Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Snowflakes in September

Dear blog: yes, I hope to update you more frequently.
Sincerely,
Sarah
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Okay, now that we have that out of the way, I got busy working and being exhausted last week. Part of that working was my full time job, which regularly consumes 50 hours of my week (between my actual presence there & my drive). The rest of the 'working' was spent at home in front of the imac and involved snowflakes. Yes, every September I start working on the snowflakes.

I started designing snowflakes about 5 years ago. I'm sure as a child I cut snowflakes out of paper, and in college I started decorating my dorm rooms or apartments with snowflakes (I have hundreds of those plastic snowflakes covered in glitter — every year I go out and buy new snowflake ornaments)... but it was about 5 years ago that I started to seriously design snowflakes. I decided I wanted them to have the traditional 6 arm symmetry. Thus I designed a template that I could design my snowflakes with 6-arm bilateral symmetry on. I use the same template to this day.

I began designing the snowflakes because I decided I was going to sell Christmas cards. And if I was going to sell Christmas cards — I would want them to look like something that I would want to send to people, thus snowflakes.

So, every year about this time it occurs to me that "it's time to make the snowflakes." And every year I design some new snowflakes... and they usually have some kind of general theme. The first year there were lots of peace signs in hearts. The next year there were more hearts and "words." After that it was more traditional themes — like old school Martha Stewart motifs... and last year my thing was swirls. This year may be the year of the deer, at least that what seems to be on my file so far... yeah, I'm not done with this year's crop of new snowflake quite yet. Hey, it's only September.

What I did accomplish last week was designing and consolidating the backgrounds for the snowflake prints I offer for sale on etsy. At the present moment I have 42 different background color choices available (they can be found here). I know, I know, it sounds excessive, but I aim to please. Of course, I also have 66 different snowflakes to choose from. Technically, I suppose that makes 2772 possible different prints...
although I do have at least 2 new snowflakes finished...

Anyway, this is one of the new backgrounds I calibrated this week:

This is "Julia" on seafoam pizzazz
which can be found at "sarahknight" on etsy.

6 comments:

Catherine said...

Well they say each snowflake is different ~ and I am thinking you dear Sarah ~ are out to prove that! Beautiful!!!

xo Catherine

Sueann said...

Wow!! That is amazing!! And I love your snowflake design. Beautiful!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Kerri Farley said...

BEAUTY!!

Frannie said...

You scared me for a moment. I thought you meant....snowing, outside! for real. But with this heat still here in Georgia...a snowflake or two would be nice!

You snowflakes are wonderful. It's quite a process for you to design them. They are very beautiful.

I wish I had more time for art, sewing, blog, etc. I work fulltime too.....sometimes I feel as though I am constantly in motion.

Can't wait to see more of your snowflake designs.
Kindly,
Frannie

Artoholic said...

Your snowflake is lovely - so meditative the design - no beginning or end.

I'm a swirl girl - I even dream about drawing/painting/inscribing them.

Cheers,

Cindy

Kelly said...

wow......very, very cool. I love that snowflake, and I'm impressed you're disciplined enough to start so early on your designs. I make my Christmas cards every year too, but I only make them for family and friends, and I usually start the second week in December (if I'm lucky)! I should take your example, get organized, and get busy now!! ......again....very cool. I can totally see that card sitting on a shelf in Barnes and Nobles waiting for someone to pick up.