Far Beyond Designs: At the Shop

Showing posts with label At the Shop. Show all posts

Friday, February 10, 2012

Valentine's Day Printables

Hello friends!

My 2 year old is going to her first Valentine's party on Monday, and I'm sharing my project for you to use! In the spirit of love, enjoy these Valentine's for free. Click the link at the bottom of this post to download the .jpg or .pdf and print away! They are designed to fit 9 to a letter-sized piece of paper. If you do something creative, be sure to send me a picture.

Happy Valentines!

PDF (.pdf) file
JPEG (.jpg) file

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Finished Custom Project: Lotus Ring Design

Several months ago, one of my favorite people and best customers asked me to come up with a creative way to display some small rings she received as a gift from Spain. She had some great ideas, and we put our heads together and came up with something we both love. After a tumultuous holiday season (is there any other kind?), I finally got to finish up the project and send it off to it's new home.

This lotus flower design features the spanish words for 7 well-wishes in a radial design: Amor (love), Suerte (luck), Vida (life), Amistad (friendship), Salud (health), Dinero (money,) and Felicidad (happiness). Inspired by the art-nouveau movement, I first designed a color-block style, 7-part floral radial design, then I used some of my own photography to add some interesting texture to the design. Once the design was finished up and the proof approved by the customer, the final art was printed on Linen-Cotton Canvas from Spoonflower, then stretched inside a quilter's loop for a unique, wall-ready display. The final size was 14" in diameter. After I sent the art to my friend, she hand-sewed each ring into the right spot and hung it on her wall.

I did all the design and production here in Texas, and my friend finished the project in Germany! Proof positive that the world is shrinking thanks to the web. Here's some pictures of different parts of the project as it progressed:

The Lotus Flower design, sans-couleur

Here's one of the unedited photographs I used to add texture to the design

The original design as it appeared on the screen

Printed and stretched into it's frame, ready for shipment to Germany

Finished art, complete with rings sewn in place.

If you have a very special custom art job you'd like me to work on, let me know! Depending on supplies and shipping, we might be able to get exactly what you want for less than you expect. Thanks for reading!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

New Process for Less Expensive Canvases

I love art. I hate that it's so expensive. One of the biggest reasons I started making art digitally and finding ways to print it on the cheap was so that I could offer my art for a reasonable price. I don't think that the average person should be forced to shop at Kirkland's to have art on their walls - not that their art is terrible. But it is massed produced, making it highly impersonal. I think you can know the name, and maybe even the face, of the artist who's work adorns your living room walls.

Because of my mission to sell high-quality art at a real-life price, I am always looking for ways to keep my costs down and pass those savings forward to my customer. Recently, I revamped my printing process so that I reduced the prices of my prints up to 40%, and took all my shipping costs down by nearly half. But I'm not done yet.

Thanks to an amazing start-up company called Spoonflower, I have a better way to print my canvases. They offer top-notch printing on textiles, and one of the standard fabrics they print on is Linen-Cotton canvas. It's beautiful - I kid you not. The texture on this stuff is phenomenal, and there's no detail lost in the printing either.

So if I print on this canvas directly, instead of onto a traditionally pre-treated canvas, and then stretch and finish the edges of the piece, I can cut my cost. Then I can cut your cost. And maybe someone who wouldn't normally choose a canvas for their home can spring for the big painting instead of the small print. Thanks to this new process, my canvases are $45. That's down $20 each. And I'm excited about that.

Here's the first one off the presses: St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer. It's for sale here, or you can do what I do and just look at that pretty texture in the close up. Oooh, pretty.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Craft Fair!

Here are a few pictures of Far Beyond at our local Craft Fair on 5 November. I made some good contacts, a few sales, and had a good time. I even got to show off my baby girl to some fellow crafters while I debuted a new product, wooden plaques!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to see me! I'm always looking for a good opportunity to show off my products in person, so if you have a good selling opportunity to tell me about, please drop me a line at farbeyonddesigns@gmail.com.

You can get a good idea of the size of my stuff from the picture - just use my styrofoam coffee cup as a gage (*blushing*). See something you like on that table? Check out the shop. Maybe you'll luck out and find it still available! If not, you know I'll make it for ya. Coz I like ya. We're buds.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Update to our Store!

Just in time for Christmas shopping, the online store got a serious make-over. Changes? Glad you asked!

New 10x13" Pillows in 6 designs

Shipping on 'flat products' (photo prints and other envelope fare) has been cut by 40-50%
All finished 5x7s were $10, reduced to $7
All finished 8x10s were $6, reduced to $4
NEW! 10x13" Throw Pillows available! $12 each
NEW! 5x7 Wooden Plaques available! $8 each
Easier to navigate listings show each individual design and size as it's own item
Items now sorted by theme (Christian, Heritage, Military, etc.)

New Wooden Wall Plaques in 7 designs

There are somethings that don't change - like using high-quality archival materials (meaning that your purchase will last forever) and handmade processes (meaning you're supporting American-made artisan products).

Be excited! I know I am. There's also a couple new products in the works for the new year, including (hopefully) a new way to print my canvases that will cut the retail price significantly. I hope you guys like the change. The response so far has been very positive!

And of course, there's always a reward for reading all this: COUPON CODE! Enter "MAKEOVER" in your checkout to receive 15% off anything in the shop, old or new! Thanks everyone!

Check out the online store now!

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Samhain Sale!

Happy Samhain!

Wait, what? You mean Old Hallows Eve, right? Look back a bit further my friend:

According to our good friend Wikipedia, "Samhain was a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following John Rhys and James Frazer.^[2] The date of Samhain was associated with the Catholic All Saints' Day (and later All Souls' Day) from at least the 8th century, and both the secular Gaelic and the Catholic liturgical festival have influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween.^[3]"

Samhain is currently very popular as a Neopagan festival (any google search will tell you that) but for those of every creed, it is a very cool tradition that we carry with us today in a lot of ways. There's a lot of myths and fear surrounding this holiday, but take it from this good Catholic girl: Samhain is a wonderful celebration that we can tip our hat to without a worry of compromising our own beliefs. It's just plain fun, guys! I bet you already celebrate it, maybe without even knowing it.

Here's a few things we do around the end of October that come from Samhain traditions:

Bobbing for apples: Marriage diviniation! First to make a bite in an apple will be the next to be married
Jack-o-lanterns: Allegedly named after an Irish Legendary figure who was cursed after death to enter neither heaven nor hell, and bear a burning ember from Hell inside him. The Celts used turnips - using a pumpkin is an Irish-American tradition!
Costumes: The thought here is that the ancient Celts dressed up to try to blend in with the plethora of spirits that wandered the earth during the festival.
Fall Bonfires: A symbol of the warmth and light of the sun, bonfires were used throughout the ancient Irish countryside as a "cleansing," warding off evil and inviting goodness.

Sources: http://www.new-age.co.uk/celtic-festivals-samhain.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain

In celebration of this too-cool time, I'm offering 1/2 off all my Irish Heritage and Irish Proverb prints. 4 different finished pieces or a custom proverb of your choice, all for 50% off. Prices starting at only $3! Hurry - this offer ends after All Souls Day! (I did say I was a good Catholic girl!)