Color Bakery art licensed on professional fabric

I just found this online and thought it was cool to show As a licensed artist, my work is on area rugs, dinnerware, wallpaper, gift boxes, fabric and more. I just found a new fabric series I designed on sale and got a kick out of finding it…licensing is still relatively new and I still get a kick out of seeing it in stores or online My latest endeavor is a damask and pear series for a dinnerware company, and I look forward to seeing that in stores next year.

New Video From Color Bakery, Organica

Fully Customized Tile Coffee Table from Color Bakery

Color Bakery is the *only* company who can take any image of your choice, custom manufacture it on tile (ceramic, stone or glass), hand-adhere it to a beautiful rubberwood coffee table, then custom stain and grout it to your liking. If you want to learn more, click here. Click the photo see larger. Shown: “First of May” from our Organica Gallery.

Custom decorative tile: what tile finish should I choose?

Customers frequently ask what kind of tiles they should use for their new custom art backsplash, tile wall mural, tile border or floor.

First, let’s talk about standard custom imaged tile sizing: the standard sizes available for custom-imaged tile are: 4.25″ square, 4.00″ square (tumbled stone only), 6″ square, 8″ square, and 12″ square. 6″ x 6″ tile is the most frequently used size for tile murals. One might consider using larger tile sizes for bigger spaces. I personally don’t recommend 4.25″ tile for mural work, unless you space demands it and you are not covering a large area–it will look way too busy. So your mural must mathematically be in increments of these numbers.

Invariably, the first thing I will ask my customer is where in the home the tile is going to be installed, because that will impact my answer to a certain degree. If the mural is going to be splashed with hot cooking grease and be installed in a busy area that tends to get dirty (like a backsplash behind a stove), my recommendation would be glass–and that’s because the cleanup is by far the easiest. Would other tiles work behind a stove? Positively. But they won’t be as maintenance-free as glass.

For full disclosure purposes, I must confess to having a preference when it comes to tile, especially tile with my own art on it. My first choice is glass. Why? A few reasons, the most compelling one being aesthetic. You can’t touch glass when it comes to beauty and jaw-dropping impact. Ceramic and tumbled stone are beautiful, but glass—glass sings on a stage all its own. Glass receives color magnificently, so it is the perfect choice for artwork that is rich with color. In addition, unlike other types of tiles we custom print, the image is printed on the back–not the front–of the glass. That means you are looking through the glass to see the image, and the effect is reminiscent of gazing through a very still pool of water down to the art below. Glass also cleans up very easily–a regular glass cleaner will work just fine, and the image won’t be impacted at all, since it will never touch your hands or your cleaning fluid. Another powerful reason: glass does not require grout. No muss, no fuss, and no dingy grout to scrub in the future.

Glass Tile

While we’re on the subject of glass tiles, Color Bakery has a special art technique which mimics the full effect of stained glass. When we print it on glass, it’s very much like the real thing but without the expense and limitations of stained glass. In fact, this art can also be printed on ceramic tile and it will still have a stunning, stained-glass feel. (See images below, click on image for large size).

Stained Glass Artwork on Glass Tile

Stained Glass Artwork on Ceramic Tile

Now, while we’re on the subject of grout, that is personal taste. Ceramic does not require grout, and neither does glass–but tumbled stone does. We’ll talk about that in a bit. “But won’t the glass break?” an interior decorator once asked my frustrated husband, who had spent an hour and a half on the phone with her as she kept asking the same questions over and over. “Not unless you have a habit of standing there and swinging a sixteen pound sledgehammer at it,” he said, and we heard giggling in the background from the client herself. This glass is pretty tough; I’ve accidentally dropped these tiles many times (yes, I am a bit of a klutz) and they almost never scratched, chipped or broke. Was I lucky? Sure. But this glass is 1/4″ thick with beveled edges and you have to work pretty hard at smashing them up.

If there is a downside to glass, it tends to have a sleek, modernish look. For those who really want an old-world, vintage, antique flavor glass is probably not going to be their best choice. Tumbled stone (tumbled marble, tumbled porcelain) will be more appropriate.

Tumbled stone tends to be slightly off-white, and the colors will be slightly impacted by that–they will be less saturated. This will result in an antiqued, slightly muted finish that is wonderful for old style classic paintings by the masters, vintage art or photography, retro patterns, etc. What is important to remember about tumbled stone is that it is real stone, and stone is imperfect. It has cracks, jagged edges, crevices, chipped corners. If you’re into perfection, you should not opt for tumbled stone. If you love a vintage, antiqued, earthen look, you will adore it, and you will find those flaws add to, not detract from, the beauty of the tile. If you want “The Last Supper“ or Van Gogh’s “Olive Grove” on tumbled stone, you will be thrilled with the aged, classic effect.

A less expensive alternative to both glass and stone is ceramic tile. Ceramic comes in three different finishes: matte, satin and high gloss. I heartily recommend satin because matte is a bit dull and looks a bit unfinished; high gloss can blind you with glare and, if you look at it the wrong way, it’ll scratch. And boy, you’ll notice it. Satin is the best choice, not too glossy but has a nice, satiny subtle finish that enriches the art without overpowering it. Aesthetically, ceramic is clean and modern looking, but not overly so. It has a bright white surface so the colors will reproduce beautifully.

Now that we’ve covered tile choices, let’s talk about artwork. If you are choosing a pattern for a backsplash or a tile border, it makes sense to try to match your color scheme and overall decor by choosing an art piece (or having us design custom art just for you) that matches. But if you are choosing a piece of art, I would urge you to choose a piece you love and not worry one whit about matching your decor. If you choose art based on the color scheme and not the quality of the artwork or how it makes you feel when you look at it, I feel you are doing yourself and your personal space a great disservice. Art is art; it doesn’t always have to match your walls or your wallpaper. So what if the sky has aqua in it and you don’t have any aqua in your living room? Art is not always another element of your color and design scheme, it can be a deeply personal expression and when you treat it as such, the end result surpasses all expectations. Drapes and carpet need to match and complement each other; not a piece of art, which is what some tile murals may be. is. The bottom line? Only you can decide whether the tile piece you are buying is part of your decor or is meant to be a piece of art. Whatever the case may be, Color Bakery will work with you to either select an image or create a new one that brings your vision to life on tile.

Color Bakery also makes custom tile floors. Floors require a special floor tile that is scratch resistant and can receive weight safely. Floor tiles come  in tempered/textured glass, ceramic and porcelain. They are available in 8 x 8 and 12 x 12 tiles. With floors, you can be very creative–you can either have a mural (one image divided) or you can use a pattern. Or, you can alternate one pattern or coordinating patterns throughout solid colored tiles. In other words, you can use them as the full floor or merely accent tiles. Below is a custom tile mural floor we created for a customer who requested a custom Zodiac wheel:

A tile mural or backsplash can totally transform a room, it can become its most beautiful focal point. It will give you great pleasure for many years to come. Color Bakery’s calling card is transformative tile projects of the most customized kind. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more.

Custom ceramic tile kitchen art design, Country French hen and coordinating patterns

What Color Bakery does best–and what is indeed our calling card and pretty much an anomaly in the tile industry– is to work closely with our clients, taking on an interior designer and artist role. We love working with our clients, making suggestions, offering guidance, and then putting together a game plan that is not only one of a kind, but totally transforms a room or space–keeping the customer’s tastes in mind. First we talk to the client about their wish list, then we try to get pictures of the space in question. Then we discuss artwork and color–usually the customer will want a piece or pieces designed from scratch, but sometimes they want an existing piece of artwork manipulated to suit their taste and color scheme. This project had a little bit of both–art manipulation and custom, from-scratch design.

Sandi, a new client, delivered a kitchen tile design challenge to us recently; she had some tile space in her brand new kitchen that she wanted to cover over. I believe the painted tile designs came with her new house and she didn’t like the artwork but she didn’t want to rip out tile, either.  She told me that she felt that the kitchen needed some strong accent color. I couldn’t agree with her more–the kitchen badly needed some color, it was basically all white. She wasn’t really sure how she wanted to approach a backsplash and some accent tiles, so she came to us for ideas, custom artwork and custom tiles. (Addendum: the client just emailed me, and this is what she wrote, verbatim:)

Hey Mindy, I had meant to write to you sooner, but life got away from me. We just moved into the new house and things are EVERYWHERE! I got the tiles and mural this week and they are BEAUTIFUL!!!! I am really excited to have them installed as they are going to make this kitchen pop. I will send you pictures of the before and after once it is all done. We have a few weeks to wait as I am having some of the cabinet doors remade. I don’t want to start the work until we can finish it, so it may be closer to the end of July or August at the rate this unpacking is going

Thanks again for your workmanship- this is truly one of a kind and I love it! I’m so glad I found you online.
Sandi

When we first started talking about her kitchen, asked me if she could cover the old tiles with new ones, and I told her yes, she could. Many of our clients have done so successfully. Our ceramic deco tiles are thin enough not to jut out too much, and in fact, if installed properly it can give a stunning three dimensional look that is even more dramatic than flat tiling. She was concerned that the tiles had finished edges (I assured her they did), and then when she realized the possibilities, she couldn’t contain her excitement. Below, see a photo of the three spaces she wanted to cover and transform with custom tile (click on image for full size):

After some discussion, Sandi and I decided to do an 18″ x 18″ ceramic tile mural using 6″ x 6″ tiles for the backsplash, ensuring the mural would not need any cutting/trimming. Banking both sides of the mural would be two strips of 4.25″ ceramic tiles going down in rows of four, flanking the mural. The flanking strips would be complementary patterns that worked with the main mural. Two of the tiles *might* require some trimming to fit beneath the cabinets, but they would not be part of the mural, just individual tiles.

As to the art, Sandi fell in love with a very old, vintage French poster from 1910 that we offer on Vintage Mural. The size was wrong and the colors were wrong. Sandi wanted bold cobalt blues, reds, yellows. She had a square space, but the image was rectangular. That was a problem. Cropping it would look bad, the eggs would be chopped in half. On top of that, the image was extremely old and damaged, so we really had our work cut out for us. (See image below)

Below, you will see the vintage French poster totally transformed, and redone to fit into a square space. It was also extensively retouched and recolored. Flanking the sides of the mural are custom designed accent tiles to coordinate with the main image: (click image for bigger size)

Finally, here are the two strips of custom accent tiles we designed from scratch for her other two horizontal spaces to cover the floral tiles (see below, click image for full size):

And that is how Color Bakery transformed a kitchen space. When the tiles go up, we will post photos here! If you have any questions or would like your own custom transformative tile project for your home, contact us.

New Color Bakery’s New Products! NEWS!

At Color Bakery, resting and being content with the status quo is simply not an option. We are constantly thinking about beautiful new pieces of wearable art, art gifts or home decor accents with which we can customize with original artworks.

We’re recently partnered with a major custom product manufacturer, and, together, have been discussing, developing and implementing ideas about how to implement my “wish list” of products that I want to carry on Color Bakery. This “wish list” is based upon what you, our customers, have asked us for, and some other products I know would be both beautiful and unusual.

LARGER GLASS CUTTING BOARDS
Our first new product is here, and it’s one I’ve wanted to offer at Color Bakery for a long time. It’s a large size glass cutting board. I can’t even remember how many requests I’ve received over the years for a larger sized cutting board, easily dozens…..there is clearly a demand for it. Our standard size cutting board is 16″ x 12″, and our new cutting board is a little over 19″ x 15″. Those three inches make a huge difference as far as ease of use and eye candy power. You can now purchase this new, larger board online by clicking here and selecting the bigger size from the dropdown menu.

8 x 10 GLASS TILES
There are no words. For some reason, this glass receives ink like a color symphony. Now we can print art on glass rectangles instead of forcing them into squares, and the color is vibrant, rich and almost pulsates. You have to see them in person, no photo can do them justice. This glass is the highest quality I’ve seen. They are online and available, and every original art piece available on Color Bakery can be customized for them. A little more expensive than our other glass, they’re worth it. You can use them as decor accents, arrange them beautifully on your walls, put them in easel displays, or use them as accent tiles for your kitchen and bathroom. Purchase them here.

12″ x 12″ TUMBLED STONE PORCELAIN TILE CLOCK
We can take any Color Bakery image and custom print it on these *real* stone tile clocks, imported from Italy. They have a definite vintage flavor, as they are made from real stone and, as such, have wells, jagged edges, faultlines in the stone. Although any art image will work with these stone clocks, they are especially beautiful when customized with art from our Vintage Gallery and our Zodiac Gallery. Click here to purchase.

CRYSTAL JEWELRY-NEW!
Imagine being able to customize any piece of art on stunning crystal pendants–ovals, teardrops, rectangles. Imagine delicately sloped bevelled edges, and the effect of looking through a still pool of water at the artwork within. Everyone who has seen this jewelry has fallen madly in love, and you will, too.

Though this custom crystal jewelry is sold as necklaces/pendants, they can also be worn as earrings. They come in four different shapes/sizes: large oval, large rectangle, small rectangle and small teardrop. Click here for more info.

LAPTOP TRAVEL BAG
This is a really cool laptop travel bag–very roomy, with a special pocket for your cellphone or iphone. The custom art is printed on the flap, and the rest of the bag is a rich inky black. Click here.

LADIES’ MIRROR COMPACTS
The custom artwork  printed on the cover, and the compact is made from a modern, well-made chrome finish.They are rounded squares and a nice, generous size.

METAL KEYCHAINS
The keychains I’ve seen around that can be customized are pretty crummy. Plastic (PVC), and cheap-looking. That doesn’t cut it for Color Bakery. We’ve wanted to offer keychains for a long time, but until now, haven’t found one that meets our quality standards. This one does. Nice and substantial with some weight on it, the keychain is not plastic, but metal and takes ink beautifully.

LADIES’ PURSETTE/LARGE WALLET
Whether you use it as a small clutch or a generous wallet, you’ll love this beautiful pursette. Black leatherette and the full front fold is customized with original art. Click here.

Our blog is the best place to look to find out when new products are online, not to mention sales, promotions and closeouts. So please bookmark us and visit us often.

No, I don’t like Cafe Press.

Like many artists, I was excited when I found Cafe Press. About ten years ago, I was looking for a way to print and resell my art on products, and Cafe Press seemed like a dream come true. I was able to simply upload my image, have them print it on products, fulfill the order, and I would just sit back and collect the commission checks. I wouldn’t have to worry about building a website; I wouldn’t have to deal with stuff like inventory, production, shipping, customer service, credit card processing. Not only that, I was able to preview what my product would look like before I created it, and I could do that right online with their nifty software. Wow, such a deal! Who can resist that?

My first red flag came after my computer crashed and I lost a goodly amount of original art. As a digital artist, my life is literally residing on my computer. Although I have huge eight external drives today, in those days I was working off one shaky hard drive, and when it finally exploded I knew I was in deep trouble. I had to beg Cafe Press–and I mean beg, and even cry hysterically on the phone—to talk them into sending me a disc with my own artwork on it.  After many phone calls and emails during which my sanity hung on a thread, they finally did, but grudgingly.  I found myself thanking them with embarassing, sniveling, tearful humility even though in actuality what I was asking for was not unreasonable–access to my own art. As I look back on that episode, it’s really no surprise that this arrogance manifested in many other, more sinister areas.

As many artists do, the first order of business when signing up with Cafe Press is creating products and ordering stuff for themselves, as well as for friends and family as gifts. I was no different. When my delivery came, the excitement with which I tore into the box subsided quickly once I saw what was inside. Crap. And no, I don’t think I am being harsh here. The wall calendar and greeting cards were printed on crummy, low quality paper stock and the colors were as washed out as if the pages been tossed in a washing machine; the tile coasters were not terrible, but the colors were way off–blues were too green and reds were more orange than red, and the tiles had none of the subtle gradations in hue and levels present in the originals; the clock was made from the crappiest, shoddiest plastic and I immediately dumped it in the trash–it was more suitable for a political slogan than for a piece of art. Okay, I thought: I’ll stick to the tiles and mugs and maybe my customers will like it.

But the real surprise came when I received my first order. I was told a “Mary” from “Oregon” had bought some mugs. I was very pleased about the sale and I couldn’t wait to thank her personally. I looked at my customer information, but couldn’t find any way to contact “Mary.” No address, no phone, no email. Nothing. Not even a last name. Confused, I emailed Cafe Press and asked them to send the my customer information. “We don’t do that,” I was told. Company policy. Were they kidding? Evidently not, as they didn’t consider Mary my customer, but theirs–even though it was my artwork she purchased. This was simply outrageous. I couldn’t believe they were actually getting away with this incredibly unfair policy, but, seemingly they were. Let’s get this straight: the artist is Cafe Press’ customer, the only one. The end buyer is the artist’s customer. Period. This glaring, unethical lack of transparency is terribly unfair to artists, not to mention exploitative. But there was nowhere else to go, so I continued promoting and adding to my store, but with markedly less enthusiasm than before.

And then I received an email from a lady in Colorado. She absolutely loved the multiple sets of “Black Cats” coasters she had purchased six months before; could I possibly make them for her in another color? I started to write back–of course I can change the color–but then I realized I never received any notification (or commission) from Cafe Press regarding this order. I logged in, checked my stats to make sure. Nothing. I emailed the customer, asking her if she was certain she had purchased from my store. “Oh yes,” she replied, and attached her invoice. There it was, in black and white. I wrote to Cafe Press, armed with proof of their error, but did not receive a response.

After another customer thanked me for the “pretty mug” she bought, another order I was first hearing about, I logged into my Cafe Press account, and angrily deleted my store. I called Cafe Press to complain about what happened and to tell them why I shut my store down and what I thought of the way they ran their business. They apologized, insisted it was an honest oversight, and though I asked for a full accounting of my orders and due commissions, I never received it. However, I did receive a check in the mail about four months later–without any corresponding accounting.

Now, I doubt very much if Cafe Press needs to steal commissions from a couple of mug and tile sales to make a profit. It probably was an oversight, and an honest  mistake. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have zero transparency and refuse to give a vendor artist access to their own customer information–information they most certainly have a right to access. It’s also dumb business practice–nobody will promote their art the way the artist will, and to deny personal interaction between the artist and the customer—with the accompanying personal touch, news, sales, promos, works in progress, answers to questions–is undoubtedly costing them revenue. But hey, secrecy works for them, the artists don’t question/fight it, so it doesn’t seem to be hurting them.

When Glen and I opened Color Bakery in 2004, our goal was not only to custom print/manufacture my own work on quality products, but give other artists the opportunity to do the same. Cafe Press is the largest of an array of companies who offer custom printing and fulfillment services for gift and apparel items, but the fact remains that artists have precious few avenues to produce and resell their art on high quality items, items like glass and tumbled marble and fancy wood or metal serving trays, as well as items with lower price points.

It is a little frustrating when I hear from artists who are inquiring about the possibility of Color Bakery custom-printing their art on their products for resale, and they initially compare us to Cafe Press. If I say that comparison is akin to comparing a stick figure to a Renoir, people will call me arrogant. I’m really not being arrogant, I’m merely telling the truth: the breadth of our services, intensive personalization, customization capabilities, product diversity and quality is a million universes away from what Cafe Press does. I make it a point to work with the artists with issues such as color management, cropping, and product mix. I guarantee you nobody at Cafe Press sits at their desk fretting over a low resolution image (I’ll enlarge it); or taking a washed out scan and correcting the levels/removing the moire pattern; or making sure a rectangle crops into a square without compromising the artwork. In fact, I defy anyone to do those things

Bottom line? If someone is making and selling Obama tee shirts, Cafe Press is probably a great way to make some supplemental income. But artists who care about quality and the integrity of their work need to look around for other options.

Custom Art Canvas Tote Bags

I don’t think there is any other place where one can choose from over one thousand pieces of original art and have it custom printed on a gorgeous, high quality canvas tote bag. Color Bakery totes are just heavenly; our customers tell them that they get comments on them wherever they go. Large, roomy, well-constructed, our totes have a zipper closure and inside pocket.

Shown in photo: “Moon Tryst” from our Chimera Art Gallery. To purchase or learn more, click the photo below.

New stained glass art, “Majani”

“Majani” is a symphony of opposites; a pastiche of glass and fabric textures with an art nouveau feel. It has earth tones mixed with purples, glass texturing mixed with fabric pastiches such as damask, velvet, paisley, tulle, batik. Brand new, Majani was created as a custom art piece for one of our clients. It is going to be a large glass mural using six inch tiles. As with all Color Bakery artwork, Majani may be ordered on any of our products. Of course, it was made for glass so glass products work especially well. “Majani” means “leaves” in Swahili.

Stained Glass Windows using digital technology.

Imagine stained glass art with all the vibrance, depth, texture and color of real stained glass, but without its limitations and expense. Imagine, too, this stained glass art meshed with a real “window” and then printing this image on a huge variety of surfaces, like glass tile to tumbled marble tile to even tote bags, lazy susans, serving trays and glass clocks. Is it possible? Yes. We’re doing it right now.

Color Bakery has taken our stained glass art to the next level by embedding the artwork into beautiful, ornate, classic windows. Here is an example:

Color Bakery can take any image from any of our galleries and embed them into windows of different styles, colors, periods, decor eras. The result? Astonishing and uniquely beautiful. Please post any questions you have or feel free to comment.