Rare Sightings of the Elusive Jackaloptopus!

Here we present the Jackaloptopus. You cannot possibly imagine what an honor it is to have witnessed this amazing creature in it's natural habitat. A twisted love story between a jack rabbit and an octopus brought science this logic defying animal, and yet it has conquered all odds surviving both on land and at sea. With no camera available at the time, I'm afraid we were only able to scribble this Ink Blot of the creature as it slithered and hopped along the shoreline, nibbling at whatever washed up on the deserted beach. You can see here how only five tentacles protrude from what appears to be a fluffy bunny tail! Unbelievable. It remains unclear if a sustainable population is in existence, but this sighting certainly brings us a renewed hope that these creatures can become more than a genetic whoops.

We watch too much Discovery Channel. Enjoy :)

Trying Not to Live a Disposable Life

Ok, I admit it- I'm a sucker for coffee. More specifically, I'm a sucker for walking into a place who's employees already have my order started when I walk in, know me by name, and ask me how my mom is doing. In this corner of Atlanta, that place is a Starbucks. Now before you get ready to lynch me, please note that we live in a land of office parks and mini malls and there isn't a home grown coffee shop for miles. When we visit Augusta, our favorite little spot is The New Moon Cafe, which sports fair trade beans that are roasted locally. If you want anything organic or vegan, they probably have it, and they encourage patrons to recycle and use fewer napkins. Here at home however, it isn't that easy, so I've decided to do what I can without giving up my morning stop. I present the cup:

Isn't it gorgeous!?!! And better yet, it was given to me by a friend who never used it. (Thank you Hannah) According the The New York Times, Starbucks uses an estimated 1.5 billion cups annually, a number that I'm ashamed to have contributed to. Previous to aquiring the cup we always took our coffee cups home for recycling- a great way to quantify your environmental and financial guilt. I am now disposable cup free. If we could just get a local roasting, organic, fair trade, shade grown, green as can be shop here in Dunwoody I'd be all set. :)

Happy Earth Day!

It's that time of year again, and while we try to be eco-conscious all year, today is a great day to make a few changes. We've started "greening" our bathroom recently and are still looking for a few earth friendly items (please leave suggestions if you have them). So far, I'm loving the shampoo bars from Lush. They come with no packaging what so ever, are handmade, have no preservatives, and last a long time. My personal favorite is Squeaky Green. Give it a try and you'll never go back to bottled shampoo :)
While we're celebrating, grab this growing tree widget to help spread awareness. Yeah, we know it's an auto advertisement, but hey- a good cause is a good cause. Chevy is partnering with The Nature Conservancy to plant real trees as part of the campaign. When you click the "grab this" button, just click on the myspace icon for the embed code. It will still work.

Reusable Produce Bags Are Awesome

In the great words of Homestar Runner: Seriously. We recently purchased some of these greener than green bags from ReMarket, an eco-friendly shop on Etsy and they are fantastic. No longer do we have to feel guilty about each individual plastic bag that one piece of produce goes into. I've even tried putting all of my produce into one plastic bag only to have the cashier glare at me and separate them into individual bags at the register. These lovely mesh bags come in 4 sizes- S, M, L, XL and and can be purchased individually or in sets. We recommend getting 2 sets since we always wish we had at least one more. Not only do they make it easy to see what is inside of them, but unlike plastic, they allow the produce to breath rather than trapping moisture inside. One word of caution- I did accidentally put my fingernail through one, so do be careful. I can't stress enough that this was my silliness, not an issue with the bag's structure. They are quite sturdy if you don't hold them with your thumbnail while dropping heavy items into them. Overall- a great product that we will probably be ordering more of soon. Keep your eyes open for more to be in stock. Apparently business has been booming and cleared out a lot of the shop's inventory. Check them out in the ReMarket shop here.

Staying Motivated

A long time ago, my dad cut out a comic strip for me from Baby Blues. The little girl (Zoe) in the comic was trying to paint. When her father assumed what the painting was of, she went into a tantrum and tore it to shreds. I kept it on my wall throughout college to remind me to try not to be like Zoe. Sometimes you just get frustrated when things don't turn out how you imagined them in your head. Sometimes, it helps to just take a breather for a while and let the frustration settle, and sometimes it's better to push through it lest you never return to the piece. I tend to be the anxious type when it comes to art. I'm constantly afraid of that fatal error- that slip of the wrist. Before you know it, you're sucking in a deep breath as you watch ink smear across the page. I've just been having some trouble getting things finished lately. A piece might get ruined, or we can't find the right size frame, or the right supplies. It's a never ending battle that just leaves me tired and unimaginative. How do you stay motivated? If you have any tips for me and other readers, please leave them in the comments. :)

I guess I've just been in an artsy funk lately. We were so ready for some warm happy weather that we bought a ton of new plants for the balcony. Today, it started sleeting, so they are all camping out in the living room. Hopefully some Spring cleaning will sweep some of the cob webs and clutter out of my head and out of this house and encourage some warmth and cheer.

On the up side, we had a VERY successful day at the antique shops and found two incomplete sets of bone dominoes! We have a deep respect for antiques and people who appreciate them, so we won't break up a complete set. I also found some letterpress type to add to my collection, and some vintage bottle caps. Not too shabby. :) I hope everyone is well. Sorry for my little vent fest. I'll be more bubbly soon, I promise.

Flamengo Kisses: Another Blot

This is an ink blot that is residing on our wall now. We might give him up someday, but for now, he'll stay. I like all of the movement in this one and the feeling of teetering. I hope everyone is having a good week. We're working on a side project right now, so the shop has been kind of slow. I can't say what the project is because it's a present :). Hopefully we'll have some pictures up next week.
Peace out!

One Hot Blot

This is one of my current favorites in the shop. One of these days I'll perfect my hotrod flames, but in the meantime, I'm pleased with the way this blot turned out. You can also see it in our shop here. Hopefully, we can get some full sized blots framed and show them off soon. Robo Chicken is on display at Vintage 965 where he is strutting his stuff right up front!

In other news, we just sold these babies:
These were carefully sliced from a salvaged bicycle handle grip. We coated them with some poly to help make them more durable. I think they have a lovely shape. Feel free to leave us a few comments and opinions on them. We're still trying to decide if we want to make more. Peace out people and have a great week!

Jewelry Displays for the Crafty!

For our last arts and crafts event, we needed to bring some displays. Some will remember our shower caddy display we made a while back. Well, it served us well for earrings for a while, but now with so many to hold, it is a bit difficult to search through. A quick rummage through the garage produced this fine earring display:

It used to be a pretty rockin' spice rack, and it holds several pairs of earrings nicely. I highly recommend it. Don't worry, the shower caddy bin is still around being repurposed for bracelets:

Best of all is this awesome pendant display that Michael made. The pendants are suspended from glass coke bottles that have been firmly secured to a wooden post. Ideally the post would have been reclaimed (grrrr) but we didn't have one handy and we ran out of "junk hunting" time. It was surprisingly easy, inexpensive, and lots of fun for buyers to play with:
So if you need a display, don't head for the store, head for your closet! You probably have most supplies hiding in your own house to make something yourself. :)

Offline Marketing with A Cup of Joe

We're all trying to find more ways of marketing and it seems like the more time we spend updating this profile or promoting in that forum the less we actually do what we do best- create! So today we have a great tip that has served us well: take your craft mobile. No, I'm not talking about making iPhone cozies with your embroidered logo. (although it's not a bad idea!) I mean get out of the house and craft somewhere public. We regularly try to set up shop in our local coffee house putting together earrings and drawing blots. We usually drum up some interest and always have some cards handy. This week, we met a lovely buyer and are now a few items lighter because of it. Of course not everyone can lug their supplies all over town, but even if you can only take a part of it, like sewing on buttons, or attaching findings- try it! Think of all those musicians playing outdoors with their cases open wouldn't be making a dime sitting at home playing for themselves.

And don't forget to check out some of the new domino Ink Blots! Go ahead- break my heart and buy one. I dare you :)

Introducing A Brighter Blot

We got back from Augusta last night, so now we can talk about some new things we're working on. The domino bin is running rather low, so we've started thinking about other things we can blot. A few local baristas happily chipped in and started saving up used gift cards for us that would otherwise be tossed in the trash. They make an awesome backdrop for our swirls and eye balls! We'll be slowly putting them out this week, so look for them next to our domino Ink Blots.

As for the Augusta event, we had a blast! Thanks very much to Vintage 965 for having us!