The Simple Things
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US - it was 6 weeks ago here, in Canada, and I didn’t even have to toss leftovers out unseen this time - and today marks the shopping frenzy called Black Friday. There’s even a bit of it here with lots of chains offering special discounts. It’s enough to make slightly shyer folks like me want to hide inside.
I put together simple ornaments yesterday and today. Some already went off to the US for the Fabulous FAM Ornament Swap. One of them is this guy:
I figure I’ll wear it on a ribbon as a pendant because I’m just kooky-artistic enough to do that. But they were made to look cute on your tree, too. I have some slightly pinker ones and these rich red ones.
Tomorrow is the show at the next to closest community to mine. It was probably the first craft sale I did with my grandmother about 15 or so years ago and I’ve done it most of the years since! My daughter even learned her first few Christmas carols to the skipped part in the tape they used to play. The show organizer has it so organized by this point that it is always a pleasure to do this show and, in keeping with recent trends, they’ve begun enforcing a handmade items only participant list.
If you’re in Calgary pop by the Marlborough Community Association show. It’s directly behind the Marlborough Mall and the weather is supposed to be lovely (for Calgary, in November) this weekend. There’s a concession, children’s activities and free babysitting, baked goods and all handmade items.
The Chance to Make Stuff
The benefit of selling at craft shows, for me, has been the chance to not have to focus on beads or canes as I usually do for online sales. Not that I don’t LOVE beads and canes and they ship so nicely but sometimes I like to use them..
Of course my first couple of pictures ARE beads:
Then a tealight holder that is similar to my mini bowls:
And a few new ornaments:
I have a stack of vessels (literally) waiting to be sanded and buffed including a new bowl with the Delft patterns I’ve been enjoying the last few weeks. I’ve promised myself that I get to go stroll the two huge shows the next few days if I make a dent in it today.
The Festival of Crafts(at the Roundup Centre) and Art Market Art & Craft Sale(at the Telus Convention Centre) are both running in Calgary from Thursday to Sunday. I have several vendors at each show that I’d love to go see and meet. Wanda Shum, in particular, is a polymer clay and millefiori artist who I’d like to meet and she has a booth at the Art Market show.
Some of the show strolling is also going to be research. I’d like to do one of the very big shows next year but need to do my research!
The Craft Show Lament
If I didn’t love doing the darned things so much… This weekend marked the first effort at a fall show by my local community. It was better than their spring show this year and I did make several times my table fee. And the organizer, this time around, was very open to ideas about improving and making it better.
Next year, alas, I won’t be living in this community! Boo! Hiss! So I’ll miss seeing it evolve.
On the plus side, I had the most amusing situation happen! A complete stranger walked up to me at the show, even before I’ve begun setting up. She introduces herself as Mailled, from Etsy. Now, introducing yourself by your online nickname is not that uncommon to me but it still warrants a bit of a look. So I got to sit and chat with Angela of mailled.etsy.com and her mom of grandmarose.etsy.com For icing on the cake, it turned out that Mailled was my secret Santa in our Alberta Street Team’s gift exchange! I got to pick goodies from them! Woohoo!
I make a lot of simple bead on a cord type pendants and they are good sellers. Shiny, pretty bead on a comfy, casual cord. Win. But my previous necklace board was not inviting people to admiring the masses of them or take them off and play with them. People would touch the few laid on the table around it but not the ones on the display. I needed something a little more casual, fun and inviting! Enter a box of brightly coloured (Christmas light like?) pushpins and one of my old cork board. And a MASS of pendants.
It got people to stop and look which is more than half the battle at shows.
The Lipstick Effect
With all the economic chaos I’ve started hearing about the lipstick effect again. The theory with this is that as people watch the family budget more closely they are less likely to purchase big ticket goods. Instead, they indulge in small luxuries like lipstick.
Or, I’ve noticed, earrings.
I don’t sell lipstick but I make beads and at shows, I have both beads and earrings. I also carry much more elaborate pieces of jewelry and much larger, more expensive pieces of clay work. The last show, the overall sales were not down much (hurrah!) but I did notice that people bought more of the smaller pieces. Like earrings.
So I have to wonder if this is the lipstick factor coming into play in my little world?
Etsy Goodies
The site updating is going pretty painlessly so far! Yay! There’s a few more changes to be made but here’s a post that might be helpful for my Etsy-using friends:
I’ve been selling on Etsy the last 18 months or so and I like the place. It has it’s issues but overall, the price is right. Here’s a few off-Etsy tools to help with your Etsy experience:
More Info Please
- Unofficial Etsy News - these folks take the headlines at Etsy and put them in one spot instead of requiring you to sift through Etsy’s own chaotic and unreliable news services.
- Majaba.org - this site helps you sort through the somewhat complicated ‘favourites’ system at Etsy. It will count up all your item hearts or views for you and display them in a format that’s usable. This is a way to see what’s popular in your shop.
- Pricing Spreadsheets - by Chris Parry is a great answer to: How much should I price it at? There are other excellent posts on the site but this one’s an eye opener.
Help Me Sell
- Let’s Ets - will actually make the file you need to load up the contents of your Etsy site to Google’s shopping listings. Free, simple and super useful.
- We Love Etsy - is a social network (I know, you need another one of those) that is high traffic and regularly updated. In other words, useful. A way to make contacts, network and promote.
The Shop: Think Pink
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. In a bit of an effort at fundraising, I listed two sets of beads on Etsy. 20% of the proceeds will go to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. The little ribbon beads got a nod in SewingGranny’s treasury.
I have all sorts of other beady goodness in the Tooaquarius shop of course. Things with bumps, things with faces and things with butterflies:
The next two months are the crazy fall show months and I’ve been busily making jewelry items to showcase the beads I make. The most recent of those are listed in my flickr but here’s a current fave:
Here’s hoping your week is full of beady goodness!
The Shop: Friendly Promoting
Etsy Treasuries are a little addictive! I lucked into one today - they were having server issues, so LOTS of people lucked into them - that I got to set up with two favourites: Blue and Clay. You can see the treasury filled with all sorts of blue-toned clay items by clicking the piccie:
Of course, with all the extra treasuries floating about someone kindly put one of my Claychicks canes in theirs. Thanks Bam!
This week my Tooaquarius Etsy shop is also featured on Winklepots blog. Winkle makes some incredibly adorable handpainted lil’ kids wear. I told Chloe she needs to be 4 again but she disagrees with me. Luckily I know other little people now.
I have beads chugging along in the tumbler now, so we’ll have some fresh stuff on the sites this weekend and until then I’ve begun adding beads to the webstore here. These will likely be beads made as they’re ordered and will include my regular themes in my usual shapes: pillows, rounds and lentils in blues, sea garden, sunshine, black and white, coffee tones, sweetheart pink, lavender field, tangerine. I will also add the sets I have on hand that one of a kinds but these mostly find their way to Etsy first.
Rainy Days
Maybe the weather has been part of what’s kept me productive this week. It’s been summer’s fade into fall packed into one week. A little sun, a little cloud, some rain, some wind and a chill. Often in the same hour. Whatever it is, it brings both the energy that was missing during the long melty days of summer and that bit of comfort from curling up and working on something while wrapped in a blanket on the sofa.
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I picked and poked at some rose and leaf beads I made the last few weeks. I was inspired by another artists rose bracelet series but the challenge of how to put my own spin on it is there. Of course, one way to do that is to use my own beads instead of buying, to use caned elements where I can… I am sure I will come up with an ‘Elaine Original’ with a little more thought and playing. The first try is to the left and has already been disassembled, the poor thing. |
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I got into making beads because I loved to make jewelry - even though, my boyfriend helpfully points out, I don’t WEAR the stuff - and sometimes I get itchy fingers. And I crank out pieces, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants. I’m lucky these days because that’s part of my work. Here’s one of my usual bracelets with some of my latest beads - I’m going to start offering my caned beads as lentils in addition to rounds and pillows and the coffee tones colour scheme is one of my standards. |
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For the Claychicks shop, I decided I would try selling some little ‘mystery boxes’ of cane pieces. Help me clean up my seasons stock as I make a ton of items, give people a try at canes for a lower price than the average set and still get a nice variety of canes to play with. I’m using $8 for a 1- 1.25 oz selection from my current canes (which includes the stuff to the side) as well as whatever is in good condition but didn’t come to hand fast enough for that pic. |
Teaming Up
A big part of selling on Etsy is marketing and getting your name out there, in front of people. Etsy encourages it’s sellers to do advertising for each other, to support each others marketing efforts and generally work as teams to solve some of the common issues with sales.
To that end, Etsy has these groups called street teams which are associations of sellers grouped by region, medium or some other interest. Last week, I finally joined up with two more of these - I had belonged to the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy last year before I took a break: The Alberta Street Team and Fabulous Artistic Moms.
The first makes all sorts of common sense - I’m in Alberta. I do shows in Alberta, I buy supplies here and I meet a lot of crafters doing this. So, let’s bundle it together and get a bit more organized.
The second group is a team a friend of mine referred me to which is more of a supportive network. The common thread is that they are all moms (as well as all vendors). The Fabulous Artistic Moms are a more established group with many activities and a lot of members.
Street teams tend to have group activities like forum threads on Etsy, group ad buying, promotional posts about each other and things along those lines. It is one of those occasions where spreading the work around makes it a little easier.
The Shop - Summer Moseying Along
Taking the cue from the majority of the other cane sellers on Etsy, I listed singles in the Claychicks shop this week:
And there’s sets of canes, of course:
In the Tooaquarius Shop there’s plenty of beads (and more going up today!):
And I am finally bringing my web store in line with my Etsy Shops to make life a little simpler on my record keeping. The prices will be similar across the board - though Etsy will be cheaper for sets picked by me, you can still get a ‘buy 5 get 1 free’ set of six on here - and sometimes, I think, my American friends will get a good deal when the Canadian buck swings low (as my site prices are in Canadian dollars).
Across the board shipping for canes and beads is now much more reasonable. I got the ins and outs of Canadian shipping explained to me and I am happy to be able to say: It STILL makes NO SENSE but I can now offer shipping at about the same prices as US sellers. Overseas shipping may need a little tweaking, be warned.
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