While my blogging life as been on a rather extended break, please follow me over on Instagram @junedaleyart for previews of my latest work!
February 19, 2019
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February 2, 2010
Really?!
Pardon the forlorn groundhog/sea lion, but you get the idea. Six more weeks of Winter??! To quote my 4-year-old, “You have got to be kidding me.” Not that it matters much. After enjoying a steady, yet unrushed workload (the kind that pays), my inbox has suddenly quadrupled ensuring that I won’t be emerging from my hole any time soon. Not that I’m complaining…I knew it was coming and I’m thankful for it. This just means more pizza and less blog.Also please accept my sincere apologies, if you come back here to check in only to find Mr. Groundhogsealion. I’ll try to climb out with an update as soon as possible. Until then, Happy Groundhog Day.
January 26, 2010
Smart Marks
I have to tell you about the brand new ‘art just for fun’ that has arrived over in my etsy shop. It’s a set of wisely affordable owl bookmarks that I designed using the owls I painted back when.
For the background, I scanned the wise entry from a really old dictionary. Then, I placed the owls in miniature in sequence on top of the entry with a shadow effect (all done in Photoshop.) Wise and Wiser are on the front of the bookmark while Wisest has the back all to herself.
The bookmarks have been offset print (front and back) on a heavy coated stock with rounded edges for extra charm. When they came back from the printer, I hand punched each top and added a cord. These bookmarks are available in sets of four. They’re perfect to stick in a card (Valentines maybe?) or enclose with a gifted book. Or maybe you’ll want a couple for yourself to mark various places…wise cookbooks, wiser craft magazines or the wisest decadent novel. I’ve also made individual 8″ x 10″ owl prints available if a larger, frameable version is preferred. Fly over to my etsy shop to check out the goods. And as always, thank you for stopping by to see what I’ve been up to and for supporting my artistic journey. I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of you! I am so grateful for a community that never fails to inspire. Thank you.
September 7, 2009
Extra! Extra!
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. Ours went about as fast as the rest of the summer which was pretty fast. Now it’s time to look for pumpkins and gourds and to settle into the routine that the school year brings. errrr…excuse me…what did you say? ohhhhh…you’re wondering about that wooden newspaper carrier?! Well, I’m glad you asked. He holds under his arm my very first e-newsletter which is almost ready to deliver to subscribers. If you haven’t yet signed up look over to the sidebar on the right of my blog>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
see that little box that says “subscribe to my e-newsletter?”
All you need to do is enter your e-mail and you too will receive the “art just for fun” e-newsletter which includes insider tidbits along with valuable coupons for my etsy shop. Plus every once in awhile I’ll be having subscriber giveaways. It’ll be fun.
I promise you will not be overwhelmed with mail as my goal for e-news is just once every month or two. And so you know, this guy has strict instructions about spam…no credit card applications, no silly jokes, no chain letters, etc. Plus you can always unsubscribe. (I’ll be a little sad and miss having you, but I’ll understand.)
Now I’ve got to go catch that carrier. He has deliveries to make.
April 29, 2009
Bags and tags
The bags for the show have arrived!! yep…colorful, fun and best of all~earth friendly. After pouring over options I decided on these. I LOVE a good shop bag (I’ve been known to ~she admits bashfully~ make purchases just to get the bag.) These non-woven fabric reusable bags are made of virgin polypropylene fiber that is 100% degradable. The cost averaged out to about 85 cents each for different colors in assorted sizes. To me that is money well spent not only for the reuseable factor, but to give my customers something special and show that I value my art. In my opinion, mixed messages are sent when vendors stick their gorgeous handmade items in a Wal-Mart bag. It devalues both the item(s) and the handmade movement. A cake with no icing or worse yet, a cake with big ugly mass retailer advertising all over it. Now hopping off my soapbox…
I also just received my freshly designed business cards. Overnight Prints did the printing and I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. little details: I requested rounded corners for a more handmade/less commercial touch. Also, had the front of the cards coated, but left the back uncoated to pen notes and thank yous.
As for tags, I’m using these awesome Fiskar squeeze punches to cut circles and squares from decorator paper. You squeeze the handles together and out pops a perfect circle or square (and they have tons of other shaped punches available.) The best part is they are designed so that you can see exactly what you are doing. You can punch shapes at lightening speed…such a great investment. Easy on the hands too.
Fluffy fibers attach cards to bags and tags to items. Here’s “Love Bird” getting all tagged and ready for her first show. I’m finding out that prepping for an art show is more time consuming than I E*V*E*R dreamed. Admittedly, it’s not helping that I am a sweater of the small stuff and think about details almost to a fault. The already packed lint brush and first aid kit are proof. Now watch me forget the art.April 9, 2009
Rolling out the Blank Canvas
After flag garland, the next thing on my list for my upcoming first ever art fair booth was the main sign. I purchased a 3′ x 5′ piece of primed canvas from Dick Blick. And I really have to remember this stuff for future sign making, kid projects, etc. This huge piece was a steal for under $8. Plus I can roll it back up on the sturdy cardboard roll it came with for easy transport to wherever my show tour may take me.
The first step was to transfer my nameplate to the canvas. I printed out my name (in tiles…this was huge) from the computer. After I drew lines and knew where everything should go, I attempted to hunt down carbon paper. Stuff I knew I had somewhere, but for the life of me could not find. Refusing to go to the store, I came up with an alternate plan for transferring that works just as great. I took charcoal sticks (wowza! that’s my box from college!) and charcoaled over the letters on the back of the paper. Then I flipped the paper right side and traced the outline of the letters with a pencil. The charcoal left a perfect line on the canvas.
Next I recreated what you see at the very top of this blog (‘hey did ya notice the new header…up there?!’ …me pointing to top of screen.) Paint flew and things got pretty messy at this stage, but that’s okay. You gotta have a little fun to sell it. I laid the canvas out to dry in the guest bedroom a.k.a. warmest room of the house with a threatening sign. Maybe a “Please DO NOT STEP ON” would have been nicer, but that might have taken away from the strong message I wanted to communicate to the eight other feet in the house.
Tah-dah!… here it is all finished. Well, almost finished. I still need to give it a coat or two of protective varnish. Plus an edge trim. Checking this off the list + flags is HUGE. I’m starting to see my vision come together. Next up is bags. Believe it or not, over thinking bags for customer purchases is what threw me into logo redesign mode in the first place. I’ve got a thing for a good store bag. More prep craziness coming soon.December 23, 2008
A virtual Christmas card from us to you…
open to…
Finally, I got all of the printed versions in the mail yesterday. I still have a few hand delivers that are awaiting a tray of cookies to go with. This card idea came to me after finding yet another vintage Scrabble game (favorite) at a holiday flea market. At home, as I stared at and moved around those gorgeous wooden letters, I saw XMAS. When I discovered that I could fit MERRY XMAS on the wood rack, I completely geeked out and went at it with full force. Using a Photoshop trick or two, I turned our family into scrabble tiles adding a point value to correspond to ages. (okay one age is slightly questionable…I wanted to see who was paying attention ; )With several design projects happily at the printer, cards mailed and presents wrapped, I’ve officially put myself on vacation. My hubbie and I purchased a rug pad for my office rug, installed badly needed new blinds and completed little odd ball fixes around the house that have been crying out for attention for many, many months. Projects that give me tremendous JOY now that they are done. Me and my little cooks are planning to heat up the kitchen with cookies and a feast for Thursday. We have family coming into town for Christmas day and several days after so we’re looking forward to entertaining and enjoying our time together.
I’m taking some time away from here, but I’ll be back after the new year. ‘Til then happy, safe and cozy holidays to you along with lots of PEACE, HOPE, LOVE and JOY.
I DESIGN STENCILS FOR
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