Tag: Etsy

(All Hail) Creation · Colour · My Chemical Romance (get a category) · The No. 1 Readers' Club

Making a Killjoy Jacket Part Three

Francesca4 Comments

It’s been almost 18 months since I last posted about customising my jacket? What is time?! Anyway, it’s nearly done. For the purposes of Thursday’s spiritual experience Milton Keynes show, it is done. I want to add one or two more things, but we’ll get to that.

So, here and here are where I talk about finding a plain-ish, second hand, cigarette-y jacket back in… 2019. I don’t think MCR had even returned, I think I just liked the look of the thing… Anyway, in 2020 I added an Aglionby Academy patch, my Fun Ghoul patch (purchased circa 2012 haha) and the lovely Little But Fierce rose. I’m still pleased about how well the colours match with one another and the khaki. And this weekend I got more pleased, because…

khaki jacket with various patches including Aglionby Academy, Fun Ghoul, Little But Fierce and pink bees.

PINK BEES.

Look how lovely they are! They’re from Batwalk. I’ve had my eye on them for months. Bees are great, they remind me of The Raven Cycle and summer and, you know, a working planet. All motifs I am happy to carry around.

I originally thought they might go on the back of the jacket, because I had a plan for a VERY LARGE patch which, upon measurement, would not fit. So I thought a couple of little bees might work well with some added floral patches? To be honest, I’d wanted to do bees and the VERY LARGE patch, but when I got the tape measure out it was a bit crowded. So I bought the bees and realised they’d look great on the empty front pocket and on the sleeve, covering the slightly-discoloured area where there was an original patch. I suppose it’s the rest of the jacket that’s slightly discoloured? Hmm. Anyway, I was going to sew MCR’s 2001-2013 mourning band on the sleeve, but I a) forgot to bring it to University City and b) it’s huge. Aimed at a large manly arm. I have teeny wee arms. So we’ll re-evaluate what I do with that… one day.

So, the bees went on. Look at them! Love a bee. Thing is, though, a day or so after I purchased them, I realised I was fixating on the LARGE PATCH. I’d also had my eye on it for months. I liked it a lot. I couldn’t commit to anything else, and when you’re going for a slightly hippie-goth look, really liked your original idea and have a budget of twelve pence, you don’t have a lot of choice. So I went back to Batwalk… and purchased:

khaki jacket with a black and white crystal-ball-and-hands back patch.

It’s huge. I love it. It’s also not as big as I thought! I iron-sewed it to the bottom of the jacket to avoid the hood covering it, and there’s enough space left below the hood for… something. I don’t know what, and I won’t find it between now and Thursday, so ideas on a postcard please! Something at the top might make the crystal ball look less wonky, too – it’s not actually wonky, I measured out the layout and the bottom of the patch is centred, but the hands and eye effect are a little dizzying. Hmmmm. We’ll see. The current design is not overtly MCR-themed, but if you get it, you get it. The jacket’s got great pockets too. Look at me, wearing the thing (thank you to T for taking a photo and proving I exist).

short lady with dark hair, wearing a black dress and patch-covered khaki jacket
Remind me to catch some sun this summer. Also I might hem this dress. What do you think?

So, here we are: one Danger Days-inspired jacket, eleven years after it was cool… but weirdly in time to be cool in a more general, strange alternative style way, going by the reactions to Foundations of Decay. I have had a lot of conversations recently in which being an MCR fan has elevated me in people’s estimations. Someone wrote a Guardian article the other day about MCR’s cultural significance. There’s a less-than-grudging mainstream respect for these weirdos now. I guess if you’re odd for long enough, eventually you become cool.

I’m off to prepare for Thursday. Need to rest my voice and do some preparatory stretches. Oh, while I’m here: commissions are open through end of May. Come and join us at the No. 1 Readers’ Club! And if you see me at Stadium MK, say hi.

Look after yourselves,

Francesca

Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to stories and chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, use the button below for one-off support of as much or as little as you’d like (if you’d prefer, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi). If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buy my book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailers and as a paperback from Amazon. (That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos, you know?)

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(All Hail) Creation · Etsy

News, if you like stationery: I’m closing my shops on 1st September!

Francesca1 Comment

Hello! Big news today, if you are interested in very cool stationery and accessories: I am closing my shops on 1st September. I may reopen in December or January, depending on my workload. I’m juggling one too many plates, so I thought I’d put this one down before it smashes, aka something goes wrong in the Christmas season and I cry in the post office. So get your shopping in while you can, in case I don’t reopen!

I don’t currently have anything for sale in any local shops (although if anyone who runs a shop, especially in the Southend area, wants to stock some pieces, give me a shout!). It’s all available on Folksy or, if you prefer, Etsy (item prices are the same in both shops; international postage is a little cheaper on Folksy because of how fees work). There’s 20% off a lot of items at the moment, so grab those pieces while you can! My last mailing day will be 31st August.

Give me a shout if you have any questions! Here is a selection of what’s available:

card reading 'I would die for you at Ragnarok I mean, we're all going to die at Ragnarok, but it's the thought that counts'
blue pencils with silver inscription reading 'STUDY LIKE ATHENA'
Pink feminist definition print by Francesca's Words
yellow on black print reading 'cupcakes and cauldrons'
person modelling tote bag reading 'forget the gym... carry textbooks.'
blue notebook with words 'can't read my handwriting? Make your own notes'

Here’s the link to my Folksy, hint hint, and to my Etsy, hint hint…

Want to support this blog and/or enjoy exclusive access to stories and chatter from me? Join the No. 1 Reader’s Club on Patreon! Alternatively, use the button below for one-off support of as much or as little as you’d like (if you’d prefer, you can use PayPal or Ko-fi). If you’re into fairy tales and/or want a brief respite from reality, you can also buy my book, The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes, from most ebook retailers and as a paperback from Amazon. (That link’s an affiliate. Gotta scrape every penny from Bezos, you know?)

BuY Me a Coffee! Or a small gin and tonic.
BuY Me a Coffee! Or a small gin and tonic.
Art · Books · Colour · Internet · May 2016 · Tumblr

Behind the Scenes, Friday 13th Edition

Francesca1 Comment

So it was on this very day, sort of, that I released my Ghost Stories zines last year. If you haven’t read them – and you should – they’re full of short stories, advice columns, quirky advertisements and art all pertaining to death, the afterlife and magic. And I hadn’t even heard of Maggie Stiefvater then. Anyway, I don’t have a Volume IV to share with you all, but I have made even more ridiculous death/the afterlife/magic work since, so I thought I would take today to share a bit about how and why I ended up with so many macabre-ish, funny-ish arty-ish things in my portfolio.

Ghost Stories

A couple of years ago I wrote a (very) little story for The Story Shack about something that in retrospect sounds suspiciously like the church watch on St Mark’s Eve. It was sitting by itselfie on the internet and last January I noticed that 2015 contained three Friday 13ths. I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and it’s useful to have solid deadlines, so I thought I could do a project to practise my Photoshop, actually write and maybe have a laugh. My friend Ruby, who proofread, had less of a laugh. By 13th November I had three relatively well-formed zines, a more thorough understanding of the YouTube playlist format and a healthy respect for the black and white filters on Photoshop. I kind of love Ghost Stories – I mean, I also hate it because I read it back and think ‘ew’ – but it’s the first thing I made after I finished school for the hell (ha) of it, and it reminded me why the term ‘black humour’ warms my soul. Now go warm your soul.

Ghost Stories Volume I by Francesca Burke

 

Hell’s Belles

You know that feeling when you’ve recently quit a job, rediscovered supernatural YA novels and decided to dye your hair pink and commit to being a full time eccentric? Last autumn I tried to supplement my income with waitressing, which to cut a long story short was not the career for me. When I rejiggled my freelancing so I could afford-ish to go back to marketing full time, I realised how much I valued being my own boss, muttering swearwords, blasting Fall Out Boy and making ridiculous things because I could. There’s a stall in Southend high street selling home accessories that say things like ‘eat glitter for breakfast and shine all day’, ‘life’s a journey’, etc.; I always wanted to paint them black and ad lib… so I did.

I even made stickers. Hell’s Belles – which was also influenced heavily by the pastel goth tag, 9 years of listening to My Chemical Romance and the exact colour I wanted my hair – is one of my favourite lines on my Etsy. It’s weird, either offensive or funny depending on your sense of humour and made of everything I’ve been interested in over the last couple of years: magic, cynicism, cursing, cynical cursing and inspirational Instagram posts.

I have a suspicion I’ll make more of one or more of the above. Look out around Halloween.

April 2016 · Books · DISCUSS. · Government and Politics · Internet

The Queen is Quite Lovely Really, and Free Etsy Delivery (unrelated)

FrancescaLeave a comment

Hay birthday, your majesty. I can’t wa as lyrical as I would like to about the Queen turning 90, for reasons obvious when you notice that ‘hay’ was meant to be the word that comes before ‘birthday’ in the song we’re forced to sing when the ageing age, and that ‘wa’ was meant to be the word that has the same letters but a different meaning to the gross stuff that we get in our ears.

TL;DR: I need to buy a new keyboard before any more keys start to stick. I can’t afford to get another fancy ergonomic one, so I think I will head to Amazon with a voucher and get a standard ergonimic one instead. I’m going to miss this one, although it is unfairly enormous and makes me feel like an 80 year old, because it is so fuckin’ comfy. It’s cushioned. Cushioned keyboards should be mandatory.

Back to Elizabeth II. I have never considered myself an ardent monarchist, but I’m definitely not a republican either (thank you to sellchecker for fiing that for me. While I’m at it, I’ll let it fi sellchecker and fi too – oh wait it’s not that clever) and I think that’s down to her. How many 90 year old ladies continue their day job aged 90 having committed to it vocally half a century before, and do so followed by the tabloid media, 80 security guards and a husband constitutionally banned from walking alongside her? Also, let’s face it, without the Royal Family the UK’s international influence would be even shittier. What else is there for tourists to do in London but visit another royal-related building?

I can’t remember if the walking-alongside-the-queen thing is a rule or tradition, but I think if I were her I’d bloody hate it (and swear too much at foreign dignitaries, etc) so long may she reign over us, contribute to tourism and international goodwill, and fake being okay with our terrible choices of government.

That’s it, I’m going to Amazon. I can’t take this any more – what if the F goes? How will I communicate?

Oh, before I forget: with Shakespeare’s (oh, you can correct that) birth and death day this week, Charlotte Bronte’s birthday today and The Raven King out on Tuesday, I thought I would celebrate on Etsy. Enter CHECKTHEATTIC at the checkout between now and the end of the 26th and get free, er, mailing. You know, that thing that gets tacked on to the end of every online sale. The, er, carrier charge. THESE. I WILL COVER THESE.

Elizabeth II 90th Birthday
Oh look, that links the two subjects nicely.

Because Jane Eyre should have checked the attic, right?

April 2016 · Art · Books · DISCUSS. · Indifferent Ignorance · Internet · Lists · Videos

A Retrospective of the Fiscal Year and Dubious Freelancing/Artist Advice

FrancescaLeave a comment

Who’s excited for the end of the financial year? Who wants it to be 6th April already so they can relish a clean slate and make 2016/17 the year they go up an income threshold? Who sometimes wishes they had someone else to make tough decisions regarding business card expenditure?

Yep.

Since we are nearly at the end of this fiscal calendar, I thought I’d reflect on what I’ve learnt since 6th April 2015, as a writer, shopkeeper and digital marketing freelancer and share some of my pearls of wisdom.

  • It’s genuinely really hard to invest in necessities like business cards and packaging when you have no capital. Use some savings (or visit one of those bank things or find some investors) to get you off the ground. It will cause less stomachaches.
  • Speaking of packaging, it’s completely okay to reuse bubble envelopes if they aren’t scummy.
  • You might think you can predict what will sell, but you can’t. You just learn to guess what your customer wants, and even then they will probably surprise you.
  • If a product isn’t working, photograph it better. Or replace it with a better product.
  • Photographs.
  • Photographs.
  • Photographs.
  • 80% of your time is spent marketing and organising, 10% is spent corresponding, 5% researching and developing and perfecting, and 5% making the art you sell.
  • Look after yourself, mentally, physically and financially, because freelancers don’t get sick pay, holiday pay, pension schemes or sympathy when they’re ill.
  • Always try to correspond with clients or customers in the same way your teachers wrote home to your parents: politely, firmly and with the spellchecker on.
  • As a freelancer, you make your own motivation and set your own timetable. I’ve learnt that my motivation is my desire to spite the people who think I should get a ‘real’ job, and nothing sets a timetable like knowing you have 8 hours to complete 12 hours worth of work.
  • If you’re not busy, clean your desk and do your accounts because when you are busy, you will come downstairs and realise you work in a pigsty with no recollection of where your money went. Oh and if you’re not busy, you probably need to improve your marketing.
  • Taking a step back from this blog last summer was one of the best decisions I made all year.
  • My readers and my customers are the strangest, most eccentric and most generous people. (I already knew that. You’re welcome for the reminder.)
  • Social media marketing is about being social. Not copy and pasting the high five/praying emoji onto  twelve Instagram posts alongside the phrase ‘keep up the good work!’.
  • Marketing.
  • Marketing.
  • Marketing. Work out who your customer is. Work out where they are and what they want. Go to them with the thing(s) they want.

Artemis was right, Greek mythology poster postcard by Francesca Burke
In retrospect I shouldn’t have been surprised that this was a hit with the asexual and aromantic bloggers of Tumblr.

  • #GIRLBOSS the shit out of your life, because no one else will do it for you.
  • Read #GIRLBOSS. Even if you are a guy, non-binary or allergic to hashtags.

#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso, girlboss.com
from girlboss.com

  • Nothing is more isolating than being the only person you know who does what you do and working from home while you do it. Find other people who do something similar and meet for coffee, follow their blogs and write your own, or join an Etsy team. Or all of those things.
  • A wise man in a World War II film I saw recently said something along the lines of ‘if you want something done, ask a busy person. People with all the time in the world never get anything done’. TL;DR: if you really want to make art or write a book or start a business, you will make the time to do it.
  • Paying yourself with meagre wages, knowing you can account for earning every single pound, makes up for being perceived as unemployed by your nearest and dearest, explaining that you post to the Internet for a living but no, you can’t wire up a wifi connection, and working on a Saturday night because you can’t afford to go out, move out or use up the bubble bath.

Most of the time.

Now bring it, 2016/17, I want to win at this game.

DISCUSS. · February 2016 · Films · Holidays · Videos

Would You Like that Gift Wrapped? A Question About Customer Service

FrancescaLeave a comment

I must say if I had known how well people would react to a blog about the perils of salad, I’d have opened up about IBS a lot earlier. Watch the cracked tiles for more anecdotes, I guess.

This week I have been wonderfully, amazingly busy packaging up Etsy orders, most of them for Valentine’s Day (or I presume they are, since they’ve nearly all been postcards with puns about the Greek gods) and I’ve also had some lovely feedback from customers – the sort of stuff that makes you smile and stand up a bit straighter. I try to offer the sort of service I’d like to experience myself, like lots of communication about processing times, cute packaging that makes a change from bills, and inexpensive postage. Essentially I’d like to be a more time-and-customer sensitive version of this:

Let me send you cinnamon sticks.

Anyway, I have been thinking about what makes good customer service and how everyone has different standards (the fact a bow wasn’t tied on the cellophane in that clip would have upset some people) and I was wondering if you guys have any horror stories or good experiences to share? In a shop the other day, the cashier complimented my purse but didn’t make eye contact, so it felt like he was trotting out a line more out of general politeness (and because his boss told him to) than because he actually gave a shit. In a ceramics studio in Zante, the proprietor served home made lemonade and gave my friend a free accessory because they were both artists.

Do you expect free lemonade? Do you expect eye contact? Do you secretly want lavender added to every bag ever?

(All Hail) Creation · Art · November 2015

It Never Rains But It – Oh Wait, It’s Stopped.

FrancescaLeave a comment

When we walked the dogs this morning the sky was that white-blue hue unique to autumn and winter months; the air was crisp and verging on cold; the sun was low and almost too bright.

What the hell happened, Essex? Within half an hour you deleted the autumn setting in favour of the English downpour setting. I can no longer take a leisurely walk into town. I might not even take a hurried walk into town. Today has become the perfect time to curl up with a marketing plan and hot drink, plotting my rise to fame/fortune/financial independence, instead of a day stamping around Southend doing the marketing plan. Pfft.

Tell you what though, I know something you guys can curl up with if strategic Excel documents aren’t your thing.

Ghost Stories III

I have even made merchandise. I just checked the calendar and there’s a Friday 13th in May next year, but I’m not in the habit of planning that far in advance even with the old marketing ploys, so I haven’t decided yet whether or not I’ll do a fourth volume. I planned all three this year back in January and did most of the heavy lifting then too; today I am less inclined to reopen a set of Photoshop files that I spent 11 months tweaking. Still, never say never – I always forget how much I love working with the macabre and/or black humour until I’m doing it, and then I always wish I do it more.

Speaking of the macabre, my freelance work calls. Well, emails. Well, there’s a post-it on my desk reminding me I’m going out tomorrow so really ought to take advantage of the rain and get shit done today.

Hang on, it’s stopped raining.

COFFEE · Dogs · Government and Politics · Holidays · July 2015

Summer Buzzin’

FrancescaLeave a comment

This is one of those weeks where I’m glad I’m a freelancer. I go to work in short shorts, I have lunch in my garden and I start the day watching my dogs lollop around the field with the canine equivalent of beaming smiles before flopping down inside all day like sleepy cherubs.

pinterest.com/pin/6896205649449915
pinterest.com/pin/6896205649449915

It’s also one of those weeks where Instagram stops working, I realise that I’ve got a lot of birthday and holiday-related expenses coming up and I just splashed frappe all over myself and the kitchen.

Still, maybe by the time I get to Zante the euro will have been replaced by a skills-based economy in which my particular brand of cute sarcasm will be gold dust… and maybe Brussels will have cancelled the debt, handed out icecream to every Greek citizen and worked out a solution to the refugee crisis.

Actually, while I’m thinking about it: I shall be offline from 26th July- 6th August, mostly because I need to retrain my brain not to assume every second sound is an email. My Etsy will be on ‘vacation mode’ – it’s going to Tahiti with its girlfriend – and I might schedule some posts for here/Tumblr/wherever to remind you all I exists… hopefully on a beach or clifftop with some nice music and some decent Fanta.

Okay I have to stop typing now because I’m having this paradoxical experience of daydreaming about my holiday while quashing suffocating terror that I can’t really afford one. If this were a Tweet, #freelancelife would be apt.

Enjoy the weather while we have it and drink lots of water!