Turning Art into Products
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So..here’s another thing I wanted to share with you all…a personal milestone, I suppose, and also related to making products out of artwork which seems to be topical at the moment.. I don’t know if you remember, but a while back I posted this purple dragon:
http://forum.svslearn.com/topic/532/practice-after-mixed-media-course
also here: http://forum.svslearn.com/topic/946/what-the-dragon-did-next/26
Well, I took the same character concept and turned it into a stamp set:
(plus some birds)
It’s a milestone for me because it’s the first 'cute character' based stamp set I’ve personally designed since 2012….I took a break from it because - to be really honest - the market had become more competitive and I needed to get better. So we licensed images for stamps instead, while I concentrated on surface design for papers.
But thanks to working in my spare time on ‘SVS’ projects and taking the courses here, I felt I could transfer that progress over into making images for stamps again. For sure I’d like to improve…but SVS has really made a difference to my work life now!
In the same vein - a while back I posted these watercolour flowers…. http://forum.svslearn.com/topic/1028/watercolour-after-let-it-glow-class
…and these have been turned into craft papers:
I also used a little bit of the same image to make the next pack which is being released in the next few days..
So yeah…just wanted to share the milestone
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@Dulcie these are wonderful! What company do you use to make these things? Congrats on your milestones!!
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Thanks @Thrace! The stamps are made by a specialist manufacturer called Photocentric, the papers by a local printer...
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@Dulcie The papers are just gorgeous!!! How does the stamp work?
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The stamps are clear polymer ones (they are generally more popular than the traditional wooden sort now), so you need a clear acrylic block to go with them. All crafters who like stamping will have one of those already (I'm selling to a fairly niche/specialist group of people, really) ...you place the stamp onto the block, and it sticks in place by itself so you can turn it upside down without falling off....then you ink up the stamp, and push it down onto card to transfer the image. Hope that makes sense...
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I have never heard of stamps like the one you describe! Is there a resource or Internet site where I can look up how they work? Congratulations on these products, they look gorgeous! How do you market them?
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@smceccarelli Thanks! We have an info page on our website about them: http://www.wildrosestudio.co.uk/pages/how-to (never thought I'd link to that here!)
We sell them through specialist craft shops, often via distributors. We started out at a trade show and gradually built up a customer base...but it is very specialist, and I do wish that I were selling the same art in more places. Each paper pack is made up of 12 patterns, each of which takes ages to make...and at the moment we don't use the art anywhere else except that one paper pack...having watched Lee White 's business class I can see clearer than ever that I could/should do more with them.
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@Dulcie Wow, it's a crafter's paradise! It's a complete new world I was not aware of, and full of beautiful things! Thank you for sharing!
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Beautiful work @Dulcie !
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Dulcie, Your work is beautiful (and cute
) I had never heard of stamps like that. You are really going forward with your art. Thank you for sharing! -
Those are amazing! Congrats on your milestone! I absolutely love that little dragon stamp.
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Very cool congrats.
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@smceccarelli Glad you like it! It’s definitely a bit of a parallel universe…
@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen That’s very kind of you, glad you like it!
@Leslie-Walker @evilrobot Thank you!
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Love your designs - very warm and friendly
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Those stamps are great! At first when i saw the picture I though they were those clear plastic water color pieces, you know the kind kids get with paint that when they paint them and hang them in their windows its sort of like stained glass.
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So cool! Congratulations! I'm really impressed!
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Really nice Stamps and papers Dolcie. I have been in this part of the industry for about 8 years and have had some great products out over the years. there are so many possibilities out there.
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So beautiful! You have a knack with color, and I love the cuteness you're infusing into your characters!
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Really great! Thanks for sharing!
If you don't mind, I have some questions that people may be wondering about (myself included):
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How many papers are you printing at a time? What are their sizes? How much are you typically spending on printing? How much do they retail for?
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How are you getting them into shops?
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How well are they selling?
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How did you get the packaging for the stamps made? How much was that? Who made the packages?
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Is there any other advice you might have for others wanting to try this market?
Hope that's not too much! Thanks again for the post. Very inspiring!
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Awesome stuff Dolcie. I've never used stamps but they seem like a great way to make beautiful cards and focus on practicing coloring.
