Etsy | Buy Handmade | chicago style crafters

Are you still looking for a unique gift or card for mothers?

Maybe you want something special to celebrat the wonder warm spring weather.

Take a look at these wonderful items creaded my Chicago Style Crafters for their Mother's Day / Spring challenge.

Letter Portfolio - Iris

donovanbeeson

This kit is made of vintage vinyl wallpaper. It contains 6 sheets of
Flutter-By stationery and 6 envelopes to get you started returning your
letters while on the go. It closes with blue baker's twine.

Mommy and me - Bottle Cap Magnet

CrankyPickle

The image in this bottle cap magnet is hand drawn/illustrated by me. It
was done in ink and then colored in. This is an actual little drawing
not a print out nothing computer generated. Making the image one of a
kind similar ones might be drawn but no 2 will ever be alike. The image
has been sealed in with a water base sealant and a magnet placed on the
back

Googly Flower and Little Bud card

jillhannah

The perfect springy Mother's Day or some other caretaker-type relation appreciation card-giving occasion card! Textured
4.25" x 5.5" (when folded) springy green cardstock is blank green on
the inside and light enough so that your written messages will be
easily read. The front has a one big and blooming and one little
budding pink and purple tissue paper flower with soft yellow fuzzy
pom-pom centers and carefully krazy glued googly-eyes. Big flower also
has tissue paper leaves.

Thinking of You - Greeting Card

Kathyy's Krafts

This card has a black base and comes with a black envelope. It is
approximately 6 1/4 inches (15.9 cm) tall by 4 1/2 inches (11.4 cm)
wide. The thinking boy, dog, and rose are not flat. They have
multiple layers to make them 3d. The ribbon surrounding the card is
sheer and light purple. The inside of the card has decorative purple
paper with decorative ends giving it a unique look. The inside paper is
light enough to write your own thoughts. I suggest using black or
purple ink to keep with the look of the card.

05-02-08 ETA:
Because of several factors the Kane Co. Flea Market trip is being postponed until June.  If anyone has any questions please let me know or send me a convo. 

Don't forget that we have a virtual meeting this month though! 

Thanks!

Melissa Sue 

http://www.melissasue.etsy.com

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* 

Hi All! There is a new post in the forums to discuss the May Field Trip to the Kane County Flea Market! Go check it out!

xoxox

melissa sue

http://melissasue.etsy.com

I'm sorry I spaced this one team - It was in our convos on March 28th,
and the deadline to apply is this Monday, April 14th.

I received this from Stephanie about the Indie Arts market to be held
on May 31st at Schuba's - She's still looking for a few good people :)

I have her phone number if you need it, otherwise, her gmail is below!

-Nancy

___________________________________________________

Greetings!

I would like to invite you to participate in the Indie Arts Market.
Much like the craft/art fairs you've seen throughout Chicago, this
event will showcase local artists and their work for sale. We would
like to have a variety including: prints, paintings, zines, sculpture,
textiles, etc.

The reason I've contact you is that I found that you're work would be a
perfect fit for the Indie Arts Market. Either a friend referred me to
you, I found you on etsy.com or we've participated in the same craft
fairs.

Specifics for the Market:

The event will be held on Saturday, May 31st at Schubas Tavern in the music room, from 11-3pm.

Set up begins at 9:30 and each artist's spot includes 4 square feet of
table space and chair. The space itself is approximately 6 feet.
Artists are encouraged to bring other display racks or small tables.

Posters and postcards will be available in April, distributed
throughout the city and a website will be up promoting the event and
artists. If you'd like to have your pictures up on the website please
send three tiffs of your artwork (1000x1000 pixels).

Once we have a final account of participants we will be asking in mid April for the fee of $20 to be apart of the event.

We will not be responsible for collecting tax on the sales of your
items and any time an individual sells to the public you're required to
have a state tax id number. To register your small business we
recommend that you call Illinois department of revenue for more
information: 1-800-732-8866 or
217-782-3336 and www.revenue.state.il.us/Businesses/register.htm

Space is limited, so if you would like to reserve a table or have any
questions please feel free to email or call. Deadline for sign up is
April 14th.

I hope you can join us!

Stephanie Keller
convo @ indieartsmarket [!at] gmail.com

www.craftyladieschicago.com
www.scarletbloom.com

Hey kids! urbanwoodswalker forwarded this to me and asked that I pass it along. This is looks like a perfect show for you recycling artists out there. This recycling convention in Arlinton Heights, IL has not convened since 2001. The facilatators thought it would be nice to have an artist show along with the business conference. The person had contacted me and I will be doing it, however she is having difficulty finding artists.
http://www.swancc.org/pdfs/artistExhibit2008.pdf

Cameron Ruen
SWANCC ( Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County)
Graphic Designer
Tel:847.724.9205 x 206
Fax:847.724.9605
www.swancc.org

Cameron Ruen <cameron@swancc.org>
wrote: The people that will attend are conference attendees consisting of Recycling Coordinators, Municipal, County, State and Federal Officials, Green Businesses Owners, Educators, and other members of the Illinois Recycling Association (IRA), the Solid Waste Agency
of North America (SWANA) and the Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association
(ILCSWMA). Any member of the public is welcome to attend as well. In addition, many signs will be placed around the hotel for patrons staying there. It is a busy hotel and family friendly. Notice the water park! It is conveniently located by the highway. I will also be sending out press releases for newspapers and will do my best to get other media involved. We just had Comcast and another channel tape our Eco-Friendly Fashion show on Tuesday of this week. So I'm hoping that people from the general public will come to the hotel for this purpose alone, completely unaffiliated with the conference.

Cameron Ruen
SWANCC
Graphic Designer
Tel:847.724.9205 x 206
Fax:847.724.9605
www.swancc.org

edited 4/10/08 to correct text wrapping issue - Kathyy

Alrighty team!

We're down for our first Virtual Labs meeting on Tuesday May 6th, at 8pm.

Mark it on your calendars! We can talk about the Kane County Fieldtrip then and assorted other goodies :)

http://www.etsy.com/virtual_labs.php

(look way at the bottom!)

Nancy

It's a beautiful spring day. The temperature is just perfect, the sun is shinning, and the colors of nature are beautifully accented. In a little while I'll be heading out to hang with some new friends. So of course I need to wear some fabulous jewelry.

I have had this chunky turquoise earring and bracelet set partially finished for quite a while. Today I decided to finish them. I also made a necklace to complete the set. So today I'm wearing this set to accent my all black outfit. You can see more of my jewelry and other creations at Kathyy's Krafts and maybe even purchase something to accent your outfit.

Yesterday 4/4/08 The Chicago Style Crafters met on the near west side of Chicago. The meeting ran from approximately 7 pm to approximately 9 pm. Hopefully YOU can join us for the next meeting.

Six members were present including familiar faces and a new face. One member participated via email.
• Kathyy from Kathyy's Krafts
• Donovan from Donovan Beeson
• Jessica from Cranky Pickle
• Jill from Jill Hannah
• Nance and Andy of Circa Ceramica
• In addition, Shawn of Pixel Party participated by submitting information via email prior to the meeting.

Below are the meetings notes. Other members who attended are welcome to post additional notes and any correction they feel appropriate.

Chicagostylecrafters.com discussion
• Members discussed their impressions of our new site design and what items needed adjusted
• Everyone likes how the colors, logo, and new layout are implemented
• Several suggestion were made for improvement including:
  1. Change the way comments appear. The nested view is confusing for many members and makes it hard to follow the conversation. This change was implemented this morning. Comment will now show up in a flat view with the oldest showing first.
  2. Adjust the calendar. On some computers scrolling for the calendar is very awkward - it doesn't seem to show up correctly on mac and low resolution pcs
  3. The header at the top of the page should link back to the main page
  4. The forums link in the top right corner needs to be a darker color, maybe the blue or red used in other parts of the site.

Upcoming Team Challenges
• This month, April, we are having a Spring/Mothers Day challenge. A separate post was created in the forums to allow members to submit the link for their items. Items should be posted on your Etsy site and pertain to either Spring or Mothers day. The deadline for posting your link is Friday, May 2, 2008.
• Next month, May, we will have a color challenge. A separate post will be created to discuss this challenge. Suggestions for which colors to use will be collected until Saturday, May 3, 2008. After the color or colors are chosen, participants will be able to post a link to their items until Friday, May 30, 2008.

Future Meetings / Team Field Trips
• The team is very excited about attending the Kane County Flea Market in May, taking place in St. Charles Illinois. There was a discussion of ride sharing/carpooling for those attending. Please continue the discussion at http://www.chicagostylecrafters.com/?q=node/78 .
• In order to facilitate additional member attendance at meetings, we will be have some virtual meetings. The meetings will utilize the Etsy Virtual Lab. Nancy of Circa Ceramics is working on setting up a meeting for a Tuesday night at 9pm. More info will be posted as available.

Marketing
• Jill of Jill Hannah's suggested setting up a team blog ring. Members viewed some other blog rings and agreed that this is a good ideas. In addition there was some discussion of joining other blog rings including the Etsy Teams blog ring. A separate post will be set up in the forums for further discussion and collection of blog links.
• There was a discussion of our Flickr site. The Flickr site is going to gradually be shut to discussion and used for announcements only. We want members to make use of Chicago Style Crafters as our main means on online communications.
• There was also a discussion of setting up an email group to use to send announcement to all members. Members would need to opt into the list.
• There was a discussion of clearing and revamping the team page on Etsy. This will allow us to update membership and leadership information in addition to clarifying that there are separate groups for the Illinois team and the Chicago team.

Sales Opportunities
• There was a discussion of the Southport Green Market. This topic was proposed in our Flickr group by Betsy of Foxglove Accessories.
  1. Several members are interested in doing this and splitting the cost.
  2. According to estimates the cost per day could be as low as $10-$30 per person for up to three people to share the 10' by 10' space.
  3. There was also some talk about the person who brings the tent and/or display materials getting a discount while the other two simply bring their stuff to put up in the space.
  4. Several members felt that this would be a good way to have an ongoing physical presense for Chicago Style Crafter with the specific crafters utilizing the spot on a given day varying.
  5. Someone will need to coordinate the schedule or who is using the space when.
• There was a discussion of Team Trunk Show hosted at Circa Ceramics' studio space . Details can be found in this thread. The application deadline is Saturday, April 19, 2008.

Miscellaneous Business
• Additional items were discussed including Etsy admin responsiveness, members participation in fairs, and getting an Etsi mini on ChicagoStyleCrafters.com .
• If you want to have something added to the calendar contact Donovan from Donovan Beeson

Hey team!

As some of you may know, Andy & I rent studio space in a building on Ravenswood, between Addison & Irving Park. Every year, we have an 'open studio weekend' where we email & send out postcards to our customers about having the event, along with our show schedule for the first half of the year, and assorted other tidbits of news & info.

Earlier this year, a reporter contacted us (after purchasing a bowl on Etsy) to ask if we had any events going on, she'd like to do a write up about it in Time Out.

So we thought this would be a great opportunity to showcase our team's talent & have our open studio all at once!

This year we've decided to open our space up to about 10 team members. There's lots of table surfaces and such, and space for maybe a few taller racks for clothes/bags/ things that need to be hung. We have some folding tables, so really, all you'd need to bring display-wise would be whatever it is to make your bit of space snazzy :) I think most spaces will be about 4 feet long, 2 feet deep, maybe a bit more - It depends on what it is you'll be displaying and how I wind up laying everything out here.

As mentioned before, it's going to happen the weekend of May 17-18, from 12pm to 5pm.

This seemed like the best weekend due to it being sandwiched between Mom's Day & Memorial Day weekend craziness. We usually have it in April, but due the amount of extra organizing/cleaning that will need to happen, we need the extra time to get the space ready :)

Let me know if you're interested, and convo me on Etsy with the message heading of Team Trunk Show, your shop link & an email address.

There is no charge to be here, but we will be asking people to bring a beverage and possibly a snack, and most importantly to also promote the event to your customer base!

The cut-off to submit your 'application' will be 19th of April, and I hope to get replies to everyone by that Tuesday the 22nd.

Any questions please let me know via convo!

Thanks very much for reading this, and I hope to hear from some of you!

Nancy

And yes, I am yelling it at you :)

Go here for more details and to post comments please:

http://www.chicagostylecrafters.com/?q=node/69

Cheers and see you tomorrow night!

Nancy