the scatterbox organized

8,274 years later, my art shop is open!

HAPPY [OFFICIAL] HOLIDAYS!

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and were fortunate enough to stuff yourself to the gills.  Since I have a most awesome husband, I ate fantastically well.  He made quite the spread, even for just two people, with leftovers for a week.  Even though I've been listening to Christmas music for at least two weeks now, I'm very adamant about not busting out the yuletide decor until it is the proper time, which would be... now.  Hopefully we'll get the tree this weekend, because I can't wait to string up our fatty-fat, old-school C7 bulbs on it.
 
If any of you have been following, you'll know that I had put my Etsy shops on hiatus after last holiday season in the hopes of preparing for the opening of a new one with more of an art focus.  If you've been following, you'll also know how that idea pretty much tanked. However, even though it's a wee one at the moment, the shop is now open!  Just in time for the holidays, even!  What a coincidence.
 
My art is definitely a work in progress.  To give you background, I had always taken art in one form or another throughout grade school and high school.  As it was not a "traditional" career path, I never really had it in my mind to pursue it, although looking back, it couldn't have been a more obvious choice.  Graphic design and/or fine art would have been swell.  I ended up majoring in advertising instead.  Aside from that early schooling, I am primarily self-taught, especially when it comes to working with different types of paint.  I am still experimenting today, and would love to share my progression with you.  The art that I am most drawn to is colorful, fun, somewhat random and quirky, and sometimes has a bit of a retro/vintage edge about it.  I also love, love, love typography.  Here on my website, I like to talk about some of the other artists out there that inspire me.  I hope to have a style of my own that people can look upon as I do with the work of these amazingly talented people.  I know it will not be for everyone, but for any creatively-inclined person, it is most important to produce work that is true to who they are.
 
Aside from the art shop, I've got some other wheels turning: 

• My first shop, scatterbox, is back up.  Currently, I have listed previous items that were for sale, but I do plan to add to this with new goods in the near future.
• I've started a somewhat daily, mini snapshot blog called little things that I kinda like.  You can click on the five most recent posts on the left side of this page.
• I do plan to bring back my regular photography for sale, hopefully in the next couple months.
• I'm also on Twitter, y'allz: @scatterbox.

Current affairs: This weekend through Monday 11/30, I have free shipping in both shops and some sales going on.  Check them out!  I think just about every shop on Etsy is joining in on it, so please look there for gift ideas, as well.

If you poke around on this site from time to time, please feel free to leave me comments!  I'd love to hear from you and know what you think.  I know you're out there... Stalking is a criminal offense and hiding in the bushes gets uncomfortable after a while.  You can also always contact me via email at hello@tinajett.com.
 
I hope you all have an amazing holiday season and don't get trampled at any weekend sales events, of course.  Might put a damper on things.  If you'd rather avoid all that mess, please consider supporting the enormous slew of independent/d.i.y./handmade artisans out there today.  Maybe my work does nothing for you, but I guarantee that at places like Etsy, you will find items more unique than anything you can find out in cold, impersonal, Retailand, and you don't even have to leave the house.  Help keep money local and directly support the people who truly care about what they do.  It's a wonderful community to be a part of.
 
Have a great weekend!

Tryptophan Dreaming

In anticipation of Gorgefest '09, I'd like to wish all ye Americanos a crantastic turkey day!  Be thankful for who you are and what you have, and if for some reason this is difficult, be thankful that you have the power to make a change, even if it is just a change in attitude.  

I'll be dropping the official bomb tomorrow that my art shop is ready for biz, and will have more info on weekend sales and specials, as well as the changes I have made and continue to work on.

If you are planning to go out for pre-game festivities tonight, please, please, please make sure if you are drinking that you have a responsibly sober way to get home.  Be safe for everyone, including you.

Until tomorrow...

 

Microbliggityblog

You may be asking yourself, "Self, doesn't she already seem to be slack in keeping up with one blog, let alone, two?"  Well, Yourself, you would probably be correct.  But not this time!  

TypePad, my host, has a new feature, their own version of the short-form blog called TypePad Micro.  It's really just a mini-version of a regular blog, one that can complement an existing site, or be an entity of its own.  

For me, the timing was perfect.  I wanted to start putting up posts that featured iPhone snaps of the little things I come across in my daily life that put a smile on my face.  As mentioned before, it doesn't take much to make me happy, so my husband can get off light by just buying me chocolate.  I also love photographs that are just snippets of every day, zeroing in on the tiny gems that our eyes may overlook, or that we take for granted.  This idea was the perfect platform for this project.  I love the bold look of it, and I think one of the greatest features is that when you upload your main profile photo, it automatically generates a palette of complementary color schemes to choose from.

So today, I officially unfurl the banner on my own microblog, little things!

As with this site, you can also add little things to your blog feed.  I am personally in love with Google Reader, so if you're not familiar, get yourself a Google account and they'll tell you all about how easy it is to keep up with your favorite sites on a daily basis.  There is also a sidebar feature on my page here with the five most recent little things posts.  With the easy-cheesy method of taking a picture and sending it directly to that site to post in a heartbeat, there will be plenty of updates on the little things that make me giddy about life.  I mean, come on - I've already posted three times this week.  LOOK.  OUT.

I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you'll share your own!

Hoops -- there it is!

Sorry, I had to use that as a title after someone recently spouted it out.

Going to music festivals and such, usually those of a grass-roots nature, you tend to see a more eclectic, creative, laid-back group of folk in attendance.  Which, to me, makes the festival in question that more enjoyable.  People who are there to experience the music and arts for the intrinsic joy of it and for what it does and how it makes them feel.  You see people on the sides of the crowd, getting all blissed out, dancing in their own world... and some of them... well, some of them come with their own equipment.  The hula hoop.

For most girls, when they are little, they are exposed to the plastic ring almost like an initiation into girlihood.  I was introduced to the hoop because friends of mine had it.  I just never could get the damn thing to work. 

Fast forward many a year and you'll find me in a sporting goods store a few months ago getting a wild hair to bust out some sure-to-be-ill-fated moves on the retail floor with one of theirs.  But something happened... I GOT IT TO WORK.  Granted, it was just for a few steady seconds, but for once in my life, I was totally coordinated at something right out of the gate.  Shazam!  I immediately wanted to buy it as an award of my accomplishment.  A lost part of my childhood that I could re-claim.  Instead of paying the simple $5 that it cost, I suddenly wanted to get serious.  I knew a friend that hooped for realz, and I found myself wanting in on the action.  The 30 seconds of circular stability I experienced had apparently gone to my head.  My friend made her own hoops.  I wanted to make my own, too, dammit!

This past Sunday, I finally got my wish.  The home team I used to skate with in the Carolina Rollergirls league, the Debutante Brawlers, was having their annual "Day of the Deb" celebration.  Basically it's another excuse for us all to get together, sans wheels, while eating, drinking, and shooting the shit.  This time, though, we had a little arts and crafts session, and a few of us got to hoop makin', guided by the lovely Holly Wanna Crackya.

Down in the basement of one Shirley Temper's house, a few people started the process by cutting up the tubing to size for everyone.  Then we took our tubing and end connectors upstairs to soften the ends in boiling water.  This makes the connectors slide in pretty easy.  Here's Eva Lye starting us off.

 
  

Once all the tubes were connected into hoops, we picked out our tape colors and got to wrapping.

 

 
 Some a little more ridiculously anal than others...

I so loved it with just the regular and shiny red, but added the white for the scatterboxy effect.  It makes me happy.

All of us did a very good job, as seen below.  The fanny pack has no bearing on our activities.  It was part of Holly's most awesome Halloween costume as a fanatical 80s workout junkie, and it's just plain fabulous, it had to be included.

Honorable mention goes to our other craft assistant, THE KEGERATOR.

I'm already contemplating taking it up to some college football tailgating this weekend, which the mister gives me the eye for.  Whatever.  He was totally digging trying to get his own spin going when I brought it home.

Now all of a sudden, hooping is showing up in the media.  In two days, I saw an article on Yahoo about all these celebrities now picking it up as the new "it" workout, and even in this month's Southern Living magazine, there's a big article on one lady that started a hoop gym.  In a sense, it's very cool to see.  It's not like hooping was exclusively part of some alternative/hippie club or anything, but that's pretty much where it's been kept alive by chicks over the age of twelve.  I might even try to get my mom into it, because I think it would be great for her physically and such.  Surely, it's about to blow up as the new soccer mom workout fad, but I can't lie... I secretly want to keep it tucked away as one of those activities that the alternative/hippie club is known for.  Where they do it for the art and spirituality of it, not just the killer abs.  Just like the yoga explosion, though, if it keeps people from being unhealthy and/or going off the deep end, I'm all for it.  Next stop - compact travel version!

Happy Early Halloween!

Tomorrow's the big day!

I look forward to Halloween every year, and every year, it sneaks up on me.  There's usually some grand plan I had in mind that ends up not getting done, and this year, my big fail is that we haven't even had our traditional pumpkin carving while watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Scandalous, I tell you.

Let's pretend for a sec that I did have my act together, and you can enjoy these pumpkins that we carved three years ago!  They were from our best carving year so far, so I don't mind the fact that I just copped-out and pulled up old photos.

This was the mister's, which he very nicely recreated from one of those templates that can sometimes go awry.  Not in this case, however.  I dig how the flames on the pumpkin look particularly... flamey.

And this was mine, from a design I whipped up myself.  I was actually quite pleased with how well it turned out.  My favorite personal pumpkin.

To add a little flava, here's some great Halloweeny items that caught my eye on Etsy.  You can click on each image to go to the listing in that seller's shop.

 

Trick or Treat by Multiple Personality

Love how the shadows depict who they really are...

 

Candy Corn on Crazy Cat by Crescent Hill Designs

How do you not love some candy corn rockin' out?

Instant Cemetery Display by Crafterella

This one is a big seller every year at this time on Etsy.  Great detail and concept.

 

Bunny Bandito by The Decorated House

.............buuunny.....

Eyeball Pillow by Crow's Cloth

Big ol' eyeball pillows made out of velvet and silk taffeta?  Stop it.

Don't forget about the Halloween bonus this year -- Daylight savings time ends Halloween night!  You'll get an extra hour to sleep off any partying you do on Saturday night... If you remember to set that clock back before you pass out.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Doodle Love: Amanda Visell

One reason I love Amanda Visell, as with other artists I find myself drawn towards, is that she is primarily self-taught.  The other reason is that she draws influence from Mary Blair, renowned for her work as a concept artist and animator for The Walt Disney Company in the 1950s and 60s (more on her later!).  Aside from originals and prints, Amanda has a great line of books, sculptures, and three-dimensional toys as well.

Amanda's work has a dark-yet-lighthearted edge, and I love her bold use of color.  Check out her website to learn more!

These are some of my favorites:

(I love the moon's face!)

 

("Lost Safari" commemorates the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney.  I first saw it in the art gallery at Downtown Disney in Orlando and fell in love with it.  This is the first of Amanda's work that I had come across.)

Re-post: Seat 29E

A re-post of an oldie-but-goodie I scraped off of my vacant MySpace page.  Given the abnormally large amount of time I spent sitting in an airplane seat during the month of September, a chunk of which was right next to the pooper, I figured this was a good way to say sayonara to the month.

This is an actual letter sent to Continental.

Quote of the Day

TIME Magazine: How do you feel about Will Ferrell's impersonation of you on Saturday Night Live?

Alex Trebek: I love the Saturday Night Live sketches.  In fact, I was extremely disappointed when Will left.  We've never had any contestants as onery as the Sean Connery character that Darrell Hammond portrays.  I've been asked how I would feel if we had Sean Connery on Celebrity Jeopardy!  I tell everyone I'd just walk up to him and punch out his lights.

Photo from Sony Pictures Television

Dollar store over diamonds

Let it be known that I am not a materialistic person.  Ok, clarification... I am non-materialistic with the exception of a few things: 1. I am still savoring the coming day when I can trade in my [brand omitted because I'll be nice on the interwebs] phone for the iPhone that I should have gotten in the first place, 2. my tres sweet digital SLR camera bought last year that I really need to learn more about (not used below), and 3. the someday-purchase of a phat-with-a-PH home theatre system on which I can crank up, and audibly geek out to, the THX Deep Note intro before settling into movie la-la land.

Yeah... Where were we?  Aside from that, I don't care a whole lot about working for the so-called finer things in life.  I can find more giddiness and pleasure from some random, cheeky, cheesy dollar store find that appeals to my inner five-year-old than I can from any carat-crusted bauble.  So when I went to visit my Myers-Briggs INFJ personality twin in Wilmington last week, I had to make a stop into one of the funnerest (just go with it) and budget-friendly stores that I know, Planet.  While there, I picked up three little lovelies.

The $6 sherbet-colored sunglasses that seemed to be a truck-driver magnet on the road trip home.  (I mean really - You can't see me but as a blur in your side mirror, yet you honk as though I'll wave you on over to the next rest stop?  Seriously, dude.)

The $3 woven stone and bead ring, so very gaudalicious.

And my fave, the $6 recycled French Lecon zipper pouch I'm using for my sketch supplies, from the incredibly fabulous folks at Blue Q.  My pouch is a double-sided wonderland of beginner French textbook goodness.  I'm also a fan of their La Joie De Vivre shopper that I almost bought once, as well.

 

Creme de la creme?  Oui, s'il vous plait!

Today, I also became aware of another marvelous store, albeit in Brooklyn, that luckily has an online shop - Fred Flare.  So glad I found them, thanks to a little tweet from the wondrous Ms. Kate Bingaman-Burt (@obsessiveconsumption).  Can we say "breakfast floss"?

On the free front, I went with hubs last week to help the in-laws unpack from an 8-year work stint in China.  Needless to say, there was a lot to unpack.  I did score a great wingback armchair they were replacing that I will gladly get reupholstered so that perhaps more than three people can sit down in our living room.  The other walk-aways that I love are the three Chinese fans I picked out.  I had one prior that has started to get well-worn from being in my purse, but with the southeast heat and my basketball-sized sweat glands (paint a nice picture for ya?), it comes so in handy.  There was the nice dragon/phoenix classic motif, the awesome black Ed Hardy-esque badass dragon, 

and the ultimate...

What is... Oh - hello, Mr. Shiny Rainbow Snowflakes!

Can I tell you how much I love this fan?  I just did.  Love.  It.

What kind of fun, cheapy/free things make YOU giddy?

More books to read! Eventually.

After purging through the homestead and selling/donating books that were collecting dust on the shelves, I realized that not only do I need to be a more frequent patron of the good ole' library system, but that I need to only buy copies of books that I know I will cherish and read again.  This notion totally puts a kink (albeit a very tiny one) into the hopes of the book printing world, but will, I feel, help on the eco-front in the end.  

Enter the Amazon Kindle, a device that I am intrigued by in an ecologically responsible way yet shunning in a traditional curl-up-with-a-good-book way.  On one hand, you can cram tons of novels onto that tiny little device, with its pretty easy-on-the-eyes screen.  No more stacks of casual reads piling up on the shelves that end up just taking space and getting trimmed out later.  

photo from amazon.com

But...  a Kindle does not give me the same warm fuzzy that a book does; and contrary to my husband's preferences, I like paperbacks.  Sure, I have to be anal and pick out the most pristine copy in the store, but then you can just squeeze one and get a nice little comfy grip on it better than a hardback.  Not to mention that they travel better, in my opinion (yes, another reason to be pro-Kindle, I know).  Granted, if it's something epic and wonderful like Harry Potter, then surely I'm rockin' the hardbound copies, but for my cheesy mystery series, paperback all the way.  My other dilemma is price, but also the fact that technology changes way too quick for my cheap butt.  Fork over cash today for the device that will be new and improved next month... le sigh.  I'm still drawn to it, though.

Then I recently got an email that seemed to be a nice pacifier for my picky ways.  Barnes & Noble, to which I am a subscriber of emails, sent me wonderful news: the Barnes & Noble eReader has arrived.  I had no idea this was in the works.  A FREE downloadable reader for your computer that lets you purchase digital copies and read them on your screen, similar to my other fave device for ending paper magazine subscriptions, Zinio.  Perfecto!  My laptop is one of those newfangled mini-notebooks, so it works out great, and it's also available for the iPhone, Crackberry, & Macs.  

My astigmatism isn't thanking me for this new opportunity to deteriorate more, but since I usually have the computer with me when traveling, it makes perfect sense.  No more wasted books.  I got six free classics off the schnide, and each purchase is around ten bucks, give or take.  This is great news, as I was just about to buy a copy of Julie & Julia to get through before going to the movie.  Too bad that with my tendencies to read at a snail's pace, I'll likely have a better chance of adding it to my Netflix cue than seeing it in the theatre.  

Oh, me.