Erinzam News

This past weekend Ben and I set up our very first booth with our wares at a local festival. We researched and prepared ourselves as much as we could, and the results were great! We had a fantastic time, met many wonderful people and even sold a few items. At the bottom of this post I am including a few of the things that worked best for us. Thanks to everyone who made it out to see us! We hope to see you again next year!

We were on a tight budget, so we bought very few new things and were creative with what we had around our apartment for our displays:

1.We found a set of hinged closet doors by an alley dumpster, which we painted gray and used to display our original art and framed prints.

2. To display giclée prints and drawings, we strung a clothesline and hung a selection of prepackaged prints with bulldog clips. After thinking way too hard about a way to display prints standing up on the table, we discovered a few boards that we had in the garage and assembled them together to make a trough. We painted it to match the large back panels. We used inexpensive office wire baskets to hold multiple prints in front of the standing display.

3. To display smaller collages, we used a vintage file box that we already had.

4. We found a collection of small wood boxes at Goodwill, which were perfect for displaying books and postcard sets.

5. Ben and I discovered a free business card promotion through our favorite green printer at greenerprinter.com and were able to order professionally printed business cards for the event. I designed mine to double as a blank tag, which we used as price labels for all of our items.

6. For a tablecloth, I hemmed a huge piece of cotton canvas, which we can always cut apart to stretch for new paintings later!

7. I painted a colorful canvas banner to hang on the front of the table, which we now proudly display in our studio.

These are some other tips that we discovered during our research that really worked for us:

1. Accepting credit cards is a very good idea! We purchased a knucklebuster (the thing that slides over a card to make a carbon copy receipt) and used ProPay over the internet to run the numbers. We were fortunate enough to have internet service at the park, so we could run the cards right then and there on Ben’s laptop.

2. The festival was “zero waste” and forbid plastic shopping bags. I discovered a great selection of sustainable bamboo and 100% recycled paper gift bags, as well as recycled content tissue papers at Dunwoody Booth Packaging. These worked great to pack up framed artwork and books. Since we already had them, I used large manila envelopes as flat bags for the prints.

3. Free chocolates make people happy! (including myself)

4. Visible pricing is important.

5. We found that displaying a framed version of a print helps people envision what their print could look like. Also, some people prefer to purchase a framed print to save them the trouble of having it done themselves. We did our own framing and ordered our framing supplies from American Frame.

6. People (including kids) will manhandle your products. Good thing we didn’t have any delicate items! Each of our prints was prepackaged in a clear bag to prevent sticky fingers from ruining them. We ordered our bags at clearbags.com.

We had such a good time and hope to do this again, so if you have any other ideas or tips, please add them! We’ll give them a try next time.

Yep. The newest issue of ReadyMade will soon appear on newsstands, so it’s about time I write a little bit about my contribution to their previous issue (Dec. 2007 / Jan. 2008), which is still available, if you are interested. Better late than never!

As usual, ReadyMade published a fantastic issue, including a selection of ideas for making your own holiday gifts. The ideas center around materials: paper, wood, plastic, fabric and metal. I contributed an idea to the paper section on how to make a note card set from repurposed materials.

Below are step-by-step instructions for how to make your own set of these note cards from file folders and other papers that you may already have.

You will need these materials and tools:

• Hanging file folders

• Miscellaneous papers (sheet music, ruled paper, graph paper, etc.)

• Glue stick

• Thick rubber band

• Ruler

• Olfa / X-acto knife

• Bone folder (optional)

• Paper clips

1. One regular file folder makes two cards. Open up a folder and cut it perpendicular to the center fold at 4 1/4 in. to the left of the fold. The center fold will serve as the fold for the cards. Cut the rest of the folder down to 11 in. x 12 3/4 in., then cut that in half lengthwise to form two 5 1/2 in. x 12 3/4 in. rectangles. Fold each piece into a tri-fold.

2. You can use any design on the front of the card. I chose monograms, so I printed out a large letter, paper clipped it to the center panel, and cut it out to create a hole.

3. Choose a paper to show through the cutout, and cut it down to the size of the center panel. Glue it under the hole, then fold the right (front) panel and glue it down to the back side of the center panel.

4. Carefully open up a standard A-2 envelope (4 3/8 in. x 5 3/4 in.) and paper clip it to your paper of choice.

5. Use the original envelope as a guide to cut your paper in the same shape.

6. Fold the new envelope paper along the original envelope’s folds.

7. Glue the bottom flap to the side flaps to complete your envelope.

8. Repeat until you have a set of cards and envelopes.

9. Wrap up your set with a rubber band and use one of the leftover cutout letters as a gift tag.

Ready for some tips and tricks? I am currently working on an illustrated tutorial of the coptic binding, which I plan to post soon. In the meantime, here are a few great resources for other tutorials and inspirations.

My favorite published resource is a book by Keith A. Smith entitled Volume I Non-Adhesive Binding: Books Without Paste or Glue. This guy knows his stuff. Although he has several other books available, I suggest this one to start off with. He begins with the basics, such as what tools to use and how to fold your paper and eventually illustrates several dozen different binding variations.

There are many online resources as well. Brian Sawyer has a great collection of bookbinding links here, which include everything from thorough tutorials to inspirations. Even more links are available at The Book Arts Web. I also discovered some great information at My Handbound Books. This blog has a selection of tutorials and ideas as well as a fantastic list of resources.

Last but not least, I suggest enrolling in a bookbinding class or workshop. This is often the quickest way to learn. Check out your local paper or art stores as well as local colleges and art centers to see if they offer any classes of this sort.

A sampling of unique kitchen and tea towels, printed, embroidered, or woven by hand:

Left to right, top: PataPri, artgoodies, hannahlaura, rockpaperscissorsart
Left to right, bottom: ofpaperandthread, OHHONEY, MrPS, jschubertdesigns

After years of using paper towels, I’m giving them up. Well, not completely, but as much as possible. My most recent trip to Europe made my dependence on a constant stream of disposable paper very noticeable. Blame it on being American, but I had no idea that I was needlessly filling up my trash can with fluffy white paper used to dry my hands and wipe my face. About the same time as the trip, I received a very special collection of hand-embroidered tea towels as a wedding gift. I love these towels! I am now creating a collection of fun and pretty towels that hang all over the kitchen. This way, I have no excuse to reach for the paper when my hands are dripping wet. This new change of pace led me to the next step: cloth napkins. I’m not sure what took me so long to prefer cloth over paper, but now I will never go back. Cloth napkins are much more fun. I don’t even need to mention the money and the trees that I save.

I came up with an easy way to create a fun stash of cloth napkins on the cheap, created from kitchen towels. Most available cloth napkins are white, and I frequently eat curry, spaghetti sauce, blueberries, you name it. This makes the white napkins look gross after one or two uses. I select kitchen towels with dark colors or busy patterns which can hide my messes. The set of towels I selected above are from Anthropologie. The process is so simple. I fold each towel in half lengthwise and cut along the fold. I then double fold, pin and stitch a new hem along each cut edge. Done! That’s it. These napkins are not a standard “napkin size” but they work quite well for everyday meals. You can bring out the fancy white ones when you have guests.

I have a collection of antique matchbooks that have resided in storage, waiting for a new purpose. At my mom’s suggestion to turn them into mini books, I pulled them out and began the transformation (thanks Mom!). What a great way to lose the flammability and keep the nostalgia! If you’d like to try this yourself, here’s a quick how-to.

1. Choose a paper or papers to use as pages.

2. Using an awl or similar tool, gently pry open the back prongs of the staple holding the matchbook together.

3. Remove the matches, leaving the staple in the front portion of the matchbook (be careful not to tear through the cover with the staple).

4. Cut your paper to the size of the matches and make a stack of pages about the same thickness as the chipboard portion of the matches. Using the matches as a guide, punch two holes in the base of your stack of pages.

5. Place the stack of pages within the cover by guiding the staple through the holes at the base of the pages.

6. Thread the staple back through the back cover of the matchbook and use a bone folder or similar tool to press the prongs back into place.

Voilá! You now have a new little book to write secret notes in or other things of similar importance.

A friend of mine, who will soon graduate from law school, requested two unique guest books to commemorate the celebration of her graduation. She sent me some old law books that she was eager to rid herself of and as I worked with them, I discovered a new process.

I found that reusing book cloth from hardbound books is fairly easy. After removing the covers from the inside pages, I carefully peeled the book cloth away from the existing book board. I removed the paper fibers stuck to the back of the cloth with a dish scrubber and water. Once the cloth was clean and dry, it was ready for reuse.

I created much smaller versions of the law books, using pages of data from the old books for the end sheets and filling the books with blank paper.