My new favorite folk artist inspires people in more ways than one

Be True
Originally uploaded by Paulette Insall

Modern Folk Art at its finest. That's what I see when I look at the art work of Paulette Insall (http://www.pauletteinsall.com/). I have seen her art on flickr and for sale in her Etsy shop and oogled (is that a word?) over it for more than a moment. I love the simplicity of it at first glance, but then I love it's complexity that becomes apparent the more you look at the work. Maybe I also love it because it is inspiring me to want to paint folk art again. It has been several years since I did anything other than abstract painting and I'm wondering why now because I really enjoy folk art painting even more.

The angel door topper is something I painted for my sister back in 1999. I have not painted anything like that since, but now I think I am ready to give it another try thanks to Paulette's inspiring work.

Paulette not only inspires with her paintings, but she is a Christian artist who is open about her faith and witnesses with her work and websites. She makes wonderful YouTube videos about her art that are backed with contemporary Christian music and I just love it.

I am so glad to have found her on the web!

Please check out her store, blogs & vlogs via her site www.pauletteinsall.com.

Birdies, Birdies Everywhere!

Hi. Hope you are having a 'tweet' day! I know I am. That's because for some unknown reason (maybe its because I wake daily to a gazzilion birds chirping at the feeder in my back yard) I have gone crazy for cute little birds lately and have incorporated them into my living room decor and also created a whole bunch of new jewelry featuring bird illustrations collaged over vintage ephemera. I am pleased to say my fondness for feathered friends must be shared by others because I have had a positive response to the jewelry. On some of the reversible glass pendants I have encased a real feather under the glass which I think is kind of fun! I have not tried this with the soldered pendants yet. I am curious to see how the feather handles the heat of the soldering iron. It's fun trying new things. Have a tweet day yourself!

Introducing our new line of vintage inspired jewelry!!

Hello, Well it has been too long since I have blogged (again I neglect you my poor ol' blog) but I have another good excuse... I have been busy working on a new line of jewelry for TreeBySea.com. Until now we have only carried fine silver jewelry. (http://www.treebysea.etsy.com/).

Just yesterday I launched a second store featuring soldered glass slide pendants, collaged ephemera pendants, and romantic victorian jewelry with swarovski crystals and antique metal.

Please visit the new store on Etsy!! http://www.treebysea2.etsy.com/. Thanks for visiting! Wish me luck!

How to Create Soldered Glass Slide Jewelry, Part 3

OK. Well, I FINALLY am going to wrap up my blogging 3-parter on soldering glass for jewelry, and with some good news! I thought I was solder challenged but it turns out I just had bum supplies. I am the proud new owner of a functioning soldering system now and armed with some real live class instruction from Lisa Blum of Simply Swank. "SS" offers a full line of soldering products and a book. I purchased the kit and several packets of glass shapes to have some fun creating beyond the 1x3 slide. Check out their website http://www.simplyswank.net/. They teach classes all over the country so look for them in a location near you in the U.S.. I recommend the class. It was very fun and had a nice relaxed "you can do this" atmosphere.

Turns out soldering is really pretty doggone easy with their kit that functions well together. In addition to the kit, I recommend the "third hand" clamp tool they sell on their site and the heat resistant surface sheet. I also got some of the wavy foil. I really like the way it looks. Something to note about foiling... use one continuous piece if possible & burnish it to the glass well or it may lift from the heat during soldering.

After wraping your glass edges in copper foil tape & burnishing it, plug in your iron. On the iron stand in the kit, there is a sponge that you should wet too. The iron gets hot pretty fast. Don't leave it sitting idol and cooking away for a long time. When it's hot and sizzles on the wet sponge, go for it. The first time you use it the blue protective coating will burn of the tip. Wipe it off on the sponge. Then roll out a few inches of solder and touch the end to the tip of the iron on both sides until a tiny bit melts to cover the tip, then wipe a few times on the sponge, leaving just a thin silver layer on the tip. This is like "seasoning" the iron. Do it every time you start it up and again before you put it away.

Put your glass in a clamp so it can sit hands free on your heat resist surface with a foiled edge up. (I recommend starting with a square piece of glass the first time as it is a bit easier.) Brush flux just on the foiled edge pointing up. Now place your iron just slightly above the far left corner of the foiled edge and press the tip of the solder on to the top side of the flat tip until a bead forms and rolls off the tip and on to the foil. Now use the tip of the iron top smoothly "paint" the solder blob from left to right with the tip just barely touching. Don't press hard or you can burn through the foil. The solder should flow like melting butter over the fluxed area. Use tweezers to reposition the glass in the clamp, flux the next side, and do the same process with the solder. Continue until all sides are soldered. You may choose to go over it again to build up a thicker bead of solder.

When you are done, you will probably want to add a bail at the top center to put a necklace through. You can use a jump ring or a metal bead with a large hole. (Note, pewter and aluminum will not work.) Don't flux this time. Just make a mound or blob of solder on the top center and let it cool. Grab the bail with plyers and position just over the top of the mound. Now touch the tip of the iron to the top of the mound. As soon as you feel it give way/melt, move the iron and push the bail into the molten solder and hold it there until the solder sets (a few seconds). If it's crooked, melt it off with the iron and start over.

You can now use a fingernail file & sand paper to smooth the solder. Then use solder polish to bring it to a shine or patina to change it to black or copper. Polish is available through "SS". Patina is available from stained glass suppliers. (Note, the patinas are pretty harsh chemicals so not for the faint of heart. Use caution.)

Pretty simple & fun stuff! Granted, to get a really nice plump and smooth bead takes practice, but you can make a perfectly wearable piece of art jewelry on your first try with the right tools and instructions! Go for it!

My New Handmade Jewelry Cards

Please forgive me for I have not crafty blogged for while which is a no no in bloggerland I know, but I am happy to report that the reason I been absent is because I have been too busy being crafty. My jewelry business (http://www.treebysea.com/) is doing pretty well and I have been working hard to get a bit of stuff made up so I have more stock on hand to be prepared for some future craft shows and some wholesale marketing I plan to do.


I have just developed my new packaging. (shown above) What do you think? So far I have had possitive feedback. Since I am a graphic designer at heart, I enjoyed creating my own cards via Photoshop CS. I printed them with my inkjet on cream colored speckled acid free recycled paper from PaperZone. I found some cool 2" reach paper punches that let me punch in the middle of the card. They are made by McGill (http://www.mcgillinc.com/shop/). They work great and make the cards look professionally die cut.

I have small circles for hanging earrings and a punch that is two 1/4 inch parallel lines that are perfect for feeding ribbon through to tie my pendant to the packaging. I also found a great resource for self-adhesive flap clear covers that really add a lot as well as protect the cards and the jewelry. Go to http://www.clearbags.com/. Great prices, customer service & quality. They come in just about EVERY size you can imagine.

I also found an easy tidy way to hang the necklaces. It's not an original idea... I have seen many manufacturers use the same technique, but it is good to know I can mimic the technique and it works. I punched two small holes about 1" from the top of the card and 3/4" from both sides of the card. Then with sissors I cut from about 1/2 inch from the top of the card at a diagonal towards the hole on both sides. I slide the necklace in the slits to the holes and it holds it perfectly.

I will be writing again soon. Part 2 of the Soldering Slide Pendants is coming. I took a class today conducting by one of the Simply Swank owners, Lisa Bluhm and it was great. (Lisa, if you are reading this - Hi. Nice to meet you. Thanks again.) Both of the owners are dolls and their products rock. More on this soon! Caio 4 now.

Art to Drool Over - Creative Cupcakes on Martha Stewart

Yea! Local girl hits the big time! And she made her fortune and fame with some fancy vanilla, a spatula, artistry & a torch (and someother incredients + business sense).

If you watched the Martha Stewart Show this Friday, April 4, 2008, you saw the local girl I am refering to... Jennifer Shea of Seattle's Trophy Cupcakes and Party. She is a registered dietician, trained as a baker who worked in some of Seattle's best eateries. About 1 year ago she and her husband opened Trophy Cupcakes in an old schoolhouse building filled with retail shops in Seattle's historical Wallingford neightborhood. My husband and I discovered this magical place a while back and we are not alone. There are quite a few addicts that go there on a regular basis. On the Martha show, she said they sell 1000 cupcakes per day. At 2.99-3.50 each, that's... well you do the math. Not to shabby, eh?

Click HERE to get the recipe for the cupcake featured on Martha. Click HERE to see a photo show of some beautiful cupcake art.

By me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/punkjr/2084869307/
Originally uploaded by PunkJr

Beside the obvious yum factor, what makes this place so special? For me it is all about presentation. I see why Martha went gaga for them as the shop and the work they do totally reminds of Martha Stewart. The cupcakes and the shop are little works of art with exquisite taste and attention to datail. Everything is in shades of aqua and cocao brown with a slight 1940/50's nostalgic spin. Cupcake and espresso are served on pretty aqua fiesta ware. Cupcakes are frosted prettily to look like roses, or with festive sugar springles, etc. And the party decorations they sell are intentially selected to go along with the vintage style. They do special boxed cupcakes tied with ribbon as wedding favors with handmade custom paper picks (to insert into the cupcake) that are as pretty as the packaging itself.

Legalized frostitution
Originally uploaded by * Minette

Seattle loves cupcakes. We have another famous sweet shop that has it's own charm, called Cupcake Royale. If Trophy is the "Classical Music" of cupcakes, then I would say Cupcake Royale might be the "Rock and Roll". They have some really fun flavors and even more fun names for their wares like "Legalize Frostitution", "Mo Fro" and Orange U Glad" for example. They are also known for their community involvement, donating approx. 2000 cupcakes per month to schools & non-profits.

Cupcake Pr0n
Originally uploaded by PunkJr

How to Make Microscope Slide Pendants, Part 1.5

OK. So I promised a "Part 2" post about making glass slide pendants. It has taken me a while because I have been doing a little research so I can offer the best advise and resources out there on this blog for you as a reader, but selfishly, for my own sake too.

I have two soldering irons, flux and solder from hardware stores that I or my husband bought and they just don't work for me. They are too large and not the right temp, and for all I know, the flux & solder are not right for humans to wear on their skin. The more I read, the more I realize just how dangerous it is to solder with the wrong compounds and in an area that is not well ventilated. PLEASE read all warnings on the packaging if you try this hobby.

When purchasing solder, BE SURE that it contain no lead and no antimony which is commonly used in hardware grade lead-free solders and is toxic. The jewelry you make should not make you or the wearer sick! That would be terrible!

I have made slide ornaments (thankfully none as jewelry with harmful solder), but I admit I am not as good at soldering as I would like to be and have wasted many projects that I started because I messed up. I appear to be "Solder Challenged", so, OK, I give! I am talking a soldering class next month at a local craft store and I can hardly wait.

I think it was meant to be... I was just thinking about looking for a new soldering iron set up when I saw a whole section of soldering, slides, books, etc. at my local Ben Franklin store. Right above it was a class announcement. The teacher is Lisa Bluhm, who wrote a book called "Simply Soldered Jewelry & Accessories" (see Amazon link below) and designed many products specifically for slide jewelry crafting under the trade name "Simply Swank". I almost purchased a whole kit (Around $55.00) of her stuff and the book on the spot, but I decided to wait to see how the class goes. Maybe I truly am solder challenged for life, but if that Lisa can teach this Lisa to solder better, then I will gladly buy all of her wares.

I will let you know how it goes in Part 2 of this blog saga after the class in May!

In the mean time, check out these books about soldering jewelry using glass and collage:

TreeBySea.com - It's Alive!!

Just a quick note. Yea! It's a done deal... I know have a .com as well as my etsy store representing the silver jewelry that I have been making using art clay and my beloved kiln. Please pop in when you get a chance - www.treebysea.com. It's a pretty short and sweet site with just one page, but that's all I need for now I think.

Check back soon for more crafty how to blogs.

Light is a Crafters Best Friend - The Benefits of Full Spectrum Light

"And God said, let there be light and there was light. God saw the light and it was good." Gen. 1:3-4

Light is good. Our bodies are built to use light... We obtain essential vitamins from the light of the sun. People who live in darker climates tend to have a higher percentage of vitamin D deficiency and become depressed and are sometimes diagnosed with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Our eyes need light to focus. People who work in low light conditions consistently over time experience eye strain and tend to loose their eyesight at a faster rate than average.

For the artist and crafter, light has great importance too. Needlework, beading, and other detailed handywork requires good eyesight and precision movements to obtain the best result. It may seem obvious, but the essential tool for the aforementioned, is LIGHT.

Light is also a necessity to the artist because it produces shadow and contrast that are necessary for dimension. Also, light impacts our perception of color. All color is simply the absence or presence of color that is carried to our eyes receptors by the light reflecting off an object.

There are all kinds of light and they all impact color perception greatly. The best light for artwork mimics natural daylight which is "full spectrum light". Full spectrum light is the most accurate. Most indoor light can have a very yellow or blue cast. Florescents give a green or purple cast. Full spectrum light appears as pure white light.

The OTT-LITE is one brand of full spectrum light that seems to target towards us crafty folks. They even have models with built in magnifying glass for detail work. I have seen rave reviews in many articles & blogs I have read. They are eco-friendly products & scientifically tested per this article. There are many styles available that seem to accommodate any kind of craft room or work area. They are pretty pricey, so, until this sale, I have not ordered one. 40% off is awesome! Bulbs on sale too! Use this link to go straight to Joann and order one if you are interested. The sale ends 3/29/08. Plus FREE shipping for orders over $35 with this code SAD090 through the end of March. I think there is another sale in April too. Check back if you miss this one!

Buy Handmade from Etsy - What's an "Etsy"?

In case you did not know it, there is a revolution going on. The movement to buy handmade is growing. People are sick of the mass produced low quality items they see in stores. Thousands are literally making a public commitment to buy handmade. There are many blogs and sites devoted to promoting this trend and I think it is great. Viva la revolucion!

In fact, a new buzz word has been coined as a result of the movement - "Craftivism".

The reasons people give for buying handmade from indie artisans are many, but here's a few that I have seen:

• Better for the environment - No factories, etc.
• Does not promote bad labor practices/slave labor
• Can get better quality items
• Like one-of-kind, unique things
• Keeps crafting and hand work from becomeing a dying art
• Promotes "Made in America"/country pride
• Supports a new generation of crafters
• Better value - Get more for your money
• Promotes the "little guy"
• Crafts are a true reflection of a culture throughout history

Etsy ("Pronounced ett-see") is definately on the forefront of the movement. "What's an 'Etsy'?" you ask. Well, Etsy is a wonderful online community/store/street fair/swap meet/meet & greet where crafty and artistic people from around the world sell their handmand items to people who truly recognize & appreciate the work of an atisan when they see it. A huge number of people sell via etsy including me - My store.

Here's a video talking about how it started. This is now a really big deal. They pretty much set the bar for buying and selling handmade on line. Recently, the founder was featured on Martha Stewart show and I have seen Etsy mentioned in many, many magazines.

Here are some other members of the handmade consortuim:

Craftster.org
indiepublic.com
Craft:

Please buy handmade! Thanks!