About Me

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I enjoy arts and crafts and dabble in just about anything. I've been doing so since childhood. My Etsy shop consists mainly of decoupage light switch and outlet covers. I also paint (mainly with acrylics), do mosaics, and draw with charcoal and other mediums.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Benefits of Shopping On Etsy

Here's a blog I decided to carry over from my facebook page.

So, I know by now many of you have seen my shop on Etsy.com.  For those of you who haven't, shame on you!  No, just kidding!  ;)  Anyway, for those who aren't all that familiar with Etsy, I'd like to give all of you some useful information.

Etsy.com is an online community FILLED with all sorts of shops.  However, these shops are special.  The only items you can sell on Etsy are handmade, crafting supplies, or vintage items.  Nothing else.  So, the vast majority of lovely items on there are handmade.  Instead of some large company using child slave labor in some underdeveloped country, it is made by one person or a small team of people in their home or studio.  Some may be surprised by how large of a community it really is.  For example, I have recently joined a team on Etsy that has over 6,000 members!  That's 6,000 other shops and that's just a handful of what's on there.  You can buy just about anything from jewelry, to antiques, homemade cookies, to herbal tea that was grown and packaged by the seller!  I have found dog treats, pet ID tags, baby clothes, cat toys, and a clock made from a hubcap from a 68 Impala!  These days, when I am looking for something to buy online, I look on Etsy first and I usually find what I'm looking for and at a reasonable price.  Here are the reasons I love shopping on Etsy.

1. Your item is handmade.  This is someone working out of their home and putting their blood, sweat, tears, heart, and soul into their work.  Therefore your item is likely to be top quality and not the crap you find at Wal-Mart.

2. You are stimulating the economy.  Although Etsy is worldwide and I have sold my items internationally, I only buy from shops in the U.S.  Nothing against the other countries.  I see some beautiful shops that are located overseas.  However, our economy is hurting right now and a lot of people are out of the job and have resorted to getting creative and making things at home and selling them on Etsy.  So, I would personally like to support these people.

3. You can get something original and unique.  Nick needed a clock for his garage and I need to find him a birthday gift.  Where else would I find a clock made out of an actual hubcap off of a 68-72 Impala?

4.  The prices are reasonable.  Of course there are some well known artists who sell their work at gallery prices, but if you are well known, you get to do that.  Some jewelery is a bit pricey, but when it is made out of the real deal, you can't expect it to be cheap.  However most of what you find is going to put a very LITTLE dent in your pocketbook.  It may cost more than going to Wal-Mart, but it will be better quality and it will be an original.  Not to mention, you will know who made it.

5.  You can make a lot of great connections.  I am a repeat customer of some shops and sometimes repeat customers get discounts.  It is awesome.

I also know a lot of you out there are very creative and make your own goodies.  I would like to encourage you guys and gals to start up your own shop.  It is very fast and easy and it costs very little to list items.  It is also very easy to make connections with people and generate a lot of traffic to your shop very quickly.  A lot of buyers are people who have their own shops on there.  So with that said, buy and sell Etsy.com!  It is fantastic!  Here is a list of my favorite shops:

For you tea drinkers out there.  This person grows their own herbs and packages it up into different blends of tea.  She also sends it in a cute little box with her very own artwork on it.  She makes the BEST blend of Chamomile tea.  I've suffered from insomnia for about 20 years now and this is almost the ONLY thing that knocks me out!  Check out her store!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/good4you

I love the signs made in this shop!  They are hilarious!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/saltboxsigns

These people make soap.  I got some doggie soap they made and it works very well on my Gunner.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/luxuryfalls

I got Gunner's custom pet ID tag from here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/thehappychihuahua?ref=pr_shop_more

The most HILARIOUS cat toys stuffed with REALLY potent catnip.  Very affordable and worth every penny.
http://www.etsy.com/people/OhBoyCatToy?ref=ls_profile

The funniest buttons I've ever read:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/beanforest?ref=ss_profile

I have several more favorites, but it would be easier to just check out the shops listed in the teams I've joined recently.  You can probably find anything you are looking for.
EtsyLush
http://www.etsy.com/teams/8706/etsylush?ref=pr_teams

E J Art Treasury Promo Team
http://www.etsy.com/teams/9761/e-j-art-treasury-promotion-team?ref=pr_teams

STATTEAM: Self Taught Artists Treasury
http://www.etsy.com/teams/7508/statteam

All of these teams include thousands of spectacular shops!  Check them out!

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Introducing Hippie Chic Jewelz!

Since joining the EtsyLush  team on Etsy, I have met a lot of very talented artists from all over.  I have recently had the pleasure of meeting Hippie Chic Jewelz.  She has a beautiful shop filled with fantastic and fun creations with a lot of bright and rich colors!  We had some time to interview each other, so here she is folks!  Meet Hippie Chic Jewelz!

I understand you are a self taught artist, when did you become interested in art?  I have been interested in art ever since I can remember. My older sister taught me how to draw, paint and cross stitch, my love of learning something new in art took off from there. I have dabbled in everything to ceramics, photography to creating one of a kind wearable art. 

What inspires your artwork? I would say that most of my creations are influenced and inspired by music and everyday surroundings. I may hear a song that makes my heart smile or see a sunset that has extraordinary colors that I want to capture and off to my studio to create a work of art.





Do you have any coupon codes or specials for your Etsy shop?  
I have a wonderful coupon code for my shop, 25% off: HCJFAN
If you would like to check out more of her lovely items, here is a link to her shop.
www.etsy.com/shop/Hippiechicjewelz?ref=pr_shop



It was a pleasure to meet and interview Hippie Chic Jewelz.  Happy Etsy-ing!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

FINALLY

Ok, now that I was finally able to reset my password and gain access to my blog once again, I can start...well...blogging of course!  I am hoping to use this as a place to express some thoughts and feelings as well as promote my work and my shop.  In the past several months I've been working at growing my Etsy page.  I recently discovered that a year ago, my work was featured in a blog (however I was completely unaware of this little tidbit until I Googled myself the other day).  Hmm...that sounds dirty.  Anyway, my ultrasound paintings were featured on Craftastrophe and Strollerderby because apparently they are "horrific" and "creepy."  Well, DUH!  LOL  Have any of you ever had a 3D or 4D ultrasound?  Or have any of you ever seen pictures from one?  Those images don't exactly give most people (other than maybe the expectant parents) the warm fuzzies.  Particularly before the third trimester.  They tend to look more like creepy little aliens by that point.  I work in an OB office, so I should know.  ;)  So, I will be the first to admit that my ultrasound paintings which are done in the likeness of the photos I am given, tend to be a little creepy.  I can't lie, they are most definitely weird.  However, aren't we as artists supposed to think outside the box and come up with creative and different ideas?  I typically don't do still lifes and daisies because they tend to be a bit boring and overdone.  So, like many artists I would rather blaze my own trail.  Some stuff is a hit, and some stuff is a miss.  That's just how it goes.

I'm sure some are wondering why on earth I would even do a portrait of an unborn baby from a photo where it looks like a creepy little alien anyway.  What part of that could possibly inspire an artist?  Well, like I said, artists tend to think outside the box which is usually outside of society's norm.  Working in an OB office, I am surrounded by expectant mothers and ultrasound images all day long.  However, my inspiration came years earlier when a close friend of mine e-mailed me some photos from her son's 3D ultrasound.  For some reason, I was inspired to paint one of them.  I was going to just use the colors from the photo, but while I was playing with my photo editing software, I messed around with the colors a bit and discovered that it looked very interesting in monochromatic shades of purple.  That was definitely something I had never done before.  So I e-mailed the examples to my friend and asked which she would prefer, the normal colors, or the purple.  She chose the purple and a few days later, I had finished her son's ultrasound portrait in monochromatic purples with some warm tints of pink mixed in.  I showed the painting to a couple other friends who were a little creeped out at first, but a few months later when they showed me 3D ultrasound pictures of their own bundle of joy, they wanted me to do one for them as well.  I was surprised when this baby's father called me up a few days later and asked if I would do their child's painting in green to match their furniture.  What?  Match their beautiful daughter's painting to their ugly green couch?  Of course I did it and I found a lovely metallic gold paint to add to it which also happened by accident.  I was looking for earthy colors and thought it was really a toned down earthy yellow.  Instead it was metallic and sparkly.  It worked well, but of course the end result was a green baby that due to the fact she was green and metallic, had an alien-like appearance.  As far as I know (and to my relief) the parents loved it.  As a matter of fact, years later when they were expecting their son, they asked me to do another.  That one took the longest, because it was just of his feet and I wanted to make sure I got the details right.  That one was done in a Rembrandt Palate to match the Detroit Tigers theme in his nursery.  So, although those paintings may be creepy, ultrasound images are a bit creepy to begin with and I most definitely know that those paintings are NOT for everyone.  Not everyone is going to love something like that.  Hence the term "custom."  If you don't want one, don't order it.  If you DO want one, you get to choose your color scheme and it is a picture of YOUR baby and not some random green baby you did not conceive.   The ones I did were custom requests by friends, so each of those paintings has a home and someone loves them.  My ultrasound paintings can no longer be found on Etsy due to the fact that I allowed the listings to expire.  I realized there wasn't a huge market for something so unusual and figured it was best to just allow my circle of friends to request them from me if they want them.

Now, I have to say although those blogs didn't say such great things about my paintings, I was excited to see someone was actually blogging about MY work!  They also included links to my shop which was quite helpful.  Sure my paintings were being made fun of, but it generated traffic to my site.  When you type WyldAngelz into the Yahoo search engine, MY shop is the first thing that pops up and that blog is the 4th link down!  The way I see it, that blog helped put me on the map and get me established!  I look at it in kind of the same way when people get made fun of on Saturday Night Live.  If you are important enough to get made fun of on Saturday Night Live, you've been noticed.  You've made it.  If people are making fun of my artwork in these large online blogs at a time when my shop has been up and running for less than a year, then I've done SOMETHING worth noticing and worth talking about and that excites me.  I even showed these blogs to my co-workers and we cracked up while reading the comments.  As an artist, I've learned several years ago, that you can't please everyone.  It is impossible, therefore I don't try.  I just do what I do.  Some people love it and some people hate it, but either way they talk about it.  Those who love it become fans of my work.  Those who hate it get to talk about it and spark interest in others who may potentially love it or hate it.  Either way, after hearing about such a "monstrosity," they will want to see it for themselves.  lol  So, I would like to thank Craftastrophe and Strollerderby for featuring my ultrasound paintings in their blogs last year.  I realize you hated them and they probably gave you nightmares (which I won't apologize for, because I don't care), but you helped put me on the map, so thank you for that!  I just wish I would have known about it sooner.  ;)

Well, aside from that exciting little bit of info, I'd like to give a shout-out to the teams I recently joined on Etsy.  These people are awesome and they all have very beautiful shops!  Thanks for the invite and I love being a member of these teams!

EtsyLush:
http://www.etsy.com/teams/8706/etsylush?ref=pr_teams

and the E J Art Treasury Promotion Team
http://www.etsy.com/teams/9761/e-j-art-treasury-promotion-team?ref=pr_teams

Also, if any of you would like to see images of my "creepy" and "horrific" ultrasound paintings, you can view them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wyldangelz/

Oh, before I forget, here's a link to my shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/WyldAngelz?ref=si_shop

As well as a link to my Twitter and Facebook:
http://twitter.com/#!/WyldAngelz
http://www.facebook.com/wyldangelzdesigns




Well, I guess that's all for now.  I'll include some photos of my latest non-creepy artwork.  Until next time...