Open for Business!

Announcing the grand opening of my very own ETSY shop! Above is the banner I created this week using the free program called "gimp." Do you recognize the background? It's a section of my "Waterfall" piece that was in the show last month. I've been ruminating on my "brand" - colors, font, the general image I want to project. I think I've captured it, between the flowing and sparkling fabric "water," to the coppery lettering.

And below is my new mascot! I've made several versions of him, but I definitely like this one the best. I sponged copper acrylic paint on the wrong side of a commercial print fabric, then fused it to a pale green felt. This prevented a lot of fraying that I get with just the fabric alone. The real coup was his spine ridges. In the past, I've tried to cut them out by hand with a scissors, but I always wanted to try to incorporate rick-rack somehow. I have yards of a very small pale green rick-rack that I painted with the same acrylic paint and stitched along his back. I think it's a vast improvement. I also managed to get a bit of an expression on his face. What do you think? Isn't he cute? I'm using him as my "avatar" instead of a picture of myself. I think it says more about me and my art than my own face would.

I also decided to take a leap of faith and donate 5% of any profits to a non-profit research foundation called "Project Seahorse." The worldwide seahorse population has been dwindling rapidly over the last few decades and Dr. Amanda Vincent founded the organization to study seahorses and work with fisherman around the globe to prevent any further damage to their populations and ecosystem. I just love seahorses; maybe it's because they almost seem like something imaginary, like unicorns, only they're real. They're just so darned cute and interesting to watch!

So anyway, hop on over to my new ETSY shop (I'll have to add a link on my blog somewhere soon) and tell your friends about it too! Every purchase helps save the seahorse!