Introducing CrafterAlt!

This has really been a long time coming, and, while I'd thought about waiting until we had a really full lineup, I'm so pleased that we've got the first few things ready for you and I just can't hold it back any longer.

My dear friend, Kendra of No Moniker (formerly Green Post), and I have teamed up to create a new offshoot of Crafterall. Call it a branch, a grafting, an offshoot, a hybrid, or just one heckuva clever collaboration, and know it by its name: CrafterAlt.


CrafterAlt is a new body of work made completely from my paper scraps. The line will include frameable 8 x 10" art pieces, foldover cards, bookmarks, journals, tags, and loads more. Between Kendra and I, we've jotted down close to 50 different items that we could make and market, all of them entirely recycled, entirely handmade, and entirely gorgeous.




We've started with the simple beauty of the silhouette of my home state, Minnesota, and we will work to produce more themes and images as we go along. Stay tuned for more posts about the process we have to produce these pieces, the other ideas we have floating around in our minds, and updates as we continue to roll out more works.


I'm thrilled with the quality and beauty of these pieces so far. Everyone I've shown them to remarks that they look even better in person too. The best part? I get to work with an amazing artist and paper wizard to create something new and beautiful out of what I'd otherwise dump in the recycling bin. How many people can claim that?

This Mama's at the MoMA!

I cannot contain my super top secret any longer!

To set the scene:

Imagine me, leaping around the house, pigtails flying, singing "tra-la-laaaaa" a la Captain Underpants, bumping into doorways, with small children and a giant dog excitedly chasing after me.

Got it?

That's how thrilled I am .

Crafterall has landed at the Museum of Modern Art retail store in New York!

Currently, they're selling these lovely "Layered Love" cards in time for the mushy stuff to come next month.



Coming in February, these custom colored topography card sets in Sea Foam, Royal, Poppy and Violet.



It's been rough keeping this news under wraps until I knew the cards were physically in the store. I had told a few people after I was first contacted by a MoMA rep, but I made them swear to secrecy and threatened them with dollar store greeting cards for the rest of all their birthdays if they leaked the news.

While I was prepared to undertake the size of the order, I did climb a pretty steep learning curve related to the paperwork and shipping procedures necessary to conduct business with a bigger retail outlet. For instance, I now know what a bill of lading is and have created my own version of one to use again, as well as my own custom packing slip and invoice. I feel so... official.

So, many of you are probably wondering how this all happened. I suppose I can say that great product photos, original designs, and a swing toward to the modern side of styles was all it took, but I think luck played a very nice hand in this instance.

Back in late August, I was contacted via Etsy by a Paper Products Manager for MoMA Retail who was browsing the stationary on the site and was drawn to my topography cards. Luck. She requested some samples, I sent her a few topography cards in a variety of colors as well as a couple of other cards I was making at the time.

Around that time, I was transitioning from a discontinued line of cardstock to a newer one with more color options (luck), so a few weeks later, I sent more samples and a color swatch sheet for reference. The rep conferred with her people and got back to my people (well, just me, really), with four color choices for a custom set, and also mentioned interest in buying the heart cards for Valentine's day. Luck. She was also able to give me a heads up on the item count before the actual purchase order giving me ample time to complete everything. She has been a dream to work with since our very first correspondence and continues to cheerfully lead me through the big business processes. Major Luck.

So that's that! I've googled "Etsy" and "MoMA" together a bunch of times and have not yet read anything from anybody else like me who's been hand plucked like this. Has this or something like it happened to anyone else out there? I feel very strange, honored, and I'll say it again, LUCKY to be where I am.

And I'm happy as can be.

Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch, but it sort of feels like I've won a big award. So, in that light, I'll close this post with my acceptance speech full of thanks and dedications:

Thank you so much! Seriously, thank YOU! Yes YOU, reading this blog post right now. Because I know you care enough to come to my blog and read through this, I grow more confident and continue to create pieces that may catch the eyes of highfalutin retail shop managers. Thanks, too, to my friends and family who offer good criticism and support of what I do. Specifically, I thank my dear friend Kendra Zvonik who has held my hand through this whole process, who pulls my feet back down to earth when I float away in uncertainty, and who lifts me up when I wallow in frustration. I dedicate these happy vibes to my patient and supportive hubby and to my two crafty girls who've quietly watched me cut paper in my studio when they would have rather been playing hide and seek or wild cat rescue.

It feels so great to let this kitty out of the bag. Let's hope it enjoys a wild adventure out there!

What's New? I'll Show Ya!

Coming up for air here, after completing more than a handful of fun wholesale orders, fulfilling some awesome custom requests, and working on some NEW things for the shop. Imagine me, resurfacing form my basement studio, gasping for a breath, and with a huge, cheeky smile on my face. Life is good! This is a meaty post with lost of photos, so grab a beverage, find a comfy spot to sit, and read on!

First, a look at some custom pieces from the past two weeks. This is a "reverse" layered piece I cut of the Bahamas:



I started by cutting the white of the islands, layered those tiny pieces over the lightest shade of aqua, cut again, layered again, and so forth. As with most of my custom orders, I consider the region quite a bit while I'm working on it, and with this one, I enjoyed convincing myself that I was warmed by the equatorial sun as I carved out these island oases. It was well worth the time!



Then, I had a cool request for the Great Lakes.



While I disliked having to simplify some of the outlines for the sake of space, I thoroughly enjoyed creating the familiar silhouette of these massive bodies of water as well as learning about the bathymetry that lies beneath the surfaces of each lake. Who knew Lake Erie was so relatively flat, and that Lake Superior was spooky deep? (Well, probably loads of science and geology folks know that, but I learned something!)



One of the things I like best about working on custom orders is that they push me to try new things. Case in point, a custom order for Kim, a lovely mom and apple orchard owner. (Plug: She also has her own Etsy shop too!) She wants to start a gallery of apple-related art in a store on the orchard property, and she asked me if I could make a layered papercut with an apple as the subject. I could, and I did!



It was fun to use a variety of bold colors and to layer the paper differently than I usually do. I think it turned out well and I'm tempted to make more like this. Thanks, Kim!




Lastly, I worked my fingers to the bone finishing fifty of these little beauties for a delightful shop owner in Chicago. They are blank cards featuring a layered papercut of Lake Michigan with a little star representing the Windy City. Aren't they cool?



After a while, the shape of Lake Michigan began to resemble a strange, large-abdomen-ed insect, but filling in the shape with the depth layers helped dispel that idea. ;) Silly me.

New in the shop this month, the "Layered Love" cards are back for Valentine's Day and they're better than ever. Brighter colors, bigger hearts, and your choice of Poppy Reds:



Or Pinky Pinks:



I also introduced the new Teal colorway into the Topography piece collection:



It's lighter and bluer than the aqua scheme, and I really like it. As you can see in the piece above, I'm working more islands into my pieces as well. It takes more time to do this, but I believe the result is totally worth it.



Finally, I worked through a sketch I've had in my head for a long time and came out with these fun, new card sets. I call them "Googie cards" after the mid-century Googie architecture movement with all its funky geometry and groovy color palettes. Mine come in sets of two cards with one card layered dark to light and the other card layered light to dark. Far out, huh?

They're available in Sea Foam (where did I put that leisure suit?):



Harvest Gold (just like Grandma's oven!):



and Avocado, baby (reminiscent of that delicious shag carpeting you tore out of your old house):



It was nice to take a little break from non-stop topography and it has always been fun experimenting with new ideas. Man, I love what I do!

A Marvelous Little Mention

Well now, what do we have here?



Why, it's the vibrant, November issue of Mpls/St. Paul magazine. And how exciting that the cover invites readers to learn about local handmade goodies?! And here's the beginning of the feature:



And just a page or two away on page 63...



Why, there's a side panel singling out local artists who sell on Etsy!



And, wait! Did you see what you think you saw?



Indeed! There's my shop name! And a tidy little blurb about what I do. Woo Hoo! :)

Sorry for the cheesiness. I'm just excited about it. And there's even more news to come! Stay tuned...

Thanks to loosewirestudio for alerting me of this feature!
Coincidentally, my second purchase on Etsy was this lovely print from Studio Mela!

A, M, and AZING

My latest treasury features 16 amazing Etsy sellers who go way above and beyond the average listing photo and feature their items in print-worthy portraits. I've been collecting these over the last few weeks, and the selection was wonderfully abundant. These are off-beat, uneven, over-cropped, and downright inspiring. Enjoy!



Row 1: Yokoo, Meetalls, PunchDrunkPrincess, malam
Row 2: supplystar, moop, coughcoughchoke, fadedprairie
Row 3: ecologicalartist, 26olivestreet, lilfishstudios, rimadesigns
Row 4: CaptainCat, billyblue22, piprobins, doodlebirdie

Custom Work

I know, I know, I really should be working on building up my inventory for the final Uptown Market this Sunday. Or, I should be adding new pieces to my dwindling stock in my shop. Or, I should be making prototypes of season-based pieces from the sketches I've drawn. But, I've been having way too much fun working on some very cool custom pieces.



The first one is a "downward" topography of Joshua Tree National Park in California. It is to be a wedding gift from the bride to her groom. I think this piece ended up with a perfect blend of accuracy and abstraction.



The next custom request was a fun and challenging project that involved incorporating maps from various games into five separate yet similar 12 x 12", topographic pieces. I've never before used anything other than my own stash of cardstock, so working with/around/through the maps sent to me was a go at something new.





I also made a custom collection of topographic card sets in the shape and depths of my hometown lake, Lake Bemidji, in northern Minnesota. They turned out really well, and I was so excited to send them off that I forgot to take pictures of them. Ah well.

When starting a custom project, I really try to make sure I understand what the project means to the buyer and I try to get a clear description from them as to what they're expecting the piece to be. When the piece is complete, I still hold my breath a little each time I notify the buyer, hoping that what I've created is close to if not even better than what he or she had in mind. And when I get glowing feedback from the patron when all is said and done, then I feel awesome about the whole thing!

I keep a small blackboard in my studio. This is where I write my custom orders, what they are, and when I promised them to be complete. Currently, it's a blank slate. And even though I have so many things I should be doing as I mentioned earlier, I get a strong urge to ask the world, "What's next? Whatchya got for me?"

Uptown Market - August 16th

Wooo Hooooo! We did it!

It feels incredibly good to have my first craft fair over and done. It was a great experience and, like most newbies, I learned a lot, thankfully with few regrets. The weather ignored all the prognostications for heavy rain, and gave us pocketed sunshine throughout most of the day with only about five minutes of a very light sprinkle mid-day. Every minute that it didn't rain, my smile got bigger and my shoulders relaxed more.

The event was well run and we found our little corner of the market easily. The boundaries of our booth were chalked on the road and we could pull our vehicle right up to it on the other side of the street - how sweet! This made unloading a breeze. We unpacked all the gear and got to work on the tent. I was shaky-nervous and excited. Here's me working on a corner of the tent -- you can see how conveniently close the van was to this.



Once the tent was up, we moved on to the tables, the hanging wall doo-dads, and generally getting things up and show-ready. In this pic, you can see some of my essentials: coffee, duct tape, plastic totes, snacks, band-aids, and everything else.



The overall turn-out was fairly slim and not nearly the hordes of people I had seen in flickr pages for other fairs, but it was steady and polite. I gave away quite a few business cards and had many people stop in, ask questions, get closer looks, and offer compliments.



I felt prepared for questions about how I make my things, if I could do custom work, and how long I'd been doing this, but a couple of questions caught me off guard. The very first visitor to my booth asked, "What are these?" Ummm... Isn't it obvious? :) I resisted saying that and realized more throughout the day that it wasn't crystal clear that I was selling art and cards made from layered, colored paper. One person thought the Topo pieces looked like Rorschach ink blots, while another thought on first glance that they were watercolors. Another passerby simply asked, "What's Crafterall?" To which I answered, "That's me! And all the work do here."



A woman on one side of me sold magnetic jewelry, and the woman on the other side of me sold quilted bags specifically made for four-legged walkers. Other vendors sold fresh, organic produce, screen prints, t-shirts, pottery, fresh-brewed coffee, bath and body products, photo prints, metal ornaments, and some of the tastiest looking pulled meat sandwiches that kept walking by in the hands of happy customers. There were also half a dozen street buskers including a guy on an apartment balcony throwin' out some def turntable spins. Along with a handful of non-profit organizations advertising their causes, the Uptown Market was an eclectic melange of things to see, touch, hear, and eat. Pretty darn cool.



There were so many highlights to my first craft fair. The weather, which became my biggest worry in the last few days before the show, was wonderfully mild. It was a little breezy, but everything in my booth stood its ground. My very first sale of the day could not have been better. The buyer was local, loved the "Chain o' Lakes" pieces I made, snapped one up for herself, and appreciated being able to pay with her credit card. She was enthusiastic and complimentary about everything in my booth -- such a redemptive and encouraging boost for me! I heard lots of other nice compliments throughout the day, and even had a patron say that she had seen my work on Etsy! Awesomeness! She picked up a "Retro Poppies" for herself too. A couple of folks talked with me about potential custom work, and I received confirmation this morning for one such request.



The biggest highlight of the entire process, hands down, was having the tireless and and cheerful assistance of my hubby with me through it all. His MacGyver-like knot-tying and problem-solving/preventing efforts were invaluable and helped to make me a much cooler cookie than I would have been without his help. We were able to chat about what seemed to be working this time, and what we could do differently next time. He also managed the booth while I perused the other booths, and he bought me a yummy lunch from a nearby African restaurant. Thanks, honey!



At the end of the day, my earnings were nothing to sing about, but I covered the cost of my booth fee and enough after that to make me eager to do this again in September. Yee-haw!

After Craft - a match made on Etsy

I love paper.
I like treating the Earth with respect.
And I'm hopelessly hooked on Etsy.

What do these three facts have in common? A little something called "After Craft," that's what. Let me explain.

One of the many dear souls I've met via Etsy is Kendra Zvonik. She's the genius behind Etsy shop Green Post, a source for art, magnets, papers, cards, and badges all made from paper scraps. Kendra and I have a tendancy to think alike, and one day a couple of weeks ago, we had simlutaneous light bulbs lighting over our heads. I had loads of lovely paper scraps, she had a nifty method for recycling paper pulp. Ding!

Here's how it all works:

I make these:



Over a couple months, I end up with a decent stash of pretty paper scraps:



I send them to KZ who sorts them by color:



Then she shreds them to prepare them for pulply goodness:



Kendra then works her paper making magic to produce smooth sheets like these:



Rougher sheets like these begging for a collage project:



And, my favorite, PLANTABLE cards with wildflower seeds imbedded in the paper:



Kendra's glassblowing husband came up with the name, "After Craft." It's snappy, no? I don't think I could be more delighted. It's paper, it's recycled, it's handmade, it's the product of a partnership, it's beautiful, and with the plantable cards it keeps on growin'!

Everyone who orders from my shop will receive a plantable card from me and Kendra. You can also buy your own cards and After Craft paper at Green Post.

Thank you, KZ, for rockin' my world. I've got another stack of scraps started already.