Fairytale Treasury

Someone included my Baba Yaga card in a fairytale treasury! Exciting!

The Swan Geese

I immediately fell in love with "The Swan Geese" when I read it in college. It's a Russian fairytale. You can read a summary here. (The version I read, however, had a river with banks of custard, instead of a river with milk.) I loved this fairytale because not only did it have absolutely nothing to do with romance (it was an "anti-love" time for me) but also because the heroine learned--she grew during the course of the story. She was a dynamic character, not a static one.

One of my goals in the New Year is to add more variety to my shop. I am planning to include bookmarks and art pieces. I am happy to give you a preview of my first collage art piece, based on my beloved fairytale The Swan Geese.

The First Bloom

This one won't be going on my shop until late February/early March, but it is my spring card and companion to "The Last Leaf" and "The First Snowfall" (which isn't up on my site yet).

(The border isn't part of the card, by the way.)

I was watching Ratatouille last night, and this quote from the Chef Gusteau came up:

"If you're focused on what you've left behind, you will not be able to see what lies ahead."

More on this later.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

I'm in another treasury! This time, it's a Rudolph themed one. It expires soon, so click on the picture to see a bigger version. :)

The newest addition...

...is this very cute Octopus "Thank you" card! I just made it tonight. It actually resembles a stuffed animal octopus that I have (except it's blue; my octopus is pink). I hope I don't get sued by Ty!

Update: My mom just bought ten Octopus cards from me! (I wanted to offer them to her for free or at a discount, but she refused. aww, mom.)

Treasury time!

I'm in a treasury on Etsy! The curator picked what she thought were Amelie-themed items. She included my Umbrella, umbrella card. This is exciting--I haven't been in a treasury in a while. You can also view it here until Saturday.

Where to buy

One of my goals in the new year will be to get my cards into more shops (aka brick and mortar shops). The internet is a godsend for shy people like myself. I'm deathly afraid of calling strangers and will endlessly put it off. Now, though, I can send a simple, anonymous e-mail asking them if they'll consider carrying my work--and get a (hopefully quick) response. I already have an appointment scheduled with a Brooklyn card shop in January.

You can currently find my cards at VIX Emporium in Philadelphia and Cranky Yellow Publishing in St. Louis, MO. I just found out that two cards have sold at VIX in the three weeks they've been open (it's in a kind of shady neighborhood and she says business has been slow, so I consider the fact that I've sold anything there an accomplishment!) and the folks at Cranky Yellow just blogged about my cards today!

Inspiration: La Familia Green

This card company is definitely my most direct artistic inspiration. I use "inspiration" in the loosest sense, meaning that they energize me and get me excited about my work. I don't mean inspiration in the sense that I get my ideas from them. As you can tell by the website, we are both similar and different. I'm a much bigger fan of the collage cards than I am of the gocco print cards.

One of the reasons why LFG is such an inspiration to me is that the artist still does all of her collage work by hand. I've been thinking about what would happen to my card company if it ever really took off, and how I'd have to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy up a factory with gargantuan die-cutting machines. Fortunately, as LFG demonstrates, that might not have to be the case.