Category Archive for ‘Projects’ at Inspiration Junkie robayre.com

Archive for the 'Projects' Category

#Robayre100Days 2017 Edition and More News

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on April 19, 2017

in Cool Links, General Update, goals, life, Projects and shop update

. 1 Comment

I’m doing the 100 day project again this year. Last year during the project I focused on finishing up a lot of already started stationery projects and getting them listed in my shop. Here is a link to 2016′s 100 days. It kept me very productive and I enjoyed being part of the community of other creative and prolific makers, so naturally I’m going to participate again.

This year for the 100 days project (starting on April 4th, 2017), I am focusing on getting already existing work (especially patterns) up on POD (Print on Demand sites). Last year I closely followed and was SO INSPIRED by my friend Julie’s posts about artist’s making passive income. I’ve had a Society6 shop (where I upload images and customers can get art prints, or products with my images printed on them)for years, but it is pretty neglected. I also want to finally get some of the patterns I designed printed onto fabric using Spoonflower. I’ve had an account with Spoonflower since they first opened up and I had to be put on a waiting list and be invited to join. And then… nothing. I NEVER actually printed anything. Fast forward to present day and I am using the 100 Day Project to remedy this quandary. I have 2 kind of selfish goals 1. to get a cell phone case of my own artwork for my own phone and 2. order fabric of my own artwork to sew a bunch of things.

On the first day I posted this over on Instagram: I’m laying down some groundwork to help me stick it out. 1. My main focus will be to get my work ready and up on POD sites. I’ve had a society6 shop for years but have not kept it up at all, and I want to finally get a lot of my favorite patterns up on spoonflower, and explore other options as well. 2. If it takes longer than 100 days, so be it 3. If I want to switch up focus on things for a while, so be it. 4. If I only work on something for 15 minutes a day, so be it. 5. Most importantly I want to work on something creative and productive each day. 6. I’m gonna stick with my general #robayre100days hashtag. Here we go!

I immediately dove in and worked on this vintage mail pattern. Cleaning it up, making it a repeatable pattern, etc.

I made it with 4 different backgrounds, pink, blue, gray and white and uploaded it to Spoonflower.

While I had it so close, I figured I might as well set it up as a digital (printable) pdf stationery set and painted a striped watercolor piece in the style of many of my other stationery sets, and uploaded it to etsy.

Next I wanted to work on my barn quilts pattern but before I got too far I realized I should have taken the vintage mail pattern and uploaded it to Society6. That opened a whole new can of worms because it had been so long since I had really dealt with Society6, that I had some learning curves. One thing that was GREAT to discover, was that if you upload original art files that are HUGE, it will enable other products immediately. Before, I had to customize each image to fit very specific dimensions for a mug vs. a cell phone case. Now, I can just re-position things on their website.

Another thing that is pretty great is that since I first opened my society6 shop, they have gone from offering art prints, mugs and cell phone cases, to a huge variety of additional products like towels, rugs, shower curtains, zipper pouches and more. For the next several days I just worked on adjusting the existing 24 patterns I already offered and enabling more products on those, like this handspun yarn, which was the very first pattern I uploaded there and my most popular product so far. I’ve uploaded a few more patterns now and am still doing research. One thing that was shared with me, and was very insightful was a Free Skillshare class on passive income, by top Society6 seller CatCoq, (you just have to create an account and log in to watch). Incidentally, Cat was also interviewed by Julie (mentioned above) in her passive income artist’s interview series. So, that’s where I am now with my 100 Day Project. And if that wasn’t enough, I also committed to participating in the #30Letters30Days project as well.

AND! Tomorrow (Thursday, the 20th) I am participating in a virtual book tour for Emily Neuburger‘s new book “Journal Sparks“. Check back here, and/or instagram and facebook for a peek into a project from the book and a chance to win your own copy.

#robayrepatterns part 3

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robayre

on April 2, 2017

in Fun, General Update, My Artwork and Projects

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I'm gonna try and attempt #patternjanuary #letsmakepatterns. I had such a fun time last year, you should play along too!

Part 1 can be seen here

Part 2 can be seen here

Day 21 Folk Art – I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one. This is probably my favorite from the whole month. Last year the barn quilt author and artist Suzi Parron came to speak at my mom’s quilt guild, and then we did a workshop with her as well, where we got to make our own barn quilts. My mom has been obsessed for years and it was so interesting to learn about them. The most fascinating thing being that they are a brand new art, as in this century! Don’t they seem like something that should have been around in Amish country for hundreds of years? This pattern is going to be made into a fabric, for sure!

Day 22 Bicycle – This pattern was kind of a cheat, in that I made it years and years ago, but I don’t think I ever shared it fully. Maybe I posted a pic of a bike or two, but never the full thing. I have even made little pinback buttons of the bike illustrations pictured here. I penciled in the bikes, then inked them, then painted very wet and loose watercolor around them. In case you don’t know, I love bikes. My own bicycle in particular, and if you haven’t heard it before, I have bought my same bike FOUR times because I love it so much!

Day 23 Pomegranate - When I think of pomegranates I think of my mom and how she seems to take pleasure it preparing a pomegranate. She’ll prepare everything, gathering the fruit, a bowl, a knife and towel, opening it up and peeling it and filling a bowl full of the juicy gem like fruit pebbles. I also think about how much I love pomegranate too, but have way less patience and thus end up buying Pom juice in the fun shaped bottles for a rare treat. This pattern is a nod to the fruit and the juice in an abstract form, in a little art book.

Day 24 Rain- If I remember correctly, I had a different plan for rain, but it didn’t really pan out, so last minute I just did this with my Aquash water brush pen, and navy blue watercolor, and finished it off with splatter, and voila. It’s one of those patterns, that I wish they all could all be so quick and easy-peasy.

Day 25 Black and White – Last year I won a set of Gelli Arts mini shaped plates, and this rectangle one was my absolute favorite. I decided to make a pattern using just black on white paper, with my hand cut paper stencils.

Day 26 Turquoise - I was trying to go for that silver and turquoise ring thing. Turned out more meh than I had hoped for.

Day 27 String – I thought of this picture of handspun yarn I made years and years ago from fiber I dyed with koolaid. This also turned out more meh than I had hoped for.

Day 28 Floral- Floral is another one of those pattern themes that I would love to explore, more, more, more and more of! This was just a quick pattern that I imagine being reproduced on fabric, but in a way that is reduced so the pattern is fairly tiny.

Day 29 Kaleidoscope- This pattern started out from the picture on the bottom, and then I assembled into kaleidoscope circles on the top on the computer. It came out way more busy than I had envisioned. That is funny because I restarted once when I deemed the first pile of collage papers to be too plain and basic.

Day 30 Plaid – Last year I had the idea of making a greeting card for Christmas with “buffalo plaid” that I would make from loose watercolors. I never got around to it, so this theme let me finally make that pattern that I wanted to do.

Day 31 Fruit Salad – I’m pretty opinionated on my fruit salads. There are few things worse than ordering a fruit salad at a restaurant and when it arrives it is just cantelope, honeydew and a grape. That is NOT a fruit salad. Fruit salad needs to have a LOT of variety. I built this sketchy fruit salad pattern on the computer and I rather liked how it came out.

And here the full collection. At the end Anika asked people to answer a questionaire on how the month went:

1. My favorite pattern – the barns/barnquilts for the Folk Art theme for the detail and subject matter being close to my heart.
2. Favorite prompts – swan, home, and floral. These are prompts that made me overflow with ideas and I want to go back to them and do more, more, more. The swan and floral themes were ones in particular that I already had plans for in my head prior to starting patternjanuary.
3. Biggest challenge – sleep. It’s something that I struggle with regularly anyway. My natural sleep habits would have me up late because I’m most productive and creative late at night, but I have to work at 6 a.m. Last year I finally stopped fighting it and started going to bed around 9 p.m. but the week before January I was on vacation so I slept like I wanted, meaning up late. Then working on patterns, wanting to do them justice, I ended up staying up late furthering the bad sleep pattern. I have been surviving on little sleep for the month (and being late to work more often than not, as well 😱)
4. Most frustrating moment – had to be the times that I allowed myself to fall behind schedule because I was so overwhelmed by the prompts that I really wanted to do amazing stuff. I still haven’t finished the dollhouse pattern.
5. Most popular pattern – rain. Funny because it was one of the simplest and quickest patterns I made after my first idea flopped. But I have to say that almost all of my patterns this month out perform my average posts. Thank you everyone, for the support!
6. Biggest surprise – citrus. It felt like the biggest dud, especially since I was feeling so rusty AND because the picture of it was taken at night, but it got so many likes and comments.
7. Proudest moments – being featured on other accounts and people reaching out to me about future projects due to these patterns ❤
8. Patterns I want to redo – almost all of them need additional work, and as stated above the dollhouse one was never completed, and I want to do additional swan, house and floral patterns, but as for completely redoing, there aren’t any I’d scratch and start over.
9. Goals for next time – maybe stick within one medium? My pieces were all over the place from digital and hand drawn, to watercolor, and collage. Although I do think that allowing myself to mix it up helped me to stick it out. I worry that if I limited myself to one medium that I might get bored and throw in the towel. I just thought of another goal and that would be inspired by @jessee_artschooldropout who made her patterns, finalized them and then uploaded them to spoonflower all in one go. That is amazing.
10. Plans for February – catch up on all the things I neglected during January. I have so many things that I need to do that I’m a little overwhelmed where to begin. But number one should be to clean off my work table so I can get back to serious work

Robayre100Days part 4

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robayre

on November 1, 2016

in General Update, My Artwork, Projects and shop update

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Back for part 4 of my 100 day project. First part, Second part, Third part

Another one of my goals for the 100 day project was to get my etsy shop back up over 100 listed items. In my shop’s glory years (when I averaged a handful of sales a week over several years) I had around 100 items listed in my shop at any time. When I let things slide I realized I had gotten down to less than half that. I’ve been working steadily at bringing it back up again and I think I was around 80 items when the 100 day project began. I did get up to 100 items, but with sales and items expiring, it has dipped below and comes back up again. Now I’ve realized that I really need to get it closer to 110 or so to stay above 100.

This is a little out order, this was my post for day 100. When we bought our house there was a whole wall with pegboard in our basement and one day when I was down there I had the idea of hanging up some of my stationery sets to get a group shot. The lighting is not so great down there, but this was fun to put together. It’s really satisfying to see the collection.

This project was long overdue! Last Christmas my nephew (5 at the time) wanted stationery because he has a couple of pen pals. I designed this “adventure” set for him.

I painted the headers in watercolor, based on things I thought would interest him, dinosaurs, space and treasure maps. When I gave it to him at Christmas, I just printed a few sheets of each and gave them to him loosely. My intention was always to have them in a large notepad for better stability when a little kid is writing in it, so I did just that for the 100 day project. I finally made it into a notepad. 1 single notepad, for my nephew. The bottoms are lined for littles who are learning to write, and the pages alternate with illustrated headers and fully lined sheets. I’d love to design a companion set, and I would love to offer these in my shop, but they would really need to be printed commercially because it takes a lot of time printing and assembling, since each header is significantly larger than the types of headers I print on my regular stationery sets.

I painted some large watercolor patterns to use as additional backgrounds for taking product pictures over. A few years ago I drew out a large scribbly grid in a graph paper style and have been using it a lot. I wanted to make a few others so I’d have some variety.

I made these checkered watercolors above and a black and white stripe in watercolor too, but I still end up using the old grid one mostly anyway. I think they are too busy and too colorful/saturated. Oh well.

A simple lined stationery paper set with the tiny posie theme

I made it using elements from my tiny posie pattern I amade during patternswithanika earlier in the year. This set is available in my shop here.

Inspired by flags during a battle scene on Game of Thrones, I decided to make a notepad. I painted a few of these flag posts before settling on one I liked.

And tested it out to see if I’d be able to write my own messages over the printed black. Success!

For fun I cut down a few of the headers and made them into stickers, where the gel pen was printed on the protective coating, so it can be wiped away and changed as needed.

And the final notepad, which was printed on a natural speckled paper. These notepads are available in my shop. LOVE how it came out. It’s rare that I am inspired and then able to start working on something immediately. That helps so much! I need to make a bar graph that shows how the likeliness of a project coming to fruition declines rapidly as time passes.

Another goal I had for the 100 day project was to update some photos from some classic oldies from my shop, like my recycled envelope stationery sets. They used to be a top seller and I had a lot of returning customers for just this product, but when I let my shop slide they kind of got forgotten about. I still love the product, but I think I need to breathe new life into the listings.

I made a bunch of new envelopes to replenish my stock. I use an old shoe box (as pictured above) to sort and categorize the envelopes. It helps when assembling them, so I know each pack gets a good variety.

And here was an attempt to take a new product picture. One thing people have told me before on a number of occasions is that they don’t understand or know what this product is, and even though I love this picture, I don’t think it helps clarify that. I detail what the product is exactly in the listing, but I think most people look at the picture and decide from there if they are interested or not, and so many may not even get to the details of the listing. Maybe the craziness of this pic would make people click just to find out exactly what is going on? I just don’t know how to photograph this product in a way that makes sense, because all the envelopes are different and the stationery designs are a variety as well. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear it. Another item on my list for the 100 days (but that I never got to) was of a video that would show what the sets are like.

Looks like I will be back with one last post to wrap things up. Catch up on the previous posts here:

First part, Second part, Third part

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Robayre100Days part 3

Published

robayre

on October 20, 2016

in General Update, My Artwork and Projects

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Back again with another installment.

The first reason I chose to focus on paper products for my 100 day project was because I had so many letter writing paper sets already designed or in process, but just not produced. It felt SO GOOD to finally cross them off my to-do list and put them out in the world! SO GOOD!

I created this pencil themed stationery set using the pencil illustrations I made earlier this year for Patterns with Anika. I still want to make a skirt with fabric printed with the pencil pattern on it.

I don’t think I have ever shared this set on the blog before, but it was probably the first set that came to mind for projects that I wanted to wrap up. I’ve literally had the original rough sketch, AND the base for the original artwork for this set stuck to the door in my studio for YEARS. It is also probably the first stationery or paper product that I created where the lines were my own scribbled lines, rather than inserted digitally. I painted the frame in watercolor, drew the lines in pencil, scanned it and had it printed professionally. The last step is what really kicks it up a notch, because I personally silk screen print each gold metallic swoosh around the edge. These sets really make me swoon.

#robayre100days cleaning up a scan 19/100 A video posted by robyn wells robayre.etsy.com (@robayre) on May 8, 2016 at 11:39am PDT

Here’s a little video of me trying to clean up a scan. This was a piece that I made on a whim and then it sat forever needing to be completed.

I scanned it and tried cleaning it up, then scrapped it and tried to redo the piece entirely, and scan it afresh, and clean again, just to go back to the original and spend an eternity cleaning it up.

I really liked the quality of the pencil and watercolor on the rough cold press paper, but it made for a nightmare to clean, meanwhile keeping all the great texture where I wanted it.

I finally conquered it and had fun taking pictures for the product listing.

This might look familiar to you as I created this stationery and offered it as a limited time, free printable download, during my 10 year anniversary celebration.

This fun digital set is now available in my shop

Another process shot, while I was setting up a layout.

The strawberries for this came from a few years back. I drew them in pencil, then colored them in very roughly with neo color II watercolor crayons, and then went back in with a wet brush. I think I’ve mentioned it here before, but I took one illustration class in college and one of the things I took away from the class was the importance of scanning while in process and then working over the printed scans. I’m sure I picked it up, because as a graphic designer I know the importance of saving files that way as well. This piece was one that was done in layers that way.

The Strawberry Stationery can be found here in my shop

And here are a couple projects I started, but didn’t finish during the 100 days project

I was looking back through instagram earlier this week and realized that I actually did 3 different daily projects this year (This one and 2 pattern a day months) and I am really proud of myself for all the work I’ve done. That’s it for now. Thank you for visiting and following along on my 100 Day project follow up, stay tuned for more installments, and if you missed the previous ones, you can find them here:

First part, Second part

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#the100dayproject update

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robayre

on October 10, 2016

in General Update, Projects and shop update

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I have FINALLY conquered #the100dayproject! I know, I know, it took me WELL OVER the 100 days. In my defense, I could have easily wrapped it up in the 100 days had I allowed myself to post pictures of nearly the same thing in back to back days. Instead I wanted each “day” to be, if not something entirely different and new, than at least visible progress.

I am very proud of myself, and I hope to remember how I committed myself to working regularly on my etsy shop, focusing mainly on paper products, in 2016… rather than spend a huge percentage of my time watching Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu, which is how things could have easily gone.

However, I am NOT so proud that I neglected my blog and didn’t post here about what I was making and doing along the way. So, this is what I’m gonna do: I want to break this up in a bunch of smaller posts and hopefully share all of the finished projects.

I started out the first day with sketchy drawing “Here we go”,

which turned into a notepad, stationery paper set and

even a custom requested greeting card.

I replenished my stock of these metallic embossed card bases that I use for my garlands

And then I made some garlands too

I sold out my stock of these mini ephemera spiral bound notebooks, so I made some more. And I was in my best friend’s wedding, so I altered and updated these cards for the guests to fill out at the reception.

I added this little notebook to my shop. It is a collage made of my own gelatin prints, made from my own hand cut paper stencils.

This project was a recurring theme throughout the 100 days as I attempted to create a geometic/space/galaxy themed header for a black and white stationery set.

I have sheets upon sheets of black rectangle watercolors with all sorts of patterns drawn on them, all over my studio and yet nothing really grabbed at me. Not every idea is an instant success, lol. Someday…

OK, that is enough for this post. It already took me over a week just to post this one update. I hope that it won’t take so long for the next installment.

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#the100dayproject progress

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robayre

on May 31, 2016

in General Update, life, Projects and shop update

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I’m over a third of the way through #the100dayproject. Some days I feel overwhelmed and question why I committed to this project, but more often I’m glad that I did and have been super productive.

My goal was to focus on paper products, and aiming to add 10-15 new products to my shop. I said 10-15 new items because I’ve been trying to get my shop back up to having at least 100 items in it. Since the project began I’ve added 14 (I think) new items to my shop already, that being said, several of those are one-of-a-kind, original items, and I’ve already sold 6 one of a kind items in my shop. Counting all ups and downs, I’m up to 90 items in my shop.

Being this far through the project, I thought I’m overdue to sharing some of these projects.

It started with this drawing, with the appropriate phrase “Here We Go”

I drew it on the very first day to kick off the project.

And turned it into this stationery. I used charcoal envelopes, and instead of ruled lines, scribbly ones that make me so happy.

I also made it into a notepad, because the phrase Here We Go seemed to lend itself well to a checklist, perfect for getting things done, or packing for a trip, etc.

And lastly, and unexpectedly, I had a custom request to make it into a graduation card. I printed it on a light gray paper and did a bit of rearranging of the image.

Stay tuned for more!

Annual Kusudama Ornament

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robayre

on January 3, 2016

in General Update, home, life and Projects

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Happy New Year! Matt and I sat down and made our annual kusudama Christmas ornament this weekend, just in time to pack away all the decorations. Actually, we made two because last year we never got one done. We have quite the collection now. I’m so glad that Matt enjoys making them as well.

We made this mylar coated wrapping paper one. It made folding and creasing the paper a chore, but it looks very pretty on the tree.

And this one is my new favorite. After piling up years and years of the 365 Metropolitan Museum of Art calendars, I had the idea to cut down some pages to make an ornament. It was actually perfect, because my coworker/friend Fred would always get this calendar for us. Every single day, the first thing he’d do is come and look at the new piece of artwork and then go look it up on google. He passed away a couple of months ago, and I wish I had thought to make him an ornament from a calendar years ago.

Below are the previous years’ ornaments.

Just some facts about the ornaments if you are interested in making one for yourself:

Paper squares (64 pieces) should be no bigger than 3″ square for a resulting 4.5″ ornament. Trust me, our first “ornament” is about 12 inches in diameter! Next year if I remember, I’m going to try 2-2.5″ sized paper, but I’m not holding my breath, as I accidentally cut 4″ on one ornament again this year.

The instructions (if I remember correctly) say to use glue. There is no way you’d ever get this done if you were waiting for each piece of paper to glue together. The first year or two we used an adhesive tape, but that started acting funky over the years, so we have switched to glue gun and it speeds up the whole process and the pieces hold together SOLIDLY!

We follow this 2 step tutorial each year.

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Speed Round – Episode 20

Published

robayre

on October 5, 2015

in Fun and Projects

. 2 Comments

I know! I know! Two blog posts in two days. What?!

I’m posting today because I just remembered how I wanted to start a new blog post series. Every week I look forward to the weekend and a new episode of Art for Ears, the Jealous Curator’s podcast. Danielle Krysa has an amazing blog called The Jealous Curator (subtitled: Damn. I wish I thought of that), where she shares the artwork of artists that she is jealous of. How many other artists out there can relate? (Raising my hand) If you haven’t checked out the blog or her podcast, I highly recommend it. The idea behind the podcast is that Danielle interviews a different artist each week, so that the listeners get a little look into the lives of all kinds of artists. Each episode has a speed round section where she asks the artist quick questions that they should answer without thinking too long or too deeply about them. Each week I try to imagine how I would answer these same questions if I were being interviewed by Danielle, so I had the idea to start this series where I will share my own answers to each week’s speed round on this here blog.

This week’s episode was with artist Kelly Puissegur. You can find the episode of Art For Your Ears here.

1. Beer or Wine
Wine, hands down. I have the palate of a child, so in all honesty, that wine would probably be more like a “wine cooler”.
2. Favorite article of clothing from your teenage years
I had a red zipper hoodie and I wore it through high school and probably college before it became too stained, frayed and holey. Trying to relive that era and comfort, I actually just purchased a replacement hoodie. I bet you’d never guess how hard it is to buy a cherry red, zipper front hoodie. If you go into stores, the hoodies in the women’s section will always be pink or magenta, the hoodies in the men’s section will always be a maroon or burgundy. Online, if you find a red-red hoodie they will be offered in sizes XS or XXXL with everything in between sold out. Or it will be super bulky with that fake wool lining, or have some brand or logo plastered across it. It took me about a year to finally snag a perfect, plain red zipper hoodie.
3. Favorite animal to paint
I can not think of the last animal I painted, possibly a deer on Ann’s baby shower invite? If I had to paint any animal right now I’d paint a cat, since I’m most familiar with how they look.

4. If you were a fighter pilot in Top Gun, what would your call sign be?
I only saw Top Gun for the first time last year and meh. I had no idea how to answer this so I cheated and searched for a generator “What’s your Top Gun name” and pow! Hobby! I couldn’t have come up with a better option than that if I sat all day thinking about it.
5. Other than art, what would you love to be awesome at? The first thing that popped into my head is singing. I love music so much, and I really belt it out when I’m alone, but I’m also pretty sure I’m super tone deaf. I blame a bajillion ear infections during my childhood and adulthood.
Bonus: Have you ever gone topless on a beach?
No way, jose! I’m a practicing NEVER NUDE. I’m the layer queen. Layers and layers of clothes, even at the beach.

I’ve really been wanting to do this for a while, so I might go back through old episodes and postdate my answers

International Zine Month and Grass & Stars III

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robayre

on July 26, 2015

in etsy, General Update, life, My Artwork, Projects and shop update

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Some of my zine collection
Apparently July is International Zine Month, so I figure no better time than now to announce that (after years’ long hiatus) I have finally created issue 3 of my zine, Grass & Stars.

Props to any readers that remember my zine, or have even bought or swapped for one in the past. Here are the first two issues. The first zine I ever made was in a matchbox!

The new issue, like my very first one, was made for a swap. I was invited by Lelaina Lloyd late last year to participate in an art zine swap and it was exactly the push I needed to make my next issue. The swap was completed mid June (above) and so I am finally sharing it here. It had a size and page count requirement, and so I’m excited to say this is the largest zine I’ve made so far. At first I had no idea how I was going to fill 20 pages of content, let alone what it was going to be about. When the idea of luck came to me, it made perfect sense and everything else fell into place.

I had so much fun working on the zine and it was hard not to spoil it all on instagram. I definitely did share lots of sneak peaks though, so I will share them here too. There are plenty of things that I LOVED SO MUCH that I still want to share pictures but I know it wouldn’t be much fun if someone got the zine and realized they’ve already seen it all on instagram.

This is a little thumbnail of a coloring book page. I’ve been kinda obsessed with the idea of a fingers crossed emoji for a while, wishing there was such a thing, making my own fake ones and then this. Just last week I bought an enamel pin that also looks like this.

Yes, a set of felt brooches were made specifically to be featured in the zine.

A four leaf clover of course, only, it’s fake. I hot glued the fourth petal, as I shared on instagram, sometimes you just have to make your own luck!

Here’s another work in progress that made it into the zine.

Of course these are just snippets that I hope entice you into wanting to see more. This issue contains original artwork, articles, a comic, coloring book pages, a lucky penny pinback button and more!

Issue no. 3 is now available in my etsy shop, and as usual (and in the spirit of zine making) I’m always open to swaps! Just leave a comment or message me!

Greeting Card Little Mailart Book tutorial

Published

robayre

on July 7, 2015

in Projects

. 3 Comments

In 2011 I had one of those aha moments where I decided to combine my love of small notebook jotters and mailart. I was in the middle of a 365 mailart project and made quite a few of these little books to send out.

Over the years since then, I’ve made a few here and there, where I’ve painted and collaged on the covers which were made from blank recycled cardboard.

I even got one back, from Artist Mim Golub Scalin, where she filled it up and sent it back to me. It was completely unexpected, as I send each one as a gift to the recipient.

Then recently, noticing my hoards of greeting cards, I had another aha moment! Turn these cards into easy peasy little (mail) art books.

Maybe you’re like me and have a greeting card addiction. Sometimes I deem them too precious to just write in. Sometimes I hang them up in the house like small art prints.

I keep a little handmade jotter on me at all times. I use it for daily list making and for writing down quick ideas or sketches. Recently, it was time to make a new one and I was thinking about what I would do for the cover when I saw the above mentioned (and pictured) hoard.

Even though the covers might be someone else’s art, I still consider a mailart project because the recipient can fill the pages with their own artwork. It’s like a mini sketchbook that came straight through the mail. Maybe you can send it back and forth between friends, filling it up with alternating pages of art. Or, you may decide not to send it away at all, but just keep it for yourself and that is great too! You may decide to alter your card and make it your own, or perhaps recycle a card that was sent to you, cool and cool! Or perhaps you don’t want to use a greeting card at all, and want to make some mailart books with your own art entirely, like how I originally started out, Awesome!

Start out with:

A greeting card of your choice
Some plain paper – Often I alternate blank pages with lined paper
A ruler
A self healing mat
A pen knife
A booklet stapler
Stamps
Washi tape
Ribbon

Cut letter sized paper in half and then fold in half. Place folded and collated papers inside card. Most likely the paper won’t fit the card and you will need to trim off excess. I would suggest stapling book together first, then trimming away the extra, as seen above.

One thing I learned from the book Mim returned to me was to add a ribbon for bookmarking. You could staple it into the binding or feed it between the cover and body pages at the staple (like pictured above) and knot it in place.

Tada! You have made a little book! If you want to keep the book for yourself, you may be done at this stage.

If you want to mail your book, you can write the addresses right on the back cover of the card, or print out a label, like I did above. For the purpose of sharing here on the blog, I sent this one to myself. For postage I used 2 forever stamps because I could tell it was small and flat enough, but depending on how big or thick your booklet is, you may need more. I think my original mailart books required over a dollar postage. I also seal up the sides, since it is a booklet. Sometimes I will include a note and rubber band inside and the seals help keep it all contained. Make sure that the ribbon is tucked in and not hanging out, as it could get caught on the sorting machines. From working at a company that sends out lots of mail I know a booklet requires the seals to make it through the mail. In the past I’ve used wafer seals, or art tape to close it, but this time I tried washi tape and it worked like a charm and looked cute to boot.

You can see they cancelled my stamps.

The front cover is the beautiful greeting card art, and the back cover is now the postal side. The inside pages are just waiting to be filled! Awesome right? Now get to it, and make some little mailart books to send to your pen pals, or to keep for yourself.

Edit: Thanks to a comment I decided to add that my stapler is a Long Reach Pro Stapler. I just bought it at our local Office Max, but a simple google search shows that they sell it at Walmart as well. If I remember correctly, when I bought it, the box said it will staple through 20 (or was it 30) sheets of paper with the pressure of a single finger. It is NOT electric, but has CRAZY force. Word to the wise: do not put your finger underneath it, hoping to feel where the staple will come out because it only takes the pressure of a feather to shoot those suckers right into your finger. Good times!

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