Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library and me

A month or two ago I got an email notifying me of a Spoonflower sale.  I sell designs at Spoonflower regularly so an email isn't unusual.  A fat quarter sale, a few yards, even 20 yard sales can happen and have (and I jump for joy each time) but a 69 yard sale?

S i x t y n i n e yards. My eyes popped open at that one.  My first thought was "errrrr, I wonder if the buyer made a mistake and wanted 6 nine yard pieces?"  I had to verify the sale!

Verified, yes the sale was correct.

Now what in the world would someone do with 69 yards of fabric?

If you're the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library (with a central library and 22 branches) and you have a summer reading program called Gear Up you buy a boatload of fabric with gears as a way to decorate your branches!  Exhibits and displays are put together and my Gear Up fabric can be used in any way the participating branch wants to use it.  At the end of the program they announce the winning display.



I'm a HUGE reader. I usually have a couple of books going at the same time. I have a book near my bed, one in my car and one at work.  Depending on how good the book is I might end up carrying the most compelling story with me from home to work and will read in the parking lot while I wait for my daughter to get off of work.

When I was a kid I'd ride my bike 2 miles to check out 10 books a week.  That was the limit and I always got 10 books.  I filled the basket to the brim each trip.  I read everywhere...including while riding my bike. Ok, so I can't really recommend steering while reading but I wanted to start that book now.  I'd read at the kitchen table before dinner...until my mom would get dinner on the table and tell me to put the book away.  I'd lay the book face up on my lap and try to sneak more reading in by pretending to be downcast that I couldn't prop my book up on the other side of my plate.  She caught me every time tho.

I read in bed under the covers with a flashlight so my sister wouldn't be bothered by the light.  I read in the bathroom, in the bath, in the car...everywhere.

The only time in my life that I didn't read for fun was when I had 2 small children and they seemed to need me during all of their waking moments. Eventually I put my foot down and taught them if I was reading they'd have to ask their dad for whatever they needed.

I think reading is part of my DNA.  One of my biggest nightmares is not being able to read.  There is a Twilight Zone episode where a man who loves to read finds himself in the midst of a world calamity. Everyone is gone in an H-bomb blast and he retreats to the local library where there are books galore.  He accidently breaks his glasses and is left with thousands of books that he can no longer read.  He yells out: "It's not fair, all the time in the world and I can't read!"  (or something to that effect).  Oh that scared me to death!

I digress.

To me, having a one of my designs in a library is the perfect use. Mixing design with reading 2 of my favorite things in one place.  Libraries are one place where at your fingertips you can go anywhere, do anything, be who you want to be.  All for free.

The staff at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library have been great. They've shared a few pictures with me (and they'll send more as their contest winds down).




Support your favorite library, there is always something new happening there.  And if you haven't been to a local library recently: GO! Oh, and I'd love if you left a comment telling me of your favorite books or what you're currently reading. 

Photo credits to the Indianapolis–Marion County Public Library, used with permission.
Graphic by me. :-)




Tuesday, July 17, 2012

A costume print

The next Spoonflower contest is for a theater company putting on How To Succeed in Business. The brief is a mid-century modern print on an 8 inch swatch.

This is what I came up with; it's shown as if it were under stage lights.  The colors are a deep blue with green and lavender elements.  Since it's a very small print I thought it would be good to have something that could change easily under lights that might have gels.  Lavenders can glow white in certain lights so they might be a nice softer color than a stark white.  There are also vertical lines to keep a nice vertical line on the chorus girls. The colors are also dark enough so the main character singing will stand out in the crowd.


If you want to see the actual print you'll have to navigate here to Spoonflower. Wish me luck, I think it will be hard to see how the design at SF will translate to a dress on stage under stagelights.  

Google image search and copyrighted material

I highly recommend using Googles image search to find your copyrighted images that may be shown on websites you haven't authorized.

The address is images.google.com.  Once the page loads you'll see a familiar text box with a camera icon over to the right. Click the camera and it'll ask you for an uploaded file or a web address to check against other images on the web.

That's how I found my bacon fabric out in the vast web.  The guy illegally selling my design on Zazzle products intimating that he doodles in MS Paint and thought he'd make some money off of his doodles.  I also found a low-res photo of the bacon on the Food Network.

The Food Network has a blog entry displaying my bacon fabric and has a link directly to my fabric.  I had no issue with them doing such but did ask that they replace the non-watermarked image with a watermarked image.  Within 24 hours it was changed out and I am one happy camper. They were easy to work with, communicated with me easily and it totally made my day.  They gave credit to me via the link from the time the post was first published, and they did use a low-res image originally so yay to them for doing the right thing in the first place!

Zazzle has been a little more difficult to work with. My original email to them was 6 days ago.  I sent links to the Zazzle products and my copyrighted upload which includes some dates (although the dates are vague by not showing exact upload date/time but does include copyright marks with my name on top of the image.   I asked that it be taken down and an accounting of the sellers commissions be given to me. My next email was to swear under perjury that the image belonged to me. The 3rd email offered up original photos (my design is seamless not just a single shot of bacon), I offered up an exact upload date and asked them to compare with their sellers info.  In the midst of all of that they asked if I wanted to exchange contact into with the seller.  I'm stymied why they don't suspend an account while there is an investigation going on.

I still have not gotten notification from Zazzle about the state of my design. Nor do I have anything that shows how much money he's made off of my design despite asking for that in my first email.

I wanted to be the nice girl about it, give the guy and Zazzle a chance to do the right thing.  Now that we're closing in on a week the attorney letter on letterhead is being written.  I'm lucky to have lawyer friends!  I really hope it doesn't come to me to have to send an attorney letter, I would really rather have a cooperative exchange like I did with the Food Network.



Sunday, July 15, 2012

Zazzle.com and a stolen design

About a week ago I found one of my designs being sold on Zazzle.com.  Illegally I might add.  I did not give Zazzle or "theJakeness" permission to host or distribute my design for sale or otherwise.

My bacon design is hosted at Spoonflower.  It sells pretty well and I've licensed it to others but I did not license it to the Jakeness. Here are all 5 of the products he's offering at Zazzle using my design. Click here.

Here is my bacon fabric design hosted at Spoonflower.



Zazzle wrote me an email the other day asking if they could distribute my contact info to the guy who stole my design. I said no. I do not want a thief to have my email address because I'd rather Zazzle do the investigation and remove my design from their site.

Today I get an email from them, in part it stated: Please find below the contact information provided to us by the user in question so that you may reach out to them directly to resolve this issue:

And then it listed the email for the thief.

I've again asked them to remove it, I can provide upload times and dates where my original design is hosted. I'd like Zazzle to compare my upload time/date with his because I can guarantee that mine was first. Not to mention that I can provide the original photos where the bacon is not in a seamless repeat.

It upsets me to no end that this guy has sold my design on product and is making money off of my design. Money that is rightfully mine.  It upsets me that Zazzle wants me to contact the guy directly when I have an issue with Zazzle not doing the investigation and banning him as they have others who are using copyrighted materials.

Jakeness and Zazzle: please remove my bacon design and be upright and send me a check for the products you've sold using MY design. Thank you.

Friday, July 13, 2012

red comparison


The top red is the red from the Derby fabric, the lower red is from another fabric.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

PA., NJ., NYC vacation

What a whirlwind trip.  9 days and everyone one of them filled up with things to do. First the wedding: Touring the grounds, visiting the butterfly house and some of the animals, being AT the wedding, hugging family thru the entire 9 days. 

A butterfly in the butterfly house


A baby goat wondering where her grass is. Funny, they got so excited if you hand-fed them the very same grass they had on their side of the fence. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! 

The newly wedded couple


I love that groundhog, he was watching us have photos taken while chomping on fallen apples.  

Next up New Jersey.  At the shore.  Which was foreign to me. First the shore and then the boardwalk. 

My daughter having so much fun in the kid teacups.

I don't have any shore photos on my camera so these couple of boardwalk photos have to stand in to show I really was in NJ.

Off to NYC

Yes, we toured on a bus.  We did a whole lot of walking so this helped a ton. I also took this photo because the whole family there are wearing poof hairdos.  

The Empire State building and a church, I've forgotten the name of that church. St. Peters? 

The south pool.  It's so loud.  Like the noise you hear while watching footage of the buildings falling.

A different angle

A nighttime view from the Renaissance Hotel.  There were throngs of people below.  

hahaha, I am not a very good photographer and I always forget to take photos when it comes right down to it.  I have many more photos but I won't make you sit thru the slideshow.  But thanks for viewing this small offering.

I didn't do a whit of designing when I was back east.  Too busy and even in my downtime I preferred to sit on the deck and listen to the birds sing.  It was heavenly.  I loved hanging with my family.  My PA family comes out to California far more often than we travel anywhere but it's nice to see them in their natural habitat! I also loved that both of my children came out to be there with all of us.  As much as I wanted my husband to be there I was very happy he was at home taking care of our animals.  Now, when can I go on vacation again? 

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Flitting about the country

I've been on vacation.  My niece who lives on the east coast got married and I had to be there for this momentous occasion.

I took a automobile, a plane and a train to get here.  It was an adventure as the airline booking got messed up and they nearly didn't let me (and 5 other people) on the train.  Not to worry tho, we all just entered the train without a ticket and the Amtrak ticket lady was fabulous and let us ride anyway.  I was sweating it!

Eastern Pennsylvania is gorgeous.  Not as gorgeous as my niece tho.  Here we are in a candid shot.


I love this shot because we're so concentrated together while there is a big expanse around us. That's how this farm was...rolling meadows dotted with huge trees.  It's also how I see this area of PA.  It's so green and lush everywhere.  The weather here has been unseasonably hot and humid.  

I've seen fireflies! They're so pretty! While it's dark and they're lit that is.  I enjoyed looking at them while I sat on the dcck of my SIL and BIL's backyard deck.  Actually all the flora and fauna in PA is great.  I saw cardinals and robins and tons of butterflies.  We don't have cardinals in So Cal and the butterfly populations are finally coming back after years of not really being seen.  That makes me happy.  I didn't really enjoy the 5/8 inch black ants tho.  They're kind of hugely giant if you compare them to our (nasty) little black ants that are less than a quarter inch.  However, the giant black ants don't march in a mile long by 1/2 inch line either so there is that.  Oh, there are squirrels here that steal the birdseed.  We do have squirrels but they aren't so brazen.

Oh yeah, I saw a couple of groundhogs.  I have a photo of one that was watching the bride and groom get their photos taken but dangit, it's on my dead camera at the moment.  A photo for another day.

I also have photos of the boardwalk at Wildwood, NJ and photos of NYC. All on my camera.

I travel home (I leave for the airport in 30 mins) so maybe tomorrow I can do a new post with MORE photos.  Uhhhh, and don't expect too much.  I'm only a point and shoot kind of gal so some of the photos will be abstract art. hahahaha.  

Until then, bon voyage!