Shipping and Order Status Information

"I'm too pretty to work." ~Skelekitty

Hi everyone!  Things are much busier than usual here in my studio, but as usual, Skelekitty is being a lazy bum, moving from sun spot to sun spot without lifting one bony paw to help!  Darned cat.  I've been so overwhelmed with orders for the Help Hank fund that I'm running a little more behind than usual. Mind you, I am NOT complaining!  My heart is absolutely full to bursting with how people have come together for that dog. 

So.  Updates.  I haz dem:

SHIPPING PROCEDURE: 

When I print your mailing label, you will receive a notification e-mail from USPS tracking, however, there is usually some lag time between when I print the label to pack your order and when the package is picked up by my super-awesome mail carrier. When the package actually goes out the door, you will receive an e-mail from ArtFire* saying that your package shipped, and one with your shipping confirmation number again. Oh, and shipping on original art and pendants ALWAYS includes insurance, so if you have any difficulty with your package, we've got it covered. 

* if your order ships in separate packages, you will received the ArtFire "shipped" confirmation only after all items have shipped.

ORDER UPDATES:

Prints:  All prints in orders placed before December first have been packed & shipped, and USPS Track & Confirm notices have been sent.  These shipments include orders for prints placed with jewelry or original art (prints and jewelry/small art ordered together always ship separately because of the different shapes and sizes).  Print orders placed after 12/1 will ship later this week - probably Thursday, maybe earlier if I stay focused!

Jewelry:  Turnaround time for jewelry orders is usually 7-14 days.  Yep, it takes that long for me to make them since they involve lots of little steps with 12-hour drying times in between.  With the increased number of orders (and my aforementioned alter ego being a bum), I'm estimating a minimum of 14 days for jewelry now, just to be on the safe side.  Anyway, since the prints are out the door, I am spending today working on finishing up earring and pendant orders and making some extras for the show Allyson and I are doing on the 10th in Sacramento.

My sincere apologies for the extra wait time.  All orders already placed WILL be to you well before Christmas!  I promise.  And if anyone has some extra elves they want to send my way, I wouldn't refuse 'em!

Do you have a question that wasn't answered in this post?  The fastest way to get a response is to e-mail krissisandvik@gmail.com.  Facebook posts/tags/PMs, ArtFire messages and other contact methods are hit and miss at best.

Thank you again for the awesome response to the Help Hank fund!  I do still have some in-stock and ready to ship pendants, so if you're in a hurry for a gift, check 'em out.  More will be added on December 11th.

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You Have Been Warned

In all seriousness, I'm "feeling" this sign lately since I've been suffering from self-imposed exile in my studio while I work furiously to finish some commissions I took for the holidays. I reiterate that the exile (and subsequent absence of a real blog post) is self-imposed as I try to bring in as much cash as possible to build up the "Skelekitty Tee Shirt Startup Fund" we're working on over here. Yes, I know you all want a tee shirt! I'm painting as fast as I can (now go buy some prints while they're on sale 2fer one).

In other news, Abby has fallen prey to some mysterious toe malady and is going under the knife tomorrow morning. Hopefully, it's just something jammed in there next to her little doggie toenail which hasn't responded to antibiotics and hot epsom salt soaks. If not... well, I understand that even Jack Russells can live full and speedy lives with three toes on one of their front feet. Meanwhile, she's in good spirits and the funkiness that has afflicted said toe is in a place where it hasn't impeded her running any (dog park patrons beware).   I'll keep you all updated as we discover more.

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DVM-365: A New Beginning

Remember the DaVinci Mode Challenge I wrote about last month? Stacy "The Craft Whore" McQueen started that facebook challenge in April (on Leonardo's birthday) and, out of the 50+/- creatively good-intentioned folks who signed up, a handful and a half of us completed the full 30-day challenge. A few of us even wanted to keep going!

Today, Stacy set up the DaVinci Mode 365 Challenge and restarted our clock-o-creativity. I did have a tiny mental block at starting over at day one again, but when you're looking at the difference between 365 days and 330 or so... Yeah.

Today, I had planned to start work on the class sample for the layering techniques class I'm teaching next month at the Santa Clarita Craft Lab in So. Cal, BUT I walked into my studio this morning to discover that my sweet little dog wasn't feeling so great this morning and left me a "present." Therefore, my new day one was, appropriately, spent rediscovering my studio surfaces (starting with my floor), layer by layer. Tomorrow the work surfaces will get the same clearing/organization/cleaning treatment ("after" photo will be taken at that time).

I didn't take a "before" photo today, but just imagine this with a little stinky pile of dog poo under my chair (and a really sad looking doggy next to it).


(clicky click for amusing notes)

I'll do my best to post here every few days at least. Wish me well!

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In Wonderland

More progress
Originally uploaded by Skelekitty (Krissi Sandvik)

I've been working on a new painting for the last few days that is NOT Skelekitty. This piece is called "Painting the Roses Red" and is my submission for the "Alice in Wonkaland" call for artists. The show will be in July in So. Cal., so keep your eyes (and RSS feeds) open for more info. Even if my piece isn't accepted (sniffle), I'll post about this amazing and super way cool "Alice meets Willie Wonka" show!

clickie click on the photo for a few notes about what's on the painting and my art table....

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It's More of an "Explanation" Than an "Excuse"

I can never find ANYTHING.

My studio this morning:





Get more details by pointy-pointy and clicky-clicky on the photos.

I'm afraid to go back down there.

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"This is ME expressing MYself!"

I went to my hubby's office yesterday to hang his newly commissioned walking eye! painting (along with a Skelekitty quilt that he has on loan until October).




I have to tell you just how fun it was to walk past all the security cameras into a Fortune 500 company with my pink hair, covered in paint, wearing my overalls and carrying more weird art for his office (he's a Director, too!). How fun? Too fun.

I also hung an "ElderBot" (complete with glow-in-the-dark paint) painting by C!nder that Ron's had for a while:


This is the piece by Nicolas Caesar that started it all:


Oddly enough, immediately following Ron's acquisition of this remarkable painting, a memo went out that all art hung in offices needed to be "professional." Our answer: we ARE professionals. Lucky for him (and me too, since his income buys the kitty (and Krissi) kibble), we have different last names, so I don't get him into too much trouble just by being me.

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Craft Storage (IKEA)

Did you know that fabric and crafting supplies are actually gaseous substances which expand to fit the available space? Of course you did.

I opened my link to one of my new favorite blogs, Craft Critique, earlier this week to find a post on Ikea for Craft Storage. I love this site because the reviews are clear and informative and, once again, they don't disappoint. Lexy Daly gives two great reviews on IKEA's Helmer and Alex workspace storage cabinets with measurements, prices, pros, cons and much more.

It just got me to thinking about my own storage ... umm ... struggles. I've been using the EXPEDIT system from IKEA and really love it, especially now that they have the door and drawer inserts available.

I started off with a 4x4 for my fabrics and light box/projector, etc.:





added a 2x4 (with KASSETT boxes):


and now I have a new 5x5 (!) that I installed:


I actually have the drawers in the 5x5 cabinet, but not the new cabinet doors. Slowly, things are being put AWAY! Once I finish, I'll take a photo for posterity (since it's unlikely it will be in a clean-enough-to-photograph state again).

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Up the garden path

Remember my 'farmer's workout' from a couple of weeks back? Here are a few photos of the construction of the brick pathway from our patio to the macaw's aviary. I finally finished so I've posted some photos of the final results:


I first had to dig (pickax) down an inch or two into Folsom soil (read as "granite, clay and mining tailings that my tortoise can't even burrow into"), lay a bed of sand, tamp it down, level it, then ...



break bricks


lay the bricks


edge with river rocks (swiped from up against the back fence where I couldn't admire them)


add joiner sand, about 6 cubic yards of soil, another row of rock, two pots, my beloved English clay hedgehog (Spiny Norman) and about 60 marigold plants. All that I had to do after that was sit back with a well deserved lemonade (yeah, it's sugar-free of course).

My hubby was good enough to pretty much stay out of my way and make several runs to OSH for sand, soil and flowers. I'm quite proud of this little project, if I do say so myself.

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Collage Contessa: Studio Organizing Tips

Here's a little goodness from one of my Twitter-pated pals, the Collage Contessa: Studio Organizing Tips. There are tips here to please everyone from the type A clean-freaks (yeah, I meant freaks) to those like me: messy girls. Many photos. An all around GREAT read.

My tip (and personal failure) - put stuff away when you're done with it.

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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Studio, Part 2)

The Good.

So far, I've been able to organize MOST of my half-yard and under cotton "blender" fabrics by color:


AND I've gotten my large-but-light supplies all packaged up and away, but easily accessible:



The Bad.

Yeah. Need to fold and organize this better:


I got started here,

but I'm a little overwhelmed by:


The Ugly.

Three of the five bins of fabric I need to go through:

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New & Bigger Studio / Work Space for 2008

Following in the footsteps of wonderful friends and fellow craftistas, Kathy Cano-Murillo (Crafty Chica) and Yoli Manzo (Sacred Snatch), I open my workspace (the part that isn't scattered throughout the house) to you - in all of its imperfect glory.

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When Ron and I purchased our home in 2000, we never thought we'd outgrow it! We have no children, but purchased a 3 bedroom home, thus allowing us to have a spacious home office and a dedicated guest room for friends and family.

HA!

Since that Spring day almost eight years ago, we've acquired a lot of stuff - the necessary tools of homeownership: a collection of saws, workbenches, potting benches and yard tools, including a lawnmower and a shop vac; too much furniture (we should have avoided the desire to furnish all at once); more animals: two re-homed macaws and their huge-ass cage and outdoor aviary, and a re-homed king snake with his 6' wide enclosure; and a home art business with enough fabric to open up my own shop.

Just a couple of years later, I was laid off (good job, awful people) and decided I'd do two things: 1) volunteer with animals, and 2) get myself an el cheapo sewing machine and finally learn to do this sewing thing right. At that point, I did most of my work in the classes I was taking and didn't have a "stash" to speak of. So I started out sharing the "guest" room, which we had decorated with fun stuff we found on our biennial Southwest driving trips. I discovered the wonders of pre-colored plaster and purchased some in terracotta and butter colors and went to work eradicating the orange peel textured walls. I bricked the floor with pavers (we've since removed them and Pergoed the whole house). We got rid of the bed and got an inflatable one that we could store for 11 or so months out of the year.



As the years went on, I was learning just about everything I could, starting with garment construction & pattern customization, and then quilting. Pretty soon, my $99 machine was making me nuts, and I splurged on a Janome Memory Craft 4800QC (quilter's companion), which I still love and bicker with regularly. Thanks to some awesome mentors and instructors, I began experimenting with fused art quilts and threadpainting. It didn't take long before Ron and I gave up the idea of even having space for guests on a temporary basis.


Fast forward to 2006 and 2007 when I started exhibiting and selling, and when my fabric stash of prints, hand dyes, batiks and silks reached critical mass and my tools and "toys" were spilling out into the hallway and office ... and bedroom ... and downstairs ....


It was time to relocate. Thanksgiving weekend 2007 was D-Day and I had to be out of my old studio FAST because I was trading spaces with ... our birds! It was not an option to NOT have a sleep cage assembled and ready for use by nightfall, so everything sort of got tossed into plastic storage bins and carried downstairs and out of the way. (Yes, we carried that big-ass bird cage up a flight of stairs. A good reason to powerlift at the gym.)

I made a trip or two to IKEA, thinking that one of their huge storage-shelf-wall-unit thingies with the new drawer/door inserts would be enough to hold my fabric stash.

(Yet another reason for the powerlifting.)

Not even close. I have given away quite a bit to Evie for catnip kitty quilt mats and dog toys, and I still have SIX large storage bins packed with "extra" fabric, and I don't even know what it was for! I have promised Evie's mom, Gale, a "Supermarket Sweep" day with my Asian prints, though, which should bring me down to five bins located in various rooms throughout the house.

Anyway, here is where I stand (it doesn't look nearly as bad as it actually is 'cause most of the mess is still unsorted in bins...):


As soon as Ron and I recover from the plague that's been going around this year, we'll be moving my cutting/setting table (out of our bedroom) into my space. I'm taking that china cabinet apart and moving it into our dining "room" (nook would be more appropriate) and heading back to IKEA for some open shelves for small supplies I use a lot and don't mind being out in the open like glues, brushes, jars of thread scraps and glitters. Oh yeah, and art too! I'll also use some of that wall space to hang my ironing board when I'm not using it.

Now if I could just figure out a way to kitten-proof an open floorspace like this (yeah. not happening.)

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