I.B.A.C @ The Loft Leeds!

We attended the 'Contemporary Arts Market and Creative Business Showcase' @The Loft, Leeds, by Artsmix* and Business Link. Here's the little flyer promoting the event:

It was pretty much a day and a bit to get our itty bitty products ready to be featured and sold at this event, also we were extremely lucky to get a space here in such short notice and also, for free! The lovely lady named Amy, who was curating the event, was happy to feature us and hopefully keep in contact for future events!

The Loft is quite a fancy creative events venue near Leeds Bus Station and on a road next to Co-op. At the Arts Market there were approximately 15 stalls set up featuring works from jewellery to furniture, as well as glittery cookies and spa products! It was also a nice event to mingle and befriend with other artists and designers.

-serious business!-

-itty bitty art open for business! (look! teeny tiny table!)-

-victory flag-waving!-

The little flags are our business cards with our blogger address on! We also had 'Itty Bitty Office Supplies' in tiny handmade takeaway boxes with tiny stationary for your office needs! These are the items we had at our stall but there will be more to come, especially for the International Artists' Book Fair, Leeds (Friday 12th & Saturday 13th)!!

The event ran from 12.00pm to 4.00pm and we managed to get a few of our products sold, the most favoured was, of course, the vending machine! People enjoyed twisting the dial on the machine which popped out a capsule with a lovingly handcrafted crane. In our near future projects we hope to fill the capsules with all types of goodies...

To keep us fuelled through the event, a delightful company called 'The Marvellous Tea Dance Company' supplied tea served in delicate, decorated china tea cups and a range of delicious cakes topped with glitter! This chocolate guinness cake was lush!

On top of all what happened that day, we've also been invited to another gig at Faversham on Saturday 6th March! Here's the flyer!

The event will be crammed with vintage crafts and stuff, as well as craft workshops, swing dance classes, live burlesque peepshow, miss vintage competition and plenty of nomming on tea and cake! We hope to see you there!!

Beverly and Sophie outside The Loft in the bitter cold (brrrr!)

Good news everyone!

You are now reading this post in my voice!

The cool cats at Artsmix are hosting 'Artsmix and business link' this coming Sunday (28th) and I have to say we are pretty exicited about it.

We shall be having our vending machine selling its first limited batch of goodies. as well as mini zines on toothpicks and finally boxes of Itty Bitty Art Committee stationary!

Pictures of our little whos its and whatsits will be up soon enough!

squweeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Capsulated Cranes!

Cranes, cranes and plenty of them! Look! Oh, and there are plenty more to come...

These colourful cranes have been patiently made by Sophie, as I can recall she said she made at least 800 (or more) of these beauties (a meaning of good luck)! Origami is not really my best of areas (Beverly) but I'm willing to attempt the templates that Sophie provided in a previous post, and also to test my patience!

Relating to our topic on heirlooms and trinketry... origami could be said to be a 'heirloom' as it is a tradition of paper-folding, where the knowledge and skill has been passed through generations. An heirloom is something that has been passed through generations to reflect on our histories or treasuring something sentimental within a family.

There's even teeny tiny origami swallows, parrots and cranes!

This is all exciting! We are planning to fill this vending machine with origami creatures which will then be installed in a particular area around Leeds College of Art. Hopefully the library if we can get permission.

It's 20p per capsule, so grab your origami bird which has been made with LOVE!

Grab Yer Pearls of Wisdom!

So far this week we have been formulating and creating tiny goodies to put inside the capsules of our sweet/toy vending machine. We are planning to do at least up to 4 or 5 varieties of products to vend. Sophie came up with a wonderful idea of creating 'Pearls of Wisdom' where inside each capsule is a small handmade 'pearl' along with quotations of wisdom... almost like fortune cookies!

Unfortunately they look almost like something bunnies commonly leave on the fields of the countryside... but this is until they are placed in the kiln and covered in a coloured coating and, finally, glazed. Each 'pearl' would then be attached to a quotation full of wisdom by a string of some sort. At the moment they are probably sitting on a shelf in ceramics waiting to be cooked, or hopefully baking away in the kiln. This process is likely to be completed by next week!

Gocco Time!

I'm (Beverly) really considering in getting a Gocco at some point soon! Just been browsing on ebay for any great deals and it's a bonus if they are in great condition. It's a minature screen printing kit!

The little bits and bobs that make the screen printing tick, such as the bulbs, screens and inks are becoming a bit harder to find or the prices are a little pricey... but I can see it's worth it by some creations I've seen from other artists using the Gocco.

gocco print by Inkdesigner

gocco print by peskimo

gocco print by magic jelly

Here is a great video on how the process of screen printing on a Gocco works by Etsy Labs! After watching their video the process of Gocco printing was much simpler than I thought! Thanks Etsy Labs!





However the Gocco seems to be on it's way out, unless it could be saved by a business willing to create more Gocco and supplies (Me wish!)...

Here's an interesting site: http://www.savegocco.com/what-is-gocco/ It's all about Gocco and campaigning to save Gocco! Oh, and there's an interesting and highly amusing Japanese advert of the Gocco at the bottom of the webpage... it features puppies using the printing machine! A must see!

Paper chasing

Papierkrieg from Makaio Tisu on Vimeo.

Lovely to see the art of paper crafting and folding used in different formats. The patience and skill taken creating the animations really pays off. I do like the idea of creating a narrative around the paper crafting but the simplicity of colour in Jen Stark's work is really beautiful, the sculptural elements of her work are anything but simple but just as beautiful, take a look...

"Streaming Gradient" by Jen Stark from Jen Stark on Vimeo.

Fashion and furniture designers have so often taken from the Japanese art of paper folding.

Shrouding the body with sculptural fabric or wood.

catwalk from autumn-winter collection ‘07 of DIOR | sputnik table by Buro Vormkrijgers

Hidden in my (Sophie) draw at home I have about 400 paper cranes that I lovingly folded as part of a project (that funnily enough I never finished) to create 1000 paper cranes for good luck so as of now

OPERATION BIG BIRD

is a go! I shall try and finish folding all those cursed little squares into lovely little birdies as a product to sell in our vending machine.

BIG BIRD HAS FLOWN THE NEST! I REPEAT BIG BIRD HAS FLOWN THE NEXT! OVER!

origami

We've Got It!

(Sophie presenting vending machine on Skype)

Here is the wonderful vending machine that has arrived today along with a large sack of balls to be filled with our tiny art creations! Watch this itty bitty space...

New acquisitions

We have been having a little think about what teeny tiny vessles to sell some of our prospective art work/trinketry and what sprung to our minds was a sweetie vending machine.

Hark back to the days of begging for 20ps from your folks to get a meagre amount of sweeties!

Oh yes! We are going to create a wee vending machine full of goodies for sale at THE INTERNATIOAL BOOK FAIR LEEDS!

Our new vending machine shall be arriving on Friday (hurrah!)

Isn't it a beaut!

Now what do we fill it with?