Holiday Gift Guide

Fluffy Flowers was nice enough to include me in her Holiday Gift Guide. This is a wonderful list of Etsy shops she has bought from throughout the year. A great resource if you are going to buy handmade for the holidays this year! Thank you!

First Craft Show

I participated in my first craft show this weekend -- the Indie Craft Experience Holiday Spectacular in Atlanta. It was a great time and went better than I would have thought. Having never done a craft show before, I really didn't know what to expect how or my work would be received. I got a lot of positive feedback, and found that the journals I have been printing on were the biggest hit of all.

I didn't have a lot of time to take pictures, as I was alone for part of the day and busy for most of it -- lots of people around -- but I have some of the event space, which is a very cool artists space made from an old industrial building, and my setup. I think I need to get some shelving for my displays next time, but this worked well for the first time.

Here is a second picture of the setup, notice the fine hand-painted sign! My husband does hand painted signs among lots of other things like pinstriping and airbrush work in the larger Papa Studios enterprise.



Here's the space, and a shot of the overall table:








I wanted to do more "reporting" and talk about some people I met during the show but I was kind of overwhelmed with talking to people and manning the booth. Next show I hope to do more!

Business Cards & Postcards

Here is a business card I just finished for myself in preparation for next week's craft show. The text was printed using a polymer plate, and the men are from some vintage letterpress items I picked up on eBay. No idea who the men are except that they came from Minnesota, and there were at least fifty of them! I've found it to be a challenge when I have been printing linocuts, and then I switch to printing with the polymer plates or the halftone plates like these. When I print linocuts I am trying to get as much ink as possible on those wide surfaces, and then I have to concentrate on getting just the right amount with the polymer or halftone plates.

Speaking of the contrast between polymer plates and linocuts, I also finished a promotional postcard for the show based on my earlier "resolve" design. Here it is: