The Process

Arts shows and events have recently started asking applicants to submit detailed photos of their work in progress. It's an effort on the organizer's part to ensure that vendors are actually making the art they're selling, but it's also a great exercise for the artist to document the process of creation.

These photos show a few images of me making a vintage postcard pillow, starting with enlarging and copying the original image onto fabric; selecting accent fabrics and/or quilt blocks; cutting, pinning and stitching the pillow front together; adding embellishments such as ribbon, buttons or beads; hand-quilting the cover; adding the envelope-style back and stuffing it all with a standard 16-inch square pillow form.

A Studio Pantry

A brief Twitter conversation last week with @Dafforn, also known as the Kitchen Gardener, led us both to start thinking about organizing our studios as if they were pantries. She was re-stocking her pantry while I was debating whether to re-organize my studio one more time. Thus we came up with the studio pantry idea.

The approach makes sense: stock up on the things you use over and over again; add a good selection of spices; throw in a few exotic ingredients to encourage trying something new and have it all within reach and properly labeled.

My staples -- the salt, pepper, flour and sugar of my textile art -- are pins, needles, thread, buttons, ribbons, beads, scissors, rotary cutters, rulers. Other necessary ingredients are glue sticks, iron-on adhesive, fabric pens, pencils, markers.

The spice and flavorings -- accent fabrics, metallic threads, net or lace overlays, etc. -- are now together as are color-coordinated see-through boxes of large cuts of fabric and tidy baskets holding 2-inch, 3-inch and 4-inch squares and strips.

Tools and utensils are grouped together and the basis of it all, the bolts of fabric and batting, are within reach but not blocking access to the rest of the supplies.

I've struggled for years about how to best organize my studio. I think I've finally found the right idea with the pantry approach: keep everything that you use regularly within reach and put it back where it belongs once the "recipe" is complete.

Strict Show Criteria

The new year means slogging through all of the show applications for Spring, Summer and beyond. I usually find the process tiresome, but studying what the Palm Springs (Calif.) VillageFest requires of potential vendors made me take the process more seriously and wish every quality show had similar strict requirements.

The Palm Springs festival board requires not just a completed application and photos of products and booth, but a letter of intent, photos of the artist at work on those products to be sold, even receipts for raw materials used to make the products. It's all in the name of making sure those vendors who buy products and then re-sell them are not getting into the Palm Springs events.

I would love to see more of this. I spend a great deal of time, money, energy and creativity in making my products to sell to customers who appreciate hand-crafted artwork. I resent finding myself at shows with vendors who obviously did not make the products they're selling.

I spent three days at one summer show next to a couple who sold hundreds of different cast-metal pendants and charms, all of them imported from Eastern Europe. They even stored the pendants in the original shipping boxes that broadcast what the contents were and where they were from. Complaints to the organizers of what was billed as a juried fine art show were met with "they submitted photos just like everyone else; we can't police everyone and have to trust vendors to be honest." I can guarantee that I will never participate in that show again.

So I say make everyone explain their art, submit details and photos about the process and, in effect, prove it is hand-crafted.

Another development I'm seeing more and more of, and one I don't feel as good about, is local communities requiring individual vendors at arts fairs, even one-day events, to get a local annual business license. In the town of Winter Park, Colorado, that's a $60 fee on top of booth and application fees - enough to make some artists not apply for the usually popular Alpine ArtAffair and Colorado Craft Fair. I've run into the local licensing issue elsewhere, but usually at a $10 or $12 cost.

In a still-struggling economy, we'll have to wait and see what effect this has on shows, promoters and artists.

Having a Twitter Fit

I finally had to cancel my Twitter account and get rid of the @DayDreamCrafts profile that I've used for well more than a year.

The account had become so compromised and so corrupted that it was impossible to use. It wouldn't allow me to make updates to the way it looked, change colors, information or images. Some days, it refused to do anything. It just sat there like a sullen child refusing to move. It wouldn't even let me block those nasty porn or teeth-whitening followers.

I had none of these problems with other Twitter accounts that I manage, just this one, my largest, my own.

Sadly, away it went. @DayDreamCrafts was so clogged with technical problems that I couldn't open and print my list of followers. I lost them when I deleted the account. They're gone. Don't ask about Twitter's Customer Support; there isn't any other than a lot of Frequently Asked Questions crap.

So now I'm starting over. I'm newly tweeting as @DayDreamCraft. Craft, singular. No S on the end. Go to www.twitter.com/DayDreamCraft and follow me. Please, do follow me. I had more than 700 followers and close to 500 whom I followed and I miss most of them. We exchanged funny, useful, poignant information about the life and work of artists, quilters, crafters, wine lovers, world travelers.

I'm slowly finding my old Twitter friends and re-following them, hoping they'll do the same with me. But it's a slow process. If you're on Twitter, please let others know where to find me.

Holiday Shopping Season

Here's where you can find me during the Holiday Shopping Season:

Nov. 1-29, 2009: Day Dream Crafts exhibit at the Fraser, Colorado, Library. Open during regular library operating hours. www.gcld.org

Nov. 5, 2009: Reception to launch month-long library exhibit. 6 until 7:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served. Enter a drawing to win one of the products on display.

Nov. 6-7, 2009: Applewood Arts Holiday Fair. Standley Lake High School, Westminster, Colorado. www.applewoodartsandcrafts.com

Nov. 12, 2009: Grapes and Gifts holiday wine tasting and gift boutique. Verso Wines, Cooper Creek Square, Winter Park, Colorado. 4 until 8 p.m. 10% of sales and all tips benefit the Grand County Search and Rescue organization.

Nov. 14, 2009: Santa's Cellar Arts Fair. Broomfield, Colorado, Community Center. 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. http://www.broomfield.org/recreation/special/santacellar.shtml

Nov. 21, 2009: Fraser, Colorado, Holiday Artisans' Fair. Fraser Elementary School. 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Dec. 5, 2009: Winter Farmers' Market and Holiday Gift Show. Boulder County, Colorado, Fairgrounds. 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. www.boulderfarmers.org

Dec. 17y6, 2009: Grapes and Gifts holiday wine tasting and gift boutique.Verso Wines, Cooper Creek Square, Winter Park, Colorado. 4 until 8 p.m. 10% of sales and all tips benefit CASA, the Court-Appointed Special Advocate for Children in Northwestern Colorado.

Living and Loving Local

Every time I think I’ve completely saturated the local area with my pillows, quilts and other textile art products, something comes along to prove me wrong. The lesson in this realization? Local customers and clients are the most important. They need to be encouraged and maintained.

Local exposure, whether through nearby arts and crafts fairs, hometown exhibits or repeat-customer neighbors and friends, leads to greater exposure. I live in a resort town, which means every one of my pillows sitting on a local couch or hanging on a local wall, is seen by visitors from other areas. One sale leads to several more around the country. My products being sold in local outlets are seen by hundreds of people from elsewhere in the state, country and world.

Hometown customers also become partners – they take pride and ownership in a locally made product and their suggestions can lead to new or better work. The Tabernash Tavern, a popular restaurant in the Winter Park Resort area, placed a large order for fabric gift bags using their logos. I had pitched the bags as perfect wrappings for a bottle of wine or pound of their specialty blend coffee. The photo above shows how well they work with wine.

But the Tavern’s chef was the one who pointed out that they also perfectly hold jars of his homemade jams and relishes, and beautifully wrap one of his fresh-baked baguettes, all of which are sold at the restaurant’s front desk. Guess who’s now marketing bread bags? My booth at an upcoming Business-to-Business Expo will have new signs, new brochures and new exhibits showing multiple uses for what had started out as being simple wine gift bags.

That expo is an example of local business or chamber of commerce events that can benefit artists and crafters. I’ll be offering custom gift bags for businesses to use as client, customer or employee gifts this coming holiday season. And I’ll be encouraging realtors and builders to consider my vintage postcard pillows as closing gifts for property-buyers. Each pillow is made with vintage postcards depicting iconic images of the local area and its history – perfect for a new home.

Local library branches aren’t just a source for reading material or movies. Does yours host events or exhibits? Mine does and I’ll have a month-long show of locally themed pillows and quilts in November. There will be a reception, drawings for giveaways and the opportunity to purchase display items with a portion of the proceeds going to the library itself.

A library exhibit brings products to a whole new audience of moms with kids, teens, and adults who may not frequent arts and crafts shows. It also makes the art, and the artist, part of the community so that the next time someone needs a gift, they’ll remember the exhibit and place an order.

Trick or Treat!

Send your kids - and yourself - out in style this Halloween with these oh so spooky cute fabric gift bags.

They're perfect for adults going to Halloween parties and looking for a festive way to carry a bottle of wine or other beverage. The bags also beautifully hold a pound of coffee or other small gifts for the party hosts. But they also make great trick-or-treat bags, holding an ample amount of treats in easy-to-carry retro style.

Kids and adults will love the fabric reproductions of vintage Halloween cards that embellish each bag -- pumpkins and black cats and witches, oh my! Each bag is made of durable cotton seasonally themed fabric and fully lined. A ribbon is securely attached to the back with a button and acts as a tie at the top or, knotted into a loop, a way for little ones to carry the bag on their trick-or-treat outings.

Each bag is unique, combining various vintage cards with orange, black and Halloween-print fabrics.

These bags, as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas-themed fabric gift bags, are available for $10 each with no additional shipping costs. To see photos of others or to purchase yours now, post a comment here or email JDayQuilts@msn.com. A few bags also are available at Artfire.com - you can reach that site by clicking on the Artfire icon at the left of this page.