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!! 

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.

It Begins...

So after what has been nearly a year in the making, Tomb Buddies is open for business!! 

Yes it has been a long process, that is still far from over. But they are here! Finally!! 

You can check out the store here at www.tombbuddies.tictail.com/ 

There are a whole bunch of different items for you to get your hands on. T-shirts, Tank Tops, Posters, Tote Bags, Cushions and even Mugs. All items are made in the USA; meaning that you can be certain that everything has been produced ethically, without a sweatshop in sight. 

Also, for every item that is bought from the store, I plan to donate a pound to that amazing charity Random Acts. If you haven't heard of them check out their website here.

Behind The Curtain

Hello!!! Yes, I am still alive. I've been really busy working away on all the Tomb Buddies stuff (very exciting)

The good news is the end is in sight. I'm nearly ready to open; the store looks amazing and I can't wait for everyone to see what has been going on in the Tomb.

To keep up to date with everything don't forget to follow Tomb Buddies on Twitter, Instagram , Facebook (yes, this is new) or you can join the mailing list  and be the fist to know when we are open, when any awesome sales are on and get discount codes! On the other hand you could create a Tictail account. You can them follow our store and all of the thousands of other amazing brands that are on there, Seriously there are so many awesome things in the Marketplace!!

Click here to see a sneak peak of something that you will be able to get in store.(Video didn't look so good in the blog post, sorry for the redirect)

Okay now back to work so we an get this store open!!

Feel free to leave questions and comments at the bottom, or send them via Unicorn, Carrier Pigeon, Flying Monkey, Magic Carpet or any other weird mode of transport you can think of!

I'm back! And I'm Still Alive...Sort Of...

I'm back! Not that I really went anywhere, just had a really bad case of the Flu. Bad enough that I started planning my funeral (FYI, I want a funeral pyre, on a Viking boat, pushed out onto a lake/sea at sunset. For two reasons: 1) It'll be the last chance for me to be a complete pain in the backside for everybody involved. 2) It'll be very cinematic, so someone better film it; seriously I'm giving you a chance to make your big break as a film maker here.) So I basically spent bank holiday Monday playing catch up to all the things that I should have done last week.

I did use this time to have a good old think, a dangerous occupation I know, and to plan out a way for me to open the new Tomb Buddies store sooner rather than later. This is one of those times where being such a perfectionist isn't a good thing. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that, for me to wait until I'm totally finished with the drawing/designing part of things before I open shop, means that you will be waiting for a very long time. As in you may do nothing but wait. This is one of those projects that, even if you gave me till the Sun implodes, I still wouldn't be finished. I don't want you to have to wait that long; hell, I don't want to wait that long! Therefore I have devised a plan that means I can open the store and share all the great stuff that I have been working away on for what seems like an eternity, while I still continue to work on the project at the same time and that way everyone is happy. I already have a few products uploaded to the store, which is quite exciting. Store is looking awesome as well. Follow on Twitter (@TombBuddies) or Instagram (@tombbuddies) (or find the relevant buttons over on the right :P) This is were pretty much all the Tomb Buddies related updates are appearing.

Everything in the Tomb Buddies store will be made in America. This means all items will be made ethically; sweat shop free, and workers are payed a fair wage and work in a safe environment. The only downside to this is that things cost a little bit more, but to be quite honest, I think that it's worth paying the slightly higher price.

In other news:

• World Goth Day is on May 22nd and +Dead With Tequila will be having a sale. so keep an eye out for more details about that. 
• May 27th is WWF's Wear It Wild event you can sign up here. If yo have nothing to wear why not pick up Dead With Tequila's "Live The Wild Life" shirt here. For every shirt purchased we will donate £2 to the WWF. 
  

Also you may or may not have noticed the addition of the "Book Reviews" tab at the top of the page. It does what it says on the tin; basically I've created a page where I will be adding links to all my book review related posts so that they are in order and in one place. I only push reviews from Goodreads to my blog when they are lengthy enough to be worth while reading. The short ones are only on Goodreads. I'm trying to get better at writing longer reviews for books, but sometimes words don't cover, and can't explain how awesome a book is, which is when you end up with the " Oh My God THIS BOOK IS AMAZING" review.

Anyways, I'm going to stop waffling on and get back to sorting things out so that I can open Tomb Buddies!

A usual, questions comments leave below, find me on twitter, or send a flying monkey, unicorn, or even a carrier pigeon with your message. 

 

Lost In The Tomb

Okay so I think it's time for an update.

Tomb Buddies Twitter and Instagram accounts are all up and running !! Be sure that you follow if you don't want to miss anything. You can also sign up to the mailing list here so you will be the first to know when we open the store.

The store is looking really good at the moment; I'm really excited for you all to see it. I have to keep reminding myself that I still have a lot to do before we get to that. I already have one mug designed and uploaded, and a few more part done and some still floating around in my brain. I also have some ideas sorted for cushions, most of which, will also work on t-shirts and posters.

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

When The Voices Talk To Me

So I've been working away in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb lately mainly on my cartooning project that I mentioned ages ago. It come on a lot in the last few weeks, you'll be happy to hear.

Some of you may have seen this on the Dead With Tequila Instagram account (follow us @deadwithtequila) This a work in progress shot of that project. In the Tomb it has begun to be know as the Tomb Buddies collection. There will be eight characters in total: a Rhino, a Rabbit, a Bear, a Giraffe, a Rat, a Cat, an Elephant, a Lion and a Hippo. All of which have names, but you'll just have to be patient and wait and see what we have called each of them.

The reason that you can see random limbs and floating heads here is because this is essentially going to be a hybrid style of art. everything will be hand drawn, the old fashioned way, on paper and then scanned in and digitally cut out and posed to make the final designs. I have to draw each character then break them down into individual parts and then draw each part from every conceivable angel; hence the reason that things are taking so long. When it's done this will pretty much just be Posters, T-Shirts and Tote bags. I'm considering perhaps doing cushions and maybe even mugs, but I'm going to think on it some more. Cool handmade bookmarks were part of the original plan, but I still haven't quite perfected a design in my head yet, so that may or may not happen. We are talking about creating a separate store for this collection. Purely for that fact that already I have so many ideas of what I'm going to be doing with the characters, and also because we feel that as much as this continues the Day Of The Dead theme that we try and focus on in the Dead With Tequila store, we feel that it's different enough that it wouldn't necessarily fit in with the other collections. This is going to be kept really simple. Black and White, clean lines, and have an overall cute feel to it. There will also be a separate newsletter that you can sign up to, I'll give you more info on that at a later date though.

In other news, I added this to the the store earlier today. You can check it out in the store here. It's made in the USA, and ships from Los Angeles. If you didn't already know our store uses PayPal, so check out is secure.

  

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.  

Heads or tails?

So yesterday in the Tomb we started photographing some of the new collections. As these contain necklaces (yes we're branching out) we needed a way to display these....I came you with this....You don't really see it in the item pics but it makes me feel better knowing that it looks nice.

Here's a step by step/ in progress / stages ......whatever...Basically I took pics as I went along.

From Polystyrene to Paper Mache 

Paper Mache to white primer

Primer to drawing on a design

Designing...

...Designing

...Still designing

...Designing some more

Designing to Painting the coloured areas

...More coloured areas

...Even more coloured areas

...And even more...

...And some more just for good measure

And this is the finished item!!! Just had to do all the really fine black line detail (yay) and fill in the black areas

More detail...Why did I insist on so much detail?

More detail round the back.... A couple of people have said that it makes them think of Harlequin.....But you can make your own mind up there

...More detail again.....yes I like to make my own life hell...

And one form the top.

Hi, Just passing through

This is just a flying visit because I'm busy busy busy in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

Yes there is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the Tomb right now. We're have spent the last few weeks, especially the past two days working really hard on some awesome new stuff. 

I can confirm that within the last hour and a half we have finished the jewelry part of the Edgar Allan Poe collection!!! (does happy dance). There's some wire bracelets, elasticated bracelets, a couple of bag charms, earrings and...(drum roll please..) NECKLACES!!!!! They are totally gorgeous.. I've already finished a couple of poster designs and a tank top. Yes you read that right, a tank top...as in an item of clothing (Oooo!!) I'm working on even more designs for both t-shirts and posters and maybe even tote bags... I'm just gonna leave you to ponder that for a moment.

The Pandaemonium Collection is coming along nicely as well. Lots and lots of really bold colours paired with black. This is the next one that we are going to aim to finish. Hopefully.... we're waiting for some supplies, but they have to come from a supplier in China so are taking awhile to arrive, which is stressing R and myself out a little bit. If we don't get our stuff with in the next week or so we want to move onto the Down The Rabbit Hole collection. 

Down the Rabbit hole has some nice pieces in already. This is going to have clocks, and playing cards, and dice, some florals. It's going to be a very grown up version of the old story. The teacups are being swapped with martini and shot glasses...Make of that what you will.

The past couple of days have been really busy to say the least. We've started to make multiples of the same item (never more than 10 though) 

There's going to be some updates on how we list stuff in the store as well, but I'll tell you more about that another time..


Anyways...Loves you all, but now I have to dive back into the Tomb or maybe bed. Maybe I'll just sleep in the Tomb...Yeah, that sounds like a plan. 

Laters my lovelies.         

True Colours.

So +Dead With Tequila are considering branching out into tshirts and maybe some other stuff. So I was just curious as to what sorts of colours appeal to people.  The image below shows the colour options for the items we are considering. I'd love t know what you think.

Personally I'm leaning towards going with the Vintage Black and the Venetian Grey (potentially adding Purple Rush and Vintage Red into the mix) for the Women's tank top. Ultra Blue and Black for the hoodie. For the men's tank Black and Heather Grey.

Let me know what you think via the comments, on twitter, or by carrier pigeon.

Thanks xx     

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

Change is Coming.....

So over the last couple of weeks we've been having some serious talks in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

The end of July will mark 1 year of Dead With Tequila, and we have decided that some big decisions need to be made about how we do things, both on Storenvy and in the Tomb.

Change is coming.

We have got so many new ideas, and feel that the way we currently operate just isn't gonna cut it for all the craziness that's in the pipeline. These new ideas and plans show more of who we are, both as individuals and as a brand; not that the items currently available don't do that, but the awesomeness that we have in store for you does so even more! We really want to develop our style and personality in this next year, and hopefully in doing so can grow our brand that is Dead With Tequila. We want to flaunt our dark and twisted, weird and wonderful, creative and quirky sides. So far we don't feel as though we've been able to do that. We want to make a statement. We want to be able to be like " 'Boom!' This is us. Yes, we're young and arguably inexperienced, but we've worked our asses off and created something pretty amazing with absolutely nothing at all, and we're proud of what's been achieved!"

That's really the truth of ALL of this...If you told me two years ago that I'd be here, running and creating a small business, I would have thought you were crazy. Believe it or not, this isn't a life long dream of mine. I haven't spent years of my life imagining what it would be like to run my own business with my best friend, and considering all the potential names for it. Dead With Tequila is really the result of me throwing away three years worth of work because I got sick, and to continue on studying was no longer going to be a viable option for me. Dead With Tequila only exists because, I happened to have the most incredible best friend, who was willing to take a chance with me, with this crazy idea, stand by me and help add to the craziness of it all. This was one of those times where neither of us had any idea about what we were doing, but being to stubborn to back down from the challenge, went ahead and did it anyway; and if we got stuck, well hey, that's why the world invented Google.

This first year of Dead With Tequila has really been about us finding our feet. Learning. We didn't have any aims or targets for the last year; the way we saw it, just opening the store was an achievement! Then the fact that we had more than 1 page view was a shock....Then actually making a sale....We refreshed the page about three time to make sure it wasn't a mistake! We couldn't believe it. Now that we feel we know what we're doing, understand how the relevant platforms work, we can now start putting all our plans into place. 

Some of these ideas that we have aren't new; they've been with us right from the start, unfortunately we had to learn to walk before we could run. This was probably the only time my mum got involved with the business side of things, (she runs about 3 for various people) other than educating me and Carrie on how tax works (still don't think I understand it!). Her advice was to pace ourselves, and in the process let our ideas develop. So, we've held back. We are now ready to start unleashing the crazy on you! 

The way that we group our items is going to be big change. Our products will no longer be grouped by type e.g. Wire Bracelet or Elasticated Bracelets etc. We have decided to create themed collections, any new products will be produced as part of a theme, meaning that we can really spread our creative wings. Some of the names that have been tossed around for these collections are just wicked! But you're just gonna have to wait to see what they are. We haven't quite worked out the finer details of how we are going to go about implementing this overhaul yet. At the moment it seems like the best choice is to close the store for a day or so. It's been discussed that we may release one of these new collections at a time, say one a month or something. The problem with this would be that some items may have to temporarily disappear. 

Some of the current collections will stay. Most likely the Accessories, Posters and Original Art mainly because the items currently in these collections won't fit with the new themes. Hopefully more of these collections will be raising money for other charities.     

So lots to be doing, sea things, evil bunnies, weird and wacky stuff!! I hope you're just as excited as I am about all this! 

As usual leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions, magical unicorns, flying monkeys etc. below or come and bug me on twitter ;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)              

Shhhhhh...It's a secret...

For anyone wondering about what's been going on in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb of late, the answer is lots of awesome stuff. Quick summary....

• Givaway: We've finally finished putting together what's going to make up the bundle. Details should be up and ready to let you all loose on really soon  NOW!!.   Exciting stuff!! Click Here
• There's about 6 items in the bundle, I think. Give or take.

• The release date for The Wild Life Collection (raising money for WWF) has been narrowed down to June, so keep your eyes peeled for that. You can already preview most the stuff in the store if you want, there's only a few pieces that we haven't up loaded because they're unfinished.

• We've been playing around with some new ideas as well, but I can't say to much on that right now.

• There will be a 10% off flash sale across the store on World Goth Day, that's May 22nd for those that don't know. Coupon code will be revealed nearer the time.
• I did want to do a whole other collection** for this spectacular celebration of Goth awesomeness, but The Wild Life Collection to a lot longer than expected to finish, so there just hasn't been the time. Fingers crossed we might aim to do one for next year and have it as another charity collection (we've discussed the Sophie Lancaster Foundation as a charity)

• There may or may not be another longer sale in the summer. We haven't decided on this yet, so don't get your hopes up (there's still World Goth Day!) 

**I've been wanting to do some more Goth / Alternative style collections for a while now; I've been thinking and Edgar Allen Poe collection (You may say cliche, but I love his work. Random Fact: I have the same birthday as Poe). I recently got a bunch of new arty stuff to play wit that would work really well with this idea. There has also been talk of a Nordic/Viking theme collection, make of that what you will.... Any thoughts on this, or suggestions even...Let me know via comments, Twitter, carrier pigeon, magic unicorn (seriously, I expect a unicorn)

Artistic Licence

This is a post hat I've been meaning to write for a while now, I just could never find the right words to fully explain what I wanted to say. 

People keep asking me what I do, what's my job? etc. I then give them a list of things that I do, after all, I'm not a one trick pony. I tell them I do casual work as a runner in the live event/entertainment industry, not the sporting type,but backstage stuff. I'm a small business owner, an artist. Most people are like "Oh, that's cool". But sometimes, and most annoying (especially if it's a family member- yes this really happened), they come back with "So not a real job then". Of course being an artist is a real job. Just because it doesn't run 9 til 5 with a desk and a pot plant for company in a cubicle, doesn't make it any less hard work or any less of a job. I've slowly come to the conclusion that the reason that people think art isn't a real profession is because they don't know what it means to be an artist.

This is very much a topic that I feel very strongly about, and I tend to find that the only people that understand where I am coming from are creative /artistic types; I am yet to find someone of a different mindset that can truly understand. This is my attempt at trying to explain the whole "What it means to be an artist" for the simple reason that I seem to be having this conversation a lot lately and I'm tired of repeating myself. 

This feels like it could be a rather long post, and may even have the potential to become a bit of a rant. I promise that I'll try to contain my frustrations. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments below or even over on Twitter (see right hand column).

So part of what really prompted this post was the below image (Credits to the owner, I love you and want to hug you!). I came across this on my Google plus stream and at the time it covered, quite nicely might I add, some things that had been going on / had happened to me and other people that I know that do "creative" work.

To be an artist (to me) means: Be crazy. Be weird. Be a freak. Embrace the chaos. Have opinions. Speak your mind and don't be afraid of what people are going to think of you. To laugh, to live, to love. To hate. To think big and dream bigger. To live and breathe your work. To be prepared to suffer for your art. To just. Be. YOU.

Why? Because you can; and there is not a single person on this planet, that has the right to stop you. You only get one shot at life, so make it count. Live it in your own awesome crazy way. If that means creating chaos, artistic or otherwise, in order to be happy, then do it.

However, there are, for some bizarre reason that I can't fathom, people who believe that art should be free. Whether this art is a painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, book or song.

I would like to take a moment to say that I will never see eye to eye, or be friends with these people, because they are WRONG. 

What people maybe don't realise is that art takes time; and time is money. But time isn't even the important part, or at least not the part that infuriates me to no end. (I'll have you know the items in the Dead With Tequila store would be a lot more expensive if we added on the cost of the time we spent creating things.) As an artist, creative person, whatever term you wish to use, you give a little bit of yourself in your art. Whether that be your love, your pain, your heart, your blood, sweat, or tears. All of that is worth something. For someone to tell you that they're not prepared to pay for your art, is like being told that you're not worth anything. And if you're not worth anything, then what's the point? Why bother getting out of bed?...Bother doing anything.

"To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world." -Dr Seuss

We are all worth something to someone, therefore so is art. 

The standard way of setting a price for art work is a bit like this:

Set your hourly rate

Total cost of materials used e.g. Cost of paint, canvas, etc.

If it's for a commission you might charge just for taking it on. 

So hypothetically, if someone commissioned a painting you might work out the cost like this:

Number of hours spent : 30 hrs

- at £15 per hour = £450

Total cost of materials: £250

Commission fee: £50

450+250+50= £750 

Some people would leave it at that others might add on a few 

more random pound just as extra profit. 

So this hypothetical painting costs at least £750 minimum. Some people would like it for £0. 

Is anyone starting to see why I find this topic mildly infuriating???

If all this wasn't bad enough, after they tell you they're not going to pay for your work, they then, albeit occasionally, ask you to justify why you created something in the first place.

So here's the second big question: What's the point of art?

This tends to be the point where I personally do one of two things. 1) put my head in my hands while feeling exasperated and sorry that the poor fool in front of me is clearly clueless; 2) walk away accepting that I'm fighting an uphill battle that I've already lost. - It really depends on the fool.  

Simple answer......There is no point.

Art doesn't have to be justified, it just has to be. I, as the artist, don't need a reason to create something. I don't have to have an opinion of my work either; because at the end of the day what I think doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I love it or hate it, because the only opinion that really matters is your's. The viewer. I'm not here to tell you what to think, just to make the cogs start turning and prompt some kind of thought. I would rather you take something meaningful to you personally and for a connection with a piece, than me tell you what you're suppose to think and it mean nothing at all and make no sense.

Art is made in order to express and inspire. Not to dictate and command that specific feelings and ideas are felt.

So, in short;

I am an Artist. This is not just a job, but my life. Art is not free. 

My art is Me. And I am my Art.