Celebrate Summer

We always pull together a 'look' for the store entry for each new flyer-- this time we decided to go with 'Celebrate Summer' because it was nice and simple and we're just so glad that the sun is finally here!

I cut down a truck-load of triangle flags from four shades of textured cardstock in fantastic beach-side colors-- and then we hot glued each one to white string at 4 inch intervals and hung them up in long, graceful, 'county fair-like' swags. Adam made all of the signs-- from hundreds of gathered paint chips.

Its really simple, but came together so beautifully.
I love the negative space on the sign.

Here's a closeup of the fabulous paint chip job.

love this 2!

we carried the flags throughout the store. they were the perfect punch of color-- easy to make and effortless to hang. we'll definitely be revisiting them again, maybe with scantron sheets and old lined paper for back to school!

This seemed fitting to post tonight because I'm off to celebrate summer myself-- our first camping trip of the year starts tomorrow! Chris and I are meeting up with our friends Andy and Holly on Lake Michigan for a long weekend. I will be back next week with photos!

Plugging Away & My Day Job

I am switching gears tonight and working on woodcut prints. I tried this method prior to the last show-- where I amass a pile of screen prints and then focus only on woodcuts, and it worked really well. The hope is that I make around 200 5x7 prints between today and tomorrow. Those sold the best at my last show, and I'm thinking this next one will be very similar.

I have one more day off to really pump them out, and then back to the day job for another 40 hours. For those of you who don't know me very well, I am very fortunate to have a really wonderful and creative day job, so you won't hear too many complaints from me on that end.

In addition to spending the last few months selling prints in shows and online, I also work as a sign designer for Trader Joe's. If you're wondering what that entails, its probably a safe bet that you haven't been in the store. Trader Joe's is a kind of wacky gourmet grocery chain-- there's around 300 stores in the US, most of them around metropolitan areas. Each store keeps a small staff of local artists on who make every single sign in the store by hand. In addition we've worked a lot on the visual merchandising end this year-- giving the store an entire new look with a community theme and creating and working within cohesive brands and images for events. Right now we're about to hang huge hand-made ornaments from the ceiling for the holidays. Here's the theme introduction to our Thanksgiving-- its the first thing you'll notice as you walk in:


This setup is a collaboration between myself and Adam, by colleage and creamate. For those following along at home, a creamate is a soul mate in the creative realm, and yes, I just made it up. I will post more about Adam and his many amazing talents later. We spent around 4 hours at 4 thrift stores putting this look together. The shadow boxes are made with black foam board and old wood frames and they're so perfect that we're going to recycle them as gift boxes for our Christmas display.

All right, I'm fresh out of stalling material-- time to get to printing!