Fresh from the desk: Biker chic

The hills are rumbling with the sound of Harleys.  It's that time of year again and for the next few weeks all the little towns throughout the Hills will be swarming with bikers on their vacations.  Of course, I hope to get in on the action a little. ;)  However, that means I need to gear a few pieces towards them, without looking like everything else they can find at any gift shop anywhere in the area.  Behind the leather and spikes they're all just normal people, dentists and such, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much, but there are specific styles and motifs that biker style tends to gravitate to.  Namely, chunky silver chains and skulls (the more skulls the better lol) mostly in black, silver, gunmetal, red, orange.  A lot of them go for the more tribal look with leather, bone beads, feathers, teeth, claws, etc.  Problem is, all of those things are all over every store in the area, so how to make mine different?

My plan, if you can call it a plan, is to stay with the same style sensibility I am used to working in but use the darker colors and keep everything on the masculine side with just a touch of femininity.  The fire agate hemp necklace I made last week should do well.  Last night I made this one, with a carved bone pendant, leopard jasper, rose quartz, and hematite strung with black seed beads and gunmetal silver bugle beads, with the metal-free closure I had basically abandoned for too long just for the ease of using a toggle clasp.  It's strong, a little tough, a little frilly, hypoallergenic, and I hope it bridges the gap a little bit.  If nothing else, I like it a lot!

 This one was simple enough.  Carved bone pendant in the shape of an acorn, hematite beads, red horn beads, black and white bone beads, and glass  beads with a slightly greenish mottled finish on sterling silver memory wire.  The acorn came in the same package as the other black bone pendant above, so I guess we'll see if anyone is interested in that one at the show.  I have other pendants I can switch out, or just leave the pendant out entirely.  We'll see how it goes.  As the evening goes on, I'm toying with the idea of switching it out for the other that was in that package, which is carved to look sort of like a claw.  Maybe I should do that, it would probably appeal to more people than the acorn does.

One more on memory wire.  I'm not sure what the stones are exactly, but the large center stone is dyed turquoise with goldish veins throughout.  The silver spacers jangle a little on the sterling silver memory wire and the white stone chips have grey veins throughout.  This one is definitely something I'd wear regularly, but it's not overly girly.  It's a simple but slightly chunky light statement piece that should make people take notice without being too loud.  I just wish I knew what the stones were... people do ask about that.

I'll make more tonight to get ready for another Saturday sale tomorrow.  Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy the Rally if you're headed North!

*UPDATE*  I did end up reworking the acorn necklace with the carved bone claw and replaced the seed beads with all hematite beads.  Much better, yes?

Fresh from the desk: Lots of new listings up!

My Etsy page saw its first sale today to a complete stranger!  While I love my family and friends for ordering jewelry from me, it's a nice little ego boost to sell to someone I've never met.  I was very excited about this today (as everyone close to me can attest, as I let several of them know right away) and made a conscious effort tonight to photograph and list the new items I've made in the last couple of weeks.  I haven't figured out how to use Mom's new camera very well yet, so these pictures aren't much better than the ones I was taking with my cheap camera, but I'll get there.  Tomorrow I'll mess with it some more and get some clearer close-ups.

For now, it's bedtime, but I wanted to share the news.  Check out my new listings if you feel so inclined, and have a wonderful night!

Fresh from the desk: Doing better at shows

Yesterday was a good day.  The weather was gorgeous (if a little bit warm, and a couple of clouds would've been nice since we were on blacktop but Mom brought in their tent so I was out of the sun at least), there were people everywhere in town thanks to the Arts & Crafts Festival and the Miss South Dakota Pageant and the antique car show, and there were lots of vendors on our corner so it worked out great.  I made more sales yesterday than I had on my own before, without Mom's garage sale-type stuff to help with traffic.  Any sale makes it a good day when there's no booth rent, but 4 sales when last time was 2 makes for a great day!  There was so much going on in town that we weren't sure we'd get any traffic at all, considering how much was available at the A&C Festival, but we figured it was worth a try and it actually worked better than we expected.  It's open for one more day so I may go wander around today to see what my direct competition looks like in town.  A friend commented that everything over there was more expensive than mine, which I don't doubt, but I want to see the quality too.

I decided to make a couple changes this time.  My signs are smaller and more specific and placed where the items are on the table so there's no confusion.  I need to get a real banner made at some point, but I thought a little shop sign at the front might help people know what I have. The bookmarks are all together on the tree with one on a book for demonstration, I got a little black display hand for the bracelets and anklets, a sign on the earrings but one pair is over with its matching necklace, and the necklaces spread out to encourage touching but grouped generally by style.  Hemp together, toggle clasps together, memory wire together.  I've found that when the necklaces are displayed on a velvet card, they get visual attention, but when people are comfortable picking up the pieces to get a better look at them they seem more likely to buy.  Also, the cards fall over too easily in the wind so it's not really worth it.

It was a long day.  I was there from 8am to about 4:30pm, and if I hadn't had the tent I wouldn't have lasted near that long.  The problem with the tent is it's rather short, anyone taller than 5 feet has to duck to get under it and I don't have anything to raise it with, especially spur-of-the moment like that, so people weren't really approaching the table when it was under the tent.  I moved the table out, so just I was under the tent, but then I wasn't using up very much of it and there were other people struggling with sun parasols and such, so I moved my whole setup over to the other jeweler's table so we could all share my shade.  They were incredibly grateful and wouldn't let me pay for the beads, bamboo flute, and pickles I picked out from their tables.  It made the day go faster to have someone to chat with.  Whitaker Jewelers is run by a middle-aged couple, and they recently moved down from Hill City so they're still trying to establish a presence in Hot Springs. We're not in competition with each other so I'm sure we'll end up with some kind of working relationship before too long.  They work with Black Hills Gold, silver, wire wrapping, gemstones, wax casting, all kinds of stuff I can't do, and they don't do a whole lot of beading, especially not the kind I do, but they have access to beads and gemstones that I don't so they will probably end up being my stone suppliers.  I have no problem paying them more than cost, because whatever they would charge me will definitely be less than a chain hobby store would.  She and I chatted a lot yesterday, it was fun.

Since next Saturday is the first weekend of the month again, we'll be back.  I need to keep up with my high production this week so I have more to show and more to list.  I'm also looking at easy crochet patterns for bags, purses, wallets, cat toys, and other various small things I could make to expand my audience a little bit.  Handmade beaded crocheted bag? Yes please!  I also had an idea for beaded hat bands on straw hats for all the ladies who loved my floppy hat yesterday and wished they had one.  Question now is where to find the hats for cheap enough (and decent enough quality) to sell them at a decent price.  That will take some research and I'm not sure if that will get done this summer or not.

At any rate, I need to clean my house today.  Also, my cats have made it clear that I'm not allowed to leave today.  I'll have to, since I need to go to the store for some printer ink and I'd like to wander the A&C to see what's there, but I intend to stay home the rest of the day.  Somebody has to hold these kitties.

Saturday show a success!

The White Elephant is a consignment shop on the corner by the viaduct in downtown Hot Springs so it has a prime location for drive-by traffic, plus they started doing Saturday events last summer where people could bring in their own garage sale-type items to set up in the parking lot and make a multi-family event where people could leave their unsold items at the store for consignment.  He did this to increase foot traffic and increase and broaden his consignment inventory and it has worked pretty well for him.  He wants to change the feel of his shop to include more furnishings and fewer doo-dads so he's hoping this will work for him this year too.

Well, I'm rather proud of us. We brought my jewelry setup, our old stereo (with components, big speakers, and cabinet), a band saw, belt sander, jigsaw, VCR, various tools and electronics that were only collecting dust and we got rid of a good chunk of it.  All the tools went first, and we made $55 in the first hour thanks to that!  It wasn't much of a jewelry crowd, but I did get some cards handed out and one of Mom's friends came by and bought most of my necklaces, followed shortly by a friend of one of my friends who took another, so overall it was a good day.  We were only there for about 4 hours (that's about as long as Mom can stand it, and I would've needed a lunch break if we had stayed longer) but considering it wasn't an advertised event, it was a little chilly, and there were only 2 other vendors there, I'm very pleased with it.  So, now I need to go work on my inventory again - my Kambaba jasper necklace sold, as well as the wooden flower necklace, and the soapstone heart, one of my layering necklaces (with 2 orders in the works), and my flowery beaded choker (which is easy to duplicate so I'll leave my Etsy listing up on that one and just update the pictures).  We left the stereo and a handful of my old earring designs for consignment and the VCR will be going to the Salvation Army next time we go to Rapid City.

There was no booth fee so we felt no guilt whatsoever in spending the day on a street corner, especially since the band saw and belt sander sold immediately.  We just need to convince Dad to clean out some more tools and I need to get to beading!