zine action

Getting prepared for the zine symposium is a skill that becomes more defined each year. I do not go around the country and do other sympoisums like some do. Once a year (well, twice if you count the handmade bazaar) is enough for me.

Here is a picture of my symposium kit.

My ponyboypress lunchbox filled with the essentials, small things like a container filled with my buttons, the magnets I sell (that go on the lunchbox), display stands, business cards and pencil case filled with pens, markers, tags, tape, ect.. There are many things you need to be all set. Saturday morning I left home with out this important lunch box. I had to go back and get it.

Here is a shot of my table from Saturday morning. All yellow and green!

I took some of the boxes I always use for zines and covered them in this vintage adhesive paper I have. I got it at an estate sale years ago. It was unused. It is awesome looking, easy to use and totally repositionable!

I love all the suggestions on the backing for what you can use it for. It recommends using it to cover practically everything including counters, lamp bases, coffee tables, painted furniture, radios and televisions!

Figure 8 #4!!

It is now in the shop!

getting ready

Here's a pic of some new cards I am working on. I will have some at the zine symopsium this weekend and will see how people like them Look for some in the shop in the next week or so.

I found these playing cards at an antique store and I have no idea what the game was or how it works, but the images are so striking to me. I have sort of been holding on to them, waiting for the right thing to use them on. Making them into cards seems a natural since the themes are so strong and personal.

Getting all packed up for the weekend. Yay for zines!

And since I was taking pictures, here is one of my magnet board.

Hope to see you this weekend!

done!

I dropped the new issue of Figure 8 off at the printer last night. I have never had someone do it for me before, but it actually ended up being cheaper to have Kinkos print and staple 300 then for me to do it myself at Kinkos. Usually I use the IPRC or this copy lady I know, but at this time of year in Portland, both those options are way to stressful - pluse someone else does it for me!

I was so excited to drop it off, but when they took it away it felt weird and unsettling not having it in my posession. Not being abale to handle it myself, to be able to reglue pages as they come off and make sure it all works myself. I still do it the old-fashioned way, so there is only one copy. This seperation anxiety suprised me.

Hope you all come by the zine symposium this weekend. I will post the cover and have the new issues of Figure 8 in the shop next week.

Is it August Yet?

I have been deep in the writing and editing of my new issue of Figure 8 or feeling guilty about how I should be working on it. It is true there is a lot ot do and only a couple weeks to do it, but I will make it!

In between working on the zine I have been going to the farmers market weekely, I got to go shopping at the new Portland Ikea before the rest of the town and I have been swimming.

Yep, it is summer. The last 7 summers of my life have all been like this. Consumed with getting a zine done in time for the zine symposium. Deadlines work good for me, especially this one and the zine symposium is so much fun! Between, making zines and swimming and eating lots of berries, life right now feels a lot like summer camp. My own private summer camp!

This all reminds me of these really neat photos you can get on the Etsy shop, Liasynthis. I think this is a great concept and works really well. Especially when the cut-outs are actually outside.

In Heaven there is No Heat

Just when I was getting ready to make this post a Lavender Diamond song came on my Pandora titled "In Heaven There is No Heat". I don't know if she meant this as a good thing, but it sounds great to me! It has been 100 degrees here in Portland for the last couple of days. It is pretty hot. How do all you summer-lovers like it now, huh? I enjoy summer more now then I used to, thanks to the a/c units in my windows, mostly. But, one of the things I like most about summer is that fall is next!

I got some good work done on the new issue of Figure 8 last week, but it was all first drafts. I have a lot to do! It is always down to the wire like this. The Zine Symposium as a deadline works well for me.

Of course, I would much rather be on nice breezy island with a bunch of animals I could hang out with. That is what it is like in Thistle Town everyday! Thistle Town Studio exists on Vancouver Island and there are lots of adorable little friends there. At Christmas, I gave one of these critters, a lion, to a very nice baby I know. I am waiting for the right one to come over to my house. Maybe this cute little otter?

Or this sweet little fox?

Hope you all stay cool!

Summer Retreat

I just spotted this very cute vintage mug on Etsy. It agree with it and am planning on trying to do some of that this extended weekend. I will be off for the next five days and would like to have some lunch time chats with some people, some sandwhiches and tea maybe. I don't get enough of those.

Mostly what I want to do with this time is work on my zine. I am trying to get a new Figure 8 done for Portland Zine Symposium and am quickly running short on time. I am going to think of these next five days as a sort of writers retreat in my own house, along with seeing some friends, going grocery shopping and going to a wedding!

Hope you have an nice holiday!

The Future Designs

Even though just hours ago I posted something about how I covet all the cutesy animal fabrics from Japan, I am now here posting about how there is the littlest inckling in me that is starting to not be as interested in them. Don't get me wrong, I love the animal stuff, I always will, but my bedroom is starting to look like a 6 year olds and I find that I don't feel quite as strong a pull for just anything cute. I am becoming more discerning.

At one time I had to get anything squirrel, now with so many squirrel things around, it isn't as important. In a completely contrary way I have become *more* entranced with owls then I once was, all the cute designs have influenced me in an opposite way. I think often my obsession for designs, or really, motifs has to do with the past. I am attracted to the motifs of the past. In the mid-nineties I looked for cherry designs, they were so popular in the forties and I thought it was so charming. As you can imagine, I was over the cherry thing a long time ago.

I could go on and on with this, but I don't want to offend any of you, because chances are there is some motif you really love that I am unexplicably over and I can be rather surly about it. As you can see I think about this stuff a lot. I notice the movement of motif from underground sort of indie land to more mainstream indie land to Urban Outfitters to Target to Walgreens. Case in point the little bird as a motif. That was something I saw as a new motif when I first moved here in 2000. I am not saying I don't still find things with birds on them appealing, I can, but it is 7 years now!

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that I often wonder what is next. At some point it is going to go the other way. What will be the designs that become the antidote to the ultra cutesiness of now ( by the way, the nature motifs have been a nice addition in the last few years, I personally have always loved the tree motif, but even these are very sweet and romantic and cute, so I am including them in this category). I have thought often that it could be buildings. I saw these recently on the blog Print and Pattern

I really like them. I could see totally getting into this, in a way. Especially if they were buildings I knew. They have a sort of Seventies feel to them, which appeals to me, although I am not sure that they used buildings as a motif back then.

These do, however, go with a certain kind of metropolitan lifestyle and home. I think they are perfect for the modern looks of todays homes, I just do not have that kind of a place. But, anyway, buildings, yeah, look out for them.

p.s. this has been a entry in the making for years!

Etsy Finds and Ridiculously Cute Fabric in General

There are so many adorable fabrics out there with the super cute patterns. Many of them are Japanese and it is hard for me to resist some of them. I try, however to not buy fabric (unless it is really cheap) unless I know what I am going to use it for. I am not some big time sewer, I have only recently started sewing things for myself, and I already have way more fabric than is neccesary for me. If this were not the case however I would be buying way more at Superbuzzy, like this

There are a couple people on Etsy who sell japanese fabrics, too. Here is some from one shop called Sakura Fabric's. I love the worker animals, just like Richard Scarry's stuff. So cute!

The patterns are so small on some of these that if you use them for something big you kind of lose the image. It seems like making small things with these kinds of fabric are the best way to enjoy it. I think Chet and Dot does a really good job of doing that, highlighting the cutest part of the print, mixing it with other fabrics:

There is another shop on Etsy called Fluffington's that takes it even smaller. They make little covered buttons with these fabrics and them arrange them like a little collage, highlighting one very small part. They are so well done and you definately get to see the little bits you would miss from a distance.

PonyBoy Press History

I found this a couple years ago when I was cleaning out stuff. I took a photo of it and downloaded it and forgot to ever post it. I just found it again. What you see here, in case you don't know, is the genesis of PonyBoy Press (ta da!).



Let me take you back. It was the summer of 1994. People were heading to air-conditioned theatres to see Jurassic Park, listening to sounds of the chart busting album "August and Everything After" from the Counting Crows and talking non-stop about OJ Simpson. Marilyn and I had been friends for a few months. We both were starting our zines and she had come to my side of the Bay Area to hang out , talk zines and as it turned out, go to a blues club on a hot evening.

We listened to some mediocre-to-bad blues and had some hooch. It was fun. We wrote haikus about the band members and talked about ideas for our new zines. Mine was called Frank, Jasper and Me and her's was of course, Fat!So? I told her I loved the idea of being a "press" and wanted to come up with a name. One of my ideas was PonyBoy Press. She said yeah, and you could have a little logo like this and she drew it right there on the flyer that was on our table. A couple weeks later I took it to Kinkos and copied it. I still love it.