Botticelli Boxes

Even though I'm always so excited at the beginning of each new year to post my new calendar, I always feel guilty getting rid of the old one! This year, I had 12 glossy pages of Botticelli's paintings that I just couldn't put into the recycling bin.

I trimmed down each calendar page and folded them into lidded Botticelli boxes! My friend, Danielle, taught me how to do these little origami wonders. [I've actually adapted the steps to fold the corners in on themselves instead of cutting the paper, but that's mostly because I can never find my scissors once I finally sit down to fold a stack of boxes!] The best part about them is that the bottoms are as pretty as the tops of the boxes, so I can flip them over when I get tired of seeing the top painting.

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Monkey World

I love picking out new calendars every year, and this year I was fortunate enough to have discovered Matthew Porter and his Monkey World at the UCU fair last month. Each month features little monkey-people in new adventurous settings. January has a giant octopus attacking the monkey-pirates and their ship! February is a safari setting with a tiger. How great is that?

Just looking through the pages of Mr. Porter's beautifully painted artwork is inspiring for me, which is why I'm so thrilled that the calendar came with a mini coloring book calendar! Holy cow!! It's about a quarter of the size of the original, and it features close-ups of a monkey character from each month's artwork, all ready to be colored in. I can't tell you how exciting that is for me.

You can buy your own Monkey World calendar from Amazon right here, or check out Matthew's other children's books (including an absolute must-have ABC book!) here.

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Portland Gift & Accessories Show

Trillium Artisans has a booth at the Portland Gift & Accessories show, which is going on at the convention center Jan. 10-13th. I'm displaying my products along with 5 fellow recycling artisans. We've all spent the past two days setting up our booth, and it's lookin' pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I've never done a wholesale trade show before, so this is very exciting! I've always wanted to break into the wholesale market, and this is a great opportunity, even if times are a bit tight. If you're a wholesale buyer, I now have a linesheet that you can order from (it's a 10.8 MB pdf file). Just email me with your store info, and I'll be more than happy to send the catalog along to you!

Check out the great people I'm sharing booth space with:
Christine Claringbold of Eye Pop Art
Jacob Deatherage of Ex Libris Anonymous
Lacey Bronson of And Sometimes Y
Emily Baker of Sword+Fern

[These Anatomical Heart Champagne Flutes are just one of the new items we'll be revealing in our new spring line!]

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Exclusive Print for The Sampler

I didn't have time to blog about this before, but I submitted a fancy piece of artwork to The Sampler! Totally Awesome Allison printed it with her print Gocco machine and included 200+ with the Holiday 2008 edition of the Sampler.

I'm not sure if you can still get one of these samplers from their website, but you should be able to purchase one of the prints soon. I'll be getting a few copies myself, which I might give away as a prize for something. Stay tuned!

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Out with the Old...

We had an absolutely stunning year, with all our friends, family, fans and customers to thank! We've taken a short holiday break, but we're getting right back to work. To make space for new stuff, we're having an Out With the Old Clearance Sale!

Tons of items have just been added to the SALE section of our Etsy shop, at 20-50% off! Get the last hand-engraved pint glasses, vases, candle holders, and other one-of-a-kind items now, before they're gone forever!

Watch for our In With the New sale in a few weeks, when we'll release new designs and products for spring.

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