Monday Spotlight On: Sandi Nenga of Quiddity Designs

Today's interview is with Sandi Nenga of Quiddity Designs on Etsy.   Sandi, why don't you introduce yourself?
By day, I’m a mild-mannered sociology professor. No, I’m kidding. By day, I’m a snarky, irreverent, high-energy sociology professor. I research the sociology of childhood and youth, which basically means I spend a lot of time trying to experience the world the way a middle school or high school student does. Yeah, sometimes that makes me crazy. To try to find sanity again, I design jewelry at night.

Crystal and Silver Necklace with Olive Green Navette Drop

Tell us three other things about yourself.
I want to be a telepath when I grow up.
I’m not a telepath, so I guess that means I’m not a grownup.
I know what you’re thinking–don’t laugh at me. Oh crap. This means I’m a grownup, doesn’t it?

What’s your medium and how did you get into it?
I’ve always loved jewelry and wanted to learn how to make it, but could never find time to take a class. One day at a bookstore I started leafing through a beaded jewelry craft book and thought, I can do this! My first attempts at wire wrapped jewelry were rather sad, but fortunately, I bought another book and tried again.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve made?
Right now it’s the Lapis Lazuli Silver Seaweed Necklace in my store. I’d had a bad day and just wanted to pound on something with a hammer. The next thing I knew, all that frustration had turned into this beautiful, shimmering necklace.

Lavender Pearl and Silver Drop Necklace

From where do you take inspiration?
Usually from the silver and stones themselves. I’ll pick up a pretty stone and think, how can I best show you off? But when I’m stuck, I’ll look at jewelry making books and browse Etsy to see if a shape or a silhouette inspires me.

Name one piece of art you wish you’d created and why?
I wish I had created a lovely, water-wise flower garden. I love flowers, but I live in Texas which is currently in a horrible drought, and all the water-hungry plants in my yard are dessicated/dead right now.

What are you doing when you’re not crafting?
It depends what time of year it is. During the school year, I’m teaching, doing research and grading. During the summer, I can often be found doing ethnography at a summer camp, trying to blend in with the high school or middle school students. I also am a proud reader of trashy books (especially books about telepaths).

If you had to give up your medium and pursue another, what would it be and why?
Why? What do you know about Madame Esmeralda? No, I don’t want to give her up. She predicted I would be a telepath someday and I believe her. In here. *taps forehead solemnly*

Silver and Apatite Earrings

Tell us about a time you were making something that came out better than expected and how it happened.
Actually, it was a custom order. A customer asked me to make some earrings that would match a necklace, so I sent her a design for a bead and a circle dangle. She suggested putting the bead and circle on a short length of chain so they would swing and move more. I tried it and it was such a great idea that many of the earrings in my shop now have that chain element.

How would you explain how to do what you do to an eight year old?
I make pretty, sparkly things. See? Hey! Come back here with that necklace! No, you can NOT put that on a CAT!

What’s your favorite part of the process?
To design, I usually pull out a bunch of stones and silver shapes and arrange them on a mat. Then rearrange. Repeat a trillion times until I find a design I like. My favorite moment is when I execute the design and it looks even better than I had thought it would.

Red Pearl and Silver Bracelet

One random thing you think people should know.
People who know random things are more interesting than those who know orderly things.

Where can people find you and your work?
Shop: quidditydesigns.etsy.com
Facebook: facebook.com/quidditydesigns

What did you want to be when you were ten?
I don’t remember. But when I was 11,  I wanted to own a women’s clothing store that sold pants for every occasion. I was going to name it “Outskirts” and the logo was going to be a skirt with a diagonal red line through it. I did okay sewing vests and shirts, but I never could figure out how to sew pants well so that dream had to be put to sleep... I mean taken to a farm. It’s living happily at a farm. A dream farm. Yeah.

Treasury Thursday: The Tattooed Lady

'The Tattooed Lady.' by cursiveart

A collection of all things classic tattoo.

TATTOO ROSE- another co... taylorsays $275.00	Old School Style Tattoo... orangyredink $25.00	Tattooed lady in a cors... mck254 $250.00
Tattoo Print Rockabilly... boobookittycou... $99.00	Tattoo Brooch Jewelry R... whatanovelidea $22.00	Large Tattoo Inspired R... DollyCool $16.00
9"x11" wood ... KGBurner $80.00	Guns and Roses Wedding ... YellowBrickRoa... $100.00	Black and Grey Traditon... theringleader $23.95
Sailor Jerry Traditiona... mandaroux $15.00	Tattoo Art: Painted Ros... Artcore313 $75.00	Victorian Tattooed Gal ... crankbunny $20.00
set of two nautical sta... azulturquesa $2.75	His and Hers Heart Tatt... MaidOfClay $86.00	Rockabilly Tattoo Swall... TheDollCityRoc... $20.00
The Dangerous Web We We... LoveMeOrnament... $20.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Monday Spotlight On: Karen and Rich of Grin, Grimace and Squeak!

Rich and Karen live across the Pond, in a quite village in the Cornish coast of England.  Both artists in their own right, they got together and a mutual love of costume resulted in their wonderful masquerade designs, from hair vines to beaded masks all of which can be found in their shop, GrinGrimaceandSqueak!

Silver and Seaglass Headband

Tell us three other things about yourself.
We are mad as two balloons, both really quite shy though we like good company and we are constantly on the lookout for new things to try, be that a new material or a jam recipe.


I'm not quite sure how mad two balloons are, but it sounds lovely. What’s your medium and how did you get into it?   We work in enamelled wire and glass seed beads for the most part though we also use resin and sea glass. Like most crafty types, we have piles of different materials and it wasn't until there was a party to go to and nothing to wear that a coil of purple wire got turned into a mask. It worked so well, we tried it again and got hooked! Asides from it being beautiful, it has so much potential- years on and we're still designing new ways of working with it ;)

Sea glass masks that sounds absolutely endearing.  What's your favorite thing the two of you have come up with? Oooh, tough one. Can we have two?

Purple Ladies' Cat Mask

Yes, since there are two of you.
It would have to be our cat mask because it represents a change in how we worked around the human face shape and the horned jester, because it was the first to have three dimensional horns.

Horned Jester Masquerade Mask

From where do you take inspiration?
We work a lot from nature, be that plants, birds or just times of year- we have simple party pieces but it's also nice to work on a theme, create something with a personality of its own.

Name one piece of art you wish you’d created and why?
We'd love to have created Darkness from the film Legend , brilliant :)


That's probably the most interesting answer anyone has given as of yet.  And a brilliant film. What are you doing when you’re not crafting?
We spend a lot of time out walking, taking photos – which is probably as well since our other great passion is cooking.

If you had to give up your medium and pursue another, what would it be and why?
Actually, there are lots more mediums we want to try, just don't have the space to use.....yet :) We see our work getting more theatrical as time goes by, we'd like to create in sheet metal amongst other things but could use a little more elbow room and new tools for that.

Tell us about a time you were making something that came out better than expected and how it happened.  That would have to be Le Cyrano, one of our mens masks- getting from a paper design to a 3d wire sculpture can take several attempts and lots of adjustments but that time, it worked perfectly first time around and was the subject of much astonished staring for quite some time :)

Who is one person living or dead, famous or not, who you wish owned one of your creations and why?  Eartha Kitt, the original Catwoman, very cool lady who had a wicked sense of humour.

Mayqueen Masquerade Mask

She'd probably look smashing in one of your masks, as well. How would you explain how to do what you do to an eight year old?  Actually, our work has only become complicated because our designs have evolved to much- the basic process of bending wire to shape and wrapping more wire strung with beads around that frame is pretty simple.

What’s your favorite part of said process?
Standing back and admiring it afterwards, at which point we magically forget how much swearing was involved and think it would be a great idea to do make another one.

One random thing you think people should know.
Monkeys peel bananas upside down- apparently, it works better because you don't squash the fruit by snapping the stalk like most people do :)


Your shop address/facebook/Twitter/blog/website. Etc.
Our UK website where we also offer rental: http://www.gringrimaceandsqueak.co.uk
Our Etsy shop: http://www.gringrimaceandsqueak.etsy.com
Our blog: http://gringrimaceandsqueak.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ggsetsy

If you could go anywhere on Earth at any point in time, where and when would you go and why?
We'd go back to prehistoric britain- to see what the landscape looked like then and to find out what language we spoke back then because nobody knows ! Oh, and there were deer the size of elephants.

Less Talk Tuesday: Camera Photography

From tumblr.com

From tumblr.com

From etsy.com

From etsy.com

From modelcitizen.us

From ofpaperandthings.blogspot.com

Less Talk Tuesday: Dollhouses

http://www.toideloi.com/stackhouse.html

From crumpledenvelope.tumblr.com

From daisypinkcupcake.blogspot.com

From brincadada.com

Also from brincadada.com

Less Talk Tuesday: Color Wheels

From prettystuff.tumblr.com

From uncommongoods.com

From thingorganizedneatly.tumblr.com

From etsy.com

Less Talk Tuesday: Bookshelves

From davidgarciastudio.blogspot.com

From apartmenttherapy.com

From architonic.com

From blog.hgtv.com

Note: I know it's "Less Talk" but I wanted to inform my lovely readers that I'm moving things around a bit.  Less Talk More Rock Wednesday's are now Less Talk Tuesdays.  Treasuries will now be on Thursday an on Friday I will try to write something of worth, feature a tutorial, etc.  Saturday's will still be the intended time to put up the Illustration Friday sketches. Thanks for reading, even as this blog gets through it's growing pains!

The Luna Moth Card and Print

Okay, okay.  I know I said I wasn't going to blog on weekends, but I'm really, really proud of the way this one turned out.

So, I used to see luna moths all the time as a teen, when I was delivering papers with my mom.  In all honesty, they scared the crap out of me.  I mean, you come around the corner on a dark morning when the world is almost too quite, and suddenly you're face to face with this moth the size of your head perched on a wall.  In my little universe, things weren't supposed to be that big.  Being oversized like that was reserved for mutated things in horror movies, like ants and fifty foot women.

Well, I haven't delivered papers in a decade and probably haven't seen a luna moth in as long (probably merely because I'm no longer wandering darkened hallways in the wee hours of the morning).   Then, a few nights ago, I was standing at my back door, having just turned off the porch light when I saw one flutter out of the darkness for just a moment before disappearing into it again. Just for a moment, but long enough for me to realize how pretty they are (at least when they're not perched on walls, scaring young girls) and I knew I had to design a print of one.

So I drew it out and carved it up, and of course, printed it in green and this is how it came out.

Luna Moth Original Linocut

I think it turned out lovely, but being carved into a larger block than I usually work with (5 x 7 inches instead of 4 x 6) I couldn't print it on the front of a card as well....unless I printed it on the back, too.  I took a few tries, but I managed to get it just so the wings wrapped evenly around the front and back of a card.

Luna Moth Wraparound Linocut Card

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, so much so that I am considering carving another version, perhaps of a butterfly this time.

Okay, now I'll go enjoy my weekend.  You do the same.

The Brand Steward

As I've mentioned many times, I am married to a motion graphics/graphic designer who works for a Big Bank. His job at the big bank is to be a 'brand steward.'  That basically means he is a graphic designer whose job is to make their logos/graphics/slogans etc. all super wonderful and extra appealing and nice looking and extra awesome.  But today isn't about what he does for a living, it's about being married to a graphic designer.

I am planning to start advertising more for my shop and blog and have been reaching out to other blogs to see if they would be willing to feature me, as well as looking into advertising on Project Wonderful.  The first thing I realized I would need was a button ad, one of those little 125 px  by 125 px ads you always see in rows down the sides of all your favorite art and craft blogs. I knew the picture I wanted to use and that i very simply wanted it to say "Cursive Arts" at the top, and, of course, that I wanted my lovely husband to design because he is amazing at what he does and while I could have easily cut it down to that size by myself and typed the wording I needed across the top, he could make it look good.


Somehow, I always manage to forget having my husband design something for me is never that simple.  For one, he treats it like I am a client, not just his wife, who isn't going to give him any money for his time. Therefore, he takes it very seriously which usually means what could have been a five-minute job that looks decent becomes a hour-long job that looks fantastic.

But there's the downside. For one thing, my husband and I do not always have overlapping design tastes.  He likes that rounded version of courier, while I like that thinner one.  He is looking at grey-greens while  I'm pleading him to go back to that orange he had up for a moment.  "It''s too bright!" he argues.  "That clashes!" he points out.   And that's just the beginning.  He is also a perfectionist, so while I would have been happy with just text at the top, suddenly it becomes two different fonts, a fade, and this and that, which is awesome, but suddenly everything has gotten much more complicated than I intended and it's past midnight and I'm sleepy and wishing he would be done.  (On a side note, if any one ever needs a motion graphics/graphic designer, now you know my husband will work until you are absolutely satisfied, and as I said before, he is good.  And yes, that needed italics).

And the final thing: he's a brand steward.  Suddenly, designing this little logo that will barely be an inch by and inch on the average computer screen, isn't just about designing a logo.  It is now about making a brand for me.  Now he's asking me what my brand represents, how I would describe it, what it is meant to symbolize. This is both the up and down of being married to a talented graphic designer. Yes, I'm going to get an awesome logo, but it's become entirely more complicated, we're not agreeing on half the design elements, and he even called me a 'problem client' at one point (which, in his defense, is undoubtedly true).

It's nearly one in the morning on a weeknight, and we're talking about what my brand signature should be.  And nn the end, all that designing came down to this little square.





So right now, it's "Cursive Arts: Put a pen to it." Not bad, not bad at all, for it being past bedtime and spur of the moment. However, while I love the design, I think the signature could be better. I would not mind something more all encompassing since, while the majority of what I make is notecards, I would prefer people not add any of their own ink to my other works. If one of you lovely readers can come up with a phrase to describe my work that I like better, I'll send you any notecard four-pack of your choice from my shop. Deadline is next Tuesday, and feel free to spread this about, because the more brains the better, right?

Monday Spotlight On: Mona of MonasBox

Okay, so I know it's not Monday.  I've been a little distracted with wedding stuff and the fact that I leave for Florida to get married in less than a week.  I'll be lucky if I even get my Monday interview up next week.  I need to figure out how to write and save these things for later....

This week, I interviewed Mona, an Etsy crafter who stays at home taking care of her children and uses the skills she picked up as a child to make lovely bags and more.  You can visit her shop here.   If you'd like to know who was the winner of March's Giveaway Wednesday, make sure to read all the way to end of this post!

Tell us about yourself, anything you think is worth knowing.
I have been a stay at home Mom since getting laid off 2 years ago, and have used my extra time to my advantage.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/70068049/yellow-with-coral-and-pleated-tote

What is your medium and how did you get into it?
I learned to sew and make jewelry from my Mom, who was a crafter herself and as I child I always helped her make her product and go to art fairs. Now I make more bags and children's clothes, and have always loved the design aspect of creating. I also love being able to stay home with my 3 year old son while I do this.


Where do you take your inspiration from?
I spent my college years in San Francisco and love being fashion forward. Anything I see that I love gives me the inspiration to work from. I probably get most of my inspiration from my own experience of needs. For example, I make large bags and always use my own bags, but have you ever lost your keys in your bag? I make key chain coin purses and have a custom clip inside my bag to attach them too so I can always find them. Or having a child, I know what is needed in a diaper bag, maybe a changing mat with a pillow padding? Done! 


What is your favorite piece of art you've created and why?
As for a favorite piece, they change so often. One of my first bags is one of my favorites and I used it so much that even after washing, it's too dirty to sell, so I guess I have to keep it.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/66129918/elegant-clutch-for-bridal-party-or

If you could have one person living/dead own a piece of your art, who would it be and why? 
One person who's style I absolutely love is Zoe Deschanel, and if she was into one of my bags, I would be so happy! Both her and her sister in Bones are very cute in there individuality, yet fashionably forward.
One piece of advice you've picked up along the way that you'd like to share (can be about anything: advertising, finding inspiration, etc). 
Do what you love, and love what you do" and life will be great! 
_____________________________________________________________
The winner of March's Giveaway Wednesday for a choice of a notecard set of Sway or Magnolia cards is Susan of www.susanwalkerart.blogspot.com.  Make sure to pop by her blog to congratulate her and check out her lovely illustrations!