I made my first foray into silkscreening over the weekend. Such a fun process! I thought about trying the Print Gocco (I've seen such fantastic stuff made from it on Loobylu, Craftlog, Liquid Sky Arts, etc) but I didn't want to be limited to such a small print area (at least, the one I could afford had a small print area! :> ).

For about the same startup cost I nabbed myself a nice, basic set of materials and a 10x12 screen. I used a design from a painting I was working on last weekend and transferred it to a sheet of acetate using the Rapidographs I so lovingly restored:

Then I fudged my way through exposing a screen with the image. Photo emulsion is fun to work with - its exactly like turqoise Pepto Bismol.

You can see the entire Flickr set here.

Posted by katybeck at 09:15 AM | Comments (2)

A necklace I made a few weekends ago as a birthday present for a friend.. The stones are supposedly cherry jade, but I think they look like Ludens Cherry Cough Drops. :)

I also found this cute little bowl at a local gift shop and couldn't resist wrapping them up together!

Posted by katybeck at 09:37 AM | Comments (3)

As of late Friday night, I was still considering making a last-minute dash up to New York to go to the Renegade Craft Fair. I read so many blogs by people who were heading up there that I knew it would be a fantastic event! But in the end I was dissuaded by traffic and cost and the exhausting amount of time it takes to get up there. I'll have to live vicariously through craftlog and My Paper Crane and the renegade+craft+fair flickr steam.

So I went to the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival instead! I had a great time wandering around all the tents and smelling all the wonderful varieties of food being cooked.

This Omani man was in a tent devoted to metalsmithing. In addition to the copper that he is working on, there were men working in silver and what looked like iron weaponry.

Master-carver Nathan Jackson at work carving a totem pole. I stood and watched him carve for several minutes, and he answered all sorts of questions. One I wish I had asked him - how he selects the wood he is going to carve from.

Seeing so many artisans and craftspeople is always inspiring to me. I was disappointed to see that the number of people actually demonstrating their craft was much lower than in past years. My favorite year of the festival remains 2002's Silk Road Project, but I'm still glad I took the time to explore this one.

See the whole 2005 set here. Or take a look at my photos from the Silk Road.

Posted by katybeck at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)

I signed up for a cd swap last week. Even though its called the CD Swap 2, its the first one that I personally have ever participated in. I'm excited! I've been spending entirely too much time at work trolling iTunes getting ideas. And of *course* there must also be a fun label and jewel case insert to go along with it... Its amazing that I remain employed.

Posted by katybeck at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

I don't think I've ever written about it here, but in addition to my life of crime and pursuit of global craft domination, I spend my days as a bonafide web geek at this place.

Periodically the powers that be give us coupons and stuff to give out to friends and family, and today is one of those occasions: I've got a few coupons for 50% off a year of any web hosting package, which would also get you a free domain name (or a renewal or transfer, whatever you prefer).

If it sounds like something you could use, drop me a comment and I'll send it your way.

Ok, thats done. We now return to your regularly scheduled program. :)

Posted by katybeck at 04:44 PM | Comments (4)