Make It

Apartment hunting

We've been coordinating with a friend currently in Ann Arbor to visit aparments for us. We send him Craigslist listings and he goes and checks the apartment out and sends up pics. It's made apartment searching in a different city that much easier. And we've finally found a place! Since we've got to do all the lease signing and check sending by mail it will probably take some time until it's official but it's currently unofficially ours and the lease is in the mail coming our way. I'm excited to put my decorating skills to work in a new blank canvas. I'm pretty sure it's smaller than our current space, which means that I will need to find outside studio space for rifferaff, which is another exciting task.

In honor of this occasion, I've gotten nostalgic for my current apartment and previous apartments and made a Flickr set dedicated to them. Take a peek if that sort of thing interests you. Picture above is from the back porch of our current apartment which I l-o-v-e and will really miss.

Happy Belated Mother's Day

Whoops! I had intended to make and photograph a bouquet of paper flowers to post on Mother's Day. But my flower-making session was mostly a bust. And then I forgot to put up a Mother's Day post at all (though I did NOT forget to call my mom on the day of). I do like how this one turned out though.

Alabama Studio Style

If I had all the money in the world, I'd book a spot for my mom and myself at the next Alabama Studio Style Weekend Workshop for her birthday on July 25th. These pics from HodgePodge Farm have almost *almost*  got me considering moving back to Birmingham. The workshop is run by Natalie Chanin of Project Alabama/Alabama Chanin in Florence, AL. I think she is a fascinating person and have great admiration for her business and lifestyle. (Turns out she has a blog too!)


Photos from HodgePodge Farm. Read about her experience at the workshop here and here.

Inspiration

I don't think about inspiration that much, or if I do, not in a very conscious way. But I'm trying to be more open and take notice of things that inspire me, in whatever way that is.

I've been holding onto this empty packaging for a while because I love the color and the word pistachio.

The only reason I bought this book was because of the cover, which I immediately recognized in the bookstore as the work of Rob Ryan. It turned out to be a great story, though very dark, which I think the cover accurately portrays.

I used to read the Metro (free paper distributed on the subway) everday on my commute but last year I realized that reading about shootings, wars and political nonsense was stressing me out first thing in the morning. Now I read a book instead and it really has had a positive affect on how I start my day. It gets my head in a creative/thoughtful/fantastical frame of mind instead of a depressed state. It seems to make the commute go faster also. Sometimes I wish I had more time on the train so I could read more. I don't usually read books more than once so I don't buy many books. This is a stack I borrowed from a friend that I need to read before we move later this summer. If you see me on the train this week, I'll be reading, The Human Stain.

Amy Butler talks business

Loving this in-depth interview with Amy Butler via CraftBoom! I think this is the most in-depth interview I've read regarding Amy's business and how she got started. It's great to hear about her early days when she had to borrow money from parents and work odd jobs (apple picking!) to make ends meet. I absolutely love the two books of hers that I own: Midwest Modern and In Stitches.

Lo-tech pattern repeat tutorial

You may have already caught this at the Design Sponge guest blog, but if not I highly suggest you check it out. This week's guest blogger, Julia Rothman, demonstrates an ingenious method for making pattern repeats without a computer. I'm in awe, frankly.

Mirrors!

Yay, just received these cute little pocket mirrors from Button Arcade. Kyle did a great job! I sent her some printed papers and she used them to make these. Now to sew up the matching drawstring bags.

Art Beat 2008!

Yay! Just found out I was accepted as a vendor at Art Beat in my own neighborhood of Davis Square! This is a massive music and food and craft festival in the middle of the Square that I've attended every year we've lived in the neighborhood. Hopefully next weekend's Open Studios will give me an idea of what to expect. I'm a little clueless when it comes to how much inventory to bring, how much cash to have on hand, etc.

May 17 + 18

Yes, it's chaos as usual here at Rifferaff headquarters. Slightly more chaotic lately because I'm pulling together inventory for my first open studios event! Last week Elisabeth graciously invited me to share her studio space for the SOWA Art Walk on May 17 and 18th. I'll have a little table in Black Pearl Press' studio with a selection of cards, journals and some other new things I'm trying to pull together before then (including some paper-covered boxes).  Hopefully you Boston-area readers will swing by the event and say hello. Elisabeth's letterpress studio is amazing and worth checking out in person. Here's a look at the behind the scenes action today.

These are some fabrics I printed last summer when I first started experimenting with screen printing (It's an early version of "Dots"). I pulled them out of the bottom of a storage trunk to put them to use for a new product idea.

Blank paper coasters from Elisabeth (she's so generous!) + a leaf-shaped paper punch = another new idea in the making. A classy twist on decoupage coasters.

And a tiny embellishment on chocolate envelopes.

Before and After

I've wanted to do paper-covered boxes forever and finally last week I found the right boxes and they just arrived today. So in a flurry of paper and ModPodge, I covered my first box!

Some lined envelopes

Seeing the photo from Elisabeth's site with lined envelopes reminded me that I've never tried lining envelopes with my own paper. It's actually really easy and makes such a difference. I'm thinking of putting some stationery sets together of cards and lined envelopes.

Tuesday evening's Boston Design Salon was the best one yet. It seems to get better and better with each meeting I attend. At the most recent meeting, the female owners of Plank and Bob's Your Uncle, respectively, talked about their business, how they started, where they're going, etc. Their stories were so different which goes to show, there's really not a right way to start a business. Both of them lost money before they started making money which was also comforting to hear. Beforehand, Emily and I grabbed dinner at Flour and talked stationery. She's going to the National Stationery Show in a few weeks and has also done licensing, custom work, calligraphy, you name it. So she's a great resource and sounding board for me. Walking back to the train afterwards we came across some movie making action.

Boston Design Salon + Hollywood comes to South Boston

Heading out in a bit to attend the Boston Design Salon meeting tonight. This is a great group of all-female creative business owners who meet monthly to provide advice, support and info. I'll definitely miss having access to this group when we move to Ann Arbor but I've heard Ann Arbor has a pretty strong arts scene itself so maybe something like this exists there as well?

While I'm in the area for the meeting tonight, I may swing by the warehouse a couple blocks over where they are staging a massive film shoot with trailers, cranes, and lights everywhere. The whole production is directly across the street from the architecture office where I work part-time, but no Bruce Willis sightings yet.

On organization and Domino

Spent a good chunk of time this morning putting all of my blogs in Google Reader. I'm hoping this will streamline my blog reading since I'll be able to view them all in one place and see what's been updated or not at a glance. Also Google Reader doesn't show comments, which is good for me because reading the comments is usually my biggest time drain. I'm organizing my virtual world and hoping that soon my real world will follow suit. In anticipation of our move later this summer, I'm planning to go through and do a major purge of stuff in the apartment.

Speaking of blogs, one of my new regular blog reads is Wiksten. Jenny recently announced that she's going to be in an upcoming Domino. I'm thrilled that Domino is reaching out to the craft/handmade community because they've been getting a little too expensive and out of reach for my taste. When Domino started, they presented themselves as a more accesible version of upscale decor mags so I was slightly dismayed to see a celebrity on the cover again this month (Julieanne Moore, last month was Drew Barrymore). But I have to admit, the Julianne Moore story was probably my fave in the magazine and, oddly enough, the most accessible because she used lots of IKEA, DIY and thrift store solutions. Love the color combo on the cover: sky blue + butter yellow + chocolate. I actually usually really love the color combos they use on their covers. If I didn't already subscribe, this would be enough for me to buy it off the newsstand.

What the weather does to you (me)

Remember that post a few days ago when I ranted about not wanting to become a human screenprinting machine? So I'm now realizing that one of the main reasons I was so aggravated was because I printed on the hottest day of the year. So not only was I hot as crap in our A/C-less apartment but the ink was drying in the screen much faster, leading to lots of ruined prints (i.e. grumpy Shannon).

Today I'm setting up to print some more and there's a cool breeze wafting in the windows and I already realize that this is going to improve my printing experience. Lesson learned: don't print at mid afternoon on hot  hot days. As the summer approaches, I will make an effort to do my printing in either the evening or early morning.

Also I'm doing more thinking about the direction of rifferaff, what I want it to be and what I want MY life to be as the business owner. I think I'm slowly uncovering what that is, so I'll share my thoughts on that at a later time. These posts on Design for Mankind have been helpful for getting my head in the right space.

In the meantime, check out Elisabeth's new site design (via Frolic). She's got a few additional pictures of her workspace and what's that on the front page, oh it's an envelope lined with one of the papers I screenprinted for her. Lookin' good. (image from Black Pearl Press)

Limited Edition Stamping

I've been doing lots of thinking and soul-searching about rifferaff lately (I'm SO indecisive). Working on this large wholesale order has really driven home the manual labor aspect of my current business model.

I feel passionate about being hands-on with production, but I don't know if I want to be screenprinting 8 hours a day 5 days a week in order to fill potential wholesale orders in the future. I'm thinking I need to think about products with a higher profit margin. My wholesale cost is $2/sheet of wrapping paper so I need to print alot to have wrapping paper sales be sustainable. I'm also working in less than ideal conditions (no dedicated workspace, no drying rack which limits the amount I can print at any one time and is also killer on my back as I place every freshly printed piece on the floor for drying) which has me frustrated. I really really need to write a business plan.

Something I'm thinking about is introducing a limited edition element to my designs. This has the benefit of keeping things fresh for me as I constantly rotate in and out new styles/colors, and also creating a sense of exclusivity for the customer. It's just something I'm thinking about now. In the meantime I'm admiring the look of numbered limited ed. products. Lovely Design (bottom photo) only made 1,000 of her wildly popular address files and stamped each with the number and date of creation. Little Pretty Studio (top photo) has a similar label for their fabric hoop bulletin boards. Here's a source I found for these types of stamps. For now I'll log it away with all the billion other ideas I have buzzing in my head.

A few new links

Here are a few recent Internet finds that I had to share. You can call it a blog dump:

True Up, a blog about all things fabric. Not so much sewing, but fabric design, production and trends. This is one I will be checking out often.

Via True Up and Wee Wonderfuls I found out about a great new site, Spoonflower, which plans to offer on-demand digital textile printing for crafters in May 2008. Really excited about this one. Stay updated on their progress via the Spoonflower blog.

Also via True Up I found a link that  I can only describe as silkscreen porn: a look at the Marimekko screenprinting facilities.

Heart Handmade- This blogger finds the best Etsy goodies, then creates fun and colorful layouts. I like the Heart Lab feature which takes a behind the scenes look at the creation of an Etsy seller's products.

Ads + Craft blogs

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on ads on craft blogs. I read lots of blogs and I'd say the design blogs are much more likely to have ads than the craft blogs. Why is that? I think it's because craft blogs are often more personal, someone is showing their own work, whereas design blogs are usually showcasing finds from across the blogosphere. Maybe it seems somehow not right to put ads on a personal blog? Even if that personal blog is about your business.

I ask because I used to have ads on this blog and have started to consider it again, but I'm hesitant because of the "stigma" of ads on craft blogs. How I present this blog is one way of branding rifferaff and I don't want to turn people off due to the presence of ads. One option I'm considering is doing an ad swap with other bloggers. If they put my little ad on their blog, I'll put their ad on mine. I won't make revenue like I would from ad sales, but I'd get free exposure on a variety of other blogs.

I'm interested if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon and personally dealt with the issues of putting ads on their blogs. I think it taps in to the larger angst amongst craft business owners about fully embracing the business side of things.

Hello from the bathroom

It's been a while since you've seen me on the blog, so here I am. Still doing the short hair thing. About to do some printing. Taking self-portraits is much harder than it looks. Also I'm now noticing I should clean my bathroom mirror.

Spring!

Finally warm weather has arrived in Boston! These flowers are from a tree in our front yard. The flowers grow directly off of the branch and there are no leaves on the tree. I'm not sure if I've seen that before.

Ann Arbor here we come!

Matt has officially accepted his slot as a University of Michigan graduate student, so we'll be moving out there later this summer and setting up new lives as Midwesterners. I've lived in the South, East Coast and West Coast but the Midwest is totally uncharted territory for me. I'd love to get suggestions from locals in the comments section about neighborhoods (we'll probably be in Kerrytown but I'd love to hear other suggestions), restaurants and foodie stuff, craft/art stores, craft fairs and small designer-friendly boutiques.

I'm looking forward to the change and will probably be holding some sales to offload inventory before packing up for the move. This will also give me a great chance to blog about how one goes about moving a small business (i.e. getting new licenses, new sales tax rules, establishing new support systems, etc.). Cost of living is lower in Michigan so I'm looking forward to being able to afford a 2 bedroom apt and hopefully setting up a dedicated home work space.