Heart Handmade Holiday Zine

If you aren't familiar with Heart Handmade, it's a wonderful blog featuring the loveliest of handmade items and sharing the story of the person behind the design.



Last week, Heart Handmade released their Holiday Zine, an inspiring collection of stories, wishes, tips, recipes and gift ideas from some of the talented artisans who've contributed to Heart Handmade in 2008.

My absolute favourite part of the zine though, and a must-have for all of you, is the free downloadable print by Michele Maule. Michele is one of my absolute favourite artists and I've talked about here here on Inspired By Hand more than once before. When I saw that she was giving away a free download of one of her prints, I was extatic!

So download Heart Handmade's Holiday Zine, and download one of Michele's prints for free! Check out some of Michele's work:





Related Links
Heart Handmade's Holiday Zine
Michele Maule's Etsy Shop
Michele Maule's Blog - How 2 Draw a Cup of Coffee

Black Friday Sale!

It's Black Friday, and even though I'm in Canada, I wanted to participate in the shopping frenzy! It's so exciting! haha. I've been shopping online all morning myself, and have decided to put...

My Entire Esty Shop on SALE for 20% oFF!!

From Now through until Cyber Monday (Dec. 1st) check out TanyBUG on Etsy!

Put a Plate on your Wall

Remember when you were a kid and your Grandma had all these kitschy plates hanging on her wall? I remember thinking it was so... old lady?

Well plates on your wall as art is back in a big way! Check out these kitschy-cool finds!



1. Seafoam Love Dish - by katb888

2. Sweet Mary....Small Ceramic Art Plate - by ChristinaRomeo

3. Small Plate- Memory Chair Stars - by StacyJoCeramics

4. Motorway Plate - by EstherCoombs

5. Decorative Shamrock Wall Plate - lesleecreighton

6. Butterflies are Free, Set of 4 Hand Crafted Stoneware Dishes - by justmare

7. Chair Plate - by dovetail

8. Sun Pod wall hanging - by amsiad

How To Market Your Craft Business Online…. $1 Seminar!

I just signed up for this seminar and I wanted to share the info with you! If you are looking for ways to market and grow your craft business on a budget, this seminar sounds like it might be helpful, and it's only a dollar to register, so you can't really go wrong!

I did notice that the number to call is not toll free, however, you can email in your questions, and they are recording the seminar and sending it out to all who are registered, so it's still worth your dollar! Also good if you are not available during the time of the actual call.

From the site:

Join me this Thursday, November 20 at 9pm Eastern for a special teleseminar, How To Market Your Craft Business Online…. Without Going Broke!

Some Of The Topics We'll Be Covering:

• Learn how to market online - even if you don't have a website!
• Find out how to get your products featured on shopping sites
• How to ask other people to promote your products!
• Learn how to promote your business with social networking sites
• Find out how writing a few articles can help you strengthen your sales
• And MORE!

Click here for more information and to register!

Recycled Mini-Book!

Turn these...


into this:


Another idea I got from Elsie's class this week was to reuse Starbucks sleeves for pages in a mini-book! What a great idea!

I have all of these random photos that spark a memory of a certain time, but don't really go with anything else, so I made this mini book called "Remember When..."

Portraits, an exploration of self

One of the projects this week in Elsie's Class was taking Self-Portraits. I was waiting for some nice outdoor weather, but it's raining non-stop here, so tonight I was inspired by my classmates self-portraits and just had to do mine, natural light or not!

It feels really weird at first, taking all of these pictures of yourself. It made me feel sort of self-absorbed, and self-conscious all at the same time. After a few shots though I started to loosen up and have fun with it. I found it to be a real exercise in boosting self confidence and loving yourself (as cheese-ball as that sounds!).

So here is a sample of what I shot tonight. I challenge you to shoot some of your own self-portraits. Tell yourself you are a supermodel and go with it! Trust me, soon enough you will be having a blast! If you need a little help, I recommend listening to "Hot Child in the City" - who doesn't feel great listening to that song!!?? If you take my challenge I'd love to see what you come up with, post links to your blog of flickr here for me to see!

Happy Photographing!
Related Articles

• 6 Weeks with Elsie Flannigan
• A Beautiful Mess: Elsie's Blog
• My Flickr

We Are Sleeping Giants

One of my absolute favorite Photographers has just unveiled a new project he has been working on over the summer called "We are Sleeping Giants". I am absolutely in love with the final product and wanted to share with you.

Brooks Reynolds is a young photographer with an amazing talent. He captures the mood of a moment, the personality in a portrait, and the energy of an instant all with his camera and innovative use of lighting.

Check it out and be amazed (click on image)...

Related Links

• We are Sleeping Giants
• Brooks Reynold's Photography

A Photo

This is a photo I took last year on our trip to Mexico, but today I was inspired to pull it out of the archives and enhance it with some of the photoshop actions I found the other day.

I wanted to share...


Related Links
My Flickr
Photoshop Actions

Class With Elsie Started Today!

A week or so ago I signed up for an online class with Elsie Flannigan. You may remember my post here telling you about it, if not, you can view the details here.

I am so excited about this class and have been dieing for it to start and today it finally did! So now for 6 weeks I am going to have daily inspirations and projects supplied by none other than Elsie herself, one of my favourite artists!

Unfortunately my daily life the next couple of days is super hectic so I am fitting in what I can, but I couldn't let day 1 pass without making something! Elsie is encouraging us all to keep a journal, and she also showed us some fun ways to alter and personalize a journal, so that's what I did tonight. Altered my journal and get it all ready for my first entry (which I will do when I am snuggled into bed tonight). I've half -heartedly kept journals in the past, usually to have them fizzle out after a few weeks or even days. I plan to make this one very personal though, and try to capture a lot of my emotions in both words and illustrations. I probably won't share the inside of this journal with you (maybe a page or 2 down the road) but I will show you how I altered it!

Here is the original Journal as I bought it:


And then I started painting on it:


And then I used the blow-dryer to dry it, and then I put on the finishing touches! I also gave my journal a title, again as suggested by Elsie, what a great idea! I was driving home tonight, thinking about what I was going to do to my journal, and what I was going to call it, all the while singing along to the radio, when it hit me....


This is going to be a fun 6 weeks!

Related Articles
6 Weeks with Elsie Flannigan
A Beautiful Mess: Elsie's Blog

She Wore Flowers in Her Hair

This weekend I finished a new painting! I call it, "She Wore Flowers in Her Hair." It's an original illustration by me. The colour was another experiment for me using gouache and watercolor. Prints of this piece are available now in my Etsy Shop.

Let me know what you think!

They say it's your birthday..... it's my birthday too!

That's right, today is my birthday! So I am celebrating by offering you 20% off my camera straps! Today only, until 11:59 EST, purchase any camera strap(s) in my shop, and I will send a revised invoice with 20% off my regular prices. That means you can get any of my camera straps for only $16 + shipping. Just choose "other" as your form of payment when checking out of Etsy, and I will send an invoice to you for the discounted amount!

It's that easy! I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Obama

by 3 Lambs Graphics

I may be Canadian but I feel a certain sense of joy and relief today.

Motivation Mondays - Design Your Own Custom Fabric

If you are like me, you get a certain thrill out of browsing through fabric shops, gathering up all the pretty fabrics you want to purchase. In fact, you probably have more fabric than you can keep up with! And, if you are even more like me, you secretly desire trying your hand at designing your own fabric to make some of your lovely creations from. Well here is your chance...

Tonight, while doing my nightly web-reading before bed, I came across this site: Spoonflower.



What is Spoonflower?
Well here's what their website says:

Love fabric?
Print something unique

• Spoonflower lets you print fabric from designs you upload to your own account on our web site.
• All your designs are private unless you choose to make them public. We will never sell, print, or share your designs without your permission.
• There is no minimum fabric order and no set-up fee. You can order a swatch for $5, a fat quarter for $11, or multiple yards at $18 each. Registration is free.
• At the moment, fabric choice is limited to 4.3 oz. 100% Kona™ cotton.
• We are based in Mebane, North Carolina, but ship all over the world.
• We are happy to have you here.

I personally am amazed by this site and the possibilities it opens up! I hope you will explore the site and what it has to offer and I hope it motivates you to perhaps try something new! Please let me know if you try out this site, and how it works out for you!

Tis the Season for Christmas Cards!

Halloween is officially over and that means it's time to start thinking about Christmas! I was chatting on the phone with my mom this morning and we decided we should get started today on our Christmas Cards, and what better way to get started than to make some together! So I made the hour and a half trip back home for a fun afternoon of stamping and cropping with my mom, resulting in my first 4 Christmas Cards of the year!

It worked out really well, not only did I get to spend time with my mom, we also got to share all of our stamps and stash, so it really opened up the window of creativity to include things I wouldn't have been able to use on my own.

This was a good start and now I'm really excited to keep going and get about 15- 20 cards made this year to send out! There's my goal, in writing, let's see if I can do it!