Strawberryluna

Hello Chicago Renegade Craft Fair!

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We’re back in the swing of craft & art show season things! And we couldn’t be more excited to be heading to Chicago, IL for the always amazing (and always free!) Renegade Craft Fair – Chicago edition, happening this Saturday & Sunday September 7th & 8th from 11am – to 7pm, both days.

The Renegade Craft Fair brings together over 300 of the best of the best of handmade makers and artists from all corners, setting up booths to meet, greet, and sell our work to the lovely people of the Midwest. This event is HUGE and not to be missed!

We will be there bright and early, and stayin’ late at Booth No. 6 (see our handy map below), so easy to find right near the corner of Division & Damen. Easy in, easy out. Come visit and say hello! We will have lots of hand illustrated and hand screenprinted Art Prints, Rock Posters, Alphabet Prints, Lunch Bear Bags, new greeting cards and more!

Can’t wait to see you this weekend Chicago!

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Info // September 7 + 8, 11am-7pm // Along Division St. in Wicker Park (Between Damen and Paulina)

Makers // A curated selection of over 300 indie crafters

Special Features // Pop-Up vintage market by The Vintage Bazaar / Workshops by Lillstreet Art Center, Chicago School of Shoemaking, and RX Made

Entertainment // Music by Reckless Records and CHIRP Radio // Photobooth by Magnolia Photobooth Co.

Food // Savory food by MANA Food Bar, Antique Taco, Dia De Los Tamales and Chicago’s Doghouse / Sweet treats by Puffs of Doom, Black Dog Gelato and Glazed & Infused / Coffee by Intelligentsia and Gaslight Coffee / Drinks by Seasons Sodas, Oliver Winery and Goose Island

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Shad Festival – See you this weekend in Lambertville, NJ!

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Come see strawberryluna this weekend in Lambertville, NJ for the 32nd Annual Shad Festival – Saturday April 27th & Sunday 28th from 12:30 pm – 5:30 pm both days.

Admission to Shad Festival is FREE and open to public. Beautiful & historic Lambertville, NJ is just across the Delaware River from beautiful & historic New Hope, PA.

80 of the region’s finest artists and handmade crafters will be in attendance vending and showing their work, featuring everything from art, jewelry, ceramics, furniture, apparel, accessories, home décor and more! We will bring lots of our hand silkscreen printed Art Prints, Alphabet Prints, Rock Posters, Test Prints, Lunch Bags and more. And, we’ll be vending right along next to Allison’s mom, Mamoucha Soaps too.

The Lambertville, NJ Shad Festival has evolved from a local art show into a nationally recognized award-winning event. Shad Fest features the area’s finest artists and crafters, great food and family entertainment, but the two-day extravaganza also serves as a venue for local non-profit organizations to raise necessary operating funds.

There are also cooking demonstrations both days, lots of family fun activities can be found throughout the event, live musical performances and lots more. On Saturday, The Delaware River Basin Commission will be teaching the public about how to test water quality at Lewis Island.

For a full list of activities, directions, and more info about the 2013 Shad Festival and the accompanying arts festival click here for the Shad Festival website.

Hope to see you there!

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Come see us in Chicago at Renegade Craft Fair this weekend!

On the road again! We’re so thrilled to be a part of one of our favorite shows of the year, the amazing Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago, IL.

Join us and over 300 (yep! Amazing right?) of the most talented and cool makers of handmade awesome in the country & beyond. We will have lots of new prints and posters and more, so don’t miss out friend!

Renegade Craft Fair is FREE to attend.

 When: September 8+9, 2012 from 11am – 7pm each day

Where: Along Division Street from Damen to Paulina in Wicker Park for the biggest + best Renegade Craft Fair of them all!

What: We’ll have hundreds of today’s greatest indie makers along with interactive workshops, tasty local food + booze, music + more. Get ready, Chicago, it’s going to be the best RCF yet!

Why: Because handmade is best!

Check out this year’s lineup of amazingly talented artists!

Check out hands-on activities from Vogue Knitting (they’ll be leading make-and-take knitting workshops), the Chicago School of Shoemaking (you can stamp your own leather pieces and watch shoes being made by hand), Lillstreet Art Center (you can try your hand at using metal-stamping techniques to make your own pendant), the Student Art Therapy Association of SAIC (they’ll be leading worry doll-making workshops, a community weaving project, and a t-shirt necklace project), Girls Rock! Chicago (make a rad rock-and-roll button), the Urban Prairie Waldorf School (students from the school will be teaching you how to make jump ropes from organic fabrics), andPébéo (you can paint your own ceramic tile with their new paint pens). The Vintage Bazaar will host a pop-up vintage market at Renegade. Make sure to visit their section of the fair at Division and Wolcott.

Below is a handy map for you, with the strawberryluna Booth #6 Location. Want to see a larger version? Click here or on the image below. You’re welcome.

Hope to see you there!

New Poster Release: Feist Show Poster

Lovely, tough and feminine, Feist. And with the most beautifully textured voice around, the awesomely talented Feist. Featuring a Steeltown-tough Tartan plaid Tulip pattern in black & gold & green against a night-black background.

This is our all hand silkscreen printed, limited edition gig poster for the amazing Feist’s show in Pittsburgh on July 14th, at Stage AE, on Bastille Day.

  • Size 16 x22 inches (45.7 cm x 61 cm).
  • Edition: Limited edition of 120. Each print is hand signed and numbered by strawberryluna.
  • Inks: Hand printed in 3 colors with hand-mixed Steeltown gold, summer green and midnight black non-toxic water based silkscreen inks.
  • Paper: Archival, no-acid, recycled content, American made Cougar Opaque White, 100lb cover weight.
  • Fits beautifully into either a standard 16″ x 20″ frame by trimming the border, or into an 18″ x 24″ frame as is with a matte.

This 3-color all hand screen printed rock poster for Feist is now available for purchase in our webshop here and also in our Etsy Shop here $25.

  • Additional photo below shows how this print might looked framed. (Sold unframed & without a matte.)

New Poster Release: Andrew Bird & Death Cab For Cutie

What a show! We were thrilled to do this show poster for 2 of our favorite and spectacular bands in one spectacular show, right in our backyard. Pinch us, are we dreaming?

This is our all hand silkscreen printed, limited edition show poster for Andrew Bird & Death Cab For Cutie’s show in Pittsburgh on July 13th, 2012 at Stage AE.

  • Size 16 x22 inches (45.7 cm x 61 cm).
  • Inks: 7 colors from 4 screens with hand-mixed sunny field yellowy orange, clear red and teal, overlaying one another to make deeper colors than any one on it’s own, and seed black non-toxic water based silkscreen inks.
  • Edition: Limited edition of just 120. Each print is hand signed and numbered by strawberryluna.
  • Paper: Archival, no-acid, recycled content, American made Cougar Opaque White, 100lb cover weight.
  • Fits beautifully into either a standard 16″ x 20″ frame by trimming the border, or into an 18″ x 24″ frame as is with a matte.

This 7-color, all hand screen printed rock poster for Andrew Bird & Death Cab For Cutie is now available for purchase in our webshop here and also in our Etsy Shop here $25.

  • Additional photo below shows how this print might looked framed. (Sold unframed & without a matte.)

3 New prints released for Poetic. Aesthetic. at The University Of Maryland Art Gallery!

Hello hello. It’s been a few weeks! And we’ve been hard hard at work on a bunch of projects, hence the radio silences, as it were.

One of the new news is our inclusion in the very cool and brilliant gallery show Poetic. AestheticAn Exploration of Creativity in Poetry and Visual Art at The Art Gallery at The University of Maryland, curated by John Shipman. For this show, visual artists were paired up with poets and asked to interpret 3 poems via their visual medium. In our case, we worked with the poems of 2-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Dave Smith to produce 3 limited edition silkscreen prints for the show.

The exhibition opens on Friday January 28, 2011 with an Opening Reception from 5:00 -7:00 pm, and will be on exhibit through March 5, 2011. Works will be available for purchase at the show as well!

Poetic. Aesthetic. explores the relationship between the lyricism of poetry and the aesthetic force of the visual. By probing this relationship, Poetic. Aesthetic. also seeks to foster creative collaboration across artistic disciplines. Working with the University of Maryland Creative Writing faculty, The Art Gallery has partnered Maryland poets with national and international artists to collaborate on visual works for Poetic Aesthetic. Each visual artist will create three new works of art based on, and incorporating, the poems of one poet. Poetic. Aesthetic. exhibits works in various media, including paintings, sculptures, videos, drawings, screen-printed posters, and installations.

We chose the 3 poems of Dave Smith’s that spoke to us visually the most, and they are as follows: Goose Blind, June Bug and Come-Along:

3-color hand printed silkscreen "Goose Blind", poem by Dave Smith. Click for more info or to purchase.

5-color hand printed silkscreen print "June Bug" (poem by Dave Smith). Click for more info or to purchase.

2-color hand printed silkscreen print "Come-Along" (poem by Dave Smith). Click for more info or to purchase.

Dave Smithis the author of more than a dozen books of poems, including The Wick of Memory: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2007 (Louisiana State University Press, 2000), which was chosen as the Dictionary of Literary Biography’s Book of the Year in Poetry, and Little Boats, Unsalvaged: Poems 1992-2004 (Louisiana State University Press, 2005). He is also a novelist, critic, and editor. He has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. He is the Elliott Coleman Professor of Poetry at Johns Hopkins University, where he is also Department Chair of The Writing Seminars.

The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland presents the exhibition Poetic Aesthetic: An Exploration of Creativity in Poetry and Visual Art. The exhibition opens on Friday January 28, 2011 with an Opening Reception from 5:00 -7:00 pm, and will be on exhibit through March 5, 2011. The multimedia exhibition brings together visual art with contemporary poetry in original, interdisciplinary works. Text from poets Elizabeth Arnold, R. Dwayne Betts, Lucille Clifton, Michael Collier, Jehanne Dubrow, Michael Glaser, Joseph Harrison, Ethan Huang, Linda Pastan, Stanley Plumly, Dave Smith, Saul Sosnowski, Elizabeth Spires, and Joshua Weiner will be featured in works from artists Kris Chau, Audra Buck-Coleman, Bill Dunlap, John Foster, Tim Gough, Dan Grzeca, Hero Design, David Hughes, Mirta Kupferminc, Ruth Lozner, Jefferson Pinder, Strawberryluna, Julianna Swaney, and James Thorpe.

If you are in the College Park / University of Maryland area, please stop by and check out this amazing exhibit, running from  Friday January 28, 2011 with an Opening Reception from 5:00 -7:00 pm, and will be on exhibit through March 5, 2011.

New print released: Hello Birds 2011 Calendar!

Hand screenprinted, 9 color Hello Birds 2011 Calendar. (Click to purchase or for more info!)

 

Calendars quite something, right? They help us keep track of time, but they can also help set a mood for the day. Let’s face it, of all of the things that we look at each & every day? A least a few should make you happy just by eyeballing ’em. My 2011 “Hello Birds” Calendar aims to do just that. It’s just a fresh new day with some bird friends, saying “Hello.” Pretty good start already!

Our 2011 “Hello Birds” Calendar comes in 2 versions, the one that you see here on crisp white paper, and next week there will also be a version on a wintery Spearmint to be released on 12/9/10. Your choice!

This happy day scene is my 9-color, hand screenprinted silkscreen print, loaded with overprints from my hand mixed poppy red, sun orange, sky cyan and forest green water based screenprinting inks. The extra bit of magic? From 4 colors pulled, I get 9 by layering inks to make new colors. I love screenprinting! All 2011 “Hello Birds” Calendar prints are hand signed. Limited Edition of 75. Size: 12 x 19 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight. $20

Click here to purchase this new 2011 Hello Birds Calendar from my website and/or for more information, or head on over here to my Etsy shop.

Below are some selects from the silkscreen printmaking process for this calendar too:

Click to see more photos of screenprinting, or for more info.

Click to see more photos of screenprinting in action, or for more info.

Click to see more photos of the screenprinting process in action, or for more info.

Click to see more photos of the screenprinting process, or for more info.

 

 

New poster released: Ra Ra Riot w/ Chikita Violenta & We Barbarians

All new 2-color hand screenprinted poster for Ra Ra Riot. (Click to purchase or for more info.)

It’s a year in the making, but I’m so happy things work out the way that that do sometimes. We had originally talked with Ra Ra Riot‘s management over a year ago about working together on a poster, and here were are, October 2010 when it all came together. Huzzah!

The show was amazing, and surprising too. We arrived home from a great weekend in DC for Crafty Bastards just in time for me to edition & sign the posters for Sunday night’s Ra Ra Riot 10/2 show, gulp some homemade soup for dinner and run on down to Diesel for the show. As it turned, out, I was selling my posters behind the merch booth that evening. It was good spot to catch the amazing openers We Barbarians (from California) and Chikita Violenta (hailing from Mexico City), all of whom were super rad as well. Thanks to Rachel, the bands, & everyone at the show for great night 🙂

Info about this new poster release:

Modern & looking back to the past, like thinking about living off of the backs of our ancestors. That’s a bit how Ra Ra Riot‘s awesome sound feels. We love them! And we’re super aced to do this poster for their Pittsburgh, PA show.

This is my hand screenprinted, limited edition silkscreen poster for Ra Ra Riot, Chikita Violenta & We Barbarians with poppy orange-red and midnight black hand mixed, water-based acrylic silkscreen inks. Edition of 112, signed and numbered (by me, strawberryluna). Size: 16 x22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight. $20 This poster is now available for sale at my website HERE or in my Etsy shop here.

And, in case you are into process photos, here are a few from the printing of this poster over at my Flickr account here.

1st color film, Ra Ra Riot hand silkscreened poster. (Click for more info & photos.)

1st color flood: Ra Ra Riot, hand silkscreen printed poster. Click for more info & photos.)

1st color detail: Ra Ra Riot silkscreened poster. Click for more info & photos.)

2nd color ink on the screen: Ra Ra Riot hand screenprinted poster process. (Click for more info & photos.)

Detail of the birds, gears, and overprinted black ink on my Ra Ra Riot poster. (Click for more info & photos.)

New poster released: The National

3-color, all hand screenprinted silkscreen poster for The National. (Click for more info or to purchase.)

Alright! Brand new poster release here for the amazing band The National, as you can see from above.

And, we finally were able to catch them live. And dudes, their reputation is not only solid gold, but it perfectly earned and well deserved.

We arrived at the show early in order to get our posters to the merch table ASAP, and then it was time to relax outside of the beautiful Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall grounds in Homestead with a glass of wine and a lovely fall night gathering on the hill. It was pretty spectacular. And things only got better as we met up with our super friends Sarah & Scott from The Wreckids. Sarah had toured with The National in a past band (Boxstep) and invited us to hang out with her & the guys in The National after the show. Rock star sweetpeas, that’s all I can say about the end of the evening. HUGE thanks to The National for the amazing show, the hospitality backstage afterwards and the giggles.

Info about this new poster for The National, with Owen Pallett:

All hand screenprinted poster for their September 25, 2010 show at The Carnegie Music Hall, in Homestead, Pittsburgh, PA. Now available here at my website and here in my Etsy shop.

Etheral & earthbound, all at once. That’s sort of the charm of the amazing band The National. We love this band, and we’re thrilled to be working with them again too on a poster for our hometown, Pittsburgh.

This is our hand screenprinted, limited edition silkscreen poster for The National with dark sky blue, dark yellow and light blue hand mixed inks. Edition of 150, signed and numbered (by me, strawberryluna). Size: 16 x22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.

This poster was sold at the show and on tour with the band, and I have just a small number for sale, so they will go quick. Now available at my website here. I design & hand screenprint my prints and posters. If you have any questions, just let me know.

Here are some quick process shots, too, with more & nicer ones to come soon in my Flickr account.

1st color of our poster for The National. (Terrible photo, I know!)

2nd color down, now we're getting somewhere! Hand screenprinted poster for The National.

3rd & final color in my hand screenprinted poster for The National. (Click to purchase or for more info.)

New poster released: Sleepy Sun

Click for more info, or to purchase.

doyoulikeawesomecaliforniapsychedelicmusic? Then you’re in luck! You might also dig my newest rock poster release, for the band Sleepy Sun.

Beautiful, psychedelic, flowery, and a little messy, totally warm & California, we love Sleepy Sun.

We’re proud to be a part of the Sleepy Sun Fall 2010 Tour Poster series. Each night on the tour, the band has a different, exclusive & limited edition poster by a different poster artist for that night’s show. Take a gander, this is my hand screenprinted poster for September 11, 2010 at Bottletree, Birmingham, AL.

This is my 6-color, all hand screenprinted, limited edition poster for Sleepy Sun with purple, sunset pink, brown & metallic gold hand mixed inks. Screenprinting magic extra: Gold overprints pink & purple to make orange and a goldish green. Edition: 80, signed & numbered (by me, strawberryluna.) 35 posters went to the band on tour so I will have a limited few available for sale. Size: 16×22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.

And now, this Sleepy Sun poster is available for purchase at my website HERE or in my Etsy shop here.

Like process photos of screenprinting? This is your double lucky day dog. Check ’em below. Cheers!

First color flood, getting ready to rock’n’roll:

1st color, purple, flooded in the screen, ready to print. Click for more info & process photos.

The next color in the print order was the pink:

2nd color, pink, printed & still wet. Click for more info & process photos.

Next came the metallic gold, which overprinted parts of the pink & purple flowers:

Closeup / detail shot of the metallic gold overprint. Click for more info & process photos.

And finally, brown for the linework, to lock it all in:

Last color! Super thin brown lines and flower hearts. Click for more info & process photos.

New art print released: Coffee, Thee & Me – new 4 color edition

New colorway & 2nd edition of my art print "Coffee, Thee & Me", available now! Click to for more info or to purchase from my website.

Mmmmmm, coffee & love & BFFship. There’s little better, right?

Back by popular demand, I’ve got a brand new 2nd edition of my sold out “Coffee, Thee & Me” art print. Now in a new colorway, with 2 metallic inks. Hotcha!

The copper ink on the giraffe and the black ink on the elephant are both metallics, and they have a subtle sparkle and shine to them. The new hand-mixed grey inks for the elephant are also purposely left a little bit rough, so some of the prints have a really nice texture to them too, just like an elephant.

Hot off the press, printed by me by hand and ready for a new home. Mmm. Coffee.

I’ll have some process photos soon (packing for Renegade Chicago today, so it might not be for a few days), and until then? Have another cup. Enjoy!

Coffee, Thee & Me, 2nd ed. is now available on my website by clicking  here and also in my Etsy shop here.

Close ups of the metallic inks on the Giraffe & Elephant:

Metallic copper inks! Good for rendering cups of coffee & giraffes 🙂

Metallic black ink makes an elephants features stand out.

Renegade here we come! Come see strawberryluna in Chicago this weekend!

Zhboinga!! I’ll be there with bells on. Er, you know, metaphorically that is.

But I will be at the fantastic Renegade Craft Fair, in Chicago‘s lovely Wicker Park neighborhood this weekend both Saturday & Sunday from 11am – 7pm talking to folks and selling work. It’s a super fun time. Hope to see you there!

I’ve got a ton of new prints and posters, and they are raring to go to new homes. So come on out! Enjoy one of the nation’s biggest & brightest independent craft shows loaded with handmade talent. Seriously, the cream of the crop. And dudes, Renegade Craft Fair is HUGE. We’re talking 8 blocks of Division St. long, packed with over 300 working artists & crafters.

Plus Renegade Craft Fair also has a slew of great local food & drinks, craft workshops & demos, live entertainment, and holy heck….all of this and it’s FREE to attend? Well blow me down matey.

I’ll have new prints like Coffee, Thee & Me and Autumn Cardinal (completing my Cardinal Seasons series!) as well as new posters freshly printed! I’ll be easy to find too, on Division St. at Booth #172, between Wood & Honore, right near “Craft Alley” on Wood. And look, here is a handy map for you (click for a larger version):

Click here for a larger version.

For more information about the show, vendor list, location, activities & more click HERE for Rengade Craft Fair, Chicago’s super informitive site. The details for you, straight from Renegade Craft, Chicago:

On September 11 + 12, 2010, from 11am – 7pm, all of Division Street, between Damen and Paulina, will be chock full of incredible handmade goods made by over 300 craftspeople from all over the nation, crafting workshops + demonstrations, live entertainment,food + beverage options and other features!

The Fair takes place in Wicker Park, one of Chicago’s liveliest neighborhoods, and is easily accessible by public transportation or bicycle! Take advantage of thebicycle parking-lot at the intersection of Winchester + Division, provided by KIND Healthy Snacks!

Visitors with bicycles or presenting their CTA card at Renegade Craft Fair Welcome Stations will receive a free-issue of TimeOut Chicago magazine while supplies last!

If you’re driving, you can find both free and metered street parking in the surrounding area. Please see our FAQ for details, directions + lots more info!

Special treat! Mention that you saw this blog post, and receive a free with other purchase (of $15 or more) I Love My Books print! That’s right. FREE, with another purchase of $15 or more. Hope to see you there!

New art prints released: Naptime & I Love My Books!

New 3 color hand silkscreened art print, "Naptime". (click to purchase or for more info.)

For a while now I’ve been wanting to try a new layout, a square one, and one that would fit right into an LP record frame. Well, that time has come.

It’s “Naptime”. We all get sleepy snuggly sometimes, and even natural-born enemies can be the best of friends. You just gotta let your softer side rule.

“Naptime” is the first print in that size and layout. From an illustration that I did a few weeks ago while hanging out on a lazy Sunday afternoon off, while we were totally being summer tv heads. Probably we were watching some cooking shows, or Holmes On Holmes (my new obsession) or such like television.

Anyhoo, I also decided rather than waste paper or have a weirdly shaped cast off, as the 12×12 inch size is smaller than my normal print & paper size, that I would run a smaller print at the same, 2-up. (2-up means printing 2 or more designs on the same page at the same time, cutting them down and apart after printing.) So, I did an ode to books for the secondary smaller design, as below, called “I Love My Books”. ‘Cause I do.

New 3-color (with overprints) mini art print, "I Love My Books", hand screenprinted. (click ot purchase or for more info.)

All sunny and warm, just like this summer. Both “Naptime” and  “I Love My Books” prints are now available at my website here and also in my Etsy shop here. And, for some process photographs of the hand screenprinting process, take a look below. Click on any image below to see more & get more info at my Flickr account too.

1st color, printed. (click to see a larger image, more images or for more info.)

2nd color screen taping & prep. (click to see a larger image, more images or for more info.)

Closeup of "I Love My Books" 3-color hand silkscreened art print.

Closeup of "Naptime", 3 color hand screenprinted art print.

New poster released: Beach House

4 color, all hand screenprinted poster for Beach House (click for more info or to purchase)

We love Beach House, so so much. Semi ethereal, almost otherworldly-ghostly quality that I (of course) really dig, You’d have to close your ears hard not to notice that their lyrics often involve the sea, salt water, and drifting oceanic themes, like a ghost-ship, the kind that are found abandoned at sea carrying on alone.

And therefore, you are looking at my all hand screenprinted poster for the incomparable Beach House. It’s my 4-color, all hand screenprinted poster with ocean-sky blue, deep sea blue, and timber brown hand mixed and non-toxic water based screenprinting inks. The dark ocean blue overprints the timber brown of the ship to make a 4th color, overprint magic!

These posters were sold at the show. Didn’t get one there? Lucky you, I have a few copies left for sale. This limited edition poster is signed (by me) and numbered. Edition of 98. Size: 16 x22 inches (39.4 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.

Now available at my website here.

And, here are some process photos for you below, also more are on my Flickr account too.

1st color screen, ready to start printing. (click for more info)

1st color being registered. (click for more info)

1st color for Beach House poster, detail. (click for more info)

2nd color ink in the screen, ready to start printing. (click for more info)

Registering the 3rd & final color to be printed. (click for more info)

Overprinty goodness in the waves over the ship on my Beach House poster. (click for more info)

Etsy’s new Treasury East rocks!

Click to see this Treasury.

Hey, are you like me and you love the Treasuries at Etsy.com, but are frustrated with the stampede of trying to snag one? Be frustrated no more. Etsy has launched a new Treasury system that they are now Beta-testing, called Treasury East.

Gotta say, it ROCKS.

What’s a Treasury? Great question. In Etsy’s own words: “The Treasury is an ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery of handpicked items.” So, it’s sort of like a favorites list, or a collection put together by users based on themes, colors, craft type, a play on words, whatever the Treasury curator wishes. They’re often very lively and a great way to find new things and previously undiscovered shops on Etsy. And, there is always one treasury featured on the front page of Etsy, showing just a peek of the many hundreds of thousands

However, the last time that I tried to make a Treasury was probably in 2006, it was just too bothersome and hard to be at the very right place at the very right time with all of my selected ducks in a row. So, I didn’t even try for the past 4 years.

The way that the current / soon to be old Treasury system worked, there was a finite number of Treasuries and once one expired it was chaos with hundreds to thousands of Etsy users trying to get that next open spot at any given time.

Now, with Treasury East in Beta-testing, it’s wide open, and pretty awesome. So rad in fact, that I spent my Tuesday morning over coffee and making my very first Treasury featuring some of my favorite screenprinters, called “Inky Fingers: Screenprinted and Silk Screened Beauties” <— Click there to see ’em all.

There are some new features, such as no longer being Flash-based (hey! I can see Treasuries on my iPhone now, thanks),  and best (!) lists in Treasury East are not limited to a finite number nor do they currently have expiration dates. This means that anyone, at any time can curate and create a Treasury. Hooraay!

So go play with a Treasury East jimmy-jawn today. For all of the new features, rules, and most importantly, add your own suggestions & experiences, read over this thread on Etsy all about the new Treasury East. And, to find out if your shop is currently featured in a Treasury East list, check out this nifty tool from Craftopolis that will show you, Etsy East Hunt. (Note, you will need to have an active Google Analyitcs account linked to your Etsy shop to pull the info. Currently there isn’t a tool to see if your shop is featured on Treasury East yet via Etsy itself.)

Have you played around with making a new Treasury using Treasury East yet? I’d love to read any comments and see what other Etsy users think too.

To see my Treasury of Inky Fingers: Screenprinted Beauties, click either HERE or any of the images above. And don’t forget to comment on Treasuries that you like 🙂

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Shops & prints featured above in my “Inky Fingers: Screenprinted and Silk Screened Beauties” Treasury:

1. beethings – limited edition screenprint: “frog dog hog log bog”

2. standard – limited edition screenprint: “Hello Darkness, My Old Friend”

3. strawberryluna – limited edition screenprint “Let Love Grow”

4. Little Friends Of Printmaking – limited edition screenprint: “I Am Number One”

5. girlscantell – industrial felt, set of four coasters: “turntable diagram”

6. youngmonster – screenprinted gig poster:  “Why?”

7. Miss Amy Jo – screenprinted art print: “Kitty Cat”

8. Who Made Who TOOTH – screenprinted art print: “New Wave To The Grave”

9. DWITT – limited edition screenprint: “Magic”

10. Jetsah – limitee edition screenprint: “Arrival”

11. Hero Design Studio – limited edition screenprint: “I Heart My Bike”

12. Anne Benjamin Mok Duk – limited edition screenprint: “Bird In Hand”

13. cricket press – limited edition screenprint set: “Scorcher and Stingray Bike Set”

14. doctor pizzoli – limited edition screenprint: “Awooooga Elephant”

15. darling clementine – screenprinted canvas bag: “Monsieur Cabaret”

16. Jen Skelley – limited edition screenprint: “Beemazed”