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Jun 08
Featured on Steampunk Spotlight!
Posted by Christine

Today over at O. M. Grey’s Caught in the Cogs blog, our Etsy shop, Rowan of the Wood, is featured for this week’s Steampunk Spotlight!

Thanks, Olivia!

Not only do I mend broken hearts, but I’ve started making Steampunk animals pendants as well.

Go read my guest post & visit the Etsy shop. Hey! Buy something, too!

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May 18
And the Survey Says…
Posted by Christine

As many of you know, I sent out a brief survey asking readers about the book covers for the first two books with last month’s newsletter. The responses pretty much confirmed what we’d already seen on the road.

62% said that the book cover for Rowan of the Wood and Witch on the Water were too young for the content or that you almost didn’t pick up the book because of the cover.

67% said to go in a new, older direction for the forthcoming Fire of the Fey novel, but only 43% said we should change the covers of the first two and re-release them. So, for now, we’ll leave the first two as they are.

I was very disappointed to see that a mere 17% told someone else about the Rowan of the Wood series.

Our livelihood depends on readers recommending our books to someone else if they’ve enjoyed them. Independent authors & small presses live on word-of-mouth.

So, if you haven’t yet recommended our series to a friend, family member, or co-worker. Please do so.

Give them the card or bookmark you got at an event.
Send them a link to the website.
Loan them your copy…

Better yet, get them an author-signed copy for a gift!

As for the rest, we appreciate your honesty and input regarding the book cover designs.

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May 13
My Heart Belongs to Steampunk
Posted by Christine

As of late, I’ve been quite obsessed with Steampunk. Gail Carriger is far from blameless. Leanna Renee Hieber isn’t completely innocent either. Even my friend Olivia (O. M.) Grey’s work has fed my obsession. Throw in Nick Valentino with a dash of Jules Verne, and I’m completely in love.

My heart now belongs to Steampunk.

We might even include a Steampunk chapter in the forthcoming third book in the Rowan of the Wood series: Fire of the Fey. Just maybe.

In the mean time, I feed my obsession by reading works by the aforementioned authors and creating Steampunk jewelry. Not much else to do in Muskogee. And I mean that quite literally.

So here are some fun things I’ve created over the past few days. Some are available in our ETSY shop, so please support us by getting some of our artwork or buying our books!

As Olivia astutely points out in her Steampunk Spotlight blog today, artists need patrons to survive.

Steampunk Broken Hearts

These fun little pendants, which can be suspended from a chain, a lapel pin, or even a key chain, have quickly become my favorite thing to do.

There is some dark satisfaction in forming a heart out of clay, cutting into it with a razor, and then piecing it back together with hardware.

I fancy myself a mad scientist with a maniacal laugh, bending over my creations and shouting “It’s alive!”… well, at least I’ve got the mad part down.

Here are a few close ups.

If you see one here that you want that’s not listed on Etsy (for they’re not all up there yet), please contact me to purchase.

A Clockwork Pearl

Additionally, I’ve created some finer Steampunk jewelry more suitable for teatime.

The full pictures of these and more can be found on our ETSY page. Go there. Now.

Be generous.

Support an artist today, preferably… me.

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Sep 25
Journal Making, Part Deux
Posted by Christine

Here is the second half (which should’ve been the first) journal making video.

We’ll be giving away a handmade 100% recycled journal during our Samhain Blog Book Tour, October 12-23, to celebrate the release of WITCH ON THE WATER!

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Sep 15
Etsy is Fricken Cool
Posted by Christine, News & Reviews, On The Road...

On the drive down yesterday, I used my handy-dandy MiFi to get some work done on the 10-hour drive.

You know me, never a down moment without doing some kind of work. Although, I’m trying *very* hard to take a few days off during our unscheduled trip home. As I say that, I’m working on this blog and have the accounting program open in the background, ready to catch up on that.

But tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. Rest, relax, and read.

Anyway – I digress!

Etsy! That’s right!

Several times over the past few months, people have asked if my artwork was available on Etsy. I didn’t know what it was, but I soon learned. It’s kinda like eBay for handmade and vintage items.

Cool.

I set up an Etsy account but didn’t take the time to populate it with items until yesterday. Now I have four items up for sale! Our Etsy page is at http://RowanOfTheWood.etsy.com. I will be putting more of both Ethan’s and my artwork up there as time marches on.

Etsy is pretty cool overall.

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Sep 11
Journal Making
Posted by Christine

Ethan and I have been expanding our product base. One of these is our Recycled Journal Project. I have some early pictures in a Facebook Album, and this video shows you part of our journal-making process.

Next week, energy willing, I will put up a video showing more of the paper making & book binding processes!

One month and one day to the release of WITCH ON THE WATER!

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Aug 15
Green Man Journals
Posted by Christine

We finished our first batch of handmade Green Man journals. They turned out rather nice!

I hope to make a video on the process during the next batch, but I’ve been quite lax with the video making these days… as you might’ve noticed.

I sculpted the Green Man on the cover. Ethan & Geahk did the corner knotworking and made the mold.

Ethan makes the paper pages from 100% post-consumer junk mail and other paper. I cast the Green Man cover in the same paper “slurry,” and then I paint the cover, hand-sew the pages together, and assemble the rest of the journal.

See a few steps of the process in pictures here.

We have three kinds: completely handmade, as described above; one with 100% recycled printer paper as the interior pages (hand-sewn with the handmade/painted cover); and one with the covers attached to an already-made 100% recycled, lined notebook.

We’ll have all three out this weekend to “test the market,” as it were. We hope to have many to choose from by the Kansas City Renaissance Festival in Sept/Oct.


Call your representative today and tell them you support
Health Care Reform!

It’s high time we, the richest country in the history of the planet, take care of our own people.
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Jul 30
Learning from a Master Puppeteer
Posted by Christine

Today we’re working with Ethan’s half-brother Geahk Burchill of Castiron Carousel & Michael Curry Designs. Geahk just recently ran the Creature from the Black Lagoon project for Universal Studios through Michael Curry Designs. The huge puppet as well as the costumes were designed by Geahk, who also ran the team to build them.

He’s amazing, to say the least.

He’s showing me how some stuff in sculpting polymer clay and making molds. Hope to have some pictures for you tomorrow!

:-D

(video camera is broken, btw… which is why there hasn’t been any videos for awhile!)

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May 24
New Plan
Posted by Christine

Okay. So the New Hope from yesterday morning is now dashed and bloodied all over the rocks below the cliffs from which it threw itself out of complete despair.

Think I could get another prepositional phrase into that sentence?

Today. New Plan.

We’re guest artists at Scarborough Faire for the last two weekends, as many of you already know. We’re sharing a building with 3 other artist. Two of which are doing about as good (read poorly) as we are here, and the third made $700 yesterday just on selling roses! That doesn’t count the higher priced items they have.

Do they have a quality product? Yes.

Do they have decades of experience over us? Yes.

But what they also have is street-side display & a demonstration. We and the other two artists are kinda set back into caves. Yesterday we put out a street-friendly display of my rock dragons, and we sold as many rock dragons as books (which is usually by far what we sell the most of).

Now we’ve done a lot of events in the Dallas area, so our market might just be flooded here as far as the book is concerned. I mean, numerous people recognized us from other events and have already bought (and loved) our book. So that’s possible as well.

If that’s the case, the TX Scottish Festival will be a bust, too… I’ll let you know!

So today, we’re changing our display to be more street friendly. Pulling up and out of the cave… we’ll see if that helps.

Every show we learn something new!

Namaste.

(OH – and watch our Retro Diva video. It’ll make you laugh! If you enjoy it, please spread it far and wide. We’re trying to go viral with it! ;-D) Enter the Kindle contest here: WWYD4aK2

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Apr 27
Crafty
Posted by Ethan

Those of you who haven’t visited our traveling road show may be surprised at what is to be found there. Our biggest seller is of course our book Rowan of the Wood, but there is so much more as well.

There are original Green Man paintings by Christine. She decoupages pages from the galley of our book onto re-purposed wood and then paints the leafy faces over this in acrylic. The results are quite spectacular, as if the Green Man is coming right out of the pages. She has also done some Green Man woodcuts. One of which we use to print our logo and website address onto our bags (100% recycled material). Sometimes you can find us printing away right in our booth.

I myself create wands, such as the kind Rowan was trapped in for fourteen centuries. They are hand carved, so each one is unique and often adorned with crystals, beads, and copper. I also carve miniature swords, bones (a kind of medieval castanet) and other small items. I have recently added wooden bookmarks to my repertoire. We also carry some pewter ones made by Oberon.

Christine sculpts adorable tiny dragons out of polymer clay. These colorful creatures can adorn a desktop, refrigerator, or your body. We have as much fun creating these crafts as we do writing. We are grateful others appreciate them so much as well. So please come by and have a look or just say hello whenever we come to your town and enjoy the art work as much as our storytelling.

—-***—-***—-***—-***—-

Order Rowan here!

Rowan of the Wood is *still* unavailable in normal trade channels. During the interim, you can get your copy of Rowan of the Wood from it’s first printing! Only 100 copies are left, and they will go fast… because by getting one, you are automatically entered into our What Would You Do for a Kindle 2 Contest! Details here.

#WWYD4AK2

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