Summer Shows

Schools out for the Summer and the Summer Craft Shows are upon us... and there are going to be several great shows at the Jersey shore and in the central Jersey area over the next 6 weeks!

The first is the 2nd annual OM Baby show in Pt. Pleasant, NJ on Saturday, July 11th. 20+ EtsyNJ vendors will take over the OM Baby yoga studio with a variety of handmade creations. Om Baby is located in the heart of the Pt. Pleasant shopping district, there's plentiful parking in the area and the show has FREE admission. Plus the beach and boardwalk are both only a 5 minute drive from the show...handmade items and the Atlantic ocean. Show begins at 12pm and runs until 6pm, but get there early for the giveaways : )

Next on the calendar is the Handmade Faire's Summer of Love event. The summer 2009 version of the Handmade Faire will be held in Medford, NJ at Freedom Park on Saturday, July 18th. Approx 100 juried handmade vendors (and 6 food vendors) will participate in what is probably New Jersey's finest craft show. If there is but one craft show to attend, this is the one. The variety and quality of the vendors will simply blow you away and as always... free admission!! Click on the banner in the top right column for more details-------------------------------->>>>>

Turning to August, I'll once again set up my tent at the Lacey CrabFest and Craft Show. The Crafts Show is in it's 9th year and the Crab Fest in it's 13th year. Last year's show found a handful of EtsyNJ members attend and this year will probably be no different. Handmade items, great food and a well organized event always make for a fun time. This year's show will be held on Saturday, August 1st and the show is held on Lacey Rd in Forked River.... just a stone's throw from Rt9. Bring the children, as there are always activities for the little one's and a couple of local radio stations make appearances and free admission for the craft show!

We're still hoping to get a show organized in time for August 15th on LBI... more info to follow.

'til next time...

R

Recap of the weekend shows, new listings, new items

This past weekend, I had high hopes for the two shows on my events schedule. For very different reasons, I came away from both events very disappointed.

The Saturday show was the Handmade Faire in Medford, NJ. The show was probably promoted better than any show I've ever attended. There were many members of the fast-growing EtsyNJ street team at the show and I had very high expectations for this event. Unfortunately, during the week of the event, it seemed like Mother Nature was going to play a part. As the event creeped closer, it became very apparent that she would play a large role, much larger than anyone wanted her to play.

The show was held at a small airport and with half the vendors inside a large tent and the other half outside in 10x10 spots. Nearly all of the outside vendors had tents, which were needed as rain began to fall prior to the show's start.

As the show began, it showed a lot of promise. The first 100 customers received "Goodie Bags" and those 100 bags were gone very quickly. As more and more people came, Mother Nature decided to deal her hand... a soaking rain with a moderate wind.

The people continued to come out and support this new show. I heard comments about the unique items and vendors. Actually, the customers I spoke with were raving about the show. Customers were there to buy gifts for friends and for themselves and the outside vendors seemed to be doing well.

My tent often had several people looking at items and as I had a brief minute to look, several other tents looked to be quite busy as well. And Mother Nature continued to increase her onslaught with brief moments of drenching rains and constant wind that had vendors making tent adjustments.

I watched my hubby shifting weights in the tent trying to combat the steady wind and strong gusts. Eventually he had to start taking down the walls in hopes of keeping the tent upright. One whole side wall had to be removed, as did 3/4 of the other side wall and more than half the back of the tent walls. My hubby spent most of the show hanging onto the tent leg that was getting the full brunt of a wind that just seemed to get stronger as the minutes went by.

The large outdoor crowds were moving into the "big top-type" tent that housed nearly 50 vendors and those that did venture into my tent were beginning to show fear that the tent wouldn't hold together and quite frankly, I was concerned also.

Outside vendors began packing up when displays tore, tent brackets snapped and merchandise began getting wet.

I stuck it out for 3.5 hours and began to pack it in, when the reports indicated the winds would soon increase and the flood of customers turned into a trickle and mostly walked right by my shop. By the time I had finished packing everything into the truck, the remainder of the outside crew was also packing up.

In all, it wasn't a horrible day. But expectations were extremely high and the early part of the show indicated the sales would have been very good with a nice weather forecast.. With a Sunday show pending, it only made sense to pack up and protect my items from possible damages.... only this show also didn't pan out, but for many reasons different than the Handmade Faire.

A couple new items went into my shop today (see picture to my Etsy shop) and the above picture is an item that might be found in my shop at some point.

In my next entry, I'll discuss show #2.

til next time...

R

The Handmade Faire, Craft Shows and Home Shows

My fall craft show schedule begins in earnest starting this weekend. On Saturday the 25th I have the Handmade Faire in Medford, NJ at the Flying W Airport (see the banner to the right for more info)

This show will be heavily supported by regional handmade artist/crafters, including a large number of the rapidly growing EtsyNJ street team. The show is juried and only handmade vendors have been selected.

If you have holiday shopping to do and are looking for something different than the same old "stuff" , come down and take a look at what this talented group of handmade artists have to offer. It will be a lot of fun and you won't be disappointed.

On Sunday, I'll take my creations to the Lacey Fall Annual show in Forked River, NJ. The show will be in it's usual Lacey High School location. Over 150 tables filled with handmade vendors and vendors with personalized gifts will be in attendance. The show runs from 9am-3pm and is often well attended.

I will have several new sea glass creations on my tables during this weekend and I'm hoping all of them find new homes.

My next scheduled show will be on November 8th at OM Baby in Point Pleasant, NJ. This show will be an all EtsyNJ street team show and I'll be talking more about the show in future blogs.

Earlier tonight I had a private showing for one person, with a slight chance that a 2nd might show up. I brought my Etsy shop items along with a handful of new items.

When I arrived there were 5 women there and they were looking at my Flickr site, along with my blog searching for a few new items. After about 30 minutes of going through the 40 or so items I brought (remember I was planning on there being 1, possibly 2 people) I ended up walking out of the showing with 1/3 of my shop sold and several pieces that were about ready to be listed, including a couple new sea glass pieces.

I'm a bit concerned I may be a bit short on bracelets, so it looks like I'll be back at my crafting table tomorrow night to build up my bracelet supply.

Maybe the talk of "buying handmade" at my 1st show of the season, is the sentiment of many shoppers this year. Perhaps in the down economy, people are looking to spend money on unique or one-of-a-kind items this year. And that's great news for all of us handmade artists!

'til next time...

R

Above image is a lime green sea glass copper bracelet soon to go into my shop on Etsy

Sea Glass, Autumn Items and Looking Ahead to the Holidays

A stiff northeastern wind triggered tidal flood warnings late last week and considering these winds followed a full moon, it should have been a prime opportunity for beach glass. That really wasn't the case, at least in LBI NJ, because the combo of clean-up crews protecting the dunes and the early morning and early evening low tides made it difficult to get to the beach during what should have been prime-time.

The end of the summer last year produced a few nice finds. A couple of rare cobalt blues were found and even a rare red piece was found. This year however, it seemed like the even the shells disappeared at the end of the summer.

Shell beds that are washed up during high tide and left behind as the tide returns, are often great locations to find a few pieces of sea glass. For close to a month, the washed up shell beds were practically non-existent and so was the beach glass. Even the first full moon of September didn't improve the situation and I'm beginning to fear that many of the gems that were about to reveal themselves in the tides were buried by the clean-up crews attempt to shore-up the dunes and the beaches.

Even my secret little spot on LBI, one that consistently turned-up many well-worn and beautifully frosted keepers seems to be void of even the most common colors.

A trip to the beach tomorrow will hopefully turn up a few pieces...hopefully something to give me some hope that future treks to the beach will be worth my time.

So, autumn is in full-swing, especially on Etsy. Despite days in the high 70s to mid 80s, it seems like summer has been packed away for the season and the folks around here are waiting for the cooler days and nights to arrive.

Autumn promoting on Etsy has already given way to Halloween promotions and even several Christmas promotions on a daily basis.

Locally my sea glass creations do okay, but sea glass on Etsy seem to be out-of-season items. It also seems like some of the sea glass buyers are starting to slow down or have totally stopped buying also.

Good for me, as I'll continue to buy often and take advantage of the lull in the market. I'd rather buy a large quantity now and sit on them over the winter, then pay the crazy prices some pieces sold for this past summer.

The pictures above show 2 of my most recent Etsy listings. One is an autumn item, while the other a beautiful sea glass creation.

Looking ahead to the holidays, I really don't have a lot of new items in store. Etsy is so very hard tough to make sales around the holidays and while I plan on keeping my shop stocked to about 35-45 items through the holiday season, I'll be concentrating heavily on my craft shows.

I'm pretty much set on my opening supply of scarves and I'm hoping to limit my knitting this yr to custom orders and knitting when I've made a couple of sales. ROI is very hard with knitted items and I feel the need to focus more on my jewelry where the ROI is much greater. So for my local customers that follow me through this blog, get your custom requests in soon.

My first show, hopefully, will be on October 4th. I have an app in for the Eagleswood Fall Show. It's not a very large crowd, but it is fun and I can have my boys at the show because there is so much for them to do there (plus it isn't an expensive show).

I have a show I may do the following week and then I'll take off a week before doing the Medford show on 10/25, followed by the Lacey show on 10/26. After a one week break, I'll have a show each of the next 2 weekends (11/8 in Pt. Pleasant and 11/15 Manahawkin) and a possible 3rd the following week. My December schedule looks to have 3 shows by the middle of the month and that will be the end of my holiday schedule. My scheduled is tentatively 10 shows, but I will probably cut one of the shows out, making it a 9 show Fall/Holiday schedule.

Hopefully I'll need the extra week to build up inventory and plan out my post-holiday Etsy ideas.

til next time...

R

Labor Day Weekend, Autumn, Craft Shows

The unofficial end of summer is upon us. I didn't get to the beach as much as would have liked, but I'm not really too upset that Labor Day weekend is here. The Jersey shore is soooo much nicer in September. The dog days of summer are gone, the ocean breeze is refreshing and the water is probably the warmest it has been all summer.
All of that makes for some glorious beach days! The vacationers have returned home and most won't be back until next June, leaving us locals with clean, wide-open beaches. And that means less competition for BEACH GLASS!!!

Never before have I ever witnessed so many people looking for these ocean gems. Last summer, there were a couple of obvious people in search of beach glass, but this summer it was crazy. It was like people searching for gold or something. Of course if you match up the prices that sea glass sold for a year ago to the current prices, especially on FEEBAY, you might also be out on the beach looking for the new "gold". What used to sell for $5 a year ago, will often sell for $15 or more today. I bought a brilliant red piece of sea glass last spring, paying about $15 for the piece (for those not familiar with sea glass, red pieces a considered to be very rare and I believe this piece to be about right at the time) I wanted to put it away and create a piece for Valentine's Day later next yr. The piece had a curve to it that I couldn't see in the photos and I just wasn't happy about the way it was going to sit if I wire-wrapped it. It was such a beautiful piece, I didn't want to drill a hole into it, so I decided to list it on Feebay, just to see if there were any takers. What I bought less than 7 months ago for 15, sold for almost 35...crazy!

Sorry for a little rant about beach glass, I'm a bit excited because tonight will be the last full moon of the month, and the ocean often yields some beautiful pieces after a full moon (plus I'm off from my JOB for the next week and sooo looking forward to spending a lot of time on the beach)

I'm busy making several new pieces, most of which are Autumn themed and many will head into my shop on Etsy in the next few days. I'll add a few images of the new creations in another blog entry later tonight or early tomorrow.

I still haven't decided on a September craft show, though I know I'll be doing at least one, probably middle to end of the month.
I have an early October show that I did last year and know I can just as easily do again, unless I find something else that with a larger turnout. The end of October is filled.

October 25- The Handmade Faire (see banner at the top of my blog for more info, they are still accepting applications) in Medford, NJ. The show's curators do an outstanding job of promoting their shows and I'm very excited about this show. The EtsyNJ team will be represented by at least 25 members (and probably closer to 40 team members) for this show.

October 26- The Lacey High School Fall Festival- I've done a few shows here and they are always well run and heavily promoted. This year they are eliminating the "tupperware/avon" type vendors and concentrating on Handmade vendors.

November is still wide-open. I'm doing a show on the 15th and have a possible show on the 8th. The EtsyNJ team is talking about doing a show in November, renting a store with about 15 members selling their items.
My December shows will most likely be local shows and I'll be announcing the dates as they become available.


Check back, if you'd like to see my latest creations. Images will be up very soon!

til next time...
R

Etsy, My first Year, EtsyNJ, making crafts for the fall/winter season

So my one year anniversary on Etsy.com has come and gone. It was very nice of Etsy to pick up my fees for the month, as an anniversary gift (yea, right-don't I wish...LOL)
Looking back it is very funny to see the items I listed in the beginning. I started with scarves...in August! 90+ degrees every day and I listed scarves.
Then I moved onto making earrings, everyone loves earrings! My problem was I had a camera that couldn't capture ANY detail and close-ups were just a blur. My immediate solution was to
SCAN the earrings (okay, I'll wait until you've stopped laughing).......
Yes, scans. Now I was able to capture some of the details at the expense of the colors.
So it was either blurry, very colorful digital pictures that hurt your eyes or fairly detailed scans with washed-out colors. And yet the Etsy community took pity on me and bought some of these earrings. Okay, the earrings really weren't sooo bad, but there were so many shops with brilliant images of their creations, I really don't know how I sold as much as I did.

When the Gift Guides came out around the holidays and I wasn't in any of them, I knew it was because my images were holding me back. So late in November I bought a real camera. I'd like to say that the camera made all the difference. But my sales didn't improve and November and December sales were big disappointments. After the fall/winter show schedule and endless promoting on Etsy, I was thinking about a short break in January, just to re-charge the batteries and step away from my crafting table. For the first time, going to my table was becoming a chore and I began questioning if the amount of time I spent promoting was really worth the effort. A short break was in order...but there I go thinking again.
2008 started slowly, but by the middle of January my items started selling, with minimal promoting. And they continued to sell going into February, like every couple of days!
So back to the creating table and back to the promotion forum. I was excited that things were selling, but it was still a grind to create and especially tough to want to promote. I didn't want to lose the momentum my shop had, but I was feeling a bit burnt-out.
Then the economy fell apart and so did my momentum. I guess I was a bit disappointed when it slowed, but looking back, I should be happy to average a sale a week during March, April and May. I know I was happy for the break from my craft table. With my s/o doing most of my promoting, I was able to go on Etsy when I felt like it, promote whenever I wanted and with the exception of a couple of custom orders, I did little else.
June started slowly, but finished well and the shop picked up the momentum into July. And I found it fun to once again sit down at my table and create. I'm enjoying being back at the table again and find it therapeutic once again (after working all day at my J-O-B)
With a year under my belt, I guess I have an idea of what to look forward to and maybe this time can pace myself better to avoid burning-out
At least that's what I think....but I know what happens when I start thinking : )

EtsyNJ
I'm very excited about the EtsyNJ team. We have a grant from Etsy to run an ad in WeirdNJ (which comes out next month) and hopefuly I'll have some New Jersey type items, along with Halloween and holiday creations ready to go when the issue hits the stands.
One of the team's leaders has put together a craft show for the end of October and I hope I'm one of the vendors selected (there's already about 40 applications from the EtsyNJ team, plus whatever she receives from local crafters) The show will be held in Medford, NJ on the 25th of October. The show is called the Handmade Faire and the first show was held this past spring (I didn't do the show, but I know I paid for quite a few of the vendors show fees...it was an awesome show and I know I'll need my s/o with me to hold the money or I'll go into debt buying everything at the fall show!)
The team is planning on more advertising and have several more ideas in the works. It looks like everything we do will only help promote ourselves and promote Etsy outside of the site. More to come, along with a banner for the Handmade Faire show!

I'm so busy looking for supplies for the upcoming holiday season and planning my creations for upcoming craft shows and Etsy (along with the above mentioned EtsyNJ happenings) I wasn't very prepared last year to do Halloween and I really didn't think there was much of a market for handmade Halloween items. Of course, there I was thinking again. Halloween was indeed a great opportunity for sales and I hope to have a bit more ready to go by the beginning of next month.
I'm already to begin creating my autumn line of jewelry and I'm starting to build up inventory for the fall/winter craft show season (at least this time I think I'm ahead of the game....did I just "think"?)

No new creations this time around, but I'll be back in a few days with a craft schedule (for my non-Etsy friends ) a few new creations and the banner for the Handmade Faire

'til next time...
R

Handmade Faire Craft Show

I went to my first craft show in quite some time as a customer this past weekend. The Handmade Faire show was held in Waretown, NJ and the first impression of the show was...I So Want To Do This Show Next Year!!!
There were 20+ members of the Etsy NJ street team selling at the show and the show's promoter... AbbieRoad.etsy.com (please go visit her shop!) did a wonderful job of selecting a wide variety of vendors and the quality of the items were among the best I've seen in recent memory at a south NJ show.
The layout was great, the turnout seemed to be steady during the time I was there and of course the Etsy members were very friendly. It was a lot of fun to meet many Etsy members that I previously only met through the site forums, such as SeahorseDesigns, NiftyPear and so many others. It was also great to say Hi to old friends like South Pacific Body and Little Pies again

The show was the first annual and I can't wait for next year's show...

Now I need to go promote and list a few new creations....I have to pay for everything I bought at the show yesterday...LOL