Porcelain Jewelry and Buttons

I am very excited about my latest project, porcelain jewelry and buttons! When I moved out West to Vancouver, my new house mates had a kiln they weren't using. So I went out, got a bunch of porcelain and glazes, and started experimenting. After a couple months of prototyping, I am finally getting a finished product I just love. Here are the pieces I made recently before and after glazing. I'm in the process of wrangling them onto ear hooks, then I'll be listing them in my etsy shop. Just look how cheerful that sunshine yellow color is! I'm so pleased with them. :)

Big City Life

I moved a few weeks ago from very small New Brunswick to the very large Vancouver area. It's pretty amazing out West, first of all, the mountains are AMAZING! They are so gorgeous. There is always something going on here. There is so much to see and do.

The picture is the view from my bedroom window. I can see that glorious mountain in the distance!

A quiet morning walk.

Last night I stayed up all night working on various projects, some pendants, brooches, earrings, etc. When I finally went to bed around 5:30 I tossed and turned until the sun came up. So I decided to go outside for a quiet morning stroll to the park with my camera to see what I could find. I'm really happy I went! I enjoyed playing around with my macro filters and everything was covered in such a slight sparkly dew. And the light, my goodness the light! So soft and lovely. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day.

Andy Warhol style custom portraits!

I'm very excited! I've opened up a new Etsy shop called Printique where I'm making custom people, pet & object Andy Warhol style pop art prints. I'm also making photo collages where I customize with the buyer's photos and text. The shop is off to a good start, let me know what you think!

http://printique.etsy.com

Pendants!

I am so excited! I finally finished up a batch of glass pendants made from my photography and illustrations. I'm planning on debuting them tomorrow at the Farmer's Market. Also new for the market are my fancier crate displays, some silk scarves I painted and screenprinted, and the velvet scarves I dyed. I'm hoping for a successful day!

Monica Makes THINGS!

I have had a FANTASTIC day today. I was so productive. I rented studio space at the craft college and just went to town on all the silk and velvet scarves and pillows and other lovely things. I prepped 30ish items to be dyed, and then tried a new type of dye bath I hadn't done before. It turned out beautifully and with better results than I had in the past with a longer, less impressive dye method. I dyed up some velvet scarves that I just cannot wait to dry so I can really see how they turned out. Here is a terrible, low quality snap of them, I was too excited to wait until they are dry to take nice photos:



Besides the velvet scarves I also dyed some silk ones that I am going to experiment with screen printing and painting on, as well as some silk pillows and hankerchiefs. I bought a large order of silks and velvets and several different kinds of dyes, and really want to experiment with new techniques, and with color all summer long. I'll be posting my makings much more often. I've also gotten a handy dandy new camera lens that will help that out. (The lens is not responsible for the bad photos haha)

Bonjour.

I know, it's been a while, but I think I just might be back.

I bought myself a shiny new lens today with some macro filters so it will be much easier to take and share photos and random nonsense, etc.

I've been working busily at my business, recently selling at a Mother's Day craft show, and I've got all new displays for the farmer's market.

Here's a little photo of them, and me peeking out from behind them:



Much nicer than just laying stuff out on the table, like I used to. I hope I'll also be selling at the City Market in my hometown, so that is very exciting, I hope it goes well!

Stats!

Etsy has finally given us sellers some stats! We can now use google analytics with our shops so we'll actually know where our traffic is coming from. This is just so helpful! I'm looking forward to playing around with project wonderful ads and the like to see what kind of traffic I can drive to my shop.

In other news, a bunch of pendant making supplies have arrived and I am just itching to try my hand at pendants. I think a lot of my photos would make for pretty ones and I really hope they turn out as wonderfully as they are in my head.

Treasury!

I was featured in an Etsy treasury today, how exciting! I love love love that necklace that is featured beside my bracelet at the top there, it's so gorgeous. Thanks ClairesArtfulThings!

You can see the treasury here http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=31615 until it disappears on Friday. : )

hmm

I really, really want a macro lens. I feel like I would blog a lot more because I would have fresh, lovely photos to share much more often. I guess I should start saving up then. I'm guessing they're around $3-400 my goodness.

Hey there. New Year's always really jump starts and motivates me to improve myself. This year I want to focus on several areas. Most of all I really want to buckle down and build up my business. The past couple months have been good, I have been putting more effort into finding new venues to sell my items. I've done a couple craft shows, sold at the farmer's market several times, and got my mirrors into a local shop. Now is the time to really build up my etsy shop. I'm putting the prints into the jewelry shop, and I will be adding mirrors. I'm also excited to start making up some pendants and other small gifty items.

Tonight I've been a busy bee, made a new banner, and listed several new items. Once I get my shop in full gear I'll start getting organized and working on my promotional efforts. I really need to get an advertising budget too, haha, or else how will anyone ever find my little shop?

Building a brand

As you may know, I run a small business called Paper Pattern Silk. I sell mostly at local craft fairs, the farmer's market and online on Etsy. I tend to operate on a part time basis, but really want to buckle down and focus on building a sustainable brand and client base. So I thought, I should start writing down my goals and thoughts in my blog so I can keep track of them as I work towards building up my business.

My main goal for now is to build up a recognizable brand. I need to develop a logo, which I am working on. It's silhouettes of lupins. I chose them because they are my favorite flower, they have an interesting shape, and here in the Maritimes it is commonplace to drive by hills and fields just full of these beautiful flowers. They bring up fond memories for me, and I love them.

Next I am trying to figure out what colors to use as my main business ones, on displays, on my business card, and on my website. I doodled a very lackluster lupin in photoshop to get an idea for some colors, and have made a small chart of them:



I have such a hard time narrowing it down to just a few colors. Color is pretty much the reason I create anything, it is my inspiration and excitement in the art world. There are just so many possibilities, and each one says something so completely different about your business. I really want to make a good choice that reflects me and my work.

Paper Pattern Silk sells pocket mirrors, illustration & photography prints, jewelry, handpainted silks, knitwear, pretty much everything. I'm not one to stick to one medium, I like to dabble in many. This makes it difficult to make branding decisions that will affect so many variables. The illustrations tend to be very delicate, with children and whimsical elements. The jewelry, however, takes on a more contemporary, modern design focus. I also need to leave room for my surface design career to come, which is a large deal of why I chose the name. After I graduate I intend to freelance design wallpaper, fabric, greeting cards, etc, while still making art, silks, and my other handmade items.

It's so difficult to find a happy medium between my various styles, I want to be taken seriously as design focused, but don't want to lose the whimsical fun side either.

My goodness it is going to take a lot of thought to decide on my colors..

Hello. It's been a while. I'm overhauling everything, and will get to this dear sweet blog soon. :)

I hope you're all feeling lovely today. Oh the possibilities!

Loan approved!

My SEED business loan was approved! I am so excited. My loan papers are in the mail and will hopefully arrive sometime this week. Then I will take them into the bank and start getting all the supplies ready to get my business off the ground.

I'm really happy about this, it took weeks and weeks of putting it together, usually spending several hours a day researching, rethinking, and working out the problems.

I've been making a lot of jewelry while I wait to get my mirror making machine, but now it's really pulled me back towards what I really love doing, which is the jewelry. So I'm doing even more rethinking, it is so hard to choose which direction I want to go in.

Next time I go home to visit my family I might bring some jewelry into the market and see if the jewelry shop there would be interested in carrying it. I went there once before, when I was probably 16ish, and brought in some jewelry. It was pretty junky at the time, cheap wire, lots of spirals, ugly beads. But I was proud of it. They didn't accept it at the time, but I did sell a ton of it at school.

So that's pretty much how I've been spending my summer break thus far, making and listing jewelry. Oh, and I've also set up a new design blog that I've been spending a lot of time finding interesting things to feature. It is HERE if you want to take a peek. I might change up the layout on this blog to something similar to that one, now that I think of it..

Have a great day!

Rain.

Sometimes I stop and think to myself, you know, you haven't sold very much really, for the work you've put into your shop, promoting, etc.

And then on days like this, I just feel wonderful. I haven't sold anything, been added to favorites, or garnered much interest at all. But I did finish up a batch of jewelry, and as I was photographing them, I realized how very much I love the process of creating.

I go through bouts where I don't do very much at all creatively, and in those times, I don't really feel like something's missing. But then, when I get into a creativity spree, where the ideas are just flowing through my brain at 100 miles an hour, I can't imagine doing anything else with my life.

All my jewelry turned out way better than I had hoped. And when I photographed it, I couldn't help but be filled with pride that I had managed to make things that actually express who I am, and the feelings I have about life itself. I know that doesn't make much sense, it's just jewelry after all, not some high form of art, but to me it's such a freeing experience.

So I really don't care if no one ever buys a piece of my work; I have gotten all the satisfaction and fulfillment I need out of just making it.

Thank you for reading,

Monica

Now on Myspace!

As you can see from the above screenshot, I have started up a myspace page. I'll be putting lots of photos there, some news in the Paper Pattern Silk business, and maybe even some special deals for myspace friends. I spent the better part of the day fiddling around with it trying to make it look pretty, and adding Etsy users who've posted in the MASSIVELY HUGE (we're talking like 119 pages here) thread in the Etsy forums with their links. It's going to take a while, I think I'm on page 37 or so now. I'd love it if you'd add me to your myspace, my page is http://myspace.com/paperpatternsilk

The rest of the day I spent making some jewelry. I'm oxidizing them right now as I type so I can photograph and list them tomorrow. I am so in love with oxidized silver. I love it's high contrast and organic feel. It's really hard to not just oxidize it all since I like the look so much, but I'm trying to appeal to different tastes in my shop, so I've got to restrain myself. At least a bit, I'm thinking there is going to be quite a bit of oxidization going on.

Oh well.

Silk overload

Having steamed and rinsed out my silk, it is now ready to show itself off to the world.

I can't help but just look at at, figuring out where the best pocket mirrors would come from, admiring little areas where certain colour combinations have turned up. I've got splatters and speckles and lines, abstract flowers, dots and my personal favorite, tiny little leaves. There are only a select few of them though, so those mirrors will be extra special.

I've also finished up that scarf I was working on, it is now listed HERE. I'm pretty excited about how it turned out, the colours are so intriguing.

With that being said, it's time for an exorbitant and hugely excessive amount of photos to show off some of my favorite parts of my silks:



First up is the City Line scarf. I love the little windows I masked off, they're pretty neat.

Next we have a sampling of random spots where I played with colour mixing.

Color + Texture collide - Contemporary Gifts

I think I've forgotten to mention it, but I have started up a new etsy shop here:

Paper Pattern Silk

I'm going to put my jewelry, accessories, pocket mirrors, etc on it. Right now there are a few pieces of jewelry, many more are in the process of being photographed and listed. So, it would be really nice if you could check it out, let me know what you think. The avatar and banner are works in progress, they will be changed to match my website when I can get my boyfriend to code it for me. It's all designed and the photoshop files are sitting sadly and somewhat impatiently on my computer waiting for him to work his graphic design student knowledge on. I hope he will be able to get it up and running soon, I am so excited to have it on there.

In other news, some Etsy orders are starting to wander into my mailbox. Today I recieved the first of three pocket mirrors I ordered. I got one each in 2.25, 3, and3.5 inches so that I can see first hand which size I want to go with. The 3.5 arrived today and is really nice, but feels a bit too awkward to hold. It's a bit big, but the 3.5 machine gives me the option to make coasters as well. I'm not sure if there is a big market for coasters though. As nice as they are, I don't know that I would drop $16 - 20 on a set of them for my place, so I'm uncertain my target market would either.

Tomorrow I am going to apply for a job at a local bakery. My plan is, if I can get a weekday job I will be able to afford a smart phone or pda, and can then work on my business while at work on my breaks. It would be nice to have some sort of certainty when it comes to my summer income, but I do really want to make my summer SEED business work too. So we'll see if I am able to manage both, but I think I will be. I get bored if I'm not doing anything anyways, so at least they will keep me on my toes.

Black backgrounds

Today I experimented with using a textured somewhat shiny black background for my photos, and I actually quite like how they turned out. I like the charcoal with the light gradient going through it, and think I will stick to this for a while.

It's kind of annoyingly ironic that I like this, after spending so much time and effort trying to get more and more elaborate set ups. I've painted trees, scoured bookstores looking for white books, made a light tent, bought all kinds of different coloured paper and taken hundreds and hundreds of photos, spending hours in Photoshop trying to make them just right. And now I've found a black binder lying around, and took these with natural light. What a slap in the face.

But I still like the black.

Figuring things out.

I am still in the process of deciding exactly how I want my website. Here is a potential logo, but I don't know. I think it falls a little flat. The placement is off and the font isn't quite right. I'm almost certain I'm going with the stemmies though. I just love them. Here they are for a different part of the website. I think they're versitile enough that I can adjust the length, colour, and quantity of them to suit the website, logo, business cards, ads, etc. I would love some feedback though, so feel free to let me know the good and the bad.