Full to Bursting

Thanksgiving Pies - Almost as good as Beading!

Full to bursting - that seems to be the theme, heading out of Thanksgiving weekend.  Tables loaded with food, homes filled with family and friends, tummy's full of turkey and all the fixings.

And now my Etsy store; overflowing with beading goodness.  More beading goodness than ever before (and possibly ever again), topping out at a grand total of fifty one separate listings.



My focus is in a state of transition. I think I know where I'm going - into larger scale, freeform beaded sculptures.  There are also a couple of book projects I'm mulling over.  In order to clear space (both mentally and physically) for my new work, I've decided to divest myself all of my beading kits, including several that I've made specifically for in-person workshops in the past.  It's time to find new homes my beading kits. Once these are gone, I'm not planning to make more.   Time for a change!

If you've ever wanted one of my kits, this is a great chance, although quantities are extremely limited.  I have one or two kits left in many color ways and designs. Here's a few highlights of what's available:

Catch of the Day Pendant in fiery 'fiesta' colors

Catch of the Day Pendant and Necklace.  This design started with a right angle weave bezel around a flat, oval stone.  You can guess what happened next; I had to see if I could turn it into a fish.  And this pendant/necklace was born.  I particularly love the fact that since the fish lays flat, you have two different 'faces', and they don't have to be the same.  It's a two-for-one design!  I also love the 'fishing floats' made from felted beads with beaded bead caps.  I have kits in bright fiesta colors, in blues & greens, and as a stand-alone pattern.  (If I can find the felted beads which seem to have gone walk-about, I may have a couple kits in the black & silver colors, too)


Fancy Fish:  I have kits in three color schemes, and have also listed some turquoise-blue dyed magnesite and red-dyed magnesite core beads.

Snowflake Chains: I just finished updating this tutorial, and am now offering it as a stand-alone pattern.

I've also updated Snowflake & Stars; cleaning things up, and adding some additional inspiration/gallery photos.  If you've already purchased the pattern, email me and I'll send you the update. 

The Snowflake Collection includes both of my Snowflake patterns at a reduced price.

If you already own my Snowflakes and Stars tutorial and would like the Snowflake Chain Ornament, I'm happy to set up a special, half-price listing especially for you.  You'll also find the last of my Snowflake Kits in Cobalt & Gold, and Peppermint Twist.

Interested in Right Angle Weave beaded beads? 

I've updated my Criss-Cross Lantern Beads tutorial, and am offering it as a digital download.  Or you can pick up a free copy of my Lantern Bead tutorial with purchases of my second paperback, Corsets, Caps and Stays: Elegant Beaded Beads with Right Angle Weave.

I've also listed a number of kits featuring my original Corset Beads right angle weave beaded beads.  You'll find singles in several colors and a couple of sets, including my favorite Yule Tidings Collection, which has everything you need to create six holiday beaded beads, and quickly turn them into ornaments or pendants. 



Prefer my Personal Planets freeform peyote beaded beads?  I have kits in my Quinacridone Summer and Sea Breeze colors.  In my Beading Supplies section, you'll find sets of the 26mm round core beads I use for my beaded beads.

Speaking of freeform peyote,  I have three kits left for my Ocean Currents bracelet.  Please look closely at the second image in the listing as the lampworked beads included in the kit are similar, but definitely not the same as what I used in my original cuff.  I got as close as I could, but....

And if you're interested in freeform peyote ruffles, I have a small number of brooch kits leftover from a workshop I taught a while ago (Dragon Thief and Ocean Shores).  These have the exact beads I used in my Underwater Fantasy Stone Brooch series in Explorations.


Once a kit sells out, there likely won't be any more (maybe an occasional onsie-twosie leftover if I prep kits for an in-person workshops).  Kits will only be available on my Etsy store through Thursday, December 15th.  My last shipping day will be that Friday. After that, I'll still have all of my ebooks and automatic downloads, just nothing that requires shipping. 





 

Winners of my Because You Rock Giveaway

Thanks for another great year!  2013 saw growth in almost every area of my business and I couldn't have done it without all of you.

It's now time to announce the winners to my Because You Rock Giveaway.  Yes, winners, plural!  It seems only right that a fantastic December here at Skunk Hill Studio translates into a little extra beady cheer for two of the amazing people who helped make 2013 awesome.  So, drumroll please, the winners are:

Miriam W 

and 

Vala R

You've just won a little beaded bead pendant (similar to the one's in the picture) made by me in the color of your choice.  You both should receive an email from me in the next hour. 

Coffee Shop Meetup with an Etsy Admin

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend an Etsy Meetup with Melinda, a Project Manager from Etsy.  Part of their 'Home for the Holidays' program, Etsy apparently invites and encourages their employees who are traveling for the holidays to set up local meetings with Etsy sellers.  It was a fun chance to peak 'behind the curtains', even just in listening to Melinda's response to the community's comments.

After starting us off with a round of introductions, she asked us to go around and share something we particularly liked about Etsy.  Since I found this interesting, I thought I'd summarize some of the highlights:

Getting Started

• It's an easy intro to the online marketplace.  You don't need a website, or a shopping cart, don't need to know HTML.
• Easiest no maintenance shopping cart.  (I agree!  I once took an entire quarter-long course at a local community college on designing a shopping cart using wireframes, HTML and PHP).
• Clean, elegant design - very professional.  
• The ability to copy a current listing and make just a few changes to set up new listings.
• You can start without a lot of inventory (I can attest to this as my shop opened with exactly one item!).  
• You can play around and experiment with inventory and ideas.  (though I'll add a warning here - this can be an INCREDIBLE time sink!)
• Information and Statistics - Etsy provides metrics on numbers of visits and which of your pages are most popular, also info on which of your keywords are most popular.

 The Marketplace

• Etsy is the 900lb gorilla in the market - if you want an online shop Etsy has presence it's hard to beat
• One of my favorite comments was from a woman who mentioned that she mostly did fairs & shows, but her show customers kept asking if she had an online store.  So she finally opened one so she could say "Yes".  And then suddenly people were buying her jewelry who were 'not her customers.  People from France and Nebraska!'.  Places she'd never been.  I've seen this in my own store, and it's AMAZINGINGLY WONDERFUL! 
• A 'certain type of person' comes to Etsy.  This was stated repeatedly; that people had wonderful experiences with Etsy customers.  I'd have to agree. 
• One seller apparently started her store back in 2008 and left it for years.  When she came back to it last year 'it was all still there' (no active listings, but all of her data had been saved).  Once you open a store, it's yours.  
• Community - many of the local sellers had made close friends through local meetups
• A number of Etsy sellers also buy supplies on Etsy.

Then Melinda asked the question that let the genie out of the bottle - what fix/changes would you like to see on Etsy?

The conversation quickly became embroiled in the issue of resellers who sold extremely inexpensive factory knock-offs of finished items, jewelry in particular.  This was a real hot button for a lot of people, and I can see why.  Apparently there's a whole team in Etsy that searches for and researches these issues, banning sellers who don't meet Etsy's guidelines.  Reporting a store helps point this team in the right direction (and does NOT get you in trouble with anyone at Etsy - a side question that came up).  But Etsy is a smaller company than I'd realized - about 400 people total, according to Melinda's guesstimate, with many teams working evenings and weekends to try to keep up with work.

Me being the slightly pushy person I can be when I have a goal in mind, finally broke into and hijacked the conversation with my own wish list (it took three tries to hijack the conversation, but with each attempt I gained a little more traction).  My requests:

• How to enroll my store to include shipping upgrades options in individual listings?  I've seen other sellers that had this option, but couldn't figure out how they did it.  Turns out there's a Beta Team you simply need to sign up for here and waalaa, it's available to you!  Score!  
• Allow sellers to type in their own keyword pairs for Search Ads.  I recently tried out their version of 'ad words' with very little success because the only keywords I could use were the one's they provided/suggested.  The term I most wanted to optimize for, "freeform peyote" wasn't even offered as a possibility.

Then others jumped in with some fantastic suggestions including such things as

• Allowing sellers more than ten categories to organize their inventory (having recently had to search through one of the larger Etsy stores looking for a particular item, I have to agree!).
• Change Vacation Mode, so shoppers can still look at your catalog, viewing items (and prices), they just can't make purchases until the seller returns and turns off vacation mode.  This would be fabulous!  Right now, vacation mode vanishes your entire store, which isn't good for continuity. 
• Combined Shopping Cart - where you can add multiple items from multiple stores and check out all at once.  This is the holy grail for Etsy, but complicated by the fact that they allow individual stores to accept so many different forms of payment.  But there is apparently a team trying to get some version of this functional for stores (and shoppers) willing to use Etsy's in-house payment system (rather than Paypal for instance).  

 In the little time remaining, Melinda shared a bit more about Etsy and their corporate culture.  According to her, they look for people who are interested in and passionate about craftsmanship as well as technology. Because of the nature and fusion of their business, Etsy has a much higher female/male ratio than most US tech companies, with some departments like editorial and marketing which are almost entirely female. 

We met at the original Cherry Street Coffee in Pioneer Square, one of my personal favorite places that fits well with the Etsy theme as the coffee shop is also a small, independent.  A big thank you to Melinda to take the time out from her holidays to come meet with all of us!

Because you Rock Giveaway

Thank you!  For stopping by and reading my blog.  For participating in the challenges I've hosted this year.  For purchasing my kits and tutorials.  For spreading the word and helping to make this the best year yet for my Etsy store.  For sticking with me through the year.  It is truly thanks to you and everyone else like you that I can continue to produce new patterns and tutorials like my Fancy Fish Friends. And you rock!  

I've decided to host a little Give Away to say thanks for all your support and to finish out the year on an upswing.  

What will I be giving away, you ask?  How about a little beaded bead pendant like either of the two pictured at the left.  I'll even make it in whatever color the winner desires (provided I can find beads in that color).  

How do you enter the giveaway? Here's how:

• You can get an entry for visiting my main Etsy store, favoriting an item, then coming back here and commenting to let me know what you chose.  If you've favorited an item in the past, you can use that if you'd prefer.
• I'll give you a bonus entry if you let me know why you chose that particular item or items (I'm looking for concrete, constructive ideas here - something beyond 'because I liked it' which, while cool, doesn't give me much to go on in terms of continuous quality improvement).
• I'll also give you a bonus entry if you make a concrete suggestion for future additions to my Etsy store - something you'd love to see in 2014.  
• I'll give you an extra entry if you mention and link to this giveaway on your blog or Facebook page, too.  Just comment on my blog and let me know where you've posted. 
• Anyone who makes a purchase at my Etsy store automatically gets TWO entries.
• I'll also give an additional entry for every $25 in purchases - so if you made a $50 purchase, you'd get four entries.  For this purpose, I'll be counting all purchases made between November 15th and December 31st, 2013.
• If you've made a purchase in my Etsy store previously and you buy something between now and the end of the year, I'll give you an extra entry for being a repeat customer. 

Winner Selection and Upping the Stakes

I'll be choosing the winner (and if there are a LOT of entries - winners) randomly.  Lastly, if I break my Monthly Sales Record for my Skunk Hill Studio Etsy store, not only will I do a happy dance, I'll add in a separate Grand Prize of a Fancy Fish hand-stitched by me.  But that's only if my December sales top those from July 2013 (my best month to date). 

I'll announce the winner(s) on my Blog on Thursday, January 2nd.

Make sure I have a way to contact you in case you are the winner (the easiest is if your profile is set up so I can send you an email).  If for some reason I am unable to contact you, I reserve the right to choose another winner.  But I'd really, really hate to have to do that.  

New Things in my Etsy-verse

I thought I'd put together a quick post about new listings in my Etsy-verse.  Most of my 'new' listings are really variations on established themes.

First there's my new Beaded Bead Collections. 

Purple Frost pendant kits, $25

One of my Corset and Stays beaded beads, my Purple Frost kit comes with everything you need turn it into a pendant necklace or ornament, including an extra long headpin and a ribbon necklace blank. Looking at it here on my blog, the angle on the pendant in the photo looks a bit wonky; I may need to try and retake this photo. 

I'm a sucker for beaded Christmas ornaments, so I had to turn my Corset Beads to the task, coming up with my Yule Tidings kit with all the beads and materials to make six beaded beads.  This kit includes the full PDF of my book Corsets, Caps and Stays (if you'd rather the print version of my book, let me know - as a blogger friend I'll make the substitution for free through the new year). 

Yule Tidings Miniature Ornament Collection - Beaded Beads kit, $54

While it doesn't show the whole collection, I think this is one of my favorite photos

The bead on the far right above reminds me of a Japanese lantern, I love the warm of the dark bronze metallic iris beads against the deep ruby red and olivey greens. 

Want to tackle a larger project?  There's my Stars at Midnight necklace kit.  This is the necklace featured in my book - I finally gathered all of the materials and put together kits so you can make your own version.  Including again, a full PDF of my book. 

Stars at Midnight long necklace kit, $62

I've also brought back my Personal Planets series of freeform peyote beaded beads.  This was one of the classes I'd proposed for Bead & Button and Bead Fest, but since neither were interested, I'm slowly adding the kits to my Etsy shop.  For now, there's Quinacridone Summer (inspired by a painting by the fantastic artist JJ Jacobs) and my newest beauty: 

Whispers in Pink, freeform peyote beaded bead kit, $41

With Whispers in Pink, I had a great time playing with magatamas, tila beads and baby spikes and included all three in the kits.   The strong silvers and blue-greys combined with the spikes give it a harder, almost industrial feel, but the whispers of pinks and lavender add a hint of the romantic, keeping it from tipping over the edge. 

Whispers with its Kumihimo braid

This is one of my all time favorite beaded beads.  And the photo above is another of my favorite photos. I love how Whispers seems to float in a sea of darkness, like a planet drifting through space.
  

All of my Personal Planets kits include two base beads and more than enough seed beads so you'll have some left over when you're done.  In the photo at right I used some of my extra beads in a Kumihimo braid, finishing it off as a necklace. Each kit comes with my extra-long headpins to make quick pendants.  Whispers is a little more expensive than my Quinacridone Summer kit simply because the beads (including the 14 baby spikes) are more expensive. 






Then there's my newest Fish Friend kit.  Way back in college I had a Betta Fighting Fish named Mordred in just these colors.  So I thought of naming this kit after him, but for now it's simply called Rumble Fish, because I think that's fun enough as it is.  (And that was one of my favorite book titles back in the day). 

One of my Rumble Fish hanging out in some coral, $45

Each of my Fancy fish kits should make three to four fish.  They all come with four bead cores, and I've used each kit myself in the testing process.  Others in this series include Ellie the Elegant (also known as my Wedding Fish kits), Rosie the Red and Blue Fish, who are stuck with the Dr. Seuss name for life. 

And in case I haven't shared it here yet,  I've also put together some new Snowflake kits, like this one:

Peppermint Twist Beaded Snowflake Kits, $27.50

Each kit is designed to make LOTS of snowflakes - it just looks prettier in the thumbnail when I only include one. 

So that's what's new at Skunk Hill Studio.

My Stash to Your Stash

I've also openned a new little shop called MyStash2YourStash for, you guessed it, Destashing!  I was totally surprised that someone else hadn't already grabbed the name.

I'm a collector.  I start into a new artistic or crafty medium and I start collecting.  Many of the items in my studio were gifts, some have been passed on to me by other crafters, much of it I've purchased.  When I move on to something new, the old gets carefully stored away against future need.  But after moving my studio (and everything in it) twice this year I've decided that maybe it really is time to let a few of these things go to new, loving homes.

So far, what you'll find are my Crazy Quilting grab bags containing smaller squares of fabrics, lots of trimmings, buttons, braids, lace, yoyos and more.  I spent ---far---- too much time putting together these themed kits, but I'm really hoping people will love them.

All the listings in my new Destashing store

Some of the items in my Garden Greens collection

from my Arabian Knights grab bag

While I collected all of this for crazy quilting, I've also used them to make ornaments and decorate masks, and they'd work well for Barbie doll clothes, too.   I just popped over to MyStash to grab the screenshots and discovered it has an admirer!  Wow, someone found my store through search!

After the new year, I plan to add more to both stores.  Let me know if there's anything in particular that you'd love to see.

Advent Calendars

As has happened so often of late, I'm way behind on my blogging.  My plan is to catch up this week with a blog post every day, just to see if I can do it.  Future posts will look at the additions to my Etsy store and the openning of a new, smaller store; I'll be announcing a give-away as a thank you to everyone who's helped support me this past year and this holiday season, and I'll be writing up a trip report on the Etsy Rain holiday show. 

But since today is December 1st, my thoughts are on Advent Calendars.   I love this time after Thanksgiving, leading up to Christmas and one of my favorite traditions for as long as I can remember have always been advent calendars.  A few years, I bought this fun, tree-shaped advent calendar from Starbucks.  It came with little chocolates in each of the drawers.


While it was cute enough, the next year I took it to my studio to give it a little make-over:

Each year, I keep an eye out for something new to put into the little drawers.  What has become a tradition is dividing Clement Clarke Moore's The Night Before Christmas into fourteen quatrains for inclusion in the drawers.   

This year through much roundaboutation, I came across Melissa's Etsy store, Loo de Loop.  She make gorgeous hand-sewn Advent calendars (I'm afraid it's too late to order those this year), but perfect for me, she also sells these fun activity pages for your calendar as a PDF download.  So I bought a set, but then I got to thinking that they didn't really match the color scheme of my current calendar.

I have Illustrator, I said to myself, wondering just how hard it could be to make my own pages.  A quick web search for Illustrator tutorials and found pay dirt:

*  A fantastic video tutorial by Alma Loveland on how to create decorative border frames.  (More free tutorials at nicolesclasses.comhttp://nicolesclasses.com).
*  A slightly less-clear, but still useful tutorial on how to make Snowflakes using Dynamic Shapes by Astute Graphics
*  Another Snowflake tutorial on Calobee Doodles that I haven't used yet, but looks much easier.  Their focus is design, the blog is beautiful and they have an Etsy site where they sell digital download Advent Calendars!  I love the circularity of all of this. 

My design based on the tutorials

At the right is my new design.  Like my pretty green borders?  I drew them myself with my pen tool.  I love all my little snowflakes - every single one is based off of a single six-pointed star.

Curious how they'd look in person, or would you like to download them for your own calendar?  The poem is long enough, that I've placed it in two files and uploaded both as PDFs to my dropbox.  Feel free to download them for your personal use:

     Page 1
     Page 2

It's kind of fun to watch them download, because the snowflakes appear first, a sprinkle at a time scattered about the page, with the frames coming last.  So it looks like it's snowing!

This morning I cut all the little slips of paper, both from my sheets and the ones I purchased from LoodeLoop, rolled them up, tied them with yarn and stuffed them into the appropriate drawers.

Since I don't have kids to open the drawers and it feels a little odd to open them myself, I make Joe open them and hover over his shoulder.  He's such a good sport!  Today he opened the first drawer, which contained the first quadrain of the poem and today's activity "Pick Out a Christmas Tree". 

His response?  "Ah, it's our to-do list!"

Kit Making - What format should I offer the instrutions?

I've been busy with a new round of kit making, filling in gaps where inventory has run low and putting together some new kits as well (some already available on my Etsy shop and some of which should go live within the next week or so).  As part of this, I've revisited the issue of the format of the included instructions.  Specifically - should I continue providing the instructions as printed pages, or should I move to a digital format - either as an included CD or as a digital download. 

As part of this process, I put together a Pro and Con list for each of the three format, trying to look at things from both my and my potential purchasers perspectives.  Here's what I came up with:

Paper Copies
Pros

• The kit is immediately complete, without need for further work on students part
• No need to have computer/internet access
• Hardest to reproduce - though not by much

Cons

• Weighs more - increases shipping rates, especially for international packages
• Bulky - especially in the case of my fish tutorial, which is 24 pages long
• Costs more - ink costs keep going up, and I have to pass those increases along in my kit prices. (I spend nearly as much on ink in a year as I do on beads).
• The instructions are printed on my inkjet printer, so if they get wet, the ink will likely run

CDs
Pros

• Instructions are part of the kit
• Purchasers can print multiple copies for their personal use if first copy is damaged
• Purchasers may also load the file onto their digital devices (tablets, iPads) if they like

Cons

• Many newer machines don’t have CD drives - could make it difficult for some purchasers
• CDs are fragile, and could be damaged/broken in shipping
• Ease of printing multiple copies makes it tempting to print extra copies for friends
• To make them look nice, I’d have to print CD labels - one more layer of complication

Digital Downloads
Pros

• I already offer a number of my tutorials as digital downloads - people seem comfortable with the format
• Purchasers will likely have the instructions well before their physical package arrives
• Purchasers can print multiple copies for their personal use if first copy is damaged
• Purchasers may also load the file onto their digital devices (tablets, iPads) if they like
• Purchasers may access the download from anywhere with an internet connection
• No printing or CD costs
• More and more people are comfortable with digital formats

Cons

• Instructions not an immediate part of the kit - Purchasers must take an extra action to access instructions
• Students must have an Internet connection to download instructions (but if they purchased my kit through Etsy, then they obviously do)
• Ease of printing multiple copies makes it tempting to print extra copies for friends
• Etsy doesn't have a built-in system for dealing with digital content as part of a physical sale, so I will have to email the download code to the purchaser, instead of allowing Etsy to provide it.

There are definite pros and cons for each format.  After way too much thought, I've decided I'm leaning toward digital downloads.  I think it's a clean, streamlined approach.  Personally, I like having my tutorials on my iPad - it's far more convenient for me than having to keep track of lots of pieces of paper, especially when I'm working out in my garden and there's a breeze.  For the download, I will email the Purchaser within 24 hours (48 hours over weekends) with the download code and will also include download instructions inside the kit itself.

But, I'm moving slowly.  So, through the end of the year if you purchase one of my older kits for which I've already printed instructions, you will receive a printed copy.  Unless it adversely affects shipping costs (such as in international packages) in which case I will send you a digital download code instead.  For newly minted kits, you will receive a download code for the instructions.  The instructions will be in PDF format. 

And, as a fail safe during this transition, if you have a preference as to which format your instructions come in - printed or digital download - let me know.  Send me a note with your purchase and I will make sure you receive whichever you prefer.

So that's where my thoughts are at present, but I'm curious if you have any preferences, one way or the other?  Let me know!  While I make the kits, I make them for people like you and your feedback helps me stay on track.  

Paper Dyeing - an Explosion of Color

I'm in another one of those stages right now where I can't yet share any of current bead work, so I thought I'd share a little side project - dyeing paper.

Why dye paper?  Well, originally I used it in my design work.  Now, I mostly use it to wrap my Etsy packages.  But more than that, I dye paper because I love the chance to play with color in such a direct fashion.  Using the resulting papers for wrapping is a lovely way to use the papers so that I can dye more down the road without burrying my studio in the stuff.  :)

So, here we go:

I fold a dozen or so papers a day until my tray is full

My dye workspace mid process - even the cleanup paper towels end up pretty

I dye the folded papers one at a time and place them on my cafeteria tray

Then move them to plastic and open them up a little to dry - my studio is awash in plastic!

turns out there was a leak in one of my gloves. 

After scrubbing.  The dye really shows up the damage from my beading needle

Time to unfold the dried papers - I gather them in bundles first like streamers of color

I stack the unfolded papers to await ironing

Then it's time to iron each sheet of paper - one by one

the ironing makes the designs more visible

Stacking the dyed papers on my main work table

I had to roll one of the stacks because I love this cross section shot

some of the papers fanned out on my work table.  I dyed 102 sheet in total

My first Etsy package wrapped using my newly dyed papers -with one of my little cards

So there it is!  Several days and weeks worth of intermittent work in a series of fifteen photos.

Right now I wrap all of the items from each Etsy purchase up together as they fit better that way in the packing envelope.  But going into the holiday season, I will offer to wrap them individually, and include blank versions of my little gift cards (right now the cards are little thank you notes from me).

Fancy Fish Redux

The fish are checking out sample pages from my new tutorial

This week has been a flurry of sorting and purging to move my studio and renewed work on my Fancy Fish Tutorial.

Our Destash Sale last weekend was a bust in terms of finding new homes for our old inventory.  Turns out it was openning day for ticket sales for the Mariners and there was a Sounder's game, so the few people who did try to come couldn't find parking.  Ouch!

The hours spent in the studio waiting for visitors were productive time however, as I continued to sort through my stash.  It's really frightening how much I've collected over the years.   I'm looking for new homes for much of my fabric collection from when I used to do costume design, wearable arts and crazy quilting.  (Thanks to a link I found in my inbox this morning, I may try consigning some of it through Our Fabric Stash.  Talk about timing!)

While sorting through tubs of fabric, buttons, lace and who knows what, I also came up with a better way to organize my Fancy Fish Tutorial and ideas for several additions.  Luckily, the kind souls who'd purchased my tutorial were willing to wait a couple of days for delivery.  So it was back to the the drawing board and several more rounds of edits.  I finished it up Tuesday evening just before bedtime.  And sighed with relief.

The latest edition topped out at twenty-four book style pages.  This is my most detailed tutorial yet and the diagrams are the prettiest I've ever created.  I showed my newly refinished tutorial to my husband (who had been out of town for the past week) and my best friend yesterday and got a tongue lashing from both for underpricing my tutorials.  Chatting via email with one of the people who'd purchased my tutorial, she agreed that I'd underpriced it - especially since my license allows the purchaser to sell items they make with my pattern at local craft shows and galleries.

Bowing to their wisdom, I raised my price a little on Etsy.  However that didn't seem fair to my blog readers who knew the old price.  So, through the end of the month, you can still purchase my Fancy Fish Beadwoven Friends PDF tutorial for the old price by using the coupon code BLOGFRIENDs, which will take $3 off at checkout.  This coupon is only good for my Fancy Fish tutorial, please!  

The Holiday Collection and Cyber Monday at Skunk Hill Studio

This is my first year with an active Etsy Store leading into the holiday season.  Last year, my store featured exactly one item - my Snowflakes pattern.

This year, I've added an assortment of my favorite kits and patterns, many just listed in the past week. 

I've even created my first ever 'Holiday Collection', featuring items I thought particularly suited for the holidays.

Among the listings I've added are a freeform peyote beading kit to make a piece similar to my Peacock Spring freeform peyote cuff:

Like all my kits, this one includes all the beads and findings you'll need, along with thread and beading needles.  The eight-page tutorial includes detailed, full-color illustrations to get you started and design notes about my process with full-color photographs.

On the upscale side, I'm offering a custom, made-by-me-for-you Lacework Bracelet in your choice of colors, sizes and closures.  I've only listed one of these.  I decided to offer this for the holidays and won't be offering it again any time in the near future. 

Beady-related postcards

After spending some time looking through a slew of other Etsy stores, I added gift certificates in two denominations.  While I worked with gift certificates years ago as co-owner of a gallery, this is a new exploration for me as a solo artist and designer.  Guess I'll see if there's any interest.

I'm currently running a Black Friday - Cyber Monday Promotion: for all orders over $25, I will include a free set of seven bead-related postcards. Six feature some of my original beadwoven designs and the seventh is a fun collage of my concrete cabochons. This offer is only good through November 26th 2012. and only on sales which include shipping.  But if you enter the code BAUBLE into the comments section during checkout, I'll extend this offer now through the end of the year for my blog readers. 

Extra sets of postcards are also available for purchase.

I've even updated some of my older listings, such as my Snowflakes and Stars.  How do you like its new look? 

Oh, and now I have snowflake kits too.  They were one of my post popular items at Bead Fest Texas.  If you already have my instructions and just want the kit fillers, contact me and I can put together a 'refill' listing for you.

 

 

 

 

 

Etsy Rain

This weekend was the EtsyRain holiday show.  They took over McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center for two days.  I didn't have a booth, but I was there on Friday, helping to set up.  Which meant I got to be one of the first people to see all the booths once they were set up.  Fun!  I thought I'd include a sneak peak of a few of my favorites here: 

Just a few of the wonderful vendors from the show

gift tags from Tuttaloupress

I purchased to jars of Sweet Caroline's jams. They were supposed to be Christmas presents, but we've already broken into them over the Thanksgiving weekend because they were too yummy to leave alone.  So it looks like I'll need to buy more.

The award for funniest item has to go to the knitted beards from FoamyWader.  Especially the Peanut Butter and Jelly paired beards.  Don't know what you'd do with them.  But they definitely deserve a chuckle.

Somehow, Tuttalou Press didn't make it into my treasury, but she definitely deserves a call out.  Her work is simply gorgeous.  Her "It's Coal" gift tags are her best sellers, but there's plenty else wonderful here. And check out her About page!  She has some great pictures of her using her vintage press.

Winter Give-Away Celebration

To help celebrate a stellar year and my first every Holiday Collection, I've decided to host a series of give-aways here on my blog.   The first is for one of my Snowflakes and Stars Kits.  This is a $27.50 value plus shipping.  I'd like to leave this open to everyone, but international shipping quickly adds up, so if the winner is from outside of the US, I will happily cover up to $3 worth of shipping and send you a paypal invoice for the difference.   

In order to enter, leave a comment below between now and December 1st, when I'll be teaching my Snowflakes and Stars class at Fusion Beads.  I will draw for a winner that evening after my class.

For additional entries you can also post this giveaway to your blog or Facebook page or favorite items in my Etsy store and let me know you've done so by posting here.  And, if you make a purchase in my Etsy store, that will give you two additional entries. 

Why Make This? Telling Your Story

Steph Cortes with her fantastic 'nerdy' crossstitch - Venn diagrams anyone?

Last week I attended a fantastic Etsy workshop with Steph Cortes of nerd JERK entitled "Balls Out Branding".  I'd dithered 'til the last moment, whether or not I'd sign up.  I am so glad I did.  It was a small workshop - just six of us, and Steph was a total riot.

I came away with two key points, presented in entirely new ways.  The first is the title of this post - "Why Make This?"  Steph pushed us to explore why, out of all the myriad things we could be doing, we are drawn to our particular art/craft forms.  And to tell the story of our work. 

Sounds so easy and in theory it can be so very hard.  Blogging's one thing - here it's really all about story.  But as soon as I head to my Etsy store to write listings, I start thinking about key words and how will people find me and what details about the product do they need to know.  All the dry, completely necessary, but often boring things.

It's easier in person, where you can sort of hash through ideas. I realized that conversation is in many ways like a first draft.  In most conversational instances, your words aren't expected to be picture perfect.  Instead, if you're like me, you sort of feel your way towards where you want to go.

So, Saturday morning found me sitting at the computer, looking at my Etsy listings and thinking about how I can add to them.  Except, great procrastinator that I am, I decided to go out hunting for other artists with story telling abilities and see how they did it.  A reconnaissance mission! 

I made a treasury to record my findings:

My very eclectic, story-telling treasury

As I searched and searched for stories, I became more and more open to what that could mean. 

With two of the items in my treasury, their photography tells the story. 

Emma Sommerfeld's collection of photographs for her Cherry Red Scarf is a study in simplicity and contrast.  Her model, a cross between Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, wears a dark dress and stands in a winter forest.  All of the colors are shades of black, white or neutrals except for the scarf and the red lipstick. 

I absolutely cannot wear that color of red, yet she makes me want to buy this scarf because it's so beautiful and romantic.  Her shop's on vacation right now, but the links above should still work.

 On first glance, I thought that CamilleDesigns made crocheted doilies, reminding me of my grandmother Lela as she used doilies extensively in her decorating and I inherited many of them.  So of course I had to check it out. 

I discovered - she makes rugs!  Somehow I'd managed to miss the two bare feet at the bottom of the photo.   What a wonderfully clever way of showing the scale and immediately letting people know what they're looking at! 

Here, it was simply the title.  Where most of the listings from my search started with "Felted Slippers" or more detailed, "Felted Wool Slippers".  Here we have "like a sunrise on the ocean" - almost a little haiku.  Or the title of a painting.  I could wear a bit of vacation and art every single morning if I bought these!

Search engine optimization recommends including your search terms early, early in your listings.  But what if every once in a while I let poetry take precedence instead? 

With others, threads of story ran through multiple aspects of their Etsy presence.  Callie Mitchell's beaded bracelet tutorial, Garden Rows, is beautiful in it's own right.  The story of her inspiration for the piece made it even richer (told in one short paragraph). 

Her artist bio continued her story as well; far more engaging than a dry recitation of dates and awards.




Don't want to bore you, so just two more call outs.

Since she inspired this treasury, I wanted to include one of Steph's pieces and her comic, A Girl Can Dream, Right? was a perfect fit. 

I love how her listing starts with the story of the comic's origins, segues to the comic itself, then back to it's creation.  All in three short paragraphs.  Nice. 

I caught her at Geek Girl Con and made her sign a copy for me.  She even drew a little self-portrait!

And then the pièce de résistance.  If you only look at one listing, you have to check this one out simply because it's absolutely over the top.  Be sure to take a look at Jimmy McBride's artist profile - that's where it all comes together. 

His entire Etsy experience is internally consistent, even if it doesn't quite match the world as you and I know it. 






So, there were some of the examples I found.  Do you have any amazing examples of storytelling to share?  Ways of connecting the viewer to the artist or the art work?  I'd love to hear them!  :)

And like an extra scene after the credits at the movies, here's Steph's signature and self-portrait.