Look! I’ve folded and stapled the remaining copies of Freehand #1 and #2. There are ten copies each that I will be giving away. I’ll be taking them and another to the San Francisco Zine Fest, coming up in a few weeks. I’m pretty excited.
I also ordered some cheap business cards from zazzle.com for Camaraderie Designs… it comes with the warning, “coming fall 2011″. Damn, now I’m worried I accidentally typed “2010″. *gulp* I hope that’s not the case!
A whole year of anticipation isn’t too long, is it? I’m going to have this fall and winter to do sketches, to practice embroidering, and to test out fabric. Spring will be when I finally settle down from traveling and start sewing. Hell, I may even get things done by Summer 2011!
The only thing I have left to do on my SF Zine Fest check list is to go to a copy shop and make copies of one more zine. I think with this one I will make 15-20 copies. It’s a pretty thick zine, so assembling and stapling will be a little more odious.
I am slow in discovering sashiko embroidery (link is to purlbee.com tutorial). The repetition in most of these patterns this seems easy, mindless, yet soothing. I may incorporate that into my embroidery designs in the future.
If you want to open a cupcake bakery, make some cupcakes and sell them at the Farmer’s market for six months, for a year first, on the weekends. See if it works. If it works, okay, now you have some people who like your cupcakes, you’re selling out every weekend. Now maybe you can move into something else. Instead of saying, “I’m going to open a bakery” and go buy a storefront and some expensive machinery and stuff like that. So I think people kind of start a little bit too quickly sometimes too and they should just make their time and starts something on the side and see where it goes.
I’m most worried about starting too big with Camaraderie Designs. I tried to pare down the list of stuff I “needed” to start the business. But now I’m convinced that I really don’t need a list at all. I have the equipment and the supplies to make what I want to make. And when I want to make something else, I will buy those things when I need them. Basically, what I need to do is this:
However, I am going traveling in a few weeks. I guess I’ll just Get Excited and Sketch Ideas instead on all those plane and train rides!
For the San Francisco Zine Fest, I’ve decided I’m going to get some business cards (or Mini-Cards) printed up to advertise Camaraderie Designs. It will be something along the lines of, “Camaraderie Designs… coming soon!” I wish I had more design prowess, otherwise I’d do it myself. This is why the MOO Mini-Cards appeal to me a lot: they have some pretty cool templates done by other artists. Of course, that also means that who-knows-how-many people have the same business cards as I do.
I’m also busy working on my zine to give away. Right now, I’m gluing stuff together onto pages. There is no text pasted in yet (though I do have some written on my computer).
The zine text I have collected has no cohesive theme to it, which I’m worried about it. It’s mostly stories, but nothing really connects them to each other, except perhaps the fact that they are mostly written when I’m depressed. They’re stories spanning from when I moved to San Diego nearly 2 years ago, up until now. Maybe I can have them in chronological order to see the progression of my moods and writing style.
If I can’t get this issue of the zine together, I still have a few others I can take with me to the Zine Fest, mainly Freehand issues.
With all these cool projects around, I really need to just DO it already. I’m imagining some whirly, embroidered designs on table cloth, with an LED in the middle of the design. It lights up if there’s a plate set on the tablecloth itself (which would require a pressure pad… I wonder how much those would be?).
–
In other news, my birthday came and went this past weekend… I somehow managed to get my hands on a Barnes and Noble nook! I’d love to make this awesome-looking Moleskine-imitation case for it. The original how-to is for the iPad, but it can easily be adapted to the nook (or the Amazon Kindle).
Speaking of Moleskine and the Kindle, the actual Moleskine company created a cover for the Kindle! I am incredibly jealous, especially of the notebook. However, I still think I’m going to try to make my cover. It would require bookbinding, which I have never done before.
One of my dreams in high school was to go to Bizarre Bazaar and the San Francisco Zine Fest. And out of college and as this so-called “adult”, I still haven’t made it to any zine, craft, or DIY faire. (Another faire I’d like to go to one day is the Maker Faire.) What is wrong with me?? There are multitudes of edgy products, cute stuffed animals, great writing, great workshops, and people with the same DIY and crafty ethos.
Well, the next SF Zine Fest is happening in September. I might try to get the days off work to go. If I do, I can make a few copies of my zines and do some trades.
Kickstarter is focused on creative ideas and ambitious endeavors. We’re a great way for artists, filmmakers, musicians, designers, writers, athletes, adventurers, illustrators, explorers, curators, promoters, performers, and others to bring their projects, events, and dreams to life.
This website is a really great idea. I’m somewhat familiar with the idea of an online “pledge drive” for a project, mainly with the website Pledge Music, which focuses on bands and raising money for charity. Kickstarter, however, is for all kinds of projects, not just musical, including photography, film, art, and what I think is the coolest: community projects like urban farming and trade schools.
