And the winner is…

CHOCOLATE & DUSTY BLUE

suggested by Splendid Things

Well done Splendid Things, a set of notecards in your design will be winging it’s way to you very soon! Thanks to everyone who voted!

Another Etsy Treasury!

My work was featured in another Etsy Treasury this week. Many, many thanks to theBeadAerie for choosing my Wooden Heart greetings card for the ‘Natural+Earthy = BeeOooTeeFul’ picks!

Etsy Treasury UK

A nice surprise...

A big thank you to Belinda over at Shop Handmade UK for including one of my pieces in her latest all UK Etsy Treasury. In case you’re wondering, that’s my Spiral Doodle Mirror in the top row. It’s always nice to see that someone has taken a shine to something that you’ve done :D

Pick a giveaway winner!

A couple of weeks ago I asked for help with new fantastic colour combinations for my Concentricity cards (see here). Loads of ideas came in, thank you very much to everyone who spared the time to take part! I’ve worked up my favourite three ideas... and once again it’s over to you!

Take a look at the designs below and choose your favourite by clicking the relevant box in the poll (top right!)

The winner will see their design in print and receive a set of the finished note cards! 

Here goes…

TURQUOISE & CORAL – suggested by Digital Misfit

CROCUS – suggested by Karen @ Shamu

CHOCOLATE & DUSTY BLUE – suggested by Splendid Things

Get voting everyone!!! The winner will be announced next weekend.

My new website launched!

I stumbled upon an ‘online store’ website this week called Big Cartel and decided to give it a try to see if it actually worked. Do I need another online shop? Well the answer is a definite ‘no’ but I was wanting to get my own web address live, and after seeing some of the beautiful stores created using the Big Cartel software I was intrigued whether it could work for me.

When you sign-up for a store you can choose from three packages, I’ve opted for the Gold package because it’s free. The downside is that you can only have five products in your shop, but as a trial store I’m very impressed. There’s very little editability with this trial package, but it’s a great way of finding out how to use the site.

If you choose the top ‘Diamond’ package, you can stock up to 100 products and have complete control over your shop style and layout, but this would cost you $19.99 per month – I’m not quite at that level of sales yet!

Not only can you list products in your chosen currency, but you can specify drop down menus for different product options (such as different sizes or colours), country specific shipping and combined shipping rates. More importantly you don’t have to pay Big Cartel any selling fees or commission if you do sell an item.

As an add-on shopping cart function for an existing site, I think that Big Cartel is a great option. Or, you could just replace your holding page like I have done, and use web diversion to your Big Cartel page...it’s an immediate solution for not having a working website! Obviously, for most ‘handmade’ sellers, sites like Coriandr and Etsy are very hard to beat in terms of value for money, but if you have a high volume of sales and your online shop needs a facelift it may be something to consider.

Click here for a link through to Big Cartel.

Coriandr Featured Seller Blog

Find out who my favourite Coriandr seller is this week...click here!

On the high street!

It’s been a busy couple of days here... I’ve been busy printing, trimming and collating a bunch of cards to sell in a local gallery. It will be the first time that my cards have been stocked on the high street, so I’m intrigued to find out how they will be received.

It’s also the first time that I’ve seen so many of my cards together in one place (as I usually only make to order), so I had to take a photograph!

I took the cards in this morning, luckily Projeto (the gallery) is only in the next village – so it’s not much of a trek! It’s a great space that sells some fantastic digital art, and Paula who owns the gallery is very friendly and welcoming. My wife is already selling her jewellery there and hopefully my cards will also fit in…here’s to the residents of Silsden ‘Digging The Earth’!!!

All Concentricity suggestions are now in!

All suggestions are now in for the Concentricity giveaway! Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to take part.

Watch this space over the next few days – I will create my favourite colour combinations from all of your entries and let everyone vote for the overall winner!

The winning entry will get to see their design in print and receive a set of the finished note cards.

New for Spring! Rainbows

I’ve added some more retro colour to my online stores this week. New for Spring, this set of four note cards carries on the retro colour explosion that started with the ‘Carousel’ cards.

Once again these have been created in Adobe Illustrator by overlaying CMYK colour bands. The variety of bright shades created, starts out completely random, so it can be a little hit and miss – but with a few tweaks some great colours can be made. I absolutely love playing around to get the right colours.

Hopefully these cards will go well with all the April showers on the horizon, and help brighten up any rainy spring days!

If you would like to see more photos and read more about these cards, just click on any of the images above.

Artisan of the Week

I just want to say a big thank you to Lynne over at Autonomous Artisans for featuring an interview with yours truly this week! Artisan of the Week, it makes me sound very grand! It’s the first one of these features that I’ve done, very enjoyable too, you can check it out here.

Autonomous Artisans mission statement is: ‘This journal ignores mass made goods in favour of the lovingly hand crafted products made by the independent artisans of the world.’ They always have some great features and it’s well worth a look, or even better…add yourself as a follower!

Etsy Treasury

A nice surprise...

A message from rachellucie over on Etsy revealed that she'd chosen some of my work for her Etsy Treasury. Great! She'd chosen the Concentricity II Mono Note Cards. Not only that, but the missus got a look in as well, with her Summer Pudding bracelet!

The Treasury was all about Yorkshire sellers (all local to Rachel who’s from Hebden Bridge) – what a creative bunch!

New Coriandr Featured Seller

My new Featured Seller post is up on Coriandr again today... click here to find out who is featured this week!

Movers and Shakers!

I’m very happy this week! A chance remark on the Etsy forum last Saturday resulted in me picking up a custom order for some moving house announcement cards. My first Etsy sale – nice! The buyer was looking for someone who made announcement cards, but wanted a UK seller as she needed them quite quickly. Never one to miss a bit of promotion, I offered to create a custom card with her new address details on...

The cards were designed on Sunday, printed, cut and folded on Monday and shipped on Tuesday.

The design is called ‘Movers & Shakers’ and was very well received (with no amends!!) – you couldn’t ask for a better customer. The feedback left was very lovely indeed :)

For anyone else who is lucky enough to be moving on the property ladder at the moment, I've now decided to list these personalised cards in my store in packs of 10 (larger or smaller quantities can be made if required!). Just click on the images above for a direct link to the store (and for more photos and information about the cards).

New for Spring! Carousel Cards

Rainbow colours are in (in a big way) for my latest work!

This design is brand new for Spring and is called ‘Carousel’. Inspired by everything Saul Bass, 50’s graphic design and 60’s film titles, I’m really pleased with the end result.

These are now available to buy as a set of four note cards (or as singles, if you contact me), but I think that these would be ideal for most occasions!

These were created in Adobe Illustrator and I love the way that overlapping and mis-registering the basic four process colours (CMYK) produces so many vibrant shades! I've already produced another couple of designs just as bright, so if you need a bit of colour therapy watch this space over the next few days!

Everything’s Gone Green (and a little bit ruby)…

I was going to twitter on about how I’d finally finished a sage green Concentricity note card just in time for the massive annual Spring ‘re-discovery’ of green etc etc… oh, but then I realised that I’d also finished a rather sumptuous rubine red card too, which kind of scuppered that!

So...here are both cards in all their glory!

I did try some multi-coloured ones, but they just looked too garish – I’m really not sure...

If anyone has any fantastic colour combo ideas, please leave a comment below!

If there are enough entries I’ll work up the best ones and post them here for public vote. The winner will see their design in print and receive a set of the final note cards.

All entries by March 13th please.

Good luck!

Coriandr Featured Seller

I blogged over on Coriandr again yesterday, this week my feature is all about Lauren Ceramics. Click here to read the full interview and see some of her lovely earthenware!

New promotion website

I was lucky enough to answer a message in the Etsy forums last week, it was from SpaLuxuries and said:

“I am creating a new website that is designed to promote artisans and crafters around the world. Your avatar image will link to your etsy shop homepage. I will Promote FOR FREE the FIRST 20 people who message on this forum. I will then email you a link to my site when it is launched so that you can be sure to check it out!! Who wants promoted for free! FIRST 20 etsians!”

Well, it worked, and my Etsy shop is featured on the home page!

It may be worth taking a look if you have any kind of craft to promote :D

Check it out here