Blog / Shop News

BLOG News

Last week I was so thrilled when Bri from the blog The Craft Begins shared her inspiration and process of the inspirations boards she creates every week for her blog. If you missed it take a minute and check it out.

The color quiz last Tuesday was very popular. The quiz takes about one minute to do and then you find out what color matches your personality. After you take the quiz stop back by and share your color.

I also shared with you the amazing art of Jessica Torrant in the Artist to Know series, check out all her work in her Etsy shop.

This week on Thursday I am starting something brand new giving everyone who follows this blog an opportunity to share. Don't miss participating.

SHOP News

I have been steadily adding new pieces to my Etsy shop for the last couple of weeks.

This week I have two gemstone bracelets.

More gemstone pieces this week.

I also have two more stone and hardware pieces coming.

What do you think of my new pieces? What is your favorite gemstone?

Have a great week!

Journal Prompt - Plan or No Plan?

Do you create with a plan?

When starting a new project sometimes we may need to sketch out our ideas, create a list, and pull out the supplies, but today try creating without any planning or preparations.

Sit in front of your supplies and just start pulling stuff out. Don't worry if it goes together or not, just keep pulling until you have a nice pile of stuff you like to go through.

Start sorting. You could sort by color, style, shape, whatever works for you. Once you have things sorted, work with each pile putting together a new creation. No plan, just creating from within.

I know some of you work like this all the time, and if your one of them then do the opposite today and come up with and idea first, sketch it out, create a plan and then create a new piece.

When you are done, journal about your process. You may discover something new about yourself and the way you create.

When you create do you plan your project first or do you just sit and create? Share why your way is better.

The Craft Begins - Inspirations Boards

I found Bri's blog The Craft Begins about a year ago and I love all of her amazing photography, all the inspiring photo's, but what inspires me to go to her blog every week is to see her new inspiration boards. I was lucky enough to get in touch with Bri and she agreed to share the inspirational process behind creating her inspirations boards.



I have tons and tons of magazines. I can read interesting articles, bookmark them for later, and then recycle them, but there seems like there's such a wasted step in the middle. I'm always inspired by colors and textures and patterns I see in magazines, but it's hard to translate that into a look. So I took to cutting out interesting bits and hoarding them, not sure what I was going to do with them. I try not to always cut out a whole pretty picture - I try to find an interesting piece of any ad or photograph and will sometimes just cut out a small corner. When I was leafing through the pictures, I noticed colors that sort of naturally tended towards each other, and I came up with the idea of putting them together into color collages.



Though I make a lot of these now, and know what I'm going for, the process is still the same. I go through magazines and cut out lots of bits until the little box I have is filled to the top. Then I start going through the cuttings, a few at a time, keeping in mind color patterns that are jumping out at me. I make little piles for each color scheme, putting most of the cuttings into an alternate pile and just culling 5 or 6 schemes at a time, which can take some restraint! Then I go though and paste the cuttings into these big 3 ring binders that I keep for this project. Needless to say, I use a lot of rubber cement. I repeat until I'm left with no cuttings left or so few that I can't pull them together to make something cohesive - then it's back to the magazines!



When I get the collages made and a book filled, I scan them into my computer and then plug them into my photoshop template where I pull a few colors out of the overall look and then try to name them. It's a ton of fun trying to come up with the actual names but it gets hard after a while coming up with original things

I really didn't have a purpose in mind when I started making these other than to just curate my love for color. However, as time goes on, I've found them invaluable for a number of applications. When helping people pick paint colors for their house, it's much easier to have them flip through and get an idea of the overall look rather than one color specifically. When I'm doing graphic design work, either for myself or a client, it's easier for them to pick a few color schemes that they like and so I know what they're going for, rather than force them to articulate something they're not comfortable with. I use them for myself when I'm stuck - sometimes it's hard to pick colors out of the blue. I also use them for my event planning business, for the same purpose. Mostly I just like to look at them and absorb all of the color and wonder there is in the world!


Bri has a beautiful blog The Craft Begins and it is a must see. Stop by her blog, she is having a giveaway, but today is the last day to participate, so don't miss out.

Visit all her links
Twitter
Facebook
Big Cartel


Thanks Bri for sharing how your create your inspirations boards and the photo's of your process!

Inspiring Mistakes

When we are creating we make mistakes. We may use colors that don't go together well, use the wrong size of something, or even do a technique incorrectly ruining an entire piece. Sometimes we have to let go of what we think is wrong, because it may be a creative discovery.

When I worked with sterling silver creating art jewelry pieces, I made my own bezels for pendants, rings, and earrings. When I wanted to add color or a design, I worked with epoxy resin.

Well when I started out I would put the pieces filled with the epoxy in my toaster over so they would cure faster, and on a few occasions I left them in there to long and the epoxy started to bubble, creating creators in my design. I would be so pissed off that I wasted all that material and that the piece was not perfect anymore.

Well in the end I showed it to a few people who thought it was really cool and it turned out to be a technique that was uniquely mine and I used it often when I was creating with color.

It's hard to let go of the idea that everything has to be perfect. What dose not look good to us, may look good to someone else. We have to give our mistakes a chance, they could inspire a new idea, start a new technique, or even be the best mistake ever.

Never say "oops." Always say, "Ah, interesting."

-Unknown

What mistake have you made that turned out to be a creative discovery?

Photo's to Inspire - Mangenta

This weeks Flickr collection is all about pink, fuchsia, and magenta. Be inspired.

Aubergine? tag your choice by spike fisher

Magenta Standing Stone by spodzone

Magenta Dream by code poet

Magenta burst by atomicshark

Magenta by Eric in SF

Magenta Jewels by electic echoes

What visual images or colors inspire you? Let me know and I will pull together a Flickr collection, and share that you are the source of inspiration for the week they are posted.

Color Quiz

Recently I was reading one of my favorite blogs How About Orange and she has a post called Which color matches your personality. I took the quiz and thought it was fun, so I wanted to share it with you today.

You can take the quiz on the True Value website. It take about one minute and then you get the results.

Give it a try and come back and share your color personality.

Artist to Know - Jessica Torrant

I have been admiring Jessica's work for as long as I have been on Etsy. Her use of color and texture is amazing. Today Jessica is sharing the inspiration behind her beautiful work. Jessica is a Artist to Know.

Jessica Torrant

How do you describe your work?
My work is an ongoing dialogue, constantly shifting and evolving, cycling around to greet old ideas again with a new approach. I like making art that can be perceived as simply what it is, a collection of composed forms in colors that are pleasing or intriguing, as well as a deeper engagement of thought and feeling. It can be about color and composition. It can be about passion and intuition. It is something as entirely unique for me the creator as it is for the viewer. I like to create things that I enjoy making and looking at. I like to make paintings that inspire curiosity and numerous interpretations.

When did you first realize you wanted to create? Who or what influenced or inspired you?
I know it sounds cliche, but I honestly always knew I wanted to live a life focused on creativity. It's in my blood, with visual artists on my mother's side of the family and musicians on my father's side. Between music, art, dance and theatre, the world of Art is a world I inhabit quite comfortably. My greatest inspirations have been within my family. My grandmother (mom's mother) was a painter that started late in life but was truly the most elegant painter I've ever met. She passed away when I was 10 but I feel her by my side supporting me and believing in me. She said some encouraging words when I was a child painting with her that I'll always carry with me as the best and most influential critique I've ever received. My other grandmother was a great lover of Jazz and she gave me the flames of passion that go to the depths of the soul. I was able to share my teenage years with her and she taught me a lot about being a strong woman - her passion and strength are certainly present in myself and my work. I'm lucky to have a long list of people and points of inspiration that have helped keep my dream alive through the years. I know I'm blessed to have this support.

What do you enjoy most about the creative process?
The feeling when everything CLICKS. There's a moment when you realize you're really focused and connected and things are happening intuitively just like you want them to. It's a wonderful feeling. It confirms the idea of believing in something happening before it happens, because it can't come about without believing it's coming... or at least that’s how it works for me.

What do you do when you need a creativity boost?
I get outside of myself. That’s first and foremost. Painting is such a deeply probing activity, you can’t stay down there (or up there?) too long or it’s likely to mess with your head. I do something that connects with the most basic principals of living - I cook a meal, I take a walk, I talk to someone I care about, I look at the moon. Not putting demands on creativity allows it to exist and flourish in a natural amount of time. It’s easy to forget about the rest of life when you’re sucked into a painting but LIFE is what fuels painting so balance is always something to strive for.

How did you get started with your online business, and how would you like your business to grow?
I started selling my art online on eBay until a fellow painter named Amanda Hone told me about Etsy in late 2006. I liked everything about the site as an eBay alternative because it focused on creative people. I enjoyed several years operating as http://www.etsy.com/shop/livefunky until late 2009 when I opened my gallery collection shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/jessicatorrant which focuses on my finest original paintings. My focus right now is on doing my best work and painting as sincerely and earnestly as possible. I have experimented with many different ways of selling my creative vision through the years, but this year I’m challenging myself to focus entirely on my greatest passion, which is painting. I’ve been distracted in the past, I’m keeping myself focused and determined. Whenever I am fully committed, whenever I am enjoying the process, whenever I feel that thrill knowing a painting is finished or at least going somewhere really exciting - that’s when everything else clicks into place.

Jessica recently opened up a new etsy shop of hand carved one of a kind rubber stamps called Green Garden Stamps.
Check out all of Jessica's sites
blog - http://jessicatorrant.blogspot.com/
the gallery collection - http://jessicatorrant.etsy.com/
livefunky - http://livefunky.etsy.com/
flickr - http://flickr.com/livefunky
portfolio - http://artwanted.com/jtorrant
twitter - http://twitter.com/livefun

Thank your Jessica for sharing your inspirational story with all of us.

Blog / Shop News

BLOG News

Last week on my blog I had a guest post from Kelly from The Lost Earring, if you missed it check out her inspiring story in Artist Inspirations.

Love the color orange? Then this is the post for you. Maybe you don't like orange, well the photo's in Photo's to Inspire may inspire you to change your mind.

Only one more week left in February and I have two guest posts this week, tomorrow see the amazing art of Etsy artist Jessica Torrant in Artist to Know, and later this week Bri from The Craft Begins is going to share how she creates her inspiration boards. Plus I will have another group of colorful Flickr photo's on Wednesday. What color do you think it will be?

As we get to know each other through the Artist Inspirations series, I have more artists lined up to share their inspirational stories in March, plus a new weekly post for sharing. Stay Tuned.

SHOP News

I have had several new ideas lately and a few of them I posted in my Etsy shop.

More Gemstone and Hardware Pieces coming soon

Plus special Hardware Modern Art pieces

What do you think?

Coming soon Flowers!

Artist Inspirations - The Lost Earring

Join me in welcoming Kelly from The Lost Earring, as she shares what inspires her to create her fun and funky jewelry and accessories. Thanks Kelly for being a guest blogger!

Background:
I make earrings, pendants, and brooches using uncommon, upcycled materials such as pressed leaves, old film negatives, and colored pencil shavings. My specialty is custom photo jewelry of peoples' pets, family members, and friends. I enjoy custom requests too!

How I Got Started:
I've always been overflowing with ideas. I tend to create in phases as I love to learn about different forms of expression and move on if/when it feels right. My dad and grandma are jewelry makers, and my great grandfather was as well, so it runs in the family. Photography also runs in the family, and I've been doing that on and off since the age of 8. I do a bit of drawing, painting, and crocheting on the side. I'm one of those people that often says, "Nah, I'll just make it myself."

I started my shop, The Lost Earring (TLE), as a tribute to all of the gorgeous earrings I have lost over the years. Earrings belong in pairs (mostly) and it's oh so sad when a duo becomes a lonely single. Through The Lost Earring, I hope to offer a place where ladies can find that special pair--whether it's to start anew after a lost earring, or to simply add another precious pair to a collection.

What Inspires Me:
I have a BA in Creative Writing. Writing was one of my first loves in life, and poetry is a big inspiration of mine. (Sylvia Plath has some of the most moving lines I've ever read.) I think the act of noticing is crucial to creating in general. And so my roots as a writer, a "noticer" of things, have propelled me forward to create.

So many things, large and small, inspire me. Everything from a crack in the sidewalk to the infinite night sky above. I'm in awe on a daily basis by the patterns, shapes, and colors found in nature. My wonderful husband and I live blocks from the beach, so I'm fortunate enough to take walks there often. I enjoy inspecting rocks, shells, and whatever else washes ashore. There truly is inspiration all around us.

My Process:
Once inspired, I'll do what I can to document it. I keep a journal chock-full of ideas, everything from images that pop into my mind to more expansive projects I'd like to explore. I take photos constantly. That initial recording of my inspiration is a very focused activity. From there, it's all about sitting down in my studio and making a bit of a mess. I move materials around to see what happens. I allow myself to not plan what will happen next. Sometimes nothing happens. Other times things seems to fall in the right place.

Make sure you stop by and see all of Kelly's amazing work in her shop and check out her blog too!

She is having a mystery giveaway this week on her blog enter for a chance to win some cool prizes! One of my pieces is part of the giveaway check it out.

Daily Tools

Everyday as artists we have a certain set of tools that we love and use all the time. Today I would love to here about the tools you use daily. The ones that inspire you to create your best work.

I work with a variety of tool and supplies:

My favorite had tools

Supplies I use everyday

Tools I don't use as often, but still important for creating

Another tool that I use everyday is my computer. I use it to run my business and be inspired.

What tools do you use daily?

Photo's to Inspire - Orange

This weeks Flickr collection is all about orange. Be inspired!

orange clapping by P.J. McAdie

The orange hour by Jawdoc

Orange on Orange by peiceofheaven

Orange Crush by Kymberlie R. McGuire

Orange as any orange on a tree by neloqa

orange sky by Lydia Elle

What visual images or colors inspire you? Let me know and I will pull together a Flickr collection, and share that you are the source of inspiration for the week they are posted.

I love reading and checking out new blogs and websites. Today I am going to share with you 3 blogs I found that are full of information for your online shop and business.

Meylah Blog
The goal of this blog is to help creative people succeed in building their business online. They offer entrepreneurial advice and social networking know-how to help you reach success. Read a variety of articles from setting up your shop, marketing ideas, DIY projects, planning and interviews.

The Pursuit of Etsyness
This is a collaborative blog with guest blogger sharing ideas, tips, and tutorials. You can get information on sales, marketing, social media, photo's, tax info, treasuries, and more, all for your Etsy shop.

Handmade News
This is the largest handmade co-op super blog for the handmade market. Their are daily posts offering business tips, trend info, inspiration, marketing ideas, as well as craft techniques and crafts for kids.

Last year I did a list of 10 business blog for your online business, here are a few that are still up to date and full of helpful information.
Blogging Tips
Startup Nation
5000+ Resources to Do Just about Anything Online (worth checking out)

This is just the tip of the iceberg for online business resources. As I find new sites I will share them with you. Their is always something to learn.

If you know any sites or have a site that has business information for our online shops please share it in the comments.

Artist to Know - Alberto Burri

Today's artist creates with materials that was considered unorthodox during his time, but maybe not today. His abstract art has wonderful texture, color, and shape and can inspire new designs and ideas.

Alberto Burri (1915 - 1995)

Burri earned a medical degree in 1940 and was a military physician during World War II. After his unit was captured he was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Hereford, Texas in 1944, where he began to paint.

Burri soon turned to abstraction and unorthodox materials, making collages with pumice, tar, and burlap.

In the mid-1950s, Burri began producing charred wood and burlap works, then welded iron sheets. In the early 1960s he was burning plastic, and in the early 1970s started his "cracked" paintings, or cretti. He created a series of works in the industrial material, Cellotex, from 1979 through the 1990s.

In the 1980s, Burri created a land art project on the town of Gibellina in Sicily. The town was abandoned following an earthquake in 1968. Burri covered most of the old town, with white concrete. He called this the Grande Cretto.

There are lots of sites with information on Alberto Burri check out Google for more information.

~*♥ Happy Valentines Day ♥*~

Journal Prompt - All About You

Grab your journal, today is all about you.

Take a few minutes today to list everything you LOVE about yourself, what you create, how you take care of people, how you feel, your wishes and dreams, these are just a few ideas to get you started.

This list is just for you, so be positive and honest. We do a lot for other people everyday, sometimes we need to sit back and concentrate on just ourselves.

Enjoy the process, have a cup of tea or wine, cozy up in your favorite spot to relax, and let your everyday worries float away.

When you are done, save your list, read it often, add to it often, if you can add some of your wants and needs to you goal list.

“You must love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and fully being what you are, your simple presence can make others happy.” - Unknown

Spring 2010 - Must Have Accessories Trends

SPRING 2010 Accessory Trends

Three accessory trends you have to add to your spring wardrobe, featuring a few of the wonderful artists on Etsy.

DENIM - Unexpected fabric in hot new accessories.

New Classic Jean colour Denim Large Bag by CrazyBoy

CHOLE Denim Obi Geometric Belt by PeekoApparel

GLOBAL - Richly patterned for instant style.

Leather painted tribal tattoo cuff by LeatherDesign

Textile necklace by kjoo

CLEAR - Dynamic piece, with a hint of color.

High Voltage Fused Glass Earrings by urbanfusions

Mixed Choker Necklace in Lemonade clear by GlamRockEmporium

Add any of these accessory trends for an instant update to your spring look.

What accessory trend will you be adding to your spring wardrobe this year?