Craft Markets, Displays, Business Cards -- Money!!

The Aotea Centre, venue for the Auckland Art & Craft Fair on December 11th, 2010

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you might have seen that I was accepted as a vendor at the Auckland Art & Craft Fair on December 11th. I am thrilled about this – the Fair ran for the first time in July of this year while I was still in the U.S. and I was so excited to see this sign of the growth of the handmade market in New Zealand. The venue where it is being held (the Aotea Centre in downtown Auckland) is very nice and of course being two weeks before Christmas is prime gift-shopping time.

With this excitement though has come some major stress! December 11th is only six weeks away. My stocks are dwindling and I can no longer source the same copper pendant bezels I have been using. I have been thinking about making a move into making brass and silver items as well, so there is my push to do that. However, that means sourcing and buying whole new “sets” of supplies in each metal – chain, clasps, jump rings, and bezels. I ordered a small amount of silver supplies from a supplier in the States on Etsy but it has been two weeks and they still haven’t arrived.

I also need to create (read: buy and make displays for) my table at the fair. I didn’t have room in my baggage to bring anything with me, so I am starting over from scratch. There are several Flickr groups of craft fair displays so I have been perusing those and found some ideas, but when it comes to materials I have nothing!

On top of this, I am out of business cards and need to order more. I am in the middle of trying to focus my branding (hence all the new photos), so need to redesign my business cards, stickers and address labels. Also, the website (yes, I’m going ahead with that idea), so that I can put the address on the business cards, and packaging/little freebies for the craft fair. When in the States I used Vistaprint and then Moo for my cards, but I don’t think that’s going to be the most time or cost-efficient option for me now. Any Kiwis have any recommendations?

It’s all money, money, money. I haven’t started getting paid yet for my part-time job and well, you saw what happened with the money I earned from Emily. I am waiting on some U.S. cheques for my apartment security and car insurance refund to clear but they take 21 BUSINESS days to clear, so essentially a month after I put them in. It’s very frustrating to see my available balance today is $19 when my account balance is much higher but I can’t touch it!

Six weeks. Can I do it all?!

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Alice in Wonderland Pendants - Sneak Peek!

I am so excited.  When I first started making these pendants, I bought supplies to make round ones and oval ones.  For some reason, every single oval one I attempted was riddled with blemishes and unusable, but the round ones were working out ok, so I figured it was because of the shape and gave up on it.  The ovals sat in my materials drawer and taunted me with their yuckiness.

Recently I switched from acrylic cabochons to glass and so I bought a pack of oval ones just to try again.  I pressed some Alice in Wonderland images yesterday afternoon, looked at them when I got home from work today, and oh happy day, they came out GREAT!  I used a longer chain length for these ones too.  I am so excited about them.

Above is a sneak peek of the pendants I'll be listing on Etsy... I even got brave and took photos of myself and actually left my face in the pictures (at least part of it), horrors.... I hate having my picture taken, I swear I am the most unphotogenic person on the planet.  Luckily a bit of soft-focus in Picasa took care of the worst ;)

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In and Out of Love... Or, I am Sometimes Fickle (with jewelry materials).

Amethyst and peridot earrings, still for sale in my shop, 25% off!

I began making jewelry because I love jewelry, but had a hard time finding pieces that I wanted to wear and could also afford. So, I taught myself the skills required and began creating wire-wrapped jewelry with glass, semi-precious and precious gemstones. Creating this type of jewelry was rewarding in that I loved using dainty amethyst, peridot, and citrine briolettes to create brilliantly colored earrings and necklaces. On the downside, wire-wrapping is pretty labor-intensive and there was often a lot of cursing involved as yet another little gem or tiny gold jump ring slipped out of my pliers’ grasp and rolled under my couch.

Although I still love and am proud of the wire-wrapped jewelry I created, I started to feel drawn to a different style of jewelry. I have one necklace that I absolutely love, bought in New Zealand that I have never found anything similar to. It is a heavy copper double chain with purple-mauve beads of different shapes and a large bell-shaped charm. This one necklace really felt like “me”, so I set out to create jewelry in a similar vein. I have also started noticing a lot of brass and copper necklaces with charms that I adore, so I recently began incorporating more charms into my pieces.  I like to put charms together that could have meaning for someone. For example, I think this necklace would be a great gift for a good friend who is leaving -- the hot air balloon signifying the journey and the heart representing your love that is going with them:

Or perhaps you need a little luck in love, or you have been very lucky in love and you want to express your gratitude for it with this heart and horseshoe:

This style of pendant can have meaning too -- love is a scary thing, and perhaps you need a reminder to be have courage and be brave.  Or perhaps you already are, and that is a wonderful thing:

What messages would you wear around your neck (and on your sleeve)?

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Obstacles

Little, tiny, bubbly obstacles...

Last week I showed you a glimpse of my necklace creation process.  This time I wanted to share with you one of the significant obstacles that arises when I create the pendants.

Before assembly, I have to inspect each image/cabochon for tiny air bubbles or other small imperfections on the surface of the image that are created in the gluing process.  Although the images often look fine immediately after they have been glued, and then sit under heavy weight for 24 hours, upon inspection I sometimes have to throw away up to 50% of them because of these minute flaws (I tried removing the cabochons and cleaning them, but the adhesive is extremely strong and I couldn’t get it off).  I’m working on perfecting my technique (just the right amount of adhesive plus careful application plus pressing time and weight) to reduce this wastage.

Before photographing, each pendant will be inspected again.  Unfortunately, I have found that over the first couple of days more bubbles or flaws may become visible (or perhaps I just missed them the first time).  If this happens, I extricate the image and cabochon and clean the bezel for re-use.  It’s horribly disappointing to find imperfections at this stage, but such are the trials and tribulations of the craft!

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Creating Necklaces -- Before and After

Here I’m giving you a sneak peek into the process of creating my copper necklaces.  Once the laborious process of gluing the cabochons and images has been completed, the pieces pressed under a stack of heavy books for a day, and the excess image trimmed, it is time to adhere them to the bezels (more pressing and waiting), and then they are finally ready to put on chains, add beads and charms, etc.

The first photo shows the before set-up on my work desk (oh yes, I am always this tidy…).  Here I have the pendants, chain, headpins, jump rings, clasps, glass beads, copper charms, a tape measure, rubbing alcohol and cotton tips, and tools:  flat-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, flush cutters, and chain-nose pliers.

After, the finished product!  Each piece has been assembled, cleaned, and inspected, ready for photographing and listing on Etsy.

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