World of things
Greetings! It’s sunny and there are tadpoles in my pond – spring is here! What better way to celebrate than with some pretty stuff from Folksy. Here’s my picks this week:
Click on the images to go to the item page.
Tree stump brooch by Lupin Handmade = £9
Tea cosy keyring by See the woods – £4.50
Marie Antoinette diamante buckle bag by Mrs Gibson’s Atelier – £40
Hope you enjoy these. Have a great weekend!
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The theme this week is graphics - here are a few of my favourites:
Graphic novel chair by artofficial – £125
Red Felt Queen Victoria by Mememoo – £4o
Downloadable and printable Valentine – a bit late for Valentine’s Day but Morrisey lyrics are applicable at any time, I feel – £1.50
Mr Tea mugs by teeandtoast - £8.95 I love a good pun with my cuppa.
That’s my picks for this week – hope you like them, cos I do!
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It’s too easy to get distracted by new ideas. In one of my other existences I’m a writer (for fun not profit) and it’s the same thing there. I run after the shiny new idea and abandon the old one, which was once itself shiny and new.
I want to talk about product ranges. Are you the sort of crafter who learns how to make one thing really well, that sells well, and then sticks with it, developing it into different colours and possibly materials but essentially making the same product? For small designer-makers, this is the most logical way to go. You find a niche and stick with it. Some of those niches can be pretty successful too. Tinymeat for example, which makes wallets and passport holders. It has a small product range of 5 different items. But it has something like 200 different variations of these in its shop. And they sell. It’s offering a product it knows sells well, and with a huge choice for customers.
In the last couple of months I’ve experimented with jewellery, with not huge amounts of success. I’ve also added more garlands and paper ornaments, more literary quote badges, bookmarks, notebooks and gift tags to the neglect of my core product, the book bags. I get distracted by new ideas and rush into making things. I mean, it’s important to develop your product and make it as good as you can, but that’s different. Developing new ideas takes time away from me making things that I know people love, and that sell well. I could set specific time aside for product development – that is a possible solution… except when I think about it sensibly like that I always decide I should be making stuff to sell straight away. Sigh.
So, my goal for the next three months is to build up my original product range, focusing on my bags and wallets, and also developing the design of them. I’m going to try as much as possible to not get distracted by new pretty things I could make. I mean it!
I’d be interested to know other people’s thoughts on this, ie, how to fight the distraction of going off on a tangent?
Lastly, for your edification and because a post isn’t complete without a picture, here’s a hilarious clock I made this week.
A Time to Die by Wilbur Smith. Black metal hands on a black cover. £25.99 on Folksy
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Pull up a chair, it’s time for tea and biscuits! I drink far too much tea when I’m working because it’s an excuse for a break. Get up, put the kettle on, stare out of the kitchen window and use the time to avoid sewing those pesky seams. Small fiddly seams are the bane of my life at the moment, although I’m getting better at them.
I found all these super items on Folksy and they are causing a strong urge to dash for the kettle:
Jammy Dodger necklace from Art Student Sale
Hand knitted cake teacosy from Hats and More
Wearable Tunnocks – a stroke of genius from Nikkimade
Custard cream brooch from Homemade
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So, I’m 40 now. I’m not having a midlife crisis yet. Although, maybe I had one already and didn’t realise?
Several things:
- I’m probably far too excited about the prospect of watching the Winter Olympics on my television.
- I hate having birthday parties and would much rather go to someone else’s.
- I believe all jobs should have inbuilt time for sitting around thinking.
- My sewing machine hates me.
- Bunting.
Yes, I’m experimenting with bunting. Because of my book-destroying activities, I have a lot of book innards sitting around in my workroom, and I struck on the idea of making paper bunting with it. It would be fine indoors, to decorate rooms for parties and weddings, etc, which I assume a lot of bunting is used for. Only, I wonder if there’s some way to make it waterproof so it can be used outside? Apart from encasing it in lots of expensive and fiddly to sew vinyl, that is.
Laminating, that office procedure of the Devil, is another option but I can’t help thinking laminated bunting might looks a bit like you were decorating your house with supermarket price banners. What I really need is some super-duper teflon spray in a can. I wonder if this even exists? Time to go a googlin’.
I’ll leave you with this Jane Austen bag, which I made this week for a commission:
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I’ve been meaning to update this thing for weeks. I’m halfway through making a bag at the moment from an old copy of Pride and Prejudice. It’s for a nice bloke I met at a Christmas party. Well, it’s not for him, it’s for his sister. But there I was sipping eggnog when suddenly a commission fell in my lap. Not literally. No one was that drunk, yet. But I was really pleased, and he was like the best customer ever; very determined and sure about it. What’s more, he even remembered the next day and got in touch. When you’re self employed, you never know where your next bit of work is going to come from so this made the party extra good.
Anyway, the bag is looking good. It’s sort of a mouse grey with a 1950s lime green print inside, and clear resin handles. I’ll take a picture and post it later on. I can’t think why I stopped at the point I did. I should probably stop letting myself get distracted.Oh, maybe it was to make tea? Maybe it was to get dressed? These things tend to get away from me when I’m at my workbench.
This made me giggle. A truly magical, wonderful, amazingly great and beautiful thing:
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It’s been a busy week or two, hence the lack of posting. I’ve been making up a wholesale order for a real live bookshop who are trialing some products, so yay! I really hope that works, it would be very cool if it did.
I’m also working hard to get stock ready for a show! My first one, so I’m nervous. It’s called Reveal Showcase 09, it’s taking place in Henley on the 3-6 of December, and it looks completely awesome! Hopefully I won’t lower the tone. But I need to get some stock built up before then, and it’s not far away.
Here’s the link for the show – If you live in and around Berkshire or Oxfordshire, I’d recommend a day out Christmas shopping there:
Reveal Showcase 09 and a gallery of images here
So, that’s the next two weeks for me booked up. Oh, and I have a commission to be ready next week. It feels good to be busy, although the consequences sometimes are that I don’t manage to wash for a couple of days. I know, that’s slightly disgusting but by the time it gets to 4pm I think, well, I’ll just leave it now and wait till tomorrow.
I’m usually quite clean though!
How did I get on to bathing habits?
So, anyway. I also have a new item or two. Here’s a couple of awesome badges I made yesterday, now for sale on my shop.
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Jenni over at Dutch Touch Beads is featuring me as her Etsy Artist of the Week! She has a write up of my stuff over at her blog: check it out here. Jenni puts together seriously pretty beaded jewellery; one of my favourites is this glass pine cone.
My most newest bag, Looking at Nature, is featured in Missbaah’s amazing Treasury collection over on Esty. Many many green bags! I wondered where all the love was coming from.
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I love it when people put my stuff in a treasury over on Etsy. It’s happened two or three times so far, and this time I remembered to make a screen shot. Click on the pic to be taken there.
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I’ve signed up for Shop Handmade directory, which I hope will bring in sales. It’s a craft directory for the UK, and it has a really useful list of craft events happening around the country.
I’ve also created a shop on Folksy, the UK version of Etsy. I’ve sold an item already on there, the snowflake confetti, so here’s hoping it will carry on!
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