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Classes Galore!
Historically, my summers are my slowest periods for work, both computer and art. This year I prepared for that by booking extra shows leading up to the summer and a week of classes in each of July and August! Phew. Plus the 20% off sale in my Etsy bead, Etsy cane and ArtFire shops. That ends today.
Here are some of the excerpts from my week of class. I had returning students and all new ones:
One of my regulars is a die-hard football fan (the local team is the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the team colour is pretty much Premo’s sea green): 
One of the adult classes we covered small bottles to make wish bottles. Combinations of embellishment, canes and imagination were on the docket. One of my first time students whipped up something awesome right to order of course!
A rerun of a popular kids project class for a local day camp were the Turtle Rocks. We had neon turtles, winged turtles, fanged turtles… and lots of fun:
Of course, after all that over-planning and over-preparing for a “slow summer” it hasn’t gone slow yet. Go figure. How’s YOUR summer going?
Show on the Lake
Within weeks of my moving to Saskatchewan last summer there was this little craft show at Lac Pelletier, a small resort town near here. It was a sweet show and a nice day even though I had the last of a flu for it. This year I’m happy to say it was STILL a sweet show and I was completely healthy.
The area is beautiful with a big lake nestled in the hills – for a flat province, Saskatchewan has a freakish amount of hills – and the show is in the community hall.
I was a dope and forgot a whole box of my stock which ended up not being a big deal. I had plenty of my bread and butter small show pieces and those went over well. Of course, I spent a big chunk of my proceeds on local baking and farm food but we’ll eat well for days yet.
My friend Cindy was at the show with me since doing them with friends is much more fun.
Now back to the regular week! My Christmas in July sale on Etsy and ArtFire runs until the end of the month. If you’re looking for beads or canes to use in your fall designs give it a peek!
Lilac Festival 2010
I headed to Calgary – my hometown until last year – for the Lilac Festival. The show was well attended, I did well, the booth was spiffy (I can’t recommend a pop up tent enough) and I saw tons of old customers and Etsy team members.
The only downside? It was cold! We had a few snowflakes fall, a few raindrops, lots of cloud, a little wind and temperatures under 10 degrees Celsius the whole day. Le sigh.
A local TV crew wanted to interview me but I made my mom do it since I have a speech issue. I can’t find the video online but there’s a little text blurb too. Mom’s semi-famous.
Speaking of Mom, here’s a shot of us for posterity’s sake:
And there’s a few more pictures of the show in my Flickr album.
Making Schedules
I am a firm believer that putting things in writing gives them a much better chance of coming true, being successful. Putting them in writing out where people can see them even more so. So with that in mind here’s what’s up in the next few months:
- The Lilac Festival, May 30th in Calgary. I’m at the NW corner of 14th Ave. and 4th St. Visit me please! And pray that the weather is lovely
- In June I teach classes at the Art Gallery in Swift Current. For the grownups we have Millefiori in Colour and for the smaller folk we have Turtle Rocks. You can sign up with Laurie!
- Of course, EVERY Tuesday we have Tuesdays with Laurie at the Art Gallery. It’s a drop in sort of thing for creative folks. Everyone is welcome. I’ve been semi-chronicling our activities over here
- The Bead Oasis Show, June 18, 19 and 20th in Calgary! If you love beads and you’re in Alberta this is the place to be. Let me know you saw my post or my blog and you can have a free pair of beads! I’m booth 110 which is just down the row from the entry way, on the left.
- Frontier Days – I’m thinking I’ll take a booth at the Stockade. Give it a shot. That’s June 30 to July 3rd.
- Summer Salon at the Art Gallery from July 10 to August 8. There’s a wine and cheese on July 17th which you should definitely come to. More than 20 local artists will have work in the show, including me if I get stuff done!
- Then there’s the Highway 1 Studio Tour at the end of September. I’ve been invited to play along and I’ll be stationed at the historic CPR station in Herbert.
- And the weekend after the Studio Tour is the Fall into Christmas which I am toying with. If I can get in I will do it! I’ve heard nothing but awesome about it and it’s local which is a total plus.
The last few are not all fleshed out yet so I’ll save the links and details until a little later. Feel free to ask me as the summer goes on how it’s all going or how it all went!
* the introductory picture has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the post. He’s just cute.
Turning 4
I’m toasting my little blog’s 4th birthday this week! It doesn’t seem so long ago when it was just a not-yet-conceived bit of software and hopeful thought.
I’m also cranking my way through a lot of clay blended to my specs by my helper and turning it into mucho canes. So, pics of that tomorrow hopefully. Until then raise a glass for my precocious preschooler!
More Show Fun
Last week was a bit of a rush! I was slammed with orders (thank you universe!) and had a two day show this weekend. The show went very well (thank you universe again!) and I survived.
I sold the pink flower dangly bracelet I was so proud of to a nice lady from out of town. This one and a matching necklace and earrings replaced it in short order. The orange lilies are Saskatchewan’s provincial flower and I mixed it with some bronze pearls, white slice bead flowers, leaf slices, amber faceted glass and the brass wire I’m having a ball with.
The show I did this weekend was the 35th annual Swift Current Gun & Hobby Spring Show. To say that I don’t do guns might be the understatement of the year so I was a little concerned about doing the show. It turns out that half the exhibition hall is setup like a flea market and there are all sorts of crafts, vintage and antique dealers and general collectibles selling going on. On top of that there is fair food. All in all, not a bad way to spend the weekend.
These are Granny Oakley and Greybeard of the Cowboy Action Shooters. They were at the show in period costume to highlight the nearby historical village. They had fabulous costumers with so much attention to detail and graciously let me be all tourist and shoot a picture of them.
Now that Monday has arrived it’s back to the regular schedule and building up stock for my 3 large shows in late May and June!
Getting 2010 On
After a sleepy start to the year, 2010 woke up and it seems there’s a lot coming up in the next few days and weeks!
January marks the anniversary of my join dates on Etsy for both of my shops and the anniversary of the date I began selling on ArtFire: 3, 2 & 1 years respectively. It’s been a wild time!
For a bit of a change I’m going to tuck free gifts into all of my ArtFire and Etsy packages going out until the end of the month. The gifts will vary from extra beads, canes, jewelry, coupons for discounts or free shipping.
Subscribers to my newsletter will get an extra bonus as I finally get it rolling! To subscribe simply pop your email into the widget on the right or drop me an email with the word subscribe in the subject line and/or body.
One of the most insanely energetic and cheerful Canadian artists I’ve had the fortune to meet in my journey on Etsy is Kristal of RikRak Studio. She’ll be holding a big Olympic themed giveaway on her blog in the coming weeks. From the response of us sponsors, there are going to be a TON of fabulous prizes! The giveaway will be based on Olympic events and run for six weeks. Keep an here and there for updates.
In 2009 I saw some of the One World One Heart postings but didn’t participate. The goal of the project is to encourage bloggers from around the world to reach out and meet others that they might not meet normally.
Bloggers offer giveaways on their blog to entice commenters and people spend a few weeks visiting the giant compilation of links on Whimsical Bohemian’s blog. The event begins January 25th and runs until February 15th.
YART Sale!
It’s a sort of unfortunate name but it’s fun 
The YART sale is the Etsy Supply Street Team’s Yard + Art Sale, a huge event not limited to only supply sellers. And, of course, since I’m a good lemming I hopped in.
I’m offering Free Shipping in my two Etsy shops (I would on ArtFire except there’s no way to batch edit it or to add sales discounts in batches. Nonetheless if you buy there, I’m happy to refund the shipping!). The special will run until the 17th for me, then I close for a week or so while I move.
Some of the goodies in my Bead Shop:
Some of the nifty cool things in my cane shop:
Don’t forget there are a LOT of sellers doing this on Etsy. A good way to start looking is to enter your usual search terms + Yart. So, for example, search for: polymer clay beads yart and find some clay loveliness!
Festival Fun
May 31 I had a booth at the Lilac Festival in Calgary. It’s a very, very big street fair and when the weather is nice it often has in excess of 100,000 people. The weather was amazing and there were an astonishing amount of people.
The show is the biggest one I’ve done yet and I’m very pleased with how it went. The money was good, the traffic was unbelievable and best of all the things that need fixing – more stock, better displays, better table layout – are things I can actually do.
I did learn a few things about doing this show, in comparison to the smaller (not all of them were much less expensive mind you – just smaller) shows:
- Canopy, tent or umbrella is necessary. The booth across from us, with jewelry as well, had some very very sunburned vendors by the end of the day
- People to help you or a smaller setup. Not both. I could not have run this by myself. I would have had to have a much smaller setup to be able to answer questions, help customers and still keep an eye on things.
- Enough stock in a variety of price points but avoid anything fussy (in terms of change or items – I damaged one expensive piece.). Accept credit cards. Decide what your policy is about bill size (I won’t accept $100s at shows for example). Decide what to do about hagglers.
- Put your literature at several spots. At times we were too busy for people to get across the booth to find my pamphlets or other business cards or freebies. So I put bowls with these at each end.
- Bring a first aid kit, office supplies, a toolkit and water. Make sure you know where they are. I usually also bring tools and items to fix or trade out small components but in this show, there was literally no time for that.
- A good banner is fabulous. Good signage is also fabulous. I was lucky and my cousin made me a banner with my logo and I have the software to do relatively good signage. It was complimented frequently.
- Smile, be positive, helpful, cheerful, give your neighbours a hand, try to work with the organizers, volunteers and staff as much as you can.
There are a few more pictures of the parade, friends who dropped by on my Flickr. I’m already looking forward to next year!
Happy Earth Day!
What strikes me as the best part is just how many different people I’ve seen talking about Earth Day and being ‘green’ lately. While I’m perforce talking about the online community it’s still an increase in consciousness about how necessary each step is.
For example, I read a variety of productivity and personal finance blogs, craft and community blogs as well as surf several art and craft related forums. The conversation is carried from one to the next. And some of the ideas are idealistic or unrealistic but many are normal people’s real life solutions. Take a look:
- SherryTruit, a well known Etsy seller, started a useful thread on the Etsy forums
- J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly has a post for today about how frugal and environmentally conscious go hand in hand
- Julie has several posts on Polymer @ CraftGossip to do with clay
- Katie Hacker has bead people ideas
- Artfire has a little article on setting up an office from a greener perspective
- My previous Earth day posts for clayers and for general craft and small biz types
