Blog About Crafts

One of the most fun things about searching for vintage illustrations to add to Reusable Art is when I discover a wonderful artist with whom I am unfamiliar with.

This week brought one such discovery, Ida Waugh. Her specialty? Wonderful portraits and illustrations of young children and infants.

I was looking at someone’s blog today and noticed a conversation on how to advertise a crafting business on the cheap. One of the things mentioned was to ask bloggers if they would be willing to interview artists or review their sites.

I’ve toyed with the idea to review each of the sites submitted and accepted to Crafty Tips Arts & Crafts Directory but my concern was trying to be fair and impartial. I mean, let’s face it not all sites are created equal. Some directory sites have started adding blog entries for sites being submitted but it would seem that could become a real black hole of time and frustration.

In the past, I’ve offered free profiles on several forums. I did ask for a link to this site or one of my other craft-related sites and was disappointed when only two artists took me up on that offer. My thought was that since my blog is not on the fast lane that it was simply a matter of not being popular enough to attract interested folks. The blog I was reading happened to have a comment from one of the editor’s in the jewelry section of a very popular crafting site. She too lamented that she could not find folks who wanted to participate and receive free reviews and profile pieces.

So, rather than try another round in the forums, I thought I would make the offer again here on the site where the profile would reside. Do take heed, that this is free advertising for your business and I take that very seriously. Your site or shop must offer something of value for sale or offer information and project tutorials that would be of interest to crafters.

Participants might also receive a bit of free business consulting advice along the way and when combined with a bit of free advertising both will hopefully bring a some new visitors/customers to your site.

Just let me know if you are interested. The profiles/reviews are free.

I don’t normally do this but I thought the situation warranted that an exception be made. If you’ve been around this blog longer than about 5 minutes, you know that I am also the owner of a site called Crafty Tips. Crafty Tips is a site that indexes and shares some of the best websites and businesses that offer free projects, patterns for sale and handmade finished items for sale.

Part of the challenge of running the site is keeping it from getting too overly broad. Some time ago I created the Art Photography category. The idea behind the category is to showcase photographers who specialize in taking photographs that are used as art as opposed to portraits and commercial images. I had hesitated doing so because I know there are multitudes of general photography websites and that there is at least one huge site similar to mine that exclusively catalogs photography-oriented websites.

So, why am I telling you all that? Well, one of my concerns was that every person who owned a site related to photography would submit to my site and that one category would grow out of proportion to the rest of the site. So far that hasn’t happened, much to my great relief. I dreaded writing that email to someone with a wonderful photography site telling them that I was not going to accept their listing because it wasn’t “arty” enough. Well, this week it finally happened.

The arrogant artiste. We’ve all met them, those creative types that think anyone who doesn’t “get” their art must be stupid. Our little town has one artiste who has created a whole new art form - how to destroy your marketability in a single stroke.

How excited would you be to have your local hometown paper ask to interview you for an article? How exciting would it be if that article, along with a large picture of you and your art appeared on the front page of a section of the Sunday paper? Above and below the fold?

Would you not work extremely hard to parlay that free publicity into increased awareness of your artwork and to increase sales? I think most of us would at least try to.

One artist in my local area took quite a unique approach to this golden opportunity - he told the entire community “to get of their high temple in the sky and stop buying pretty pictures of trees and birds and think about their inner lives and have some substance.”

Guess I am just a shallow temple dweller.

In case you didn’t pick it up from his answer, this artiste is an abstract expressionist painter. Which he describes as “Painting in the grand style of painting. A romantic homage to past and present artists carrying the history of tradition to preserve the romantic cult.”

Found a most interesting crafter and artist the other day. She, like so many of us has more than one creative outlet; but it appears photography is her first love.

Her company name is Organic Stills - a wonderfully perfect and simple name to describe her poet’s eye for the places and things she encounters and captures on film.

My favorite picture of hers, is a bold and bright cluster of orange flowers, entitled Orange Burst.
The print is currently available at her Etsy Shop, Organic Stills. It’s a bit hard to see in the smaller size, but part of what I love about this picture is she resisted temptation to remove the spent blossoms and has managed to capture both the bursting forth of new buds while the old fall away to make room for the grand display.

If a full-sized print isn’t quite what you are looking for, be sure to check out her line of notecards where a simple note to a friend becomes a gift of flowers. (When this was written, all of the notecards available in her Organic Stills Etsy Shop were of flowers.)

And, during the month of June, all of her photographic prints are on sale! Buy one get the second for 50% off. Our two friends to the right, in a piece entitled Childhood Memories, shows her artist’s eye that sees and captures emotion along with beauty. This pair of carousel horses brings back memories of when climbing on the biggest horse was all that mattered.

The sale is to share in her excitement of getting a new fancy-smancy camera lens. (I call it fancy-smancy, as I don’t know one lens from another, but the price of that baby is sure fancy - a true investment and proof this artist plans to continue growing and expanding her business.) I can’t wait to see the pictures she takes with her new equipment.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention her Jewelry and Made with Yarn lines as well. The new owner of the earrings shown to the right, reports receiving many compliments from friends and family and is quite pleased with her purchase.

I believe Organic Stills is yet another reason why Etsy is so successful. Etsy has given so many talented artists and crafts-makers a wonderful place to showcase and sell their items and Organic Stills is one Etsy Shop that is a great example of that talent.