Bajemas Scriptorium

Alright, after some serious issues with printers we’ve finally found a printer that is working out well for my work. My books are full color, journal size collections of my art work on glossy paper –they basically look like trade paper backs. The first books I had printed looked wonderful but the printer took months to get them to me and on a few occasions after taking forever they sent me books with giant glue globs at the back of the books. Others I looked into were simply too expensive. We finally gave Ka-blam.com a try and though the first books were over-sized (which caused the art to look pixelated) and the color was off, Myke talked to them, they fixed the problem and replaced the books within about a week and the second attempt looks wonderful. So not only will I be selling through them, I’d recommend them for printing for those in need. My first Bajema’s Web Collections is now available directly through them. Because they print in graphic files only and not pdf, I’m still changing over my second collection to graphic files. This is taking a bit longer because the second collection is more writing and originally created in a publisher program specifically to be a pdf file. But it should be switched over and ready to go shortly. Those who have ordered the first book before it became sold out will be getting their orders this week. Anyone who has wanted to buy the first book can now do so by going to: Indyplanet.com at this link for my listing. You can order directly through them. I’ll be posting links for the second collection as soon as they’re ready as well.

I thank everyone who has been patient with me during the irritations of my printer issues. Everyone who bought those last copies of the first and second books during my special sales will be getting them with their listed extras as well as a few added items to make up for the delay. I hope that you enjoy them and again, I really do appreciate your investing in my work. If you order the book using the Indyplanet website I would appreciate you dropping me an email to tell me how your orders were handled and if you’re happy with the service they provided.

These are some new craft items I’ve been working on to sell at our convention and craft show stops this autumn. These keepsakes are multiple purpose items. In their beginning stages, as shown below, they’re a decorative flower swaddled in ribbon and bows that hold a mini-art print and a unique charm. The keepsakes can be kept as is to be used as decorations for such things as being tucked into the soil of a house plant, collect a few of them and put them together as a little & unique bouquet as pictured below, and whatever your creative little mind can drum up.

The flowers in the keepsakes are handmade by my aunt and she paints each using soft color stains and India inks. The sepia colored ones are the coolest. She stains them with tea and then brushes just a hint of black ink along the edges. I made the mini-art tags out of an old French book on Marie Antoinette that is falling apart. The charms are my best attempt to make metal replicas of the various insect themed scissors and skeleton keys I drew for my Etta Diem stories. They’re not perfect yet, but they’re still pretty cute. I made the keepsakes mainly as a way to package the charms and make them look spiffy. Now I’ve grown fond of the items as they are. I keep these around my work space.

I’m currently working on putting my aunt’s shop online. She makes these flowers from scratch out of coffee filters, of all things. She makes them in three sizes, sort of the three bears sizes, pappa, momma and baby bear. She also has some very stunning floral photography. I’ve been combining the photographs and the handmade flowers into different types of scrap-booking kits and gift collections. What I especially like is that she takes requests so I’ve talked her into making a variety of more somber, autumn inspired flowers. I have my “Tim Burton” bouquet she made for me –it’s a variety of black, silver and silver blue blooms wrapped up in striped papers and tied up in pretty black bows. I’m hoping we can accommodate people who fall into my style of tastes… those who really like the whole Martha Stewart projects/home decor, but who prefer darker colors and more spooky, dark Victorian and Halloween themes in their homes.

Anyhoo, it’s been quite some time since I last posted here. I’ve been trying to get some more traditional projects done and get caught up on all these ideas I have. My health has been up and down again, mostly down again this past week. It’s a tad frustrating to me. Of course, art is great therapy, as is writing and I enjoy both no matter what state of mind or ills I am. Oh, and if you like the keepsakes above we’ll mostly be selling them at actual cons and art shows, but I will be putting a few ordering options up for them on the EttaDiem.com store. I’m currently giving that site a good overhaul and better organization. Oh! And let me not forget to mention the strange but squidy cute eyeball critter in the images is a small sculpture of Myke’s. He is the tentacle master.

As I send out my tarot to various publishers of such things, I’ve also gone to local printers and began the process of making my own proto-type of the tarot deck to see what it’s like and how I might change/tweek/improve upon it for a publisher. I get requests for the deck more than anything else these days so I decided to put five of the proto-types up for purchase for the time being. I don’t know what they’ll be like or how they’ll compare to ones prepared and produced by a publisher, but they will be unique, of that I am sure. Each deck will be wrapped in silk (I was told this is a popular tradition among some people and their tarot decks) and placed within a wooden box that my fiancee has crafted and we both decorated. They’ll be signed, numbered and given the whole limited edition treatment. Two of the five I put up for sale are already purchased, so if this is an item you’d like I recommend checking into it soon. I can’t wait to see them. I’m very giddy. Find selling info for the deck at this link.

There’s a lovely sensation of satisfaction when completing any project –but this is one of the larger projects I’ve ever worked on and seeing it down and almost ready to be held in my hands makes me insanely happy. Hopefully others will like it as much as me. And to utilize every last bit of space on the plates for the cards, I’ve created a miniature version of the deck to fill up the small bit of space left over from the main cards. It’s like fairy size. I’m not sure if I’ll sell this or not. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a zealous love of all that is dollhouse size. Anyhoo, more general weekend babble to come after the “more” button…

“The red dragon’s native tongue was fire and for every soft and seductive word he spoke to his concubines each carried a small burn. His poetry had stripped the supple skin from the first lover’s lower back, all along the line where he whispered his thoughtful words. His quiet love songs sung for the benefit of the moonlight left rippling scars along the neckline of his second lover. Each concubine over looked the pain and abuse their skin suffered, a small sacrifice each was willing to make to allow their dragon his seduction.” –The Red Dragon, (c)Bethalynne Bajema, all rights reserved.

Artist’s Log: Took the Hunter monster for a walk.
Saw the most peculiar thing in the back yard…

[linkie: The Zombie Debate] You know, I’m a NCIS junkie. And every time I see the episode where they spend a few moments on Halloween debating the finer points of zombie code of conduct in the movies, I always find myself wanting to yell at the tv when McGee points out something about the 28 Days Later zombies because clearly!! CLEARLY! They are not zombies! Or else they wouldn’t starve to death. It’s in those moments where I look at myself and shake my head in sad disappointment and look at my remote and realize that I really, REALLY, need to get out of the house more.

I like to look at individuals as human autos. We each come off the assembly line with our own style, designs, perks, flare, and warranty. Well the auto-bajema had a very short warranty that ended somewhere in the late seventies. I seem to attract gremlins too. At this point in my life the auto that is me is held together with duct tape and twine. I’ve grown used to seeing the occasional gear or spring go flying when I least expect it. And when I roll her into the shop the mechanics just sort of cluck their tongues and figure out ways to keep the auto running without my muffler or brake pads falling off. As I mentioned in my fire sale notes, I spent a week in the hospital a few weeks back. This past weekend the auto-bajema decided it was in need of an encore, plus there seemed to be a fresh gremlin infestation. On the bright side I was able to get some newer, more flashy duct tape to hold my belts on. On the not so bright side it put me out of commission for half of a week and I’ve gotten quite behind on my email and online store activities. So this is just a quick note to apologize for delays and to assure you that I’m getting caught up as quickly as possible. I thank you for your patience with me and this junker I call a body and the inconveniences it can create at times. And on that note, I need to whip out the gremlin-be-gone spray and hose down some gremlins trying to sneak under the hood of my auto by climbing up my spine. Maybe my gremlins are from the kremlin…

I believe “Festival” is taking place downtown GR as I write this. It’s a three day arts and culture festival in downtown Grand Rapids that has been going for… at least as long as I’ve been alive. There’s an obnoxious time line of photos my mother took of me each year. They’re always the same. Me in a new Festival tee shirt with some freaky face painting going on. The only difference is in most of them my hair is so short I look like the third son in the family, but towards the end you could see me fighting against my mother’s will to keep my hair short. The last photo ever taken shows how she thwarted me on that challenge. She let me grow my hair out and then proceeded to give me a perm. So my hair still looked short because of the curl, but now I looked like I had a little Dutch girl afro. Good times.

(more…)

Tedious is the night. I’ve been sitting here for about six hours now, steadily, in slightly zombie mode, adding products to my Fire Sale. Almost everything in there is an ink drawing that I haven’t already made any icons or previews for in the past. So it’s a cyber assembly line. Nab the image, resize it, upload it to my e-commerce gallery, make a product listing for it, make a page preview and thumbnail for it, write a blurb, cut and paste it all in, and then test the links to make sure all is well and proper. It only takes maybe three minutes to do all of this, but it is boring and tedious. It reminds me of my first job… no, my second job. My first job was… ha… come with me as the world in front of you makes squiggly lines to represent the flashback mode of this bajema sitcom. The year was… [insert proper background music here]

(more…)