Things with Wings

My poor little neglected Etsy shop has finally been fluffed up just a little!  I should re-name my shop THINGS WITH WINGS, because my two main subject matters are little feathered birdies and be-winged angels. 

I'm trying to get into a big juried holiday craft show, and they really want a website or online shop to view for consideration, rather than just a few random pictures.  The deadline to register is today.  Gulp.  So, I've been scrambling to finish up those soldered shadowbox charms that have been started weeks ago, and also scrambling to include a few of my angel paintings in my shop.  For the show, I plan to have a bunch of original paintings, but will focus on offering mounted prints and cards.  That part isn't done yet, but at least I have scans of everything, including scans of originals that have long been sold.  I just need to figure out a production line process for cranking out a lot of inventory, but I realize I just don't work--or even think --that way. Also, my soldered work is so very time-consuming, it's not even funny.  I probably make pennies per hour on those sales, but I just truly love making them.  Just wish I could crank them out faster, and streamline the process somewhat.  I'll get in a groove eventually, I hope.  I find out if I've been accepted on September 30, and if I don't make it in, it won't be the end of the world.  In fact, it will give me plenty of inventory for the much, much smaller scale holiday show my friend Chris and I do every November. 

But for now, I'm going to keep adding to the shop, and hoping for a few sales there as well.  Being so new to selling in the Etsy world,  I'm struggling with whether I should open a second shop or not.  Even though both of my offerings are feathery, it feels clunky to have both things together in one shop.  Maybe I should have a separate shop just for paintings and prints.  And the existing shop just for soldered stuff.  Well, I'll sit and ruminate over that for a while, but in the meantime everything will get lumped together, so those judges can see it all in one place.  Wish me luck!  And come visit my little shop! :-)

P.S. Not all of my new stuff is feathered....I've also been playing around with old crusty watch faces and pewter hearts to tuck in my shadowboxes.  Not everyone wants to "put a bird on it", I reckon!

September Collage

I wanted to play around with cutting and pasting in Photoshop, and came up with this simple digital collage for Mary Green's collage challenge for September (wow...September already?!?).  I have about 10 other things I should be doing, but needed a little break to do something just for fun.  Hopefully, my next post will be about how I've restocked my Etsy shop with loads of new items (wishful thinking) and lots of other productive things.  In the meantime, here is my little collage for this month:

Asters and Goldenrod (click to view larger)

Then I played with a posterizing filter and think this looks pretty cool and retro:

And here are the three images we were working with:

Until next time....enjoy September!