Oklahoma!

No this isn't about the musical but a wonderful state & all of the fabulous breweries that are allowing me to use their beer labels in my work & the brick & mortars that carry that work :)

First, a HUGE shout out to Kelli at Okie Crowe (also of Oklahoma), without her, none of this would have happened, THANK YOU Kelli!

Kelli found me through Facebook (thank you, Facebook) contacted me & we developed a fabulous relationship & cross merchandised (in Oklahoma) my items made from recycled beer labels with her fabulous soaps, scrubs & dog treats that she creates from the spent grains of the local breweries in her area.

 

Below, you can see some of the Oklahoma Breweries that have graciously given me their labels to create items such as dog & cat collars, key chains & luggage tags.  

Thank you, Marshall Brewing Company for allowing me to use your labels & carrying my work in your brewery! I hope to some day sample your beer :)

 

 

 



 

Check out these wonderful labels from Choc Beer Company & Marshall Brewing Company in these key chains, luggage tags & dog collars.

 



 

 

 

Thank you, Mustang Brewery (& Kelli) for giving me the recent opportunity to work with your labels. They look fabulous on these dog collars, luggage tags & key chains!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anthem Brewing Company, isn't quite bottling yet, but once they do, are excited (me too) to work with me in creating items from their labels!

 

 

Now for all the wonderful brick & mortars that carry my work!!  You can find me at Dog Dish, Marshall Brewing Company, High Gravity Homebrewing & Wine Making, Owl & Drum, Made: The Indie Emporium Shop in the Deco & Pearl Districts, Studio 818 (all in Tulsa) & Homegrown Treasures in Claremore, OK. (And soon through Okie Crowe!)

 

I would like to express a HUGE thank you to all of these wonderful places that are now carrying my work and an even BIGGER thank you to Kelli of Okie Crowe, whom none of this would have been possible without her!! :) And please, when you get the chance stop over at Kelli's shop on Etsy & check out her yummy soaps!!!



 

 

 

 



Aloha!

I have Hawaii on the brain since my husband & I will soon be spending 10 wonderful days in beautiful sunny Maui .We went last year for the first time & didn't stay as long & decided this time, we must stay longer :)

So with that, I thought I'd share a few items that's I've made using Hawaiian themed packaging.

I use a badge/ID holder like this to carry my bus pass that I use to get to & from work. My husband works for a company where they're required to wear badges at all times to allow them entrance through doors & gates of buildings. My nephew goes to a high school where they have to wear ID cards as well, so he's sporting one of my Mt Dew ID holders. The badge holders that I make have a clear front & back sleeve (in case you're one of those people that need to have different cards do different things.) .



These dog collars were created by using recycled beer labels from Kona Brewing Company & Primo Brewing & Malting Company. I offer many different size options & customizations in my shop. I carry 1/2" width collars for the cats & small dogs in your family (like you see on here on Matisse)

I offer the 3/4" width for the medium sized dogs like you see here on Taryn.

And the 1" width collars that you would see on Boxers, Huskies, German Shephards & my biggest customer yet, an English Mastiff. (I offer the option of the 1 1/2" width, as a custom order & to those custom orders with the "bigger" dogs, I offer the option of all metal components for an extra charge - pictured below).

These collars are all hand built by me, (I do not buy the collars premade & add the labels later). This allows me to customize the length of webbing that is needed for the dog's neck & gives the customer the option to add all metal components of the slide, clasp & always welded d-rings versus the plastic components that I carry normally in my shop. 

This wristlet key chain was created by using recycled labels from Kona Brewing Company Fire Rock Pale Ale beer labels.

For the person who likes to travel, I also create luggage tags-sorry no passport covers yet with Hawaiian packaging. (What a great way todistinguish your luggage at baggage claim.) These were made from recycled Kona Brewing Company Wailua beer labels & Kettle Brand Hawaiian flavor potato chips bags.

I try to offer every Hawaiian brewery that I have access to purchase their products from, unfortunattely Maui Brewery (love their beer, btw) offers their beers in cans only (BOO!) so until I can come up with an idea using cans (which I'm working on right now & will share once I get it all worked out) it will have to wait.

Until my next post, Mahalo & Mele Kalikimaka!!

For the Dog Who Has Everything

You've seen my collars, now check out the leashes :)

These leashes are 1" wide & are approximately 56" to 60" long & the clasps are nickel-free. (All of these can be found in my shop, with matching collars - except for the purple Jubelale leash, as it's been sold.)

 

The leashes below are 3/4" wide & approximately 58"-60" long & also have nickel-free clasps.

These leashes (with their matching collars) will be in my shop shortly, as they're all being photographed at the moment.

Hope you stop by again for my next post about Okie Crowe & Marshall Brewing!

Minor Change

A small shout out & big thank you to WinchesterLambourne for creating my new banner that you see at the top of my blog!!

It looks wonderful, thank you!!

A New Beginning

So I've been VERY bad about posting to my blog, but with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter (to name a few) my blog has been severely neglected & I apologize for that.  I may not blog every week, but promise to be better than I have been!!

I wanted to share with you some new items that I've been creating recently - DOG COLLARS!

Who's to say that dogs can't be stylish? 

I'm discovering that a lot of my customers are naming their dogs after beer.  Please meet one of my satisfied customers, Guinness.

Taryn, my German Pinscher, is sporting a Dr Pepper collar (my most popular "soda" collars) I think Diet Coke could be in the running, since all of my other Diet Coke items sell quickly, but Diet Coke labels are scarce for me (as I don't know anyone that drinks Diet Coke - not even me) so I hold them for custom orders only at this moment.

The majority of my collars run 3/4" to 1" wide, (although I take custom orders for 1 1/2" wide) & the lengths run anywhere from 9" and on up. I have had a few requests for cat collars, but I always like to remind the customer that the smaller in width of the collar, the smaller the geography of the labeling (everyone seems to be ok with it so far) :)

(Actually, Matisse-my Bengal cat looks great in the 3/4". But then he also weighs 19 lbs & he wants you to know that it's ALL fur.)

Not only do I have the enjoyment of creating the collars, but I also have the enjoyment of consuming the product (it's amazing how you buys beers because the labels look really cool-you can't tell me that you've never done that before) :)  For those products that I either "just" can't drink (Pabst) or can't find bottled in stores locally, customers are more than happy to send me their own labels :) One customer was SO nice that she sent me extra Pabst Blue Ribbon labels, since apparently, it's "coming back" & she thought it would sell well in my shop :) 

So the next time you purchase that item with the really cool packaging, I hope you think of me and smile. :)

(Working on some future new posts....... another new item that I'm starting to carry in my Etsy shop - dog leashes!! And another post a "shout out" to Okie Crowe and Marshall Brewing Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.)

See you soon!!!





New for 2011

Alright, I must admit, I have been VERY bad at "blogging" however, I haven't completely disappeared off the earth. I've been posting in LinkedIn, Twitter, a little bit at StumbleUpon, however, I'm still trying to understand that one & of course on Facebook. All of these social networks, it's hard to keep up!!


I just wanted to share with you a new idea that I've been considering for probably the last 3 months & finally decided this last week to give it a try.....................Wristlet Key Chains made from (but of course) repurposed materials.  

All of those little snippets of pieces that have been too small to use in my other pieces, now have a new home, (other than the trash can.)  Although I question, "Am I saving TOO much?!" I'd rather you not see me on the next episode of Hoarders!! :)

These wristlet key chains are 6" long by 1.25" wide.  I will also be creating others that are a little bit longer & not as wide, so you could attach it to a zipper on a clutch if you'd like.

I'm also planning on some primarily fiber based wristlets as well!!





Diet Coke items seem to be a favorite in my shop!

LOVE Cheeto's so I tend to have quite a few of their empty bags in my studio!!  (Have you tried the White Cheddar ones, YUM!! and no orange dust left on your fingers :)

Can't leave out the beer lovers :)

I really enjoy making these & it's always fun to try something new!!  My next HUGE jump............zippers!!  If I could just get over my huge phobia of them, I think it would open a few doors for my work to grow!!  It's probably just all in my head & once I figure out zippers, I'll probably wonder why, I put it off for so long on learning how to sew with them!!

Indie Spotting for the Holidays

Looking to buy handmade for your Christmas gifts this year?  You HAVE to check out IndieSpotting.  It's so much more than just a blog!!  On this site, you will find great gift guides for any holiday, "how to" items you can create for yourself or give as gifts, featured artists with links to their shops & other artist shop links off to the right of the website.  (You'll have to check out my new avatar that I created myself, under Our Sponsors - it's also the new header for my blog.)  I actually had hired someone else to create an avatar for me, (since I really wasn't comfortable in doing that myself) & after several attempts at contacting the person to see how they were coming along & never getting a response, I decided to make an attempt at doing it myself!




My shop is featured in their "handmade holidays" section on their IndieSpotting website site & on their sister site An Indie Christmas under their "handmade holidays gifts" section.

If you're looking to support artists, creating handmade unique items & wanting to stay out of the "big box" retail stores, this is a great place to start!!