Life of an Item with GrayFlannelDesign

Hello everyone! I’m Lori and my Etsy shop is Gray Flannel Design. I’ve been involved in all sorts of arts and crafts since I was little, and love vintage, so you never know what you might find in my shop.

Up until now, I’ve had mostly jewelry available, but will be listing more things soon.
I design all the jewelry myself, combining new beads and findings along with new-old stock vintage beads. Most of my designs are based on what I find. I search high and low, at stores, on the internet, flea markets, garage sales, attics, from friends, all sorts of places. One thing I always try to use are things that are unique or have character.

I’m always on the lookout for supplies and have boxes and boxes of stuff to use.
So many choices can make it difficult to choose, so I usually just go with my gut and use whatever is inspiring me at that particular moment.

One of my favorite things in my shop would have to be the earrings I designed with my Mom in mind. She has an emerald necklace that belonged to my grandmother that she was looking for a pair of earrings to go with, so gave them to her as a gift Mother’s Day. She loves them, not only because I made them, but because they’re a pretty simple design, so she wear them everyday or for a special occasion.

They’re made from new-old stock vintage beads with new sterling silver findings and they’ve been one of the best sellers. Since they’re made from vintage beads, I have only a few sets of beads available, which make them pretty much one of a kind.

Mosaic Monday...well said

http://www.etsy.com/shop/EvenAndy

http://www.etsy.com/shop/glassali

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KimArt

http://www.etsy.com/shop/nightowlcraftworks

http://www.etsy.com/shop/rctees

http://www.etsy.com/shop/jmliss

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lemonadesun

http://www.etsy.com/shop/glassali

November Treasury Challenge

Snow Candy Wrist Cuff from Waterrose

Ahh, November. Halloween has passed and stores are now playing holiday music. The retail world has its eye on the holiday gift buying season and so should we! That's why for this month's treasury challenge, we want you to make your best gift guides. Make one for the man in your life or the girl who has everything. Make one for the crazy cat lady next door. Whatever it is, we want to see it. Here are the rules:

1. Use at least 8 Lab Rat members. You can use our members list in the sidebar.
2. Include "Treasury Challenge" in the title of your treasury
3. Tag your treasury with "labratsteam"
4. Tag your treasury with "labratchallenge"
5. Tag your treasury with "gift guide"
6. Link back to this post to encourage others to participate
7. Leave a comment on this post with a link to your treasury for official entry
8. Promote! 

This month your judges will be Sara from BySaraLynn and Karen from AuntKarensCreations. Get your entries in by the 12th and our judges will pick the finalists for your vote. Popular vote winner gets to be features in our Rat Spotlight! A few extra tips to make your treasury front page friendly - include a variety of items with a range of prices, don't include yourself, tag your treasuries, and keep in mind this month's merchandising notes. Head to the Treasury to get started or read up on how to make a treasury first. Either way - make the Lab Rats proud. 

P.S. Don't forget about our upcoming Holiday Show Nov 30th and Dec 1st. Sign up using the link in the sidebar.

Feature Friday

Let's give a warm LabRats welcome to our Feature Friday artist this week...Rita & Michael Squier!

Where can we find you on the web?

My Website: http://rasquier.com
My Etsy Shop: http://squier.etsy.com
My Blog: http://ritasquier.blogspot.com
My Twitter: http://twitter.com/therita
My Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/rasquier
Our Business Site: http://squierdesign.com

I would love to friend fellow Lab Rat members & Etsy friends on Facebook through my new Facebook account: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001795591325

1. Tell us about yourself, your shop, and what brought you to the Etsy community.

I am a professional artist and graphic designer. I paint in watercolors and dabble in a few other mediums as well. I also teach watercolor painting classes. The summer of 2008, my husband gave me an art magazine which had an article about a lady who sells some of her art on Etsy. I did a little research and found out what Etsy was all about. I liked it and thought I would give it a try.

2. Walk us through a typical day in your life.

My typical day has recently changed. I get up, cook food for my dog Chloe, who has been diagnosed with TCC cancer, stress over getting her to eat and make sure she gets her morning meds. Then I have my own breakfast while checking emails and checking on my Etsy shop. At that point I try to schedule and organize my day according to what needs to be done. Sometimes I'm designing graphics for race cars or commercial vehicles (our regular business). Other times I'm working on updating and adding to my Etsy shop. I plan to paint and do chores. Occasionally, I try to squeeze in time for my blog & social networking. My schedule often changes at the drop of a hat, things pop up that just have to get done. The chores are the first to get bumped off the list. Running your own business and running an Etsy shop on the side can be crazy at times. We do everything ourselves, it is all done in house, from top to bottom: managing the business, bookkeeping, invoicing, advertising, web design, our own graphics, business cards, stickers, production of goods, such as vinyl graphics, magnets, banners, static cling, packing and shipping it off through the post office or FedEx. Plus I squeeze in time to watercolor paint everyday. On February 1, 2010 I began a Painting A Day Challenge for myself. I create at least one ACEO sized watercolor painting each day.

3. Name your top 3...

• Books - Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum Series
• Music - John Cougar Mellencamp, Bryan Adams ... Rock 'n Roll & some pop ... actually I like a huge variety of music.
• Movies - I love romantic comedies, too many to choose from.
• TV Shows - NCIS, Amazing Race, the English comedies on PBS.
  

4. What are your top 3 favorite shops on Etsy?

Top 3 favorite Etsy shops? Pick 3? That's too hard.

5. Where do you hope your shop will be in one year?

In one year, I hope my Etsy shop is having regular daily sales.

6. What projects are you currently working on ?

My Painting A Day Challenge is the project I work on everyday. I am in the process of getting my own website for my artwork up to date. Once a week, I do a Tuesday's Tips & Techniques for Watercolor Painting on my blog.

7. What suggestions/tips would you offer to someone new to Etsy?

I would suggest those who are new to Etsy to read through the Help section, the link is at the top of every Etsy page. There is so much information there. There is a wealth of information on the Etsy blog also known as The Storque, in the left column under Featured Series is a section called Selling and it has excellent links to good info.

Life of an Item with Senioritis

What do the Wall Street Journal, paper towels, and CD cases all have in common?

Well, these are all things we used to use to keep rings off of things before we made our Famous Seniors coasters.

Inspiration:

While keeping our surfaces clean and dry is pretty sweet[and a terrific added bonus] we must admit that this was not the initial inspiration behind our line of coasters. We had been designing prints for several months and had received pretty good feedback; however, one common remark we were hearing from people time and again went something like this:"Hey, we like your designs,but we don't have the space to hang a bunch of 11x17" prints." With this in mind, we started to search for other ways to display our designs with the hope that we could come up with something that would be functional while still looking cool. The famous seniors smiled on us, and we stumbled upon an excellent how-to article for tile coasters from fellow Etsian, kittybeans. So, of course, we said to ourselves, "Selves, people drink things, and their drinks probably sweat the same way ours do. It would be pretty sweet if people could have a tricked out way to protect their delicate surfaces." Thus, a legend was born. Our first set of coasters appeared on our counter that night-the second, although lesser known, recorded immaculate conception.

Process:

Truth be told, no, our first set of coasters didn't just appear, we made them.

While tile coasters are nothing new, here at senioritis we like to do things a bit differently. We liked the idea of tile, but after dropping one on a concrete floor and seeing the corner chip we figured there might be a better alternative. The answer for us was Plexiglas; it's lightweight, very strong and most importantly, we would get to use the word Plexiglas in our descriptions.


To make our coasters, we start with a sheet of Plexiglas that we cut into 4" squares.

We then make 3.75" square designs. We print our designs on 80-pound card stock, after which they are laminated and cut.


Next comes the fun part: it's time to get our designs on to the Plexi. Time to break out some mod podge (as a side note:the first time this appeared on our shopping list I thought it was an alt rock band and had to ask someone at the art store if it was an actual product). Once we have our mod podge, we grab a foam brush and put a few coats onto the Plexiglas, position the design on the Plexiglas and center it as best as possible. Once the design is centered, we put a few coats of mod podge over the design.



After the mod podge dries, we spray the coaster with an acrylic sealer and repeat the whole process several times. Finally we place 4 vinyl bumpers on the bottom of each piece of Plexiglas and shazam!
We now have some coasters.


While our coasters are currently out of stock, they should be back for an encore soon. Until then, stay thirsty friends.