Artsy Fartsy

Dust off those metal cobwebs, I’ve got some visual math for you.

What does this:

plus this equal?

This perhaps?

Ug. No that can’t be right… Oh, I know, you get this:

That’s better! That’s right, I’ve decided to do away with my Lisa’s Studio shop and combine it with my Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond shop. Since the new shop will carry not only jewelry, but also my artwork and prints, bags and purses, (and more!) I’ve had to give it a new name.

Welcome one and all to the Artsy Fartsy Shop. The new home of everything Lisa Gaumond. Go, browse, enjoy. I’m still working on the switch as we speak so both shops are still open, but as soon as everything from the Studio is merged, Lisa’s Studio shop will close. The tabs on this site have changed to reflect the new shop. Instead of a Gifts and a Jewelry tab, there’s just one Shop tab. See? Easy!

I hope you like the new digs, it’s certainly going to make my life easier, and it’s it really all about my happiness??

Sine it’s Valentine’s Day, I thought it might be the perfect day to declare my love - for Esty. Recently I’ve been buying artwork and other pretty things on Etsy and now everywhere I turn in my house, there’s something lovely and handmade.

These adorable valentine’s above are from Secret Agent Josephine’s Etsy shop: secretagentjo.etsy.com. They came in this cute packaging and are just so sweet! My intention was to hand them out just like I did in school, but so far I’ve only given one to Luke. That’s OK, I like looking at them, they make me happy.

This set of four postcards hanging in my pink studio are from Other Such Things. I added them to a Target frame and voila! Happy artwork for my wall.

This lovely little oil painting is from Art by Donna Rose and now hangs in my bathroom. You can even see the reflection of my shower curtain on the left of the glass. It was a beautiful little painting on board and I added this shadowbox frame to make it really pop. I think it looks perfect against the brick red walls.

I love this poster that I got from Luceee. Amazingly, I found a poster frame that fit it perfectly so I didn’t have to buy a mat for it. I think the colors look great against the green of the guest bedroom wall, and I love the quote from Ayn Rand.

This was my most recent Etsy purchase from Krista Peel’s Etsy shop, kristapeel.etsy.com. I’ve been shopping for frames but haven’t found just the right one yet. I do know exactly where it’s going once I do find a frame though. I also got these earrings from Krista, aren’t they gorgeous?

Seriously, if you’re looking for something to hang on your walls (or your ears), browse around on Etsy. Most of the artists selling their work also sell prints. Except for the oil painting, everything I’ve bought has been a print and I haven’t spent more than $19 each on any of them! I just did a quick search on Etsy of “Art + Print” to see what I could find - I got nearly 3,000 pages of results and I already saw two more prints I want to buy on the first page! You can narrow it down by adding “flower” or “landscape” to the search. Check it out: http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=tag_title&search_query=art+print

Soon you’ll be professing your love for Etsy, too!

I’ve been keeping up on my Drawing 365 set much better than my Crafting 365 set. I’ve failed at that one and haven’t crafted anything other than dinner in the past several days. Last night’s drawing was my camera because I spent the evening taking new pictures of my jewelry to update my Etsy shop.

I even made a new banner for the shop.  Cute and springy, no?  Doesn’t it make you want to buy stuff?

I thought the perky colors might help to improve my mood.  It might just be working.

That’s right! YOU, yes even you, you’re all invited. Please come to my annual I-don’t-know-what-to-call-it party. I used to call it a jewelry party, but I sell so much more than jewelry now. Some people have been calling it an open house, but that sounds like something where I should be providing a lot more food and drink and you shouldn’t be bringing your checkbooks. Yes, I want you to buy things, but I also want to visit with you, so please come to browse and try on jewelry and fondle the cute new purses, but also come just to say hi and have a pre-holiday rush drink with us. Husbands and non-shopping other halves are welcome, although we generally send them to the basement to get them out of our way. Don’t worry, the basement features a bar and pool table and motorcycles and tools. The men are generally pulled there as if by magnetic force anyhow. They’re very happy down there. Some refuse to leave. So please come, and if you don’t know the vague location of “Lisa’s House in Andover,” email me and I’ll let you in on the secret.

If you want a peek at some of the things that will be available at the sale, please visit my Etsy shops (go to the Jewelry and Gifts tabs above). Most of the jewelry I have made is listed in the shop, although some recent additions haven’t made their way to the shop yet. Most of the purses have not been listed in the other shop, neither have the new cards, wallets, or Snowkids, so come to the party and see all the new goodies!

Did you know that I listed jewelry in my Etsy shop yesterday like a madwoman? I did, go see.

Did you know that I made my first sale of jewelry to Australia yesterday? Yup. My jewels are off to Oz. (Thank you Bronwen!)

Did you know that today is Friday, tell-a-friend-Friday? It is, so go listen to Croncast.

Did you know that my favorite color is blue but I tell everyone it’s pink? Weird. And also, there’s some disconnect in my brain that causes me to say (and type) the completely wrong color that I’m thinking. And even more strange, the color I accidentally say (or type) is often the opposite of the color I meant to say (or type) on the color wheel. For instance, in that last sentence, I wanted to type “blue”, but I typed “orange” and when I wanted to type “pink”, I typed “purple”. Strange.

Did you know I like strange facts and random observations? And urban legends. Go here some time to read up and waste time.

Did you know that I had nothing really interesting to write about today so I thought I’d throw out some random statements instead of not blogging? Ya, you probably figured that out.

This here is the start of the invitation I’m putting together for the annual holiday sale I may, or may not be having. I can’t decide. I go through this all the time. I want to have a holiday sale to sell stuff (duh!) and make money to buy Christmas presents, but I need to have enough inventory to not look like a fool inviting a bunch of people over to fight amongst themselves about who gets to take home the ten necklaces I have for sale. I do have more than ten, in reality, maybe closer to twenty, but I prefer to have, like fifty. I also want to have more purses and matted artwork and cards, but I’m running out of time.

For the past two years I’ve had this holiday sale after Thanksgiving, usually the first weekend of December before everyone’s schedules get too crazy. Last year I shared the sale with my friend Karen, who is far too busy this year with very cool craft shows (lucky lady) to lug her inventory to Connecticut again. This year I wanted to have the sale and donate a portion of my profit to Luke’s cousin’s daughter, Emily, who is trying to raise money for a trip with the Girl Scouts. But should I have the sale? I can’t decide.

It would be easy to just not have a sale this year, no planning or cleaning or frantic last-minute crafting, but I think I would miss it. And if I didn’t have a sale, then what the heck am I making all this stuff for? I actually ask myself this all the time. I make stuff and have my Etsy shops, but really my stuff sells about 500% better when people can see it and touch it and try it on. If I don’t do craft fairs (which I haven’t had luck with) and if I don’t have my annual holiday sale, then why am I filling my house with crafts and spending my money on supplies? See? I start thinking about these things and I go all melancholy.

So I don’t know. I have to make a decision this weekend because if I have the sale, it’s going to be on Friday December 7, and that’s coming quick! I just don’t know. What do you think?

The internet seems to be having a dry spell on fresh blog posts today.  I’m not feeling the creative urge to share anything particular and it seems that most of my other favorite bloggers are feeling the same.

I stayed up late last night checking over my inventory and seeing what needs to be photographed and listed on Etsy.  Looks like I have a lot of work to do.   About half of what I have made isn’t listed and I’ve run out of necklace boxes.  Half of my totes aren’t listed and it’s almost time to list the Snowkids again.  I took a million pictures and now they all need to be looked at, cropped, edited, etc. before I can list them.  Phew!  I had better get to work!

This is a picture of just a few of the things that I did not do last night. Oh the plans I had… After nearly losing it in Stop & Shop because I couldn’t find the Sloppy Joe sauce, I decided that I needed to go home, put the groceries away, and just go to bed. Seriously, I thought I could handle stress better than this, but a meltdown in Stop & Shop? That’s not what you call handling it. I went to bed at 9 and slept blissfully and deeply and now feel I like a new woman. A woman who would not cry in aisle 7, a woman who has the energy to blog!

My office/studio currently sits at the end of the hallway, next to the bedroom. The two rooms share a wall, unfortunately it is the wall the computer is on. Sleeping Luke can hear every clickity-clack of a keystroke and, oh, did I mention the squeaky floor joist? I pretty much steer clear of the office for fear of waking Luke, which is really a shame, because the point of having a studio is so you can contain the craft projects and supplies and keep them from migrating to every surface in your house. Plus, I have cool stuff in there, like the desk Luke built me for my computer and beading stuff, and an old hospital desk I rescued from the fire pit this summer.

A month or so ago, I came up with the (brilliant) idea that I needed to move my office/studio down the hall one room to the current guest bedroom, and make my current office/studio the new guest bedroom. Although Luke thinks it’s a tad crazy, he agreed to go along with my plan (this is why I love him) and so the switcheroo began on Sunday with the clearing out of the guest bedroom in preparation for paint. I liked the paint color that was there. It’s called Sweet Potato, but it’s more HOLY ORANGE! than Sweet Potato. It’s nice, I do like it, but there are some holes that need touching up and I don’t have any leftover paint, so heck, I don’t need an excuse to change colors! Let’s paint the room all over. I had gone out at lunch yesterday to run work errands, and while I was out, I stopped to buy my new paint. Let me just stop here and say, if you are painting anything in your house, suck it up and pay more to buy Benjamin Moore paint. It’s a lot more than Lowe’s or Home Depot, but the paint is amazing. We use it at work, and this week I painted a formerly white wall navy blue in one coat. Yes, one coat. Any of you out there who have painted a dark wall color and had to use a tinted primer and them applied six coats of paint, wouldn’t you have much preferred to pay and extra $20 and get it all over with in one coat? I thought so. OK, so I bought my paint. It’s called Potpourri. Can you guess what color it is? I’m not going to tell you, I’ll show you when it’s on the walls.

Last night I had planned to paint the new studio and then maybe do some other little projects, maybe make some jewelry, sew some purses, something productive. HA! I was barely able to decide if I should put the english muffins in the bread basket or in the freezer for later, I was nowhere close to being able to accomplish anything as complicated as threading a needle. So for now, all you get is a sob story and some pictures of the things I did not do. Above, the paint I did not apply, and the shiny, new bottle of Mod Podge for… well that will have to be a surprise. Below, this is a picture of the ORANGE! former guest bedroom, soon-to-be office.

And this is the contents of both rooms, currently residing in the former office, soon-to-be guest bedroom.

And the mess of a desk which will soon be organized in it’s new location in the new office.

Oh, hello spaghetti cords and disgusting mess. I think I might paint the new office tonight, provided nothing insane happens to stress me out again, and then I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the desk will move on Saturday. I can’t wait. It will be fantastic, you wait and see!

And one more sneak peek I’ll tell you about later, and something to show that I haven’t been a complete lazy slob, only maybe, I don’t know, 75% lazy slob? Lookey here… pretty!

Oh right, jewelry! You almost forgot I made jewelry, what with all the blabbering on about the little purses, didn’t you? Don’t fret, the jewelry-making is ongoing, and after a little bead shopping with Paula the other night, I as inspired to make a few new gift sets for the upcoming holiday shopping extravaganza. Nothing is listed yet, I really have to get on the ball, but here, for your viewing pleasure, are three new Christy Gift Sets. Soon to be listed for $25 plus shipping.

Did anyone watch Pushing Daisies last night? I desperately want to reach into the screen and steal all of Chuck’s dresses. And Olive’s hair. I love that show!

As you may have seen from the little Flickr badge over there on the right, there are some new fun necklaces in my Etsy shops, thanks to the super awesome make-your-own Shrinky Dinks.

In Lisa’s Studio, you’ll find new Art Pendants made from scans of my original artwork:

And in Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond, you’ll find fun new Halloween word pendants: