Desktop Calendar {December 2011}

Can you believe it's December already? I feel like it was only a few weeks ago when I was sweating up in my studio, and now I have the space heater about 12 inches away from my feet. Pretty soon I'm going to have to break out the Snuggie™!


And in honor of the 1st of the month, here is the December calendar to brighten your desktop:

For this calendar, I wanted to acknowledge the holiday season without being too over-the-top Christmas-y. One of my favorite things about the holidays is the twinkling lights, so I knew I had to feature them. Though, I just discovered that our new (85 year-old) house doesn't have any electrical outlets on the outside, so I'm not sure how we are going to decorate the exterior sans electricity! Maybe we'll hire someone to install some...or maybe we'll just put some candles in the windows this year, and figure out the whole electricity thing for 2012. Hmmm...


Now, I'll just settle for this calendar. Much easier, wouldn't you say?


Happy December!

New Bluestar Product

Hello again!


Are you finding lots of wonderful goodies this Cyber Monday? Before you fulfill EVERYTHING on your list, I wanted to quick share with you the newest Bluestar products that just hit my shops this weekend.

First off, the new 2012 wall calendar. This 11 x 17 calendar features my new "Sitting Lotus" illustration in pale yellow, blue and teal. It is printed on the heavy-duty Arches watercolor paper and comes ready to hang with a white grosgrain ribbon. Calendar can be found here.

I love this new tote! I upcycled some vintage drapes to create these whimsical new totes. My new floral illustration is screen printed across the front. These bags are lined with coordinating floral fabric, complete with 2 pockets for all of your incidentals. Do you like pom poms? There is an option with, and one without.

Holiday cards, woot, woot! I decided to take a more simplistic, graphic approach when designing these cards. Each 8-pack assortment features 2 reindeer, 2 snowmen, 2 trees and 2 retro ornaments screen printed onto either white or Kraft cardstock. Coordinating envelopes, (red, white, tiffany blue, magenta) are also included. The white pack can be found here, and the Kraft pack can be found here.

Here we have the new floral illustration again, this time screen printed onto thick, 100lb French Pop-Tone paper. Printed on 5 colors: magenta, aqua, green, red and purple. Just a simple print to brighten any room!

Finally, lots of my personal illustrations have made it into the shop as prints! These include some of the Daily Animal Doodles, along with other fun illustrations I've created over the last year or so. All are printed on 8.5 x 11 creamy Epson Ultra Premium matte paper with a white border for easy framing. Print shop can be found here.

And last, but not least, the newest Fuzzies! Meet Valentino, Galama, Wanda, Tringo, Yasu, Jemizee and Zazu. All can be found in the Bluestar Fuzzies shop. And, I've finally listed the 3 circus Fuzzies who were featured in STUFFED Magazine. Fuzzies make great gifts for the kiddos on your list!


In case you missed it there are special Cyber Monday deals happening in both my shops today only!


Bluestar Fuzzies : 20% off your purchase using the coupon code CYBERMONDAY20 at checkout.


Bluestar Ink: A free print of YOUR CHOICE with any purchase. This includes screen prints! Just note your choice at checkout.


Thanks again!
Now I'm going to go check out the sweet Cyber Monday deals floating around the Interweb...

It's Cyber Monday, People!

Hello!


I am SO excited for this post, because it means it's finally Cyber Monday...and that means big discounts for all of you!

As you probably know, I have two Etsy shops - one for the Fuzzies and one for the Illustrations & Screen Prints. For Cyber Monday 2011, I will have a different discount for each shop. They are as follows:


Bluestar Fuzzies - 20% your order - use the coupon code CYBERMONDAY20 at checkout.


Bluestar Ink - A Free Print of Your Choice with any purchase - just be sure to tell me your pick in the notes at checkout.


These discounts will be applicable Monday, November 28, 2011 from Midnight - 11:59pm Central Standard Time.


I know I haven't posted about all of the NEW PRODUCT yet - I've just been so busy listing all of the items in the shops in anticipation of Cyber Monday! I will be sharing all of the details soon - I promise! Until then, be sure to check everything out in the shops. If you have any questions, please let me know! Updated! Check out this post with all the details!


Happy Shopping!

Indie Art + Design Show Recap

Hellooooo!


I'm back! You probably thought I fell off the face of the earth. Fortunately, I didn't (though I came pretty close). I have just been busy, busy busy with the Indie Art + Design Trunk Show that was last weekend. Then I got sick, sick sick. But now I'm on the up and up, so I figured I'd share a few photos and tell y'all about my experience.


First I want to say how much I have enjoyed the last 3 weeks. This is the first time I've ever focused solely on my personal work, and I loved every minute of it. I have never felt so inspired! Just doing all of the things I want to do, and think about non-stop was so rewarding. Usually, as I'm working on my freelance design work, my mind is trucking along, spouting idea after idea at me. What torture that is, knowing I can't pursue most of those ideas! But November was different. It was all about me and making the stuff I want to make.

I'll admit - it was pretty scary, going a month without any income from my freelance design gig. But I was hoping that I'd make at least a little dough with the Trunk Show, and it would be somewhat justified.


My goal for the Trunk Show was to have a good mix of stuff, to show my range of capabilities. I didn't have a lot of inventory to start with, just a few Fuzzies and a couple totes. I needed a strategy for production. I decided to split my day into thirds: During the morning, while Stella was at school I focused on screen printing. (And this meant I had to finish setting up my screen printing studio in the basement!) A couple hours in the afternoon, while Stella napped, was dedicated to new Fuzzy production. And then the wee hours of the night, after everyone was in bed, was mostly for working on custom Fuzzy orders (non-Trunk Show-related).

I decided I'd go with this production schedule until a few days prior to the show, then at that point I'd switch gears and start focusing on the finishing details, such as packaging, hangtags, mounting, etc. Then, the night before the show I selected my favorite personal illustrations from the last year or so to print on my fancy new Epson printer. This was the first time I've ever printed them out! They looked just as pretty in real life than they did on the screen.


My space at the show was pretty limited (I was against the backside of a fireplace), so I knew I had to work vertically to make the most of the narrow room. Unlike my show experience in July, I wanted the Fuzzies to be out in the open, not crunched into some crates. Sandwiching some pegboards against the brick wall allowed me to hang the Fuzzies over my table. I really like the presentation, though I need to figure out a good way to hang them. For this show, I looped yarn under their armpits (or highest catch-point) and hung them from a hook. This worked better on some than others. The Fuzzies with a low center of gravity tended to lean forward off the wall. It worked for the time being, but I might start sewing a temporary loop into the top of their heads that can be cut off after purchase.

photo courtesy of Prozan McGlinn

One thing I improved with this show was my use of Square. Last time I couldn't figure out how to enter multiple items under one sale (on my iPhone...I think it's possible on an iPad). So I utilized a sales receipt book where I manually entered every item, totaled it, figured out tax, THEN entered that number into Square to finalize the transaction. It took a little longer, but in the end, I really liked having paper copies of all my receipts with the names of all the purchases and the names of the customers. It made my bookkeeping a breeze.

For the show I ended up with 3 new large Fuzzies (plus the 3 circus Fuzzies who were featured in STUFFED Magazine), 11 new Runts, a 2012 calendar featuring a new illustration, new striped floral totes, a new floral screen print (in 5 color options!) and new screen printed holiday cards on Kraft or white. Plus some of my old screen prints, totes, greeting cards and illustrations. It was a pretty good variety and I couldn't be more pleased.

Though I did fairly well, I didn't sell everything, so within the next few days I will be adding lots of new items to my shops. Yay! Just in time for your holiday shopping.

And...there will probably be a sweet deal in said shops to celebrate Cyber Monday, so be sure to check back for the secret code!

Hooray!

Indie Art + Design Trunk Show

I realize it has been pretty quiet here lately - I want to assure you it's not for lack of creativity or projects - I've been more busy than ever!


In addition to finishing up some major graphic design projects, I've been humming away in my studio creating product for an upcoming art show: The Indie Art + Design Trunk Show!

In less than 2 weeks I will be joined by 7 other fabulous local artists who will be selling our wares in preparation for the upcoming holidays.


In addition to what you can currently find in my Bluestar Ink shop and Bluestar Fuzzies shop, I will also have lots of NEW product! There will be oodles of new Fuzzies, new prints, new illustrations, new greeting cards and {hopefully} a couple new bags. I found some amazing fabric for said bags, I'm just hoping I have enough time to produce them - because in my head they are SWEET!  :-)


So if you're in the Madison area the Saturday before Thanksgiving, stop by! You will not be disappointed. 


For more info, check out our informational site and our Facebook events page.


Hope to see you there!

Halloween 2011 {Batgirl}

Over the last couple months, there has been a lot of talk about Halloween costumes in our house. For the first time, Stella was really getting into it, because I think she finally grasped the whole concept of dressing up in a costume for trick-or-treating. Given her current obsession with all things Disney Princess (!!!), we were sure she was going to pick one of them as her inspiration. Which would have been fine, but I had decided I was not going to make a princess dress, since they are so accessible this time of year. After going through the Princess line-up several times, she finally landed on Batgirl. And it stuck.


Now I can't tell you how excited Stephen and I were about this choice. It was so rad! Though we doubted her excitement would last until Halloween. But it did! Batgirl was here to stay. With her 'batty' choice, I figured I could definitely pull off making her costume. It probably wouldn't top last year's, but she wouldn't mind, right?

I was able to use a lot of regular clothing as the base of her costume: a long-sleeved black shirt, black leggings, a black knit hat, pink gloves, a pink belt and pink socks. Then I just appliqued a few pink bats, added some ears to the hat and threw together a cape. And there we have it - Batgirl!


Though the pink metallic material looks awesome, it kinda sucked to work with. Or maybe it was the light, crunchy nature of it compared to the heavy, stretchy knit that I was pairing it with. Either way, I learned a lot about those two fabrics - and they don't really like each other. And I didn't like them very much towards the end of making that cape. After only a few curse words, it all ended up working out in the end.


Stella had lots of fun wearing her costume, which validated all the hard work that went into it. Plus, she got some super-cool pink Chucks out of the deal, too! What kid wouldn't love that?


I'll leave you with this tender moment between cat and bat:

Did you all have a fun Halloween? Any good costumes? For handing out candy, I wore a neon blue wig under a witch's hat and painted my lips black. It was fun. I actually scared a couple kids which is always a bonus, right?


Cheers!

Desktop Calendar {November 2011}

Wowsers! Can you believe it's November already?

Well, it is. And since it's the 1st of the month, I present to you the November 2011 Desktop calendar:

Living in our new house, I've been loving all of the fallen leaves. That was one of our prerequisites of finding a house - there had to be at least ONE mature tree in our yard. And this house has several...which means LOTS of raking! But I don't mind. I actually enjoy it!

And, once again, the outfit was inspired by one of the JCrew outfits in the new catalog (page 009). I figured it was perfect for a cold, blustery November day!

You can also download the calendar here.

Please note that this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.