Tag: process

Life After Orders

Phew! There was a couple weeks of busy orders there! It sort of, kind of, made up for not being able to do my little slate of winter craft shows. Now I have to crank through the bits and ends that accumulated while I made orders. You see when someone orders a dozen of something I often make 24. And why not make a few more of the similar ones? I toss them in little buckets and they progress through the system. And that’s how I end up with the little buckets are full of To-Do things that need doing.

As long as you don’t let the buckets get full the system works pretty well! These were all: To Hole and then To Varnish bucket beads. Now sitting in my shop.

Customers Have Good Ideas

Let me preface this with: I am cautious about custom orders. I have had my share of stinkers. And I have rules – mostly that it shouldn’t be trademarked and it should be something others will want to buy, too, since most people don’t want to buy ALL of a custom cane or bead that a batch is. Which leads us to a request for beads with a Tabasco (er… pepper sauce) theme and beads with a fleur de lis theme.

Since I figured I could work with those, I did a sketch for the customer, to make sure we were on the same page and she okay’d it. I highly recommend not skipping this step. Not only is a sketch good frame of reference for you and the customer… you can work from it. Then I started pulling the clay together and… voila! Canes. Followed shortly after by beads with cane slices.

Production Hell

Production Hell

Before every big show and event I hit this point where I just want it to be done and over with. Mostly, I LOVE making clay beads and clay goodies and the whole thing. Sometimes there’s enough to do it is just a slog.

These were 3 of the 11 racks from this weekend. I am beyond happy they are DONE.