18 February, 2020

Postponed – Etsy Shop Behind the Scenes

2020-04-06T21:25:55-05:00, |Comments Off on Postponed – Etsy Shop Behind the Scenes

** THIS CLASS WILL BE RESCHEDULED FOR FALL. ** Tips, techniques and words of wisdom from a long-time Etsy Seller about what it takes to run an Etsy shop. Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the technical side of running your shop, setting up items via the Shop Manager, and choosing shipping profiles; as well as marketing and search tips to help get you started on the right foot. Note, this is a lecture style class, you do not need to bring a computer.

This is a great class to pair with Photos in a Snap.


Registration closed.


This class is held at HeartFelt Silks Studio.

18 February, 2020

Postponed – Photos in a Snap

2020-05-06T12:53:51-05:00, |Comments Off on Postponed – Photos in a Snap

This class will be rescheduled for Fall 2020.


A quick crash course in photographing your small scale art work using your smartphone to capture and edit images. Learn tips for using everyday materials to light and display your work and basic edits that can help your photos shine on your website, social media or Etsy shop.

This will be a hands-on session focused on photographing small objects (<15 inches) and you should bring a smartphone with a camera to class with you and one small piece of art that you have made (jewelry, pottery, wood, fiber art.)

This is a great class to pair with my Etsy Behind the Scenes class.


REGISTER HERE: https://beckarahn.square.site/product/photos-in-a-snap/32

This class is held at HeartFelt Silks Studio.

15 July, 2019

Etsy Shop Behind the Scenes

2019-07-15T17:53:32-05:00|Comments Off on Etsy Shop Behind the Scenes

Tips, techniques and words of wisdom from a long-time Etsy Seller about what it takes to run an Etsy shop. Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the technical side of running your shop, setting up items via the Shop Manager, and choosing shipping profiles; as well as marketing and search tips to help get you started on the right foot. Note, this is a lecture style class, you do not need to bring a computer.

2 February, 2018

Work in progress and origami design inspiration.

2018-02-02T14:58:47-06:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design|Comments Off on Work in progress and origami design inspiration.

I talked a few posts back about goals for 2018 and one of those was to design more fabric. My goal was one new design a week and so far I am way ahead of schedule! First, I expanded my oboe fabrics line. It went from 1 print, which I originally designed in 2009 to 24 oboe and oboe-themed fabric prints available. I did six different designs in 4 different colorways. Because someone always asks the question when I use that term, a colorway means the group of colors that make up the designs. I use the same colors in all 6 fabrics so that the colorway all coordinates and you can mix and match. So my colorways are Tango (grey/red/pink/black), Duet (blue/green/purple), Salsa (orange, lime, turquoise, grey) and Blues (blue, grey, black). Those are all now printed, proofed, tweaked and available for sale in my Spoonflower shop.

And then I printed a slight variation on those same designs onto note cards so that I have sets of oboe postcards available now in my Etsy shop called Oboe d’Amore. It ends up that the repeating oboe instrument print is my favorite from the collection, although I am thinking about making a dress from the music staffs print with the wavy lines.

Then as another part of that “design more” goal, I have tackled the Spoonflower weekly design challenges. You can see my Spanish Tile, Greek art, and Kilim designs by clicking those links. Even though I loved my stegosaurus kilim design, it placed #328th, so I have a ways to go before I crack the top ten. I love the contests and I talk about them when I teach, but it isn’t something I ever made time to participate in. I am so glad I put that on my list for this year. I am really enjoying the challenge (and the deadline).

Something I have noticed about my Spoonflower Challenge entries is that I tend to design for the scale I would actually like the print to be printed at, but many contest entries seem to scale for what is going to look awesome in the fat quarter preview that is voted on, even though that would make somewhat exaggerated oversized prints on fabric. Maybe because I am such a fabric person/sewist that I am thinking always “what would this print be good for” and making my design with that scale in mind. So I am going to try a little experiment and for the next few entries, I am going to upload for the contest at a larger scale then I would normally design and then go back and revise them later to scale it down where I think the print belongs (or upload a second version).

This week the contest theme is “Origami” and I thought I would tell you a little about my design, because I love to talk about the process. You know if you have read my blog for any amount of time, that I love origami. I have used it in several exhibitions and I have several fabric designs that incorporate origami.

So for this challenge entry I thought I would start by using the butterflies that I folded for an installation this fall. They are super pretty and I had already photographed them.

But as pretty as they are, I just couldn’t make them look like a cohesive design. I layered them with black and white patterns, dots, clouds. I overlaid them with another color to tie them all together that way. I spent several hours noodling around and just felt like nothing was really working. Bleh.

So, I bagged that idea and started something else. I posted a video about how to fold these butterflies, and I thought it might be interesting to photograph each step of that process and see if I could make a fabric design from that. I wanted to simplify the patterns on the paper, which I think was one of the problems with my previous idea, so I pulled out some construction paper and a little indigo colored craft paint, a pencil eraser and a popsicle stick.

Simple, bold patterns on one side, plain color on the other.

Then I set up my mini photo box and folded and took a photo at each step.

I thought it would be fun to line them up in order of steps, so that you could follow along and see the way it transforms. (Follow Along became the title of this design.)

I felt like it needed one more thing to make it feel finished; some kind of texture in the background so it wasn’t just “things on a white piece of paper”. I love to add layers, so I drew a pattern of arrows. In origami diagrams there are often different kinds of arrows to help tell you what to do with a piece of paper. A zig-zag arrow says fold-and-unfold, a loopy arrow says flip-it-over and so on. So I drew origami-style arrows, scanned and made it into a repeating pattern for the background.

Here is the final finished design.

If you want to see all of the other origami designs (and if you’d like to vote for mine!) you can check out the Origami Challenge page. I think it is really inspiring to be able to see how hundreds of other artists choose to interpret the same themes. There is always something that makes me say “why didn’t I think of that?” and something that makes me say “I wouldn’t have made that choice.” and several new favorites. There’s a dog origami design in this batch that I particularly like.

The next challenge theme is “Significant Otters” and I can’t wait to show you that one!

16 August, 2017

My art supports my community.

2017-08-16T11:24:09-05:00An Artist's Life|1 Comment

I posted this collection of photos to Instagram the other day and it got me thinking. I took the photos as I was walking over to the post office that is just down the block from my house. This is part of my regular routine: walking over to the post office to drop off an Etsy order. Unless it is -20 degrees, I usually walk over there; I don’t like to “work out”, so I make myself walk places a lot. I thought to myself (and laughed a little as I thought about it) “I bet nobody knows that every Etsy shop order they place with me is delivered part of the way on foot.”

And then the more I thought about it, the more I thought that’s part of the story I should be telling. That’s part of the cool thing about both having a small business and working with small businesses. It’s not about distribution centers and corporate culture; it’s about people with stories.

So here are some stories that you wouldn’t know about my business.

I do hand deliver every order you place with me to my neighborhood post office on foot. Sometimes I walk my dogs over too. I have known the people that work in that post office for more than 12 years. It’s a really nice group and they are super helpful whenever I have a question or a problem with shipping something.

My small business also helps support a bunch of other small businesses. There is an art form in itself to sourcing materials to make handmade items for sale. When I first started making and selling things, I used to save all of my coupons and buy everything at Joann Fabrics. But as my business grew, I started to find other sources for the things I needed a lot of. I get all of my zippers for zipper bags from a shop on Etsy called Zipit. She carries everything I could possibly need and she lives just 1 state away from me, so everything ships to me super fast. Similarly, I get purse frames from another Etsy shop, and ribbon for zipper pulls from another Etsy shop. I ordered ultra suede scraps from a shop the other day for a new project I am working on. All of the buttons for the garments for my last exhibition came from Etsy shops. That’s always the place I start when I need a new material; I love the idea that I help make those shops successful too.

I also make a lot of my items with the help of two companies: Spoonflower and Ponoko. They are bigger businesses than mine, but they are still small businesses. And they are small enough that I have a relationship with them. I know people who have worked at both places and I have visited Spoonflower many times. They own equipment that I could never have access to without them. A $100,000 fabric printer and $40,000 laser cutter are really not in my budget. Not to mention that my house is just too small to fit either machine. I have all of the technical skills to design things and I get access to this professional quality equipment. They get to handle all of the tech support and maintenance of those machines. What’s not to love about that?

The holiday show I was accepted into in November is renting space in a local artist studio building. My booth fee is helping to support that small business. I did a lecture just last night with a focus of helping other local sellers to be more successful selling on Etsy. I’ve spend the last almost 2 years partnering with theaters and museums in my community to design and make things for their gift shops. Those partnerships help support me and the organization, which is part of my community.

The more I got thinking about this, the more I realized that is a core value for my artistic practice. And I think it’s a pretty cool one. My art supports my community. And that’s a story I need to tell more about.

19 April, 2017

Etsy Shop: Behind the Scenes

2017-04-19T09:59:22-05:00|Comments Off on Etsy Shop: Behind the Scenes

Etsy.com is a vast online marketplace for handmade goods, and whether you have opened a shop already or are getting ready to take the leap, there is a lot to think about. Take a guided tour from shop owner Becka Rahn, to see how an Etsy shop works from behind the scenes.  Learn about the new Shop Manager for sellers, Etsy Studio, successful listing tips, vocabulary and more.
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