Breaking New Work: Etsy Shop Listings & New Pages

You know that link at the top of this page that says Etsy on it? It has intentionally been left as a non-working link because I had not yet set up the items in my store. But no longer! My Etsy shop is now officially stocked! I have put up an array of knitted items that I made a while ago, as well as some zines from the past. Please check out the pieces and send me an email if you are interested in commissioning an order. Now that we are heading into summer time at a fast clip, I will be making new items both for myself and for the Etsy shop, so if you have a specific request, please let me know!

In other related news: I have created a Twitter account and a Tumblr page. You can access me in these new ways by looking for @thecowation on Twitter and clicking on the banner link above that says Tumblr.

Here are some of the items that I am currently selling on Etsy:

You can also see what else I've been knitting.
Or check out some more posts featuring my photography.

Project Check-In: Great Success!

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There's nothing like completing something to make a week complete, and this week resembled a stress ball like no other, let me tell you.
I made good on four claims this week: finishing Phase 1 of Etsy preparation, making a micro-mini zine, emailing the zinesters that I have admired from afar in my zine assistant job, and (the biggest one) finishing my life-size final drawing project.
The final product, pictured above, is probably one of the hardest and most stressful projects I have worked on in a very long time. It is 4 ft x 9 ft in size and, although I could have done a traditional life-size version of me, I decided to go abstract and multi-media on the assignment. Thus, it is a mixture of ink and brush, pencil, and pen drawing. Although I "started" by making outlines and studies before Thanksgiving break, this project boiled down to me doing a little work here and there in class and then spending my Saturday from 10am to 5pm (7 hours) in the studio to finish it up. Just like my NaNo novel, it ended up with me as a crazy marathon artist plunging into the depths of prolonged creativity.
This week was a great success on many fronts, but I think the best one is that I found that I could beat stress by confronting it head on and pummel at least some of it into the dust. While I still have papers and other work to do, I allowed myself this week to give into the temptation of working on other projects and finally finishing up a grand one. Let's hope next week goes just as well!

 

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Check out more of my creative projects in my Project x Project series.

Project x Project: Setting Up Shop

I feel that sometimes I stick my fingers in too many pies, but since it was Thanksgiving last week, I figured it can't hurt to stick them in one more. I have had some really gorgeous knitted items for selling that have been hanging around my room since last year and I just haven't had the gumption to put them out there on display. So, when my roommate bought a sapphire ring off of Etsy and told me about the wonders of that website, I suddenly became very interested.
Although I am not the world's most prolific crafter, I know that I can do commission pieces in 1-4 days if given the time (and depending on the size of the piece!). I also, by actually going on the site, realized that people don't just sell craft-related things - they sell zines too! And this is one of the major problems I have been having as a startup zinester. How do you get your work out there to an audience that you have no idea about? It's much less public than blogging and a lot more intimate of a relationship, so far as I'm concerned.
So, tonight, I will enter Phase 1 of my plan to sell crafty things on Etsy. Phase one includes: taking stock of the items, taking grand product photographs, pricing the items. Perhaps by this weekend, I will enter Phase 2: setting up the actual internet space.

Wish me luck! And stop on in when the shop is up if you have a need for any of the following goods/services.
1. Knitted goods
2. Knitting or bookbinding lessons
3. Commission wire jewelry
4. Commission knitted items
5. Commission hand-made books or journals
6. Zines

Check out the fruition of this plan at my current Etsy shop!