And relax.....

Over the last couple of days I've done lots and lots of making.  How so?  Well, one of my constant dilemmas is that I don't have a set workspace, but for the most part I have tools and some materials in the kitchen and everything else lives in the cupboard under the stairs in the living room so I can sit on the sofa and watch TV or listen to music as I'm playing around.  I keep wondering how easy or not it would be to make myself a workroom in one of the bedrooms whilst the children are still young enough to share.  But I keep feeling as though that's really over-indulgent of me (I prefer to be around for the kids and I do a lot of making at night when they are in bed) plus I like pottering in the kitchen and sitting on the sofa when I'm making.  Anyway, I cleared some more space in the kitchen and as a result got lots done whilst the kids were playing.

First up I had a revelation.  I can't wear earrings as everything makes my lobes itch like crazy (ok, so I've not yet tried titanium or gold but I'll get around to trying them sometime).  Anyhow, I thought I'd have a go at making some ear cuffs out of some bits of copper I had etched.

This is they before they've been liver of sulphured. They're kind of cute and I plan to add a couple of dangles to one or two of them before I take some proper pics and get them up in the shop.  And obviously I'm wearing a couple of them all the time.  Have you ever tried getting a picture of your own ear?  Seriously hard to do.

Next up - earlier in the week I read on Beatnheart's blog about a polymer clay tutorial sold by Ginger Davis-Allman in her Blue Bottle Tree Etsy shop.  I was suitably impressed and so bought it and this weekend was the first time I'd had a chance to play around.  I didn't make many bits and bobs but here's the outcome.

I don't know why this pic is sideways - blogger won't let me turn it around.  I have a couple of pieces of ammonite, one fossil and one piece of rock where an ammonite was extracted so I used them to texture three pieces of clay.  I love ammonites.  These aren't done yet in terms of being painted/finished but they're getting there.  I'm quite pleased with them.

These three pieces were textured with a couple of old belt medallions.  Yes, the colours on all of them are pretty similar so I'm going to have to do way more experimenting with different colours but my brain gets stuck into a green-ish purple place more often than not.  More on that later.

Some pods.  I quite like the pods, I just need to use them all now.

I made another bangle stack. These are probably for me.  I'm going on holiday with the kids next week and realised that I don't often wear jewellery so i figured I should make something that will go with mostly everything I have.  Again, the groove is a neutral pinkish/purple/green/black/metal thing going on.  Dinge.  I like dinge, it goes with a lot of things.

Some necklaces - etched copper, a Buddha pendant (left as-is, for now) and a key assemblage piece.

Some earrings using etched copper and beads, etched copper ammonite (again) that's a bracelet. 

Another sideways one.  This was my experiment in making those bright shiny Buddha cases look aged and grungy.  I've a couple more of these somewhere so I shall grunge them up too.  But my experiment was fun - I used gesso, alcohol inks, embossing powder and my heat gun.  My heat gun nearly killed the whole thing because these cases are made of plastic.  There's no metal or glass in these at all (although the Buddha's themselves are stone).  But the heat-gun made the clear cover go all warpy but in the end didn't do too much damage.

Then because I was playing with embossing powder I decided to try and add some silver dots to the pods - I love when bead artists do this with real silver on glass beads.  I think my technique needs some refinement (as in, not doing it when I'm cooking tea for the kids) but I'm liking this a lot.  In fact I've realised that all I need is to keep hold of a felt-tip pen that's lost its juice and I can use that to dab the ink or the PVA glue on.

In the meantime the postman came and delivered these babies!  Wowsers.  These are a lot bigger than I thought they'd be, even from the description that was given.  Excellent.  And yes, they are that purple, greenish. goldish colour again.  I've decided to stop trying to get away from it and just go over-board with the purple green gold thing.  Once I get it out of my system I might be able to do other colours.  

Funnily enough my current costume commission has been from someone who wants a fusion belly dance costume in, you guessed it, purple and green.  She might find herself with some crystals on it.

So all I've got to do now is settle in and get some jewellery made.

And to finish?  In amongst all of this my 4-year-old geek son wanted me to find the teeny tiny sonic screw-driver for his teeny tiny Dr Who and friend.  I'm sure you can imagine how easy it is to lose them?  Anyhow, what can I do?  I dug a lolly stick (the rolled paper kind) out of the drawer (I keep them at the moment because you can make light-sabers for teeny tiny Star Wars figures....) and using the kids felt pens made a new sonic for the 11th Dr.  My son did a 10th Dr version for the 11th Dr's friend.

Men at work.  Best not get in the way.

Santa's Coming!

Not long now is it?  It's slightly frightening as I'm not sure I've done everything yet - I certainly haven't put the cards into the post that I need to so that's a job for today and I've a couple of gifts to finish.

Other than that I'm still messing around with loading up pictures of things I want to sell through my website rather than through Etsy and I managed to get some more photos done this week.  I'm glad I grabbed the moment on a sunny afternoon as the remainder of this week has been very dark and dull thanks to the usual British winter skies.

I've got lots and lots of these Tibetan repousse pendants to add (amongst other things):

I've either been brave or foolish but I've got provisional bookings at some local craft fairs in 2013, with the first one in just over a months time - hopefully this will spur me into actually making something with my huge stock of stuff that I've been amassing/have collected and as it's be January I'm going to start making some slightly Spring like things....

And I'll let you know if this goes ahead but I recently applied to be a tester/writer for a craft blog - they've accepted me and I'm now just double checking that they realise that I'm in the UK as they'll need to send me things to use and review...

Just to finish up, on the dance front I have a little break now so need to set my thinking cap on about what I shall be offering my belly dance students in 2013.

The Age Old Difficulty

First up, I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last blogged - very remiss of me.  In fairness though I've been busy with life and the children and have been teaching an extra class a week for the last three weeks now and that does have a surprising impact.  Or maybe I'm just a wuss.

Having been at a couple of craft fairs in the last few weeks and with one more to go before I'm done in the run-up to Christmas my thoughts have turned to the age old difficulty of pricing, or at least getting pricing right.

It can be hard work to make sure that something is fairly priced and that it stays within the parameters of what the market will bear so let's have a think about this for a moment.

On many a hand-made or craft forum I see posts on a weekly basis from people who have a hobby or craft they love and they have been encouraged by their own talents or by those around them to sell their items.  The most frequent question they ask is, "How should I price my items?"

There are many formulas to help with this but they invariably turn out to be wrong for those who are using them and the reason for this is that formulas don't take into account the amount of time you spend on marketing what you do, and engaging with prospective buyers via social media or other online avenues if online sales are your main source of income.  All of this time should be taken into account and formulas can't do that - well they can, but you'll find that the item you are making that you were happy to sell for £5.00 has suddenly gone up to £500.

In all honesty, formulas can help you get a better idea of what you should be charging and then the thing to do is to use the search engine of your choice to find out what other people charge for items just like the one you make ("what the market will bear").  It's likely that you'll need to make an adjustment and it's even more likely that initially your adjustment would be to decrease your asking price.  Don't be tempted to do so, always err on the upside particularly if there are others selling similar items for more than your increased price.  You might not sell so many but you'll get more profit via fewer sales.  And people who appreciate hand-made are willing to pay a little more for a well-made item so don't be shy.

At the very least you should count up what it cost you in materials including the things you might forget about like threads, paints, waxes and varnishes etc, add in a percentage for gas and electricty (unless you didn't have a light on or use any power tools or any heating whilst you were making your lovely item) add on a bit for more luck, double it (that's your wholesale price but unless what you are making is super fast and super cheap and you love love love unrelenting monotonous work then never make to sell wholesale but by all means sell a handful of items wholesale if you get an order you're happy with) and then double it again and that's your retail price.

Then as said before check what other people sell them for and don't be tempted to lower your price just because 50% of people are selling for a lot less than you.  Pretend some confidence if you don't actually have a lot and bump your price around a little but stay at the top end of the range.  If you've put time and love into this then it's worth it and it will be appreciated.

See, isn't that a bit easier now?  Now, get out there and start selling.

To have an art room.....of my own??

When I first moved into this house 15 months ago one of my friends saw the attic bedroom (the third bedroom) and said, "Ohhh, you should make that room your workroom.  You could go up there and work away to your hearts content...."

I took no notice of her words and filled the under-stairs cupboard in the living room with my...well.....everything....fabrics, trims, threads, paints, papers, canvases, jewellery findings and stashes of broken jewellery and stones and ..... well just everything is shoe-horned into one (big) cupboard.  So when I make stuff I sit on the sofa and I surround myself with stuff and I make.  And when it's time to go to bed I put it all away until the next time I can get it all out.

But if I were to have a dedicated room I could leave it out until I was able to return.  I think what stops me is that I've made the attic room into a spare bedroom and some of the kids toys are up there and sometimes they play up there. Plus, even when my daughter is at school my son is still around until he goes to nursery in the afternoons and we are out most morning and.....and.....

Ooooh, just think though......if I put all of my art stuff up there I could play to my hearts content when he was at nursery and leave it all out and go back to it when they were in bed and just have a space to play and be me..........I think I need a place to play and be me........