Studiobenben News

It’s Festival time! Erin and I are finishing up last minute preparations for this year’s Santa Monica Festival. We have new prints, drawings, paintings, books and other goods we can’t wait to share. Please stop by if you are able!

The festival is this Saturday May 8 (11 am – 6 pm) in Clover Park, here in Santa Monica, CA. The festival is free, kid-friendly, and focused on environmental sustainability. Erin and I will have our own tent in the “marketplace” area, displaying our art. For more information, check out the Santa Monica Festival website.

Erin and I are participating as vendors in the 1st annual Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles! With less than a week to go, we find ourselves living in the studio with only occasional breaks for food and drink!  We’d love to see you there, so feel free to stop by booth #208 and say hello! Check out this link for more information about Renegade and other details about the Craft Fair.

We had a blast at the Santa Monica Festival on Saturday! Thanks to all who braved the sunny 73 degree Santa Monica weather and came out to see us

Erin completed several new items for the festival. Her Geek Books were one of my favorites. She crafted them from vintage computer punch cards which were generously donated by UCLA computer scientist Peter A. Peterson. Thanks Pete!

This coming Saturday is the Santa Monica Festival! Erin and I are working like mad to finish up our latest projects. I’m working on a bunch of new prints and Erin is cranking out a ton of wonderful books. We have a few surprises planned as well! Stay tuned for updates throughout the week!

We would love to have you join us at the Festival if you are in the area! It is coming up on Saturday, May 9 (11 am – 6 pm) in Clover Park, here in Santa Monica, CA. The festival is free, kid-friendly, and focused on environmental sustainability. Erin and I will have our own tent in the “marketplace” area, displaying our art. For more information, check out the Santa Monica Festival website.

Erin’s been working like crazy on our first product for droplet.  It’s a ‘print and make’ calendar and planner pdf and it’s really cool.  Here’s Erin with the details:

It took me forever to do this, but I finally turned my custom planner designs into a printable pdf format, complete with detailed instructions! (Needless to say I am quite excited!) I adjusted the designs to fit perfectly onto standard letter size paper, and created 3 assembly options to suit the needs of different people. The options include either placing the pages into a 3-ring binder (letter size or half size), or binding the pages with a multi-section binding. If you are interested, a digital file is available for purchase in our new “print and make” Etsy shop: droplet! (The page designs, as well as instructions for all 3 assembly options are included in the digital file.)

Erin and I finally decided to combine our creative efforts, and the result?… droplet! We just started up a brand new Etsy shop devoted entirely to “print and make” projects. Stay tuned for exciting projects and designs for you to print and make!

Erin is now posting her book designs on Flickr. The collection is impressive and exhibits the depth of her book-binding talents. I’ve been jealous of her execution skills (among other things) since day one and I have met few artists with superior craftsmanship (Kris Kuksi comes to mind, but I’m pretty sure he’s a robot and doesn’t count). She’s posted about 100 books with more in the queue. Enjoy!

See all the books on Flickr

See Erin’s books for sale on Etsy

Last weekend Erin and I participated in the Santa Monica Festival. This was our first festival as vendors and we had a blast while learning a great deal about presenting our work.

Read more about the day via Erin’s blog