Retired Interior Designer keeps her passion to design and create alive.
Altered State of Tin is a one man band.
I wear many hats. I design and produce all of my one of a kind items. I am the sales manager, I also accept special orders and do all of my own shipping and handling, and in some cases makes special deliveries. I am also a team leader in my Etsy Team. Of course customer service is number one to me.
I am a self taught mixed media/digital artist and strive to bring personality to each piece that I create. You can view my art gallery here http://www.patriciacreations.com/
Detail is important to each piece and I receive many special custom orders. The most remembered is a tin that I created for a young lady in England who wanted something special to send her boyfriend who was in the Royal Air force stationed in Afghanistan. She wanted it to be masculine and small enough for him to carry close to him. Something with memories of the two of them inside. She put a photo of her hero sitting in his airplane with a special poem.
https://www.etsy.com/transaction/61207039
Another was a memorial tin created for a lady that had lost her Father.
https://www.etsy.com/transaction/84501173
Another was a memorial tin created for a lady that had to have her dog put down and wanted a little box to keep his dog tags.
Another was a Mom who wanted me to make tins with images of the Andrew Sisters to send to her daughter and other members of Sisters of Swing.
https://www.etsy.com/transaction/55186368
The order also included greeting cards with images of The Sisters of Swing.
https://www.etsy.com/transaction/56287652
Altered State of Tin cares about the special details of every custom order.
After years of creating mixed media art I discovered digital art, No paper, no glue no mess...Hey I want to lean that! I researched this wonderful new way to create collages but had lots of problems. It was expensive to begin with. Luckily I had a geek friend who graciously gave me Adobe Photoshop. Okay now what do I do with it? I belong to several artist networks and got lots of tips but it was when one of our Etsy Members showed me the basics of Photoshop that I finally got it. Practice makes perfect and I am still learning.
Now what to do with all the beautiful art work. I made collages and sold them at some festivals and lots and lots of greeting cards but didn't do so well on Etsy.
My talent was growing but my sales were low. Being new to Etsy I really had no clue until I met the president of our Etsy Team http://www.etsy.com/shop/Salzanos?ref=ss_profile. She contacted me to join an Etsy Team and that was the best thing I could have done. The support and inspiration we share is amazing. We got together about six years ago and named our team O.C.E.A.N. for Oregon Coast Etsy Artist Network. We have over 70 members today.
In Jan of 2011 one of our team members suggested I put some of my art on an Altoids tin and she would take it along to an art bizarre she was attending. Well I did and it was relatively easy to do and they turned out really cute but I had no sales.
That is when I decided to put all of my art on recycled Altoids tins and cigar boxes. That is when Altered State of Tin was born. My sales have been good and I have discovered many ways to alter these little tin boxes.
I am a people person and want all of my customers to be happy with what they buy from me. I take pride in my work.