T Stands For Happy Spring Cards, Another One Bites The Dust and AI

Hi Friends!

Hope you are all doing well, and had a nice Easter break.  We get a four day weekend so that’s always welcome.  I am still waiting to hear back from the hospital for next steps but meanwhile, yes, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am still on crutches,but still only one now!  Today is also Earth Day, we should all think a little more about our poor old planet and help it heal.  It is also Elizabeth’s birthday, so happy bEARTHday!  You can read more on her tea post today.

Out of Business

I meant to post about this last week but forgot.  I was quite shocked to see that Joann’s (chain of US fabric and craft shops) has recently gone out of business. They had over 800 shops and now they are all closed/closing.  The amount of debt they were in is eye-watering – $615 BILLION !!!  I don’t understand how they were able to accumulate that much debt, surely after the first few hundred BILLION they would cease to get credit?  [I thought 800 shops was a lot but then I googled Michael’s and they have over 1300!!!]  I feel sorry for all the people who worked there that are now out of work.  Where will people buy fabric now?  Do people still use fabric or is that another downward trend?  No one seems to make anything any more, it’s all mass produced in China or generated by AI.

Two weeks ago, Craftstash (large online retailer here) announced they were closing down after 10 years in business.  That was quite shocking to hear as I used to buy often from them, and only stopped because they changed to a really crappy courier service.  They have a closing down sale on right now.  I’m not even going to look because I am still trying not to buy anything extra this year. There seems to be quite a few brands in trouble lately, going out of business in one way or another, oddly, they all start with a C:

Carabelle Studio (French stamp company, closed in 2023 due to copyright infringement by Chinese companies)  So all those people getting bargain stamps from Temu etc, this is why that’s bad!
Create and Craft TV (went into liquidation, was saved, then went out of business anyway last October)
Crafter’s Companion £16 Million in debt, in administration but saved from closing down by a Dragon’s Den dragon
Creative Expressions – closing down as the owner is retiring!  (includes Cosmic Shimmer, Woodware Stamps, Pink Ink and others)
CraftStash current closing down sale – always claimed to be the UK’s #1 papercraft, cardmaking, Cricut craft store (online only)

Between cheap China counterfeit products and now AI, it’s not looking good for creative businesses.  Speaking of AI, what do you think of it, let me know in the comments.  I can tell you what I think of it – I’m not a fan!

AI

What is AI.  It stands for Artificial Intelligence.  I love technology but some technology is just a bad idea.  Have they never seen the Terminator movies?  🙂  Seriously though, if you have read Richard Osman’s latest book (Sept 2024) We Solve Murders, there is someone in the book, who is communicating anonymously via email and asking ChatGPT (AI) to write in the style of an English gentleman, so as not to sound like himself.  ChatGPT is a real thing. It’s AI, it can generate all kinds of fake stuff, or it can help you to disguise your true identity (apparently).  People are using it to create crochet, knitting and even embroidery patterns that are completely fake, have never been tested, and just don’t work.  They generate images for what the finished product might look like based on the pattern but again, the item doesn’t exist.  People are being scammed!  Here’s a video from last year showing exactly what the problem is:

We don’t need AI to do our crochet or our ARTwork for us, if anything we need it to do our HOUSEwork.  It is also very easy to be duped, thinking that the art you are liking, admiring, purchasing has been made by a human being’s OWN HAND, and that the person calling themselves “an artist” had some involvement in the creation of the “art” other than typing a few words into an AI generator.  If you are using AI, be honest and admit to it.  Being able to type does not make you an artist. AI art is stealing.  AI generators access vast databases of other people’s art in order to use that to fill the prompts. If this continues, there will be no real artists because AI will be creating everything and humans will become redundant.  AI generators also use huge amounts of computing power which is also not great for the environment.

I was looking at printables on Etsy last year and at first I thought, wow some of these artists are really talented, but the more I looked at them, the more I began to wonder.  I looked at their socials to see if they showed their process or perhaps photos or videos of them drawing, but there was nothing. I also checked to see if they mentioned using AI and there was nothing.  And then I uploaded a screenshot to google and guess what, it was AI generated.  Etsy is trying to clamp down on it but it is out of control.  If you are selling elsewhere or on your own site, then it’s up to you how honest you are.  I get that it might be fun to play with, but it’s stealing and it’s harmful on many levels.

Today’s art . . .

Having said all of that above, here it today’s art, made by me using some ink and stamps.  I made some Spring cards, some of which I used to write actual letters to people I don’t get to see often, and others I made into birthday cards.  March and April are just full of birthdays for me! The cards have Distress Oxide backgrounds, kraft card bases, splattery white paint, black stamping and pink corrugated card (see story below).  Perhaps AI could have done a more perfect job of this but I like my messy, imperfect cards.

I started by making a bunch of Distress Oxide backgrounds, something I hadn’t done in a really long time.  I don’t know why but I don’t tend to use them in my journals very much so I just forget to use them for other things.  I actually moved them recently so they are along the back of my table and I still forget they are right there!  You can catch a glimpse of some of them in the first photo.

I also made a weak effort to do some Easter/Spring decor for the house, and dyed some wooden eggs.  That was fun and less messy than I expected.

Here’s one of the cards I made into a birthday card and here’s a look at the inside.  They all look like this inside.  I used Wink of Stella on the black bunnies but it’s not visible in the photos except to make them blotchy looking.

Funny story, that pink corrugated card above, is something I have had sitting around in various placed in my craft from FOR YEARS.  I don’t know why I bought it, I think maybe because I hadn’t seen pink corrugated card before back then. The shop I bought it from, yes I bought it in an actual papercraft shop, has been closed for almost eight years.  So I was doing some cleaning out and saw this card again, got really fed up seeing it AGAIN, it gets more tatty each year, so I ripped it up and put it in the recycling bin…  Then a few days later, when I was making these cards, I knew I needed to add something else, and remembered this stupid pink card again, rummaged through the bin and was able to piece it together for the cards!  So really, you should never throw anything away, even something you can’t stand the sight of anymore, because it might just be what you’re looking for hahaha.

One thing I really enjoy doing is stamping on envelopes, probably more so than stamping on cards haha.  Fronts and backs are shown above.  I’m hoping that people will be able to reuse these in their art in some way.

Oh did you notice the carrot juice in my background on the egg photo?  Here’s Miss Lily to remind you, that the carrot juice is of course, my ticket to tea!  These carrot juice glasses are made with clipart, not drawn by me, but I did turn them into a repeating pattern all by myself.  🙂

Let me know what you think in the comments below.   As always, thanks for reading and Happy T Day!Ingredients
kraft card, distress oxides, versafine clair, wink of stella, white acrylic, recycled pink corrugated card, Tim Holtz stamps,

Challenges

T Stands for Tuesday – Today’s Tea post

Creative Artiste – Challenge #114