Craft Seller Tips - Sample Making Pt 1

I'm a maker. I designed a purse, but labor is high and material cost is not great either, but the profit is good when I sell. I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out how I can show different options without making several new purses with buckles, zippers linings with snaps, and also not use up all the materials I have and the space in my house.

I thought about Photoshop. I'm good at it, but you see how the fabric folds on the bags in use, That's hard to "shop".

I sell a lot of these Rainbow Brite Purses.

I had a few samples made, so I got a brilliant idea. What if I made "skins" for the samples. You know, just the outside panels and gusset to slip over the purse. I think it will work. I'm going to work on these for a few days and post my work for you. Maybe you can get some ideas too of how to make samples easier too.

My clutches would be hard to do this way, because I put in the zipper un-assembled, but the purses are perfect. I want to make a nice Messenger bag too. I can make the lining only and make "skins" for modeling those too.


Picture above is skin being sewn. Below is a picture of 2 of the skins after pressing. Skull and Roses and NKOTB Jon.

I'm not positive how I will attach the skins. I know basting will work, but not easy to switch for photo shoot. Carpet tape would work, but might also leave sticky residue on the original sample. I will keep posting my progress on this so you can see the finished product and maybe you can figure out a way to save time and money on your samples. Maybe set stones in bezels and glue to one band just for ring photography. Just like artists or photographers can use the same mat or frame for display.

Here's a picture of the NKOTB Joey skin slipped over the matching purse. Once I figure out how to stabilize the top edge, I think it will work. I'm open to any suggestions.

Keep watching. I will be back with more on how I solved my sample making issues.

Recipe for Success - Listening to Buyers

Oh I should be writing and posting a food recipe, I know. But unless I have something truly unique (and I do) why would you want to come here instead of Pinterest?

I thought I'd share a secret with you. It's called a buyer.

While my shop and most of my designs have come from my daughter Poppy, some have been inspire by buyers.

I love when buyers give me something absolutely impossible to make, because that's how I've come up with some of the best selling items in Poppy's Garden Gate.

Can you make an apron that isn't ruffled? Can it cost a little less? My sweetheart apron made with a 15" strip of 44" fabric - economical and still cute.

How about a tie. I need a tie out of your cute fabrics. This is where the inspiration for my Bow Ties came from. I still haven't made a suit tie yet. Haven't figured out how to make those economically, but they might come this summer.

Can you make me a purse that looks like this with a pocket and adjustable strap? I'd like it to hold more and close with a zipper. I'd been wanting to make a purse, or messenger bag, but didn't have the guts to try. The order for 3 different bags at $85 during the slow Summer season, convinced me to give it a try.

Another wonderful addition to my shop will come just in time for Wedding Season. I'll be making wedding garters out of cute genre fabrics. I made a custom New Kids on the Block one. Why didn't I think of that? Matching bow ties and garters for fun and funky weddings.

My daughter has the same type of inspiration from some of her buyers. Some of her best selling items, came from custom requests.

Artfire Collection - Beautiful Winter

Beautiful Winter

  Curated By: PoppysGardenG...

ArtFire.com

Handmade Gifts

Changing the Way we Create - One Puppy at a Time

"Sit in this cubicle, with these gray walls, don't talk to any of the other designers, don't leave the office, and create something amazing that we can sell or you will get a pay cut and a demotion. Remember, don't talk to anyone and don't use the computer for anything other that communication with staff or to do your design work on. No browsing websites."

Does this sound familiar to any of you? If it doesn't you haven't ever worked in an office as a professional designer. Maybe this is too extreme. I was allowed to browse the internet occasionally and I did talk to the designers, but then I got written up on it at review time. I talked too much. How does one stay creative without ANY outside influence? I did get to travel occasionally too, to Mexico, Asia and shows in other states for work. Not totally sheltered, but not as much stimulus as a designer really needs.

I got to the point in my life, where I decided that I would rather have a job standing and scanning, than having a supervisor standing behind me, watching me work, over my shoulder. As a matter of fact, mid menopause, I blew up at the owner who was doing just that. There was more to it, but the explosion left me totally disillusioned and needing to escape. I joined the circus, figuratively. First starting on Etsy, then moving around the internet and now on Artfire and my own website. I did a little freelance work at first, and still do a little, but I seem to pick the scariest companies to work for. I think there must be good ones too.

Creativity has to be fed. No matter what way you find you need it. If human contact is the way, or travel, or just browsing the internet for inspiration. Did you know that many art museums have virtual exhibits? They do. It's pretty amazing. Better in person, but not bad online.

I think, like our country, the model for the workplace was created by old school white men. I think if we want to get anywhere in the global economy, we all need to tear down those gray walls install lavender sofas, and all sit down with a puppy, next to a bouquet of roses with a cup of Chai tea, a sketchpad and ideate (that's a product design term) together.

Putting it Together - Organizing for the New Year

I'm spending a little of my time organizing my life. Don't know if I'll be successful, but I'm going to try. Every day I'm planning to do something to to reach certain goals. The problem is I have too many goals. Well not really, the goal is to make enough money to live independently. Cheaply, but independently.

I've given myself a deadline of 4 months to decide what I am going to do to earn that money, and I'm documenting it in a mini blog. Four Months - A Diary of Progress I'm really hoping it will be progress, not failure. Join me at least on occasion, to see how I'm doing. 


There are a few things that I'm doing to reach my possible goals. The first was to create my website akacinders.com. I told you about that one a previous Putting it Together post. I made a website for my daughter too. When I buy Weebly Pro, I can have up to 10 websites, and while I was putting together my product designs, I decided that I should make a site for those too. A password protected site that has files only a potential client can review, so they don't take my ideas. I can do that on Weebly too.


I also came across this great seminar by Scoutie Girl. Wish I could take it because I'm not very good at emailing to raise awareness. I am going to start emailing more and try to get people to sign up for my emails. I use MailChimp and I did send out ONE email this year. I have to work on that a bit. I will be having bits of advice and web specials if you want to sign up. It's right over there --->
Oh and Tara is a person to watch. She has some pretty great advice.


I also applied to be a featured artist and I will try to make spectacular pieces and try to find some magazines or contests I can enter them in. If anyone knows of a place I can put my work, please let me know, and when I hunt a few down, I will post them here for you. 


Hope you all have a great week and spend a little time organizing your craft and your life too.

Bizz Buzz - Oh My Handmade Goodness

I have so many things on my plate right now I can Hardly find which Fork or Spoon to eat with and don't we eat the peas with the Butter knife? (the butter helps keep the peas on, yes?)

I love to share tips with you, but sometimes I just don't have the time to share my advice, so I wanted to share with you a truly wonderful site, if you haven't already started reading it. Sellers please subscribe to the Oh My Handmade Goodness daily emails, you will not be sorry.

The Blog is the work of a loving and sharing team and it is just full of wonderful ideas to make your business more successful. Please stop by and give it a look today.

Buyers Paradise - Heather Kent Art

YouAs her shop Banner Reads, Heather makes wearable and frameable miniature art. And what wonderful little treasures they are. I can't choose, so I just have to make a gallery, but please stop by Heather Kent on Etsy to see more.

I first became aware of Heather's talent making Treasuries on Etsy. That's where I fell in love with her tiny watercolors. We've stayed Twitter friends. Her artwork is not only amazing, but they are such tiny little pieces of perfect skill and charm.

Such wonderful little pendants and you can even get your own beloved pet miniaturized with personality galore.

If you like feathers, flowers, leaves, houses, wild animals, domestic animals, hobbies, fashion, nature, travel, or food, you can get it on pendants, cufflinks, rings, earrings and so much more.






Heather will even put the little portraits on these sweet little cufflinks.

Please stop by and see what other little treasures that Heather has to offer, because these don't even begin to cover the vast subject matter covered in her shop.

Heather Kent

Putting it Together - Failure

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” ― Thomas Edison

I saw this quote this week and remembered how much I love it. I'm sure you all can relate, sellers and buyers alike. I know just recently in trying to remember how to make these lovely Halloween Cat charms, I just couldn't get the process right and I made them just last year.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and Edison was trying to say, is that there is no success without some failure.  Sometime it can be so frustrating, when you spend a day taking photographs and none of them turn out right, or you follow a recipe to the letter and your cake falls flat. I remember my first Angel Food cake from scratch. It was about 1 inch high.

Don't be afraid to experiment, that's where great ideas are born. Don't be afraid to fail that's where the genius lies. Don't you just know I fail at something EVERY day, but I still go on, because every day I succeed at something too.

Biz Buzz - Fond Farewell and Marketing Tips?

I wanted to dedicate this Bizz Buzz to saying a fond farewell to the Clown that Ran Etsy But You can read about it at the Inc article or the Great Farewell that Etsy Bitch wrote HERE

I would also like to note that with what has happened in Norway, everything we do here seems so small. So many children lost at the hands of a Madman.

I decided instead, to write about something that came to mind after a few events this week. It has to do with your audience. Who are you selling to? I was trying to come up with search terms for my jewelry. Because it was unique, I wanted to come up with some terms that the average person would use to search. I was thinking about my product and I was thinking of all the other handmade product. I'm not including vintage here, because they have a greater chance of people searching for their items than handmade sellers do.

I thought about all the lovely handmade products and artwork, I and I thought about all the nice things that people had said about my flowers. I thought about how we are pushed by ourselves and our sites to create something so unique that it stands out against our competition. And I thought that if it is so unique, how will people find it. If you designed handkerchiefs for Elephants, that would be unique. Maybe useful (they would have to be pretty big) But who would search for it.

It popped into my head, that the people who are looking at my work, or your lovely work, are mostly artists, or people involved with or admirers of the arts. Is that my target audience? Wouldn't it be nice if the average person, or at least a percentage of the overall population would like my work?

I pass QVC sometimes and see things that are not as lovely as our handmade craft, but mass produced, sell by the thousands. I used to work for a company that sold to QVC and it was not our usual lovely inventory. But that's another story.

And then there was something that Poppy said this week. She was listing a biker T-shirt that had previously sold for $250, and she was debating weather to list it auction, or buy it now on eBay. She was discussing how much to list it for and I said was it too much in this economy. She said people with money have money and they don't really care, they buy what they want. She's right you know. We struggle to sell our beautifully hand crafted wares for under minimum wage and someone pays $1800 for a Lego Millennium Falcon still in the box. (I'd rather have it built for that price).

We work our tails off at the craft we love and yet we could take a $1 t-shirt we found a the thrift store and turn a $200 plus profit on it.

My point isn't despair. It is, how the heck do we get the guy spending $250 on a T-shirt to spend a few bucks on our handmade? How do we inspire the "want monster" (I hate that term and wish it would go away and die forever) to absolutely love handmade. What we really need is not a clown but a Marketing Genius to help us out. Barry Manilow will you write us a handmade product jingle for the new millennium? There is more to marketing than just good SEO. SEO does not inspire desire. How about "I'm wearing Handmade Today" "I just hung Handmade on my walls, did you?" "I'm cooking in handmade."

Posted on Artfire - Etsy Fees Vs Artfire at $9.95

Posted in the Artfire Forums I didn't think this was a controversial or negative post. It was just a little bit of brain boggling math that I thought I would like to point out to the sellers that think Etsy fees are cheaper than the proposed $9.95 minimum fee that Artfire will begin charging.

For those of you who aren't involved or have the time to wade through forums here is my post

"Sorry, haven't the time to read through all of these to see if it's been mentioned. $10 a month for Artfire VS Etsy "reasonable" fees. If you want to have your items seen on Etsy, most people list/relist one item a day @ $.20 so that's $6. Many list/relist at least 2 a day $12 then if you sell there are fees as well. How in the World do any of you think that it is cheaper to sell on Etsy? My fees were $50 to $100 a month there. If you are paying less than $10 a month at Etsy, you are not selling anything, I can guarantee it. If you are making an average of $6 minimum wage (give or take in your state) for a 40 hour week $240 X 3.5%, you would be paying $8.40 in fees above your listing a WEEK. So if you are working Etsy as a business, the minimum you should be paying is $45 a month. That is just making minimum wages.

Brain hurting yet. I know mine is. Again, if you are actually paying less than $10 a month at Etsy you are wasting your time selling there, because it's not working for you."

I'm not even saying which is the better deal, because I sell a lot on eBay and the fees are even higher and the buyer expects to pay less. I had an offer of $8 for a $39 apron, when my materials alone are more than that, let alone fees. Etsy fees are higher, but so is the traffic right now.

I guess the wasting time thing wasn't too nice. But at $10 a month, with Etsy fees, you are not selling anything. I never had a month at Etsy where I payed less that $10, even in a slow month at a slow shop. However, most of us don't make above minimum wages at any of our venues. I know I don't. Just Saying...

Biz Buzz - Big fish in a Little Sea or Little Fish in a Big Sea

There is a new seller site that opened this week. It's called Groove Press and not that anyone is selling there yet, but for some reason I really liked the vibe so I am setting up a shop there.

Since I have opened the shop, I have been on the front page constantly, because there are so few sellers. I have sold on eBay, Etsy, Artfire and the bomb (not in a good way) site Zibbet, and I have never received so much attention. Although my Etsy Treasuries and Artfire Collections have been on the Front Page, and I have been in the Etsy Finds and Artfire Collection of the Day, I still have not had the constant exposure that I am having on Groove Press.

Of course no one knows about Groove Press yet, so no one is really buying from them. But there was a time when no one knew about Etsy either. I just have a gut feeling about this site. I think they are moving in the right direction.

Groove Press is not fully functional yet either, there are quite a few little glitches so I've had to write them every day to help point out some of the problems. Their customer service at this time, is fantastic. they auto respond immediately and I get a real response within the day. Of course they don't have a lot of people to respond to right now.

So because I have been trying to help them with little things they might have overlooked, they have promised to make me a featured seller soon. So here is my question, is it better to be a Big Fish in a Little Sea, getting a lot of exposure on a little noticed site, or be a Little Fish in a Big Sea like Etsy or eBay and get very little to no Front Page time and be almost invisible?

China vs Etsy

Cafe near China Factory 

First I want to say that I love and support Handmade, but there is a balance, I also support factory made in the US and Overseas, because we aren't all artists and we all need work.

Lately, I've been thinking about this China factory issue. I know that Etsy sellers and other indie artists on sites like Artfire and Zibbet are upset that as soon as they post a new design on their site, a China factory is copying it and ready to ship to the US. As a former product designer that worked in China factories, I'd like to give you a more global look at what is happening to you and to others like us.

I don't deny that it's a crime that can't be stopped, that other countries are copying  our designs to retail in the US at a fraction of what it takes us to produce. But is it the fault of the Chinese or any of the other countries, like Vietnam and India, who also produce for our purchasing pleasure? Not really. We ourselves are to blame. Our need to have, have, have and at the lowest cost possible is what drives this. 

Product would not be made overseas if we as a nation were not buying it. Our US companies are driving the overseas factory to watch our seller sites and copy merchandise. The Chinese have no idea what will sell here, they are directed by Americans as to what to copy. Believe me, it is true. 

The Chinese citizens are for the most part kind, hard working, and very talented people. I have been to a lot of countries for work and never have I enjoyed the people more. Like us, there are a few bad eggs, but for the most part it is a wonderful country, very different than ours, but wonderful.

There is another aspect that I would like you to consider. Like my own story, design jobs are getting harder and harder to find. There isn't a need for product designers anymore when designs are readily lifted off the internet for free. Why would a company need to pay a staff of designers? Some do as they boast in house design, many smaller firms don't care in this economy, so many of my design colleagues are out of work or finding new careers like selling craft as an indie. 

There are so may sides to the geodesic dome of life. We should all consider what is on the side we can't see.

The Art of Art - Lesson Two - American Da Vinci

I was going to write about Bernard Pfriem and Viktor Schreckengost this post, but I decided they deserve their own individual posts. I'm going to start with my good friend, the late Viktor Schreckengost. 

When I was little I loved to go to the Cleveland Zoo. Monkey Island and the Elephant house were my favorite places there. Mostly I loved the stylized Elephant sculptures that identified the elephant house. Here is a picture of the artist at work. Little did I know that many years later, I would have the opportunity to work with and learn from this amazing American Da Vinci.

You've probably never heard the name, but I am positive that you have seen or touched something designed by this man. Viktor was a product designer, an artist and a thinker. He created the Jazz Bowl on commission for Eleanor Roosevelt, he redesigned children's pedal cars for Murray, and even helped improve radar design for the Navy during the Battle of the Bulge. He was also an accomplished  jazz saxophonist.

I won't go into detail about the artist, his work and his life, you can read about him yourself. I will tell you about the person I had the pleasure of knowing. Viktor was my mentor.

Viktor was in his late 80's when He taught dinnerware and furniture design to my Industrial Design class at the Cleveland Institute of Art. The program was the first of it's kind in the US and Viktor was the man who started it.

Each day three other students and I would gather before class with the New York Times Crossword Puzzle and work together to complete it. We were all pretty bright, but there was always something that eluded us. Then Viktor would come by and fill in the blanks we missed.

He would tell us of his adventures, how he managed to get a tour of the Hindenburg but was so disappointed that he couldn't get a ticket for it's maiden flight. He talked about his good friend Cleveland safety director Eliot Ness. He could tell us about watching the architecture in Cleveland change in a way that made us feel as if we were watching it being built.

Viktor was kind and generous with his time, making sure he new every student and spending time with each and every one of us to make sure we had the best of his knowledge. He was also a passionate artist, continuing to create delightful paintings with his gnarled but experienced hands. Hands that he kindly let me use in a photo shoot for an ergonomic knife I designed.

In in 2006, at 100 years of age Viktor was awarded the National Medal of Arts. He passed away early 2008 at 101. His passion for art, design and encouraging others had given him the longest most rewarding life that any of us might aspire to.

Love what you do. Be passionate about your life and your work. Interact with others that share the same passion and share. And most importantly, live life to it's very fullest.

Please read more about Viktor Here - Washington Post Article