New Items in the Shop

July 18, 2013July 18, 2013Leave a comment

The past couple of weeks have been insanely hot! The upside is that it makes it easy for me to justify staying indoors to work on getting new items up in the shop.

First up, new constellation cards! Most people don’t recognize the constellation of their zodiac sign, but Orion and the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) are two constellations that are among the easiest to identify. I had gotten a request at a market awhile back for Orion, so I thought I would add a couple more constellations to the constellation series of cards.

I’ve also expanded the selection of notebooks to include these sketchpads. Due to the popularity of the bike mini-notebooks, I added bike sketchbooks. There are also flower sketchbooks and other designs.

I’ve also listed the black and white notebooks that I premiered at the Handmade Cavalcade. These include the small and large versions of the notebooks inspired by the earth houses of Burkina Faso and modified chevron design.

I’ve shot pictures on several more items, and I’m working away on other projects with a big impending deadline, so hopefully I’ll back soon with updates on those!

Koto Showing at the 2013 Spring Handmade Cavalcade

April 30, 2013April 30, 2013Leave a comment

Apologies for the long silence, following a long break after the holidays, I am gearing up for the next big project for the shop. I am very happy to announce that Koto will be showing at the next Handmade Cavalcade on May 4 at The Space in Williamsburg (503 N 3rd Street).

I’ve been designing, poking and sewing away trying to roll out a variety of new products for the show.

Since Mother’s Day is the following weekend I prepared several cards that would be appreciated by moms.

Above you’ll see a mother and baby owl card, a trio of flowers, and geometric MOM text cards.

I’ve also expanded on the super popular bike mini-notebooks and enlarged them into sketchbooks.

In addition to the bikes, you’ll find a variety of geometric patterns on sketchbooks.

These notebooks are inspired by the decorations on the earth houses in Tiébélé, Burkina Faso.

After the show I’ll be updating the Etsy shop with new listings for everything, but to get first shot at these products (and to avoid the wait of me making new inventory), come check out the Spring Handmade Cavalcade, this Saturday, May 4!

Monthly Planners

January 10, 2013January 15, 2013Leave a comment

Two new items up in the shop! The first features a two-toned Moroccan design with an intricate interweaving of stars and geometric patterns.

The second features a looped petal star design, also Moroccan in origin. It’s available in solid yellow or two tone blue and green.

I picked planners that were blank monthly calendars so that procrastinators (like me) could start whenever it made sense. The other half of the notebook has blank pages with a dotted grid for notes.

Coming up

January 8, 2013Leave a comment

I have a lot of plans for new items in the shop. I am half finished adding monthly planners (blank, so you have the flexibility to start on any date!), and there will be quite a few new notebooks soon.

The other big line I’m working on is for Valentine’s Day. No pictures yet, but here’s a preview…

Happy 2013!

January 1, 2013January 1, 2013Leave a comment

Happy 2013, Year of the Snake!

We’ve had a happy, busy holiday season. Now that we’re settled into our new apartment and refreshed from the break, I’m working on some great new projects for the shop. Stay tuned…

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2012December 24, 20121 Comment

I’ve been taking a break to get everything settled for the holidays and moving to a new apartment! Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season!

Handmade Cavalcade Recap

December 6, 2012December 6, 2012Leave a comment

This past weekend I sold at my first handmade show! In case you missed my many updates, it was the bi-annual Handmade Cavalcade (holiday edition) put on by the New York Etsy Street Team. I think I made a good choice making this my first show since all the vendors were extremely supportive and friendly.

The finished mural!

The days leading up to the event were pretty exhausting, despite my best efforts I still had ridiculous amounts to do and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning the last few nights before Saturday.

Saturday morning I arrived way too early, greatly overestimating traffic. No surprises setting up, I even had time to run grab a pastry for breakfast.

Here’s how my display ended up. I never actually got around to putting the whole thing up in a practice run at home, but everything functioned as I hoped.

See the cash only sign on the right? That was my major mistake of the day. Luckily for me, right after I had finished setting up, one of the other vendors came over and recommended that I ditch the sign and grab a Square reader to accept credit cards. I had a smart phone and someone had spare readers, so I was able to download the app and set up an account on the spot. Good thing, almost a third of my sales were credit card, several from people who had no cash on them.

The booth! The stand on the left was a major headache to set up (I made it stand up with shelf brackets nailed/screwed into the bottom on each side) but I think the height was worth it.

I was at the end of the lane between handmade light switch/electrical covers by Lu and gorgeous handwoven scarves and blankets by Jean of Fiber Dance Weaving.

The decorations were minimal but I think the crystals turned out well –I watched them stand at the tippy top of a very tall ladder to put them up!

I also added some new items exclusively for the show. There were some new card designs, plus day planners (above) and snowflake gift tags (below).

I’ll be adding them to the shop soon once I have time to take nice pictures.

I couldn’t walk out without a bit of shopping –I picked up these lovely coasters by Wishbone Letterpress.

I also did some card swapping with the incredibly talented Ursula at Pepper Press.

Overall it was a really great experience, and I learned a ridiculous amount. I don’t have time to prepare for another fair this holiday season, but I’m looking forward to see what comes next!

Cavalcade Mural

November 27, 2012Leave a comment

So this will be another short one I’m afraid, but I wanted to share a quick update. One thing that makes the Handmade Cavalcade special is that it is 100% run by members of the New York Etsy Team volunteering their time. Part of the way this is organized is that all of the vendors are assigned to subcommittees to make sure that all the work is divided up.

I was assigned to the mural committee. I’m not much of a painter, and when I woke up to heavy drizzle I was less than enthused. Fortunately, Michelle of My Zoetrope had everything organized and set to go.

All we had to do was fill in the outlined letters. There will be crystals and penguins too I believe, but those will wait until better weather.

I was also very lucky to have my artistically-gifted sister in town visiting me. She helped out with the lettering and we finished pretty quickly, despite the cold and the rain.

Only a few more days until the Cavalcade, coming up this weekend!

Getting Ready for the Cavalcade

November 20, 2012Leave a comment

I’m planning on posting some more complete information on what I’ve done to prepare for the upcoming Holiday Handmade Cavalcade. Unfortunately I’ve been so slammed trying to get everything done while working and taking care of the rest of my life, that I’m not able to sit down and properly photograph and record what I’ve been working on. Until then, here’s where I’m at:

I acquired a table over the weekend, an old fold-up one that I got from some veterans of the street fairs. Yes it’s covered with a bed sheet. That giant frame on the left is something I’m working on turning into a display, we’ll see how that works out…It’s far from finished but it’s on it’s way!

New Items for the Holiday Season

November 15, 20122 Comments

I’ve finally finished photographing my last few items that I created for the holiday season and posted them in the shop.

Bike Mini Notebooks

I thought these would make a nice stocking stuffer for all the bike lovers out there. I also thought that since I’ll be selling in Brooklyn bikes had a good chance of selling well.

2013 Calendar

I thought calendars would be a great option for the shop, but it turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated. I designed and printed out each of the months, and then went and hand embroidered each design on the top half of the card. However, what I didn’t think through was that each image is the time equivalent of a card (more actually) and so I won’t be able to make many of these. I have an initial version that didn’t work out color-wise that my sister has already laid claim to!

D.I.Y. Embroidery Kit

This is a product I’ve been working out the kinks on for awhile. I wanted to create a kit so that anyone could make their own embroidered project without the headache of lining up and punching out your design.

I settled on a design of two concentric circles and included instructions so that people would have some flexibility to be creative with the designs. I felt that some degree of customization was important since part of the fun of D.I.Y. is putting your own personal touch on the item.

So that is the very last of my new products for the holiday season. I have a couple of things that I don’t plan on listing on Etsy, that I’m holding back specially for the Holiday Handmade Cavalcade. We’ll see if I get a chance to photograph them!

Koto Embroidery

Hand Embroidered Paper Goods

Category: Shop Updates