screen printing in the rubble

just look at that pegboard!

Making this move has had its ups and downs.  Sometimes you’ll be driving in the car for what seems like DAYS just to get to a decent Thai food place.  But then you go downstairs and realize:  “What??  I have a workshop?!  A real, live workshop!” and then suddenly pad thai accessibility doesn’t seem like such a deal breaker.

It should be noted that the nearest, decent Thai restaurant is only a ten minute drive away.  It should also be noted that I know I’m a crybaby.  City people are so spoiled.

Right now, the workshop kinda looks like this:

mystery boxes

Even though we’re working with only 20% of floor space I had a chance to break out the ol’ screen printing tools and go to work today.  I had two onesie orders to fill from a couple weeks ago when all our stuff was in limbo, and Metal Feathers needed t-shirts so I got to work.

Click on the image to buy your own Harbor Seal Onesie!

I made five of these in different sizes to complete the current stock I have.  If you think the harbor seal design is cute and want one of your own just click right here.

metal feathers

Then came the MFers tees — this was a tough design to print, because the glasses are so thick and the writing was pretty thin, so getting the ink saturation was difficult.  I had to go over it once and then a second time, with emphasis on the ‘m’ and the ‘s’ at the bottom/top of the design.  The guys said they came out well, though, so I guess my work here is done.

work!

There are a lot of lovely things about the new house, but one thing in particular is the utility sink in the workshop.  Just genius.  So now instead of running up to the kitchen or outside to the hose I can just walk my screen over to the sink and wash it, no threat of getting ink in non-crafty places.  Well, I can wash it conveniently right after I drop it on the floor and start screaming at the Yudu machine.  Seriously — it’s the dumbest machine to rely heavily on because I refuse to learn the right way to do anything.  Anyways, check this out:

swoon

Mostly it was just really relaxing to actually start making things with my hands again.  They’ve been busy with packing boxes, lifting boxes, scraping walls, ripping up carpet, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning for the last month.  I also picked up some light, summer knitting (100% cotton happy beach time hair bands… coming soon…) to do while we watch the Netflixes.  Handwork is essential to me and I’m glad I don’t have to put it on the back burner anymore, even if there are about 100 boxes that need to be unpacked…

Your Custom Little Eye Magnets

A couple of months ago I was delighted to receive custom orders from Malaika of Hand Me Down Designs and Laura Duplissis LeBrun of Sweeter Salt for two very different wedding-related orders.  Malaika needed gifts for bridal showers (magnet sets with the couples’ images and two bottle cap charm necklaces of the same) and Laura wanted some unique, DIY-type gifts for all her wedding guests.  Tonight, I want to illustrate the custom option that Little Eye has to offer for wedding favors, birthday presents, stocking stuffers, Easter hide-ables, baby showers, etc. etc. – the sky is the limit!  I love working with people and their designs, making them fit in bottle caps, and working together to color coordinate the caps for maximum customization.  It’s all about you, guys!

Laura wanted little wedding favors that were affordable and memorable – the first thing you should know about custom work from Little Eye Designs is that bulk ordering (100 pieces or more) is priced wholesale.  If I can get a whole bunch of work done at once I’m happy to pass the savings on to you!  So, Laura’s graphic design-savvy fiancé (now husband!) designed the perfect graphic to describe them, illustrated it in their wedding colors and passed it on to me:

Ross and Laura Sailing, Waving

Yes!   Ross sized the image in to a circle for me, but most of the time I am working with raw images and I will do a few crops and submit to my customer’s approval.  Some images are better at being ‘circled’ than others – I usually recommend that people send 2-3 images of the thing they might want in their custom caps, that way if one picture is not as good as the others for the crop then there will still be plenty of options.

After receiving the image, Laura and I decided that sunshine-y yellow backs for the bottle caps would be the perfect color to complement the image on the front as well as their wedding colors.  Coordination is everything, no?  Now, Audrey — get to work!

Custom Images - Printed and Cut

First, I made templates and printed out the design Laura and Ross wanted – then I cut them all out and stacked them up in little columns.  I am a bit specific about my process…

Prepared Caps and Fixed Images

The little Rosses and Lauras are then put in to prepared bottle caps (backs painted, half-filled with epoxy) and fixed with a crafters glue to prevent any color bleeding.  Then I did this about a 100 more times while I watched silly programs on television – most likely “The Cosmos” with Carl Sagan because I don’t have the right kind of attention span for “The Bachelorette.”

Ahh, finished!

You can see from the shiny-ness above that these are the finished caps.  The glued images were then covered in a layer of epoxy and let to dry and cure for maximum strength.  .5″ diameter ceramic magnets are then attached to the back using jeweler’s glue (pretty powerful stuff) which makes for a strong hold (3 take out menus?  One exceptionally heavy macaroni craft?), good functionality while not being too bulky.  You can also see the bright, yellow finish with white dappling which is my handy-dandy “Little Eye” technique.  Now put these babies up on a vintage ‘Frigidaire’ door at the entry of your wedding’s dining hall and you’ve got a really cool way to help your guests remember you, your wedding day and how much fun they had every time they open up their refrigerator door.

Here are some applications for custom Little Eye magnets.  (I make pins, necklaces, hair clips and rings, too!):

-Bridal Showers (photographs, wedding date, a ‘set of 12’ as a gift)

-Bridal Party Favors (flowers, images of the bride (and groom), sayings)

-Wedding Favors (illustrations, photographs, wedding date)

-Baby Shower Gifts and Favors (ultrasound images, illustrations)

-Stocking Stuffers (inexpensive gifts for everyone)

-Baby Announcement (set of 2 with photograph of baby and birth date/weight) in addition to greeting card announcements

-Birthday Presents (do your friends really like Twin Peaks?  How about a magnet set!?)

-Band Pins (your band’s logo or photo to sell at shows with other merch and music)

-Anything else you can dream up in your noggin!

Please don’t hesitate to ask if you’re interested in any of the above or more!

You can reach me at the ol’ gmail at:  littleeyedesigns

Metal Feathers Band Pin with Bumper Sticker Graphic - Click to See Their Page!

Metal Feathers in the Bollard

Local band and friends o’ mine, Metal Feathers, landed the cover of The Bollard this month with some photographs from Little Eye Designs (aka Audrey Hotchkiss).  Here are some shots from the shoot:

Cover Photo, on its side. Woops!

Althea and Jay

Destroy Derek!

Inside Photo (Original) that got chopped up (artfully)

 

For the record, photographing bands or really any number of people larger than ‘1’ and it’s pretty much like trying to wrangle cats.  I’d like to work on that (placing multiple figures in the frame) and see how their placements affect the overall product.  But, for now, I just have some awesome pictures of my friends.  That’ll do just fine!

You Either Stay Up Late or Get Up Early

…or Both.  Sometimes I do both.

I’ve been rather neglectful of this little corner of the internet.  I like to think of it as the cyber equivalent of my bathroom which, up until I had guests over exactly seven days ago, had been ignored in the same, increasingly inconvenient way.

A little recap, here is what I’ve been busy on:

Poster by Meagan Anderson and Kris Johnsen. $8 on Etsy!

The BIG THAW Portland – she is coming to a Mayo Street Arts Center near you and it’s going to be just brilliant, I am sure of it.

Shallots, $6.50 for 5"x5" Print

I’ve been listing photos on Etsy, which while not totally profitable is getting my work included in lots of treasuries, so I cannot complain.  Above is one the community just couldn’t get enough of the first couple of days it was up.

Metal Feathers is Good.

The ‘busy season’ has started at work again, so I’ve spent less time trolling the internet for awesome things.  But in the meantime, you should probably just check out Mike’s tumblr.  Which is fun to watch because Metal Feathers, my boyfriend’s band, is on their sometimes playing, sometimes heckling the people who are playing.  All in good fun, much like their new album, Contrast Eats the Slimey Green, which is so worth listening to.

Set of 6 Bottle Cap Wine Charms, $8 on Etsy

Lastly, but not leastly, I’ve been working on a new project do develop bottle cap wine charms.  I’m also in to the idea of flipping these guys upside-down and doing custom orders for weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, etc.  The wedding market is truly untapped by Little Eye Designs.  Why, oh why?  First of all, I love weddings.  I love shooting weddings.  So why wouldn’t I furnish them, too?

This is just a little dose for now.  If you’re jonesin’ for some smarmy writing it’s probably better if you go visit The BIG THAW for awhile until all the dust settles in mid-April.  That’s where most of my efforts are, these days!