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.

Mandala Treasury

It's April Fools Day. If you feel the need to get centered, balanced, focused, and back on track from all the insanity - have a look at some of the gorgeous mandalas in this treasury on Etsy.

Bowled over!

Yesterday I posted some pictures of my last big wholesale order, but I forgot to include this awesome group shot!

Production...

From this...

To this:

To this:
I have received a big wholesale order from BuyGreen.com. They'll be carrying lots of my bowls, clocks, and cuffs. I am just getting started on the order but thought it would be fun to post pictures from my last big order.

You can check out my work on the Buy Green site:
Clocks
Bowls
Cuffs
Mirrors

I've designed a new line of the Roman Record Cuffs just for this site. I'm pretty happy with them - here are a few of the designs:




















Now I must get busy!

Willamette Week's new Pocket Shop features local Portland Etsy sellers

One of the other guests on AM Northwest yesterday was Byron Beck from local paper Willamette Week. He was there to promote WW's brand new "Pocket Shop" shopping guide, "A guide to 259 fun and fabulous places to shop in Portland."

I asked to see it and while flipping through it I was excited to see the above picture, taken at Tender Loving Empire, which shows my Roman Record Cuffs (displayed on a funky old red-painted game piece)!

A few pages later, I was blown away to find a whole column devoted to Etsy and local Etsy sellers (including Eye Pop Art)!Here's what it says:

Web Stores
National indie entrepreneur emporium Etsy.com is a gold mine of Portland-made gifts, clothes and one-of-a-kind art. Here's a few of our favorite local Etsy finds.

Curly Girl Glass
Jewelry that runs the style gamut from sterling silver mod to ring-toss chic to downright bauble-icious, CurlyGirl plays nice with geometry and gemstones in each design.

SoHip Bags
Messenger bags with ethereal prints- and crocheted business card holders - are offered alongside cupcake-shaped luggage tags and pendants made from repurposed Manga pages.

Dolls for Friends
If the Ugly Dolls had a rager that ended in carnage, and the splattered remains of the cloth creatures were miraculously reassembled, Frankenstein-style, you would have Dolls for Friends. Strangely, they're pretty damn adorable and even appropriate for the preschool set.

Harvey & Eileen
Keep these designers on your radar for all your bridal-shower needs - their flagship image (a line-drawing representation of the uterus) endears itself to print on skivvies and postcards alike.

Eye Pop Art
Surely sacrilege to the vinyl purist, these wares are all crafted from the remains of LPs. Take your pick of striking mirrors and bracelets that are ideal if you've moved on to the almighty MP3 and never looked back.

Maya Bella
Crocheted chicks and wholly original plush-toy designs, all handcrafted as the antidote to Dolls for Friends, apparently, and perfect as a gift for the little 'un in your life.

Pretty cool, huh? But now, I'm wondering - is my work really "sacrilege to the vinyl purist"? Please take my poll (on the right column of this page) and let me know what you think!

"This is Wild!" - Mandala Records on AM Northwest

This morning I did a live craft demo on the local Portland tv show AM Northwest. It was a blast! Helen Raptis (on the left) and I had a great time painting mandalas on vinyl records (in five minutes!) Here's what Helen's mandala looked like:

In her introduction, Helen called this "one of the brightest and most unique techniques we have ever seen."

I showed off this clock during the segment:

Wanna watch the video? Click here and check it out!

New Mandala Record Clocks in the shop!

Yay! These three clocks are now available in my shop - please click here to check them out!

My original designs are hand painted using high quality acrylics on upcycled 12" vinyl LP records. Reduce, reuse, and recycle! These clocks are good for the environment. Buying one of my clocks is a great step towards going "green" for your next interior decorating purchase, or wedding or housewarming gift.

The painted records are assembled with new quartz clock movements and simple white or black clock hands. There's a heavy duty hanger on the back for hanging. The clocks take one "AA" battery and they measure 12" (30.48 cm) in diameter.

I love my clocks and hope you will too! I'm happy to take custom orders if there's a particular color scheme you'd like.