A Very Special Engagement Commission.

I was recently approached by a friend to create a non-traditional piece of engagement jewelry for her intended. Now that all has been delivered and they've had the big reveal (he said, "yes"!), I can share the work I did for their special moment.

Before I do, I just want to say how very honored I was to be asked to participate in this way. I make very intentional pieces all the time. In fact, it could be argued that everything that comes through my hands is wound up with mindful selections, from the materials used to the curves and angles in the design. It is especially important to me that commissions be met with a careful balance between artistic freedom and collaboration with the client. I try to be in constant contact, particularly in the research and design phase, with potential materials and solutions to unique challenges that the piece may bring up along the way. It's very important to me that I get a feel for how things resonate with the recipient and that they're on board with all the selections being made.

That said, this one changed course a few times. She's familiar with my work and knows what lines I have available, and she really liked the Golden Snitch design, but wanted to incorporate their birthstones somehow (aquamarine and amethyst). I really loved that combination, so my first thought was to actually find a couple of spheres or large beads to cut in half and fuse together to create a centerpiece to the Snitch that would be more like one of my spheres. After shattering a 20mm amethyst bead, I went back to the drawing board.

I have been doing a lot of work with resin and wanted to expand my collection of molds for it, so I messaged her real quick to run it by her and ordered a couple of silicone sphere molds to see about taking gemstone chips in aquamarine and amethyst and creating a resin sphere that I could wrap like the typical gemstone spheres. That worked out beautifully and here is the result:

I'm happy, they're happy, everyone's happy. Love is grand and I wish them the very best for the rest of their lives together.

Music City Winterfest This Saturday

I'm so happy to be a part of another great Nashville event in Centennial Park this weekend at Music City Winterfest. Looks like a really great lineup of artists, vendors, kids activities, music, food trucks, and even a beer garden. Come finish your holiday shopping in the park!

Excited to be at SoundHarvest this weekend!

I'll be bringing these beauties and many more with me.

There's a stellar lineup and the weather should be gorgeous.

Further Fest this weekend in Nashville, TN!

I'm excited to share that I'll be set up at Further Fest this weekend along with a stellar line up of music, dance and flow arts, all sorts of workshops, and artisans of all sorts.

I'm packing up my whole studio it seems to bring to the festival and set up to create while I'm there, offering a unique opportunity to request something custom in person. I've seen there will be many other artisans offering live demos of their crafts such as wire wrapping and glass blowing.

I can not wait to be immersed in what this festival has to offer Come out and join us! Weekend and day passes are still available.

Elvish Circlet Commission and Beginning Silversmithing.

I've been wanting to share about a commission I just finished up a little over a week ago, but I sort of cleaned up my work space and jumped right into the next thing. However, this needs to be shared. It's a major milestone for me in that it pushed me into silversmithing. I am not proud to say that it took me since September to finally make that leap. But luckily my client was a good friend of mine who knows exactly what it's like when a project just stalls and also when it's demanding you learn scary new things in order to complete it. From the very beginning, this project pushed me out of my comfort zone in all sorts of ways. But it is now complete and I've learned and grown through its completion into crazy directions... hence not slowing down long enough to post about much of anything lately.

But here they are...

Nerdanel, Feanor's wife in the Silmarillion. This one pushed me into working with gold and is based on a design I had done previously. I used gold filled wire and beaded it with labradorite, as well as moss agate, ceylon moonstone, smoky quartz, and a mixture of glass seed beads in greens, gold, and grey to match her gown.

The other is my version of Elrond's crown from Lord of the Rings. This is all sterling silver wire hammered flat and soldered together. It pushed me into finally using my silversmithing tools and getting over my fear of melting things that I don't want to melt and not melting the things that I do want to melt.

I'm so grateful for being given the opportunity to play in a world I love so dearly and create something out of it. And such a huge bonus to be able to work with someone who loves that world as much as I do and who has the patience to let me sort out my hang ups about where I am and where I want to be with my work in order to get through her pieces. Life is pretty damn sweet to me.

Now Pandora's Box is open and the whole way I design has changed. I sketched out an idea yesterday and was like, "wait, I can just solder a frame first and build it up from there!" Wrapping is now a design choice instead of a method of connection. Fun times.

Purchase directly from my Facebook page!

My Etsy shop is currently on hiatus as I revamp and rework how I interact with the site in light of some changes in their policies and categories and such as well as to maximize some of the great information I learned at some workshops last fall.

But in the meantime, head over to my Facebook page where I'm listing all my current inventory in albums up there for sale. All you have to do is be the first to comment on an image with "sold" and I'll message you with payment information. As always, thanks for looking and especially thanks for sharing!

Crafts and Drafts at the Farmer's Market, 10am-6pm Saturday!

I'll be at Crafts and Drafts tomorrow. It's a free event at the Farmer's Market with tons of local artisans, food vendors, and beer. Come say hi!

The Spectrum Required.

I'm working on a lot of elvish inspired pieces lately, getting items ready for a Middle-earth themed event at the end of September. As I looked at the first piece off my bench in what is to be a long string of pieces between now and then, I was thinking about the delicacy of the lines in nouveau and elvish pieces. But I was also thinking about the six grits of polishing papers I just had to work through in order to get all those hard hammering marks and plier marks off the finished piece. Since I'm still learning, I wasn't actually able to get them all off. There are a few I'll just call characteristics of the piece where I was afraid I'd polish away too much metal if I managed to get them completely flat. I appreciate a nice hammered look, too, so that helps when my inner perfectionist wants to come out and say it's not a perfect mirror surface.

I was thinking about that hammering process. It's brute and violent and raw. I rearrange the molecular structure of the metal when I slam it between a steel bench block and a hammer over and over until round wire spreads out into a thin sheet. Once that is done, I go over it with a file to round off any harsh edges. Again, that's a pretty brutal action of tiny teeth tearing away bits of metal. And then there are the polishing papers. They're softer, more like fabric than sandpaper, but they subtly chew off yet more metal. It starts with a brushed metal look with the 30 micron paper, where I appear to have made more scratches than I've removed. A couple of grits later, it's down to a more satin finish. And finally that high mirror shine appears once I hit the 1.0 micron paper. I don't even need to buff the piece after that, usually. The papers are very effective at refining the results of that brutal hammering and filing process. What I'm left with is this lovely, feminine, delicate form onto which I wrap various beads or gems, depending on the piece.

I live through my pieces. I breathe into them and they teach me as they come to life. I know the feeling of being caught between anvil and hammer. I know the feeling of being struck over and over and reformed into something different than what I was when I started. I know the feeling of being filed down to have harsh edges removed. And I know what it's like to be polished and refined into a mirror. I know what it's like to be simultaneously strong and delicate like my pieces in their final state. When I look at a final piece, I see myself and not just because of that shiny finish reflecting back at me. I see myself because I'm pouring my experiences and my life lessons into each piece.

It takes both the hard hammering and the final delicacy and everything in between to move through this life. I'm so grateful I'm able to create and learn like this at my bench every day.

Fear and Failure: A Parable.

I'm working on this bracelet design today that incorporates chips of tourmaline and copper wire into chain links. I'm making each link and threading them together as I'm wrapping them, not with jumprings. My thought is that the structural integrity of such a design would be superior to one that might be slightly easier to put together (i.e. one using jumprings or eyepins to join the links). It's a bit tricky in the fabrication, but I feel like that will be rewarded with the longevity of the piece. Not to mention that it just looks cooler with all those copper coils framing each chip of tourmaline.

Perhaps inevitably, with 13 links and 12 dangling "charms" made the similarly (custom headpins with beads that are threaded into the links of the bracelet rather than being attached by jumprings), something was bound to go wrong along the way. Either a work hardened wire would snap at an inopportune moment or a bead would shatter or something. Well, one of those things went wrong about halfway through the links. As I was cutting the coil around one bead, with the next link already attached, my wire cutters slipped and I shattered a bead. There was no unwinding the wire to string a new bead on and try again. I had to cut that link off, scrap that wire and figure out what to do next as I stared at this piece of beaded chain with two ends of closed loops.

My "oh shit" moment was just that, a moment, and then I cut a fresh piece of wire and made a fresh loop to hook into one end and get the links going again. But during that "oh shit" moment, I thought all was lost. I thought of the hour I spent last night making the beginnings of these links and the cost of the wire wasted and tried to think how else I could salvage it or if I could just attach some chain and make it just sort of half beaded bracelet or something. But I was in the throes of despair for a moment. It was only a moment, but the despair was very real and very heavy, even crushing. But as I opened myself to the solution, it seemed so very obvious and probably would have come to me instantly had I not taken that moment to despair.

Then, I had a bit of an epiphany moment. I realized that most moments of despair are just like this one was: unnecessary obstacles in the path of success. And I started to think about fear as a particular brand of despair. Fear is often irrational, based on some hypothetical situation that may or may not come to fruition. Fearing something, even something that may likely happen doesn't help you to overcome that situation when it actually presents itself. Fear can sometimes save your life. It's an evolutionary response for a reason. But there's an evolutionary step that's often missing, to push past the fear into the solution.

Fear of failure, and the even more irrational fear of success, have been obstacles in my path for far too long. They've kept me stagnant when I should have been active. Kept me distracted when I should have been focused. With this minor hiccup which caused such intense, momentary panic behind me, I was able to see that I sort of manifested this little challenge to help me practice setting aside my fear-based despair in order to find a solution to a problem that presented itself. And as soon as I start looking at things as challenges instead of seeing them as yet another thing that's going to knock me down or hold me back, the solutions materialize just as instantly as the problem and the subsequent despair did.

As soon as I start seeing failures as the little things they actually are instead of the huge monsters I've made them out to be, I can conquer anything that comes my way.

And that's my little nugget of wisdom from the jewelry bench today.

Extended Black Friday/Cyber Monday Promotion

Since I don't want to forget to turn it on, I'm just going ahead and setting up both shops for holiday orders next week.

All orders placed in either my Etsy or Artfire* stores between 11/19 and 11/28 will receive free standard shipping to the United States (expedited and International rates will still apply).

Also, all pendants purchased during that time will receive a free matching chain or copper neckwire (please state preference on the order).

Also, also, I'm offering free gift wrapping upon request.

I know these aren't the deep discounts you'll see at the big box stores next week. But the good news is, I'm not a big box store! Plus, you can purchase gifts from me in your pajamas.



Happy Holidays!





*As a note, Artfire does not require you to have an account to purchase, in case you're wondering what the appeal to buying there is and why I'm in both places.

Not like riding a bicycle

Last week's push to get new old items listed (as in, items I've had sitting around for months and never photographed to list) has me inspired to make new pieces and perhaps even get on a reasonable regular schedule of putting out new stuff. I like having a lot of items in my store, but I really feel like I want more there. More range. More variety.

I subscribe to Wire-Sculpture.com's email lists and one of them sends a new jewelry pattern every couple of weeks. This week's is a lovely snowflake that incorporates feet upon feet of wire, a handful of Swarovski crystals and seed beads and a lot of coiling. I remembered really enjoying the coiling I did on one of my pendants, so I picked up the project with gusto!

Well, I don't have much silver wire in stock right now. The pattern also calls for some white wire and I never keep colored wire around. I'm not a huge fan of it. I also don't keep Swarovski crystals around, though I tend to have a few here and there leftover from other projects. But I don't really have anything on hand that reads "snowflake" color wise. So, I've decided to improvise and use some steampunk looking brass and copper beads I've been itching to use and make use of the feet upon feet of copper wire as well as some brass wire I've recently picked up.

Well, I'm now nearly 8 hours into making this pendant and I'm realizing that I'm having to reteach my hands how to work with tools. I'm too used to doing everything with my hands themselves. They need to remember how to have a pair of pliers in each of them doing what they need to do. I've been using my third hand tool a ton as well, particularly when I need to be holding on to two ends of wire as well as keeping two links positioned so they can be lashed together. I've work hardened a lot of ends to the point that they snap before I'm ready to cut them. It's been a wee bit frustrating at times and is going a lot slower than I anticipated. But the challenge is really good to get me back in the groove of things. As soon as I finish this piece, I'll throw together a bunch of lamp pulls, I think, to cover the other end of the spectrum (and so I can feel like I'm accomplishing something).

Even if it's frustrating and even if it's someone else's design, I'm happy to be creating jewelry again.

A Shop Update... at long last.

I've been working this week on getting all new photos taken with my new light box setup. Then getting the 300+ photos I took of the 26 items I have in inventory edited and cropped. Then getting listings written up for each item and choosing the best photos to represent each item. Then rearranging my Etsy and Artfire stores, since there are a lot of new features I'm not utilizing as it's been a while since I've done any housekeeping there.

Phew! So, it's been a busy week, is what I'm saying, I guess. I really need to get into a weekly cycle of this though to keep the workload more manageable. If I could do this in batches of five items at a time, once per week, that would be enough items to make it worth it to set up the light box yet not so much as to take up three full days of photography and listing.

If you feel so inclined (and I hope you do), go check out my hard work:
Gaia's Jewel on Etsy
Gaia's Jewel on Artfire

Without further ado, I present some of my favorite items that are finally getting their chances to shine on my storefronts...

New projects and new skills

I've mentioned before how commissions really challenge me on a design level & on a skill level. I almost always finish a commission with a greater knowledge of how to do something, how not to do something, or how to do something better.

I'm facing one right now that will fall right into line on that front. I'll be recalling a skill I was taught a few years ago and have not since used (silversmithing) and developing a new one (glass cutting).

I posted before about the butterfly wing I encased in epoxy inside a premade pendant setting. I'd like to take that a step further because I don't feel that method showcases the wings in all their glory. I had a particular request for blue morpho wings & upon procuring some noticed that most species have lovely "eyes" and subtly beautiful undersides to their wings in addition to the stunningly iridescent topsides. I thought to really do them justice, I needed to find a way to show both sides.

I've seen others simply laminate the wings, but I want to make something more substantial than that. I'm going to attempt to sandwich the wings between two pieces of glass and create a silver bezel setting with a bail for it to sit in. This way I can create a custom setting for each full wing rather than cutting them down to fit in a premade one. And, they could potentially be reversible, to showcase both gorgeous sides. In the case of some of these morphos, they're going to be huge pendants!

Want to see what I'm working with? I know at least one person who does.

Proving the Dunbar Number and still learning

It's been nearly a month since I wrote about my Twitter clearance and the lessons contained therein, but I'm still trimming the fat and still learning what I need out of Twitter. I've come to the conclusion that I needed to pretty much just start over with that account. There's just far too much noise over there and there are some accounts that I'd love to keep following, but their post volume makes it impossible. I started out with over 300 accounts that I followed. I am now down around 46 and may continue to trim as I watch my feed and sift out the accounts that are really valuable to me. At some point, I'm sure I'll start rebuilding it. But I've got to figure out what I want out of this account first. Who am I trying to connect with? I don't really have a solid answer to that question right now.

I manage five different Twitter accounts. One of them is my jewelry account (@gaiasjewel). Another is for my writing personality, while a third one is for the people I know and keep up with on a personal basis (one I don't want associated with my business personalities). A fourth is a placeholder for a future venture and finally, there's a joke account I maintain which shall remain nameless. For the last two, I do not keep up with a feed nor do I follow any of those who follow me. The fourth one I listed may only have four or so tweets associated with it. I might post once a month to the joke account, but the first three are my active ones and I'm trying to find a balance between them.

I read an article the other day about how the Dunbar Number still holds true in this era of social networking. They had interviewed Robert Dunbar and got his thoughts on how social media, specifically Facebook, affected his original findings. For those not familiar with his findings, he's a social anthropologist who discovered that a human brain can only track so many friends at a given time (thought to be around 150, though a specific number has never been settled on). Any people above and beyond that number become sort of fringe acquaintances. They're not people you'd do favors for or talk to on a regular basis. They're people you probably categorize and group in order to track them.

A short interview with Robert Dunbar and how I'm applying his findings after the jump.

Five Reasons Why I Like Artfire.

I'm going to be a shill for a moment. It's not like I've not touted the benefits of Artfire before. But I'm going to again, in the name of getting more people to recognize their awesomeness and in the name of a chance to win a gift certificate. So, without further ado...

1. As mentioned in the above linked blog post, I LOVE all of their tools. There's a beautiful marriage here between people who obviously know good development and what the end users want and need and that can simply not be ignored. As an artisan who is married to a software developer, I think I know a little something about this sort of thing.
2. I know this sort of falls under the above, but it deserves it's own number: the Rapid Cart widget. People can come to my blog, my facebook page, where ever I decide to put this thing and buy stuff from my Artfire Studio without having to create an account or even go to the site. That little gem is what made me create an account there in the first place and I think it's really a fabulous tool!
3. I like the idea of a flat subscription fee for listing items. One of these days, I'm going to get my act together and start listing higher volumes of items. At that point, I'm going to have to be selective about what I put on Etsy while I can throw everything up on Artfire for a flat monthly rate. I could probably sit down and do the math, but I think for anyone who lists high volumes, Artfire is the better deal.
4. I've got a little customer service anecdote to share as well. A couple of months ago, I had an issue with a change in credit card numbers. Of course, there's that inevitable place you had an automatic payment set up that slips through the cracks when you're trying to remember all your accounts where you need to change information. Artfire was mine. My subscription lapsed and I emailed them and spoke with a singular customer service agent who worked with me through the issue and kindly reinstate the promotional price I had been locked in at. She didn't have to do that. It was my screw up after all. But she did and I'm immensely grateful!
5. Finally, I love the customizable studio space. Everyone's shop looks a little different. Perhaps the same overall format, but you can change the color scheme and have a larger banner and such, downplaying the fact that it's an Artfire studio and playing up the fact that it's your own personal space. An Etsy store looks like and Etsy store looks like and Etsy store. They all look the same. Sure you get your little banner and you can arrange your items a bit differently, but it is always dominated by the orange, grey and white color scheme and the overwhelming presence of, well, Etsy. It's sort of like having a rental property where your landlord won't let you paint. You never really feel like it's yours.

So, there you have it. I hope Artfire continues to grow in recognition from both artisans and consumers. If, by chance, you're an artisan and you've been thinking about setting up shop somewhere, I'd highly suggest you consider giving Artfire a chance. And if you do decide to set up shop with Artfire, you can snag an ArtFire Pro account with this link and get your 3rd month free.

Twitter clearance with an unexpected lesson.

Last week, I spent some time cleaning out the Twitter accounts I follow. A long time ago, when I thought I knew what I was doing with this whole social networking thing, I had set up a thing to follow back anyone who followed me after a three day review period. In that review period, I was supposed to go to this site and look through the accounts that had followed me recently and weed out the ones I didn't want to follow. The rest would be automatically followed. I don't even remember now where I set this up, nor do I think it's still working. Needless to say, I no longer believe this is a good strategy and if I can remember the site, I'm going to go turn this feature off if I see it's still working.

I have several Twitter accounts because I have several ventures and then there's my personal one where I keep track of the people I know. The truth of it is, I just can't keep up with much more than about 150 accounts for each of my accounts. I had racked up something approaching 400 follows on my jewelry account and many of them I just wasn't interested in reading.

As I started to go through my list, I began to notice I had unwittingly created a set of mental rules for weeding out the accounts I wanted to keep versus the ones I culled.

1. Fellow artisans - When I first started with this, I followed a lot of my fellow artisans in solidarity. But that's not helpful to either one of us really, unless we're doing very different work from each other. I might continue to follow some of my favorite knitters because I love their work and I don't knit myself. But I realized that unless a jewelry artist posts things that interest me (not just links to new listings or notes about promotions and such), there's really no point in me following.
2. Nothing but marketing - Twitter is an excellent marketing tool, I get that. But if you're not connecting with your readers, they're going to become disengaged very quickly. I can't tell you how many accounts I weeded out that were nothing but long lists of automated links to their new Etsy/Artfire listings. You've got to mix it up and become a part of the discussion. I'd say a good rule of thumb would be to make marketing about 30% of your posts. Any more than that, and you're going to start sounding like a constant commercial and people tend to ignore commercials.
3. Posting frequency/infrequency - Okay, I know I let my account slide for a very long time and so I'm kind of the pot calling the kettle black here. But I also know that I lost a bunch of followers in that time. As I went through my list, I began to weed out any that hadn't posted a single time yet this year. I was surprised by the number of accounts that I actually remembered being very active that hadn't posted since 2009. But the other end of the spectrum got cut as well. If I'm stretched so thin I can only follow 150 or so accounts, I'm not going to be able to follow a single account that tweets every 30 seconds. I'm sorry, no one's life is so fascinating that they have something valid to say that often. Find some middle ground and have something worth saying. If it's something very run of the mill, like dropping your kids off to school or watching your cat sleep, it better be written in an interesting or witty way.
4. Suppliers - Now, on this one, I may have to make another pass. I kept most anyone selling jewelry supplies that didn't fall into one of the above categories. But once I get another free day (yeah right), I'm going to go through that list and visit their sites to see which ones I'd actually consider buying from.
5. Overall snapshot of information - As much as we'd love to take in all their is to know about the things that interest us, we only have so much time to keep up with this stuff before it begins to eat into our productivity. So as much as I'd love to follow 20 blogs from creative career coaches, I probably only have time to read one or two. Likewise with Twitter. I only have so much room for each area of interest before everything gets too clogged to read any of it.

This gave me some insight, from a reader's standpoint, on how I should use my own account. I took a look at each account I followed, their profile and their last three tweets to make my decisions. As I started to notice these things recurring in my decisions, I started to think about what might make readers keep my account in their follow lists and what might make them decide to cut me loose. Right now, I can't say I'm providing much of anything that would really persuade anyone to keep me on. But I hope as I get back into the work itself, there will be more worthwhile things to post.

Waking up.

I've been doing some reflection on what I want out of this little project. I'm trying to revive my business with more of a deliberate direction rather than a whimsical one. I've read a ton of articles and blog posts about how to make my business better. I'm in the middle of Artfire and Postling's Social Media Bootcamp (you may need an Artfire account to view that forum thread) as I'm determined to get a handle on that aspect and make better use of it as a means of connecting with people. Also, last month I participated in an online workshop which helped Etsy shop owners to better articulate what it is that makes their work unique and why they do what they do. Out of the fourty-five minute workshop, I not only gained a succinct shop description and mision statement, but I was also able to understand what I'm trying to do here a little better.

There's something else I've realized in the past year or so during my hiatus. I've realized that where I really excel is custom commissions. There's something about creating a piece with a specific person in mind that really brings out the best in my abilities. I use custom pieces as my playground to work with new materials, try new techniques and really stretch my limits. Perhaps my two favorite pieces ever are things I was commissioned to do for friends and relatives as gifts.

This necklace and earring set was commissioned last spring from a friend for her sister's birthday:





It's a huge wire-wrapped snowflake obsidian pendant (perhaps my best and cleanest wrap to date) strung on a beaded necklace of more snowflake obsidian, freshwater pearls, black onyx, "ice" quartz and silver glass seed beads. The earrings consist of the same beads as the necklace that are strung on Sterling silver wire.

This one was commissioned from my mother-in-law for my brother-in-law's girlfriend as a Christmas gift:

It's a Monarch butterfly wing portion set in a copper bezel pendant and preserved with epoxy. I strung it on drapey copper chain which is accented by two beaded sections (freshwater pearls, black onyx and amber chips on copper wire). I only wish I had gotten better pictures of it. The butterfly wing turned beautifully translucent from the epoxy.

I'm wondering if I could possibly apply this design strategy to the things that I put up in my shop for a wider audience. If I could trick myself into believing that I was creating this piece for just one person, perhaps I could pull that sort of custom performance out of every piece made. It seems I'm not able to create my best work just for the sake of creating, but that I require purpose and direction. So, I'm trying to go about everything a little less haphazardly this time around. Wish me luck!

New items: Lamp/fan pulls

I've just finished adding the 10 lamp/fan pulls I've made recently. I really enjoy doing these. They're cute and fun to make and even use up all of the mismatched beads I've had laying around for years. Some of my favorites:







The rest can be found here.

I'll gladly accept custom orders if you'd like one but don't see something that matches your decor. I will definitely be doing more of these, including some for my own house! So, look for more styles, colors, sizes and lengths to come.

10 Things I Learned From My First Show

It was a tough crowd last Saturday, mostly because there was so little of a crowd. All the vendors had a rough time of it and several packed up early without so much as an interested look, let alone a sale. I feel fortunate for the few sales I was able to make even if I didn't begin to recoup my costs. Despite that, I still feel positive about my experience. My display garnered lots of compliments and I know I'm headed in the right direction.

I was planning to keep a notebook handy for a list of things I'd do differently next time. During the day, not much came to me in that respect. But in retrospect, I have a better idea of what I might do differently next time.

1. Be more organized - It wasn't bad, but I can always do better. I've already packed all the items I will always need for shows and never need for anything else and they're ready to go again. Also, I've strategically packed in order of things I'll need (i.e.: tablecloths on top, then displays, then decor and signs, etc.).

2. Make deadlines for preparations - Print jobs should be ordered no later than the 3 week mark. Displays and packaging should be squared away at the 2 week mark. Once all of the above are in my possession, packing should be completed at the 1 week mark (pieces packed separately later). Work on pieces should cease no later than 24 hours before set up time. That gives me a full day to pack up pieces, tools and materials or last minute additions.

3. Portable storage for tools and materials - I can't sit still for an entire day without having something in my hands to work on. But, I wound up taking a couple of open containers (essentially drawers from my organizers at home) in order to have all my materials and tools on hand. I need organizers that will travel with lids, handles and maybe even wheels. The more compact and portable, the better. A hand truck or wagon might not be a bad investment.

4. Talk to other vendors openly - I chatted with the two vendors on either side of my table all day. However, I wish I had asked more questions of all the vendors present. I did get a little information about how to find other shows. But, I wish I had wandered around the floor more. Next time, I'd like to ask more questions. How did you hear about the show? What other shows do you do? Where else do you sell your work? Have you done this show before? If so, how did last year compare and what should I expect?

5. Do a trial run of the display before packing - I did a lot of fidgeting to get things to look how I wanted. It didn't take us long to set up. But it would have been nice to be able to tell Steffany (my friend and partner for the day) exactly what I wanted or even to have a picture or diagram. That would have freed me up to do other things and she probably would have felt more useful. She needed specific instructions and I didn't have them for her. So, she just put everything out and I came behind her and rearranged to suit my needs.

6. Have better storage for pieces - It's a good thing nothing is too fragile. All my pieces were gently piled into a Tupperware container large enough to hold everything. It would have been nice to transport and display earrings on their cards. It would have been nice to have the necklaces separate from the lamp/fan pulls. Dual duty for storage at home a must!

7. Check for things at home that I can use - I know I covered this in my last entry on the displays, but there's more. I took our camp table to use as a workspace behind the display table that I rented along with my booth space. Before I do another show, I think I'm just going to buy another one of those camp tables. It turned out that it was taller and more suitable for my display table than the one I rented.

8. Play to your style, not an assumed audience - I made 12 pairs of Swarovski Christmas tree earrings thinking I'd play towards what I thought was the demographic. Priced at $15 each, I thought they'd really move if nothing else did. Perhaps I was wrong, or attendance was just that bad or I didn't have them displayed well enough. They were on a miniature Christmas tree as "ornaments" and may have gotten lost a bit. I'll never really know what the problem was because once those are gone, I won't be making more.

9. Taller chairs - If I'm going to sit and work while at a show, I need a chair tall enough to clear the displays on the table and I need to sit near the backside of the table to be able to easily converse with passers by. I didn't have much problem, but was also competing with the DJ playing music from the stage 10 feet from us. Something about the height of a director's chair might be better than the low sitting camp chairs I took and would still fold away for easy transportation.

10. Develop a dialog for browsers - I don't like to be bothered while I'm shopping and I like to leave my customers the same peace. However, while someone takes a few minutes to look over my table, I should have something to say. Silence is awkward in those situations, especially if someone picks up a particular piece for a closer look. I should be able to discuss it with them unprompted and answer questions before they're asked. I don't want it to sound rehearsed or pushy. I also don't want them to hear the same thing if they come back around later. But I should be able to talk confidently about my pieces.

Well, I'm done until 2010 as far as shows. I just don't have enough free weekends through the end of the year to think about doing another one just yet. While I search out my next event or stage one in my home, I'll ponder over these things and others to hopefully make my next show a success.

Display and Packaging and Moments of "Duh!"

I'm on the home stretch of craft show preparations. Booth fee/table rental check has been mailed. PTO president has called to confirm my reservation. All that's left is. . . EVERYTHING!

I'm at about 40% of my goal for inventory. I'm short displays and decor and now even without a tablecloth which I had lined up to be borrowed. I still don't have my business cards. I realized yesterday I don't have enough jewelry boxes for packaging in the event that I actually do well in sales. And, I have less than 1.5 weeks to resolve all these dilemmas.

Therefore, Wednesday was a frantic search of the interwebs for ideas on displays, packaging and booth design. I have to say, I came away with some really awesome suggestions that people have shared at various resources. What I found would fill another blog entry, so I'll save it for later.

When I started making lists of materials to follow through on some of these projects, I kept coming back to the thought that I'm investing way too much money in this show already and I'm really trying to keep my costs down. I just don't know what sort of return to expect from this venue and I don't want it to be a total bust. I'm already toying with the idea of doing a mid to late November open house from my own home to perhaps make up the difference. Aside from the cost, a couple of the projects had the potential to eat up a lot of time which is at an even higher premium than the monetary investment right now.

So, back at square one, let's take inventory:

• An 8x8 booth space with either a 6x3 or 8x3 table that I have to fully dress and make functional.


• One necklace display (leatherette bust).


• One earring display (small flocked T-shaped for one pair).


• A myriad of fabric scraps and yardage.


• Various shapes and sizes of boxes I can use as risers to add visual interest.

*digging, digging, digging*

• I've got. . . large crystal clusters, crazy pieces of wood, bone, and other large more common stones (like limestone and sandstone) that I use for decor around the house.


• I've got lots of little trays and flat open candle holders, pillar sized and larger that can be dressed up with rocks or marbles even fabric to hold pendants and smaller items.


• I've got three little wire frame votive holders all different heights that could house lots of earrings.

Duh! Seriously.

If I had thought of this about 5 hours earlier, I could have spent the day making more inventory instead of looking at ideas I didn't have time or money to make right now.

As for things I purchased, I went and spent about $10 on a mini Christmas tree with a garland, a string of battery powered lights and a star topper. I'll hang my Swarovski Christmas Tree earrings on that as ornaments.

I was going to go for large wooden plaques propped up in wire plate holders (one of the ideas I found online). But the plaques I found were about $10 each and I wanted at least two of them. Instead, I found a pack of four 1 foot square cork tiles for about $6. They're only about 1/4 inch thick, but I though I could glue two together to make them thicker and sturdier. As it turns out, I still need something to make them sturdier, so I'll get a piece of black foam core board to sandwich between them. I've got some decorative upholstery tacks to pin the necklaces to the cork. The wire plate holders were $3 each (so a total of $12 spent there).

There's one more thing I need to do and that's a table top tree to hang my fan/lamp pulls on. I really want to make a copper wire tree, but I don't have the time right now. Instead, I'm going with my mom's old method of making Easter trees. Gather interesting twigs from the yard, lash as necessary, set in a base of plaster, spray paint branches copper and base black (or cover base with black fabric) and done. I estimate this costing me less than $5 to put together.

As for packaging, I received a timely Etsy newsletter this week giving lots of great tips on just the subject. Of the possibilities, this one is my favorite. I picked up some of the cheapest scrapbooking cardstock I could find (just solid colors in greens, browns and earthy yellows), an expensive ($5) small stamp that says "Created by" in a whimsical script along with the cheapest ink pads I could find (a $4 3-pack of silver, gold and black) and some silver and gold ultra fine paint pens. I did a trial run yesterday and the ink from the metallic pads doesn't match the ink from the pens. Also, my handwriting just looks pretty craptastic next to the nice, even, neat script of the stamp. I mean, my handwriting is fairly neat, it's just not very even. And I'm not learning calligraphy right now! So, I try one without the stamp, just my writing. I still don't like the look. It doesn't look professional or finished enough. Looks too much like my Christmas cards.

Back to the interwebs again, I found a 2"x.5" custom wood mounted art stamp for $9 including shipping. I quickly made a suitable graphic and within 10 minutes, I had a custom stamp on the way for $1 more than the one I bought plus shipping. Needless to say, that one will be going back. There's a 2 day turn around on the custom stamp and then it will ship from Iowa via USPS. I get stuff from Missouri all the time in a couple of days so I wouldn't think it would take much longer from there. Should be here just in time for me to quickly stamp a ton of envelopes (which I'll have done this weekend) just in time for the sale.

Now to just place an order for business cards. Then, I'll just have inventory goals which will continue to give me mini anxiety attacks until the Sunday after the sale.