Bloglander

Mara Fields is bored with bike graphics.

The graphic designer and owner of Pixel and Pint design wants to vamp up bike decorations with Tube Tats, removable bike decals, but she needs support. For Tube Tats to take off, she needs money.

So Fields started a Kickstarter campaign with a $650 goal. If the project is successful, the money will go toward the purchase of a plotter cutter, a machine that can cut individual shapes with much more precision than an X-Acto knife, the technology that Fields currently works with. The money will also go toward materials like printable vinyl and specialized inks. 

The idea is that Tube Tats will enable bike owners to dress up their boring bikes with removable vinyl stickers, and when they’re bored with one design, they can take them off and opt for a different one. 

The Tube Tats Kickstarter has raised $406 since July 15. Fields needs to raise another $244 by Aug. 14 or it’s back to the X-Acto knife.

Goal: $650 • Deadline: Aug. 14 • Minimum donation to get something: $10 for a set of Tube Tats

Psychic Rites, a Moscow-based three-man “neon doom disco” band, is hitting the road on their first tour. Well, if they get another $27 by July 30.

(UPDATE: As we were writing this, they went ahead and met their goal! Supporters can still contribute until the deadline. )

Their Kickstarter campaign to fund their first West Coast tour to promote their E.P. is drawing to a close. After an anonymous donor promised to match all donations made up to July 28 last week, Psychic Rites’ tour is now 98.8 percent funded. And they have five days left.

The band, which was featured as one of The Inlander’s bands to watch earlier this year, will use the money to rent a minivan and buy gas on their three-and-a-half week, 12-show tour that stretches from Boise to Santa Barbara to Seattle.

Rewards for donations include stickers, patches, digital downloads, copies of the E.P. and a custom circuit bent Casio SK-1. Supporters who donate $1,000 or more can take their pick between a handmade electric guitar crafted by keyboardist and songwriter Mike Siemens and a seven-minutes-in-heaven make-out session with guitarist Dave Miller. These prizes are limited.

Goal: $1,500 • Deadline: July 30 • Minimum donation to get something: $10 for an embroidered patch, a sticker and a digital sampler

Another local Kickstarter campaign we've mentioned before is Sante goes to the James Beard House. The James Beard Foundation promotes culinary arts by honoring food gurus at the annual awards ceremony. Each year, the JBF invites chefs and their teams from across to country to provide the ceremony meal. This year, they asked Spokane’s own Sante team to feed them. The downside is the chosen chefs and teams are responsible for all costs, and not just travel expenses — they have to foot the food and drink bill for an 80-person meal as well. Sante has until Aug. 2 to raise the rest of their $10,000 goal. At $8,822, they’re real close.

Goal: $10,000 • Deadline: Aug. 2 • Minimum donation to get something: $25 for a postcard from New York; $100 for an hors d'oeuvres event on July 29

Pete Taylor’s Spiceologist Block campaign is also nearing its deadline. The Spiceologist Block is basically a knife-set, but for spices. The project, a collaboration between SAVORx Spice & Flavor Co.’s Taylor, food blogger Heather Scholten and local wood craftsman Bill Phillips, aims to allow kitchens to free their spice collections from cabinets and proudly display them in a European beech wood block. They’re coming up on the halfway point of their $50,000 goal.

Goal: $50,000 • Deadline: Aug. 11 • Minimum donation to get something:  $5 for a recipe e-book; $69 for a starter block