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.

The Sketchbook Project 2011: Opening Reception

My friends and I went into Brooklyn Saturday (braving the wind advisory across all those bridges!) to attend The Sketchbook Project opening at the Brooklyn Art Library.

They had a great turnout! So great that when we got there with 1 1/2 hours left to the reception, only a couple of us were in line early enough to check out a sketchbook! The group of us only got to look at two sketchbooks, but it was still fun to be there, be a part of the reception and see that so many people were enjoying the project. Hopefully my friends and I will all be able to get back there when its not so packed, and we can really enjoy the sketchbooks.

As a bonus, it turns out I knew Steve, the man behind The Sketchbook Project! We were friends freshman year at Hartford Art School, then he transferred and we lost touch. Congrats to Steve and everyone else that worked hard to make The Sketchbook Project such a success!

Check out the website for sketchbook tour dates near you!

The wall of over 28,000 sketchbooks!

Looking through another artist's sketchbook.

I think her name was Jessica Meath.

Detail of Jessica Meath's book.

Check in your books!

My great friends who came to the opening with me!

I think next year all of them will be participating in

The Sketchbook Project.

Inspiration: Vintage Greeting Cards

Vintage greeting cards are a fun source of inspiration for typography and image. Above is a Valentine my cousin sent me the other day, that my Grandmother had actually saved from when our parents were little.

My Grandmother never got rid of greeting cards, even if they were blank ones she had never used! She kept them nicely in a box and now my family is able to use and enjoy them. Its become a nice thing around the holidays to receive cards from my mom or uncle with a little note on the bottom that reads "this card was from Grammy's collection".

Now I keep many of these cards and stationary sets in my studio, a few hanging up and others on my shelves to reference when I need a little nostalgic inspiration.