1.  Beachchik  2. JWLeGrand  3. LunarLounge  4. Siriusfnord  5. EtceteraMedia  6. Seth Rolland  7. Jean Pelle  8. ArtIs3Letters

I love the idea of having a home filled with beautiful handcrafted furnishings and decor.  My personal taste is all over the place, so I imagine that someday I’ll have a rather ecclectic collection of artwork and furniture.  This particular collection encompasses so many styles and features that I love – the modern lines and warm glow of Seth Rolland’s table and Jean Pelle’s candle holders; the clean, geometric shapes of  Lunar Lounge’s love seat and JWLeGrand’s concrete sink; the vintage (but not overly girly or frilly) look of the letter plaques from Beachchik, a fellow EtsyNJ member; Etceteramedia’s use of sturdy, industrial felt in their pillows; and the innovative designs of Siriusfnord’s glass bowls and Art Is 3 Letter’s Map on a Stick series.

I do hope you will check out the shops and websites of these talented artists!

This week marks my first week as an almost fully self-employed jewelry designer!  I officially ended my full-time position at the non-profit in Princeton that I have been working at for almost a year and a half last week.  I’m still working there part-time, but going forward, the majority of my waking hours will now be devoted to making jewelry, developing new designs and learning new techniques. 

I’m really excited about this new direction that I’m going in, so to mark this occassion, I’m having a weekend sale!  From 12:00am Saturday, Sept. 6th, to midnight Sunday, Sept. 7th, some of my best-sellers will be marked down 20% in my Etsy shop.  The sale will be limited to items that are in stock and ready to ship, so I’ll be able to get them out the door ahead of my trip to Kansas on the 11th.  So stop by this weekend, and tell all your friends!

Speaking of going places, my trip to Kansas is from the 11th to the 17th.  I’ll be hanging out with my family, going to a Laurie Anderson performance and checking out my mom’s artwork at the Strecker-Nelson Gallery in Manhattan, KS.

I just happened upon a treasury on Etsy the other day. I wasn’t expecting it at all, but the little box at the bottom of the page suddenly opened up and said “Create a tresury!” OK, fine, I will, if you insist. So I named the treasury “Ok, Fine…” in response to the demand that I create one. It was only after looking through my favorites, wondering what to fill the twelve little boxes with, that I realized that a lot of my favorite items have similar characteristics: fine lines and lots of little details.

I love repeated patterns, and the smaller the better when it comes to details and embellishments. These great artists and creators capture those qualities – click the link below to check out their work before this treasury expires on Tuesday!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=35431

This is one of my favorite collage photos. It’s not a ‘photo collage’ but rather a photo of a collage (see the flickr post for an explanation of the process). It dates from sometime in 2003, either just before or just after the mess in Iraq got started.

I have several other similar pieces, and I’m now wondering if I should offer them in my Etsy shop. Better yet, should I open a new shop specifically for prints? I think that AntiGenre has started to develop a fairly unified look and feel (um, does that mean I’ll have to change my name?), and I’m not sure if I want to diversify and risk cluttering it up. I also have a bunch of intersting things I could sell as supplies: sea glass from the beaches in Japan, vintage and antique kimono fabric, stones, beads, my own handmade headpins and hoops….

Lots of people have more than one store on Etsy. Does anyone have three or more? What’s the highest number of shops held by one owner?

Then subscribe to the Pilot Mail Art Project!  Pilot – founded in part by my brother-in-law, Reuben McLaughlin -  is a collective of artists and writers based in Toronto, CA, whose goal is to assist other writers and artists by developing a strong community and by creating exposure and access to markets.  

To date, they have published three Pilot Pocket Books, collections of writings enhanced with illustrations done by talented artists.   The books are available at several locations in Toronto, including Pages, Book City in the Beaches, and This Ain’t The Rosedale Library. Order forms for the books can be found on Pilot’s homepage.

The Pilot Mail Art Project offers 6- and 12-month subscriptions; subscribers receive a piece of original artwork each month.   My husband and I have received several beautiful prints so far and are looking forward to getting more.  The project is an inexpensive way to get some great pieces of artwork and to support some truly talented people!