New Splatter Paint Colorway: Lemongrass

Etsy has named chartreuse as the color of the year for 2020. I couldn’t be happier about this happy hue getting some time in the spotlight. Bring on the citrus colors, the golden greens, the fresh energetic tones!

Introducing an all-new colorway for the splatter painted acrylic collection: Lemongrass. I gathered up my favorite lime greens, mustard yellows, olives, and golds, and got to work making a drippy mess on the backside of clear acrylic. I’m so pleased with the results! Each pendant, pair of earrings, and ring is totally unique because it’s cut from an original splatter painting. 

Checkout the process video and see how it all comes together. 

Etsy has named Chartreuse the color of the year for 2020, and I'm totally on board! In my latest Makers Eye View video I'm embracing this fresh new colorway and adding it to my splatter painted acrylic jewelry collection. Watch as drips and splatters slowly build up to create a one-of-a-kind piece of jewelry.

The Lemongrass colorway is available online and I highly recommend going for the brass or silver setting. It compliments the golden green tones so well!

Evolution of a Maker: 11 Years of Once Again Sam

You probably know me for my handmade jewelry and fiber art. I’ve been making & selling jewelry on Etsy since January of 2009, and added fiber art to my offerings shortly after that, but I bet you didn’t know I once dabbled in making coasters from marble samples, bowls from old vinyl records, magnets from glass tiles, and some steampunk jewelry from old clock parts? Yes, it’s been a wild ride here at Once Again Sam! 

When I started out, I was working almost exclusively with up-cycled materials for two reasons: 1. I had a very small budget, and 2. I had access to a lot of interesting materials for free thanks to my career in interior design (which is an industry that is constantly clearing out samples from their design libraries). This combination caused me to be resourceful and experiment, which is still to this day the spirit of my handmade business Once Again Sam (and that’s also where the “once again” comes from in my company name). 

My monthly “crafting budget” in 2009 was $25 plus whatever I made selling on Etsy. When I started out, I wasn’t selling much on Etsy - maybe a sale a week for the first few months. However, I was surrounded by cool materials, thanks to my design career. The firm I was with at the time was relocating and downsizing the materials library (this was right when the Architecture industry was hit hard during the recession) and we were discarding samples like crazy, so I started reclaiming things from the trash like stone flooring samples, glass tile mockups, leather upholstery swatches, and wood stain chain sets. These odd bits and random pieces bound for the trash are how this business began!

I did eventually branch out and started buying inexpensive items at Goodwill that I could repurpose. Some of my favorite items to up-cycle at that time were suede clothing, old belts, vinyl records, broken costume jewelry pieces, and clocks. 

After about 2-3 years, I finally hit my stride working with wood, leather and wool. I stuck to these mediums and started selling enough online that I couldn’t get by using only recycled materials - I had to start sourcing from suppliers with future growth in mind. I still use recycled leather when possible.

Before I invested in my first laser cutter in 2012, all the leather earrings, cuffs, and rings were cut by hand, and that limited my design capabilities. The laser cutter really opened things up for my business - not just with leather, but also with wood and acrylic. However, there are still several hand cut leather designs I still make today.

My needle felting projects went from simple to complex within just a few short years. I dabbled in mostly 3D work, focusing on animals and plants as my subject matter. Some of these designs are still around in my shop today - they’re just more refined after years and years of practice!

I always get asked if I’d ever try a menswear jewelry line. I have, and it bombed. In 2015 I did a series of wooden dog tags, wider leather cuffs, and engraved wooden cufflinks and the collection was a total bust. Sometimes ideas just don’t work out - either the product isn’t quite right or there’s no customers who want to buy it. You live, you learn. No more menswear in the future - got it!

In 2016, my fiber art changed dimensions, literally. For the first time ever, I decided to work in 2D. It was completely different and I loved it immediately. I don’t know why I never thought to try that before! My first needle felted landscape was created in May of 2016 and it took my in a whole new direction, one I’m pursuing enthusiastically at the moment. Switching from 3D to 2D helped elevate my fiber art. I discovered as soon as you put something on a wall, it’s thought of more as art instead of craft.

In more recent years I’ve changed my fiber art focus almost entirely to 2D but I still do animal portraits and felted plants from time to time. The jewelry is still primarily laser cut but I’m enjoying hand painting and finding ways to marry the technology of the laser cutter with traditional art methods.

I enjoyed this little trip down memory lane and hope you did too. We’re all evolving, but it’s hard to see that on a day to day basis sometimes. When I look back at where I started, what I made, what I learned, I feel like a whole lot has happened in the last 11 years. There’s things I only made once and never tried again, there were things I made a decade ago that I still create and sell today, and it’s cool to see how it all ties together. My maker story is still being written. Who knows what the next ten years will bring! 

Year in Review: 2019

I’m about to celebrate 11 years in business as Once Again Sam and 2019 was another great year. Although it wasn’t a record-breaker like last year, I felt like I had way more opportunities and more fun in the last 12 months than compared to 2018. I factor so many things into “was it a good year?” so even though my total sales dipped by about 10% compared to 2018, I still count this year as one of the best yet.

The biggest changes I noticed this year was that Etsy Sales were way way down, but craft show sales were up, so thankfully it mostly balanced out. If you had asked me last year, I would have predicted the exact opposite - craft shows seem to be drying up and Etsy seemed to be holding steady. My crystal ball was wrong about 2019! A big win this year is seeing my Wholesale reach continue to rise because it’s by far my biggest financial investment since 2016. So nice to see it paying off longterm!

2019 brought lots of new milestones and opportunities - here’s a look at some of the highlights:

Teaching Opportunities: I taught 12 needle felting workshops this year (through Greenville Center for Creative Arts and SkillPop) and that included a total of 159 students. I had about 10% of those students return for a second, third, and even a fourth class. Either I’m a terrible teacher or they’re having a lot of fun learning this magical medium! I also taught my first hand painted jewelry class (at the Artisphere ArtLab) and I’m thinking about adding that to my workshop offerings next year.

27 Commissions: This is certainly a new record for me! I don’t count any of the custom handmade jewelry because honestly, 75% of the jewelry I make IS custom and/or made to order. I consider a commission to be a needle felted landscapes made from the customer’s photos or needle felted animal portrait. 27 commissions over 12 months is way more than I realized until I went back and looked at my records from this year. This is a tiny sampling below.

5 Magazine Features: Thank you again to Belle Armoire, TOWN, Local Life, Country Living, and The Pioneer Woman for featuring my work this year!

4 Exhibitions: I was honored to have my first large-scale long-term exhibition this summer at Greenville Center for Creative Arts. My 100 Day Project was part of the Fiber Paper Scissors show and it was truly one of the highlights of my year. I also had a fiber art landscape piece in the GCCA Members Exhibition, 2 in the the Friends of Lake Robinson juried exhibition, and a triptych at the Artfields Exhibition in Lake City, SC.

2 Grants: I have Metropolitan Arts Council to thank for not one but TWO grants this year. They helped fund my material costs for the 100 Day Project and Exhibition in the early spring, and then the second grant came in the fall which I used to take a rug hooking course at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

1 Artist in Residence Opportunity: My second consecutive residency with South Carolina State Parks occurred in May at Edisto Beach State Park, and as with the previous year, that time away surrounded by an abundance of natural inspiration was another high point of my year. Read all about my experience in this blog post.

So it was a great year, as you can see! Taking time to reflect on the last 12 months on an emotional level, artistic satisfaction level, and pure numbers level, is a huge help in planning my next year and beyond. It’s easy to see what’s not working and it’s easy to see what worked way better than I expected. I’m starting to truly understand that one of the big reasons my small business has lasted this long and continues to grow each year is because I’m extremely diversified. I work in multiple mediums that appeal to completely different customers and I sell on multiple sales platforms so if one is suffering, I can wait it out or move on. A dip in Etsy sales this year didn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things, which is a relief. If I had all my eggs in that basket, it might have hurt way more than it did. Same goes for last year with craft shows - I didn’t do as well in that arena in 2018, but I hung in there, tried again this year, and had fantastic results.

I’m so grateful for every single compliment, opportunity, sale, like, share, email, feature, and student this year and every year. All of these things - small things, big things - they all add up and they all matter. From the bottom of my heart - thank you!

Lastly - if you’re into stats and am curious about the journey of this handmade business, I’ve posted several reviews and recaps from previous years.

They can be found here:

Year in Review: 2018

Year in Review: 2016

Year in Review: 2015

Year in Review 2014

Rug Hooking at the Folk School

Last week I had the pleasure of returning to the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC for an intro to rug hooking course. This fascinating fiber art form is something I’ve wanted to learn for years, but I was having a hard time finding anyone locally who could teach me (or who had ever heard of rug hooking, for that matter). The history of traditional rug hooking is interesting, and the craft itself is quite remarkable, but I had a very specific reason for wanting to learn this new medium. I knew somehow, some way, I wanted to incorporate this dimensional texture into my existing needle felting work. Even though I could easily envision how I’d combine the two mediums, I had absolutely no idea where to start, so when I saw there was a rug hooking course coming up at the Folk School, I knew the stars had finally aligned and it was time to find out if this idea was possible.

 The Folk School is located in the misty Appalachian mountains, about as far west as you can go and still be in the state of North Carolina. It’s remote, it’s beautiful, and it has a special community that’s been teaching a variety of traditional handicrafts for nearly 100 years. You can learn blacksmithing, chair caning, felt making, book binding, metal smithing, pottery, glass bead making, photography, wood turning, and weaving, just to name a few. The class sizes are small, typically less than 10 students, and you learn by total immersion. By the end of my week, I had put in 40 hours in the fiber art studio! 

The first hour of class, we learned about the tools, materials, and techniques required for rug hooking, and then we were off to hook our first practice piece – a small coaster, using a simple log cabin pattern. Learning to hook a rug seems simple, but it’s not simple at all. After cutting thin strips of wool, you use a hooked hand tool and pull them through the open weave of a piece of fabric. It sounds so basic, but there’s a lot to it. You have to pull the loops through the fabric just so, and space them out enough, but not too much. You can work with a predetermined pattern, but after my first practice piece, I chose to make up my own or work free form. 

By day two, I was hooking away on my first large piece and finally had the chance to try out my idea of combining rug hooking and needle felting, and I’m thrilled to say – IT WORKED! I hooked a landscape, creating a foreground and mountains with little loops of wool, then I needle felted the sky with roving. I absolutely love how the two wool textures look together. I’m comfortable with landscapes, I make them almost daily (in felt), so this seemed liked a good place to start. 

The third day, I tried a more abstract piece, a longer tapestry wall hanging in a pale color palette, still experimenting with mixing roving with the wool “noodles” I was hooking through the linen background fabric. I also learned various ways to finish the pieces, like binding the edges with yarn.  My loops aren’t perfect, my edges aren’t straight, I ran out of wool so the finished piece is about an inch shorter than I had been planning, by I learned so much by the time this one was finished and I’m in love with the irregular pattern and soft earthy colors. 

 Towards the end of the week, I challenged myself to try hooking precise geometric shapes with curves and points, change colors more often, work with smaller scale fabric strips, and switch directions with my loops. I created two more pieces, both using scrap wool and remnants. I also went bold with my color choices and have no regrets about that! 

After my first 40 hours of rug hooking, all in one week, I’m only just starting to understand how it works. I’m a beginner and will be for quite some time, my work is far from perfect, but I’m so happy to be off on this new adventure in a different medium that compliments what I’m already doing. My fiber art is bound to change in the future, and that’s exciting in so many ways.

Check out this short 5 minute video showing highlights of the week, time-lapse footage of my first few hooking projects, and work from the other students in various classes.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Metropolitan Arts Council (MAC) who made this educational undertaking possible by awarding me a grant to help fund my week at the Folk School plus the investment of the new tools and equipment required to continue to pursue a new dimension in my fiber art. Thank you thank you thank you!

This program is funded in part by the Metropolitan Arts Council which receives support from the City of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Company, Michelin North America, Inc., SEW Eurodrive and the South Carolina Arts Commission.

The Return of the Animal Portraits

It’s been awhile (I think maybe 2 years???), but I’m finally bringing back my quirky needle felted animal portraits for a limited edition series! These sometimes-realistic and sometimes-ridiculous wall hangings range from bookish bunnies, to cool cats in hats, and my most recent favorite, a professorial beaver in a bowtie. The 3D wool portraits are large enough that I’m able to develop the head shape and facial details pretty well, and adding just the right accessory – a pair of glasses, a pearl necklace, a pipe, or knit cap (my mother-in-law knit some of these for me!) is one of the most pleasing parts of the whole process for me. Sourcing those small scale accessories can be a bit of a treasure hunt, but they sure give the piece personality.

 I’ve been making these felted animal portraits for many years, but only in short bursts, never in a continuous or predictable fashion. I take commissions year round and am always up for a special request, but I’m rarely producing more than 15-20 portraits a year outside of custom orders. That’s extremely limited when I compare to how many hundreds of wool paintings I make in a year, several thousand pendants & earrings, plus dozens and dozens of Christmas ornaments.

Each summer, in preparation for Indie Craft Parade, a major craft fair here in Greenville, SC, I typically make one small collection of the felted portraits, put them all out at the show, and they’re sold out by noon the first day, so there are no remaining pieces to add to my website. I don’t know why I even have a section for these on my site. It’s permanently empty!

Recently, I started to realize customers outside of the Greenville area (or even those in the Greenville area who didn’t attend the show or got there too late) don’t have the opportunity to purchase or even see the animal portraits in person. This year, prior to Indie Craft Parade, I’m trying something a little different in hopes of giving those interested a chance of adding to their collection. I’m going to offer these quirky creatures for sale in a brief pre-sale / flash sale on Instagram so there will be a short chance to snag one before they ever make it to the craft show (or if you’re local, you can purchase in advance and pick up at the show). Plus, I made nearly twice as many as previous years, so hopefully there’s enough to go around this time!

Hope you enjoyed this advanced look at the pieces available. Please follow along on Instagram for details about when they’ll be up for grabs in early September.

 As always, if you don’t see the exact animal you want, or you have something specific in mind, please reach out. I truly love custom orders!