Demo Last Saturday

I was invited to give a talk and demo at my sister-in-laws church ladies group last Saturday.  I decided to show how I create my millefiori and sculpted flowers.

Here I am showing the ladies in the photo below my color system album and explaining how I mix my clay colors.

More Pics from the Photoshoot

Here are a few more pics from Natalie's photoshoot last Thursday.  When I figure it out, I plan to create a slide show on the website as well as create a slide show on our digital picture frame for our coming Christmas shows.

Lilian wearing our vintage floral brooch shawl pin.

Laura wearing our Cabaret Pink Floral Scarf Necklace

and matching flower bud earrings.

Sarah in our Crimson Red Floral Scarf Necklace

and matching flower bud earrings.

Photoshoot by Natalie of One Love Photography

We love using live models any time we can to show off our jewelry.  It seems to really bring them to life and one can actually visualize wearing the pieces themselves.

I had a really great time yesterday afternoon with some new friends.  Natalie, of One Love Photography,  is a professional (and great) photographer and we had the privilege of her expertise in doing a live photoshoot featuring our scarf jewelry and earrings.  Sarah, Laura and Lilian were the lovely models and the photos were taken outdoors in our local park.  The autumn leaves created such a beautiful background and the sun managed to come out just at the right time in the middle of the chilly day.

Here are a few photos of that afternoon and you can see more on Natalie's blog/website here.

We plan to use the new photos in our upcoming Christmas shows as well as our website. 

Kamloops Craft-a-Fair 2012

It is that time of year again where we are busy preparing for our Christmas shows and our first one for the year is already in less than 2 weeks.  We start off the season at the Craft-a-Fair in Kamloops which is held at the Interior Savings Centre.  It is a large show and a great fundraiser for the Royal Inland Hospital.

Our main item we will be featuring this year is our Scarf Jewelry.  We will also have our new interchangeable earring system along with some of our more popular jewelry styles.

So if you are in the area, come on down.  We are in our usual space again this year which is upstairs on the concourse.  If you go in the main entrance and turn left you will find us just down a little ways on your left hand side.

Fashion Show

I had fun today helping with a fashion show that Darlene, the owner of Chum ' Luba's Unique Boutique, put on in our town of Chase.  All the clothes that were modeled are real vintage and Darlene and I coordinated some of our jewelry pieces that are for sale in her shop with the appropriate outfits.

And more photos of this fun event ....

Decorative Brooch Shawl Pins

Our stick shawl pins are quite popular with the local yarn shops that sell our work.  The sharp pin allows them to fit into the tighter knits or looser weave fabrics where a typical shawl pin will not.

I quit making them for awhile as I found they were quite labor intensive for the price point we can get for them.  Since we were receiving more requests, I decided to remake the design to not only increase production time but come up with more styles as well.

New Design

Original Design

These are now available in the local yarn stores.  If we catch up on our orders we may have a few to list later in our Etsy Shop.  You can see more designs on our website.

New Hair Model

We make a lot of shawl pins which can be worn in various ways.

We were fortunate to have family visit last weekend and I was thrilled when Dave's son's girlfriend, allowed me to photograph some of our designs in her beautiful hair.  (Thank-you Tara!)

Most of our shawl pins are sold in local yarn stores as well as in our Etsy shop.

Nativity Set from Nepal

A special package arrived in the mail yesterday from my friend Wendy in Australia.  She spends a good amount of time each year in Nepal working with the Samunnat project there.  Our package contained a  Napalese Nativity set that we purchased from the ladies of Samunnat.  Each piece is so adorable and beautifully handcrafted from polymer clay with little details right down to Mary's beaded necklace and matching bracelet.  The figures came in a traditional Nepali thauli drawstring pouch sewn from dakka cloth. 

I also received one of these special "Bahini mala" ("little sisters") necklaces.  The bead is beautifully finished and strung on a beaded cord.

All the money raised from the clay pieces sold in their Etsy shop go to the Samunnat Nepal project.  You can read more about it on their website, "A Colourful Journey".   We managed to place our order in time for Wendy to ship it to us before she left for Nepal.  Unfortunately she had to close the Etsy shop while she is away but plans to reopen it again when she returns home to Australia in mid December.

How to Price Crafts Book Review

We were asked to review James Dillehay’s latest book on marketing your craft called “How to Price Crafts & Things You Make To Sell”.   We’ve already implemented a few of the many practical tips he gives to improve and increase your sales.

Are you selling your arts and crafts for the maximum price?  How do you determine what that price should be?  Jim shows step by step how to identify your production costs (material costs, labor, overhead, and unit costs) and then decide at what profit margin you can price them at.

Some of the tips we found immediately useful were helping to create a better artist’s statement and how to word a more descriptive wording to our online listings.  We use a slide presentation to explain our process of making our polymer clay art pieces at our shows but after reading the book we are now going to focus our slide show on our finished products that will aid in selling more product.

Once you start to make a little money, Jim details the bookkeeping skills you will need especially aimed at artists and crafters – everything from preparing profit/loss statements for a back loan to tax advantages at year end.

Other tips include: organizing your time and workplace, how to emphasize your greener side, and determining and maximizing your profit margin.

Even if your craft business is running smoothly and getting bigger year by year, we think everyone can benefit from Jim’s new book because we all need a “tune-up” now and then.

New Stick Shawl Pins for Fall

I've been working on some new scarf or shawl Stick Pins in fall colors and patterns.  The sticks we use are very sturdy and sharp so they go through most looser weave type fabrics as well as tight woven knits. They work great on anything from a scarf to a shawl, shrug or sweater.