all things girls can tell

fourth fourth!

(photo by james w. simmons)

it's the fourth fourth of july that i find myself in philadelphia. there are lots of fun things (did you know they actually ring the liberty bell once a year?) that happen here on this weekend every year (well, when everything isn't rained out), but there's been a moment each year that i get a little nostalgic for my favorite place to spend the fourth, monticello.

in case you're not a giant thomas jefferson nerd (i am, i admit it), monticello is the home that TJ designed for himself, just outside of charlottesville. each year, they have a naturalization / citizenship ceremony, with an amazing speaker who isn't a native-born american but chose to become american. it's pretty moving, (even if you're not usually a super patriotic person). during my time as a tour guide there (i told you i was a jefferson nerd), i got to see im pei and frank mccourt speak, and both were pretty amazing. it just kind of felt how i think the fourth of july is supposed to feel.

no matter how or where you're celebrating this weekend, enjoy! xo!

i like philly.

lately i've been thinking a lot about how much i really, really like philly.

gophila.com, our tourism board, recently put out a really cute new series of ads for the city, and the whole thing almost makes me wish i didn't live here, so that i could come and visit and it would all be new and even more amazing again. i'd been thinking a lot about the two sides to every city (then i read this article, which is basically about exactly that feeling but in boston - although i'm not about to hop onto any duck boat tours anytime soon.) i think some of my goals for the summer will be to stop putting off all the things i love doing when the weather's nice here.

so what are these things i love doing here in the summer?

• dibruno brothers cheese picnics in rittenhouse square.
• riding my bike on kelly drive.
• phillies games. (two words: helmet. sundaes.)
• going up to the middle of the ben franklin bridge and watching boats.
• walking up east passyunk ave. 
• byob's. (tonight we're actually heading to meme for cute erik's birthday! yay!)
• farmer's markets.
• thursday movie nights at penn's landing. 
• putting my PMA membership to good use.

little red string.

(photo by jeff reeder)

so there's this installation of amazing tiny lanterns in an otherwise kind of dank tunnel right across the street from our studio. i'd wondered its story since we rented the space, and kept worrying it would vanish mysteriously before i got to take a proper photo of it. then my studiomate, kate, solved the whole thing this morning with an email.

Stop by and revel in an evening of music, food, and community with the Asian Arts Initiative to celebrate the final evening of "the little red string" installation by artists Jonathan and Kimberly Stemler:

WHEN: Monday, July 6, 7-9 p.m.

WHERE: Carlton Street between 11th & 12th Streets, Chinatown (north of Vine, south of Callowhill)

WHAT: Visually suggesting stars and constellations, "the little red string" lanterns beneath a dark viaduct light the way for the community's expansion in Chinatown North. Each of the lanterns are inscribed with personal stories from community members describing their connection with the night sky in their respective homelands and traditions.

Before the artists remove the lanterns the following day, this is the last chance to enjoy the beauty that they have brought to the neighborhood!

so, i'll be out there this week at some point, trying to capture at least a few photos of this really exquisite little installation before it's gone forever. if you're in philly, i highly recommend coming by to peek at it before next tuesday (and you can also send me a twitter message if you're in the neighborhood and want to grab a snack at reading terminal or see our little studio space!)

you have to make it your own.

i'll admit from the start that this post is, as it's not rare that my posts are, inspired by a recent post by seth godin. he's nothing if not articulate, usually makes good points and always churns cogs of the thought machine in my head (a very good thing, right?).

this find your voice post jumped out at me in a big way because it hits right at what bothers me about many of the "tips" and "tricks" for marketing that are often fancied about and aimed directly at the handmade business crowd. i'll let you in on a big, important secret: there are no successful one size fits all approaches to marketing a business, especially a business that should be relying on its individuality, creativity and the things that make it different to succeed.

let's examine some of why not everything works for everyone. if you hate blogging, odds are this will become obvious if you try blogging as a marketing technique. if you find twitter's not your thing, you probably won't find much success with that, either. and taking out ads on blogs and websites just because it's cheap or it's a site you (but not your audience) visit everyday might not be the best option for your business.

the only thing that works is to consider these three things and how they best fit together (and the results will be different for each and every handmade business) to do something useful, genuine and visible:

1. consider what you made, do or provide: what are you in the business of? (ie, i make hand printed housewares featuring diagrams of everyday items). 
2. what are you good at? (i might say talking to strangers has always been a talent of mine, for example).
3. who are your customers and what do they want? (my customers are thoughtful people who appreciate clever design and things that make them think).

i know this is easier said than done, but the only way to successfully market your handmade business is to connect these three things in a way that works for you.

for girlscantell, i use a couple different techniques to communicate on different levels with the strangers (well, future friends, right?) that like my work - i offer an email list and birthday club as opt-in ways to hear about what's new in the shop. i blog (hi!) about a wide range of things, ideally to start conversations on topics that make me think. then i twitter to interact with people (it's just fun) and post photos to flickr often to be visible.

each of these tools make use of my oddball ability to strike a conversation with pretty much any random person (a characteristic i definitely got from my dad). i feature my unique handprinted items as appropriate, and make them easily available and accessible, but it's all also interesting enough to catch (and hopefully maintain) the interest of people who want more than to just be advertised at (at least that's the idea).

am i suggesting you do things exactly the same way i do? hell no. please don't. really. because you have either a different voice, different talents, different products or a different audience. or all of the above. jcasa has her lovely, inspiring life via her blog. yokoo takes photos that make you look twice. consider what works for you. and then work it. 

(and please feel free to post more examples of businesses you love marketing in extraordinary ways in the comments below!)

announcing birthday club!

since cute erik's birthday is quickly approaching (it's the first of july, and i've learned that birthdays on the first of the month really sneak up on you - it sounds all far away, but really it's in like two weeks!) i've been doing something thinking about birthdays lately. everyone loves a birthday, right?

yes.

and so it's with intense glee that i present to you girlscantell birthday club! yay!

why should you bother filling out that tiny, super quick and easy little form to let me know your birthday? well, let me tell you all. as a member of birthday club:

• you'll be the coolest kid on your block
• you're enrolled on the girlscantell love letter list (no spam. ever. pinky swear.)
• you'll also receive a superfun birthday greeting (in case your other friends forget.)
• and, of course, you get extra-great discounts, like 20% off your purchase or free shipping for the entire month of your birthday. that's right - 31 days (well, sometimes 30 and only 28 if you're born in february, sorry) of girlscantell promotions for the entire month of your birthday. you could do all your gift buying in a matter of weeks and be set for the year! whoa!
• if you refer a friend to be a member, you get a free pocket moleskine notebook with your next order. just as a thank you. because you're lovely.

so what are you waiting for? here's the link again, and i can't wait to wish you a happy, happy birthday!

philadelphia: second street | popped festival: saturday!

philadelphia! i have just one more awesome event for you to attend (and then you're off the hook, but only until the holidays).

if you're in and about the city this weekend, be sure to stop by the second street festival in northern liberties. they just posted the world's most tiniest vendor map. after a lot of squinting, it seems you'll find my booth on the 700 block of north second st., about a half block north of the 700 club, on the opposite side of the street. from what i can make out (am i the only one having trouble reading this thing?), the vendor list looks great and there are like a bazillion things going on and associated with the festival. and i hear there will be not just one but multiple beer gardens. who doesn't like that? i'll be there all day, from 11-8pm, so there's no good excuse not to be there. yep.

so. fingers crossed that the rain finishes up before the weekend, and i look forward to saying hi to each and every one of you on saturday. yay!

make a registry that is so much radder.

many times when people buy girlscantell goodies, they tell me about who they're buying for - it's almost always a gift. which makes me unbelievably happy - my screenprinted housewares and useful items make super great gifts and it usually sounds like the lucky recipient will be pleased with what they're getting.

last night i was thinking about the lovely people who tell me they like the things i make and how they could go about letting people know that they'd love to receive girlscantell goodies on their next birthday, housewarming, etc. and so it's for you, nice people, that i thought i'd jot down some simple, great ways to let people know you want diagrammy housewares (and no substitutes will do).

here are a couple ways you can go about publicly declaring your love and want of items that aren't from big box stores:

• we all know etsy has some of the most covetable items ever made. you can also mark items as a favorite on etsy (the button's in the lower right-hand corner). 
• if you find your normal etsy account just has too much stuff marked as a favorite and no matter how much you wish for it, they haven't made a way for you to organize favorites yet, then consider opening another account just for the purpose of making the best wish list ever.
• you can use these etsy wish lists of favorites to post the items on your blog, facebook page or other websites. the more places you post it, the more likely you are to receive all that amazing stuff, right? (are you a typepad user? here's a tutorial i wrote for typepad about posting an etsy mini to a typepad blog.)
• at supermarkethq, if the item is on supermarkethq, you can mark it a favorite. these become a publicly viewable list of awesome - you can see mine here.
• whether you're making the wishlist for a specific event or occasion, or you just want to have one handy in case someone offers to buy you a gift, you'll probably think a social shopping site like wists.com is pretty fun. you can aggregate all your favorite items from all over the web into one easy list here. browsing through, you'll see lots of other people have probably already bookmarked some of your favorite designers' things there. 
• if you're looking for something a little more official, myregistry.com totally lets you put the requisite target / pottery barn / macys registry stuff on your list, but you can also make your list so much radder by including unique handmade items.
• since you probably already have an amazon account (and therefore, if you're like me, a hefty amazon wishlist), you may want to investigate the amazon universal wishlist. you simply install a widget into your browser, and you can add items from any corner of the internet (including, ahem, girlscantell) to your amazon wishlist, which you can then email to anyone or link from anywhere. amazing!

upcycling is the new buzz word.

i got to the architecture school at UVa just one year after bill mcdonough (aka "the green dean") stepped down (and the lovely karen vanlangen was stepping up). though no longer part of the faculty, mcdonough made his requisite stops in to the school from time to time, giving special lectures and we all read cradle to cradle. at least once.

so years later, whenever i read articles using one of the "green revolution"'s favorite buzzwords - upcycling! - i tend to cringe. like many words that people are too lazy to truly understand before they just toss it about to sound like they know much more than they do, people misuse the word upcycling all the time. it's normally not in some terrible, awful, misintentioned way and usually they're pretty close - the phrase upcycling seems like you should know what it means - we all grew up learning the virtues of the three R's. but it's important to remember that upcycle is not merely a synonym for recycle. they're both amazingly great practices, but different in their intention and what they accomplish.

upcycling is about raising the use of an item, taking something that was used and about to be disposed and making it inherently more useful or valuable than it was originally intended to be. for example, taking a one-time-use plastic disposable drinking cup and making it into a light fixture would be upcycling. the original life of the cup was about 20 minutes of usefulness. the light not only saves the cup from ending up in a landfill, but makes it more useful than it was.  simply using the cup as a cup again would be reusing the cup, and melting it down to form a new plastic cup would be recycling.

there are ways of sprucing up old items to make them look fresh or new again. making a pair of shorts from a pair of jeans isn't so much upcycling as just altering a pair of pants - the shorts aren't more useful than the jeans. the use of the pants barely changed. painting a vintage suitcase may produce beautiful results, but you're hardly making the suitcase more useful - it's still a suitcase (albeit probably a slightly nicer looking one).  doing these things is ecologically great because it can cut down on the need for new items, but let's call a spade a spade.

fashioning a lamp from a new box of paper clips (as i found when i was searching for pendant lighting for my studio) is not recycling or upcycling. if you're taking new, unused materials and making something other than its original use with them, i hate to break it to you, but you're not saving the earth. you're being creative (and, in all seriousness, good work for at least that! creativity can be its own reward) but buying something and using it for a single use is not recycling or upcycling.

it's great to consider how your business affects the environment and to make changes accordingly to minimalize your impact. but throwing around buzzwords to impress people when you don't actually know what you're talking about will undoubtedly make you look foolish. do your homework and don't carelessly toss about buzzwords just because they're hot right now. if you've ever described an aspect of your process or small business as "eco friendly" or "upcycled" or if you write a blog or own a store that calls itself off as "green", do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of cradle to cradle right now, and actually read it.

**the photo above is the countertop in the kitchen at my 120 year old rowhouse. it's paperstone, made from 100% post consumer recycled paper in a cold-process resin. this is upcycling at its best (if only it had been locally produced...)

win girlscantell coasters from nerdlike.com!

when nerdlike.com asked if i'd like to partner up with them for a coaster giveaway a few weeks ago, i was pretty excited. to enter, leave a comment about your favorite girlscantell diagram on the nerdlike blog.

this week, check back for my review of the 4 hour work week for artists and handmakers, as well as a how-to on appealing design. if you haven't stopped by yet, don't forget to check out the new portfolio design on trunkt.org. and a big thank you to the sweet members of boston handmade for a lovely blog award. so nice! xo!

hello and introducing weekly specials!

hello, blog. i missed you.

i wanted to pop in and give a warm hello since it's been a while! (no pun intended, as summer has finally found us here in philadelphia, and it's been a toasty couple of days in the studio this week). things have been really busy in a good way lately, as i've been following up on your fantastic leads from this post a few weeks ago - which also means lots of printing. the recommendations have been fantastic, so keep your shop suggestions coming!  and, of course, girlscantell has been making the craft show rounds lately, and this weekend is no expection. if you're in philadelphia, come find me at art for the cash poor on sunday!

i also have some exciting news! starting tonight, there is now a "weekly specials" section in my supermarket and etsy shops - you'll find a fresh pick of items each week at 20% off, and bonus free shipping on your entire order when you buy one of these items from my etsy shop.

this week's inaugural weekly specials are three of my personal favorites:


cuckoo clock oven mitt: $9.60 this week!


canning diagram tote for foodies: $16 this week!


anatomical broken heart coasters: $11.20 this week!

enjoy!
xo!