Preparing for Fibres West

I can hardly believe it is March already.  The other thing I can hardly believe is that we still have snow on the ground and still getting the occasional snow storm.  This has been a long hard winter starting a month earlier than usual and now ending at least a month longer.  I will be so happy when spring is finally here!

So I mentioned earlier that to pass the winter months I have been working with the clay quite a bit and my friend Linda has spent a lot of time visiting and giving me a hand.  We decided to take the plunge and be in the large Fibres West show coming up in just a little over 2 weeks!

So we have been busy making lots of buttons, since our button inventory was so depleted and needed replenishing anyhow.  We will also have plenty of other items such as our ergonomic crochet hooks, stitch markers, shawl pins and also a wide selection of items from our Snap Decisions Collection.

We will also have available our new chunky knits mounted on a snap.  These can be worn different ways such as on a shawl stick or as a necklace, etc.

So if you are in the Vancouver / Surrey area or attending the Fibres West show, come by and see us.

Trunk Show at Silhouette Fashion Boutique

Hey everyone in the Salmon Arm area!  Come on out next Monday, December 5th between 1-4 pm to the Silhouette Fashion Boutique.  (Located at 380 Alexander Street -- across from Askew's Foods downtown)

T.J., the owner, has invited us to introduce our Snap Decision jewelry to her line of clothes by Canadian designers, Frank Lyman, Joseph Ribkoff, Tribal and Pretty Women.

This new shop has been open for just over a month and has been very successful. 

We are excited about matching up a selection of our necklaces, bracelets, belts and earrings with their latest fall and winter fashions.

Zipper Lariat Necklace with Interchangeable Decorative Snap

Zipper Lariat Necklace with Interchangeable Poinsettia Snap

Zipper Lariat Necklace with Interchangeable Poinsettia Snap

Come on out and have some fun!   See you there!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow . . .

As long as the snow is in polymer clay patterns and we do not have to shovel it, I am okay with that.   We have had a nice fall season so far but we are already preparing for the Craft-a-Fair Christmas show on Sunday November 1st.  We will be in the same space as the past 5 years -- up on the concourse (turn left at the main entrance and we are the third booth on the left hand side before the concession).

We always like to have some type of Christmas themed pieces at our shows and this year we came up with a snowflake design in a "snap".  I love jewelry with snowflakes for the holidays as you can wear them all winter and not just at Christmas time.  These snowflake snaps were created from a mould that we made from a metal finding and have them available in Silver with either a black or metallic blue background.  Swarovski crystals are embedded into each snowflake center to give them some sparkle.  These are now also available in our online store.

The detachable pendant shown here is new and we recently added it to our online store.  We added the clip bail which fits the thinner buna or softglass cords (2.5mm).  These clasp type bails are great as they are not only interchangeable so you can switch out your cord type or color, the pendants stay in place so the cord does not creep it's way to the front.

We have a special promotion coming up with some cool offers and even a free tutorial, so be sure to sign up for our newsletter on our website here so you don't miss out!

After Craft Culture

We had a fun but exhausting two days at the Craft Culture show last weekend.  We are constantly asked by our customers what other shows we are in so they can find us again but truthfully we do very few shows and even then, only select ones.  We find them very exhausting as there is so much preparation work beforehand in not only preparing enough product to sell but also working out a proper display so everything is well presented.  Then there are the long hours during the show and then the take down and packing up process at the end and then usually a long drive home afterwards.  We are finding doing shows more and more of a challenge to do and so instead we are currently working on a new website for selling more of our product which should be up and running soon.

One thing we like about doing shows, however, is meeting our customers in person and seeing the happy look on their faces when they leave with their purchase in hand.  We also had a more complete line of our interchangeable snap jewelry collection available and received lots of feedback with more ideas of what our customers were looking for.

One thing about this show was that there was plenty of live entertainment with everything from music performers and gardening tips to cooking demonstrations such as Chef GIULIO PICCIOLI of  One Big Table shown here.

The other thing we enjoy is talking with other vendors in the show.  This is Marzio who was our neighbor and was really great getting to know him.  He is an excellent cartoonist who does caricatures and also has a great sense of humor as you can see in the ones he did of Dave and I.

Another artist that was across from us was abstract painter, Graciela Blancarte,  Graciela is originally from Mexico but now lives here in Canada.  She is so sweet and the colors in her paintings are so intense and beautiful.  You can visit her website here to see her work. 

Marzio also did Graciela's caricature that she is holding.

Craft-a-Fair 2014

The Salmon Festival is over and we are preparing for our first Christmas Show of the year.  It is the Craft-a-Fair at the Interior Savings Centre in Kamloops this Sunday, November 2nd.  It is put on by the Royal Inland Hospital Auxiliary with this year celebrating their 30th Anniversary.

We will be in the same spot as we have been for several years now which is on the concourse --  turn left at the main entrance.  We are down a little ways on on the left hand side.

Our main feature again this year is our interchangeable earring system with plenty of new styles of art beads to wear along with our most popular selling item, our scarf jewelry.  This year we will also be featuring our latest interchangeable scarf necklace designs which were first introduced at the Lake Country Art Walk last September.

Lake Country Art Walk Come and Gone

I hadn't blogged in a while as the last few weeks had been so busy with hardly any extra time to spare.  Dave and I had both been putting in long hours working on fall orders for the local stores that sell our work as well as preparing for the Lake Country Art Walk.

The Art Walk was last weekend and is hard to believe it has now come and gone.  We weren't as exhausted afterwards this year thanks to the extra help we had this time.  The show was so busy I didn't get a chance to take any pictures during, but did manage to get a few pics of our set-up the Friday evening before.

This is Dave and our sister-in-law Pat resting after doing our set-up the Friday evening before the show.  Pat and her friend Brenda were a great help all weekend.  We also hired an art student to help as well so there was as many as 5 of us to help take care of customers.

This was our earring display along with our flip flop pieces.  The theme this year was "Shoes, A step forward" so we had to have our flip flop jewelry to go along.

This was one of our jewelry displays.  Also included were some special scarf jewelry pieces on some gorgeous silk scarves.

This was our new sweater guard clip display.  The sweater guards were a really big hit and we had nearly sold out of them.

Some of the sweater guards here were in our new faux turquoise colors (the green and red) using the Cabezel moulds.  I will share the new color recipes I used to make these with you in my next post.

Sweater guard in new faux green turquoise

Sweater guard in new faux red turquoise

Sicamous Show & Shine Car Show

We have a show coming up this weekend which will be a first for us but should be a lot of fun.  It is the 5th Annual Show & Shine Car Show in Sicamous.  Dave is a real classic car buff and he is hoping to take in most of the sights in between sales.  We will be set up at the Craft Fair in the arena on the Saturday from 10 to 3pm.

We will have a large selection of our popular scarf jewelry along with our interchangeable earring system and some other specialty items.  Our modern vintage items such as our sweater guards and scarf buckles and clips should be a good compliment to the show.

Make-over for our Bracelet Display Stands

A few months ago I shared with you a tutorial on how to make some simple bracelet display stands out of cardstock which worked very nicely for our jewelry display at the Art Walk.  They worked really well for us so I decided to make more solid ones from polymer clay, using the original "cones" as a form for shaping and baking.  (Tip:  Use a release of some sort such as cornstarch to prevent the clay from sticking to the cardstock.)

We also decided they would be multifunctional if we could display some matching earrings.  Since all our ear wires and art beads are interchangeable, we only needed to display the beads by making a special holder with some heavy gauge wire and adding an alligator clip to hold a label or card.

These are now ready for our next show this Saturday at the Westwold Community Hall.

Craft-a-Fair Christmas Show November 3rd

We are back into the swing of things with preparations for our major Christmas show for the season that is already coming up in less than two weeks!  It is the Craft-a-Fair in Kamloops at the Interior Savings Centre November 3.  We will be located in the same spot (#139 on the concourse) as the other years we have participated -- go in the main doors and follow the concourse to your left a little ways and we will be on the left hand side.

We will have a wide selection of our most popular scarf jewelry and clips along with our interchangeable earring system and other special pieces created just for this show.  If you are in the area, be sure to drop by and say hello.

BC Quilt Show 2013

We have been preparing for the upcoming BC "Everybody Loves Quilts" 2013 Show.  It is in Salmon Arm this year which is not too far from where we live.  We took a large space so we can display a wide range of the products that we make.  If you click on the poster you will see a map on our website of where the show is located.

I posted this photo on our facebook page a little while ago of a bunch of leaf canes I made that day.  That was an extremely good production time for me and it did help with having most of my clay colors already premixed.

So here is what some of the leaf canes were used for ...

More concave leaf buttons -- this time we made some in a smaller size that will be perfect for the knitter.  Our leaf buttons have been a popular item but since we put a lady bug on them, people cannot seem to resist them!  So we should have lots of leaf buttons available at the quilt show next week.

Celebrations, Preparations and Featured in Polymer Arts Blog

I was pleasantly surprised to see one of our "Ebbtide" Necklaces featured on The Polymer Arts Blog this morning (yesterday).  The blog is by Sage Bray who is also the creator and editor of The Polymer Arts Magazine.  This is a great new magazine which is also available in digital format.

I hadn't thought about this necklace for awhile until I saw it on Sage's blog.  It brought back memories of some our past work and how it keeps changing and evolving over the years.

This fall and winter has been a busy season for Dave and I and so felt good to take some time out to finally rest, relax and catch our breaths.  We also took a little time to celebrate 26 great years together (26 on the 26th) and now it is time to start thinking and planning our work for the new year.  We generally like to discuss what we have made and sold in the past and what we want to work towards in the future.  It helps us to stay focused and head in the direction we want to go.

Having someone to work together and discuss things with has been a real blessing for me.  It is so easy to get caught up in my clay and with two people working together as a team helps keep things a little more in balance.

Right now our focus is on my first ever gallery showing that is coming up in February.  It is an all polymer show in Vancouver called "The Chameleon Clay" in which I am thrilled to be one of six featured artists.  Other members of the local polymer clay guilds will be submitting items for the juried part of the show as well.

There is a lot of finishing details yet to prepare such as how to display some of the pieces I will be showing and a few special items that are still not quite complete.  You can read more about this show here and follow the blog that has been set up about it here.  My Container/Vase will be one of the pieces included in the gallery show.  It is made completely from polymer clay and the lid fits in just the right position so the opening is completely hidden when it is closed.