Photos from the Beach, Good Morning America, and other news

Here are a few photos from our recent anniversary trip to the Oregon Coast. We had such a nice time - the weather was warm, sunny, and gorgeous. It was a very much-needed vacation - something we haven't done since our honeymoon 13 years ago.

In other news:

• I have added some of my spring line items to my Etsy shop - including new bowls and cuffs. Click over and have a look!
• I received a wholesale order from Frock - my Basic Black cuffs are now available there. Check out this awesome boutique at 1429 NE Alberta in Portland.
• The band played a fun inauguration party Tuesday night at Backspace here in PDX. If you haven't heard our tunes yet, have a listen on myspace: http://myspace.com/dartgun or http://myspace.com/andthevignettes. We were supposed to play a show last night up in Longview, WA but cancelled because Chuck got sick. Next show: Saturday, Feb. 7 at the Know, 2026 NE Alberta.
• One of my Feng Shui Mirrors made from an upcycled vinyl 45 rpm record (this purple one from Trillium's shop on World of Good by eBay) was actually seen on Good Morning America! They did a "Just one Thing" segment on eco-friendly decoration tips for the Obama girls' rooms in the White House, and included my little mirror. Here's a link to the video. You can't see it that well, but it's there! Here are a couple of screen shots:

Pretty cool, huh?

Eye Pop Art has also recently been featured by Artsy Rubbish and Green Living on Squidoo.

A sneak peek at Spring

Happy new year! It's been a while since I've posted here, mainly because I've been working my butt off getting ready to exhibit at the Portland Gift and Accessories Show, which kicks off tomorrow morning at 9 am at the Oregon Convention Center and ends on Tuesday afternoon. It's my first wholesale show and although it has been borderline-nightmarishly stressful trying to pull it off, I am super excited about it and hope to get lots of orders to keep me busy for a while.

I've designed a new line for spring and here are some photos of the new items, including clocks, bowls, mirrors, and cuffs. I based the colors on the Pantone Spring 2009 Color Report. The photos don't look as good as I'd like, mostly because I have been very short on time and haven't been able to do the usual hours and hours of editing. They look good enough on my new line sheets (I hope!).

I am sharing a Trillium Artisans booth with five other artists - Amanda from Bread and Badger, Jacob from Ex Libris Anonymous, Kori from Flipside Hats, Lacey from and Sometimes Y, and Emily from Sword + Fern.

In other news, Dartgun & The Vignettes are playing a big show tonight at Kelly's Olympian at 426 SW Washington in downtown Portland. Show starts at 10. Come check us out!

I'm wildly excited about a potential opportunity to have one of my Feng Shui Mirrors (this one) featured in a segment on Good Morning America next Friday! The wonderful folks at WorldofGood.com requested a couple of items from Trillium (including my mirror!) which will possibly be included in a segment around "greening" the Obama girls' bedrooms! How cool would that be? There's no guarantee that they'll use it, but there is HOPE! Keep your fingers crossed for me, please.

I celebrated my 35th birthday on Monday (yep, I'm old) and was thrilled to find my Goth Clock in Vampire Red and Black feautured in the Etsy Finds. What a great birthday present.

I will be updating this blog this weekend with pictures from the trade show - see you soon!

Check out Trillium Artisans

One of the aspects of my job at Trillium Artisans that I enjoy the most is getting to work on the website and the collective Etsy shop.

We've contracted with local jewelry artist Lisa Gastelum of TQB Designs to do our product photography, and the results have been amazing! We've also added a whole bunch of new artisans to our group in the last couple of months, and I've just been so impressed by the quality of work that everyone is doing. Such great items made from recycled materials!

Please visit our newly updated shop to see more. I think the three pieces above all go really well together. It's like a combo of the perfect eco-friendly bridal jewelry (made with vintage buttons and beads) AND a perfect wedding gift (the cool bike clock).

In the upcoming months, I will be working on helping individual artisans with fun stuff like setting up Etsy shops, using Constant Contact for email marketing, using Photoshop, setting up blogs, and more. The fab Sister Diane will be teaching a craft blogging class for us at the end of this month - I'm stoked!

Trillium has received funding from the eBay Foundation for our "PDX Green Crafts" project, which involves training and resources designed to increase the internet and technical skills of our artisans so they can make money selling their work online. What a fun job I have!

You can learn more about PDX Green Crafts by visiting Trillium's profile and blog on WorldofGood.com, a new eBay community which will be launching a fair trade marketplace later this year.