Category Archives: crafty

Friday 5.3

Artomatic alum/Post Secret superstar Frank Warren is speaking tonight at Lisner auditorium:

Literature Frank Warren on PostSecret The Germantown-based creator of the PostSecret project encouraged people to write out their deepest secrets on postcards and drop them in the mail to him — and here’s the thing: They did. Warren, who has compiled several books collecting the confessions (which range from funny to tragic), visits George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium tonight to talk about the project and his work in suicide awareness. $10; GWU students $7. 7:30 p.m. Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St. NW. 202-397-7328 or visit the Lisner box office, 202-994-6800.

There are lots of ways to use the web to reach your audience. If you want to use your art/craft/project website to propel yourself to superstardom, sitting at home whining that it’s not fair that Frank gets all the attention isn’t really the path. You’re going to have to do lots of behind the scenes work. Fortunately for you, there’s no one right answer.

If you’re doing the etsy thing and you haven’t bookmarked Tina Seamonster’s project, Hello Craft, you really should. Lots of great info there.

You should also consider hitting up an event Tina posted about earlier this week. The Creative Alliance is hosting this event in Baltimore on Sunday:

The Business of Craft (Presented by The Baltimore ETSY Street Team)

Sun Jan 25. 10am-2:30pm.
Adv reg $25, $20 CA & BEST mbrs. Walk-in $30, $25 CA & BEST mbrs. Includes lunch.
Practical information for the creative entrepreneur featuring roundtable discussions led by experts on legal and accounting basics; marketing, wholesale and pricing; and looking your best– on the web and in promo photos. Speakers include: Cynthia Blake Sanders, MD Lawyers for the Arts; Rebecca Cason, former director of the Buyer’s Market of American Craft; Jen Menkhaus, working crafter and one of the founders of the Baltimore Street Team, as well as a professional photographer, accountant, and web designer. Over lunch, get connected with other local artists and crafters to make new friends, show off your work, and share ideas.

The directions and registration info are at that link.

I’ve gotten lots of requests for legal and technical panels or workshops for next Artomatic related to showing or selling your work online. I’m keeping a list of suggested topics, so keep sending them my way. I’m not going to manage the workshops but I’m sure I’ll be helping out or at least putting out feelers for good speakers or presenters.

But back to Hello Craft – Tina reports that Etsy has at long last integrated Google Analytics into the stores and she links to the tutorial to help crafters use the tool effectively.

And now, back to the original topic: Post Secret. CBS still has the full episode available on-line of the fall episode of CSI: NY, titled “Dead Inside”. That’s the episode wherein a murder leads to “an art-house project called SecretU” where an artist posts anonymous confessions mailed to her on artsy post-cards.

Friday Five: fabric edition (mostly)

Thanks to JenInMaine, I’ve been coveting some fabrics by Amy Butler. Which ones? All of them, I think.

If you love quilting-weight cotton you can always have your own designs printed on-demand by spoonflower. I’m lazy so I haven’t ordered any, but it’s a very nice idea.

I’ve been coveting Jenae Michelle’s amazing purses, hand-crafted with gorgeous vintage wool. She had her summer line of super-cute quilted bags marked way down last I saw her at the Downtown Holiday Market, but I’m holding out for one of this winter’s bags. You really need to see them in person to appreciate the depth of the textures and the luxuriousness of the fabrics. Plus, you get the added bonus of a surprise each time you open a bag, because the linings are as beautiful as the exteriors. She’s also at the Torpedo Factory and Eastern Market.

As I was writing this post I clicked over to panda head, a local fashion blog, to find a post from last week I wanted to link to in the fabric round-up. I immediately got derailed by this post about local artist Johanna Mueller, who is not a fabric designer. I was just introduced to her at the Sackler Museum by Michele while we were checking out the Garden and Cosmos: the Royal Paintings of Jodphur at the Sackler Gallery. Small strange world.

Now I’ve been derailed from my original subject, and more specifically from the last link that I picked for today’s post, ecostilleto’s list of Things that Suck. Cotton’s on the list, so maybe I didn’t end up as far afield as I thought.

bloggity, blog, blog

Rather ironic that I’m off to a blogging conference at a time when my blog has been full of so much fluff. Fluffier fluff than usual, even. My deranged determination to not fail the blog365 challenge has led to some pretty lite posts, I know, but I’d like a gold star for not missing any days throughout kidney surgery and that demonic respiratory virus earlier this month and, last but not least, the ruptured tendon that made typing less than enjoyable for the last few weeks.

Wait, no, I haven’t soldiered on because of blog365, I did it because I love you, my loyal readers. It’s all about you, lieblings. It’s always all about you. I do this for you, and only you.

Yeah, right.

OK. So, while I’m gone, here’s the Washington Post’s Sunday Source piece on thrift shopping.

Incidentally, if you wear an 8 1/2 or 9 and have very skinny calves – last week Veronica and I spotted a divine pair of high-heeled, tall, red leather boots at the first store they mention, Look Again Resale (900 King St., Alexandria).

But I digress. The point of this post is to direct you to a couple of the very fun thrifting blogs they gave a little well-deserved love to in one of the article’s sidebars. My favorites are Righteous (re)Style and the DC Goodwill Fashion Blog.

This all comes full circle, at least in my mind, since I thought BlogHer DC was Tuesday, and I’d be able to fit a quick trip to Goodwill into my day on Monday to drop a few bags of clothes off that are ready to find a new home. On the upside, now my Tuesday is pretty wide open…

glass show at Maurine Littleton Gallery

A very nice show opened last night at the Maurine Littleton Gallery on Wisconsin Avenue (Georgetown). The show is all new glass work by Allegra Marquart, Michael Janis, and Tim Tate. The show is up until October 18th, when it moves to SOFA (Sculptural Art and Functional Objects) in Chicago for the month of November. You can visit the website of the Washington Glass School and Washington Glass Studios for more information about all three of these artists. It was a rainy, crappy evening but it was worth the trip.

We missed Crafty Bastards but ran into a friend at the opening who gave us one of the best capsule reviews ever, “It was hot, it was crowded, and I bought a cookie cutter shaped like a fetus.”