Stephen is giving away three 10×15 fine art prints on his blog in conjunction with being featured on iwearyourshirt.com on April 18. He has tons of beautiful travel images on his site, so head over to his blog and check out the giveaway. Deadline to enter is Monday, April 19, 2010, at 12:00 noon pacific time.

Korean Children key ring from JooSweetie

One of the first Korean themed items I found on Etsy was this key ring from JooSweetie featuring a little girl in a hanbok with a Korean flag tag. On the reverse, there’s a little boy in hanbok. The design is adorable and very rugged – I’ve had mine for nearly two years and it still looks great, even with daily use. She also has some really cute magnets with the children on them.

Yi Sun-Sin pendant cut by Petsalad

Hangeul thank you cards by Puddle Jumpin' Cards

Korean holiday cards by Grace Hester Designs

Korean Alphabet Quilt by EmiShimosato

Pumpkin tea notebook from PretzelsNPumpkin

This is just a small sampling. If I am ever able to grab a treasury on Etsy, I’d love to do one with Korean goodies. It seems as if it is possible to find just about anything you can dream up on Etsy, so if Korean stuff isn’t your thing, a quick search will probably reveal whatever you seek.

Stephen has opened a shop on Etsy for his fine art photography. He already sells photos on his own website, Bay Images, but Etsy will likely expose a different audience to his work. I’m really interested in seeing how the Etsy shop works out. I haven’t used mine for anything other than getting rid of old art magazines and supplies, so I haven’t done any marketing at all. If anyone has some great Etsy marketing ideas, I’d love to hear about them.

Artist Carla Sonheim will be hosting an online class, The Art of Silliness, during the month of April. I’ll let you click the link for the details of the class, but I bet it is going to be a fun one! I took a drawing class with her at Artfest a few years ago and it was wonderful. You can see one of the drawings I did in her class here. She is a wonderful teacher, and at $25, it sounds like students will get more than their money’s worth.

Sonheim also has a book, Drawing Lab, which will be out in July from Quarry Books. It will definitely be worth checking out.

Stephen just posted his pictures from our recent trip to Bhutan. They are absolutely beautiful, please take a look if you have a chance. You can also read my Bhutan travelogue on my travel blog.

Acrylic and charcoal portrait I made of Chiqui

One day I forgot to take out the trash, and left the bag by the front door. I remembered just as I arrived home and braced myself as I opened the door. Sure enough, she had strewn the contents of the bag all over the living room, including coffee grounds, a few green beans and some rice. I thought I got it all cleaned up, but a week or so later, we found an empty tin can she had hidden in her crate (luckily with no sharp edges).

But the pièce de résistance was when we discovered her love of art. A somewhat narcissistic love of art, actually. Stephen was cleaning out her crate one afternoon and starting laughing. He told me I had to come and see it for myself. When I crawled into Chiqui’s crate and saw what she had stolen, I cracked up too. There, leaning up against the wall of her crate, was a portrait of herself. I attended Artfest and in a class I took from Carla Sonheim, I created a charcoal and acrylic portrait of Chiqui. I had left it on the dining room table, and Chiqui must have pulled it off the table and taken it into her crate. Unlike everything else she takes into her crate, she made no attempt to destroy the picture. I guess she just wanted to admire herself.

Since I am pretty good with keeping secrets, I can’t share all the presents that I have bought on Etsy with you. I don’t want to give away any surprises. But I can share some of my favorite Etsy finds. It is my favorite place to find unique gifts. I love it because the money I spend on Etsy goes directly in the artists’ pockets – I am not giving money to some big conglomerate (although I admit I do a little of that too). When I buy on Etsy, I know I am giving an unusual gift that can’t be found at the mall, and a lot of the pieces are one-of-a-kind. Many of the artists also take custom orders, so if you don’t see exactly what you want, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Here are some of my finds:

Prints & Paintings

Prints from Grace Hester Designs

Megan Noel – I have actually known Megan for quite some time (through the art zine world), then ran across her Etsy shop in 2007. I own a gorgeous purse she made and several of her watercolors and prints. I love her colorful paintings and her lovely pen and ink drawings. Definitely worth a look.

One of Kreativlink's gorgeous handmade books.

Kreativlink – I love handmade books and journals, and Kreativlink makes wonderful fat journals wrapped in a cloth or leather cover. Most of them have hand drawn or painted art. I used one on our trip to Korea last year, and it was great. The pages are very sturdy – we visited museums that had rubber stamps with traditional Korean designs and I was able to stamp them in my journal without worrying about the ink soaking through. It has a wrap-around strap with a snap, I could throw things inside to paste in later, and I wasn’t in danger of losing them. She is located in Austria, so it is a little more for shipping to the U.S., but these books are worth it!

Beautiful leather tree journal made by Crearting

Shirty flirty scarf by Nancy Gamon

Nancygamon – Nancy sells all sorts of accessories, but my favorites are her scarves. My favorite is her “shirty flirty scarf” seen on the left. She uses lots of vintage fabrics and repurposed apparel, so that’s another great reason to buy from her. She is having a great sale right now.

Melbry – I love the mix of fabrics Melbry uses in her scarves. I have been salivating over one one of her scarves for weeks. She is having a sale right now and shipping in the United States is free.

Fuchst's adorable wristlet/shoulder bag

Fuchst Bags – I can’t decide whether I like her interchangeable wristlet/shoulder bags (seen to the right) or the cute heart handle totes better. But either one would make a great gift. Cute cute cute. If you are ordering for Christmas, be sure to select a bag that is marked “Ready to Ship” or it may not arrive in time.

Janine King Designs – I love the purses and bags Janine King Designs sells. The fabric choices are wonderful and the bags are extremely sturdy and attractive. I bought a purse from her and I get compliments on it all the time.

Must Love Books necklace by Rhymes with Magic

Rhymes with Magic – I adore her whimsical bookish jewelry, made with rolled up strips of paper. I have two pairs of her earrings and I just love them. These make especially good gifts for librarians – she has a few items just for them.

Doll Clothes

Sew Grandma Cathy – I bought a whole slew of Barbie clothes from this shop for my niece last year. The clothes were beautiful and unique, not to mention well-made. They were definitely a hit.

If you have favorite Etsy finds, please post them in the comments.

My lovely new banner was created by Callista311, a wonderful Etsy seller. Callista also designed the banner for my travel blog, Bay Leaves. The photos in the banner were all taken by my husband, Stephen Bay, of Bay Images.

This article, about the bridal “bookquet” I carried in my July 2003 wedding, appeared in the September/October 2003 issue of Somerset Studio Magazine. The magazine can be ordered as a back issue from Somerset’s website. The photographs in the article were taken by my husband, Stephen Bay. The text from the article is below. The pictures are from Stephen’s website – you can see the full set there.

A Wedding by the Book
by Kara Sjoblom
Photos by Stephen Bay

When I got engaged last summer, I knew that I wanted certain elements of our wedding to reflect my artistic interests. Because I am a book artist, I knew that our invitations would be handmade books, but I also looked for other ways to incorporate books into our ceremony. Soon, I hit upon the idea of creating flower-shaped books as my bridal book-quet. I started asking my friends in Bay Area Book Artists (BABA), if they had seen any flower-shaped books that I could use as a starting point, thinking I would make 10 or so identical books.

When BABA founder Jone Small Manoogian heard what I was doing, she came up with the most amazing idea. “Why not ask BABA members to each create a flower book of their own design,” Jone asked. I got a little teary-eyed at the prospect. As a recent transplant to the Bay Area, the wonderful artists of BABA had been my lifesavers. Not only did I consider the other members my dear friends, but I also knew that they were outstanding artists, each and every one. The idea of carrying a book-quet created by people (BABA) that I love and admire was overwhelming.

I immediately set out to create some loose guidelines, leaving room for the enormous creativity that exists in the group. I asked only that each book be no larger than two inches by two inches, that the artists either attach a stem or create a spot to attach one, and that they use my wedding colors of sage green and metallic gold and/or accent colors in sunset shades of red, pink, peach, orange and yellow. Beyond that, each artist was free to interpret the idea of “flower book” however they chose.

The artists presented the finished books when my fiancé Stephen Bay and I hosted a meeting for Bay Area Book Artists. The flower books were beyond my wildest dreams. I couldn’t believe that I would be carrying such a beautiful and unique book-quet. Everyone shared something about their book, and, because of all the beautiful things that were said, I was reminded again how much these people mean to me.

The fable, The Boy and the Pearl, was inspired by journalist Daniel Pearl. Rather than using his murder to fuel hatred and divisiveness, the reaction of his family and friends was to celebrate his life and promote the values that were important to him: cross-cultural understanding through music and communication. The Boy and the Pearl is a reminder that even in the worst of circumstances, we can find hope.

You can visit the website of the Daniel Pearl Foundation to learn more about the work they do or to make a donation.

I wrote and bound the fable in collaboration with artist Diane Salter (identified as Diane Windell in the book), who created the fantastic watercolor illustrations. There are seven full-color pictures and four black and white pencil illustrations with spot color. It was printed on Moab Entrada Fine Art 190 paper, using an Epson 2200 printer. The 32-page book is coptic bound in a limited edition of 40 books and 10 artist proofs. The book is 5″ x 5″ when closed and is covered with hand painted hanji paper. We have donated $10 from the sale of each book to the Daniel Pearl Foundation. There is a small number of copies still available at $75 each. Please contact me regarding availability.