Well, Colour Me Amazed!

The Vintage Black and White is gorgeous. But the Classic Colours kit is also stunning.

Inspired my visits to many English heritage homes where these colours are often seen in damask wallpapers.

Penny Dreadfuls - Damask Classic Colours now in my Etsy store.

Get your kit here.  

Penny For Your Thoughts?

 

New in my Etsy Shop.

Penny Dreadfuls - Damask Vintage Black and White

Check this beautiful kit out here.

Stand By Please Ladies and Gentlemen of the Company

 At the end of October I become redundant from my job on the Mary Poppins Musical in London.

September 23rd marked marked a whole year since our first day of fit up. It also marked a whole year since I completed my apprenticeship in technical theatre. I haven't been to work since the 23rd  of March, and won't be returning to work until next year at the earliest. 

I've known about my redundancy since July. It didn't come as a surprise; in fact I probably would have been more shocked if I wasn't to be made redundant. On July 29th I went back into London for the first time since lockdown started. For a city in the middle of summer I couldn't believe how quiet it was. There was so few people around and so little traffic on the roads. The walk from Embankment to Soho is usually a busy one, but I swear that it took half the time it normally would to do that walk. I'm pretty certain that the only people in Soho were delivery drivers for the recently reopened bars and restaurants and other theatre workers like my self going back into the theatres for the same reason I was; to get their personal belonging and tools from their lockers and offices.

I was pretty sad to walk past the main door of the Prince Edward Theatre (current home to Poppins) and see it all boarded up. It was a bit of a harsh reminded that this isn't something that is going to be over quickly, that we were going to be Dark for a while. I think we all had it our heads when this started that the country would be on lockdown for 12 weeks and then we would be back; that by the time July rolled around we would be back stepping in time and flying kites.

This is unfortunately the case for so many people in the arts and entertainment industry. So many people are out of work and many don't even qualify for any financial support. Do you know what I find most frustrating? The number of people that don't work in the entertainment and live arts industry that are of the opinion that what we do isn't a real job, isn't important enough to get government support. It's frustrating and also hilarious. It's hilarious because while they are of that opinion, they are more than happy to spend their days in lockdown bingeing Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus etc. Who do they think made those TV show and films? In a normal world they are quite happy to spend date night at the theatre with their significant other. I wonder how they'll all feel if the industry that provides relief from their boredom and enjoyable evenings out was to disappear? I suppose its that classic thing of you don't know what you've got until it's gone, but that doesn't help those of us being put out of work now. 

There are some good things that have come out of lockdown. I've probably spoken to my best friend more in the last six months than I have in the last two or three years. I know it sounds bad when put like that but we have that kind of friendship that accepts that we are both busy adults and it gives us more to talk about when we do catch up. (She was also my Press Night Guest when Poppins opened, so she can't say I don't get her anything 😜). I caught up on a lot of TV that I hadn't gotten around to watching, spent more time with my mum, and most importantly have been able to eat my dinner of an actual plate rather than out of Tupperware (it's the little things that count). All that aside I really do miss going to work. I know that I complain at times about the long hours, the six day week, the always working of Bank Holiday weekends, but I genuinely love my job. I love the good days, the long days, the days where anything that can go wrong goes wrong in the most spectacular of fashions. I love my job even though the hours don't really allow for a social life, don't allow for free time, and don't allow for you to forget to do your laundry on your one day off if you want to wear clean socks the following week.

Like so many in the arts that have lost their jobs and have had to turn to other means of income, I have started to do more with my Etsy shop. Although if you have read any of my recent posts you probably would have figured that much out by now. 

 I've got some new kits coming out imminently and I'm also going to do some Christmas stuff. Probably a papers kit and printable gift tags. 

Also if you spend £10 or more in my Etsy shop you can get 20% off your order with the code EMPORIUM10 at the checkout.

I've started a Facebook page for the store as well. Give it a like and or a follow here. 

So keep your eyes peeled for new newness coming soon!!

How I Made My Disc Journal

News Flash!! Disc binding is the new ring bound.

So I have recently discovered the disc binding system, and I have to say that I really love it. For a start it solves one of I the main issues that I have with my first art journal; the issue cause by the fact that I like to collect things and like to add in acetate pages. This was a problem because it was one of those Kraft Card Spiral Bound scrapbooks from Hobbycraft, so adding pages meant having to unearth the Zutter Punch from the Safe Place Void Of The Universe, and then try to remember how to use it, line all the holes up, Punch the page and then go along and snip into each of the holes. In short, it was a hassle.

Disc binding fixes all of this. Admittedly to get going is a bit of an investment. There's buying the punch, your set of disc, if you're into using planners then that's something else to purchase. (I actually originally heard about Disc binding on a Planner hour on the Hochanda shopping channel.) Planners are not really my thing but I thought that this could be a way to make a really custom art journal. Basically I had been shopping around and couldn't find anything that I liked so I decided to make my own.

This was the result:

Things I Used:

Tools:

Me and My BIG Ideas Create 365 The Happy Planner Punch  I got this on Amazon for £29.95

X Cut curved Corner punch  I already had this in the house but you can get one on Amazon for £8.50 

Discs I also got these on Amazon for £6.93 They ship from China so I had to wait for them.

For the Covers:

2 A3 Sheets of 2mm Greyboard (may also be called Chipboard, who knows anymore?) It's best to shop around for this - Prices may vary.

2 A3 Sheets of 160gsm heavy paper

2 A4 Sheets of 160gsm paper

Book Corners  I got these on eBay. They are £6.93 for 4 and I used 8.

1 sheet of Acetate

Black Construction tape (It's basically really nice black masking tape)

Aleene's Premium Glue Original Tacky Craft Glue  Also got this on Amazon £6.49 for an 8oz Bottle

Strong Double sided tape. (The super sticky red one.)

Tarot Cards These are on a site called Scribd. You'll need to sign up. It comes with a 30 day cancel anytime free trial. I signed up did the whole hand over your Paypal info, downloaded the PDF, and then immediately canceled the subscription. If you forget to cancel it's £9.99 per month. 

(Note: The Tower card on the front cover is from Pinterest. It's originally cream. I put it through some photo software: Affinity Photo to be exact and changed it to black and white.) 

For the Pages:

Pad of A4 Bristol Board airbrush paper £6.01 on Amazon. This is also my normal sketch pad of choice.

Mixed Paper Block This is from The Range and costs £1

So first things firsts I made the cover designs. I do all of my designing on Affinity Designer from Serif.

I set up four Artboards (pages) in my document. Two at 306mm by 202mm and two at the standard A4 size. (The A4 designs will become the inside covers.)

Front Cover. 

Inside Front Cover.

Inside Back Cover.

And Back Cover.

I used the snapshot tool that comes in the Adobe PDF read to cut out the Tarot Cards and paste them into Affinity. Them I faffed around arranging them all into the collage. I found it was useful to pick out my favourite ones that I wanted to see on the top and position them where I wanted them and then it was just a matter of using the rest to fill the gaps underneath. 

I cropped the excess off any of the cards on the spine edges of the Front (left hand side) and Back (right hand side) covers flush to the artboard edge. This is because this edge will line up to the edge of the Greyboard and will not wrap around like on the other 3 edges.

Since the pages of my book are A4 I wanted my cover to be ever so slightly bigger. (This is where I start to waffle a bit, but bare with me)

I opened a new Affinity doc. and created 2 A3 Artboards (pages) one for the Front Cover and one for the Back. I copy and pasted the respective designs onto the artboards. I also added a rectangle (with no fill colour and very light border) over the top that was 25mm wider and 50mm taller than a sheet of A4 that lined up with the spine edge of the design, creating a 25mm border on 3 sides of the design. This was just to be a guide to trim away some of the excess white space once I had printed it out, but still leave enough to wrap the edges of the Greyboard and to glue down. I then printed these on the A3 160gsm heavy paper and printed the Inside Cover designs on the A4 160gsm paper and trimmed the excess away.

With the design sheets to one side, I cut the Greyboard to size. Two pieces 306mm high and 202mm wide.

I then glued the Front cover design to one of the pieces and the Back cover design to the other. 

I found that the best way to do this was to put the glue on the Greyboard and then line up the spine side edge of the printed design sheet to the edge of the board and smooth down. I then cut the corners out of the design sheet so that when the edges are folded over the corner areas don't become bulky. It also helps to keep the corners neat.

Using a pencil I marked 10mm in from the spine edge of the cover. This was what I lined the construction tape up to. I used the tape to wrap the spine edge and create a nice border. I did this on both covers.

Now for the bit that lets us attach our covers to the discs. 

I cut the acetate (comes as an A4 sheet) into 4 long strips. 2 were 30mm wide and 2 were 40mm wide. I then punched these 4 strips with the Happy Planner Punch. 

The punch I have is the same as the one linked further up this post. This is the 9 hole punch and is designed for the Happy Planner Classic size which is 9.25 inches high. and that is what the guide line on the punch are set to line up to. 

Basically to put the holes centrally on the edge of an A4 page you have to do a bit of math and get creative. The math will tell you that you need to measure in from the top or bottom edge 30.half a dozen random numbers but since I don't have laser measure in my eyes I rounded it up to 31mm. This 31mm mark will line up with the guide lines printed on the punch. This does also mean that you the gap at one end is ever so slightly longer/shorter by less than a millimetre. But that is fine as long as you are consistent with what end you measured in 31mm from. So if you measured from the top always measure from the top. The difference may be less than a millimetre but it does notice if you try and put the page in the wrong way up. 

I made a guide out of the spare acetate that I stick (with masking tape) on my punch that I line my paper up to.  

I then cut 15mm off both ends of the 40mm wide strips. This is because these are the pieces that are stuck to the covers and if they stayed the A4 length then I wouldn't have been able to attach the book corners (which are 15mm by 15mm).   

When it came to attaching the acetate to the cover I found and marked where the centre was on both the inside of the cover and on the non-punched edge of the acetate. It was then a bit of trial and error in lining things up so that the where straight. I tacked the acetate down with making tape at first to check the position before committing to sticking it down with Strong Double Sided (red) tape. I repeated on the back cover remembering that there was a top and a bottom to the strip due to all the punch related shenanigans.  

Next it was just a case of gluing the inside cover sheets onto their respective covers. I used the Tacky glue for this. After that I attached the book corners. I had to open up the back clips on the corners a little with a pair of scissors as it was a bit of a squeeze. The scissors, or the flat of the blades at least, were helpful when crimping the corners closed. The backs shown below on the right, curl round on the inside edge, so when you push down hard on them they bite into the covers and that's how they stay attached. 

That's the covers made, now just to punch the paper that will make the pages and start putting everything on the discs. 

I used all of the white sheets from The Range Mixed Block. and half of the Bristol Board Airbrush paper for the white pages. The Mixed Block has White, Kraft and Black sheets in a couple of different paper weight. I used a sheet of the Black card from the mixed block at the front and back of my journal, so all of the other pages sit between these.

This is also where we come back to the two 30mm wide strips of acetate. Where the acetate on the cover was cut down at either end it leaves the corners of the pages exposed. Therefore I added these strips between the covers and the black pages at the front and back; and just for fun I raided my stash of Washi tape to decorate the edges. This was a 20mm wide Washi that I folded around the edge of the acetate.

And that my friends, is how I made my art journal. I hope I haven't waffled to much and that all that actually makes some kind of sense. 

Got any questions or thoughts? I'd love to see them in the comments!

Until next time... Happy crafting!

In Our Town of Halloween...

I can't believe that it's September already!

Now anyone that knows me will tell you exactly how much I hate winter. I hate the cold. I hate the rain; and I especially hate snow because it is both of those things put together. But I quite like Autumn. Fall. Whatever you want to call it. 

I like the cooler air in the mornings and the colours of the leave changing. I like the hazy sunshine and the way that the days are still quite warm even if they are airy.

Anyway... After I posted the Modern Gothic kit I had a little light bulb moment that the Baddest Witch In Town papers would look great in black and orange as well as black and white. I then decided to play on the whole Witch angle, hence the Hat and Broomstick patterns. But, of course, I could launch a kit in Halloween season without incorporating pumpkins now could I!? If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen my post with a little behind the scenes designing of the scroll work on the Pumpkin Patch designs.

I hope you like them, and check them out on my Etsy store.

Until next time.... Happy Crafting!

The Hallow Eve digital paper pack is available here. 

Modern Gothic

New Etsy Product Alert!!

So I've been working on a few projects lately; some of them have been intentional and some have kind of just happened. This was one that kind of just happened.

I had been in the process of designing some printable planner packs that you could print off and would work with most of your favourite planner brands, and as part of those pack was including six background papers that co-ordinate with the six divider designs. 

However once I started designing the sheets for the Modern Gothic planner I was on a roll, and next thing you know I had fourteen designs. So what else was I to do than put them all in a bundle.

The Modern Gothic Paper kit  no in the Etsy Shop. 

Going back to the Basics

So I guess that I'm still not great at the whole consistent posting thing. I'm going to try to get better; try being the key word....On the other hand I'm pretty sure that I said that last time....Oh well.

Speaking of that last time that I posted, if memory serves (yes I'm too lazy to go back and look at what I wrote, sue me.) I mentioned that I was going to work on some paper crafting kits that would cover that basic patterns. Well... I did. Whats more these kits are available in my Etsy Shop. (Click the link in the menu bar up top, the E under the search bar, or on the big Enigmas Emporium Logo over on the right to get there)

5 Patterns. 9 Colour ways. 27 Kits. All designed to colour match with the enormously popular Graphic 45 papers as well as Santoro's Goujuss.

Stripes, Spots and Dots, and Harlequin and Honeycomb kits in the following colours:

Vintage Black and White.  Mayan Blue.  French Navy.  Pear Green.  Burnt Orange.  Dusky Peach.  Wild Rose.  Vintage Red.  Tuscan Yellow.

 

COVID, Netflix and Crafts, Oh My!

Well Hello!

Long time no see. In fact it's been more than a year since I last posted anything here. Life and work has a habit of getting in the way of these things. Working in theatre doesn't leave a lot of room for free time and when you do have it you don't particularly want to spend it looking at another computer monitor.

However, the Coronavirus Pandemic has bought work to a screeching halt. A lot of us working in the West End are facing redundancy, even if just for a short while, since we can not do shows with social distancing measures in place. There is very little in the way of financial support for the arts and entertainment industry at the moment and petitions are popping up all over the place asking the government for more support. The only one that matters is this one on the official government site. If you are a UK resident please consider signing as it only take a minute of your time.

So, having been furloughed from work since the middle of March when lockdown started, and probably not going back to work until the new year, what am I doing to occupy myself? I'll confess, the first six weeks or so of lockdown I spent in front of the TV, becoming very good friends with Netflix and Amazon Prime. It was actually really nice to just sit, relax and catch up on all the shows that I don't normally get the time to sit and watch, as well as re-watch some old favourites! I watched all five series of Merlin in just over a week and have just started on Doctor Who. On the subject of Merlin, I'm really looking forward to Cursed which is coming to Netflix at the end of July and the second season of The Umbrella Academy. 

I haven't only been watching TV. Honest. I've read a ton too. It's been a very long time since I've been able to read a book in a day! I reread everything by Ilona Andrews; all of the Kate Daniels series, the Hidden Legacy series, (I'm super excited for Emerald Blaze to be released in August), finally caught up with the Innkeeper Chronicles. Now I should probably move on from books before I start to gush over how much I love Ilona Andrew's writing; once I start I won't stop!

I've given the blog here a bit of a make over and want to be more active on here. The part of blogging that I've always found the hardest is knowing what to write about; (She says after waffling on...) But now, with all this free time suddenly on my hands, I've been getting back to doing more arty things, that I haven't had time for lately. I've already added a Scrapbook kit to my Etsy shop, the first in a long time. 

My mum (a crafter) suggested doing some more basic paper kits. Lately she has been making a lot of pocket book albums with Graphic 45 pads and keeps saying how she wishes she could get a pad of just the striped paper. So that's what I've done. I've created kits of Stripes, Spots and Dots and also Harlequin and Honeycomb patterns that coordinate with Graphic 45, Santoro Gorjuss (another of mum's favourites). They're really the colours and designs that you can use for just about everything. There's 27 kits all in all, so you can tell how much fun I've had uploading everything to Etsy.

Left to right:
Dusky Peach Dot, Wild Rose Dot, Mayan Blue Stripe, Dusky Peach Stripe and French Navy Stripe.

I'm thinking of release a colour way a week, but maybe more, we'll see I guess. Mum has already been playing with these and using them in her projects; which is also something else I hope to be posting on here. Mum has been writing up How To guides for the pocket book albums she's been making, after improving on what she has learned from YouTube videos. She's done the trial and error so you don't have to.  

  

I've also just discovered Disc bound planners. Now as much as I'm not into planners I like the idea of how this system works. I've been shopping around for a new art journal since I'm reaching the end  of my current one and couldn't really find anything that I liked or suited how I like to do my journalling. So I've bought a Punch, papers and a set of Discs, which I'm still waiting for. So hopefully Some posts on that in the future to.

So, see you soon for some crafty goodness!

      

The Emporium

So you may or may not know that I recently opened an Etsy store. Why the sudden impulse? you may ask. Well it all started a couple of months ago, when I woke up with start at about three in the morning, with my brain running at a hundred miles an hour. You see, I love the Project Life stuff by Becky Higgins, but there tends to be a lot of girly patterns, pastel colours, and pink. And as much as I like the designs, and think they are lovely, they're just not me. What about the Goths and other weird and alternative people out there? I somehow doubt that I'm the only Goth out there that enjoys a bit of crafting or scrapbooking. I think that it's true of most the craft industry, that there is a distinct lack of items that suit the alternative genre to a T. So, with my three in the morning brainstorming session in mind, I decided to do something about that.

So I created my first kit. I know how many people love the Project Life system, especially with it being a way to scrapbook/memory keep even when you are a bit strapped for time, or lack confidence when it comes to being creative. Because of this I designed my kit to work with that system and any future kits will be designed in the same way. Of course you don't have to use them in the Project life system at all if you don't want to. If traditional scrapbooking is more your thing then, by all means, incorporate them into your pages. Truth be known, even though I like a lot of the kits that Project life create, I personally, wouldn't use them with the wallet system, as I prefer tradition scrapbooking or art journals.

I went with Etsy for the store as you can sell digital files. These are downloadable kits that you can either use in digital projects or print them off and use as part of physical pages. It also means that you by once and then can use it as many times as you like, as there is no limit on how many you can print!

I've also got a couple of smaller kits that I'll post here soon for you to download as freebies so keep an eye out for them!

 

This is the main kit that is available in the shop.

This the Occult Gothic Collection (Take a look in store here.)

There are 73 cards in this kit, although you can use them as many times as you like and print out as many as you want, so 73 is the minimum number that you have here. The cards are a mix of 3 inches by 4 inches and 4 inches by 4 inches, with assorted designs, 17 of which are journaling cards.

These are some of my favourite cards from the kit that I have printed out.

I can't wait to dig out some old picture to create some pages with ones.

(Check out my Instagram for close ups.)

I also created  an 8" x 8" paper stack
(Take a look in the store.). They co-ordinate beautifully with the card kit, but would make gorgeous pages on their own.

I decided to go with the 8 inch square pages, because everyone can print an 8" by 8", no matter what printer they have, but not everyone can print 12" by 12".












I'd love for everyone to check out the Etsy shop (It's called The Enigmas Emporium if I haven't already mentioned it), I'd also love to see any of your creations! Tag me on Twitter or Instagram.

Remember to keep your eyes peeled for some freebies on here soon!

Happy scrapping everyone...

Eye Of The Beholder

Scrapbooking always been good way of documenting our memories and everyday life, and is probably one of the best  known and long running ways of documenting our time that there is. Personally I was looking for something more creative than just scrapbooking. Enter the art journal. I wanted something that would work as a part sketch book, part scrapbook, something that would be fun and interesting to look back at in the future.

As much as I love my Polaroid Project its nice to be able to add more. I don't feel that other keepsakes like tickets, notes and the random little things you find, have a place in something such as my Polaroid frame. I have collected a lot of these kind of things over the years and have therefore been planning on starting an art journal for a while now. A couple of weekends ago I finally found the time to start. By start I mean the front cover is done, but I have begun planning some pages, so watch this space.

So after way too much deliberation this is what I ended up creating.

So this started out life as a 8" x 8" Spiral Bound Kraft Scrapbook from Hobbycraft (£3).

These actually come with black ribbon ties.

I decided to remove these with some scissors, and then pushed any fibers that I couldn't get to back into the slot it was originally threaded through, with a Pokey Tool (Yes it's a real thing. Get one here for £4)

Why did I take them off? Because I don't have the patients to keep untying, and retying things. I'm lazy.

I knew that I wanted text on the cover and wanted the look of old books; so I got an old book.

You can relax. I didn't just go and buy a book in order to tear it up. The Librarian at my old secondary school was told he had to get rid of some of the old books. I use to be a student librarian; since he knew I was arty he asked if I wanted to take some of the old books off his hands and use them for something other than just going in the bin.

For my art journal I went with a page from an old Dictionary/Thesaurus/Medical Dictionary. This one was already fairly yellow from age, but I wanted to add to that along the edges. To do this I used the Antique Linen Distress Ink  by Tim Holtz (you may want to shop around and see where you can get it cheapest). I glued down the book page using Mod Podge (matte finish).

For the main design elements for my cover I chose to use some stamps by Visible Image. I absolutely love their stamps. If you haven't checked their stuff out, then you need to; and be prepared to spend. A lot.

For this I used the eye from the Where Dreams Take You set (I have had this stamp a while, as in before it was a part of this set, so the eye is all I have), as well as the Reveal Your True Colours stamp from the Own It! set and an ink splat from the aptly named Ink Splats set.

To start with I stamped each image where I wanted it using the Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I did this so that it would just about show up against the natural colour of the Kraft card.

I wanted to be able to stamp the ink splat in coloured inks and have the colours stand out. The images stamped in Walnut Stain acted as a guide for me to be able to fill in the areas I wanted to colour with White Gesso first as a base for the colours.

Once the Gesso had dried I added the coloured ink splats.

These were done with the Visible Image splat stamp and just a collection of coloured inks. I used pastel pink, blue and purple inks from a variety of brands (mostly ones that I had forgotten about.)








Next I used a black Versafine Ink Pad To stamp the Eye and True Colours images. I did, however, fine that it took awhile for the ink to dry on the Gesso areas so in future I would probably opt to use a Stazon ink pad instead, just to be sure that it actually dries without any risk of smudging.

Afterwards I just added a bit of a doodle in the top left corner using a black pen. When I was sure that all the inks were dry I sealed everything down with a layer of Gloss Finish Mod Podge . 

And there you have it. I hope to be able to start working on some pages soon so watch this space for more art journal related stuff. 

Happy Scrapping!!

If you have and questions or comments I'd love to heard them! As usual, come find me on Twitter and now Instagram using the buttons at the top of the side bar. Alternatively send your messages via carrier pigeon, flying monkey or magic carpet. Unicorns are also an accepted delivery service!! 

Polaroid Project: Phase 1 Complete.

So a long time ago I wrote this post. When I say wrote, I mean one line saying that this was a work in progress.

A few years have past since then and in all honesty since that last post there has actually been zero progress made at all. Yes, it has remain pinned to my pin board untouched and unfinished, until the other day. I had always planned to put this in a box frame, but I wanted to wait until I had accumulated enough photos to fill the frame. It's taken the last couple of years to get to that point, but we are finally here.

The frame is from Ikea it's the Ribba 50cm x 50cm box frame in black (costs £9). You can get it here.  (Other colours and sizes are available).

That's All Folks...

Over the last few months we have had to make a hard decision in the Tomb with regards to +Dead With Tequila. After a lot of thought and consideration, copious amounts of coffee and chocolate, We have made the decision to close the store on Storenvy.

There have recently been some changes at Storenvy, that if I'm being completely honest, don't sit very well with R and myself, and we now feel that it's time we moved on. Dead With Tequila has been on Storenvy for nearly two and a half years now, so this was not a decision that was made lightly. Within the last couple of months, Storenvy have introduced what they are calling a "Storenvy Fee". This is a fee payed by YOU, the customer, basically for shopping on the platform. We already pay commission on the marketplace sales (this comes out of our profits) and we are fine with that. In theory that commission is because it is a sale that the platform has generated for us and it goes back into things tech support for the sellers, customer service, keeping the platform running. But with this new Fee, on marketplace sales they get the commission WE pay and the Fee that YOU pay. YOU still pay this Fee even if we have generated the sale ourselves through our own marketing in our own store. We don't feel that is fair that you should have to pay a fee because you chose to shop there over anywhere else.  

Now, just because we are not happy with this fee doesn't mean we don't understand why it has been brought in. This Fee is also suppose to go towards improving the customer service and all the other things that I mentioned before, and that's not a bad thing. In fact that's a great thing! The platform should develop and grow, and hopefully by doing so, improve. However they never actually told the sellers that they planned to implement this. We only got an email after some (understandably) angry people took to the Facebook group asking questions and demanding answers. The answers we were given didn't really address peoples concerns and still nobody seems to know exactly what is going on with it, and it's been a month.

The thing is it's not just the fee that has caused us to make this decision, although it has definitely played a key role. Storenvy is suppose to be the ideal place for "Indie" sellers. It even says so right at the top of the home page.

Okay, so it doesn't say it word for word, and this is an animation that changes. However the only bit that changes is the word "Brands". It changes to other words such  as "Artist", "Makers" and "People". As much as there are a lot of sellers that fit that description, there are also a lot of mass production companies; as in multi-million dollar companies. They have as much right to sell items as everyone else does, but in becomes an issue when these become the store that the platform pushes to the top of the listings, and repeatedly make them featured brands. (Every store as a limit of 500 products. If you become a featured brand you get space for even more listings.) What this means is the marketplace is swamped with mass produced items and small businesses that work hard to produce unique, amazing items get pushed down to the bottom of the pile and are lucky if their products show up in the first thousand pages (depending on what you search, you can have over seven thousand pages to flick through).

This is something that has been bought up by several sellers. Most wanting to voice their opinion, and others because they feel it's unfair and want the issue addressed. Basically the answer that they got was to do more marketing (I'm paraphrasing here. But when you take all the wordy filler out of the given answer this is what was said.). Indie sellers that consist of stay at home mums, and young artists, and companies that only consist of one or two people, were basically being told to do more marketing to compete with multi-million dollar businesses, who probably have a department of a couple of hundred people that focuses on just marketing, let alone having to make products, do inventory, plan sales, create ads, do the marketing, and be active across social media. I think that a lot of people started to feel as though the platform wasn't interested in it's Indie sellers anymore. There a few other small things that contributed to us deciding to close up shop here, but these are the two big reasons.

I think we have perhaps out-grown Storenvy. We stared Dead With Tequila with absolutely no idea what we were doing and no experience of the crazy world that is e-commerce. Storenvy was a great place for us to learn (and boy, was there a steep learning curve!) and figure out exactly what Dead With Tequila is suppose to be and get the vibe right. For the record, I don't think Storenvy is a bad company; I think it's great in fact. I believe that they have a lot of good ideas, and good intentions to go with, it's just their execution occasionally misses the mark. But our time here has come to an end, and we must say good bye.

So what does all this mean?

It means that Dead With Tequila is MOVING!!! As of 2017 Dead With Tequila will be joining Tomb Buddies on Tictail. In the new year items will slowly disappear from the Storenvy store and materialize on the new Tictail store.

The majority of items will make it to their new home, but some wont be so lucky. We decided that we need a bit of a tidy up of the stock. So we might do a clearance sale, or some giveaways we're not sure yet. With this move comes a new look for Dead With Tequila. A more simple look. I think after nearly two and a half years, I have finally nailed down the colour scheme. So there'll be a new store that will look completely different from the Storenvy one, and the blog will therefore get a makeover to match. I've already started work on these and so far I'm really happy with it all. It looks amazing!

This move should also open up more opportunities for us, and allow us to expand and develop the way that we want to with out so many restrictions. The store is completely customizable, the discounts options are more versatile, there are more category options in the marketplace and a good focus on the small business/indie sellers and no product limit.

R and myself are excited about the future of Dead With Tequila and hope you will continue to follow us no matter where we end up with this. There are a lot of exciting things to come, and we can't wait to share them with you. It's a whole new beginning...



Congratulations! You made it to the end of what my be my longest post ever! As per usual, if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below, find me on Twitter, send a carrier pigeon with your message, or perhaps a flying monkey, unicorn or even a magic carpet.

The Animals Went In 2 By 2...

So I have been squirreling away in the Tomb, plotting and planning, working on my cartoon project. I feel like this is a good time to share a bit and let you in on some secrets, and even have some input.

I can confirm:

• It will be called Tomb Buddies (if you want to get pedantic, Tomb Buddies From Dead With Tequila. But that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) 
• There are 9 characters.- Hank the Rhino, Milo the Rabbit, Bert the Bear, Giovanni the Giraffe, Vern the Rat, Finnegan the Cat, Nelson the Elephant, Silas the Lion, and Agnes the Hippo.
• There are plans for Mugs and Cushions (exciting stuff, right?).
• Tomb Buddies will have it's own Twitter and Instagram accounts. As soon as they are up and running I'll let you know the handles for each. Tomb Buddies news and info will still be posted to the Dead With Tequila blog, Facebook page and Pinterest accounts. 
• There will be a new store opened especially for them (basically a second Dead With Tequila store).
• The new store will NOT be on Storenvy. 

The new Tomb Buddies store will be on platform called Tictail. Hands up if you have heard of Tictail before now.....No body....Yeah...Me either until I started researching other platforms that integrated with the company we use to print and drop ship our T-shirts, hoodies, posters etc. 

Here's some basic information on Tictail.

They launch in 2012 and are based in Sweden, and they also have an office in New York. Their aim is to make it easy for indie brands/small businesses (like me) to build an online store that looks great an inviting to customers.

Just like Storenvy, Paypal is available for checkout. Or it will be when the Tomb Buddies store is launched. (Interesting fact: Paypal is your only option to check out with on the Dead With Tequila store. We did have Stripe, but after hearing that a lot of other store owners had been victims of fraud, some loosing hundreds of dollars and their merchandise, when using Stripe, I disabled the account.)

Now onto the part where all of you lovely people come in...

If you know, or think of any puns, one liners/jokes that involve, either: a Rhino, a Rabbit, a Bear, a Giraffe, a Rat, a Cat, an Elephant, a Lion or a Hippo, or a combination of any of them, (if you have something that involves all nine animals you may just get the title of Magical Unicorn) please tweet me or Dead With Tequila or just leave them in the comments below. I would be very appreciative. In the event that I use them on a T-Shirt/mug...any other product that I feel like adding, I'm going to list them on the Dead With Tequila blog kind of like a `Wall of Fame`

Thanks in advance. :D

And The Count Down Begins

R and my self have been working really hard in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb lately, whether we are ready or not the, end is near. In a little over a week and a half R goes off to university, and therefore we have to have everything finished before then. In an ideal world we could do with another couple of months to finish everything off; for no other reason than at the moment we are very stressed out, regularly repeating our new mantra of  "There's not enough time, oh God there's not enough time!"  and have pretty much been working in the tomb morning, noon and night and having dreams that we are still in the Tomb working away.  Have you ever been so stressed and panicked by what you're doing that you no longer no how to do what you're meant to be doing? that's how R and my self have been for the past 3 or 4 weeks and it is horrible.

I'll stop rambling now and start telling you about some really cool stuff from the Tomb.

So we have TEN, yes 10 new collections for you: Edgar Allen Poe, Down The Rabbit Hole, Light Years Away, Dreams Of Darkness, American Dreams, Pocketful Of Posies, The Kraken, Ancient Ruins, Dia De Los Muertos and Pandaemonium.

We are getting RID of postage charges!! (Whooo!!)

We have got some amazing new necklaces. Where we now have themed collections we ave got some amazing statement charms and things that are gorgeous and we can't wait for you all to see them.

Now for the really exciting stuff!!! We have decided to branch out and offer apparel items in the Dead With Tequila store. If you follow me on Twitter or just occasionally stalk your way through my feed (I don't mind a bit of stalking :-P ) you would have seen this pic that I shared yesterday

  
This is one of our Own Brand items that will soon be available to you from the Dia De Los Muertos Collection. This is the collection that will be the home to all of the Own brand items. 

So basically we have paired with a third party company that make, print, and ship the apparel items as well as the new posters directly from Los Angeles. We have tank tops, hoodies and posters so far.

This does mean that there will be shipping costs attached to the apparel and the new posters because they are the ones that deal with the order and they are the ones that set the shipping costs not us. There will be more info on the shipping costs of these items and size guide and things put on the Dead With Tequila blog site in the FAQ section, that will explain everything so no need to worry.   

Anyways...back to work. I can't wait for you all to see what we have been working on. If you end up reading a product description or something on the Dead With Tequila blog and there are mistakes or missing info, please let me know. the problem with working on something so much is you get so used to it you stop seeing the mistakes, so I'm counting on you guys.

You know the drill questions or comments can be left below, or tweet me, or send a magic carpet, carrier pigeon, flying monkey or unicorn.  

It's a funny thing...

So a funny thing happened to me the other day. Funny (odd experience) Strange, not Funny Haha. I had logged onto +Dead With Tequila's Instagram account on my laptop just to see what had been going on, and like some posts (trying to maintain some form of a presence), and saw that a fairly big, well established design company that follows us (and us them :P) had liked some of our posts. Now you're probably thinking "Where you going with this Liv?"  and sure, people like our posts all the time so it shouldn't be so important that it deserves to have me write an entire blog post about it, right?

See this is the thing; for me and Carrie (for those that don't know, we make up the entirety of Dead With Tequila....yes, just the two of us [ear worm anyone...not sorry :P]) this really was a big deal. This was a people* who do this kinda thing, like selling art and designing PROFESSIONALLY  and they LIKE our stuff!!! It was really a moment of finally feeling like we are doing something right here, like this crazy little idea is more than just wishful thinking. Now, I'm not big on self doubt. Anyone that knows me, knows how stubborn and committed I can be. (I'm one of these people that gets tunnel vision. I get an idea in mind, and the rest of the world revolves around that idea until I feel as though I have achieved it to my own, astronomically high, satisfactory level.) I don't think I had realised, until then, that somewhere down in the deep, dark swirling abyss of my mind, that that irritating little voice had been whispering "What if your wasting your time?", "Maybe this isn't going to work out after all?", "What kind of idiot tries to build a brand with no money behind it?"  Well that Idiot would be me. Because, you know, I'm stubborn and lacking any ability to walk away from the challenge and give up.

This was a very weird feeling for me. I've never been someone that needs other people's opinions and approval to feel validated; I'm perfectly happy being a freak. May be it's because Carrie's in this with me? It's always easier to walk away from something when you're not letting anyone else down. I remember Carrie and I talking in her kitchen late one December night, when Dead With Tequila was still in it's developmental stages, and saying that this [Dead With Tequila] failing isn't an option. This is taken slightly out of context here. There was a rather long list of reasons for saying that; but the point is still the same. It's funny how you think about situations differently when you're not the only one involved, when you feel that you have some form of responsibility to take the brunt of bad situations so that it has a minimal effect on their day to day life.

We tend to find ourselves having discussions about 'business' at the oddest times and in the weirdest of places; like on the tube or on the way to Zumba or just a random one word text at half ten at night! We're really not serious people so for us to do the whole sit-down-serious-business-talk is still an alien experience for us. We much prefer our version: take up all the floor space with beads and equipment making stuff awhile having a semi serious discussion. Because multi-tasking is important when there's 2 of you with three hands between you to get things done. I think for us, it kind of feels like there's having the idea and going through the motions of having a business; technically falling into the category of a business, and then there's ticking the previous two boxes and feeling like you have a business. I think we definitely tick those first two boxes. Hopefully one day the whole concept will sink in. I tend to 95% of my time thinking about marketing, new designs, what materials we need to stock up on etc, 4% of my time doing marketing and 1% of my time creating and getting on with things like eating and sleeping. You would have hoped that by now with DWT taking up most my cognitive storage space that my brain would have got the message of "business". Yeah.....It hasn't.

I really love what we get to do with Dead With Tequila. I can honestly say that being able to run this little 'business' and being to do things that represent us as people and to be able to do it with my best friend in the world is probably my biggest achievement to date. But the one thing that really makes this so worth while for us is the support that all of you give us. It means so much to us when any of you like, share or even just follow us! It gives all of the hard work and energy that we put into this a purpose. We love each and every one of you, and we can't thank you enough for your support! We always want to know your opinions, even the bad ones! If we don't know what wrong we can't change or fix it! If anyone has any suggestions, we'd love to hear them too! There is so much going on in the Tomb right now that we are so excited to be able to share with you soon, so stay tuned!

Don't forget to check out the Dead With Tequila Store! (Had to get some marketing here some where!)

*Bad grammar intended :P

You know the drill!!! comments below....Twitter...come bug me :D

Wibbly Wobbly, Timey Wimey

So you may, or may not know that I recently started a project for +Dead With Tequila. I'm really excited about this one, because it really takes me back to doing one of the things that I love most, and that's cartooning. 

Now, I would never go as far as to call myself a cartoonist, not by a long shot; I'm a graphic artist. I had an amazing art teacher at school who, before she started teaching, use to work as a graphic designer. She was always so supportive, and was always eager to see what I had in mind for my next piece; she really stoked the fire, and would frequently throw new ideas at me that I may never have considered if she hadn't planted the seed. Not that I didn't get that support at home. My mum is also an artist, as was her mum. Both my younger sister and I, grew up being able to paint and draw before we could read and write. When I was little my mum would collect the +Disney comics and have us drawing the characters, and colouring them in. So cartooning was something I started really young, and it pains me to say it, but I haven't done anything like it in ages; so for me this new project is like being a little kid again, but with my own designs and ideas. 

If I'm totally honest with you...I don't like painting. The whole "It's so relaxing" thing just irritates me. I don't find it relaxing, to me, painting is some what of a chore. I do it because I have to, or because it's the most appropriate, viable medium to use for a piece at the time. it's not because I can't paint. I'd like to think that I'm fairly alright at it (if you disagree, that's fine, I love you anyway :]) I just don't find it all that fun. My preferred mediums are Pencil, Pen, ink, Chalk, Charcoal (I love the mess it gets you in!) and of course digital. Paint certainly doesn't make it onto my list. As much as I enjoy creating things on my graphics program, there's nothing like being able to get out all my pencils and fine liners and... just... drawing things. Like with this awesome project!!

This project will become a hybrid of drawing and digital. I'm creating a cartoon series of little weird characters. For this to work on a mass scale (by mass scale I mean, they won't be one offs) my plan is to draw my characters, whole, and at different angles, as well as broken down into parts.  By this I mean arms on their own, legs on the own, heads, bodies etc plus any little extra bits, like plants or bombs (hint hint). Once I've got all of these parts drawn and inked, they will get scanned and taken into my design program. This will mean that I can then build my characters however I want them, without having to redraw them each time. It will also mean that I can get them printed multiple times.

I'm hoping that once I've done a bit more on this project that I will feel as though I can share some "in progress" pics with you. Keeping it all to myself is killing me. Even Carrie (my partner in crime at Dead With Tequila) hasn't really even seen what I've done so far. She knows the very basic form of my plan, but that's about it! I've already started throwing names out there, trying to decide on what to call the collection already. 

I'll tell you this: 

It's all going to be black and white, if I add colour it will be in small places. All the characters are animals, and yes, they do all have names! It has a strong influence of the Day of the Dead festival. Bookmarks.

Make of that what you will.


So, you still, with me after all that?? :P If you are, you can leave a comment below, or find me over at Twitter (see right hand column)