Customized TOMS for Your Business

Unique clothing, jewelry, and other accessories can often be conversation starters. How about custom TOMS shoes that start a conversation about your small business?

Here's a pair of black canvas men's classic TOMS that I customized for a friend, based on the logo & business card for his recording/production company, Sites and Sounds Productions. I designed the logo and business card for them a few years ago as well.

Many of us are self employed in an effort to create jobs for ourselves, and do what we really love. So if you're a musician, DJ, artist, writer, or any type of small business owner, these are a fun way to get your friends talking about your business.

If you'd like a pair of shoes customized around your business's logo, send me an email. And if you need a logo for your new business, you can email me about that too!

jessie.a.katz@gmail.com

One Day Without Shoes Wrap-Up

Nyack's One Day Without Shoes last Tuesday was a great success! We heard live music, customized TOMS shoes, and walked barefoot through Nyack raising awareness for children that are forced to go barefoot every day.

Maria Whittingham (owner of Maria Luisa Boutique and ML Gifts & Accessories) and Nyack's Mayor Richard Kavesh each talked about how fortunate we are to have luxuries like shoes, that usually get taken for granted.

Here's a slideshow ML Gifts & Accessories put together from the event, and a short video at the Nyack-Piermont Patch.

Below are some of my own photos from the event; including the Eric Brown Band, some TOMS I customized, and the barefoot walk.

New Listings on Etsy

Check out Designosaurus on Etsy for these and more new jewelry listings, just in time for spring!

www.jessiekatz.etsy.com

Customized Shoes: Practice Round

I'm customizing TOMS at a One Day Without Shoes event April 5th. See details and a previous post about the event here, featuring a pair I customized that will be available in a silent auction that day.

I haven't customized shoes at this type of event before, and I like to be ridiculously prepared for things like this, so above are a couple pairs of shoes I customized for practice! They aren't TOMS, instead they are some white sneakers I had laying around that my aunt handed down to me, but they still gave me the sense of what it's like to paint on a three dimensional fabric piece.

Nyack's One Day Without Shoes

April 5th, 2011

10am - 6:30pm

ML Gifts & Accessores - 75 S. Broadway, Nyack, NY

More information about the event here, here and here.

Supplies for Sale with Free Shipping!

I buy a lot of art supplies for various projects, but a lot of the time don't use the entire package. Some of this stuff I've had for over 5 years, and if I haven't used it up yet, I'm probably not going to.

In that case, I'd like to pass along these supplies to you, it would be a shame for then to just go to waste!

My studio needs to get organized, and to do that I need to get rid of this stuff, so it's all priced super cheap, plus free shipping! These listings will only be up for 1 month, then I'm getting rid of the stuff, so act fast.

More jewelry supplies will be posted sometime in the next week, but for now these supplies are available at Designosaurus on Etsy.

One Day Without Shoes

On April 5th, ML Gifts & Accessories and Maria Luisa Boutique will be sponsoring Nyack's One Day Without Shoes.

TOMS Shoes started a One for One movement, where every pair purchased means one pair of new shoes is given to a child in need. On April 5th TOMS is challenging all of us to go a day without shoes, and experience what children growing up in developing countries go through every day.

Join us on April 5th at 75 S. Broadway in Nyack, 10:00am - 6:30pm, to show your support and raise awareness! There will be a silent auction featuring TOMS shoes customized by local artists, many of those artists will be customizing shoes on site throughout the day, and a barefoot walk at 4:30pm.

Here are my custom paisley TOMS being auctioned off at the event...

Baby Shower Invitations

Recently I had the opportunity to design invites for my friend’s baby shower. It was a really fun project, and I was so happy to get the chance to do it! Here are some photos tracking the process…

First some sketches. At the beginning of the process I really wanted to incorporate the triangle bunting… but in the end the monkey became more important.

After finalizing the image and typography, I tried a few different colors. Blue? Green? Should the monkey be colored? Or just outlines?

Once the colors were chosen, I printed the invites (front and back), and the small direction cards. I find it easier to print 4 cards on 8.5” x 11” paper and cut with an X-acto. For me this is more convenient than trying to align 4” x 6” paper properly to print both sides.

I designed colorful circular envelope seals, and printed blue address labels to match the typography from the invites.

Everything cut and ready to be assembled. Envelopes, address labels, return address labels, envelope seals, direction cards, and the invitation itself.

Envelope seals.

All the invites ready to go!

Being a big dork, I like to see the entire process, beginning to end. This means what the invite looks like, even after going through the mail. So here’s the invite I mailed back to myself, with the postage stamps and a little water damage to the return address label.