can be a mysterious one to those just entering, or investigating, the world of Etsy. My sister was the one to introduce me to the concept, long before joining and opening my own shop, as an interesting exercise. I like a teeny tiny canvas, and these little guys are baseball card size, 2.5" x 3.5".

I have started keeping ACEOs in the shop regularly (or, as regularly as possible) since bringing them back in a big way for Valentine's Day, so I thought I would go through a refresher course on the blog. The images here are from other artists on Etsy and Flickr, through searches under atc ("Art Trading Card", aceo, and stitched aceo. I've created links under the respective pieces and encourage you to visit these wonderful shops!

Mini-Monster 13 by the ever-illustrious benconservato

A lot of people (just doing a search... a *lot* of people) on Etsy sell ACEO as digital prints. Because of this, and probably because "original" is therefore a loose term, prices vary wildly between $2.50 and over $20.00 for both reproductions and original art. ACEO stands for "Art Cards, Editions, and Originals" so a digital print can fall into the "Editions" category. There are some really beautiful digital works out there, but if you're overwhelmed by a search narrow the parameters by knowing which you are looking for, or try out other keywords such as "sewn" "photoshop" "collage" "watercolor" or "handmade". I also tag my original drawings "OOAK" meaning "One of a Kind" so there are numerous ways to narrow down a search.

Seashore 27 by hmsdesign

I think ACEOs are one of the mediums which truly set Etsy apart as a handmade, homemade marketplace and bridge the gap between "craft" and "art". Small, affordable, and often collected by those interested in emerging or established artists alike, these "trading cards" are almost whimsical in nature, like a secret society of original art lovers. I try and keep my own editions simple, precious, scratchy and true to the nature of pen & ink as I see it. I love the thought of these as character vignettes, and can see those same intentions in other artists using this canvas size to investigate ideas.

Take a look around at some of the remarkable variety in the world of ACEO!

Sofie, Shine and Steam(er)!

Steamer

Alright! What a weekend. I'm proud to announce several changes in the shop, as well as some new faces! Because I am irresistibly drawn to warm drinks and scarves as subject matter, I thought it was high time I bring in Steamer, a lovely friend drinking a warm cuppa. Classic ouou drawing, but without the Dragon. :)

Sofie and the Bird

I've brought back one of my personal favorites from last year, Sofie, in her printed version. I have the same design in silkscreen Gocco version, but these (along with the green envelopes I've got right now) printed cards are such a necessary piece of Spring in my shop.

Shine

And finally, also new today is Shine~ this wonderfully celebratory new card. I've begun announcing new designs on Flickr a few days before they appear in my shop. For me, this is great because I'm not able to blog every day, so check it out! There you can see the other projects I'm working on, and notes from my sketchbook too.

But there are a few more changes this week at ouou. I've consolidated several winter card designs into Mixed Sets here. So, cards like Smarty and Red Dragon Drinks Tea are now only listed as parts of Mixed Sets throughout the spring and summer. All card designs are available upon request, however, so no worries if mid-June you really need a set of bundly, cocoa drinking Dragons or something.



Lastly, I've brought back the Monkey products, in all his wiley forms. I'm planning a blog post about Gocco later in the week, so for now you can take a look at tags and the Moleskine selection in the Gocco Silkscreen section.

Woodland

I'm feeling happy tonight, and excited about this blog post. Inspired by a lovely seller, Kathi from kathiroussel, I'm starting off with the treasury she created last week. Who is that tromping through the springtime in the center bottom row but sweet Audrey! Awe, thanks again Kathi!

Sometimes a treasury (which is a collection of Etsy images that a seller puts together of other sellers' work and then posts in the rotating list of other Treasuries) strikes the imagination. I really loved the deep black and bright color combination of this gathering. I love that childhood springtime fondness, the remembrance of nature waking up, of growing things poking through the thick-smelling leaves. The metals and pearls and horn-shaped coral forms... these things matched with cottages and shoes and hats~ I just felt transported into some haunting folk tale backdrop following the link (...trail of breadcrumbs...) to this Treasury.

Aqua Ocean Blue Earrings by kathiroussel

The curator of this woodland gallery also, I should add, has a simply wonderful shop. Her jewelry gives me the same sense of hand-held stories, delicate and mysterious or whimsical. I was wowed stopping by her shop and seeing her photographs. Really professional, crisp (crisp seems to be a word I like a lot lately) images that capture the personalities of her objects so well. Such a joyful find!

I'd like to thank a list of people for including ouou in their thoughts and blogs this past week. Penny Glass Girl wrote a list of current favorites from Etsy- check out her post here. I especially love that photograph of her studio space- coming from a work-space mess-maker, pictures of a clean studio make me silly with envy. Six Gun Annie did a search in Etsy under "tree" and added Blue Bird to her list of loved results. The robot parade in Land of Cupcakes took a march on over to Diffraction- take a wander on over yourself and wish them a Happy Birthday!

Collection of Merfish by knitalatte

Just something about this blog post- the subject of fairy tales or magic or blackness & luminous color- makes me want to include mention of knitalatte. This is another one of those shops that, having seen her work, strikes such a resonant chord. These collections of curiosities, all with knitted cozies or costumes, are so imaginative I admit, I've gone back to her shop countless times just to stare. Something like museum artifacts, something like children's collections of nonsense mementos, the heart of knitalatte's craft is clever, strange and funny.

...from the desk of...

I have mixed feelings about March. I'll be honest, its not my favorite month. In fact, if Spring and all its good graces were *not* floating through the air throughout Portland I think I would be in a pretty sorry state about entering into a new month. However, we do have flowers blooming (chin up little camper!), and other than that there have been many, many little treasures showing up in my days this past few that remind me good things are indeed in the works.

One of these glimmers has been the kind and exciting inclusion of the above Black Umbrellas in the Bugs and Fishes blog. See Lupin's article on loveliness here! I owe her a debt of gratitude not only for her continued support and sweet words but also for some inspiration. I am working on some colorful designs for April, and of course the Gocco should be back in action this Spring season, but though I want to bring new designs into the shop I had been at a loss as to what to do for March. After showing up on Lupin's blog I've been thinking- wouldn't it be fun to end the winter with tea, cocoa, and steamy drinks that first got me started on Etsy? Yes, themes are good, and I'm thinking March for ouou will be the Month of Tea. I may even try my first ever *BLOG GIVE-AWAY*!

Otherwise I'm happy to say that the shop seems to be holding its own. I just recently packed up and shipped out the last of the hand-drawn ACEO size Valentines- all sold in just a month! I'm really grateful for everyone who showed their support for those, whether or not you count the Gocco prints it was the first time I've offerend original pen & ink drawings. Two of the designs were of tea, so I'm hopeful to get another line going and begin listing soon. Before that, though, will be new printed cards~ they're at the end of their production this weekend. It has been since last Spring that I've had a new A4 card design... Oh what a month March will be!

~On the Homefront~
My nephews are still going through the throes of teething. This means a couple things; first, that my sister is dealing with some pretty irratic sleep (that's a nice way of saying "no sleep for mama") and also, days consist of pretty short attention span for all of us, babies making teeth included. SL has gotten not one but two teeth, while MNJ is growing ever more adventurous in the gnawing preoccupation.

The thing about the last few weeks is there is certainly an up-tempo in keeping them entertained and the rest of the house going. The good news is it seems as though the packaging, printing, cutting, assembling, listing, wrapping, burnishing involved in my Etsy life breaks down into a hundred little tasks, and these hundreds of little tasks spread throughout the day...? It's a good feeling to know that it may be a lot of work, but it is working.

Tea tea tea, all these little framed drawings of tea. No, they're not in the shop yet because they're getting all purdied up with some watercolor, but I'm really happy with them. I have these small square frames that go just right with these small works I've been tinkering with.

This one up here is my housewarming gift to myself- tea for me! I don't always keep these things, or I do but they end up in a drawer somewhere. I am looking forward to decorating my new home with Etsy prints, and will no doubt keep you all in the loop on the decorating schemes. Oh, and speaking of decoration- look who is in the window! Well hello little lady!

Hello from the windy and cold corners of Oregon, where the Spring-like days that blessed us throughout this past week are gone but not forgotten. The sun has been wild this week, after rain rain rain we were all a bit dazzled by 4 sunny days strung together in yellowy hues. We woke one morning to a magical, crystalline frost right about when it started getting cold again.

I'm packing my bags and getting ready for a trip home to my original coast, the Eastern one, so all these fluctuations in temperature have me thinking of my new home, and all the differences here, maybe hyper-aware of small changes or details. I'm pretty sure the shop will remain open through the vacation since I have people to help me with shipping. I am very much looking forward to going home (also because I have this place to come back to) and feel for some reason that it will prove to be a very inspirational trip.

I was able to get some pretty good shots of the frosty morning while out on a walk...

Alright, back to business: there are some changes going on in the shop as we enter 2009. Now that the Holiday season is over, I've taken out USPS Priority Shipping as my shipping method. I was thoroughly disappointed in Priority (this year was my first year using it as my primary shipping option) and saw no significant improvement. I bet "5.00" under shipping probably had some people scratching their heads, too, although my motivation was to have as little concern as possible for items arriving punctually. I'm putting my faith back in old reliable First Class and checking out my options in tracking... more on that beginning February.

As for now, there is an option in the shop to "order" Priority Shipping~ and that will include the cost of tracking/ insurance. I figure people ordering large orders or Gocco prints will like having this option and am more than happy to provide expedited shipping. Hopefully this will ease the shipping confusion of this past season, as well as get me back into one of the fun parts of this whole Etsy project for me: making packaging! Believe it or not, a lot of love went into my mailers last year. I'm particularly proud that when you order an ouou item, the whole production is a unified project.

together - hand drawn Valentine

Oh, and also- I've listed another Valentine- this one on a folded (and larger) card tonight. I was happy with the clarity of the photos, too! Next up are the little framed originals, but for tonight I'm considering whether or not I want to go into those with watercolor or leave them black and white in pen. Hmmm. Maybe I'll sleep on it.
:)

Here is a sneak peek at some other things I'm working on. Behind the scenes over here I had struggled with these scans (can you tell? fuzzy) until I realized it was a paper issue. Ive been re-drawing the small hoard of finished drawings from this month in the evenings when I'm able to set up at the light table. I feel happier when I know my night table is around- do you have tools like that? My bone folder, my favorite eraser, my Zebra mechanical pencil, and my beat-up light box I've been carting around for 13 years.

Am I on a tangent tonight? Probably just excited about setting up a work space again, daydreaming of that glorious afternoon of setting out my pencil jars and paint boxes. I'm sure you understand. Anyway, so these guys won't be the finished product for another couple of weeks. I'm also working on some framed small drawings and the Valentines in several other sizes. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Walk

Two newer additions to the Valentine line are here! I've just finished some packing and am on my way to do a little mailing, but first I thought I would pop by the blog for a few introductions. Walk and Sweet Music are in the shop as of last night/ this morning. The smaller card sets that I introduced after Christmas also seem to be holding their own, so I'll be releasing a few new designs in those styles later in the week. Whew! Lots going on around here- and I've got to scoot if I'm going to hit the Post Office before work- hope everybody is having a good week! :)

Sweet Music

It has been fun spending the last couple of nights cuddled in bed drawing these little pictures. No surprise that I'm a big fan of the 2.5 X 3.5 inch canvas, my drawing school before college took place on the margins of my notebooks. Although I was frustrated last week, it has been simplifying to scrap all my grand plans for the time being, going back to the basic Handmade premise of Etsy shop. Inspirational, too. I can't get enough of these little characters.

My friend K and I spent the morning moving me out of my apartment, but I had time in the afternoon to get some photographs in. I'm going on vacation at the end of January and thinking about either slimming down my selection for a week or closing (gulp) the shop completely for that time. Updates to follow as I address the calendar.

"Two of a Kind" Valentine

Here in the Pacific Northwest we are under a thick fog, the low-lying clouds of winter's constant rain. I moved here for this, an ongoing rainy day that grows moss on all the stone and wood around town, the incredible moody mountain vistas that slowly fade in and out of view on afternoons like today. I love days like this, even though it is a challenge to find the right situation for taking pictures, and have enjoyed spending much of my day off walking about.

After my scenic voyages, I've been finishing some touches on the smallest set of Valentines. These are all original pen and ink drawings using pencil and MicronPigma 005 pens. I am drawing them all (there will be more sizes later) on Arturo stationary, an Italian paper with a nice watercolor-type tooth to it. They come with envelopes, so I'm not quite sure what to classify them under on Etsy, they're in now as ACEO. An ACEO is a small collectible original art card. I'll release the next size up as cards, and the larger will be in art as paintings.

Yes~ this means there are many more to come!
Gosh, I do love this job. :)

The lovely lady Lupin (of Etsy, Dawanda, Folksy...) has opened up ad space on her blog Bugs and Fishes, and guess who came along for the ride?

Lupin was one of the first felt artists I came across on Etsy in my early days of looking around before opening a shop. I am totally smitten with both her work and her blog, and really thrilled to be appearing there as a sponsor. I'm even planning on some new tea-themed designs in the month ahead, a common thread we have in both of our art... the more the merrier!

good stuff

dutchdoor

Ah, the pleasure of finding new artists on Etsy. This Christmas the gift guides were my favorite way of stumbling upon artists and their art I had not seen before, although there were also some pretty good treasuries out there too. This has been a feature I've been missing on my blog- going through finds and doing shop reviews... well, welcome back on a little tour of what I see when I go looking for the good stuff in Handmade Land.

I currently work for a company that creates and sells letterpress artwork. I see it all day, every day, from artists all across the world, but still dutchdoor caught my eye. A lot of letterpress artists come out with work that looks overly computer generated, thinking that the precise forms will translate well to the letterpress' unique appeal. I love these designs because they don't give the impression they've been generated in Illustrator beforehand- the old world design is well suited to the media. Their charming Scandinavian style images are clean, simple and exquisitely executed. Read more about dutchdoor here!

holli

Holli is a shop from Argentina, a place that seems to be the home of many a talented Etsy artist. Created by Paola Zakimi, these dolls are breathtaking. They're a little bit creepy, too, but not in an evil way- is that alright to say? More in a surreal way, like something mysterious that appears in a dream you remember while reading a poem scribbled onto a newspaper left behind on the bus. Wait- what am I talking about? Anyway, I've been amazed and struck by her work... read more on her blog, here! :)

Late here, time for bed but I hope you too found some new favorites on Etsy this season!

photo shoot!

Ninja v Big Octo gets his picture taken

More photos that came out very satisfactorily from today's attempts playing around with my camera settings. I'm particularly excited about these because I'm introducing a new card size to my shop as of today. The understated A2 card size, smallest of the mailable card sizes, is now in the shop in a new section here. These will be select designs with smart colored or dark envelopes to match. Since this card size does waste some paper in production (more on that in a later post) I'll be keeping the A2 family pretty small, but they really are quite charming little guys.

Black Umbrellas - small version

You are my...

I love that Etsy has added a Vacation Mode. I'm tempted to go on "Vacation" just to try it out. A lot of shops are temporarily closed right now- and that's wise if you had a busy Christmas. I had a good holiday season this year but will be taking an actual vacation mid-winter. I'll save the learning experience of Vacation Mode for that.

My hope is that today I'll be able to come out with two new cards. I printed them last night & have them prepped and ready to go this morning. I'm even up, drinking my coffee and furiously typing away at 6 a.m. because I'm so giddy about having new items for the shop! Next week I'll introduce new designs, too. Definitely *not* in vacation mode over here.

Other than the drawing, scanning, cropping, printing, cutting, scoring, packaging, mailing that goes into the card making aspect of ouou, I've been changing around my freebies once again. The winter, spring, summer, bunny tags I made last year are perfect little give-aways... and after some awkward packaging phases I think I've found the one I'm sticking with. Now all I need is a new set of Moo cards and I'll be golden.

tweaking

It appears the beginning of December is big on "brainstorm" mode. Between Thursday and today I've thought of countless versions of new ideas I want to try out in the shop, filling the corners of my tiny notebook I carry around for on-the-bus scribbles. This is encouraging for my whole relationship with the shop- it feels really good to have a longer view of being back on Etsy than just Christmas.

Right now projects have different levels of involvement since the shop is still in it's early stages of being back in circulation. Some of you may remember the mobile I made for my sister when the boys were first born, I would love to try out a few of those for ouou the shop. Involvement = high. Other things, like adding some 4 card sets to the currently only 6 card set stocked shop = manageable. It is the things in between, those just out of reach, that really have my imagination going these days...

I'm picking up on wholesaling to Brick & Mortar stores this season: more on that later. With the handy coincidence of working in the letterpress industry I've learned what I like to see on cards/ art, the value of having fun with design, and a thing or two about exceptional, minimal design. With another logo-avatar already inked I hope to have a small logo on the back of my cards on upcoming batches soon. Some designs that never quite flew last year, as well as a few that did but I never really felt were finished, are having small-detail makeovers before returning.

That's the news for tonight~ things are still in the works around here, behind the scenes. Before I go, let me just add that my sister absolutely made my day by bustin' out one of last year's iron-on ouou gear onesies. Shoghi is above sporting just such a design that never made it into the shop... not half bad! Thanks, sister... hopefully he'll fit this for more than a few seconds (smile). I'll be bringing the iron-ons back in full force any day now. Ah, sweet sweet encouragement.