Owl Spotlight: JamieLeto

I started jamieleto.etsy.com in 2007, about 3 years ago, and within the past three years my shop has been opened, closed, reopened, reinvented, you name it. I began with sewing little stuffed monsters to knitting scarflettes to making jewelry to writing cut-paste zines and everything in between.

Despite having loves of all different DIYs and dabbling in each category and finding my temporary niche in each one, it was always sort of an underlying dream of mine to be making decoupage creations. For the past 6 years I've been an avid collage maker, and have collaged entire walls with pictures I've hand picked. I just find it so interesting and rewarding for some reason I can't explain. This year I finally found it in me to dedicate my shop to decoupaged creations.

Last christmas I made my boyfriend a decoupage frame with little green triangles that took me forever but I loved the outcome. I really just enjoyed doing it and the meticulous nature of it; just putting pieces together, like a puzzle. I just sort of fell in love with decoupage. So after being on a shop hiatus for a while, I began to create more and more and decided to get back up and running again. I chose the name mélange, which means collection, because I think of these collaged products as a collection of ideas because I think that's what magazines are: collections of photos, words, ideas.

Red Angle Decoupage Heart Mirror

Green Angle Decoupage Box

Aside from just doing what I love, I'm happy to do it with recycled products. With my collaging addiction I have tons of old magazines lying around and now I've found an awesome, profitable, sustainable way to use them. If you're interested in getting rid of any old magazines e-mail me at jamieleto@hellokitty.com . Depending on the amount I may be able to take them off your hands as long as you are willing to pay shipping.

Quadro Decoupage Frame 

thanks for reading owls (:

http://jamieleto.etsy.com

Owls find LOST

For those out there who love LOST as much as I do, jamieleto put this owlfinds list together for us all to squee about tonight's LOST season finale. So Squee away, and enjoy it while you can! It'll be a long time until next season! The only thing to tide us over will be items like this on Etsy, watching reruns, and trying to decide just WHO is our favorite character. Feel free to comment with yours!!






Dharma Initiative Lunch Bags by sammo
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=24947005


Lost Numbers Necklace by junedesigns
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24732447


Locke Mosaic Montage by finalscore
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=23824374


Lost cast pocket mirror by CactusMafia
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=23081566


Kate portrait by OfNatureDesigns
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=15789729


Oceanic 815 (for your neck!) by nakedtile
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_1&listing_id=11397780

Owl Spotlight, JamieLeto

hello fellow owls and faithful etsian readers.. and everyone else in between! i'm so thrilled to be writing my first etsyowls spotlight blog! but what to write about... well it never has been hard for me to write so why start being difficult now? hehe.

well, i took a hiatus from etsy recently to just regain my focus and balance my workload outside of the online world. i took a month or two off and i'm back with new ideas and an entire etsy shop full of discounted prices. for the past year i've sold knitted goods as well as plenty of zines and nautical themed jewelry, but somewhere in the start of this year i was feeling disconnected to it and felt as though i should sit on some new ideas.

these are just some of the things currently on sale in my etsy shop. i've set the prices sufficiently lower than what they had been because i'm trying to clear it all out. so on my journey to find what my next creative venture will be, i just basically stumbled into myself. there wasn't much looking involved, but more thinking. thinking what i connect with, what i enjoy and what i'd like to share with others. it took me about five minutes after sitting down, while on etsy hiatus, to think of what i'd really love to do. i've done jewelry, i've done knitting, i've done paper goods, i've done zines.. and then i just looked around and it was clear to me what was next, and it's decoupage.

anyone who knows me, if they go away knowing of one thing, it's probably going to be my extensive love of collaging. still living with my family, over the past few years my walls have just become covered. i love collaging, i love matching colors, putting things together and creating visual splendor. i never really thought about branching out in this sense, but while participating in my typical collaging, and through constantly seeing my friends' reactions to my work, i just thought, i enjoy this, etsy enjoys art, why not mix the two? so i came off my hiatus in time, put my whole etsy shop on sale to get rid of old stock, and with the money i make from the old stock i will pay off my parents for the tv on the radio tickets i 'needed' (in my impulsive buying ways and my desires to not let my boyfriend pay for absolutely everything) and will invest in my new ideas. my first project will be a sort of jewelry box collaged decoupage-style with photos from national geographic magazine. hopefully my sales will pick up soon so i'll be enabled to do this.

ps- steve buscemi recently got a twitter and if 1,000 people send photos of them holding a dollar with 'steve buscemi is on twitter' written on it, he'll shave his head! LET'S DO IT! he's at twitter.com/steve_buscemi!

You can hook up with JamieLeto on Twitter @jamieleto and also on her blog at http://jamieleto.vox.com Visit her shop at http://jamieleto.etsy.com