Rainbow Alphabet Notecard Sets

As promised in previous posts, my rainbow alphabet watercolors are now available as notecard prints! I scanned in all twenty-six 5"x7" watercolor paintings (one for each letter) at 600 dpi (high quality) so they'd be ready to print as notecards on demand. They're listed in my Etsy shop for $10 for a pack of four, $14 for a pack of six, or $22 for a pack of ten (with free shipping)! They're also available to be purchased individually at the Paint Creek Art Market in downtown Rochester, MI.

Here are some photos of the notecards:

As with all of my notecards, these are 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" and come with matching white A2 envelopes (4 3/8" x 5 3/4"). The insides are blank, and the back of the cards list the artwork information and a digital artist signature. Each card is inkjet printed in my home on smooth, matte cardstock.

These make fantastic gifts (for yourself, or others!) - use the first letter of your first or last name to create a custom stationery set of blank cards with your initial on the front.

You can also select different letters to spell out words, names, or phrases (e.g. "FAMILY" "ANDREA" "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" or "WILL YOU MARRY ME"). For instant wall decor, simply cut the cards in half and display the fronts of the cards in small frames, or use a hole punch and some ribbon to hang the art prints from a wall or ceiling hook.

Find these cards listed on Etsy here.

Want more pictures of the original watercolors? Check out these previous blog posts:
- Planning for Alphabet Watercolors
- Watercolors in Progress A-H
- Watercolors in Progress I-P
- Watercolors in Progress Q-Z
- All 26 Finished Watercolors
- Close-Ups of All 26 Watercolors

Organizing Art Closets

In the spirit of celebrating the New Year, I thought I'd share a recent organization project I completed for my finished artwork, invitation samples, frames and mats, and shipping and packing supplies.

Over the summer, my husband and I worked on organizing our second floor. We needed to clear out the "future nursery" bedroom - which we'd been using as an office/random storage room for the last six years - before we could paint it (a task I wrote about in this previous blog post). This entailed organizing our other extra bedroom-cum-office into a space that could house both our desks and computers, which in turn necessitated reorganizing all of my "art stuff" - something I'd truthfully been meaning to do anyway, so that I knew where to easily find finished artworks when something sold on Etsy.

I use a room in our basement as my in-home studio space - but the humidity levels are uncontrollable down there, which makes me worry that any artwork down there will warp a bit with time. I do still store all of my art supplies and artwork-in-progress in my basement studio, but I prefer to at least move my finished pieces up to the second floor, where the art will be safer. So over the course of several weeks last summer, I came up with a way to better organize my finished artwork, my supplies for framing and matting finished artwork, and my supplies for shipping finished artwork, utilizing our main hall closet upstairs as well as part of the closet in our guest bedroom.

Our guest room is occupied right now by my sister-in-law (and many of her things), who is in the process of moving back to Michigan and buying furniture so she can live in her newly purchased house - so I didn't grab a photo of the whole guest room closet, since she's using the closet rod to hang up her clothes. But there are two small sections of the closet that my finished artwork is living in - my larger pieces (many of them framed) in the right corner, leaning against the wall; and my mid-sized framed pieces (the pattern watercolors I grouped and installed into multi-opening frames) stacked in protective boxes horizontally in the left corner, coupled with smaller unframed pieces stacked in a box on a shelf above them (not pictured).

Then in our main hallway closet, we installed some new shelves, leaving an opening in the middle so that the attic hatch can still be accessed when needed. The floor has our suitcases and carry-on bags for travel, but the eight shelves above that hold items I use for my "art business" or graphic design business - including bubble mailers and envelopes, air bubble bags, bubble wrap, and packing paper on the top four shelves, which I use for shipping Etsy purchases domestically and internationally.

The two lower shelves on the left side house extra unused frames and mats for future finished artwork, as well as clear bags and boxes for my art print notecards. The clear bags fit one notecard and envelope; I deliver these individually priced notecards to Paint Creek Center for the Arts to add to their art market inventory. For my sets of 4, 6 or 10 notecards, I use the clear boxes. They're laying flat in the cardboard box, but they easily pop into a box shape and then stay closed with a small clear circle sticker when I'm ready to use them.

On the right side of the closet, the lower two shelves hold a plastic bin of past invitation projects and sample invitations, as well as extra brochures and business cards (with plenty more room to spare, as you can see).

Inside the plastic bin, I sorted past projects into their individual clear zip-sleeves. You can see my own personal wedding stationery in the top large sleeve in this first picture here. Keeping them in these individual sleeves helps me keep all the parts of one design together (invitations, save the dates, thank you cards, menus, ceremony programs, table numbers, place cards, etc.) for easy access when I want to refer to a past project or show samples to a future client.

Beneath all the plastic sleeves are stacks of sample invitations I created in 2011, before I had any "real client" projects to show off instead - invitations and other custom stationery with fake names at fake venues for fake events. They show the potential of what could be done to any future clients who want to utilize pocket envelopes.

The hallway closet obviously still has a lot of room to grow - allowing me to easily find space for more shipping or framing materials as I need to, or perhaps add another plastic bin of invitation projects stacked on top of this first one, once I complete more projects.

It's very convenient to have all of my finished artwork upstairs, as well as my "Invites by Andrea" samples and shipping and packing supplies next to my iMac and printer, where I work on graphic design projects and print notecard sets when someone makes an Etsy purchase. It doesn't always look nice (hello dented cardboard boxes, being reused for the third or fourth time) but it's effective, and that's what matters. :)

Holiday Gift Ideas

The Holiday Art Market at the Paint Creek Center for the Arts in Rochester, Michigan is in full swing! They have several of my original artworks for sale, as well as stacks and stacks of my notecards - available as individual cards or as packs of 4, 6, or 10.

Here are some pictures I took as I prepared the notecards to take over there in late October (a process which includes updating my inventory sheets, packaging the sets in plastic boxes and the individual cards in plastic sleeves, and adding price tags/SKUs to the packaging).

Don't live in the metro-Detroit area? All of these notecards are also available for sale at my Etsy shop!! If you want something but can't find it on Etsy (i.e. a 10-pack of cards where Etsy only has a 6-pack listed) just let me know. You can make a comment to this blog, or send me an email at afrownfe[at]gmail.com.

The flower sets and Michigan-themed sets are especially popular to give as small gift items. My new "White Poinsettia" holiday cards are also available for the first time this year. The blank insides are just waiting for your personalized holiday messages!

The PCCA Art Market and my Etsy shop also both have several original pieces of artwork for sale, including large scale colored pencil drawings and watercolors, framed watercolor sets, and acrylic paintings.

And don't forget one of my most popular Etsy listings - custom watercolor bouquet paintings! Just supply me with a photograph of a flower bouquet and I'll turn it into an 8x10" watercolor painting. (If you want to get these in time for the holidays, place your orders ASAP - they can take up to 1-2 weeks to complete, plus up to a week of shipping time. A limited number of rush 5-day orders are also available.)

Happy shopping!

"Stronger Together" Notecard Sets

My Etsy shop finally has listings for all my recent large format colored pencil drawings. I have a set of six detail shots from my "30 Days" drawing, two different sets of six detail shots from my "28 Years" drawing, and six sets of four detail shots from each of the six drawings in my "Stronger Together" series. I also have a boxed set of six notecards, each featuring the entirety of one of the "Stronger Together" bouquet drawings (as opposed to detail shots). You can find all of these notecards for sale in my Etsy shop.

Today I'd like to showcase the seven different sets of notecards I've created from my "Stronger Together" colored pencil series.

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The Bouquet Set - Featuring full images of all six "Stronger Together" Bouquets (Race Bouquet, Gender Bouquet, Sexuality Bouquet, Religion Bouquet, Class Bouquet, and Ability Bouquet)

You can buy this set of notecards here. :)

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The Race Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Race Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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The Gender Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Gender Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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The Sexuality Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Sexuality Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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The Religion Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Religion Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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The Class Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Class Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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The Ability Bouquet Detail Set - featuring four close-up detail images from my drawing, "Ability Bouquet (Stronger Together)"

You can buy this set of notecards here.

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Like all of my four-packs of notecards, each of the detail sets sell for $7. The six-pack set which includes images of all six bouquet drawings sells for $10.50.

They're oriented vertically (4 1/4" width x 5 1/2" height), are blank inside, and come with six matching white A2 envelopes. The original artwork was scanned at 600 dpi, the color was adjusted in Photoshop, and the prints are inkjet printed on smooth, matte cardstock. The backs of the cards list the title, size, medium, and date of the original artwork, a digital artist signature, and website/social media information.