Standout Stampin'!

I just received my new stamp from OfficialInitial on Etsy.com and I am stamping all my boxes. No more wasted stickers - now I am stamp-tastic!

The idea of a custom stamp with my business logo is just sheer potential in this crafti-maddness revolution. There are so many things I plan on stamping: boxes, tissue, sticker paper, thank you cards, letters, jeez I am eager to find things to stamp. I can stamp people's hands so they go home and want to check out my website :)

Gorilla marketing with a rubber stamp. Make your business stand out by stamping the world with your logo and website - I love it!

Photos, lots of them

I have been taking a lot of photos lately. I'm very inspired by this team of amazing glass artists that I am part of, the EGA (Etsy Glass Artists). They all sell on Etsy and some of them have been experimenting with techniques to increase sales - and they have been finding great success! The experiments focus mainly on listing very often (some of which is "renewing" but a good deal involves a lot of new product which to me screams a LOT of new photography and digital editing) and then taking really great pictures.

Ah photography... if anyone has ever checked out my flickr site you can tell I play around a lot with my amateur photos trying to capture what my glass creations look like. Its fun. The more I take, the better they get.

I recently took new shots of a favorite piece of mine that is for sale on Etsy - and I thought about some advice I read on the EGA forum for choosing the 5 pictures to use. The indecision kills me, I take sooo many shots to get a few that I like.

Susan Sheehan (susansheehan.etsy.com) had this great advice - any Etsy sellers out there check this out: think about your 5 pictures in each listing the following way

"Grab their attention with an artsy shot.

Offer it as if they saw it for the first time in a show display.

Pretend they have picked it up, and turned it over. (c'mon we all do it)

Offer a close up.

Offer any other view you can think of."

I love this advice! I totally touch things in the retail environment, and its a fun challenge to use my photography to offer a digital tactile experience :)

Orange Glass Mobile

Here I am using more of this yummy orange glass. I just can't get enough! And the daffodils - oh aren't they gorgeous! I thought they would offer a nice accent to show context and scale in trying to photograph this mobile.

New Glass Jewelry

This set is for sale in my Etsy store.

I'm pretty darned excited about this collaboration (is it obvious)

foiling puddles

foiling puddles
Originally uploaded by Curly Girl Glass

the collaboration continues... I wore one today! Its scrumdidly-umptios!

Glass Pendants with Flowers

I could imagine wearing this around my neck. Beautiful.

I am collaborating with a friend to make these glass puddles into lovely wearable jewelry. Judi is a fellow seller on Etsy living here in Portland Or. She and I are both members of PDXEtsy, the local street team. I love her jewelry, and this collaboration will be really fun.

check out her Etsy Store: Curly Girl Glass

I've made up a dozen or so of these pretty puddles... this one in particular really speaks to me. I love how it turn out. The branches underneath the flowers and leaves were really neat, I purposefully made them multicolored and put lots of little nooks and crannies... the way the trees look now outside, I love how the flowers seem to come right out of the gnarly bits of the trees

I'm doing my accounting today.

I set a goal for myself last week, to do a bunch of accounting this week... today is the big day to bust it out (there is so much other business to attend to this week, so many creations to make, I only have so much time to spend on Quicken)...
But of course today has been spent doing everything in procrastination of the accounting. Quicken is open on my computer... but I have also done 3 loads of laundry, some dishes, I cleaned under my couch, I packaged up 9 boxes of glass artwork to go in the mail and there is still one mobile waiting to be wrapped and packaged... ah accounting. Clearly I don't like doing the accounting. One of these days I'll pay a book-keeper to do the dirty-work of entering all this data!

Prince Rupert's Drop

check out this video - its a fun glass tid bit - definite WOW factor
The Corning Museum of Glass produces some wonderful videos, they are available on YouTube.

yeah so I am into Orange

accessories
Originally uploaded by LeahPellegrini

These are the accessories I wore this past weekend - with jeans and an orange wind jacket :)

- sweet hairclip by Papaver
- the yummy orange earrings by PoeticPurl
-the orange glass ring is made by me - I LOVE it, red/orange on the inside, orange on the outside. It matches the earrings perfectly

Spring Sale!

For the rest of the weekend - if you purchase one of these little mini mobiles from my Etsy shop you will get another one FREE!
check it out - I am feeling generous!

and then you can find even more free stuff and great deals on Portland Oregon local handcrafted goodness by going to www.PDXEtsy.com

PDXEtsy BOGO Sale!

The Portland Etsy BOGO SALE!
All day SALE March 15th and 16th
(Saturday and Sunday, PDT)!

Many PDX Etsy Team members are having sales this weekend.
Don’t miss out on these great deals – two days only!
BOGO items will be clearly marked.

In my Etsy shop you can buy any BOGO mini mobile and get another one free with your purchase!!! In fact, in the spirit of the sale, if you buy anything out of my shop, know that you will be getting something free! Whoo Hoo!!!

the Story behind the Little Yoga Ladies

I do live demonstrations at the Portland Saturday Market with my glass torchworking. With no kiln present, I use borosilicate glass and create little bitty things so that thermal shock won't make them fall apart on the spot. Later I anneal them at home in my kiln.

I have made all sorts of things over the years in my demonstration booth... everything from frogs and teddy-bears to a whole baseball team (each player was less than half an inch tall and I also made fans sitting on chairs, kids sitting on benches, a water cooler, etc - sorry I have no pictures of this scene... the whole set could be arranged on a square napkin).

Well one day while making little fairies, I simply did not put the wings on the fairy and I made her meditating like a little yoga lady. Usually in the morning I would prefer to be doing yoga, not sitting outside in front of a bunch of gawking tourists, performing torchworking demonstrations. So I starting making these little ladies, living vicariously thru them. And it was fun to put them in various different yoga positions. Only a matter of time before I put one in the "downward dog" pose. Soo funny, and so incredibly small. I've done yoga nearly all my life and it has taken things to a new level of smiles to make these little ladies. A while ago I had to break out my old book of crazy yoga poses, thats where the pose from the picture above came from :)

Then my friend Danielle taught me how to make little bitty boxes out of old photographs, and the whole thing came together. Now when you purchase one of these little treasures, it comes delicately held in a bitty handmade box. Many of the boxes are made of old show postcards, as an artist I always seem to have too many of these around and I feel bad throwing them out. So now they become packaging boxes.

So anyhow... these ladies are for sale here in Oregon at the Portland Saturday Market in my booth (#421) as well as in my Etsy shop online.

Cirque du Soleil

from across the river
Originally uploaded by LeahPellegrini

Last night Tim took me out to the Cirque du Soleil - hes the bestest!

We had such a good time. First dinner at Queen of Sheba (the location of our first date years ago) and then we drove over to the Omsi to snap a few pictures of the amazing circus tents. Then across the river and down to the South waterfront where these amazing tents are set up.

Corteo was the performance that we saw - it was amazing (this is the second Cirque I've ever seen live) - women dangling off huge glittering chandeliers, strong Russian men flinging trapeze artists around in the air, jugglers, gymnasts, clowns, angels and crazy talented whistlers... the Cirque does not disappoint.

When we were waiting in line to get out of the parking area I watched as some of the performers were leaving the grounds. Some of them got onto a waiting bus (the big strong man gave them away, as he is ridiculously tall) and what really struck me was one performer (a man, one of the gymnasts) leaving on his bike. I couldn't help but smile at how he took a running start and delicately leap onto his bike. How else would a gymnast get on his bike and ride away?! Personally, when I get on my bike to ride away, I straddle it, I sit down, and then I start peddling. Tim says I always start peddling with my right foot, he gets on his bike by putting one foot on a peddle and kicking off while swinging the other leg over the back of the bike. I'm not suave like that. The cirque gymnasts are definitely suave, the one I watched ride away treated his bike like it was a prop in the circus tent.

NEW Orange!

new orange
Originally uploaded by LeahPellegrini

Yeah - look how orange the orange (on the right) and how yummy it looks with the red/orange and the coupla blues. I am so happy with this new orange... I am going to make a whole bunch of jewelry out of it. I'll post pictures soon.

The big news for today: this little puppy is now for sale in my Etsy shop! A sibbling of this one is dancing in my car now too! Yeah for new orange!!

my head!

photo taken by tangyoren

my crush on Orange continues... my mind is all a buzz with new orange ideas for jewelry I'd like to start making...

today I went on a bikeride to take pictures of the trees blooming here in Portland.

there are pictures in my flickr

I want to make some orange jewelry that is inspired by the blooming trees. The blooms are startlingly beautiful. My new orange glass is yummy. So far I have just dabbled with it, testing out the color... I made a few little mini mobiles, just to taste it... I'll post them in my Etsy shop soon.

Weekend #2 at the Portland Saturday Market

Second weekend back vending at the Portland Saturday Market. The first few weeks back are so awkward. Getting used to setting everything up in the morning... getting back into the swing of things.

Then daylight savings threw everything for a loop, added to my exhaustion as I was silly and stayed up late last night, so getting up was extra difficult.

Spring forward = kick Leah in the ass :)

My neighbor in the 2008 season set-up for the Portland Saturday Market is another glass artist- Kristine Cheeseman - she makes incredible fused glass: trout and salmon, masks, dogs cats and other beautiful designs... shes got a website where you can learn more about her - her fish are really amazing!

beautiful day!

beautiful day!
Originally uploaded by LeahPellegrini

After my first weekend back at the Portland Saturday Market, Tim and I took a 2 day trip out to Breitenbush Hotsprings - a much needed holiday. Man it was lovely. The weather was beautiful, the snow was deep, the soaking waters were hot and wonderful and the food was scrumptious.

We took our snowshoes and went on a couple of hikes. Fun, but strange, you couldn't find the trails - they were covered in four and five feet of snow! We aren't familiar enough with the area to know where the trails are exactly, so our hikes were short and stuck to the rivers. I get lost driving around with a GPS, let alone walking in the wilderness :)

I took lots of pictures, you can see them in my flickr account.

Hotsprings are one of my favorite destinations. I love the combination of relaxation and inspiration. Oregon is awesome.

My first ever blog entry was about hotsprings... so I thought I'd blog about this trip as well. If you ever have the chance to visit Breitenbush, I would highly recommend it!

Orange you glad...

photo taken by WGyuri and found on Flickr

I am very excited about a new color release from Bullseye Glass (a local color manufacturer that I buy a lot of my materials from). For a long time I have craved a good translucent orange... I use a lot of the 001125 - which is an orange that reminds me of the Crayola crayon "Orange Red", but what I desire is a more fruit like balance between red and yellow - a good tangerine.

Well now Bullseye has it! Yeah!

I am thinking about a whole line of orange with red-orange and some deep blue, like a transparent steel blue, almost navy... yum.

PSM 2008 Day 1

<- look - no thunder-storms!! Yeah! it did rain a bit, but just the occasional showers mixed with sun. the weather man even claimed "hail" at one point for todays weather. instead it was a relatively beautiful day and an interesting Day 1 of the 2008 season of the Portland Saturday Market. The market was a buzz with Hellos and Welcome Backs! There were heaps of customers purchasing artwork and getting inspired by the sites. Always some sort of shenanigans and unique marketing schemes:
Cirque du Soleil is in town and they had people dressed up as angels with fluffy white wings advertising for the show (tonight is opening night). They were giving out plastic balls that had red puff clown noses inside with the Cirque logo.

And Idiotarod had a Portland race today - the finishing line was just down the road from my booth, so the home-stretched passed right by me! If you are not familiar with Idiotarod, let me explain (I was doing so all day to confused shoppers) This race is not to be confused with Iditarod, a dog-sled long distance endurance race in Alaska, extreme sport kinda thing. As to be compared with Idiot-arod: a grocery-cart group race that winds all over town long-distance style. Idiotarod features people that normally don't run, in themed costumes, pushing a grocery cart (also adorned in the group theme costume). Its more of a get-drunk-group-style kinda event. And its hilarious!!!

I know I saw a video on the Brooklyn one recently... where oh where did I find it...
here it is: note this video was made at the Brooklyn Idiotarod not Portland - but it basically shows what the race looks like, just replace the street background with Portland scenes... and remove the violent ending, cus there didn't seem to be any cart sabotage going on



so... my day at the PSM was good. Good business, good friends, good weather (for the most part) and now I am good and tired!