Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Marketplace: If This Experiment Works

Do I know those cats?
Do I know those cats?

Parts of this design may look very familiar. If today’s experiment works, then tomorrow I’ll have a remake of something I’ve been trying to work out for years!

"Happy Meow-lo-ween" design.
“Happy Meow-lo-ween” garden flag.

I sold the last of these garden flags earlier this year. I can’t have them printed this way anymore so I’ve been working out other ways to reproduce them. Most of my garden flags would need to be printed in full color, and while I have an idea for those that I’ve been working on, this design and a few others could be printed by stenciling or screen printing.

About this experiment

I had to work out the materials first. The last flags were printed on a polyester “paper” that looked like nylon, printed through a digital machine at one of the printers I worked with. I stitched the rod pocket in the top. Because the old material was already cut to size and didn’t fray easily, I didn’t have to worry about trimming or hemming. It worked well outdoors, for the most part resisting mildew and suffering no damage from rain, ice or snow.

I can purchase cotton and canvas garden and house flag blanks, but I don’t know how well they’d do out in the weather. Nylon seemed like the best choice, but, much as I love these flags and love to sew, I really didn’t want to hem three sides of all those flags. Plus, one of things I didn’t like about the other ones was that they were kind of stiff, and didn’t flutter like other flags. I’d looked up all the colors that sport nylon and rip-stop nylon came in and its availability and decided if I could find purple rip-stop nylon, this project would be on.

But it’s so close to Halloween, I’d have to move fast. Last week while working out a trip to the art supply store, at the end of other errands, I decided to run to JoAnn Fabrics 20 minutes before they closed to see if they had purple nylon, and not only did they have purple rip-stop, but it was the perfect shade of purple and there was a little less than three yards so I could get the end of bolt discount, and then I had a 50% off coupon on top of that. I took all that as a sign that this project had to happen, and I added the appropriate inks to my list along with the materials to make homemade screens with rubylith as I’d described yesterday. Because this design won’t suffer if I don’t have perfectly clear edges all over it was a good candidate for the rubylith technique. There are four colors, which would mean four screens if I were to have them made, but instead I purchased one large screen and put all the parts on that one screen, saving me nearly $100. I worked out the cutting problem with my cutter, and today I adhered the rubylith to the screen.

Jelly Bean checks for open spots and specks.
Jelly Bean checks for open spots and specks.

I have to patch a few open areas, and open a few closed areas, and block off the open spaces between the pieces, then tomorrow I print! If it is successful, I will have these garden flags for sale. If not, then I wasted some money, but as I’d mentioned yesterday, this is how you work things out. Wish me luck!


Marketplace

Jelly Bean is pretty excited about this.

Jelly Bean is pretty excited about this.

Take a look at other new merchandise and featured artwork.

Marketplace is a feature on The Creative Cat to share the latest coming out of my studio with my readers. Once a week on Thursday I feature something new in my “shop”.

Read about creating custom items

Find out more about creating custom items for your own home using the images you see here. Visit the “Ordering Custom Art” page to see samples and read bout how to order.

Find out about events and festivals where you can find me and my work.

Sign up for my e-newsletter (below), check the widget on the sidebar on my home page, or sign up to receive posts on Portraits of Animals Marketplace. I plan on plenty of events this coming summer in the Pittsburgh area.

It’s all done under the close and careful supervision of my studio cats!


Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


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© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

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