Photojojo has teamed up with Instructables to bring you Photojojo Photo Month! Enter your photo-related project to win awesome prizes from Photojojo! And check out the Photojojo tutorial on Shoot to Sell: Taking Better Photos for eBay, Etsy & Instructables - Tips on lighting, background, using a tripod and more
Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects
This book may be a companion to the series, however not having seen the series, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything, the book stands on its own. Its an incredibly high quality book with luscious images, of artists in the homes and studios, historic images, and plenty of images of beautiful objects.
This book discusses the importance of craft in current culture and its place in history. It discusses craft as ”our” inheritance, it is the personal collections of the people, it holds our identity, it is both functional and fun and is about experimentation.
Craftspeople that are included in the book are both the self taught and University educationed, urban and rural. The very first chapter looks at the place of craft in religious communities - Shaker furniture, Amish quilts and further chapters looks at Native American crafting. The book continues on to look at various communities, craft colleges and universities and spends time looking at the mediums of craft such as textiles and weaving, jewelry and fashion, pottery and glass and furniture.
Its an incredible journey - a fabulous resource.
Graphic designer David Butler has an article on designing your own logo here.
If you’re after inspiration for typefaces/fonts/lettering, the printpattern blog had a heads up on a new book, New Vintage Type. It’s available from Amazon UK or US, or I’m sure at your local independent bookshop.
If you haven’t looked through the archives at printpattern before, treat yourself. She finds, and shares, the most wonderful range of ideas and covers so many designers’ work.
Hey all, we at whipup have put together a list of our favourite handmade goodies and gifts for the coming holiday gift giving season [for your crafty gal friends we love the starlets of craft calendar 2008 to keep you inspired]
Kup Kup Land, am always too slow to pick up a piece for myself!
Kup Kup Land
Simple, pure ceramics, the nicest being wrapped in knitting by Ruth Cross
[Linda Bloomfield]
Gina B for handmade silk buttons based on historical examples, perfect presents for a crafter!
[Gina B Silkwork]
Skinny Laminx hand-printed tea-towels. Wonderfully decorative, as well as practical, these will work well for anyone from Domestic-Goddess girlfriends to Grannies….they also make a wonderful bit of art work when framed! I will be stocking up on these for many of my nearest and dearest!
[Skinny Laminx] {below left}
Jennifer makes the most exquisite paper shoes and dresses. [email Jennifer with your inquiries]
[Jennifer Collier] {below right}
Beautiful prints and original art by Mhari McMullen. A brilliant way to give a totally unique and affordable gift that is sure to go down well….these would look amazing clustered together in mis-matched ornate thrifted frames, in keeping with their vintagey aesthetic.
[Mhari McMullen] [we also love these pretty prints for your wall from etui-etui.com, make your walls happy! {below left}
Fabulous printed textiles and totes from Showpony - I love that these are printed on Organic cotton and are a brilliant 'green' gift for the environmentally conscious people in your life. In this season of shopping [and shopping bags!] everyone should be encouraged to invest in one carry-all bag they can use again and again….
[Showpony] [we also love the adorable owl printed bags from modern radar] {below right}
Wonderfully creative gifts for Children [or grownups] from Skullknocker.
[Skullknocker]
a great one stop shop for all sorts of wonderful and quirky gifts - from jewellery to tees, to your Christmas cards and tags - you will find it here, courtesy of talented artist and designer Lisa Solomon.
[Underdog Ink] [Everytime we see the work of happy owl glassworks at a craft fair it
makes us happy, but then again, we do have a love affair with all things owl and pendant related.Happy Owl glassworks
Felt dolls and brooches from Eloole:
[Eloole]
This brooch - a collaboration between Ana ventura+ Abigail Percy:
["flowers on my mind" brooch]
Sandra Robledo + Lyndie Dorthe: spanish designers
[collar negro @ jugando con hilos]
chartreuse nugget from smallstump:
[small stump]
This Wooden Puzzle of a Charming Country Boy with his Bold Black & White Chickens
[Mari Maki Rae]
These are hand-crocheted wrist gloves to keep your hands and arms warm when you don’t want to wear finger mittens. Great for guys or girls. They are crocheted with a single strand of grey yarn to create a fine, small stitch that isn’t too thick.
[NataJane]
The Market Bag is made from corduroy and lined in cordura of a lighter shade of burnt red.
[Moop] {below left}
Temporary bouquet - Circles of mulberry paper with watercolor, tea, silkscreen, beeswax. Circles are stitched around their edges and attached with silver and gold safety pins. Would look striking in a shadow box frame.
[Michelle Moode] {below right}
For myself, I’d love to get one of Blissen’s wallet (and stuff some money in it!)
[Blissen] [we also love the pinwheel flower necklace from blissen] [and keep your thoughts in one place with a lovely handmade journal from if'n books]
mohair and ribbon bag from memake on etsy
We love these fuzzy pear ornaments from myfinn [speaking of pears forget having a tomato to hold your sewing needles...grab a pear from
thisisloveforever.com!]
anything from gooseflesh is gorgeous but these flotsam bracelets are particularly lovely
We love everything at flying star toys but theIshmael whales are too adorable. [we also love soto softies for their cute bunnies]
Neck Warmin Helmet Set -Daddy Monkey Baby Monkey from glitz concepts
rosar pomar baby slings - are these not absolutely gorgeous!
We love Mimi’s adorable fat cats {below left}
owls from planeta hilda - email her for information on how to purchase {below right}
stunning shibori pleated pieces from Tinctory
[via Etsy Tinctory]
Just received the latest sampler with lots of lovely goodies. I particularly liked the strange prints of blind girls from Cate Anevski, the greeting card sampler from lizardpress (subscribe for these truly lovely vintage letterpress card sets), also really enjoying the really cool cufflinks made from coins - very cool - from wabisabi brooklyn.
More cool cards at microwave girl - really cute - I was sent a mr moustache set of 6 postcards but I also really like the ‘happy no particular holiday’ cards. My daughters favourite was the doggie hair pin by travelling rhinos.
I have been admiring Alicia Bock photography for a while now and was pleased to see one of her prints in the sampler. They are really quite delightful - slightly nostalgic. Check out her blog too - and etsy store.
Sampler has started collaborating with artists and illustrators on exclusive sampler prints - check them out here and the sampler select seems like a pretty cool deal - limited-edition samplers with exclusive items created for the Sampler by some of their favorite Contributors. To find out more about contributing to the sampler - go here.
Craft boom - all about marketing an art and craft business online - recent posts include a craft heroes column with Meg McElwee, tips on how to diversify your income as an online craft business - some tips include:
1. Make money off of your website or blog traffic (in addition to product sales!). You can very selectively and tastefully add a small amount of advertising to your site. And/or start your own podcast or video channel on YouTube.
2. Sell crafting kits: I know all too well that the reason that we craft is for the joy of the creative process. But sometimes it’s really hard to make enough money to justify the time spent on a piece. Sellling kits can free up your time to focus on what you are really good at - creating and designing.
3. Create and sell e-products: Write an eBook. Do a video tutorial series. Create a downloadable pattern. All of these things may take a little time to create, but then with a little savvy marketing, they can be an ongoing source of revenue that you don’t need to think about too often.
Another recent interesting article was about increasing traffic to your craft business website. first of all having a blog attached to your craft business is beneficial -
a busy blog is one of the best marketing tools your Craft Business can have. The larger the readership of your craft blog the more people know about you, and your craft products. Lot’s of craft business owners use their blog/s to promote their craft business as well write about the more personal side of their lives.
Advice on getting traffic to your blog includes doing tutorials, having good photography and including personal snippets about your life to personalize the blog.
Aussie patches is a great artist blog with lots of interesting information, art and advice. check out this post where she discusses how to package your art/craft/designs to sell at craft fairs and stores.
First of all why package at all?
1. Professional appearance. I wanted people to focus on my items rather then be put off by the fact there was no packaging. Most people buying products expect to have some sort of packaging for the item - that is the day and age we live in. A consumer society where some things are just in our subconscious and we don’t often think of them.
2. People won’t buy gifts without packaging.
3. Protection of the item. Protection during shipment was very important as well as protection when the items are in stores. Just image how many fingers will touch your works. For me it was important that my mirrors and badges were protected as dirty fingers can really impact negatively on the items.
And some points to consider when packaging (read the full article here)
1. Your packaging should reflect and enhance your work without distracting from it. The items should ‘match’ and remain consistent as a way of reinforcing your brand image.
2. If you sell clothing or plush toys do you want your brand to be recognised with a sewn in label? Do you need to invest in ribbon labels? What about iron on labels, or sewn in labels?
3. Can the buyer see the product without needing a display item? I found that when people were looking at my magnets and mirrors they always wanted to see the back of them, so I needed packaging that could be see through.
[as one commenter said - please be aware of the environment when considering packaging - don't over package and please try and use recyclable or recycled materials in your packaging]
When I began to look into selling my sewing patterns, I was swimming in murky waters. I knew absolutely nothing, and I couldn’t find any straightforward advice on the web. Such were the questions that were piling up in my mind: How do I make the layout look professional? How do I print those large sheets? How much should I charge? How and where should I sell my patterns? How do I get the word out?
To those who have created a brilliant sewing pattern that they would like to sell, but have no clue where to begin, this little cheat sheet is for you. It’s not super detailed, but if I learned one thing during my journey into pattern publishing, it’s that other pattern designers are very kind, and will give you wonderful advice if you contact them. So please, feel free to contact me at montessorirevolution(at)gmail(dot)com if you have any questions. You might also look into Nancy Restuccia’s book, Publish Your Patterns!, which is jam-packed with useful information.
So you came up with a pattern – how do you get your instructions and pattern pieces on paper?
Guess what? Microsoft Word simply won’t cut it! You need to look into getting a page layout program such as Adobe InDesign. InDesign will allow you to design a page of any size (that includes those large, 22” x 34” full-sized pattern sheets.) You can make instruction sheets look top-notch, and can use their precise drawing tools to make your full-sized pattern pieces. Once you have your pattern designed, you can export it as a PDF file and send it to a professional printer. I highly suggest you download the following tutorial and become familiar with InDesign: here
Kinko’s costs an arm and a leg, and other reasons to get you patterns professionally printed.
Unless you want to pay a ridiculous sum per pattern to print off those oversized sheets at your local Kinko’s [aka - online ordering solution for digital print-on-demand - ed], you are much better off getting your patterns printed by a professional print shop. I ended up going with Tri-State Printing Co. by recommendation of a fellow pattern designer. They have a department that specializes in printing patterns for the sewing industry, so they know what they’re doing! Plus, folding is included – which I couldn’t imagine having to do myself, over and over and over … The down side of printing in this way is that you will need to order a minimum of 1000 patterns. This can be scary, but it’s worth it. The cost of your order will depend on the size of your sheets, if they are one-sided or two-sided, and if you want the pattern front printed in color.
Consider all of the hidden costs when setting the price for your patterns.
You will need to purchase zip-lock bags [or other sealed bags - paper bags perhaps - ed] for packaging (I use clearbags.com, model ZR69V), address labels, business cards, mailing supplies, etc. If you have your own website, that will cost a bit to set up and maintain. Also, don’t forget to factor in all of those big, start-up expenses, such as the purchase of Adobe InDesign. How much did you spend for fabric and notions when you were developing your pattern? In short, there are a lot more costs than just the printing of the patterns. Don’t sell yourself short because you think your patterns won’t sell for market price because you aren’t a “known” designer. The industry standard is to charge half your retail price for wholesale purchasers. The distributor price is then 70 percent of the wholesale price.
Thank heaven for Etsy – how to sell your sewing patterns
The easiest way to set up shop is through Etsy.com. Etsy is, hands down, the best way to get your products online without having to study web design. Plus – it has a built-in audience. I started up my Etsy shop in addition to my own website, just to tap into all of the crafty action over at Etsy.
Your Mom can’t be your only customer and other marketing tips.
Although I’m sure your mom, aunt and best friend would love to buy up all your inventory, you are probably better off extending your marketing reach past your family and friends! A good way to do this is to pitch your patterns to nationwide distributors, such as Brewer Sewing Supplies and Quilters’ Resource in the US, Quilt-Craft Distributors in Canada, and Highland Quilterworks in Australia. If one of them decided to carry your patterns, they do all of the marketing work for you! Finding wholesale customers is as easy as contacting your own favorite fabric and pattern shops to see if they would be interested in carrying your patterns. A bit of time on Google is all that it takes to locate the contact information of most online fabric stores.
Promoting your direct retail sales is a bit more work. If you have a blog, you should set up a mailing list (I use www.ymlp.com) to send out promotional mailings, offer discount coupons, etc. Get the word out in whatever way you can – set up a Flickr group where others can post photos of projects made using your patterns, participate in crafty forums like Whip Up’s, and don’t be afraid to promote yourself!
About the writer: Meg McElwee is a Montessori teacher who lives with her husband and two cats in rural Mexico. She spends most of her free time fiddling with fabric and keeping up her blog. She sells her Reading Pillow and Mei Tai Baby Carrier sewing patterns at montessori by hand.
A major issue for most designers and crafters is how to sell your stuff. Very few of us create stuff that is suddenly “discovered” and demanded for its great design and excellence of workmanship. Most of us have to be active and do something to expose and sell our craft.
An obvious possibility can be a stall at an art and craft fair. One of the largest fairs for arts and crafts in Denmark, called KIC, and takes place in a couple of weeks, October 26th - 28th in the centre of Aarhus.
The concept of this fair is developed by a group of craftsmen in cooperation with the local tourist organisation. It’s a commercial as well as an aesthetic and cultural event with participants from Denmark, England, Germany, Holland and Iceland working within the disciplines: jewellery, textiles, glass, ceramics and mixed media.
If you happen to live in Aarhus – or plan to make a visit – you can look here for further information of time and place etc.
If you live anywhere else: take a look around – are there any art/craft/design fairs in your area? If not – maybe you should pick up the glove, gather a group of colleagues and get one started! Agree upon a time and a place; maybe contact the local tourist and/or business organisations they might be interested in your project. Organizing a fair is great work – and great fun. Go give it a try.
Sitting by the computer I upload my photos, write in my blog and chat with my friends via e-mail and other communities online. A lot of time is spent writing, but yet I tell people I hardly ever write… Without really noticing what I did I wrote a lot in my blog last year. And the more I thought about it the more it felt like a manuscript for a book, a diary form book that I would design, edit, print and distribute to friends and family and other creative souls out there! A book to hold in my hand, put in my shelf, keep as a memory of days that passed, days filled with sewing, knitting, making art, spending time with friends… Can you imagine what a fun project that would be? So I did it.
This is an excerpt from Ihanna’s blog, where she describes the process of using Lulu.com to turn her personal/creative blog into print form. Not an easy or short process but obviously extremely worthwhile and rewarding. You can preview her book at Lulu.com here or read more about it at il bloggo and if you are interested in doing this yourself you can find out how here.
Self publishing with Lulu does not have to be a big project - you could think about self publishing your patterns, zines, illustrations or images.
Just getting around to posting about the June/July sampler. If you are a small crafty business, its definitely worth getting something into the sampler. A couple of things really stood out for me this time round - …
Some lovely hand spun hand painted yarn in a gorgeous coffee colour from third floor fibres the one pictured is not the one I received however it is very similar - just a different colour.
Also a really gorgeous ep from far from kansas - what a great idea to use the sampler for music too. You can download and listen some of this hypnotic music on their site.
re-conceived scrap pack was really a gem. I really like their by-line - “giving new life to old stuff”. The scrap pack I got has a whole bunch of vintage images cut out from old mags and ephemera - very cool. They also do other stuff like badges and books - I really like the zombie escape plan journal with re-purposed papers. Find out more in the shop or blog.
Check out website/online mag Cut out and keep - the fabric ball necklace tutorial is cool, sock gloves and magazine sushi.
The site is run by Cat Morley - she says: This is a website that teaches anyone, of any skill or age, how to craft and live creatively. All of the DIY projects are made from common household items and the step by step photo tutorials will teach anyone how to be a skilled crafter in no time.
Love this great way to organise your fabric stash
There’s so much talent in the craftblog universe that it’s not a surprise that we’re starting to cross over into traditional publishing. Bella Dia just posted a handy list of bloggers in books. It’s quite the list, with more books on the way. Here’s a guide to joining in the fun.
books
The easiest way to get your work into books is to submit to projects looking for designers. Blogs will sometimes advertise for submissions for a book in progress, and Whip Up also occasionally posts submission requests from publishers, like Lark Books (project submission page). Some of these publishers seem to read craft blogs and approach people directly through email if they like your work. If you’re really serious, you can get an agent, but that’s beyond the scope of this post. Craft Sanity has some good podcasts with folks talking about how they got into the big time, including interviews with Amy Karol, the Sew Subversive ladies, and a variety of other (published) crafting rock stars.
magazines
There’s also the wide world of craft magazines, including online ones like Knitty (submission guide) and “real life” ones like Craft (submission guidelines), Readymade (submissions), and Adorn (design submissions).
When submitting projects, make sure to know what kind of things they are looking for and typically publish so you can make sure it’s the right match for your idea and style. Also, follow all directions, meet all deadlines, read any contracts thoroughly, and put your best foot forward in the proposal.
self publishing
The other route to go is to self-publish, which has the obvious benefits of lower barriers to entry, more flexibility, and that DIY ethic we all love, but the downsides that you have to do everything yourself and maybe even invest money up front. Graphic design and drawing skills are a definite plus. Patterns can be downloads or printed, free or sold through your website or Etsy.
PDF patterns
One increasingly popular route is the PDF tutorial. These are very much like the blogged tutorials we all know and love, but generally in a more put-together, printable (and saleable) format. There are over 1500 items in Etsy’s pattern category, plus some other examples like Fitzpatterns (sewing), Wee Wonderfuls (several toys), Futuregirl (cool octopus stuffie pattern) and Roxycraft (crochet and knit toys).
PDF patterns are pretty easy to do with fairly standard software. I’ve self-published a PDF book (for scientists, not crafters, but the concept’s the same) put together with my digital camera, scanned-in drawings, the graphics software that came with my computer, and Microsoft Word, which will export to PDF. Powerpoint can also do the job and has a little more layout flexibility. Illustrator and Photoshop are upgrades worth considering for more complicated stuff.
The Art of Crochet has a cool variation of this where you can buy downloadable patterns and also use an online size calculator to customize the pattern for your measurements. Plus they offer technical support. This is one thing I love about the intersection of publishing and the internet: the author is accessible, you can ask questions, get any corrections right away, and interact with other people making the patterns through Flickr groups or Craftster threads.
self-published but professionally printed
To take this idea to a more professional level, you can actually get patterns printed by a company. Disdressed (recent backpack pattern, sold out but being reprinted), Wee Wonderfuls (several pattern booklets and embroidery transfers, some still available), Angry Chicken (Mailorder) and Jess Hutch (knitted soft toys, out of print), among others, have successfully self-published patterns that are professionally printed, sold through their websites, and mailed to you. Overnight Prints seems to be a popular printer, though there are certainly others out there. Lulu.com is another way to do this. They offer both downloads and professionally printed options. The crafts and hobbies section includes stuff from The Crochet Dude among others.
Whew, long post, and it’s really only a cursory tour. People who know more than me, please feel free to add advice and resources in the comments section.
Rare, centuries-old books can be a wonderful source of images, patterns, illuminated letters, borders, botanical illustrations and more. The Rare Book Room :
…has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.
Over the last ten years, a company called “Octavo” embarked on digitally photographing some of the world ’s great books from some of the greatest libraries. These books were photographed at very high resolution (in some cases at over 200 megabytes per page).
This site contains all of the books (about 400) that have been digitized to date. These range over a wide variety of topics and rarity. The books are presented so that the viewer can examine all the pages in medium to medium-high resolution.
You can zoom in on particular pages to examine images. While a number of the books are mostly text, there are treasures to be found - among those I searched were botany, children’s books and typography. You can search by category, author or source library. As you load a book - particularly the older ones - the first image of the book laid flat, cover upwards, gives you such a sense of their age, and the craft of their making, and the pleasure of being able to ‘read’ them, rare as they are.
You are also seeing the contents contextually, rather than as images abstracted from the whole (eg. Arthur Rackham’s illustrations in Alice in Wonderland).
For those enjoying paper-based and textile-based crafts, scrapbooking, altered art, artists’ trading cards, quilting, patchwork, stitching of all sorts - there are many possibilities for being inspired.
If whiplash isn’t enough and you need to find more…sometimes a challenge can be just the creative inspiration you need to try something new, or just try something. There are lots of them all over the internet - here are a few. They also offer the opportunity to see how others have responded to the same challenge, as most have galleries. You’re not tied as with a swap, but can participate or not according to your own whim and schedule. You may well know some of these - so please add others in the comments:
Photo Friday (weekly)
Illustration Friday(weekly)
Tie one on (aprons) (bimonthly)
Weekly challenges at Craftster
Use what you have month (monthly)
Ali Edwards’ AEzine contains a weekly challenge
Two Peas in a Bucket weekly scrapbooking challenge
Please do suggest other current worthwhile craft challenges you know and recommend in the comments. Maybe you’ve set up a great challenge with crafting friends, and could tell us about it?
threadbanger: describing itself as “the first network for people who make their own fashion”, this quirky site includes weekly shows and a blog. Ep. 5 of Threadheads includes ideas for finding good stuff at Goodwill (op shops/Oxfam), while the associated blog entry points to worthwhile vintage sources.
Thanks for the heads-up, Kirsty/Twolimeleaves.
Natural dyes for Easter eggs (and wool!)
kath_red did a comprehensive post on Easter crafts last year.
To add a few more ideas:
At AllFiberArts, natural dyes for Easter eggs using red cabbage and turmeric.
Other dyeing techniques using such things as bubble wrap and tissue paper at FamilyFun.
Stephanie at yarn harlot had some fun with wax techniques over the new year period - here’s the result (or start reading a few days earlier to see the process) (she decided not to become the egg harlot - yarn isn’t so breakable, for starters…).
If you want a few more permanent eggs around, find a good quality wool skirt in a second-hand/op-shop/Goodwill/Oxfam/whatever they’re called in your neck of the woods. Cut out two egg shapes, sew, turn, stuff and sew up, then decorate with beads, embroidery, whatever takes your fancy. (You could, of course, buy new wool felt instead). Think of the cone trees so many folk made last Christmas, and try an eggery tack. Simple shapes such as these give plenty of room for your imagination and individuality. A bowl of these on the coffee table…it’s a thought.
Denim ball gown by Ingrid Steinmetz
Meroogal is a Victorian home in the south coast town of Nowra, NSW, Australia (south of Sydney). It’s now a museum - particularly interesting because it was inhabited over many decades by women of one family, and so you can see a fascinating variety of domestic detail and learn about the minutiae of their lives.
The Meroogal women’s arts prize is a regional non-acquisitive competition and exhibition across the fields of visual arts, crafts and design. Diverse and original use of media is a signature of the exhibition, which encourages the practise of traditional women’s arts and crafts in a contemporary context. The theme of the prize, which varies each year, establishes a direct connection to Meroogal and the women who lived there, as well as acting as a springboard for artistic imagination. The theme for 2006 is Reduce, recycle & renew at Meroogal (Quote from here).
Entry is limited to surrounding districts, but the galleries of entries from several years provide plenty of inspiration and imagination, whether Meroogal is hours or half a world away from where you live. If you click on a particular entry you will find information from the artist about the work.
Image from the Electronic Swatchbook
To quote from the Electronic Swatchbook home page:
Swatches or small samples of fabric have been collected and compiled in the form of swatchbooks for at least 300 years. The Powerhouse Museum has several volumes containing thousands of bright, unfaded samples of fashionable fabric designs, braids and laces ranging from the 1830s to the 1920s.
YOu can zoom in on individual images, email them, randomise them - lots of possibilities, including downloading (and they’re big, detailed files that can be 8mb in size). Check the legals info to see if they’re public domain in your country (they are in Australia - the Powerhouse Museum is in Sydney), or just browse and enjoy.
Some of the pieces, particularly the older ones, on this site are fragments. But still, to be able to look at textiles so old, and wonder at their history, and to be inspired by their designs…
