Strawberryluna

Handmade Arcade This Saturday!

Hooray! It’s the super rad and awesome Handmade Arcade For The Holidays time!

We love love LOVE this incredible Pittsburgh craft show and are looking forward to this Saturday when it all gets awesome! Handmade Arcade For The Holidays is chock full of handmade work by tons of local and national working artists. Handmade Is Best!

We’ll have lots of new goodies like new prints, posters, Alphabet Prints and t-shirts (expertly hand printed by our BFFs at Commonwealth Press) and more. So come say hi! We’re booth #18 (see map below!) just on the left when you enter the show 🙂

Hope to see you there Pittsburgh!

Fun times at HA in April 2011

The Details: 

HANDMADE ARCADE
FOR THE HOLIDAYS

SATURDAY, NOV. 12, 2011
11 AM – 7 PM

EARLY BIRDIE ENTRANCE AT 10 AM

Handmade Arcade returns to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown with Handmade Arcade for the Holidays. Shoppers can expect even more great handcrafted, indie merchandise, plus:
• Free admission
• Over 150 vendors, local and from out-of-state
• Easy to get to: close to many bus lines and the T; on-site garage
parking; also accessible by foot, bike or even watercraft
• More space than ever: wide aisles, extra vendor room
• Early Birdie passes
• Refreshments on-site
• Hands-on Handmade activities

Handmade Arcade is Pittsburgh’s largest indie craft fair, now in its seventh year. The annual Handmade Arcade was created to give grassroots, independent crafters an opportunity to show and sell their wares, and to provide an alternative to traditional craft and art fairs.

Click for a larger version.

Handmade Arcade, see you there Pittsburgh!

Hooray! The triumphant return of the Pittsburgh craft & handmade arts show Handmade Arcade is set and upon us on Saturday April 16th, 2011 (just ONE day!) from 11am – 7pm. With crowds upwards of 9,000 shoppers at the last Handmade Arcade in December of 2009, this show is one of Pittsburgh’s premier DIY art & craft showcases.

After over a 1-year hiatus while the Handmade Arcade struggled to find a new home once the former venue at the Hunt Armory became unavailable due to returning military vehicles (right, it’s an Amory) it’s great news for the city that the first green convention center in the world, The David L. Lawrence Convention Center is the new digs. And best of all? Handmade Arcade is FREE to attend!

The  Important Details:

  • When: Saturday, April 16th from 11am – 7pm
  • Where: The David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown at Penn Avenue & 10 Streets.
  • Free admission
  • Over 100 vendors, local and far-flung.
  • Easy to get to: close to many bus lines and the T; on-site garage parking; also accessible by foot, bike or even watercraft!
  • More space than ever: wide aisles, extra larger vendor room.
  • Early Birdie passes (as always) Click here for more info.
  • Refreshments on-site.
  • Hands-on activities for the whole family.

Our booth next to Mike Budai & the awesome crowds from 2009 at the Handmade Arcade, Pittsburgh PA.

We are thrilled to be a part of this awesome return! We’ll be there working our booth and talking with folks, selling our prints, posters, alphabet prints, test prints, t-shirts, shoot. You name it! So come on out and see all of the best that the modern Handmade Movement has to offer you Pittsburgh. See yinz there!

About: “Handmade Arcade is run by a collective of creative Pittsburghers who have helped to shape and bolster Pittsburgh’s independent craft scene over the past six years. Founded in 2004 — when no events in the Pittsburgh region served the burgeoning DIY craft community — Handmade Arcade provides crafters working outside the mainstream/fine arts sector with a grassroots high-visibility venue to sell wares and build community.

Tapping into a vibrant subculture of young, innovative designers who bring a fresh, artistic, and often subversive sensibility to traditional crafting, Handmade Arcade provides Pittsburgh-based crafters with an alternative to high-end, fine arts fairs and traditional craft venues, while connecting the city to a thriving craft culture that is sweeping the nation from Brooklyn to Berkeley. Handmade Arcade has made sure that Pittsburgh remains on this significant cultural map. Creative, motivated individuals come to Handmade Arcade to build an audience for their handmade products, and they leave seeing Pittsburgh in a new, positive light.”

And yep! Handmade Arcade is selling their ever-popular Early Birdie passes for the show too. Click here for details.

For more information about Handmade Arcade click here.

Here’s a great short profile on the Handmade Arcade from the 2009 show (ROMG my booth is highlighted!):

 

 

Renegade Holiday Craft Fair in Chicago!

Click for more info!

Ok, first off? We’re super stoked to be heading back to Chicago to participate in one of our favorite shows, the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale this coming weekend. And secondly? Hello? How adorable and rad is the illustration by Kate Sutton for the sale this year? I just love it, totally wintery and cozy all at once.

Anyhoo! We really are just thrilled Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale in Chicago again this year. We’ll be there vending with tons of new things and taking in the amazing talent of over 150 artists & crafters. So come on in out of the cold and say hello!

For more info, check the Renegade Craft Fair Chicago Holiday Sale <— page here. With over 150 of today’s finest indie-craft talents setting up shop,  holiday shoppers are sure to find something for everyone at this FREE TO ATTEND craft, art, design + DIY spectacular!

And below are a couple of maps for you too. We’ll be vending from booth #96 in Gym #1 (naturally!), rocking right next to our super-friend Beth from RagTrader Vintage.

So please come and introduce yourself and share the holiday cheer, shop handmade and have a blast while being surrounded by fun, food, and creativity 🙂

Click to see a larger version.

The Major Details:

When: December 4 + 5, 2010, from 11am – 7pm

Where: At the beautiful Pulaski Park Fieldhouse at 1419 W. Blackhawk, in Wicker Park.

Cost: Totally FREE!

What: Over 150 indie crafters & artists, all showing and selling their handmade work. PLUS DJs to keep your booty shaking, and amazing food + treats from local favorite restaurants including Flying SaucerMANA Food BarTipsyCake and Treat Restaurant! If you’re seeking Wintertime libations, our bar will be selling beer, wine and warm mulled-wine! And de sure to commemorate your trip to the Fair by getting your photo-snapped in the free-to-use photobooth provided by Magnolia Photobooth Co.!

Don’t forget to visit our special Renegade ornament-making workshop or our Welcome Station, where we’ll feature a free-to-enter raffle (prizes furnished by Chronicle BooksPaper Source +Uppercase), free issues of TimeOut Chicago + an extra-special Renegade Holiday photo-op!

We hope you’ll join us by hopping on the free-to-ride Renegade Holiday Trolley (click for more details) or by taking public transportation to the Fair! If driving, you’ll need to find street-parking in the surrounding neighborhoods as the venue does not have a lot of their own. Please see our FAQ for details, directions + lots more info!

See you there!

Click for more details!

 

 

 

New art print release: ‘Let Love Grow’ hand screenprinted, limited edition

New hand screenprinted, 3-color, limited edition art print: "Let Love Grow", fresh & ready. (click here for more info or to purchase)

Lately, I’ve been really obsessed with 60’s design, but not the psychedelic and (to me) overly wrought side, but more of the very clean and simplistic designs that came out of Madison Avenue in the forms of advertising and brand / logo design and cohesion. There is something so appealing about those directions to me, very pure. This print and design is a part of that interest, as well as a statement on everyday negativity & violence, be they figurative or actual.

Hey negativity! Scram! Just feed, water, and nourish love and it will grow like a flower forever.

This simple scene is my newest art print “Let Love Grow”, bright & ready to help you plant seeds happiness and love all around you. Featuring hand lettered text, it’s a perfect gift of hope and love for your sweetie pie, as a wedding gift, for a young person in your life, or to brighten up your own home.

Love: Let it grow bright and strong.

You, my friend, are looking at my 3-color, all hand screen printed, limited edition art print with fresh spring green, vibrant magenta, and heartbeat red hand mixed and non-toxic water based inks. Edition of 190. Size: 18 x 22 inches (45.7 cm x 55.9 cm.) Paper: acid free & archival Cougar, White 100lb cover weight.

Below are some process photos, now also up on my Flickr account, of this art print, “Let Love Grow” being printed. Got questions? Shoot me an email!

1st color of "Let Love Grow", printed. (click to see more process photos.)

2nd color ink (magenta) in the screen, getting ready to print. (click here to see more process photos.)

About to print the 3rd & final color (green) of a new art print, "Let Love Grow". (click to see more process photos.)

All done! "Let Love Grow", finished printing and fresh for spring. (click to see more printing process photos.)

Fresh Batch of 8 new Test Prints up in my Etsy shop!


Test Print 23, freshly up & available in my Etsy shop (click for info or to purchase).

Sha-bam! I’ve finally prepared a new batch of Test Prints for web sales. I love love making test prints, and the ever-rotating stack that I am working on & taking to shows is proof positive. Is it bad that I don’t often get a chance to put them up on the web for sale? I don’t know. It’s true that I usually only have them available for sale AT shows and in person. But, every now and then I like to add some of my favorites to my Etsy shop and the Gigposters.com classifieds for sale.

And hey, being snowed in under about 3 feet of snow this week made cataloging and preparing photos (taken well before the snows, as my driveway backdrop can attest) and descriptions a real possibility. So, I present, 3 of the 8 new Test Prints up, available, and ready for new homes, just like puppies.

Test Print 27, ready to go to a new home (click for more info or to purchase).

What are Test Prints? Good question Grasshopper. Test Prints, also known as Make-Ready, or Monoprints, are made from various layers of different prints from different print runs, sometimes as a way to check colors or help re-wet and open a clogged screen, or maybe to just goof around with alternate colorways, seeing how they look together, or to test transparency (especially useful if you print with transparency bases a lot like I do). Test Prints are spontaneously created and basically, magical. Hence once a test print is sold, that’s it, gone baby. They are fully one-of-a-kind prints. I always keep a few with me in the studio while printing and every now and then one looks suddenly nice & done.

Test Print 28, an oldie but a goodie (click for more info or to purchase)

So, these prints and 7 others are now available for purchase from my Etsy shop here. If you don’t have an Etsy account it’s free to sign up for one (and easy!) or if you don’t want to set one up, they will also be available for a limited time (about 30 days from today) in the Gigposters.com classifieds here. And, of course you can always contact me if you simply wish to purchase any of the Test Prints currently available online (all viewable in my Etsy shop without signing in or up) if you wish too, just email me at strawberryluna [ a t ] straberryluna dot com.