Free Shipping Sale!

I Love You More
Originally uploaded by mlee.etsy.com

Dark Leaves

I Love You More

These are just two of the most recent pieces I put up on Artfire in the past 24 hours and until Black Friday they will all have free shipping. Buy as many pieces as you want from wherever you are and I will refund you the shipping after you pay. This offer is only good in my Art Fire

shop but I can move anything from

Etsy

over if requested. I'm still in the process of filling out my Art Fire store and haven't abandoned Etsy just yet.

I'm going to try and be around listing my new pieces on Friday after Thanksgiving but we have family in town and they may want to see what New England has to offer. A month ago I would have said lots, but right now not so much.

I hope all of my readers in the US have a great Thanksgiving with family and/ or friends, and that my international readers simply have a nice Thursday.

Is anybody shopping on Black Friday? Looking for a killer deal on an HDTV maybe? My dad is going out at the crack of dawn per usual off in Chicago but I avoid shopping like the plague after Thanksgiving.

Apparently I am Trendy!

Two Russian Dolls
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Squeee! My Russian Nesting Dolls were featured on Modish yesterday! This is my second time on them and the first in a number of months and it is always a thrill and an honor since it is such a nice blog that features such awesome indie items! Apparently I am part of a new trend with these spontaneously created Russian dolls! I did them on a total whim when I was pulling myself out of a productive and create drought and started doodling and I came up with these simple forms rather quickly. I wanted something simple, graphic and fun and I knew just from the doodles that it was time to start. Unfortunately I decided that since I was doing an image that was a bit different I would use wood that was too. Some of the hard solid woods that were given to me many months ago. This was carved in cherry wood, a gorgeous wood that is so much harder than shina! It was a hot day and I was not feeling the push of energy that I am feeling now so this simple carving took four times as long as it would have on shina and once it was done I was sweating and exhausted. People used to hardwoods like this complain about getting detail with a wood as soft as shina but I am so used to it that I am very good at bending it to my will. I had a very hard time bending this wood to my will! But I have this piece to show for it and am not featured on a blog. Hopefully there will be more Russian doll pieces except I have to change the elevation of my press to print it since it is twice as thick as shina and that is a hassle that makes me less likely to use it.

Yesterday was pretty cool. First the UPS fairy came with the Pack n Play and after some struggling and getting some help from some Etsy gals I managed to get it set up except for the bassinet part which has me a bit puzzled. But I am loving how it looks in that corner. Sharing such a bright and creatively inviting space with a young one makes me happy. Especially since she is my young one!

Following that shortly the UPS fairy came with my Dick Blick order. I now have some cool papers. A nifty large archival flat box for storing paper including the super cool paper I ordered. Some methyl cellulose for finally giving hanga a go and a small portfolio that matches my large one to help me not lose stuff ever again! That portfolio was my original reason for ordering but I just kept going!

Exhaustion and soreness soon followed but I was too emotionally up to sleep so I did some cleaning and opened up a profile on this promising looking site I found though a friend. I am fairly impressed with the design and overall ease of use so far.

This feature on Modish has me considering getting a holiday ad spot on the site. It isn't cheap but for Modish it could be worth it. The big question for me is if it does work will I be able to keep up? I don't know what blee is going to do to my life. Jon wants me to keep doing what I have been doing as much as I can since it is going so well and plans on helping out. But Christmas was crazy last year and this year it could easily be bigger especially if I buy a two month ad and feature. Where is my minion? Blee is gonna be way too small to be a minion for a long time and the animals are useless.

After just nearly having a heart attack searching for a sold piece (yes, the one that I just uncovered after a year of being tucked in a piece of discarded cardboard) and nearly having a freakout heart attack before finding it I realize that I have three things to focus on today and for the weekend. First, I must be a sticker making fiend. Second packing and shipping orders (including said stickers) and last but not least my artwork needs to be just as organized, nay more organized, than my studio. I have my pieces scattered about in too many random places and pieces get stuck together and I can do better. I have a plan!

Hope everybody has a great Friday and a great weekend. Saturday we spend all day at a baby birth class! Time to be terrified by learning exactly what is going to happen to me in a month.

The Past Two Days

Art Cards from July 15th
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Good morning everybody. I am currently abstaining from my morning pot of coffee or tea because I have ideas of crawling back into bed after I post this. I am fairly awake right now and have been for about an hour, but I am very tempting. And since Jon is staying home today he is still in bed and that makes me want to crawl back in even more!

So here are the ACEOs that wore me out making this past Sunday. So far I only have three of them listed, but I have too much new work (a good position to be in for sure) and have to pick and choose. I even have a few more older ones that I haven't gotten around to listing yet. I am overflowing! And I have around twenty-five full sized pieces completed!

The total for Sunday's mad eight hour printing session stands at;
25 - full sized pieces
9 - ACEOs
2 - failures
2 - unfinished or hmmmm pieces
3 - oddly sized but cool not sure what to do with them pieces

After all this I was dead physically and mentally. I crawled into the comfy chair I just added to my studio complete with much needed ottoman and didn't move for hours. The only time I moved was when Jon unfortunately left the water running and was out of the house. And let me tell you hobbling across the hall to the bathroom was all kinds of pain! It was nice to sit but the entire time I felt guilty because I still needed to pack up orders. Unlike last July sales have been quite good for me and I have been having a hard time keeping up.

But yesterday I was able to get them packed up and they are all on their way now. I did it in stages. First I gathered up everything and put them in their plastic sleeves or other packaging depending on the item. Then I cut up the cardboard I sandwich the prints between. Taped it all together and since I was sitting down and didn't want to move I covered them all with some of my newfound stamps. An added bonus of the stamps is I find it helps me identify what orders are what. Then I napped for two hours. Woke up and started weighing items and shipping labels. By the time I was done Jon was home and able to take everything to the Post Office for me.

I also changed my shipping policies from shipping within 48 hours (just not possible for me right now) to shipping every Tuesday and Friday. Unless I go into labor on one of those days! I think it is a fair policy that even people that aren't pregnant have.

Today I am feeling the itch to print again. But I am going to do my best to hold off because I am likely to take it too far and hurt myself. Instead I should photograph mirrors and carve. I made a bit of an exciting purchase off the Dick Blick site and need a new block or two for it. Other than some small art card blocks these new blocks may be the last blocks I carve for quite awhile. This makes me sad.

Good Tuesday to everybody. Tonight I share a lovely dinner at my favorite restaurant with Sweetestpea Jen! I just realized that I forgot to remind her to bring back our copy of season one of The Wire to return and knowing how hectic her life is she probably won't remember. And it is too late now. I'm sure she has already left for work. And you should all Netflix it!

Maeby Cockroaching
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

After days of rain the sun is out and everybody in the house is feeling it. Especially the dog apparently!

I'm hoping that the sun is also out in Brooklyn now because yesterday Kate finished making my one of a kind mirrors, big magnets and some other nifty items but it was so grey she couldn't get any good photographs of them.

Speaking of good photographs I was hoping to snap a picture of the Tea Noir that arrived yesterday but my camera batteries are dead and have to be charged. Yay for her living in the same state as me I got my tea faaaaast! I will be enjoying iced Lychee tea again very soon. It looks and smells wonderful.

I finally updated this blog so not only does it no longer look quite so shabby but I also updated my links on it. Now people that I respect like Jennifer Gordon,Jenn Schmitt, and
Tamara Shea are finally getting linked to! I'm trying to keep my links more artsy than craftsy. Tamara makes jewelry sure, but she makes block printed jewelry so I had to include her! I'm still tinkering with how I want it to look. Anything big missing?

Summer in the City - NFS
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Summer in the City

I'll never sell the original but I now have a quality reproduction of it up on Etsy. Being able to share it while keeping this for myself makes me happy. I know I have probably done plenty of pieces just as good as this one but I just have such an emotional attachment to this piece I can't part with it. I love the shapes, the shade of orange with the hints of purple peeking out in key areas. Orange and purple is my favorite color combo after all and I think I pulled it off flawlessly here. I'm happy to be able to share it with people a year and a half after I originally made it.

I sold my first two reproduction prints to a fellow artist. She made a note in the sale that she hoped to be able to afford an original soon. She was a longtime favorite of mine so we worked out a trade. It was fun for both of us. I'm looking for art for the babies room and I try to trade art instead of paying with money whenever possible.

Do I go to NYC next weekend? I want to but it sounds so exhausting at the same time.

Yellow Maple Leaves
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

Yellow Maple Leaves

Whoops! I am behind on the Periodtic Elements Table project in typical Marissa fashion and am in the process of unburying my studio so I can print it up and send it to Jen. The stuff people are doing is so fantastic I am a bit nervous about my piece.

Anyhow, while cleaning I was putting away some half complete art and I found this piece. It certainly feels done to me so I took a break to scan it in and put it up on Flickr and Etsy. I love how the yellow maple leaves glow that warm yellow. Looking at this piece makes me happy. Thankfully even though it was lying around scattered on a desk for quite some time it is unharmed. Though I noticed the size was a little off and not square so I trimmed an edge off.

I'm still feeling quite blah and down in the dumps. I need to try and make plans to go to NYC next weekend since Stacey will be there from Arizona but I haven't even tried to find somewhere to stay yet. I feel pretty guilty about that. When else am I ever going to get to meet her?

Magnets in use
Originally uploaded by m.Lee

The UPS man came Friday and delivered my magnets so now I have a nice set up in my Etsy shop. I can turn any of my pinback buttons into magnets simply by removing the pin and replacing it with a magnet. But once it becomes a magnet there is no going back because the glue forms a very tight seal. The magnets themselves are nice and strong too. Just one magnet is holding up a reproduction print that I printed out on my printer the other day. I just wanted to test it out to see how it looked and I was so impressed with the results that I decided to list it. I made two of them, the other one is of bamboo. They really have nothing in common with the originals other than the image itself. They are about a third the size, the paper is totally different and there is a border. But they are nice in their own right. My plan with these is to never offer reproductions that are even close to the original size. They will always be smaller. The ink and paper were tested to resist fading for over 100 years and that is good enough for me!

Last night I made a big decision and signed up to have a booth at the JP Open Studios the last weekend of September. I did it last year and it went very well and while I totally wanted to do it this year I was a bit nervous about signing up with the baby due a just a month earlier. But I decided that it is important enough to me to be worth risking the $90 sign up fee. Even though I did well last year I learned a number of ways to improve my setup by watching other sellers. Instead of just having my art in my portfolio for people to thumb through and pick from I want to have a rack filled with pieces mounted on foam core and wrapped in plastic with prices on the back. That way people can pick stuff easily. I will also have my new buttons and magnets in little bowls and in packets of three for people. It should be fun. Jon will be there with me helping me manage my booth while tending to blee. She will be a bigger hit than my art!

Swirly Tree (with chine colle)
Originally uploaded by m.Lee.

Swirly Tree (with chine colle)

I finally have a (still growing) stack of new prints that I am happy with. I need to make this quick because I am meeting Jen for dinner at Tu Y Yo and I have to be out of here by six. And I still have a decent amount of printing that I would like to get done in the next hour and I must account for cleanup.

It feels so good to have these new pieces. I feel this rush of happy relief. The high that comes from creating is something that I missed so much. I also have some larger pieces but since those have to be scanned in pieces and put back together using photoshop I haven't gotten around to getting them up yet. If you are interested in seeing more work check them out on my Flickr page. I'll be putting these up on Etsy over the next days and weeks. I also have some pretty cool scrap prints that will make nice little trinkets for Kate to make for me.