New cutie pi brooches & more

I'm so excited about my brand new cutie pi brooch design! It seems like I've revamped my design for this brooch every year, never 100% satisfied with how it came out and constantly feeling like it needed some tweaking. But this time I'm so in love with the finished product, and I think she'll be sticking around for quite some time. The new brooch is available in my shop here.

I also made some new Einstein brooches and earrings. I'm really smitten with how awesome sketchy drawings look when I get them laser cut, it really looks like you're wearing a 3D version of a drawing! They're available here. I was also in need of a cute graduation card for a friend, so I decided to make one myself. I'm really happy with how it turned out so I decided to list it in my shop as well. That's available here.

Communiversity

Thank you to everyone who stopped by my booth on Sunday! I completely forgot how much I love doing art shows (especially this one -- Communiversity is THE BEST!) It was just so nice to see customers in person and get to hear people giggling over my pun paintings. I had such a delightful time, the weather was perfect and I parted with quite a few original paintings (I'll miss Leotardo da Vinci the most, I think!) I'm definitely going to consider doing shows more often from now on. I have an incredibly hectic year ahead of me, but once things calm down a bit I might try to make this a regular occurrence again.

Also, it was incredibly exciting to see that I got quoted in the Trenton Times article about Communiversity! The article was in the printed version of the newspaper on 4/27, but here is the snippet from NJ.com.

Upcoming show

I'm putting the finishing touches on my booth for Communiversity on Sunday. If you're in the Princeton, NJ area and want to come visit, my booth will be near Firestone Library on Nassau Street.

I'm bringing pretty much everything that I sell online -- prints, brooches, buttons, collar clips, nostalgia kits, paintings, Christmas cards, etc. The only thing that isn't tagging along is Your Fan Club. I make each button to order, since there are so many to choose from, and I feel like it would be really difficult to guess what buttons would be worth making in advance. With my luck I'd gamble on Bill Murray, make 20 buttons, and then I wouldn't sell a single one at the show and years would pass before anyone would ever buy one online. I'd go to my grave with 20 Bill Murray buttons collecting dust in my basement.

I haven't done any kind of art show in about three years (I think?) and I feel so rusty. I'm just going to try to take it easy and let myself have fun instead of stressing about each little thing. Luckily I still had a lot of stock left over from my previous shows (mostly Puns Intended art prints, since that used to be the only thing I would sell at shows) and my mom has been helping me get all of my new stock ready for Sunday. Hopefully it will be a fun *and please, not rainy* day!

New button packs

Two new button packs in the shop! Both feature my Puns Intended paintings, with one set containing an assortment and the other set containing all Picatsso paintings. They're available here.

Belated Grand Opening?

I had been meaning to do some sort of "grand opening" celebration for my official shop, but instead I've just been gradually adding all of my products into the shop little by little and linking to them as I go along. After lots of tweaking and LOTS of product uploading (almost 800 items overall!) the shop is finally complete. Well, that is to say, all of the products are there, everything is properly sorted in the navigation bar, I'm satisfied with the design (for now) and everything seems to be running smoothly.

The site is a one-stop-shop for absolutely everything that I sell. All of my artwork, jewelry, nostalgia kits, paintings, stationery. etc. Anyone who has ever asked me about combining shipping for items from multiple etsy shops -- here is your answer! :) And not only can I ship items together, but if your order is over $25 (domestic) or $120 (international) it ships free. No coupon code required (which means you can add a coupon code on top of free shipping. WOO HOO!)

From here on in, all new products will only be available on my website, not on etsy. I'll be keeping my etsy shops open but I won't be adding new items there. Additionally, all of the coupon codes I ever sent out in etsy orders are applicable in my new shop. And all of my domains for my individual shops now redirect to their respective pages in my shop -- go ahead, try it:

flapperdoodle.com
your-fan.club
sweetandlovely.org

I've already added lots of products that are exclusive to the shop, like t-shirts, note cards, new fan club button designs and more! I've also created what I hope is a pretty comprehensive FAQ page that should answer any questions about turnaround time, shipping prices, finding frames for art prints, etc. I think the only thing left is to take a new photo for my about page, since that one is over 3 years old and I have a new studio (and a new hair color) :)

Last but not least, I'd just like to give a huge shout out to Shopify, the platform that I'm using to host my website. It has been so remarkably easy to customize my store to my liking, add products, edit products, manage orders, basically everything. I just love everything. I had to email them a couple times and they got back to me right away with personalized answers (not cut-and-paste replies), even suggesting specific tips for my shop that weren't even relevant to the question I had asked! I've been so impressed, and, for any other artists dying to find a good alternative to etsy, I highly recommend them.

So, while there aren't any ribbons to cut with giant scissors or banners waving in the wind -- I guess this is the grand opening! To celebrate, feel free to use coupon code "grandopening" on any order over $10 to receive 20% off your order! (And don't forget, that's in addition to the free shipping offer. Yay!)

Your Fan Club shop update

It's been too long since I posted a fan club shop update! I've been adding new button designs little by little instead of saving them up and listing in huge batches. These buttons have all been added in the last month or so. If you want to stay up to date on new arrivals, you can check out my New Additions to Your Fan Club page right here! I add new buttons every week so keep your eyes peeled! You'll also find all of these buttons there, too :)

Emoji brooches

Emoji brooches are now in the shop! These are 1.25", laser cut from black and white acrylic, and the three brooches with colored elements are hand painted with enamel paint. They are $10 each, or you can get all four for $30. They're available in my shop here.

Layered plastic painting

I wanted to create a painting that would look like a moment trapped in time, or a really fuzzy memory that you can't quite grasp. To capture that feeling, I thought I'd try painting on layers of plastic, and I'm absolutely thrilled with how it came out! I sanded 18 sheets of plastic and then painted the scene little by little until, once combined, they created a faint, dream-like image -- exactly what I had in mind!

The inspiration for this particular piece came from a photograph of my Aunt Annie taken in Hawaii in the 1960's. She passed away a little over a year ago (having just celebrated her 102nd birthday!) She was such a spunky, beautiful lady and I'm sure she will be a source of inspiration in my artwork for the rest of my life.

You can view a little video I put together that shows each layer of the painting below. Also, I'll be bringing the painting with me to Communiversity in Princeton, NJ on April 26th if you want to see it (and me!) in person. I'll post more about Communiversity as it gets closer to the festival.

A video posted by kate gabrielle (@kategabrielle) on Apr 16, 2015 at 11:39am PDT

Cigarette Smoking Man illustration

The X-Files is like comfort food to me. My parents first let me start watching it when I was 12 years old, and it's been a constant in my life ever since. Like most die-hard fans, I've ridden the waves of excitement and anxiety whenever Chris Carter or one of the stars hinted at a possible reunion. So, needless to say, I'm pretty darn excited about the (finally official! hallelujah!) X-Files revival. Six brand spanking new episodes, and if that wasn't enough to keep me floating on cloud 9 for the next few months, David Duchovny just announced that William B. Davis will be returning as CSM, the Cigarette Smoking Man. Be still my heart! He's my favorite tv villain (if you could call him that, I think his good/evil-ness is very ambiguous) of all time.

Anyway, all that to say, I'm super thrilled and all of my overwhelming feelings quickly translated into this new drawing. I've wanted to do a CSM illustration for a while, and the idea of a quote illustrated with smoke had been floating around in my head for months. This is one of those rare instances where the finished product ended up being even better than I imagined when I first dreamed up the idea. I'm so happy with it! And isn't this quote just so film-noir? It's a quote from Skinner, and I think it sums up William B. Davis' character pretty nicely. Even if his motives are often ambiguous, there's no denying the fact that the man is pretty adept at twisting & hiding the truth. I think it's also a really good rebuttal to the adage "The Truth is Out There."

The illustration is available on prints here and (I'm a little embarrassed to admit I got one of these for myself) on t-shirts here!

New brooch set

A new little brooch set! It includes six shoe brooches, which can be worn separately or together for a fun little brooch party. They're available in my shop here.

Here's a peek at what they look like all grouped together on a cardigan: