Fresh Daisy Art

I love all the pretty little spring flowers popping up every where now. Here's some fresh art I'm working on =) :




Where Dreams Begin




Meadow - this isn't in my shop yet but will be this week :)

Quote for the Weekend

"When one of your dreams come true, you begin to look at the others more carefully."

- anonymous

I'm off to the farmer's market in the morning to sell my photography. I'll let you know how it goes when I get home (probably on Sunday actually, I'm usually wiped out when I get home lol).

New Website!

'Cream'



So, I'm in the process of setting up a new website, it's not quite ready to go yet...it's going to be really cool and pretty though. I'm working with an amazing website designer named Richard Johnson - I really love his ideas :). More to come on that later.

Nothing really exciting or fun has happened this week, I've been a little under the weather it seems like. I had some issues with UPS sending me some of my photos for a big order completely bent and beat up. There were seriously indentions of a cart wheel on the outside of the envelope....I'm going to put a picture in here so you can see what they did. If this were a South Park episode I would have said 'those bastards' lol. And of course it was an order that needed to be there by July 15, that I had put a rush delivery on and everything. My printing company handled it beautifully though. All I had to do was send photos of the damage and they replaced all 3 photos absolutely free of charge ( large 16"x 16" photos) AND they arrived the very next day. Pretty darn amazing :). I will love them forever and recommend them to anyone who asks :). Look at what UPS did :




outside of envelope - see the cart wheel track in the corner?!



back of one of the photos

Quote for Today...

'You're the Biggest Part of Me'


" The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."

~ Ben Stein


' In Love '

Quote for Today...

"Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work."
- Rita Mae Brown


I think this applies in so many ways to having a shop or working for yourself. Don't hope more than you work....this says to me not be so worried about having sales or who is coming to your shop that you forget why you even wanted this life in the first place. You wanted it to be creative on a daily basis. To enjoy your photography or your painting or your jewelry making (pick your own creative passion) - if you spend all your time hoping instead of creating then you've lost your focus. Trusting your instinct, well, that goes without saying. Without that, creativity is pretty much impossible.

Today's Quote

'Harmony'

"While we are focusing on fear, worry, or hate, it is not possible for us to be experiencing happiness, enthusiasm or love."

~ Bo Bennett

I have to keep that in mind when I'm stressing over my Etsy sales or bills or any number of possibly stressful situations. Life is to short to spend it not being happy.

Let's try - today - to focus on happiness and let the other things fade away.




'Bowing Out Gracefully'

Sunday Morning

'The Stars Fell on Henrietta'

I'm having a sale this weekend, and probably for the next couple of days. But 2 10"x 10" photos and get a third one absolutely free. See my shop for details =).

Happy Father's Day to all you daddies out there =). I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

I joined the Design Style Guide Etsy Street Team or the Interior Design Etsy Street Team, I'm not really sure what the official title is lol. But I do know it's pretty awesome. You get your own page on Ning, it's very well organized. I'm on a couple of other Etsy teams, well 1 other Etsy team. And I've been trying to get on another one, as far as I know I've taken all the necessary steps but they still haven't officially notified me of my status (I've been trying for a couple of months). This one is by far the most active, best organized though. I'm actually seeing a benefit to being on there other than just being able to say 'I'm on this Etsy street team or that Etsy street team'. They do treasuries using their members , they promote you to possible retailers, pretty awesome. So that's my big news for the weekend. I'm pretty psyched about it. I have to add DesignStyleTeam to the tags on all my photos though which is going to take 10 years since I have close to 170 now.

'Deep in the Forest'

I'm going to go to my parent's today and hopefully gets lots of beautiful photos of their flowers etc. Happy Father's Day dad! I'm sure he doesn't read my blog lol (he may not even know what a blog is, hmmm) but just in case =).

I've decided I need to get a Kodak Duoflex camera asap. I hope I spelled Duoflex right. I'm going to actually take photos in the 'Through the Viewfinder' method instead of cropping them to be square. It seems more genuine somehow. Richard thinks it's kind of pointless because people really loved my stuff at the exhibit but I like the combination of old technology with new technology. The 'Through the Viewfinder' method is taking your digital camera and putting your old camera in front of it so that it takes the photo through the viewfinder of the old camera. I actually talked to a couple of people about it at the exhibit but they had never heard of it. Maybe it's a larger city thing or maybe it's an Etsy thing. I don't know lol. I have several old cameras that I had bought for that purpose but it doesn't work with them. I was a little disappointed. I'm going to go check on Ebay, you can get cameras pretty cheap there. Of course the ideal thing would be to come across one at a thrift store or garage sale and get it really cheap with no shipping but I don't really want to wait.

I'm doing a series of puddle reflections right now. They're all in the 'Rainy' section of my shop. I SO love doing these. I actually sold one a couple of days ago right after I uploaded it which was pretty cool. They are abstract and interesting. I really want to get them printed in a big size and frame them for our walls here. That would be awesome.


'Pocketful of Reflected Sunshine'

'Sunny Day Reflection'

Thanks for checking in and a great Father's Day to all!

Rainy Days and Wednesdays...

Rainy Day Reflection'

Rainy days and Wednesdays....are beautiful. Especially when you get to go out in the rain and play with your camera :). I took a lot of photos this morning. About half way through, the camera fogged up which created some interesting effects. I love my job :) :) :) :).

'The Nature of Pink'

I have to have my artwork at the gallery in Knoxville this Saturday - I'm nervous about it all now that it's getting down to the wire. My first gallery exhibit! It's exciting but scary at the same time. I ordered all my photos 2 weeks ago, they got here and didn't work with the mats I had ordered. Silly me ordered them with a 1/4 inch border to make sure the edges of the photo weren't covered up by the mat (or matte-I'm never sure about the best spelling on that) and not only are the edges not covered, the border isn't covered. I shed tears over that this past weekend when they got here. So we had to reorder all of the photos, they should be here today, nothing like last minute is there? So I'll be frantically matting, framing, signing things for the next 2 days lol. It's ok, it's happy stress instead of stressful stress. Did that make sense?

'Willing to Receive'

'Magical Kingdom'

'Becoming'

'Fade to Gray'

I don't have some of these in my shop yet, so they don't have links to them. I'll be putting them in this evening :). Have a happy day if it's raining at your house too :).

What a morning!

' Sunday Morning and I Never Want to Leave '

Our flooding kitchen/laundry room/bathroom dilemma continues... When I got back from mom's last night, the plumbing still wasn't in functioning mode. We ended up having to get the septic tank pumped out (it was just put in 4 years ago) which cost mucho dollars of course (on Memorial Day? are you kidding me?). Anyway, I left to go to mom's, leaving Richard and Bones with the septic guy. Got home that night, there's still issues.

It turns out that the tank was full of water due to fill lines being done incorrectly or something like that. Plus there was an obstruction in the pipe. So we rented a 100 ft pipe snake this morning and ran it through the pipe to the septic tank. It was super disgusting lol. The downstairs was stinky ~ wow, I'm not even going to go into any further detail. TMI, I know. My daughter's boyfriend Nicky helped us tremendously. If you ever read this Nicky ~ THANK YOU.

'Curvy'

So, enough of our house issues lol. I still love my house. It's like a child that you really really love even though she misbehaves sometimes lol. Naughty house, we're just going to have to make you do better. Hopefully we won't have to deal with anything like this again for a few years.

'Shall We Dance?'

I sold some art today. Finally, I've had a long dry spell in my shop somehow. It was like I got several sales all at once and I was thinking that finally everything was coming together on Etsy but then no sales for like 15 days. EEEK. scary. But I've had calls from 2 galleries this month that want to exhibit me and a permanent spot from June to November in a Farmer's Market/Craft Market in Knoxville. The Farmer's Market thing was juried, I couldn't exhibit without prior approval. Ditto for the galleries of course. So all that's come together for me this month during the time I wasn't having any sells. That's funny how things work out like that isn't it? I think I just need to sit down and write out my progress this month and see how it all comes together in the big picture instead of focusing on my lack of sales at Etsy. Hmmm, I'm going to do that. It should be interesting to see how my art sells in the real world as opposed to the Etsy world lol. I'm looking forward to June, to seeing how it all goes.

This is what I sold today :

'Love'

Wow, I hope I didn't sound whiney in my post today. Like poor me with my plumbing problems and lack of sales. I didn't mean to if I did lol. Just a day in my life, things don't always smell like roses LOL.

The Notecards Are Here :)

Yay, I finally got it in gear and did a photo shoot with my notecards. I've had them done, it was just the taking of the photos of the photos (lol) that I was procrastinating on. What, me procrastinate? NEVER. Anyone who has read my blog and knows of my intention of posting every day with relevant content is aware that I'm lying. So anywho, I'm going to only post one or 2 into my shop every day and that way I don't put them all out there at once. I took photos of five of them today. Of course each card gets like 20 shots. There's the card in the envelope, the card out of the envelope, the envelope insert, the outside of the envelope (front and back) and the card itself - the outside, the inside, etc. etc. Of course I shouldn't complain. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining and it wasn't to hot yet. So, without further adieu, here is the debut of my first notecard :

The FRONT of the card.

The FRONT side of the envelope, it's 5" x 5"

The BACKSIDE of the envelope with the flap partially opened. When it's closed it looks very pretty the way the printing is on the book page (the envelopes are made from vintage books).

Opening the envelope to reveal the card inside. Notice the decorative envelope liner. I made the envelopes and liners from entirely different books. I looked and looked for pictures that would coordinate with the card inside for the inside of the envelope.

Removing the card from the envelope. The cards are actual fine art photographs in 5x5 size. I have adhered them to cardstock with photo safe adhesive. I was selling these same photographs in my shop for $15 each so at $6 per card + one of a kind envelope, it's a steal.

The card out of the envelope. Notice the blue square on the inside for writing your own note.

And here we have the envelope all by itself.

The great thing is that you're getting a card that you can frame if you don't want to send it. I mean, it would be beautiful to send but if you chose to keep it, you could always use the envelope to send a letter in. You really are getting 2 unique products. Every envelope I make is going to be one of a kind.

A bit of a change of subject, but I noticed that I've been tagged by Peachtree in my comments as in 'tag, you're it'. I'm going to have to investigate this evening and see who I can tag. This will probably mean another post later on tonight :).

Adjusting to my New Freedom :)

It seems like it's been longer than a week since I turned in my notice at work. I think I've been kind of shell shocked this past week, disorganized, generally optimistic, always grateful that I can get up after the sun rises :). I need to get focused this week, get a good schedule going and make sure I'm heading in the right direction. I think keeping a good attitude about finances and success and running my own business is going to be the key to it all. Anything can be accomplished if I believe in myself and my ability to make it happen. I've done some new art, I had a particularly creative day yesterday. My bf had the awesome idea of using canvas as a backdrop for my photos and I love how they turned out. It's opened up a whole new avenue of self expression. He also showed me a super cool photoshop trick that I'm going to have to master this week. I sold another photograph, it's one of a little robin family living on the tree next to our deck. They built a nest right there where we can watch them every day. There's 3 little baby robins in the nest :

I love being able to go outside and sit on the deck and watch. That's definitely a perk of working from home. You get to actually see your home in the daytime lol. Our yard needs mowing sooo bad. Richard tried to mow it today but neither of our lawnmowers would work. I guess we're going to have to get them fixed. I'm thinking we should just pay somebody to do it every couple of weeks since both of us hate mowing but Richard seems to be against it.

I'm getting ready to add cards to my shop, I'm just looking around for a good printer ~ I want one that uses recycled materials and I want to do my cards in like a square size. I just like square photos for some reason. I've not really found who I'm going to use to print them yet. Some of my photos would lend themselves very well to cards though. I'm going to sell some as sets and some as single cards.

I also want to add a matting service to my shop. I think a lot of people would utilize that. So those are my shop plans for this month. I'm going to start doing local craft shows also. There's a farmer's market on Saturdays at Market Square in Knoxville. I'm looking into setting up a booth there. It's just getting a tent and tables and mattes, etc etc together. It's a bit overwhelming. I need to make lists, that always helps.

I'm really trying to participate more fully with the Etsy Bloggers Street Team. Their blog carnival is tonight and I've yet to participate in it. I always remember to do it after it's passed. Tonight I am though. My understanding is that I just need to post on their thread with a link to my blog entry to show that I posted. They encourage you to do it weekly I believe is how it works. I suppose it's to keep everybody blogging :).

Here's my new art and I want to give a special thank you to Peachtree for being so supportive. Here's a link to her shop (and one of her gorgeous creations).

My new photographs are:

It would be a good idea if I blogged a little bit everyday I think, that way I could feature other artists better and it would give more variety to my blog. I already mentioned that in a earlier post didn't I? I'll get it together here sometime soon lol.

Busy Week

Busy, but I have no excuse for not posting. Is procrastination an excuse? Nah, probably not. Well, let's see. I had Friday off work and now Monday (tomorrow). So 4 days in a row...awesome! I've gotten more focused as far as what I want out of my life the last few days. I've decided my day job is going to be a not so fond memory some time in the near future. By the end of summer at the latest. My art is doing really well right now. I was invited to set up a booth at Riverfest this coming Saturday. Riverfest is apparently a shin-dig being organized by a real estate company in Florida to highlight everything our area has to offer (by 'our area', I mean TN). There is a high end developement on the river and they're having several local artists set up booths, a band, food, etc. and they're bring all their clients in to tempt them with this gorgous real estate. So hopefully there will be some people there interested in buying art to decorate their new bare walls :). I just got an email from the woman organizing it a couple of days ago so right now it's a huge scramble for me to try to get everything together that I need to get. I send my art to the printer when somebody orders it, I don't have frames, mats, anything. But I want to sell my art framed and matted when I sell it at a booth or a gallery or whatever. The problem is our mortgage is due at the moment and I can't afford the mortgage and the art. I've ordered the prints but it remains to be seen how I'm going to pay for it all when I get the frames. I just have to trust that the money will be there, that it will all come together. I know it will. I sold 4 pieces of art in my Etsy store the last 3 days. I'M SO EXCITED!!!! I feel like I'm on my way, the universe is bringing it all together for me. Has anyone read "The Secret" ? Somebody gave it to my boyfriend and I'm reading it for the 2nd time now. It's full of interestingness. It's a life altering book. It just brings it all together for you :).

I've done a whole dandelion series of art. I'm in luv with dandelions right now. I actually sold one of them today in one of my larger sizes (happy, happy, happy). Here's all my new photographs:

I guess I HAVE been pretty busy the last few days lol. I talked to my mom the other night, she's all excited about the Riverfest thing. She's excited about me opening my Etsy store period. I've finally found my niche, the thing that I'm good at that makes me happy. I'm looking forward to it all :).