Tag Archives: SFZineFest

New Postings, Happenings & Upcomings

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Hello Friends!

It’s a Friday and I’m at home! I renewed my health insurance today (yay health insurance)! The sun is shining in the Mission and my boyfriend has promised to make his amazing enchiladas tonight. Things are good! Things are BUSY…

I have lots of new postings, happenings and upcomings in my life that I’m very excited about.

ODC Dance has hired me to be the wardrobe head for their annual holiday show, The Velveteen Rabbit. It’s a big, lovely show with lots of intricate costumes, and I’m so excited to be apart of it! What will I be doing? Inventory of costumes, fittings with dancers, overseeing any repairs and alterations, loading in and out of the YBCA, and making sure everything goes smoothly when it comes to costumes at every live performance!

I’ll also be starting the costume work for Lick-Wilmerding High School’s winter dance concert next week. This will be my 3rd concert with them! I always love working with their enthusiastic dance students.

Today, I added 2 new HellaScarves to my Etsy shop: ronddejambe! Please say hello to Raw White

& Sea Creatures

Mmmmm… fancy!

Next week, on this blog I’ll be starting a new series featuring an interview / zine project I did this summer about successful artists. This zine series premiered at this year’s SF Zine Fest, and I can’t wait to finally show it online, too.

I’m continuing my fascination with color research, I bring you shades of…

Sea Foam Green

On Etsy & On Pinterest

Lastly, I’ve added a portfolios and galleries page to this website, where I’ll be featuring photography of myself and my work. These pages are still under construction, but I’ll let you know as things progress.

Enjoy! And Happy Halloween weekend!

- LB

bits of Aug & Sept

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Dear friends,

I like to pretend I’m a photographer. I like photography and taking pictures. I’m not really a photographer, but for some reason, someone thought it would be okay if I had regular access to a camera.

Sometimes things just strike me and I have to capture them. Then, when I dump my camera’s guts onto my computer (a messy business), I end up with random bits that don’t belong to a specific event or time or place.

So here you go, some extra photography bits that I like from this August & September. Now that I look at them laid out like this, it reads kind of like a poem… Enjoy!

(click on pics to enlarge)

baby basil

pre-SF Zine Fest prep

color bundles

a lot of coffee, ready to be iced

(for our 1 week of summer)

(don’t worry coffee snobs, it was the pour-over method, but more than one round)

artichoke – who knew your insides were so beautiful?

—–

In other news, I’ve become obsessed with finding perfect shades of the color

Olive Green

On Pinterest & On Etsy

I’m thinking of doing more color-centric boards and treasuries like these. More on Sea-foam Green soon.

Thank you,

LB

Goodbye, Crazy June, Lazy June

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June has been an intense month!

One big change up was saying, fondly, gratefully, “goodbye!” to the cafe at House of Air and, breathlessly, excitedly, “hello!” to Coffee Bar. Working both jobs was a bit of a trick, and I’m happy to now be exclusive with the lovely CB. I’m so pumped to be apart of their barista staff.

A big highlight of the month was participating in Hecho Local, a new arts fair that has sprung up in the Mission district at SubMission arts space. It was amazing to be apart of the first round and I’m looking forward to be apart of its growth. Here are some doodles and pictures from the event:

 

Psst! I hear there’s gonna be another Hecho Local in August! Sadly, I will not be there, but GO ANYWAY!

Today is the last day of the online event, 30 days of creativity! This was a great event. It was so much fun to keep track of my creative ways and to see others who embraced the month’s goal. Please, check out my board on Pinterest: This is where I showcased what I did everyday this month.

Happily, I finally got a few days off in a row this week. I was able to catch up on important things like sleep, emails, manga, and doodling. It looked a lot like this…

And this…

What’s coming up? An indie film shoot, the Hot August Tour of CO & KS, and SFZineFest 2011 (oh yeah, we’re gonna be there)!!!

It’s nice to win things!

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I can’t believe 3 weeks have flown by since the SF ZineFest! It seems like it was yesterday. Part of that feeling is probably because SF really is a “little city, big town” and people I met at ZineFest I’ve seen around (like Ms. Stephanie of nerdJERK at the J-Pop Summit at Japantown a couple weeks ago) or who are lovely and keep in touch – like this fun story I have about the wonderful folks of Beasts of Eden.

Tia and Julia had a sweet little table at ZineFest and I definitely visited them a couple of times. Their whimsical flowers and playful animals are so colorful and touchable. I am in love with their giant squid! We did a trade and they also had the great idea to do a drawing to promote the opening of their Etsy shop and their website. I put my business card in their knitted venus fly trap friend’s mouth, and low and behold – a couple weeks later I got an email saying I had won! You can even see the drawing video on the Beasts of Eden website. I got to pick out an item from their Etsy shop for my very own.

When it arrived, I did a little photo shoot to celebrate. I think I’m going to name him Herb. He is bright pink, pose-able, came with a beautiful postcard from the makers, and has joined my tiny pink elephant parade!

Thanks Julia & Tia // Beasts of Eden! <3

SFZine Fest 2010

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A week later, I’m finally recovered enough to do this post…

Last week, my BFF from CO and DIY/zinester counterpart, MQ, came out to San Francisco. We had a lovely time eating various forms of deliciousness in the Mission, shopping on Valencia, going to the beach (It’s a big deal to girls from Colorado!), hanging out in the Haight, and of course, assembling our zines and other materials for the 2010 SF Zine Fest.

I really think this year was our best festival ever. We featured 3 artists from CO: MQ, Adan Delagara, and Kelly of shortandqueer. From CA we had myself and KokoroKara. We had the most cohesive table display we’ve ever assembled, we sold more than ever before, and we had nothing but positive experiences and interactions with other exhibitors and attendees all weekend. Utterly fantastic. Lots of friends came to support and check out the festival. And of course, I walked away with a huge stack of zines and art that will keep me busy for many weeks.

I’m really proud of my and MQ’s new zines. I created a collection of 10 years of my poetry titled “Pop Tarts and Really Good Beer” and my first comic zine, “The Adventures of Kitty & Monkey.” Both will be on sale on my Etsy shop in the next week. MQ’s new zine, “The People We Might Be” featured 3 new essays that connect to mysterious photos from her grandmother’s collection. MQ is an amazing writer and as usual, I was moved by her essays. My favorite was definitely the one about her boyfriend and his gun collection!

What did we learn this year at the Zine Fest?

Finances: We did a lot better this year managing our finances and keeping track of our inventory (I’m happy to report that everyone got paid!) but next year I’d like to have an actual cash box that can lock. That would help soooo much – no more digging around in envelopes for change!

Pricing: I really struggle with knowing how to price my stuff. I’ve been dealing with this on Etsy, as well. MQ and I discussed this a lot – how do you balance the hours you put in both designing and creating, the materials you use, and predicting what people will actually pay for something? I think my break through moment with this was when MQ put it simply – “Is this in my budget range? Would I be able to buy this?” Instead of pricing for some phantom “rich folks,” I should just price for someone like me and make my work affordable and accessible.

Self-promo: I’m really bad at talking up my own stuff, but great at promoting my friends’! Why is this? MQ agreed – so we’d talk up each others’ work a ton AND try to be better about promoting our own stuff.

Customers: I took note of what people were drawn to on our table. Bold lines and colors are an obvious choice, but it was interesting how people automatically went for the zine with the thick, touchable, textured paper. Materials really do make a difference.

Above all, I don’t know what I’d do without MQ! A table buddy makes life so much easier. You have someone to talk to when there’s a lag or when exhaustion sets in, someone to double check the inventory while you chat up customers, someone to watch the table if you need a break, and one of you can go get coffee/lunch/walk around the festival!

We declared this year’s SFZF a total success and we can’t wait for next year! MQ’s visit made me ridiculously happy and I can’t wait to see her again soon.

Right now I’m focusing on my Etsy inventory and catching up on projects. Onwards and upwards, friends!

And lastly, the tip of the iceberg…

Some favorite folks we ran into!

Amy Martin

nerd Jerk

Everybody Get Up

Doctor Popular

Some new favorites!

Mary Van Note

Malachi Ward

Elle Skinner

Agent Agnes

There were so many more… Yay Zine Fest!

Oh geez, SFZF is only 3 weeks away!!!

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In 3 glorious weeks, my BFF from CO, the righteous MQ, will be in SF and we will be getting our DIY on at the SFZF or San Francisco Zine Fest (that’s a lot of initials/acronyms in one sentence)! And this weekend felt like a Zine Fest preview weekend for me.

Yesterday, Saturday, I took a walk and checked out the Market SF artist fair at the Blue Macaw in the Mission and met some lovely artists. Melinda Mae and I gushed about how much we love the physical textures of fabrics and how we can’t resist touching them! We also discussed the best places to buy fabrics (Japan & NYC are at the top of the list, just in case you’re curious. I learned later that LA is also great). I really wish I could buy Melinda’s handbags – they’re so beautiful! Hopefully one day soon.

I also lusted after Creek Van Houten’s amazing steampunk jewelry and trinkets. Leyna Lightman gave me a cookie and told me about dyeing lace and the lace she bought in Turkey. I bought fun envelopes from Meleta Buckstaff and I LOVE her bracelet cuffs made from old men’s ties. Brilliant! I didn’t get to talk with them, but I really liked Monkey and Seal’s crafts too! Lastly, I spent a long time talking with Stephanie Cortes of nerdJerk whose blog I’ve just started to read, but whom I already have an ENORMOUS craft crush on. She’s also a member of the SF Bay Area Etsy Street Team. I bought her zine and she gave me a button. Huzzah! There were lots of other lovely artists at the fair, but unfortunately I didn’t get to talk with them all.

Today, Sunday, I took an early morning bike ride through the Mission to Ocean Beach. On the way back through Golden Gate Park, I stopped at the County Fair Building (the same venue as the SFZF) and checked out the Vintage Paper Expo. I had no idea people were so hardcore about vintage paper goods! I’ve also never seen so many boxes of postcards in one place. In order not to get overwhelmed/spend any money I didn’t spend a ton of time there, but I looked lots and I did buy a couple vintage postcards for friends. I want to save my pennies and hopefully buy some original, turn of the century fashion plates next year!

And to top it all off, I visited a friend who went to Comic Con in San Diego this year and brought back a little present for me – a signed copy of Amy Martin’s The Girls are Mighty Fine, which I was planning on buying at SFZF! Oh, glory!

So I’m all inspired and close to getting my own projects finished for the SFZF in a few short weeks! I’m putting out a collection of 10 years of my poetry, and my first ever comic book! I couldn’t be more excited. I’m also stoked to work on my Etsy shop and make it better.

Don’t forget, kids! Come to the San Francisco Zine Fest! Sept. 4 & 5 at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park!