Posts Tagged ‘Etsy’

Busy week! The commission piece (the triptych that wasn’t) is done, awaiting beading. As I was on the floor at yoga last Friday, I was looking at a very skinny part of the wall and thought, this would be perfect for a long piece. On Thursday night I had started the stitching on the lichen, and I absolutely loved the way they worked out, and I no longer wanted to cut the piece into three. This skinny wall section will be perfect. So over the weekend I steamed and blocked the piece, got the binding on and hand-stitched down. Love it! Took it to yoga on Monday to show her, and she is thrilled. The only thing needed at this point is some blue beads along the “stream” to add an additional color and bring the piece together. Formal pictures next week when the beading is done.

Also completed are two new fiber bowls for my gift baskets of marbled fabrics, set to go up in the Etsy store. We’re doing pictures later today so I can get the stuff up in the store. Wrapping clothesline with fabric is the absolutely perfect activity for watching television at night.

And…I am finally starting another major piece that has been brewing for a couple of months. I’ve had the backing since October, and the marbled fabric was done in September. I finally got the batting two weeks ago, and today I made the sandwich, chose thread, and started the quilting. It’s sort of a whole cloth, but not really. There’s no piecing at this point until this center medallion is done, and then I’ll just kind of see what happens. This seems to be the way I work….intuitively, guessing along the way, trial and error. Most of the time it works.

Here’s the first focus fabric….very “brain-looking,” and I’m approaching it as though these were dendrites in the brain. Doing a thread check –

– going for the one on the top, as I like the black section in the thread…looks like the nerve endings are skipping, which is the look I want. The lower thread will be in the bobbin.

I started the stitching, and then I took everything out – not happy with tension, and I wanted to analyze the pattern yet again.

This picture, when I saw it through the view screen of the camera, made me somewhat upset. I couldn’t see the discrimination of the black and the blue through my own eyes. I am having to look at it through a photo, so I know where I want to stitch. THis is the first time that I am aware of my eyes not being true to what I am seeing and want to do. Doesn’t make me happy…..

So I took my own advice from the Monday Marketing post to just get in there and do the work…I did, and I have a lot to show for it, with more to come.

A really interesting artist, I saw his portfolio on Behance. Alberto Seveso…..doesn’t it look like the most luscious silk?

From Bill Moyers comes a really interesting graphic on social media as our main source of news.

From Cool Hunting comes TED-ED – what looks to be some REALLY great lesson plans and ideas for teachers to really expand what’s happening in the classroom.

From Joen Wolfrom – the most used colors in the world – Tones.

From Letters of Note comes a very timely letter from one of my favorite authors,  John Steinbeck. Very interesting in light of what is happening in current affairs in Arizona. “American Democracy Will Have Disappeared.”

Also from Letters of Note, the incomparable Harper Lee, with words that ring true today:

“Early-1966, believing its contents to be “immoral,” the Hanover County School Board in Virginia decided to remove all copies of Harper Lee‘s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, from the county’s school libraries. As soon as she was alerted, Lee responded perfectly by way of the following letter, written to, and later published in, The Richmond News Leader.
Also sent, as mentioned in the letter, was a contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund — a project set up by the newspaper in 1959 to highlight/compensate for “official stupidities,” and which subsequently gave away copies of the banned book to all children who asked.”

From the 365 Project, another set of gorgeous pictures.

End of the Rainbow by Richard Tyson

4 No-Cost Etsy Shop Promotions from Handmade-ology….since I didn’t get much on yesterday’s marketing post.

From Cool Hunting – really cool tables from the Milan Design Show. Love the texture and grain lines in this first one.

And finally, some pictures from a place most of us know nothing about…..except as a country in the news, Iran. These are gorgeous. From The Best Article Every Day…..

Be sure to look at all the pictures – Iran looks to be a very beautiful place.

And that’s it for this week – let me know what you find surfing over the next few days!

So the Etsy shop was on hiatus while we went to Seattle and back. I’ve added lots of new fabrics in cotton and basically restocked the store. Now, we have had some movement within the store. Certainly more this past year than totally since I opened the shop. But I feel like there is so much more I can do. I need to get the links done to my TAFA (Textile and Fiber Arts list) profile, and just generally think about how I can market this. By the end of the month I expect to have silks and some other specialty fabrics in the shop.

Ebay has been great for small pieces of fabrics and remnant bags. In fact, remnants have been the big seller on eBay, so we’ll keep it that way. I will use Etsy for the specialty fabrics, and the fabrics that are more expensive. This is one of the ways I feel we can specialize, and at the same time differentiate product. I need to do some reading on getting an Etsy store to be productive, so that is one of my goals for the rest of this month. By the end of May I want to have a couple of pattern kits in the store, complete with fabric. I have two of the samples made, and I am ready to start writing the pattern, as well as complete the remaining two samples. That’s my May goal.

I have sold a couple of small quilts in the store, so I should think about increasing a few of those, especially around the holidays. Speaking of holidays, I have not been able to take advantage of buying for specific days…and Mother’s Day is coming up. I need to think about how to incorporate that.

All that said, here’s a look at the fabrics waiting for you and your projects, be they quilts, wearable art, or applique. Perfect for that creative person you know!!

Interesting post concerning a shopkeeper who had her Etsy store taken down unexpectedly. I too got a similar survey saying I had potentially violated some of the principles of Etsy. I answered their questions and emailed it right back, and I never heard anything else. I don’t even remember at this point what it was about. After reading this article, I’m glad I took the time to search through policies and look at the fine print.

Our Etsy shop is inactive right now, as we are involved in a major fiber presentation (StashFest) and all our product is with us, not in the shop. I plan to rebuild the shop with lots of new fabrics once we are back and done with special orders (we have three commissions awaiting our return).  We’ve had a domain name since 1997 – in fact, when it comes to e-commerce, we are really “old-timers.” There are a lot of good points in this article about understanding and handling your own business.

Our problem has been a problem with our email connected to our web address. Evidently we get blackballed every now and then….our email address is considered spam periodically. We usually stumble on the problem after not too much time has gone by and can arrange through our host to get the problem taken care of. I find it interesting that this happens. We were hit one time with a major spam attack, at least a decade ago (seems like it was the cube iMac we were on when it happened…). Cox has blocked our domain a number of times, and we have had to work around their services. They can’t give us a reason why they have blocked out address, and after it happens a couple of times, we have to find a way around it, which we have done, so there are usually no problems.

But I think the major point in the article was not to rely on only one outlet for selling your wares. Interesting, because there are times when I am convinced we are just spread too thin, and yet there are places we can expand. Interesting conundrum. As I’ve mentioned a number of time sin the Monday blogs, you can spend a lot of time doing your marketing; it is key to find your niche, understand the marketing/business strategies you are using, and still find time to make your art – do what drives you creatively.

All that said, I am ready to hit the bed (it’s Saturday night as I type this) and hopefully not dream about all the things that can go wrong with this show that we’ve been working so hard on for the last four months (not including the unexpected move we had to make). Hopefully we made enough lists that we haven’t forgotten anything critical. In fact, the first thing packed in the car was all the marbled fabric and the quilts. If you’re in the Seattle area, StashFest is a fund raiser for the La Conner Quilt Museum, the weekend of March 31 and April 1. Stop by and say hi to me and hubby and Marble-T Design.

You may remember that last Sunday I did what I call a “brain dump.” I had so many things floating around in my head that I needed to keep track of, and it was making me nuts. So I listed them all. Here’s last week:

email tutoring parent, email LN, change bed, reinstall Contribute, PD for AI, finish TAFA profile, take care of GoDaddy renewals, email long-lost teacher friend, write the review for C&T, look at Linqto, look at TalkFusion, finish blog post on vendors, finish blog post on quilts, blog post on MAS, email AI prof about video, Quilt Show renewal processed, install quilt album software, do paperwork for “quilt album ambassador,” finish January FMQ project and get it online, photograph new Etsy basket, plan for gift baskets for NW trip, complete Google + stuff, look at Facebook Timeline, score homework from class, mark quizzes from class, finish lesson for Monday, type new lab worksheet, get new business cards ordered, look at Redbubble, book proposal on academic coaching, check on bank loan, meet on company taxes, first newsletter, input names for newsletter, website revisions list, change copyright on website, update and reinstall Contribute, prepare for major copyright submissions, continue working on Visions piece, finish Visions piece, photograph Visions piece, marble this week, plans for deadlines in April since I will be gone.

And here’s my progress:

email tutoring parent, email LN, change bed, reinstall Contribute, PD for AI, finish TAFA profile, take care of GoDaddy renewals, email long-lost teacher friend, write the review for C&T, look at Linqto, look at TalkFusion, finish blog post on vendors, finish blog post on quilts, blog post on MAS, email AI prof about video, Quilt Show renewal processed, install quilt album software, do paperwork for “quilt album ambassador,” finish January FMQ project and get it online, photograph new Etsy basket, plan for gift baskets for NW trip, complete Google + stuff, look at Facebook Timeline, score homework from class, mark quizzes from class, finish lesson for Monday, type new lab worksheet, get new business cards ordered, look at Redbubble, book proposal on academic coaching, check on bank loan, meet on company taxes, first newsletter, input names for newsletter, website revisions list, change copyright on website, update and reinstall Contribute, prepare for major copyright submissions, continue working on Visions piece, finish Visions piece, photograph Visions piece, marble this week, plans for deadlines in April since I will be gone.

Progress, but I realized along about Wednesday that I was focusing on little things that could wait and ignoring the great big deadline for Visions. So Thursday finished the machine quilting, Friday blocked the piece, Saturday did the bindings and started with the embellishments. Now I have one small area to finish and arrange for photography this week – the BIG task that has to get done.

There are a lot of other things to do, but I am teaching this afternoon, midterms need to be scored and reported by Friday, we are marbling tomorrow, and I have one major tutoring session this week, and our arts meeting tomorrow night (where I hope to firm up the photograph….). But I don’t feel the need to do another brain dump, probably not until the end of the month when Seattle starts looming a lot closer.

There is a major marketing piece that also needs to be done this week. Last week I sold 25% of the items from my Etsy store, so I seriously need to restock with new fabrics. It’s a good problem to have!

Wow. Lots of new visitors to the blog – and WELCOME!!!! I said to hubby about three weeks ago “are we ever going to get past 1400 readers a month?” (according to Google Analytics), and the next thing I know, a mere three weeks later, we just passed 2100 readers this last month. Yay! I promise to make visiting worthwhile. We’re getting ready for our first newsletter this month, so please feel free to sign up (the link on the right), and be entered to win some free marbled fabric.

I have a tab on the top navigation bar that takes you to some resources. I invite you to view those. If you are interested in this marbling journey of ours, click here. Some are great art blogs that I follow regularly. I invite you to send me your URL if you have a blog. Others are resources I actually use, feel great about, and can recommend wholeheartedly. Yes, I am an affiliate of some of them, so I am attempting to make a few pennies off your clicks. But as I said on that page, nothing is there that I don’t trust implicitly. When I get time, I like to take a piece of really cool marbled fabric and work with it in Photoshop. You can see some of the journeys in Digital Marbling (TN), and we plan on adding lots more.

Tuesdays I try to include cool stuff I’ve found on the web the previous week. I go through a lot of blogs and try to include interesting, amazing, unusual – and of course weird – links for you. I try to keep Wednesdays for works-in-progress, but right now the WIP is for an entry and I can’t show details….Mondays I try to give you some marketing advice – sometimes what I’m doing that I find helpful, and sometimes links to how other people are doing it amazingly well.

Lately I’ve started my own “Brain Dump,” as a way of making my list and then checking it off to see how I’m doing with projects. Sometimes there’s just too much floating around, and the mental noise makes us nuts. This is what I’m trying to do, and I invite you on Sundays to add your own Brain Dump for the week and see how you do. Each Sunday I’ll do my own brain dump and ask you to do yours in a comment. Then the following week you can post how you did….I may set up a FB page for this……

And now a SALE…..through Sunday at midnight ONLY. Any Sampler 1 package from our website at 15% off, and 15% off anything on our Etsy site. Now if you need to see what you buy, then the Etsy offerings are for you. If you want to be pleasantly surprised, then the website deals are for you.

Here’s how each works. On Etsy, we have some small art quilts that are mostly marbled fabrics, and a lot of pieces of marbled cotton – and one exceptional piece of red silk – even better in person than in the picture. Decide what you want, and the discount is taken at checkout. This week’s coupon: WK1SPECIAL

On the website we have a page that shows patterns, but what you get is a surprise to you. The swatches are marbled depending on mood, desire for different patterns, and colors. So if you like surprises, this is a deal! Code: SAMP1 Coupon Code.

We hope you’ll take time to browse the website and look at the fiber art we’ve created using marbled fabrics. Some of these pieces have traveled to juried shows. We have a few that need to get into the galleries, and we have a line of ideas just waiting for the time to become new fiber art.

You can follow us on Facebook – I am trying to get better about posting regularly. Sometimes deadlines just govern everything else! You can follow along on Twitter.

You can visit us at the La Conner Quilt Museum in April at Stashfest. We will have marbled fabric available to sell as part of the fundraiser for the museum.

And if you visit, please leave a comment. I always write back – it’s SO COOL to hear form people! So WELCOME again! Ain’t stitchin’ grand?

Here’s a great article that I’m going to file for after April. From Joanne Mattera’s Art Blog comes “Do It Yourself.”

What a great list of ideas to jump-start our work. I particularly like “Give yourself a residency.” I could use concentrated time to work on some new projects, but the reality is that I can’t do anything until returning from StashFest in April, and then potentially moving. BUT…if the move happens, then I have a studio space ALL FOR ME……

Alyson Stanfield, as usual, as a great post on what to do after an art piece is finished. Sheesh, you would think by now I would automatically do those things!! 15 Steps to Take After Completing Your Artwork. I have been really neglectful under documentation, and this past week at the Road 2 California quilt show, I picked up software that will enable me to document all my work (and do some passive income as a result….). I will keep you posted on the results.

 I did get a lot of loose ends accomplished over this last week and weekend. My TAFA site profile  (The Textile and Fiber Art List) is finally complete. My Etsy store is restocked with fabrics. We continue to marble for StashFest in Seattle (actually in La Conner, WA) in April. If you read my “Brain Dump” posting yesterday, you know I had a HUGE list, but little by little, I am whittling it down.

My Visions entry is due two weeks from today. I am ALMOST done the quilting. The blocking, facing, and final embellishments shouldn’t take long, once I finish shading all the GD rocks….If there is a major move in our future, one entry will have to wait – probably Fish Follies, since I really want to enter a piece ion the SAQA show “I’m Not Crazy.” We should have some information this week about a possible move. I also updated to the Facebook Timeline for my personal page – still need to wait and see what happens to the business/fan pages.

Now from Alyson comes 19 Art Documentaries You Shouldn’t Miss. Oh my goodness, there are gems here, and many I know nothing about……I’m going to be busy, between these and past episodes of The Quilt Show. I highly recommend Rivers and Tides about Andy Goldsworthy if you’ve never seen it. Refreshingly wonderful. Consider this a different kind of marketing!

And…a last-minute video on selling art on YouTube….

What have you done to market yourself this past week?

  I chose my “Explosion” piece for today because that’s the kind of excitement I feel starting this new season three. Seasons one and two of Cocreating Our Reality were eye-opening and exciting, and for the last few days I have been building up to starting a new journey today. First, I am so blessed to be retired and able to work on art when and where I want to, for as long as I want to. I get to spend every day with my hubby, and life is pretty much wonderful. Health problems – of course, who doesn’t have them at our age. But – that’s not stopping me from living a great life.

I discovered over the last two seasons when it was time to evaluate my goals, that I hadn’t really stretched myself – or thought big enough. So I have been pondering that for the last week or so. What is it I actually want to do?

First and foremost, kind of came to me last night in the moments before sleep, is probably the one most on my mind. I need to take this season and concentrate on me. It sounds selfish, but it isn’t. I have health issues that really need to be addressed, and for so many years they went to the side as other things – students, work, hubby – took their place. If I expect to be as creative for as long as I want, and get out and be politically active, and write – do all the things I want to – than I need to focus on my health. So that is goal number one for this season: take the cholesterol medicine, take my vitamins, watch what I eat, get out regularly and exercise, track my food intake, get some yoga teachings, get my blood readings where they need to be. I actually started thinking this way a few days ago, and I’m pleased to say the exercise has already increased, as well as having a bit more control over appetite.

A second goal is tied in to all this. I am getting a second opinion on my vision issues and will work to find strategies to help with the depth perception and balance issues. A new doctor’s appointment is scheduled for next week Thursday, and I have a teacher friend to talk to about some basic yoga stretches. I always knew this day was coming, and now that it’s here, I need to learn to work with the new limitations.

Overall, for the first time, these two goals seem very positive. One hundred days from now, March 10, I expect that I will have been enormously successful at these first two. That statement alone is a major change for me. It’s very positive, rather than using the word “try.”

Business-wise I have some very specific goals.

Number three in my list is to solve the newsletter/collectors’ information issue. I am, as was said to a friend of mine, “leaving money on the table.” This has to be a regular business goal. I am considering taking Alyson Stanfield’s “Cultivating Your Collectors” class in February. That will depend on a number of things, primarily finances. I am good at reading and implementing, and since I accomplished four of Alyson’s goals in I’d Rather Be in the Studio!, I should be able to accomplish at least three this new season. So: newsletter, portfolio (which we will need for a major event the end of March), and I will look through the list for at least one other. Newsletter once a month should be definitely do-able. A collectors’ newsletter once a quarter should be reasonable. I’m sure there will be others to add here.

Number four is searching out wholesale suppliers for cutting back basic costs of making marbled fabric. As of yesterday I have a new wholesale account with Kona Bay fabrics, as we use their colored cotton quite successfully. We are looking for wholesale sources for premium white cotton, silk/satin ribbon (like Offray), and probably some other materials.

Number five is ramping up our Etsy shop, our Fine Art America galleries, Cafe Press, and looking in to Red Bubble, Three Sisters, and at least one other online selling site. My overall goal in all this is to be able to update these sites once a week, as well as include items from these sites in our soon-to-happen newsletters. I’ve tried setting monetary goals for Etsy and Ebay, and they are very fickle, depending on the economy. I do tweet my Etsy and Ebay offerings once a week, which certainly drives traffic to the site, but I don’t see it converting. However, I know that it is only a matter of time, as is the case with this blog. I am about to hit 1500 viewers per month, so I know it is consistency. (Concerning the blog…when Facebook changed its latest set of operating, my blog numbers dropped. Turns out, on exploration, Networked Blogs was a casualty and needed to be reactivated. Once that happened, I saw numbers increase again…..I am amazed at how net-savvy we need to be these days!)

Art-wise I also have some very specific goals.

Number six is to enter a major show with new work. The deadline for this is mid-February, and I am already hard at work on the first of two pieces. The fabric has been created, and the ideas are flowing. Here’s just some of the fabric…..

Unpolished red satin

If I get accepted, great. If not, I will have two new lovely large art pieces for our body of work. But I am putting out to the Universe that this will be show-worthy art.

Number seven is to create the kit for Marbled Seasons. Yesterday’s blog post showed the first of the four small quilts/table runners. I used to have several patterns, all of which I sold the rights to. So I just need to make more. For this goal I want this set of kits completed, and two new ideas for pattern kits, plus a rewrite of my Polynomial Quilt pattern – which I used the quilts for that very successfully in an adult algebra class to teach multiplying, and it was highly successful.

Number eight is to be completely prepared – except for minor loose ends – by March 10, for StashFest at the La Conner Quilt Museum in La Conner, Washington. We have been invited to participate, and it means marbling about 400 fat quarters in the next three months…..another reason for looking carefully at wholesale outlets! This is an interesting goal, because after our last guild presentation, I put out to the universe that it would be fun to travel and do demos in the Southern Arizona, southern New Mexico area. Well, two days later I had this email…..as Dale Anne Potter, my muse with Law of Attraction said, I was open to the possibilities.

Number nine will build on the previous. Develop a letter/sample to go to local guilds for demos and classes. I think just the development at this stage, because we will be focused on making fabric for Washington.

Number ten, under the category of Miscellaneous, comes continuing to work on Art From the Heart, a site devoted to spreading peace and nonviolence in the aftermath of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. We had two new entries this last month, and I am hopeful for more.

Now that I have these written, I have to chuckle in that I was concerned about trying to get my goals coherent for this season. These are more detailed than the past two seasons, and they will certainly stretch me.

So Day One – I’m going to sew, work on some lists, and get ready for a small craft event on Saturday. Plus, it’s the holidays, and I want to “do more good” this year on a daily basis. May you have a really awesome day!

Some interesting food for thought from the Fine Art blog…Questions You Don’t Have to Answer. Interesting because I was frustrated at a recent show in northern Arizona. So many of the artists I was looking at did not have websites. One was a great painter, and I knew i would buy anyway, since I was  right there. But now I had no way of looking at his work for future purchases. Yes, a lot of folks take a card, walk on, and you’ve lost your chance for a sale. I don’t shop that way, but I’m guessing I’m in the minority. Thoughts?

I realize a lot of people don’t consider themselves web savvy, and perhaps that’s why they don’t have a site…or even a Facebook page. But I’m figuring the web – and art sales on the web – is here to stay. Yes, we all want the immediate sale, but in this economy, that’s probably not going to happen. I bought from the artist – prints, because the price was right, but if he’d been on line, I would have looked at one of his canvas prints. Now I have to hope I see him at another show…….

Also of interest for marketing is this article posted a while ago in What the Craft – Why Handmade is So Expensive. This is a really good look at how much time goes into each piece we make. If we totaled up all the hours we actually spent, we’d never sell anything…..

And…10 Tips to Increase Your Productivity from The Future Buzz.

For me, my productivity comes from making lists, and then determining which of the big projects to work on next. I keep deadlines in mind, although sometimes I just don’t make them. I have a couple of things coming up that are definite for major art projects, and then my lists help me organize the day-to-day items. The biggest “left-over?”

Well, there are two…..my portfolio revisions, and the newsletter development and schedule. The latter is the most important, and for some reason it just hasn’t made it to the top and actually gotten worked on. That is a goal for the start of next year, so I don’t miss out on the holiday season. However, that said, we have been MUCH better this year about approaching holiday sales.

And in that spirit….this gift basket needs a home…...see the Etsy store…….

Great marbling session on Sunday – expect to see a few more fat quarters show up in Etsy…..

It’s Tuesday morning, and I’m doing my marketing column, which usually happens on a Monday. But…today is the 18th, exactly 90 days since I made my first set of goals with the Multiple Streams of Income class with Laura Bray. Click here to visit katydid designs. This was only the second time I actually set written goals and kept referring to them throughout the 90 days. The first was with season one of Co-creating Our Reality. I’m going to be setting goals from now on for the 100-day seasons and keep everything together. That way I can review personal and professional all at the same time, as one really affects the other.

So how did I do?

Here are the original goals:

* By October 18 I will have plans for 10 different collections for licensing, with 5 of them ready to show. I broke this further into a series of steps: analyze current work (completed in August); read through licensing materials (still working on this); work on repeats (working on it); identify ten collections (completed in August); identify three more collections (done in September). Nothing is ready to show…yet… but I feel like I am making progress in that direction.

* By October 18 I will sell $50 in product from my Cafe Press store. Series of steps: look at shops; determine products; look at existing artwork; set up products; develop a marketing plan. So…not a lot. Cafe Press also has changed some of their policies, and it looks like Basic shops are changing. I need to investigate that more. I have, however, managed to get an item up on the blog on Thursdays on a somewhat regular basis – more than I’ve done in the past….

* By October 18 I will have added a minimum of 10 new items to my Etsy store. I will also have the rest of the artwork on Etsy. I will sell a minimum of $50 on Etsy. I will have a marketing plan for Etsy. Lots there…and I’ve gotten each one completed. We are now looking at some regular income each month from Etsy. Now to increase the amounts.

* By October 18 I will have sent at least one newsletter. My bad. Didn’t happen…and this is really an important piece. But the reality of what’s coming up in November makes me think this won’t happen until the new year.

* By October 18 I will have placed artwork in at least one gallery. Well, yes and no……..the gallery north of here is on hold because of the distance. I did enter a piece into an installation show here in Tucson, so I made that deadline. I have two pieces in a gallery in Tubac, but they will be coming home in a few days, as the owner is not sure he will continue in business. I had enough interesting experiences with these processes, so I am re-evaluating just how badly I want gallery representation.

All that said, it’s been a very valuable 90 days. I have learned a lot, especially when it comes to gallery representation. I have done a HUGE amount of sewing on projects and commissions, and I definitely want to continue creating pieces. Maybe the gallery/show route isn’t how I want to go. But at least now I have some experiences behind me to make those kinds of decisions.

Now – when my second season of 100 days ends in mid-November, I have another whole set of goals to look at, and at that time I will develop new ones. By then I’m going to have a lot more experience in this area, so the goals should be more focused. The Multiple Streams of Income class really helped me focus on the kinds of goals I needed to create – up until then, everything was geared around marketing – getting the word out – but it was pretty hit-and-miss. The class gave me focus, as well as a better idea of how to set up some goals. I really recommend Laura’s class if you need focus.
Click here to visit katydid designs.

Well, actually….they’re fabric bowls, but somehow “introducing fabric bowls” doesn’t have the same ring. So this has got all the goodies of a holiday basket, but it comes in a fabric bowl that you can use throughout the year, rather than trying to figure out what to do with another straw basket. Which I must admit I thought was waaayyyy better.

Here she is! This holiday treat starts with a hand-crafted fabric bowl, in a subdued color that makes the bowl perfect for year-round use. Then it’s filled with goodies from the marbling tray: a fat quarter (18 by 22 inches) of 100% hand-marbled cotton; 4 pieces of hand-marbled Offray ribbon, in assorted sizes and width, all 18 inches in length; a 10% off coupon for our Etsy store (fabrics and small art quilts and table runners); coupons from other artists with offers for their websites; a Smapler Package of eight 6 by 9 inch hand-marbled pieces; a selection of hand-marbled silk leaves and flowers, perfect for embellishments; a set of four Digital Marbling (TN) note cards; and…a small mystery gift.

I want the fabric bowls to be in a rather subdued set of colors, as I want them to 1) fit just about any decor, and 2) be useful all year round. A “red” bowl tends to limit use. The actual bowl in this package is a nice mellow green.

The “basket” comes wrapped in plastic and fits in a priority box, surrounded by shipping peanuts. You can have it sent to yourself, o4 let us know the address and we will ship it.

This is a $50 retail value, special available for the holidays for $35.00. Want one? Head to our Etsy store and buy the one there. We’ll add additional ones as they sell, so you can see exactly what you will be getting for colors and fabrics.

These have been really fun to put together, especially choosing fabrics for the bowls. And if you haven’t tried making these fabric bowls, they are incredibly soothing….wrapping fabric while you’re watching television, or in the car, or waiting in the doctor’s office…..There are a couple of good books available if your LQS doesn’t offer a class:

We are affiliates for Amazon, so if you order through our blog, we do receive a commission (keeping the FTC happy….).

Lots available this week! We’ll start with Ebay:

Silk remnants available – some really nice patterns and colors. Hand-marbled Habotai 8mm silk remnants.  Four pieces in assorted  colors.   Sizes are 8 x 25 and 8 x 26 inches. Designs are Large Feather(Chevron), Freeform, and Stone. All pretreated, heatset,  and preshrunk – ready to go for your project. Perfect for art projects, scrap booking, doll clothes,  embellishment, accessorizing.

Also on Ebay this week:

Hand marbled cotton remnants available – assorted colors and patterns. Thirteen  pieces in assorted colors and designs. The sizes range: 3 x 8, 4 x 8, 6 x 8, and 3 x 17 inches.

On Etsy, a really scrumptious fat quarter of cotton: This fat quarter on Pima cotton is hand-marbled on white pima cotton in a very traditional nonpareil marbling pattern. There is incredible detail to this piece, and it can be used horizontally or vertically, depending on how you want to use the “movement” in the piece. 17 by 21.5 inches. Edges are serged to prevent raveling during the marbling process. Pretreated and heat-set and ready to go for your project. Perfect for piecing, applique, wearable art accents – plenty to think about for projects! This fat quarter on Pima cotton is hand-marbled on white pima cotton in a very traditional nonpareil marbling pattern. There is incredible detail to this piece, and it can be used horizontally or vertically, depending on how you want to use the “movement” in the piece. 17 by 21.5 inches. Edges are serged to prevent raveling during the marbling process. Pretreated and heat-set and ready to go for your project. Perfect for piecing, applique, wearable art accents – plenty to think about for projects!

From Cafe Press, a package of Digital Marbling (TN) postcards, with one of our favorite designs.

We are always open to custom work, so let us know if there’s something you would like, and we’ll see what we can do.

Busy week at the marbling ranch….getting ready for a marbling session tomorrow – lots of leaves for our holiday baskets, new fat quarters, and some ribbon coming. In the meantime, here are some goodies available now in our various shops.

On Ebay this week: some great remnants. These are hand-marbled Kaufman cotton remnants,  fifteen (15) pieces, in  assorted colors and designs.  Sizes are 3×6, 1×9, 8×9, 5×8, 4×15, and 6×17 inches.  All pretreated, heatset,  and preshrunk – ready to go for your project. Perfect for art projects,  scrap booking, quilt blocks, doll clothes,  book marks, embellishment,  accessorizing.

On Etsy this week, a really gorgeous piece of hand-marbled crepe.

Hand-marbled silk crepe fabric in a contemporary wave pattern. Size 10 by 28 inches. Edges are serged solely to prevent raveling. There is so much movement to this piece, and the colors are summer-bright. You can use this for a center medallion, for applique flowers – nice and bright for a basket design! Fabric is pretreated and heat-set – ready to go for your project. Also perfect for ATCs and small art works.

Also on Etsy, a unique table runner, made of a batik that is machine quilted, edges serged, and then woven in strips for this look.

And on Cafe Press this week: our best-selling journal. One of our most favorite Digital Marbling (TN) pieces on the front of a journal. With the increase in personal journals, you owe yourself a great design!

Go ahead and browse – you never know what you’ll find! Start shopping early.

Don’t forget our coming Holiday baskets – perfect for the artist or crafter who needs some unusual goodies. More on this next week.

Marble-T Design

Busy week with the marbling tray, and lots of great fabrics up on Ebay, as well as a couple of yummy ones on Etsy. First up on Etsy, a piece of silk crepe in some really summery, bright colors.

Silk Crepe on Etsy

On Ebay this week is silk crepe art cloth:

And in Cafe Press this week our Southwest Gecko tote bag:

Lots of other goodies, so kick back and explore all the sites! Ebay is good through early Sunday morning only, so if you see something, bid on it!

  Another busy week, and a new marbling session tomorrow – back to creating lots of fat quarters, and I can’t wait. Lots of silk, ribbon, flowers, and FQ’s headed out of the tray in the next few weeks. We have so many loyal Ebay folks, and our Etsy store is beginning to attract a lot of visitors interested in larger pieces of fabric.

Cafe Press is becoming a place for showing our Digital Marbling (TN). The example below is a set of note cards, using the Grand Canyon as the subject. We took a basic piece of marbled fabric and scanned it. Then we worked within Photoshop  to create a really interesting layer to add mood to the primary image. The shot of the Grand Canyon fit the mood of this additional layer. Part of future plans is a gallery of Digital Marbling (TN), and I want to get back to my “Photoshop Fridays” of explaining how some of these prints come to be. The idea came about because some of the pieces of fabric were just too gorgeous to have only one life as a piece of fabric. This set of cards is available for this week; just click the link.

Ebay this week has hand-marbled silk. We LOVE marbling on silk, and now that we’re back to doing bigger pieces, we should have a lot more silk available. These are available till early Sunday morning.

In Etsy this week is another gorgeous piece of silk, a fat quarter with great movement and detail to the piece.

We are slowly building inventory, and we’ve got some ideas for the holidays, so we will keep you posted on what’s new and developing – marbled silk flowers and leaves, scarves, half yards…lots coming ahead. Got ideas? Let us know!