Etsy basics: take our classes at DIY Lounge

This is my friend LeBrie Rich, the Duchess of Felt. LeBrie and I are co-teachers of a series of classes about how to use Etsy.com, which we teach for the DIY Lounge at collage. Here are some pictures from our recent "Etsy Basics" class. We've also added a new class - Etsy Part Two, to provide a more in-depth look at ways to market your Etsy shop.

If you are interested in taking these classes this summer, please visit the DIY Lounge website's Business Class listings.

Etsy Part Two is scheduled for Thursday, July 16 at 6 pm at the SE Woodstock collage location. Please click here for details and to register.

Etsy Basics is scheduled for Monday, August 17. Please click here for details and to register.

The Duniway Dragonian Blog Banner Hall of Fame

I so wish I could share with you the amazing ("impressive," as the school secretary said) blog that the kids at Duniway School (mostly third graders) are creating in my DIY Lounge-sponsored Cool School class, Duniway Dragonian: Blogging for the 21st Century, Kid Style.

I can't share the link because it is a password-protected blog for Duniway families only, but I can share this - the Duniway Dragonian Blog Banner Hall of Fame! Back when it was a printed 8-page old-style analog school newspaper (which I taught in the 2007-08 school year, publishing four issues per year before hitting on the idea of making it a blog instead), we called these banners "mastheads," of course. I've put together a collection of all the mastheads/banners that the kids have created since I've been the journalism teacher and am sharing them here.

Above is the most current design, and may I mention how exciting it is to be able to do these in color now! (In the old "black and white days" of the school newspaper this was not an option because of the printing cost.)

February - March 2009

May-June 2008

March 2008

Winter 2007-08

Winter 2007-08 (back page version)

Fall 2007

Fall 2007 (back page version)

This class has been going really well and I am thoroughly enjoying just about every aspect of it (the main exception being that I really don't like using typepad, but it was my only option for creating a password-protected blog).

In case you are wondering, "What do third graders blog about?", here are some of the topics that they have chosen this year:

• The movie Coraline
• Book reviews on Indie Kidd, Esperanza Rising, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the dictionary (yes, these kids READ!)
• The Portland Trail Blazers' Rudy Fernandez
• The internet game Poptropica
• Restaurant reviews of Bellagios Pizza, Sweet Tomatoes, and Otto's Sausage Kitchen
• Field trips to places like the Oregon Humane Society
• Duniway events and fundraisers like the talent show, the canned food drive, the auction, and the book fair
• Interviews with friends and teachers
• Ice skating at Lloyd Center
• Horse riding at Fir Hollow and Quiet Rein
• Spring soccer
• Politics, the economy & the war on terror (including a video interview with a Reed College political science professor)
• Barack Obama
• Favorite pets (like chickens!)
• Bugs, bugs, and more bugs
• Comics, illustrations, and much more

All the photos are taken by the kids, and all the stories are written by them (I do quite a bit of editing, of course). We also did a group interview with some fifth grade boys who are in an awesome (and gigging!) rock band called the DiJiTs, and I'm working on writing up that story right now. I also work with them on typepad to show them how to upload photos, create links, and post their stories. They are doing an amazing job!

Speaking of Duniway, guess what - the annual student art show is going on next week! If you read the series I wrote on Etsy's blog (the Storque) - Parents Teach Art and Parents Teach Art Part 2 - you may be interested in checking this out, so if you are in the Portland area, I highly recommend it!

It's free and open to the public on Wednesday, April 29 and Thursday, April 30 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm at Duniway Elementary School, 7700 SE Reed College Place in Portland, Oregon. On-site activities will include having a portrait drawn by student artists, a hands-on clay table, and music performed by the DiJiTs!

Art Camp, Day 1: Self Portraits

This week I am teaching after-school drawing and painting classes to 3rd - 5th graders for a camp that the DIY Lounge is running at Buckman Arts Focus School, along with the fab Cathy Pitters who is teaching fiber arts to the younger kids (they are making the cutest little monster dolls!).

For the first day, I set up a table in the school's Dance Studio (formerly known as a gym) so that the kids could face the mirrored walls and create self portraits which were colored with oil pastels. It turned out great and I am looking forward to the rest of the week.

Jolly Times at the Jolly Inn and Other News

Dartgun & the Vignettes played a kickass show last night at the Jolly Inn - many thanks to all those of you who came out for the show, it was a blast!

Emie was sweet enough to take the above picture, and then my stupid camera battery died! So this is all ya get.

I am working on designing some brand new clocks - I got a custom order through Grasshopper 510 in Chicago - it's just for one clock but I am going to create a small line around it for my shop, and will post pictures soon!

I also have some other weird things in the works. I went to SCRAP with Julie and bought 100 of these funky little plastic hinged pillboxes, or whatever they are. My plan is to make stickers of my mandala designs and come up with something similar to my old Mandala Travel Tins, which sold out a while ago and have been discontinued.
So far I'm not satisfied with the process. My original idea was to glue a little round mirror to the inside of the lid, but I can't seem to find the right size of mirror, and I think the size I got is too small. I'm lining the bottom of the insides with a circle of felt - I found some felt with adhesive backing, so that makes it easy, but I had a surprisingly difficult time making a circle template of the right size! Then I finally realized I could draw the circle on the computer and print it out. Duh!

I also thought I would collage the images onto the lids, instead of doing stickers, so it would have a more protective and long-lasting finish. But the prints didn't turn out that great and the stuff I used to coat them doesn't look so hot either. So I'm kind of stuck on that. Ideally I would have laminated stickers, or laser printed stickers at least. I guess I need to go to Kinko's but I don't think they carry glossy sticker paper for color copies...

Anyway here are a couple of prototypes. (Earrings by my good friend Elizabeth Etchepare of Artifacts International - they're actually Chuck's earrings by the way.)

Your thoughts and suggestions for this project are most welcome! I am pretty clueless about things like what glue to use for collaging and stuff.

I have finished a couple more Mandala Record Bowls too - may I introduce Rockabilly and Purple Purple?
What else is going on? I've mostly just been enjoying the hot summer days, hanging out in the backyard, getting some sun and relaxing in the pool! Julius turned 12 this month and Tangereen is planning her 14th birthday party.

I've been working on fun stuff at Trillium - recruiting new artisans, creating newsletters, listing stuff for our new online venture that is launching in August - we'll be selling on the all-new WorldofGood.com, an eBay marketplace - and working with some ladies who will be giving our retail store a feng shui makeover!

I'm also working with LeBrie on a "How to Sell on Etsy" workshop that we plan to offer at the DIY Lounge this fall.

I joined a new yahoo group called Mandala Oasis, which has been inspiring, and I am going to be interviewed by a researcher at Portland State University who is working on a book about Portland's artisan economy - that should be interesting.

So that's all my news, off to work on my new clocks!

Happy Campers - more photos from art camp

Here are some more of my favorite pictures from last week's summer art camp at Buckman Arts Focus Elementary School.




Besides working with clay to make these adorable animals, creatures, and vessels, the kids also did some printmaking...
...and here they are doing the "Surprise Sgraffito" lesson, which involves covering a piece of paper with lots of different colors using crayons, painting over it with black paint, and scratching through the wet paint with tools to create a picture or design.

Preparing for my LIVE TV debut!

When you tape a show for HGTV, you go through six hours of filming to get 15 minutes of on-screen love. Not so for live TV! I will learn more about how that works TOMORROW when I will appear on the set of AM Northwest, a popular local morning news show on KATU in Portland (channel 2! 9 am!).

From time to time, teachers from the DIY Lounge are invited onto the show to demonstrate crafts and promote their classes (my friend Linda Womack recently demonstrated her beeswax collage).

I am teaching a kids art class on Saturday mornings starting this weekend, so when I was invited on the show, I decided to come up with a project that kids can do. I rounded up my daughter and one of her friends (they are 8th graders), and the three of us will be in the spotlight for five whole minutes tomorrow morning, making some fun Valentine's Day cards using simple printmaking techniques.

Now, as you probably know, I am totally NOT a printmaker and I have never even done this before, but I did help to modify the 4th grade Pop Art lesson at Duniway School last year, when we switched it to a printmaking class. I also helped out a couple of weeks ago in Julius's science class at Da Vinci - the kids were making animal prints and it was so easy and fun I figured I could do it too. But please bear in mind that this is designed to be a project for young people and I am not claiming to be a big expert on printmaking!

If you happen to watch the show, let me know! I will hopefully be able to post a link to the show some time after it airs.

Here's the project if you'd like to try it:

The materials you'll need:

I am using Speedball brand "Speedy Kut." It comes in small pieces for about $3 each. You can actually use both sides so it's like getting two for the price of one. You'll also need some water soluble block printing ink (I am using red and magenta), linoleum cutters, brayers to roll the ink, something to roll the ink out on (I am using some pieces of Plexiglass), and some cardstock to print on. I scored mine first to make it easy to fold.

Start carving your design into the Speedy-Kut using a linoleum cutting tool. I started out by making a heart and then somehow or other it took on the face of a cat. Oh, well. I was also planning on doing some sort of heart-based mandala design, but instead it came out rather abstract and strange.





If you want to add any words, you have to make sure to write them backward, as your print will be a mirror image of your design.

Squirt some ink out onto your Plexiglass tray (you could even do it directly on a table top as it washes up with water).

Roll it out. You will hear a nice squishing sound. Your purpose is to get your brayer coated with the ink.

Now roll your ink-coated brayer over your carved block. Coat it completely.




Place your cardstock over your inked block and press down on it by rolling it with another brayer. Make sure you rub it down all the way to the edges.

Pull the print!

You can keep inking and printing until you make all 24 Valentines that your kid needs to take to school on February 14!

You can also blot the ink or let it dry on the block and then recoat it with a different color for your next run! And, you can mix colors or layer them in weird ways. You could also embellish your cards by drawing on them with markers ( a black line might look nice) or adding glitter or whatnot. Add matching envelopes and you're set to go!

The finished size of my card when folded is 4.25" x 5.5" so you can get two cards out of a regular size 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock cut in half to 8.5" x 5.5" and scored at 4.25". Try to use recycled or reclaimed paper if you can - if you are in Portland check out SCRAP for amazing deals on salvaged paper. The paper I used for this project was all "end cuts" that were donated to Trillium Artisans by a print shop.

There is also a great way to do this project for younger kids. You just give them blocks of styrofoam and they can impress their design with a pencil. Styrofoam is really bad for the environment so only do this if you have some old styrofoam picnic plates sitting in a cupboard - please don't buy it new!