Tuesday, May 16, 2000

RETAIL | GENERAL ART
I'm into my shopping links, obviously. So here we are:

I-Craft.Com is kinda nifty. It's got a lot of craft-type projects for kids and seniors, and links to buy stuff. Gotta love that.

Similar, but not quite, Craftopia.com (no relation to petopia.com and that damned sock puppet), has stuff for ceramics, sewing, stamps and stationery, jewelry, paints, and a library of stuff. Of course, they also have a magazine, so that's kind of what they're hawking.

This is exciting! Discount School Supply actually has a marbling kit for paper or fabric that retails for $8.99. I can't tell you on the shipping because I don't actually know -- but I may pick up that marbling kit one of these days.

CraftCoupons.com has a ton of penny-saving stuff. Hey -- it adds up.

CraftProducts.com is a site of close-outs, promos, catalogs, projects, and an auction on stuff. Pretty great -- check it first before paying full price.

I know I've mentioned this place, like, ten times or something, but Turtle Press just kicks ass. You will -not- walk away empty-handed.

I get all my back issues of Somerset Studio from Erica's, which charges way, way too much for shipping, but that's okay. You can get back issues, and that's pretty cool.

Talas, in New York City, has some kind of interesting things. Pigments, inks, dyes, bookbinding stuff, fibers -- it's like the Sears Toy Catalogue at Christmastime for me as an adult.

Then there's Keyhole Arts, which not only sells rubber stamps, but also *shiver of glee* has a lot of pictures from THE STUDIO magazine, which I HAVE to get sometime soon. Have to. Moral imperative.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

RETAIL SUPPLY | PAPER SPECIFIC
Even if you'll never buy anything, these are great places to just sit and dream about winning the lottery...

Lick N' Stick is a really great thing for artistamp artists -- put it on the back, let it dry, and voila -- instant lick and stick stamps. Can't get much better than that.

the PAPERweb sells stuff like book arts papers, calligraphy and decorative papers, printmaking and inkjet stuf....just EVERYTHING. Where's my millions?

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers (that's not even easy to -type-, sheesh.). They've got vellums and all kinds of neat-o papers. Under "supplies", they also have collage paks. Talk about dreamy...

Twinrocker papers sells not only papers that are ready to use, but also papermaking supplies. That way, if you can't find it here, you can make your own. Not that I think that'll happen. Yowza -- lotsa stuff here.

I have heard people RAVE about FLAX San Francisco. The paper catalog seems to be a little bit pricey with shipping and handling, but man, I barely care. Really gorgeous stuff, including chiyogami.

Marco's Paper has all kinds of things -- including paper samples, like the one above. Anything that gives me free samples is more likely to get my business, so even though this site quite literally hurts my eyes, the fact that I'm holding their gorgeous paper in my hands right now would make me much more likely to order. Go figger.

Neenah Paper is a gorgeously designed site, though it seems a little more graphic-design oriented. Pretty, but kind of commercial -- and way expensive.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

INSPIRATION & HOW-TO'S
There's a lot of gallery-type sites out there, but not as many that tell you HOW things are done, or make the process look simple enough to figure out. Many of the following collected links I've had to modify a little -- feel free to make the techniques your own, and experiment. :)

EyeStorm is all about photography and digital arts. Some have effects, some are collage, but it's all inspirational, and has some techiques I'd love to duplicate on my own.

I've mentioned Artistic Stamps before, but this page is a how-to index from everything she's posted in, from Somerset Studio to CyberStampers, to originally posted projects like small books, purses, spice chests, jars -- great stuff.

Duelling Modems offers this kind of iMall type thing that has a ton of transcripts from online classes -- classes like watercolor, birdhouses, bookbinding, beadmaking, and the neat-o, keen-o envelope book.

I love this one, even though it's more "crafty" than "arty" in some ways. Make Stuff. Com so rocks. It's separated into topics like: kid stuff, gift stuff, the valentine/easter/mother's day pages, gardening, cooking, concoctions and sewing. There's even a topic for recycling. Cool, AND environmentally friendly.

Nita Leland had this great idea: There's not enough actual color resource material on the web. So she -made- one. And it's -cool-. It's not just for web designers (which a lot of the current resources are for), it's also for artists -- and there's collage and print galleries, too. Mrrrowr.

PearlEx is godlike stuff. Add it to your other mediums, and you've got one kick-ass embellishment. Dharma Trading sells it pretty cheap, and there's a short list of things you can do with it, and a gallery, located on another part of the site.

Yasutomo has projects listed -- including one set of project of the month things that are pretty nifty. This month, it's ghost paper (SO cool), and previous months have been everything from splash watercolor and origami to handmade books and silk paintings and fortune tellers. I -so- love this site.

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

MISCELLANEOUS ART
There's always links that I have a few stragglers for -- just a link or two, here and there, that don't fall under any category. These are art, but not covered by any of my other categories really. Go figure.

Under the collective category, there's The Birdhouse, which is a collective of artists, both physical and virtual, who share their work with the world via this site, and network with each other. There's surrealist stuff, realist stuff, essays, print work, all kinds of things.

I've talked about Book Altering before, but it's hard to find links for it that aren't vague and indefinable. Kind of how nobody can really define "jazz", but they'll know it when they hear it. But I digress -- this is a FANTASTIC list of things you can do to alter a book. Part of it repeats the list on the alteredbooks list on eGroups, but it's pretty nifty, anyway.

Classifying this is too hard. It's kind of a shrine to art, about making altars, and strange philosophy. I love it, but I'm not sure why. It's not really -that- impressive, is it?