My Work for Sale
Find Me On
Etsy
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
Happy Bloggy Birthday!
I figured I’d mark my site’s third birthday with a picture of what I’m running my fingers through today!
Thank you everyone!
A Week Into Spring
Up here, in Canada, we’re not known for the kind weather. Spring is rarely here by the calendar date and we always get soggy snow well into April or May. It’s just part of the appeal.
My corner neighbour has a little border around her house which is on the way to the bus stop. Chloe and I watch that strip of garden for signs of spring and fall every year. We took friendly wagers as to which week the first tulips would break through and I win: spotted this one today! Chloe, wagered on the week after next.
Perhaps it’s because it’s spring and maybe it’s due to having pretty much the best week ever in my bead shop but I’m going to take the leap and extend my ‘made to order’ status to my Etsy and Artfire shops beginning next week.
In addition to that, I’m going to reorganize by colour in the bead shops since I seem to get customers buying several shapes in one colour way at a time. This would make it easier to shop that way.
Far away from here – well about 300 miles – a nice guy is working on my studio space. It’s coming along just lovely. There is a neat faux oak floor, some bright aqua walls and crisp white panels and little pot lights already. I’ll blog about it a bit more, closer to the move in date, so I can string it together into a more coherent narrative.
Tomorrow from 6 to 10pm the Market Collective is holding a craft fair as a part of a larger fundraiser for Doctors without Border’s efforts in Sudan. I’ll be there as will at least one other of my Etsy Alberta teamies: CheekyNado
Winter 2009 Giveaway
Bloggy Giveaways is doing it again – it’s regular, it’s quarterly, it’s fabulous – so I am too. Pretty much the same terms as last time, too! I’ll just format it better this time.
The Giveaway:
- $20 in any of my venues: my Etsy bead shop, my Etsy clay cane shop, my ArtFire shop or my web shop
- Free shipping of course! And that includes international. Everyone is welcome.
To Enter:
- Take a look at my shops: my Etsy bead shop, my Etsy clay cane shop, my ArtFire shop or my web shop
- Then come back here and leave me a piece of constructive advice (or even just a comment). Last time I got such good advice, it was incredibly helpful!
- Some ideas are: colour or subject suggestions for my beads or canes, finished jewelry ideas, photography hints, spelling errors, basically anything to let me know you had a look! If you have questions about my work feel free to email me, I am always happy to spread the polymer clay love.
- You do not need to leave your email in the comment. When you fill the form part in, your email is required but will remain private.
To Win:
- After 6pm my time on Friday (that’s 8pm EST) January 30, I’ll pick a random number. The person with the corresponding comment will get an email from me.
- If I don’t get a reply by Monday, I’ll redraw.
How to Have Even More Fun:
- Check out the insane amount of free, cool stuff being offered during the carnival by visiting the carnival often.
Good luck and thanks ahead of time for your help in making this work!
Winter Inspiration
Despite the fact that I’ve done half of my seasonal shows already, it’s been a little hard to get in the winter holiday spirit! The fall has been unseasonably warm for Calgary.
The peek outside my window this morning should cure that though. I can almost feel the urge to pop some Christmas carols in my playlist and pull out the “in progress” angel cane I’ve had sitting here for WEEKS. Here is a little blue heart on ribbon that somehow came back with me from this weeks show. It’s sort of winter coloured, no?
This week has me teaching my first class at the Sheep Creek Weaver’s Guild. I’ll be covering the basics of clay and helping the talented group make up some beads, buttons and other embellishments that can be used in their fiber arts.
Saturday is the Craft and Bake Sale held by my own community. It’s usually a leisurely thing with time to chat with friends, drink coffee and do crafts. They are in a busy part of town and, at my last glance, still had space for vendors. If you are in Calgary, give the Albert Park Radisson Heights Community Association lady a call! Or, drop me a line and I’ll forward you her email.
Come Wave at Me
When I was younger I looked forward to the fall because it was a chance for me to hang out with my grandmother, one of my favourite family members. She did craft shows throughout the fall and my grandfather was not the most patient of company. So I went along, made change, kept her company and along the way fell in love with the whole concept of the small, community based craft shows.
Fast forward about twenty years and now I do these mostly on my own or with my mother and daughter (who is about the age I was back then!). My grandmother still comes sometimes to keep me company and demands the stories you collect from these events.
There is my table at the show from last weekend, held by some of the sweetest, best organized folks I have ever met at the Robert McClure United Church here in Calgary. The unsmiling person there is me because I just turned around to face a chortling 9 year old. I promise to smile if you come wave at me this weekend at the Elbow Valley Art and Craft Market!
For the rest of my shows please see my calendar. If you’d like to know where there are an awful lot more Calgary and area craft shows check out my friend’s huge list!
Bloggy Giveaways
My very first blog giveaway! Since this is my first time with this, I think I will keep it simple and offer a $20 shopping spree at my Etsy shops (feel free to mix & match between the bead shop and the cane shop) or website shop. There’s all sorts of good stuff! And to make it even sweeter, free shipping, so the shipping is not counted against your spree.
To enter the giveaway, simple post a comment on this post. I’d love to hear any opinions about the blog re-design, any requests for colours, patterns or shapes for my future work or even clay how-to questions! It’s all good! You can even just say ‘Hi’! You do not need to be a blogger to enter, just need to make that post and use a valid email address in the form.
On Friday, after I’m back from taking my little goblin out trick-or-treating, I will close comments and pick a winner. This should be somewhere around 9pm mountain time. I will announce the winner on Saturday, after my show (wish me luck even!).
I’m happy to ship anywhere, so I welcome entrants from around the world. The more the merrier! And don’t forget shipping is free 
For a truly awesome list of other bloggy giveaways check out the Blog Carnival on Bloggy Giveaways. There’s an expected 1000 plus participants this time around! That’s an awful lot of free goodness! Bloggy Giveaways also does regular giveaways even outside of the Carnival and it’s always fun to watch.
* The very fine print: the $20 is face value – you’re welcome to buy from my web shop or my Etsy shop but in the interest of keeping it simple, I am going to consider the $$$ equal. So you could spend $10 on my Etsy and $10 here and that would be the gift certificate.
