What a kick!

I just discovered my jewelry was featured on a January 26 blog! Secret Life of Jewelry is a blog about jewelry by Carmela DiLeva and Shelby Matero. Their statement from their blog reads:

"This blog showcases fabulous handcrafted jewelry made by independent artists with incredibly amazing talent. This blog promotes awareness of those artists and designers who seek to imbue their work with meaning. It is our hope that this awareness spreads through ever-widening circles of people who share the desire to acquire items of beauty and durability with an awareness of social responsibility."

I'll now remember the grin that this gave me when I'm writing about other people's work and try to give them a grin as well. We all need it!

What to make

This weekend has been spent in the studio working toward my next show which is the Cottonwood Art Festival and I'm having trouble deciding what to make. When this happens, I look back at last year to see what sold to give me some help. What were people were the most interested in.

The "All Cracked Up" series with the 22k highly textured, both shiny and matte?

The colored pieces with 22k gold?

Or the chopped gold, like my chopstick earrings?

Or my newest and what I love to make, my 22k gold and blackened sterling with a bamboo leaf pattern? Guess I've answered my own question. I'm making what makes me happiest today (that may change tomorrow) because my love for the pieces shows in the end result.

Buyer's Market - Wrap Up!

Home again and pretty much recovered from the show. My shipping crates were delivered today so tomorrow I'll start the job of unpacking and sorting everything to be packed away until my next wholesale show.

This was a LONG show. It was slower than most wholesale shows for me so the days dragged on but it really had it's high points. And these are their pictures (with my apologies to David Heston who I didn't get a picture of).

So, the picture above is of Patricia Tschetter and Marilyn O'Hara. Marilyn kept me fed and filled with fresh juice during the show as well as just being a good friend! Her official job was in Patricia's beautiful jewelry booth! Luckily, they were just down the row from me so I saw them often.

The picture on the left is Michael, Grace and Don. Grace was at the show helping Michael which meant that Michael wasn't around as much. He gave me wonderful dark chocolate on Valentine's Day. Wonderful man! So if I mention Don, I have to mention his wonderful girlfriend Jorn as well. She saved me at a wholesale show last year.

The picture on the right is David Smallcombe, also a jeweler, since we're in the jewelry section! I know David from doing retail shows in the midwest since he's from Kalamazoo. He was a peach and took a box home for Michael that had some of my poles in it. I really want his wonderful pricing spreadsheet!

On the left were new neighbors, Ashley and Alberto Parada standing next to a poster of his beautiful work.

On the right is Amery Carriere who was a great addition to our little grouping! Wonderful woman with beautiful jewelry. Plus she also uses rose gold which I love!

In case you haven't discovered yet, it's the people that make a show. Your neighbors make all the difference and I'm blessed with very good ones at the Buyers Market!

Doing an e-mail blast

I've now found a new way to use up a lot of time. Composing an e-mail blast advertising an upcoming art fair, Cleveland By-Hand.

Over the years I've sent many thousands of postcards to my customers, telling them about the art fairs where I'll be showing my jewelry. I would be very pleased to NEVER stick another label or stamp on a postcard so I'm transitioning over to e-mail show notices. Sounds so easy since I send out e-mails all day long. It sure isn't easy yet!

If I'm sending an e-mail blast to my customers, I want it as pretty as the postcard would have been. Plus, the advantage of doing the e-mail is that I can give more information, links and pictures. All of which I now know takes time to do. Ugg. And what do you concentrate on?

So I decided that what I personally would like to see is a discount, to help me buy something. So I added a 15% discount on my 14k gold earrings. That's something I've never done before but times are very different now. I'll make a little less and my customers will spend a little less. Hopefully we'll both win...

A Show of Hands

Well, you can tell vacation is over because the jobs are piling up. How can I be behind already???

So one of the reasons I'm behind in my work is that right before vacation, I sent off a big bundle of my jewelry to a new gallery in Denver. The way it came about is the fun part.

I have good friends in Denver and try to get out there as much as I can because these are great women and I miss them! So, there is normally some shopping when we gather and last time we went to the Cherry Creek area of Denver to look around. That's where we found A Show of Hands. By the time I walked out I was carrying bags saying, I want my jewelry in there.

There is something about the shop that is just special. As far as my media, each jeweler has their own case and it's just beautifully laid out and the whole place just feels right. It's not even something I can explain but I wanted to be in there. And because they didn't give up on me actually getting them my work, I can finally say I am there!

But, now it means I have no jewelry and a busy show schedule coming up so it's time to bury myself in the studio once again. Lots of ideas and hopefully lots of wonderful pieces of jewelry coming soon!

One more show and things move on

I'm now well into my "eight weeks of hell" as I lovingly call it and am finding that it needs renaming. I absolutely love this time of year and the pressure it brings. My work gets a little freer and I have more ideas than I have time to make things. Plus there is an end to it. I love this time of year!

So I had one more show this past weekend. Another new one which I hadn't tried before and as delightful as it was to do, I don't think I would do it again. Buy/sell items and filled with low end jewelry means there will be sticker shock in my booth. Sunday only one person wanted to actually see something in my booth and he was more interested in the back and if that was really my signature! It's so hard to know before actually doing the show if it's going to be a good fit or not. This was not. Live and learn.

The truth about my bench...

Time to come clean. Or maybe it's just time to clean. Either way, I'm showing a picture of what my workbench looks like on Thursdays. I'm aiming for every Thursday, a new view. Someone mentioned that they had read about someone doing this so I'm borrowing the idea. My hope is that maybe I'll pick up my bench every Wednesday but maybe not. I seem to work better with tons of little projects all cluttering up my workspace. It makes no sense and it certainly doesn't work with my desk. With that, I need the surface cleared off if I want to make real progress. Obviously my bench doesn't need to be clear or I'd never get anything done!

On your tour, the pretty blue trays hold small pieces and parts in 50 little bins. I was so thrilled when I found these since I'm a sucker for organizational "tools". My Dad built me a couple of wood racks to hold them so they don't take up too much space but I can have multiples close at hand. If you notice, they are actually labeled as of a couple of weeks ago. Part of my constant plan to stay organized.

The rather ugly brown rectangular trays were also a huge boon for organizing. Jean found them at the Bemis outlet store in Sheboygan Wisconsin where they make them for hospital food trays! I can put all the pieces for a project on one tray and keep them together. Don't like the color but I love those trays. Luckily she got a lot of them since I'm constantly filling them up.

The last tour item is the white bin in the front left. Because my background is from the dental profession, many of my things are dental. These are normally dental lab pans but for me they are perfect for my wholesale orders. As the pieces get done, they go in the bin. Normally they aren't in this area which is the dirty side of the studio. They live on the clean side.

I'll be curious if doing this makes me clear off my bench. It should! Anyone can see by looking at this picture that there is no way someone can get any work done there. Who am I kidding!!!

First show of the year

Saturday at the Birmingham Fine Art Fair reminded me of why I do this for a living. The weather was ideal for an art fair. Cool but sunny with just a little breeze for air movement. Although the crowds weren't as large as I remember in the past, there were lots of people walking the show.

First thing in the morning a wonderful woman who is a long-time customer came to see me. As she tried on jewelry she remarked on my e-mail announcement of the show! Since this is the first time I've sent out e-mail show reminders, I was thrilled!

For someone who tends to work "last minute" like I do, the e-mails will be perfect. I don't have to factor in the mail delays. I can add a picture of something wonderful that I just finished. Or advertise something new I'm doing. Besides, I love both sending and receiving (good) e-mails so this fits right in.

Back to the show. So as wonderful as Saturday was, Sunday was the opposite. I made Michael get up really early to get to the show and get a decent parking place since it was supposed to rain. Okay, so we got there probably 90 minutes earlier than we had to but the last time I was there, everyone got there really early! And I wanted a good parking place for take down!

What I didn't know was that take down was going to be many hours earlier than planned. It was raining really hard and the wind was starting to pick up which makes me fret (I'll write about why later). The show director was in constant contact with us and finally came around to say it was up to us whether to stay or go. The person next to me was taking the brunt of the wind so when they started taking down, so did I. There were no customers there and it was 46 and raining. Home sounded much better.

Taking down a show is never really easy but doing it in a hard rain without the van right there is more of a challenge. Then being cold on top of it. My friend David and daughter Abbie came over and helped me take off my canopy top and fold it up and then broke down the poles. That was a HUGE help since by that time, I had enough. As I said to David, it's days like this that make me want to get a "real" job!

So I pour myself into the van, stuffed full of wet things, soaked all the way through from top to bottom and freezing. Turned my seat heat on high and the temp in the van to 84 and headed for home. 2 1/2 hours later, still wet but slightly warmer, I got home. Boy did it look good. I like shows that are close to home!

Now my first show of the year is over. I saw one the best weather days and one not so great but not even close to the worst. I had some sales and people seemed to like my new work. It's only the beginning since my next show is in 4 days...