Comments from Visitors to My Display and Other Musings About Potlatch SF Convention

One of the interesting (well, at least to me) things about doing the convention last weekend were the comments from buyers and browsers. There was a great deal of interest in the vintage look pieces and I even sold the gunmetal and pearl necklace I showed (and Dave of Rings & Things shared on their blog) awhile back.

Another comment was that many of the con participants might prefer bigger and bolder necklaces. One of the ones I sold (along with a custom matching bracelet and earrings - wish I had thought to photograph the set!) I'd almost convinced myself not to make as I thought it was "too much". When I saw it on the customer, I was so thrilled - it really looked great on her.

My copper and mother of pearl necklace also sold early. I didn't sell any earrings (other than the custom order for the set above), though. And none of the green pieces sold, even with St. Patrick's day coming up.

Many of the con participants are already avid beaders and crafters, too. I received more than one suggestion to check out local gem shows - something I do want to do, just need to figure out how to schedule (and budget) one into my calendar.

One customer liked my yellow turquoise and green lace lanyard but wanted it in silver. So I took it home and re-strung it with tiny sterling silver beads instead of the gold plated ones already on it. She was quite happy with the new look and I made a sale.

One of the other dealers in the room (booksales) does jewelry and felt I'd underpriced my work. I understand what she was saying and know I still haven't figured out my pricing. However, I like getting my work out there, so part of my "profit-margin" is satisfaction. I know I'd feel much differently if I was more dependent on the money from sales, so thank goodness for the day job that supports my fledgling side-business!

Day 2, Potlatch 18

Have had a great time, getting to know the other sellers in the dealer's room. Picked up a couple new books, too. If I hadn't sold one thing, I would have been sad about that, but still would feel the weekend was well spent.

Well, there I am in my little spot, taken by my neighbor, Michael Rightor of Re[a]d Ink Books.

The room closed at 6pm tonight - and I have a couple custom requests to work on tonight, so it's time to get to work on them.

Day One Potlatch SF Convention 2009

What a day! Dealer's room opened for set up at noon, but I didn't get there until after 3 - wasn't a problem as I had everything set up at home, wrapped it snug and just had to unwrap and put on the tables. Great neighbors, too. Will probably write more about them tomorrow, but thought I'd post some pics tonight before bed.

Kind of hard to see the necklaces on the mirrors - used shells and stones and glass vases to add interest to the display of my pearl based work, folk have been quite complimentary.



I hung some of my past con badges on lanyards to show how they work...



Necklace displays on acrylic risers - the little sign says "Dawno's" and has the tax notice.
Someone asked for a mirror, I left one of the mirror 'trivets' out without any necklaces on it for that use. Maybe I should bring a hand mirror instead?




I have a lot of lanyards - so to display as many as possible I multi-tasked the easel that holds the smaller pieces, using the crossbar to hold them and drape them over the side of the table. Seems to work ok.



Showing two of my new chokers, too.

Glad to be home, but I had a good time today. Selling at a SF con is fun for me because I'm a fan and get to see other fans I've met at prior cons, and some authors of my favorite books too.

Spreader of Love

Dave Over at the Rings & Things blog, honored me by passing along the “Spreader of Love” award he & the Rings & Things blog received from Swati at the The Purple Flower blog.

As this is my first blog award for this blog (I also have kept another general purpose blog for years) I'm honored and thrilled to pass along the award. As Dave mentioned in his post, some of these folk have Twitter accounts and I discovered them via Twitter.

A condition of the award is that you go on to recognize 5 more people, who brighten your own blog, so here are my choices

• Because of her supportive and informative comments: Tish from Just A Tish Designs
• Because I just love the name "SmuTopia" and her breezy writing style: Jessica from SmuTopia
• Another supportive person, with a fun sense of humor: Bev from Bev's Jewelry
• For her joy and enthusiasm on every post: Lisa at A Bead A Day
• Because it's a joy to see her beautiful work, beautifully photographed Thyme2Dream

I tried to follow links back to see where the award originated, but at about 8 links back I couldn't find a link to the previous award after going back through a few months of posts, and I have to get back to some display prep (really almost there - and quite relieved!). So I Googled "The Love Blog" and found the originator's request (you have to scroll down about half a page). This award is over a year old now, so it's been all over the web!

The Love Blog, by Vancouver Blogger Barbara Doduk, says about this award:

THE SPREADER OF LOVE AWARD
from
The Love Blog

I great way to spread love and happiness around the blog world and just maybe get a little link love in return.

So here is my Badge for my Award:
All I ask in return for presenting this award to anyone blogging out there, is that you include the following information in the blog post along with the image below:



This blog has been awarded The Spreader of Love Award created by The Love Blog (http://iamlove.blogspot.com), for an outstanding demonstration of blogging love.

Nominate as many or as few as you feel you need to !

And she provides some html code, too. Along the way, some 'rules' got appended - link to the blog that awarded it to you, nominate 5 blogs, link to them, and leave your nominees a message about the award. I'm happy to pass those along as well.

Now it's back to work - the toughest thing for me is deciding how to price my work. I haven't come up with a formula yet, but it's more than just cost of materials + labor + a markup = price, unless "labor" includes all the time spent shopping for the materials, deciding which to buy, & the time it takes to get through the whole designing process - and then, what's the value of inspiration, artistic touches, uniqueness? Ah well - I guess I'll give it my best shot and see what happens this weekend!

Countdown - 2 days left!

OK, no pictures or long post tonight - I'm on my way into the dining room to work on finishing touches and organization for the convention this weekend.

If you see me on Twitter, tell me to get back to work!

Made Some Earrings While Watching Obama Speech - So, Is It Too Corny to Want to Name Them "Hope"?

I decided to make a pair of earrings that matched a lanyard using teal and aqua glass beads. Started out just putting the beads on a long sterling headpin in the same sequence as the lanyard. Decided it needed a little something more and since I'm on a curlicue kick, I took some wire and made two curls and hung little teal faceted glass beads off of them.

The thing I really like about how they turned out is that the curls move around and the earrings have a very dimensional look, which I try to show in the picture below.

And here's the pair with the matching lanyard.

I think I'm going to put some goals on myself for tomorrow and Thursday night that I won't make any new pieces until I've worked on the things I need to finish for the convention. Things I need to do - put labels and prices on the pieces, finish off the standing displays and get all the other stuff I need to take on Friday out and at least gathered up for packing.

Nouveau and Other New Jewelry

Got a start on displays over the weekend, I think I've figured out how to do what I want, but I will have to go pick up a few more items this week. I hope to have it all finished next weekend. I got a note that the table will be 8' long and have a nice amount of room behind it. I may bring the mannequin.

Worked on some new stuff with gunmetal filigree, wire and chain. The first is a single purpose eyeglass leash with iridescent dark blue India glass beads:

The next one is a necklace using an oval filigree link and jet black Czech glass faceted crystals. It's a shorter necklace, hanging just under the collarbone.

Lastly, here's a piece inspired by the Fantasy Falls project in the Vintaj project gallery. The focal is an art nouveau-style brass stamping from Accessories Susan and miscellaneous bits and beads, including rough faceted marquise cut garnet beads and a cultured freshwater pearl. It has a double chain.

These will be going up on Art Fire after the Potlatch SF convention. Hope you'll visit my shop there!

Earrings and a new Embellished Retractable Lanyard Badge Holder

Didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to today - but I did make these new earrings - The one unfinished pair (far left first set of pictures) I'm still debating on how I want to finish them. the pair on the far right has rutilated quartz nuggets, amber chips and tiny amber beads dangling from filigree circles and may be my favorite pair of the day. All earrings are on leverback, shell embellished brass ox earring findings from Accessories Susan, which also provided the filigree, chain, headpins, etc. for all of them. The only thing not from there are the beads and stones.

For this set, below, on the earrings at the far left, I'm considering adding something to the bar that holds the dangling smoky quartz bead behind the filigree.

And this is another filigree embellished badge holder - I thought I'd show the side detail, too, as I've put a bit of stamping on the sides as well as the front. The filigree stamping on the front is one of my favorite patterns, by the way. The side view also shows the button on the back used to release the ribbon lanyard from the inside reel to retract and extend it.

I've only got a few of these badge holders left and I'm thinking of holding back a few for later experiments. Whether they become a permanent part of my inventory will depend on the comments I get from folk I meet at the convention or here on my blog. I did get one positive comment on the steampunk style one, over on my Flickr page (Thanks, justalby!) The particular shot of the new prototypes has had 11 views in just one day...I think because I tweeted about it on Twitter.

Experiment with Steampunk and Vintage Style Embellishments on Retractable Ribbon Lanyard Badge Holders

I was trying to go to sleep last night and was thinking about the upcoming Potlatch SF Convention, and had a 'voila moment' about some badge holders ("C-line retractable adjustable neck lanyard" @ $3.54 retail each) I bought last year thinking I might be able to do something interesting with them, and never got around to it.

So, I'm experimenting with adding embellishments to those badge holders, which come with a retractable ribbon lanyard. I'm going to display these at Potlatch and get feedback, but I would only sell them if the buyer understood the caveats. These are prototypes, they need to be tested. Right now, I don't know how they'd hold up under different types of use - could be a bit delicate for anything but very occasional stress-free use - so, caveat emptor, no refunds, returns or guarantees.

The top one is the "steampunk" style idea using tiny watch parts and a tiny glass 'gem' from an old re-cycled costume jewelry brooch. I painted the retracting part with Classic Gold Liquid Leaf and glued on the parts using Aleen's Jewelry & Metal glue. I want to seal it with MagicGlos, but I still need either a sunny day (not having many right now) or get the right UV light bulb. I bought a flourescent black light blub, but it didn't seem to work on my test piece - might be the wrong wattage? Anyway, I will need to seal that one before it could be used.

The other two use brass filigree from Accessories Susan and some glass gems from the same re-cycled costume jewelry brooch. The one on the right has chain and a dangling Swarovski crystal and a bead cap on the ribbon retractor bead. The other one is just one filigree and two little glass gems. I used clear E6000 glue for those. I show an un-embellished badge holder with the ribbon (16" on a side) pulled out. There's a button on the back of the holder for releasing and retracting the ribbon.

I'll probably replace the silver jumpring that came on the holder with an antiqued gold one and maybe add a dangle...

I'd love to hear your impressions...

I'm In! Potlatch Convention, Sunnyvale CA, Feb 27 - Mar 1

Got the news early today. Now I'm going to have to figure out what pieces to bring, get them organized and tagged (what kind of tags??), think about display - what sort of room will I have at/around my table? Should I bring my mannequin? I will bring a mirror - it's nice to try stuff on and see how it looks.

Also thinking about making book mark type thingies since it's a convention about SF books. Maybe some St. Patrick's Day theme stuff? *GAH!!*

*mild panic* I really didn't think I'd get in!

And in other news, I've decided to join Art Fire as a place to sell my non-lanyard stuff. Only two things up so far. No idea when I'll be able to put up more, since now my free time is going to be used to get ready for Potlatch.

Now if you like the idea of selling on Art Fire, too, they're having a "verified" user sale right now for $7 a month (vs $20) but it's limited to 5k users and there are about 2400 left. If 10 people click this link and become a registered user on Art Fire.com I get a nice bonus - my account becomes free. Then you can put the same link up at your site and do the same. I don't usually shill this kind of thing, but I figured, what the heck!

No beading to speak of done yesterday or today - much work to do at day job. The night isn't over yet, though. Maybe I'll have something to share tomorrow.