Tag Archive for 'etsy'

That’s more like it

Published
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robayre
on October 16, 2008
in General Update
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10.16, originally uploaded by robayre.

The colors are finally in full glory. Everywhere I look, green and red, gold and blue.
It’s getting cold too. Today at work, I daydreamed about knitting mittens, scarves and socks, and spinning and spinning lots of fiber. In fact, that is what I did tonight - I spun and plied some yarn that has been on my wheel for a loooooong time.


Here is another handspun/knit pendant I made recently. The colors are wonderful and remind me so much of the season. It’s listed in the shop.

Put your learning caps on

Published
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robayre
on August 30, 2008
in General Update
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A coworker brought in his recent Smithsonian magazine to show me an article about photobooths. You can read that article Four for a Quarter, by Kenneth R. Fletcher online here. The article told about how photobooths had become so popular after their inception that people that couldn’t afford to purchase one would build their own, sometimes where a person would be hiding on the other side of the wall of the photobooth, actually taking pictures, developing them and then sticking the finished processed pictures through a slot, never tipping off the customer that the booth wasn’t fully automatic. The first photobooth location was called a “photomaton”.

The term photomaton makes me think of automaton, (automatic machines) which then makes me think of one of my favorite artists, Joseph Cornell. I can’t remember if I ever read if Cornell had an affinity for photobooths, but I could easily imagine they would have been an interest of his. I’m not exactly sure of the history behind the “omat”, “omatic”, “omaton” terms, but there is definitely something in me that is interested in finding out more. The terms brings to mind Ron Popeil, the great inventor and salesman. I saw a great show on him at the Chicago Cultural Center several years ago. You might know of him from greats such as the chop-0-matic and veg-o-matic. Back when plastic was king, and remember the classic movie line - “I have one word for you… plastics”. I am the proud owner of a point-o-matic pencil sharpener from the 50’s, but I don’t think that was a Ronco product, oh well. Back then all of these automatic things were THE FUTURE and bright and shiny and new and now they relate closer in the context of this summer’s flick Wall-E and how this little robot was saving, collecting and cherishing all those outdated, unloved, replaced items. Now there is plenty of worry about plastic, but that’s a completely different subject for a different day.

Back to the photobooth and automatic machines. What is it about me that is just so attracted to photobooths, polaroid cameras, old vending machines and even gumball machines. When I was a kid we had an old pachinko machine, it was the coolest thing ever and looked kind of like this.

Of course, this post could not be complete without mentioning my love of Artomat. I think Clark, the creator of Artomat, must also share a fondness for automatic machines as well as he is the one who designs, remodels and repairs all the machines that now dispense artwork, nationwide.

And before I sign out: Here is a cropped detail of another original circle piece in my etsy shop. Click the link to see the full thing.

Have a great long holiday weekend, for those of you who get Monday off. Maybe you can find the time to track down an old school photobooth near you.

Today I captured some Maxfield Parrish clouds

Published
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robayre
on August 9, 2008
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Woooo! I’m so excited to say that I had 3 sales at the end of this week and it has officially put my etsy shop up to 50 sales. I can honestly say that each and every sale is a thrill, an affirmation, and an instant mood lifter. Thank you so much to all those who have purchased something from my etsy shop. It really means the world to me and has been a dream of mine for as long as I remember.

A friend has been telling me about how she hopes to help her grade-school aged neice start an etsy shop. It got me thinking how thankful I am for etsy and how much I would have loved to have access to something like this when I was a kid. Since I was a small child, I’ve wanted to be an artist/a crafter/a maker. I remember one time in elementary school I made a “purse” out of paper. It was rainbow colored with markers. It was far from being functional, but it had pockets and a strap. I had a bunch of girls from the class clammering to pay me to make them one too. How exciting to know that it is now possible for children, who had the same dream that I did, to be opening up their own etsy store and dipping their toes in the entrepreneur-ial waters at such a young age.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Tomorrow my sister and I will be going into the city for the Gold Coast Art Fair. We went last year and it was AMAZING. Each booth was like a real little art gallery just transplanted - plop - onto the streets of Chicago. It was a great collection of very talented and professional artists. I hope to bring home some wonderful finds.

Oh, and one last thing: I found this short and sweet tutorial through Craft magazine’s blog or whip-up. It’s for directions to make rag bracelets and it should take all of 1 minute to make, and I’ve already been rocking one this weekend. Love it.

shop update and what’s going on

Published
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robayre
on August 3, 2008
in General Update
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I added a few pinback buttons to my shop.
Did you know that tallgrass prairies could be 6 feet tall, but still there is more underground than what is seen above ground? And according to wikipedia 99% of the original prairie is covered with farmland now. I once heard that the majority of the remaining original prairieland runs along railroad tracks.
My grandmother, who was involved in prairie restoration, got me very interested in prairies when I was a child. I’ve loved them ever since and wanted to bring something with my love of prairies to the shop. They’re 1″ with pinbacks, or a magnet if you prefer, and they’re priced at just $1. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

As for “what’s going on?” Not much. The heat has officially kicked on and thus I feel super lazy. I hate sweating unintentionally. My face gets drenched and my make-up melts off. It’s also very hard to get motivated to do anything, even exercise, even though I’m already hot and sweaty. Yesterday I mowed and the rest of the day I had a headache and felt like I could not get th heat out. I kid you not, I even sat at the computer, air conditioner on, with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables on my head hoping to cool off, but no dice. BUT, good news, as erin noted to me the other day, the cicadas are already started to sing which means the end of summer, hurrah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably just had 2 of my 3 readers unsubscribe from my blog for saying that. People seem to really love their summer here. But, I was thinking earlier this week, I have a very small window of comfort, 65 to 75 degrees. If it’s above, I’m sweating, if it’s below, better pile on the layers.

Even Bishop and Theo feel the heat. Must be torture with permanent fur coats. Above you can see how they are getting along. We are pretty comfortable allowing them to be together alone, without fear of one tearing the other one to shreds. We also have the sneaking suspicion that while we are gone during the day Bishop sleeps outside of Theo’s cage. Tomorrow morning Bishop is going in for the big snip-snip. And while my friends Al and Elinor are in between moves, I’m renting their budgie, Ted Nugent. It’s nice to have some company in my studio while I work.

Shop Update

Published
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robayre
on July 10, 2008
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7.9 circle 12 angle, originally uploaded by robayre.

I’ve added two new original pieces to the shop. I love the one above, it really embodies the qualities I have in mind for this series.

This piece is a bit different and has a sea theme. It might be cute for a child’s room or a person who has a passion for the nautical. Speaking of ships and the sea, yesterday I found out an interesting derivation of the word Posh. It comes from the location of luxurious cabins on ships back to Britain, Portside Out, Starboard Home (P.O.S.H.).

This last weekend my friend Al had a booth at the local Art Show on the lawn of the Ellwood House. While I walked around I met a few wonderful artists. Clark Bending was selling his paintings and I was just in awe of his use of colors. His booth really stood out as a breath of fresh air, amongst the other “realistic landscape” painting booths. I spoke to him for a while, bought a print and discovered he will be giving a lecture for the local Art league in the fall. Another artist I met was Bob Politsch, who doesn’t have a website. He carved wooden sculptures from the dead bark fallen off of trees. The sculptures were very imaginative, with detailed execution, little dwellings, like castles, homes, churches, etc. They contained elaborate, doors, windows, balconies, down to bricks and mortar and wood panels with nails. I could just imagine how much fun it would be to create each one.

The cancer that grows and grows, originally uploaded by Chrissie White.

Earlier today I was searching around Flickr, as I often do and found this talented photographer and designer. Her work was very inspiring, so I went to her profile to add her to my contacts when I see that….wait for it….it’s coming…yeah…SHE’S ONLY 14 YEARS OLD! Check out her photographs, wow! I was just amazed, here I am 30 and I don’t even know how she did some of the techniques she pulled.
One last thing I wanted to mention was that Bishop and Theo are doing really well and getting adjusted to each other swiftly. Theo has turned around her attitude more beautifully than I could have ever hoped. Now, she does not get angry at the kitten and in fact she braves him wonderfully, when he tries to “play” pounce on her, she does not act like the prey instinct in her should, instead she stands her ground, but in absolutely nonthreatening manner. In fact, I think she might be enjoying the kitten because she comes out of her cage more often and explores more than ever before now. If she was feeling threatened, she would run and hide in the back of her cage, but instead she and the kitten are chasing each other around. So cute. Matt and I just waiting till the day we walk in and they are next to each other grooming one another, that would be the ultimate.

It’s a new day

Published
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robayre
on May 12, 2008
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It’s a new day, originally uploaded by robayre.

I finished this painting tonight. It’s a 6″x6″ acrylic on canvas piece done in the same style as the “Be kind” piece done for Found Art Tuesday a couple weeks ago. I really love this style and feel like I could do a bunch of these with different inspiring uplifting saying. It’s in the shop right now.

Ever have Thai Iced Tea? That stuff is like crack, or how I imagine crack to be addicting. This weekend we picked up some Thai and got tea to go. It has made me search for recipes to make my own. Feed the addiction, yes, sweet, swirling condensed milk in my tea, addiction.  So I found this site that seems to be pretty good at instructions on how to make my own Thai Iced tea in many different ways. They even have a page that links you to where buy thai tea in bags or powder form.

And lastly, I am so excited about this final link. Can I just say how excited I was to see the post on today’s Design Sponge  guest blog. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make patterns for fabric and papers and these instructions will make this so much easier. It’s so simple and I am so surprised that I didn’t think of this or hadn’t been taught this much earlier. You might even remember this tree pattern that I made earlier this year for fabric. (Note to self, I still need to execute that project, but now I can make even better patterns. yay!

 

sample

Published
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robayre
on April 29, 2008
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Here is a close up of what I did with my new Kemper Fluid Drawing Pen.

I wanted to thank everyone for my Paper Stack Pack love. Apparently they were featured on Etsy’s front page and all were sold within two days. I’ve been on the front page a couple times, but I’ve never gotten a screen capture before. That is something I’d really love. In the meantime, I think I might just have to put together some more paper packs. Lord knows I have plenty where they came from.

Okay, 4 RLZ People!

Published
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robayre
on April 15, 2008
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This is such a fun item.

As I’ve been moving to the new house, I try to keep in mind that moving is the perfect opportunity to clean house and get rid of lots of the extras that just weigh me down. So, in that spirit I’ve decided to destash some of my VERY LARGE paper collection and share it with you. Did I say they are fun? I’ve done a couple different small sized paper swaps on Swap-bot and it was always so much fun to compile my envelopes so I’ve decided to offer some of them in my shop now. They are filled with cool decorative papers, vintage papers, and even some stickers. This thick stack-pack is actually small in size (6″x6″ ) so this item would be perfect for ATCs, ACEOs, collagers and even scrappers who are looking for an edge. Each pack has well over 100 items in it and each pack is relatively identical.
You can find it here in my shop. I’ve compiled six of these packs and will list one each day.

So now that the move is no longer looming, I have regained some freedom and decided to get some exercise in. I haven’t gone to the gym in a couple weeks and my body is feeling it. Our new home is located near a large track and so after work I headed over to use it. Just steps outside my front door I heard screaming and cheering and thought “I hope they aren’t having a track meet” and as soon as I rounded the corner I could see they were. I started heading back and debated on driving to the YMCA, but instead chose to do my old walk/job path that I used to do when I still lived at home with my folks. It was wonderful. The weather was great, the air was fresh and now I’m on a runners high. I really can’t wait to get back into longer distances again (for me that means ooooh, um, yeah… A WHOLE MILE!)

treasury

Published
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robayre
on April 1, 2008
in General Update
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I was able to nab a treasury on etsy that will be around till Thursday. Please check it out and click away at the products. Can you tell I’m ready for spring.