Altered Art: What price a tag?

beech tagsThese are solid beech tags, 12 x 2.5 cm in size and about 1 cm thick. I’m calling them chunky gift tags and spent a day getting the settings right on the laser cutter. Variations included cutting from both sides (involving lining up the mirror image, not easy), lots of repeat cuts, and lots of sanding. Every block had to be covered with masking tape front and back prior to cutting. I have a sum total of 30 tags that passed quality control, 4 that are seconds and another 6 or 7 consigned to the bin straight away.

One of the trickiest things for an artist/maker to get right is pricing. Following guidelines from college, each of these tags should be sold for £7.50 each. I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for them. I’ve settled on £3 each with two for £5 as an offer, and even that seems a little too much. What is often overlooked when considering the price of artwork/made items are the costs involved in prototyping, learning from mistakes, the odd block that is inexplicably more dense and harder to cut than the others, and the wear and tear on equipment.

May I encourage you to ask artisans ‘what has this really cost to make?’ You may not be willing to pay that price, but at least you will know why the moniker of ‘penniless artist’ is all too real.

Perfect Packaging III: Time & Technology Key Fobs

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I’ve made a few key fobs over the last couple of days (yet more to fit on my table for the church Christmas Fayre), using a ‘steampunk’ antique brass pendant with quite a deep bezel. I’ve added a layer of Pebeo Prisme Fantasy Paint first, and allowed that to dry before starting to layer pieces of old computers and watch mechanisms. I used Lisa Pavelka’s Magic Glos UV hardening resin, which is crystal clear and sets within minutes in my Imagepac UV box, allowing layering of the encapsulated items. After a final brim-full top up with resin and a long harden under the lamps, I added an antique brass split ring to complete the key fob.

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Make your own custom wax seal

Last weekend I went to a craft show, and amongst the ridiculous amounts of dies I noticed a dip pen and wax seal stand. Wax seals have a sense of class, of authenticity, of originality, even in the electronic age. And I’ve wanted my own for ages (my faux ones still didn’t quite hit the mark), along with some of the gorgeous pens. But where would be the originality be in a mass produced metal wax seal stamp? It was at that point I thought – I could make my own, couldn’t I? Thus started another steep learning curve (in between doing all the glass etching).

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