Enviable wall art, and a useful seminar

Last week at the British Library's "Make it, sell it" seminar I met Louise (aka Wall Envy Art), who has a unique use for old books.

To create her eco friendly typographic art she takes pages (from books of which there are many copies in existence, she emphasises!), adds quotes from the book - for instance, the one at the bottom is Pride and Prejudice - and then puts them into the perfect frame -

Louise also personalises pages - and sells in several online venues - see more on her website. If you're in the Kettering area, she's doing a workshop there on 31 March.

I saved Louise the trouble of taking home this brilliant quote - it's one of the Great Unanswered Questions, don't you think?  It's now sitting, infinitely ponderable, above my desk (propped up by another favourite object, the "turtle legs" basket made in Botswana) -

The BL's seminar was brilliant - under the format of "speed mentoring" you had access to information from specialists in various components of bringing a product from idea to market:  finance, copyright, the realities of production, promoting your work, selling online. If you brought your product along, you had a chance to present it briefly six times as you moved from table to table, expert to expert, with a shifting selection of the other 30 or so people present. I came away with a lot of useful knowledge and a different slant in regard to developing my "journey bags" as a saleable item.

Specific advice included how to approach shops and buyers (have a trade price decided, and know how many you can deliver and in what timeframe), the elements of arriving at a selling price, and "make the best product you can". Above all, decide what makes your product unique - and get your "story" in place!