When I started my Etsy shop last year, I had this crazy idea that, hey, I bet I could save a TON of money on shipping supplies and be good to the environment at the same time! I spread my idea around to feel out how people would feel about it, and everyone thought I was totally crazy.

And being the adventurous kind of girl I am, I tried the idea anyway. On someone in Canada. I figured if it made it through the border, it would make it through anything.

So I bet you're wondering what my big idea was. I really like drawing things out. It gives me a bit of a thrill.

Well, you know when you finish a box of crackers, you have this box left over? Or a box of stuffing, or cereal, or just about any food stuffs these days. There's this perfect empty box just waiting for someone to do something with it, and instead of putting it to good use, most people throw it away. Not me. I'm cheap as hell and crafty to boot.

So what I did was I took the box apart. I thought, "Hey, I bet I could turn this inside out and then glue it back together, make it a generic box on the outside and kind of funky cool on the inside." Plus, it's a huge savings for me in shipping, both because I don't have to buy packaging, and because these boxes are much lighter than their cardboard brothers.

And being the generous and loving person I am, I decided to share my idea with all of you! With picture instructions, of course, because it's fun to look at pictures.

For this project, you'll need three things:

-Empty box
-Hot glue gun
-Hot glue

For the box, you want one the size of, say, stove top stuffing, crackers (not saltines), or those small boxes of granola. You can use something bigger like a cereal box, but they're way too big to be shipping small stuff in. Although you CAN cut these boxes down, it takes practice to get it right. I'll have to post how to do that another time.



Oh yeah, just click on these images if you want to get a better look at what I'm doing. I thought it would be kind of mean to have all these pictures in their original sizes sitting around to attack your internet speed.

After you get your box, it's time to dismantle it. The first thing you want to take apart are the bottom flaps. Those are pretty easy to unstick.



Once that's done, the next step is to look along the side of the box for the magical seam that gives it its boxy shape. It's usually a little hard to find at first, but keep looking. This seam is a little harder to take apart, so you might try putting an envelope opener in it, or maybe a sharp knife. But DON'T CUT THE BOX! You just want to unglue it, not cut any part of it off.



When you're done, you should have something that looks like this!



That wasn't too hard, right? Ok, we're about half way through already. The next step is just folding all the folds in the opposite direction, essentially turning the box inside out.



Next, get out your handy dandy glue gun. I use an ancient high temp gun I've had since I was about 12 (13 years!). You can count its age by the depth of the glue stuck on the outside of the gun.



Of course, you'll need glue sticks. This isn't so bad, though. You can get 100 glue sticks for something like $1 at Walmart, and since each box takes about half a stick, that means you only pay roughly half a penny per box. Not a bad price for packaging.



Now, when you start gluing, you do NOT want your box to end up looking like this:



Yeah. I totally wasn't paying attention because I was thinking in my head about what I would say in this post, and glued down all the flaps. Which is ok, except then you can't get anything into the box, and I really doubt your patrons want to get an empty box in the mail.

Instead, what you want to do is glue only the bottom three flaps of your box, so that it comes out looking like this:



The reason for gluing it like this is so that you have a top flap that you can fold down. And see, it has a little bit that overlaps, so it secures better when tape it.

Of course, next you want to package up your item and put it in the box! I always tie a little raffia around what I made and add a cute little handmade tag (also made out of old boxes!). Once that's done, I wrap it in tissue paper and bundle it all together.



And that's about it! The boxes are just the right size so you can simply wrap clear packing tape all around the narrow side panels to secure it. I generally add a little extra to the top and fold it down over the overlapping flap. Just in case.

You probably wouldn't want to do this for packaging if you were shipping, say, five things a day. You'd run out of boxes pretty quick. But two or three a week wouldn't be a stretch. I've often thought about using really little boxes, like soap boxes and butter boxes, but I have no idea how small a box the PO will send. But seeing as they'll send things like bananas and shoes, I can't see why they wouldn't send a little box.

Also, if you're paranoid (like I was when I first started making these), you can reinforce the corners with pieces of cardboard. Just cut the cardboard to the height of the box, and maybe two inches wide. Then fold the cardboard in half, so that it fits snugly into the corner of your box, and simply glue it down. I also would glue the box shut once I got the items in it, but I decided that was probably a bad thing. I hate having to tear a box to shreds to get into it, and I'm sure everyone else does!

Ok, so BIG WARNING!! Do not ship anything fragile in these boxes. There is a chance for them to get crushed, and so fragile or heavy items should be shipped in a larger, sturdier cardboard box! They work perfectly for me because my items are soft and squishy, and because they fit snugly into the boxes and leave no room for the box to get crushed. Just a warning so that if you complain, I can tell you that I told you so

So off you go to save the world from clutter, one box at a time!

I've known this bit of advice all of my internet life, but it's only been recently that I've stopped listening to myself. I'll be sitting around, asking, "Why doesn't anyone pay attention to my blog/gallery/shop?" Well, somewhere down the road I just stopped applying the advice and kernel of wisdom that I know works best.

You see, when I started out as a pixel artist and cyberpet person way back in '99, I was pretty unknown. But because of my continued participation in all sorts of things in the community, from forums to email lists and taking part in other people's websites (it was the 90s, for goodness sake; you didn't have much socializing options. Blogs were brand spanking new, and I didn't get my very first one until 2000). But I was very active, and I made sure to interact with all the well known people of the community. So after a while, I no longer needed to advertise my website. It was just known. People knew about me, and that was it.

And today I'm a legend because I'm older than dirt in that community. But I digress.

The point is that you need to network and socialize in order to get your name out there, and I've been totally ignoring that fact for several months now. It's just so much easier to sit around and do nothing. But trust me, it really does help.

The last two days, I've been talking on a continuing thread in one of the Etsy forums. It's nothing too special, but it's fun. A bunch of people chatting and promoting their wares. Well, I haven't gotten a sale in weeks now, it seems (which, since I've only been there a month, isn't surprising). But after two days of socializing, my views have gone up, people who are hearting my shop have gone up steeply, and I got a sale tonight on these cuties:



And it's not just the conversation I've been taking part in, but I also joined an Etsy team (EtsyVeg, baby!), I joined some Flickr groups, as well as the EtsyVeg google group. It's exciting stuff, and it all helps bring people into my blog, my art gallery, and my shop.

I could advertise with real life money, but why not use a little bit of energy (and have fun doing it) and advertise for free? Start with the free advertising, and then work your way up.

It's rather amazing, this blogging thing. You start out as a nobody. No one knows you, cares about you, and probably wouldn't give a fly's rear end if you dropped off the face of the earth. It really makes you feel like it's not worth doing, because you're obviously going no where. And it's like being in high school again. There are cliques, and if you're new in town, you find it really nearly impossible to break through the tough shell of the group to become one of them. So you either give up or sit with the geeks.

But then an amazing thing starts to happen (well, if you're writing about anything worth reading). As you write more, you get a few readers here and there. Not enough for you to really pay attention, mind you. Just a couple. Then you pick up some more along the way, that you again promptly forget about. All of this is happening so gradually that you don't even notice that it's happened.

And I, being as silly as I am, gave my blog up for crap because "no one" was paying attention to it. But they were, and I was too silly to see it. I was especially silly for giving up on it only after a couple of months. Most people will tell you it can take years for a blog to take off, and I had readers after only a couple of months. That's pretty good stuff.

So there's my advice to you. With art and blogging, you have to be patient, and all the while continue to spread the word about yourself. It takes time to draw in people, but once you get that initial flow going, the blog and your readers advertise for you and you no longer have to be a slave to it.

Chin up.

I've realized recently that, somewhere along the way, I've made up a lot of my own anatomy. I've always been the type to draw creatures, people and plants from my mind rather than looking at them (despite the fact that I have a canny ability to replicate what I see), and in doing so, I've kind of messed up some anatomy. Shoulders don't go as high as they should. Heads are usually a little larger that they would be in nature. Breasts are higher, legs are longer, and eyes are larger.

Now, I know a ton of artists who would argue with you if you told them these things about themselves because they, too, have picked up bad anatomy along the way and to them, it looks perfectly natural. And even if they knew about the defects, a lot of artists would find it hard to resist excusing the faults by calling them stylistic. But I've decided to take the high road with this subject and start sketching pieces drawn from life (or pictures of life, at any rate).

I've always admired the artists who could seamlessly blend their style into a figure and yet still make it look life-like and very real. The artist who comes to mind most is Julie Dilon. Although her art is stylistic and artsy, it's also incredibly full of life and detail.

After trying to acquire this skill by practicing and somehow just developing it, and failing, of course, I discovered that, to be able to make your art stylistically realistic, you have to start with life and then add style. I've been trying to do it the other way around for so long that I totally messed myself up.

So my advice to you all is, if you want to add real life and realistic detail to your pieces, study real life instead of depending on your own imagination. Sketch still-lives, nude models, pets and people at the park. Anything you can think of and anything you can get your hands on. And sketch often, because that's what keeps your mind limber.

Now let's see if I can follow my own advice.

Another piece of obvious advice? Find your niche. Yes, that's the most obvious thing I could probably tell artists, but, you know, it's surprising how often people happily try to be Jacks of all trade and wonder why they're failing to find a place for themselves in the art world.

Of course, I'm the biggest offender of this little piece of advice. My art styles and interests always seem to be floating out in space somewhere, mostly because I don't like pinning myself down to anything in particular. Mostly because I get bored of certain types of art after a while and need something else to take its place. But I wholeheartedly agree with myself here, especially since I know I've mentioned it before; find something that pleases you and then go out and find the community that corresponds to said something.

For instance, I've decided that I really love drawing carefree fantasy type illustrations. The best niche for me, that I've found so far? Childrens' book illustration. Not only is there a lot of places for me to make a profit doing this work, but there are a load of other people doing the same thing who could give me advice and generally be helpful and friendly. If I was just floating around without any direction, I'd be pretty lonely and pretty broke.

And that's all. I hope it wasn't too obvious.

Along with being consistent to draw in fans/readers/buyers, I have also decided, upon closer inspection of some popular DA artists and art bloggers, that frequency is very important. And if you think about it, it does make a lot of sense. The more art/posts you have, the more material you have out there for people to find you with.

Also, people get bored pretty quickly. If you don't churn out stuff enough, they're going to lose interest and move on to something else.

Now, if I could just take my own advice... It's not like I don't do a lot of art or think up a lot of interesting blog posts. My problem is that I'm too lazy or busy to actually do anything with them. I have at least five pieces of really nice art that has yet to hit a gallery. Maybe I'll work on that today.

I'm convinced that the best and possibly the only way to get people to pay attention to your art is by being consistent.

Probably talent is good, too, but stay with me now.

If your habits are totally chaotic and nothing is together, you don't have a general theme or system going, and you're just way out there, then you're going to drive away potential readers/buyers/fan girls because they'll get bored wading through your chaos. The trick is to do things in a timely manner, and to keep things on the same general theme.

My problem is that chaos is my tattooed on my eyelids, pretty much. I'm all over the place, all the time. Seems like I get a new idea every other day to make myself noticed, and I go and give up my old idea to try the new one. None of them work, of course, because I'm not sticking to any of them long enough, and I'm not putting enough effort into it at all.

So, stay consistent. Figure out what people like and want and follow those paths. The artist in me is screaming, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" and tries to make me do only the art I want, but I realize that if you want to live off of your talents, you have to make a few sacrifices. They don't have to be unpleasant. There's a niche for everything, these days. You just have to find out what you like and see if that fits in with what other people like.

And post in blogs often. Don't post garbage, of course, but don't wait around for that perfect thought to hit you, either, because it never will. Or when it does, you won't have any audiance. So keep it steady and interesting. Or at least as much as you can.

And that is my bright idea for the day.