Welcome Back To The Angry Girls Club

So... I sold out the previous run of my Angry Girls Club patches in a single day. It was pretty amazing, and quite obvious that there was a demand! The Patch Club only does very limited editions of their collabs, so I looked around for a place to work with so I could get a bigger order in. I found an embroidery workshop in the Netherlands who were lovely to work with, and they made a new version of the patch, which is available now!

The new version is a tiny bit larger and a bit more detailed than the previous one, due to the fact that it's been produced by a bigger workshop with bigger embroidery machines! I love both versions, it's still super cool to see one of my drawings in this form.

I put one on my green denim jacket, and can't wait to wear it out once the winter is over!

Quite a few of these have already been sold and shipped, but I do have plenty available this time. If you'd like one you can get it here!

Welcome To The Angry Girls Club

Quite a while ago, I made a sticker:

I made this because I felt in this day and age girls and women have their reasons to be angry, and I was proven right when this sticker resonated with a lot of people! I've had requests to make this into a patch since the beginning, and it finally happened!

I got together with the lovely ladies from The Patch Club, a small patch embroidery business here in Antwerp. They produced a very limited run of my design, and it's now available on my Etsy!

I'm so stoked about this. It's a very small edition (I have four available at the time of writing) but I'm hoping to be able to produce these in a larger quantity in the near future!

Thank you again to Kim and Sharon of The Patch Club for making this possible, definitely go check out their designs as well!

Money Can Be Exchanged For Goods And Services

One of the things I wanted to do this year was to get more serious about my drawing, and selling my work. I've been trying to create a lot more and opened an Etsy store in February! Since then I've been updating it regularly, but never really posted about the things I've listed in there so far. So yeah, this post is sort of an ad. For my own work.

(I also want to mention that I am available for commissioned work, so if you want a custom illustration you can always e-mail me and we can work something out!)

So far I have a few larger prints and posters available, which you might have seen on this blog before:

I'm also trying to print a new postcard every once in a while! So far I have listed two and they're both (sort of) jokes in Dutch, but the next one will make sense to a wider audience, I swear!

And lastly, I have a few hand embroidered brooches for sale. These are fun to make, but take a lot of time, so I'm not sure how often they will be available!

I'm currently working on some new ideas and things, so keep an eye out! If you want to see more in-progress pictures you can always follow me on Instagram by the way, it's where I post smaller things that don't always warrant a blog post!

Time For Shameless Self-Promotion

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but one thing I did want to do was get a bit more serious about my artwork. I've been selling prints of my art for a while now, but it was a bit of a hassle (you had to e-mail me to get a Paypal invoice) so I bit the bullet and opened not one, but two shops!

The first one is an Etsy store, to replace the whole 'e-mail me and we'll work something out' thing I had going on. I'll be using this to sell zines and prints, and I'm planning to add small items like patches and pins in the future, so keep your eyes peeled!

me shilling my wares

Now, I actually have a lot more ideas for things I want to make available, but tedious and boring things like not having the space and budget to make and stock all the t-shirts in all the sizes were holding me back. So instead I opened a store on Society6! I have uploaded a few designs and you can get them on all kinds of stuff, from bath towels to coffee mugs. I know for a fact Hanne already got herself a new phone case.

Another thing I did was create an online portfolio to showcase just my drawings. I felt like I needed something I could show people that would clarify what my artwork is like, without all my usual rambling. So if you want to see what I've made over the past few years, head over to angrygirlsclub.com!

At the moment I'm working on lots of different things: there's the Carlita coat Joost has just made available on freesewing (but that deserves at least two posts on its own) and I've been drawing a lot, like this picture proves:

The friend who took this conveniently cropped out the toddler I was entertaining, but hey!

So yeah, that's what I've been doing. It's been a lot of administration, scanning and editing things and figuring out stuff, but I'm really excited to see how this goes!

I Made Stuff You Can Own!

Remember how I participated in 24-hour comics day and made an alphabet of death in 24 hours?

Yeah, it's still a bit of a blur here as well.

I can happily announce that I published the entire alphabet as a zine!

These are printed in black and white on recycled paper, and have some fancier coloured paper as a cover. I'll give you a peek of the inside as well:

The best thing is that you can own this! Did you always want to teach your child the alphabet and traumatize them for life? Or do you just want this for any reason you can think of? It's yours for 8 euros + shipping. Send an e-mail to caramin.anneke@gmail.com and we'll work something out!

I also have a new illustration available as a print. This is part of a series I've been working on for AGES and it's finally coming together!

Your own bad hair days are nothing compared to hers, believe me. This is a print of an original illustration I hand cut out of black paper.

This is an A3 print on 200 gsm paper, and it's 10 euros + shipping!

I have some more ideas for prints, postcards and zines, so stay tuned!

I'm covered in ink. It's awesome.

Hi guys! No sewing today! I have one finished dress to photograph and show you, but the truth is that I spent the past few weeks working on a pretty big project!

A while ago a few friends contacted me with an idea. They had wanted to start a little collective for a while, a group of arty people who made fun things and sold them together at markets. I thought this could be the perfect thing to give me a kick in the butt and get me to draw more, so I was in right away. We gave ourselves a deadline and went to work, and a few days ago launched De Veranda.

I had decided I wanted to sell printed tote bags, but the success rate with lino printing isn't that high so it would be a pretty massive investment if I had to take the amount of misprints into account. I looked into getting them digitally printed but again, printing small numbers of anything gets real expensive. So I bought a shitload of blank canvas totes, turned to a friend who is awesome at screenprinting and begged for help.

so fast the camera can't even capture it.

I had done a tiny bit of screenprinting before, but never truly from scratch. Charlotte helped me prepare the frames and got me going. It went super smooth with two people (one printing and one putting away the bags) and we managed to print 70 bags in a few hours!

Screenprinting is a really cool way to get designs onto paper or fabric. You basically turn a very fine screen into a detailed stencil by coating it with a light-sensitive emulsion, covering the parts you want printed, exposing it to light and washing away the unexposed bits.

Ink is spread on the screen and then pressed through onto the paper or fabric. I chose to print my designs in one colour each, but you could make different layers and print in more than one colour!

Now, how did the bags turn out?

Love!

I'll be selling these in person in Antwerp on Saturday the 25th (come say hi if you're around)! But if you really want a bat bag (or you understand Dutch but live too far away and want one of the two others) email me at caramin.anneke@gmail.com. Bags are €10 each + postage!

I also made a few magnets! These have a diameter of 37 mm and are €3 each + postage! 

I'm really happy with how these things came out and hope you like them as well! Keep your eyes peeled for more...

Superetteketet

I have wanted to write this post since FOREVER but stuff just kept... Happening. Loads of extra hours at work and sudden energy to put into knitting... A bit of a shame, since this is something I'm super excited about!

A few months ago two dear friends told me and my boyfriend they wanted to start their own business. They both had a long retail background and a passion for beautiful things, so starting a store selling gifts and design objects seemed like a logical step. They wanted to offer a variety of nice things, including art made by local young artists, and so Superet was born!

We did some brainstorming about things we could contribute, and I decided to sell some postcards, limited lino prints, printed tote bags and handmade brooches (which I posted about before). They worked their butts off to get everything ready, and the result is a gorgeous shop in the middle of Antwerp (seriously, it's smack in the middle of the city)!

My friend Hélène provided an awesome tiger for the shop window! She also has some beautiful postcards and gift tags for sale. My boyfriend came up with tons of super happy colourful prints and posters!

I thoroughly christened my block printing press by churning out some lino prints. It's a really cool process, even if it leaves everything dirty and the cat very confused. The press I have is a super simple one, basically two planks and a lever, but it works really well! This cat print is available, along with a few others you might have glimpsed before.

The one thing I was really excited (and a bit afraid) about are the tote bags! The good thing about the type of press I have is that it doesn't go through a roll like on a more advanced printing press, so while the printing surface is the same (around an A4), you have some space around it to use larger paper, or in this case, tote bags! Each one of these is handprinted and unique.

They have loads more amazing things, and some beautiful gift ideas. If you're in Antwerp, go say hi and have a look!

Superet
Wijngaardstraat 21
2000 Antwerpen

If only I could wear 200 brooches at once.

A few months ago, two good friends told me and my boyfriend they wanted to start their own business. They wanted to open a store in the middle of Antwerp to sell pretty things and unique souvenirs, and asked me and a couple of other people to make products for them. I went for postcards, limited lino prints, printed tote bags and felt brooches, and today I'll show you one of these things!

I have been making these little brooches for a while now, but never seriously thought about selling them (more in an 'ok if you want it I'll make it' kind of way). Over the past few weeks I spent a few days watching the X-Files and embroidering. With nice results!

Every brooch is made from 100% wool felt, and entirely handcut and sewn. I first sketch the brooch on sturdy paper, cut it out, use the general shape to cut out the background and then cut the smaller shapes out of that to cut the details. This means that each one is unique!

I had to find a way to present them that would look decent but not be too expensive or hard to do. In the end I carved a stamp on some mounted softcut (which I only used because I was going to stamp it by hand, it's horrible stuff that feels like cutting chewing gum and I'd much rather cut real lino and use a press or spoon!) and went to town on sturdy coloured paper. The result looks 'legit' according to the boyfriend!

I have some pictures of the linoprinting process lined up as well, but those will have to wait for after my holiday. See you in about three weeks!

PS: If anyone in New York, Portland, Seattle or Vancouver wants to meet up, don't forget to let me know!

Postcards to send to your Friends and Enemies

Some time ago, I made postcards out of some of my illustrations and put them up for sale. Recently it dawned upon me that I never made a clear post showing all the cards, just something slightly confusing! So I laid them all out and now present to you the entire collection:

All these are for sale for €2 each + shipping. I will ship worldwide! If you want one or more cards just send me an e-mail (annekecaramin@hotmail.com) with the numbers from this picture and your address, and I'll send a Paypal invoice.

---

PS: I'm doing tons of guestblogging all of a sudden! Pop over to Hanne's blog to see my tricks for making your fashion sketches look awesome (and read all her posts in this drawing series because they are super inspirational) and have a look over at Antwerpen Streetstyle to see what I've been doing for them!

(Cue the Tension-building Music)

Something's going to happen.

Dun dun duunnnnn!

Josephine

I completely forgot to post some more images from my final school project! It was very stressy to get everything done in time, but I managed to pull it off, and I'm quite happy with the result. At the moment I'm sick of the thing (which makes sense, I've been working on it for ten months straight) but I definitely see myself revisiting it later and maybe try to get it published!

Here's my previous blog post about the project. I've been getting some new followers lately so I'll give a little summary: I just finished studying comics and illustration in Brussels, and for our Master's degree we had to come up with our own project, defend it and finish it as well as we could, under guidance of a few teachers. Most of the year was spent on my own though, since the purpose of a Master's degree is proving that you can work by yourself. It took me a while to really get going, but the finished book looks something like this:

The process to make these images is pretty tedious: I cut all the elements separately out of coloured paper, using any old blade and a cutting mat. details in pencil are drawn separately. I then scan all the separate elements and piece them together in Photoshop. Doing this digitally allows me to have the slightly overlapping edges and gives the thing an almost screenprinted look.

The entire story is 40 pages long, and tells the story of Josephine, a fictional seamstress living in a small town, somewhere in the past (it's obviously old-timey but in no way historically correct. I went for an atmosphere, not a historical document). She is incredibly shy, and prefers the world she created for herself in her daydreams over real connections with real people. But at one point reality catches up with her dreams and she is confronted by harsh reality.

Whew! That was a long post. I hope it didn't bore you! I posted this on my sewing blog because it's fairly obvious how this passion for sewing has influenced my work, and I thought some of you might enjoy this!

POSTCARDS

One thing my classmates and I did for the exhibition at the end of the school year was to make and sell postcards of our work. I was surprised at the positive response and decided to keep doing this! If you see an image you like and would want on a postcard, feel free to send me an e-mail at annekecaramin(at)hotmail(dot)com. Postcards are 10 x 15 cm (they fit into a standard envelope) and cost €2 each, plus postage! I ship worldwide!

Felt Patches

While in New York, I picked up a load of felt in different colors. For some reason I can't find real wool felt at a reasonable price here, and most large craft stores only sell a synthetic version that looks and feels quite cheap (shiny!)

Back home I decided to turn some of this felt into patches, by cutting out shapes and adding details with embroidery floss. This is the result:

I really like how they came out and immediately made a little fox to be my autumn mascot:

After posting these on facebook a few people asked me if they were for sale. So now I have decided to make them available! The patches are between 7 and 8 centimeters at their widest point and cost 8 euros + shipping. I can make a custom design for you if you want. Contact me at annekecaramin(at)hotmail.com for more information!