Monday, January 31, 2011

Today is 'Inspire Your Heart with Art' Day!





Today is...
"Inspire Your Heart With Art" Day!

As near as I can tell...the first 'Inspire Your Heart With Art' Day
was back in 2001...
Odd that I'm only now learning about it...
and that was from someone posting
a comment on Jaime's Facebook page.

Pretty much all of my Creeper paintings and prints have
'hearts' in them...so...as well as having a Print Sale
that I extended through today....
All of the paintings...with hearts...are on Sale too!
I hope I can...
'Inspire someone's Heart with my Art':)


Saturday, January 29, 2011

A new 'Zodiac' Series





It is really amazing what a few days 'off' can do.


I've got a new 'style' painting series in the works...
and I'm working on two new pieces in this style.

I painted seven new ACEO paintings.

I got COMPLETELY caught up.

And...
I decided to do a new 
'Zodiac Goth Girl' series.
(I decided this before I read about the 13th sign...
which I've opted to just 'ignore'.)
Since I can remember there have only been 12 signs...
so I'm sticking with those.

is the first in the series.
I've included all of the symbolism that goes with the sign...

Element - Earth
Quality - Cardinal
Ruler - Saturn
Symbol - Goat

It was just so much fun creating this piece...
I'll be doing
one each month...
February's sign is...
Aquarius
and I hope to have it listed
early February.

Friday, January 28, 2011

January ACEO Paintings





During my 'vacation' ...
I worked first on getting my missing Internationals
remade and shipped...
got all caught up on the rest of my shipping...
painted a few new paintings
AND
I reviewed my Etsy Shop
from Day #1.

I started my Shop with a few prints and a handful of
ACEO paintings.

Over time I stopped doing ACEOs...almost entirely.

I wasn't sure what to do with the canvas scraps left over
from the Art Covers...sooo...
I decided I would start painting ACEOs again.
At least a few new pieces every month.

These are my January ACEOs....
"When You're Gone"

"I'll Put It Away...Until I Need It"

"Fly Away From Here"

"Don't Play With Scissors"

"Stronger Everyday"

"Far Away From the World"

"Hoot"

Thursday, January 27, 2011

All That Scrap Interview


"All That Scrap" is a wonderful blog
and the lovely Kristin
asked me to do an interview for her first
'Thursday Artist Feature'...

Talk about bad timing...I put my Shop on vacation
the same week the interview was featured on the blog....
(Sorry Kristin.)

Seems like there are always reasons that I can't put my shop on vacation...
so just had to make a judgment call and 
'save my sanity'.

But...I wanted to share the interview...
even if it is a week late...

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I'm Back....





I'm finally back....
wished I could say,
'from a wonderful vacation'...
you know, the kind other people take
when they actually leave their homes and go 'someplace'...
but
it was a good 'vacation'...just in being able to get
100% caught up!

And...I was able to use a couple of those days...to paint something
very different from my usual 'fare'.
This painting, 'Masquerade' took me a couple of days to complete...
and I really like how it turned out.
It's done in my own 'style' but with very different subject
matter.
I'll be doing more pieces similar to this one in the
coming days and weeks.



Here's a painting I did before the 'Masquerade' piece...
it's not as heavily textured...
'...and she thought...'
Grandma..what big ears you have.
A new 'Red Riding Hood' piece.

Friday, January 21, 2011

It's Been a Strange Week!


Anyone who visits my Etsy Shop
probably knows, by now, that I'm "on vacation!"

I Wished I were on vacation...just kicking back and relaxing.
Instead...I've been remaking/reprinting all of the
International orders that never reached their destinations,
as well as everything else that has been ordered since.
After getting so many notes about missing packages...
and with business as slow as it's been..
it just seemed like the best solution for me was
to just pull everything in the Shop and put it 'on vacation',
so I could get EVERYTHING printed,
made, packaged and shipped
all at once!

So...that's what I've been doing.
I won't reopen until ALL of my packages are
on their way to their respective owners.

In the meantime...
I've made some other decisions.

As per my last post...
all of my International packages will have to be
sent Priority mail from now on.
The first class International mailings were just too stressful, on so many levels.
There is really no good way to track those packages and
they are the only ones that I have to actually take to the post office.
Since I don't have a car...that has always been problematic for me.
Either I have to send them with someone else or get someone to take me
and the packages to the post office.
(It all worked fine until Ryan moved to North Dakota. Now I have to wait
until one of my other kids have some time in their own busy schedules
to do it for me.)
Can we see the timing issues in this arrangement???

Anyway....that problem solved...and I do apologize to my
International friends, as there are some items that won't be available
for International shipping (like the Tile pendants or mini prints)

Another decision I made...
I no longer offer bookmarks...
for reasons similar to shipping.
These have to be laminated 
(another thing Ryan did for me each week)
and so I have to wait until I get them from Jaime and then
find a way to get to Staples to get them laminated.
Just too much trouble for me at this time.

I'm cutting back on everything in the Etsy Shop...to make it a bit more
manageable.
I've put all of my 'non-character' paintings in my
CMZ Art Bonanza Shop
and I'll be giving a lot more attention to this shop and some
of the other shops that are really needing my attention,
which means that I won't be listing new items as frequently
in my Etsy Shop.

 Hopefully all of the work I've done this week will make my 
life...and my business...a lot easier to manage
when I reopen the Shop next week.
 



Monday, January 17, 2011

Some Shipping Changes





It seems that the International First Class
Shipping problems I encountered over the Holidays,
just won't go away.
Even my Post Office can't give me an explanation
as to why the packages seemed to have just disappeared.

Most of them get to Jericho NY and then all tracking information stops.
A couple packages took more than 2 weeks JUST to get to NY.

So....I've done away with all International First Class Shipping.

I only encountered one or two problems with the
International Priority Flat Rate packages...
and those were all very trackable.

From this point on...
I don't offer International shipping on
 Scrabble Tile pendants,
bookmarks
and mini prints.

International shipping has been upgraded to
Priority or Flat Rate Priority on everything else.

It's just costing me too much money to redo and reship all
the packages that have already been shipped once.
The post office have offered no help...
and I have to run all First Class packages to the Post Office in person.

So...it just makes sense to me
to be able to ship the International packages at the same time
I ship everything else..
and the only way I can do that
is through Priority Shipping.