Lorelei Eurto's Blog, page 51

2 Days in the Life of a Craft show Vendor

Click this image above to get the full panoramic effect.... I am really loving the ios7 for my iPhone, and it's new camera features!  So above, you'll see the general area of where my booth was set up this weekend for a 2 day show in Sharon Springs NY. I'm usually always in this general spot, but never so close to an entrance, which was just to the left of the both to the left of mine. Which made it nice for traffic. Also, another bonus- I had lots of sun throughout the weekend making it a bit warmer. It was a chilly weekend!

Setting up the booth early Saturday morning, took some extra time because I was by myself. Setting up the 12 x 12 tent with one person is a bear.  It CAN be done, and WAS accomplished but not without a lot of sweat and almost tears.  The rest of the set up was easy-peasy. As you can see, I used my pvc pipe system to raise the tables up 14 inches. they are surprisingly solid and with all the heavy wood crates and slate tiles on them, helped tremendously in stabilizing them.

 Added a bit of Autumn flair with some fake leaf garland.  and just look at the natural leafy carpet down on the ground, perfect!

 the check-out station also had some leafy foliage decoration. This green box is the best - put trays of jewelry inside, and would pull things out of "the vault" when pieces would sell.

A woman came into my booth this weekend and asked if I had anything with acorn charms. So I pointed out the 3 pieces I had on display that incorporated some acorns. She found one she liked but said " well I really like it! But I just don't need the jewelry, I just want the acorn"
Ummm. maybe you should head to a bead show? She never once asked me who made the charms, which is something I would have gladly shared with her, but she acted like I was going to sit there and just take apart that piece and give her the acorn. I don't think so. Sorry Charlie. Doesn't work that way.

 Display was pretty much as it usually is for my shows. Wood crates, linen  tiles, busts, and some slate tiles for displays. This table, I pushed up against the front of the tent and was the first thing people would see when walking by. A bunch of FB friends suggested this to get people engaged, and it really worked wonders! I will do this from now on! I always had people looking, and usually coming in to see more at the second table.

 In the future, I will do a few things differently. My tin pieces (seen above) were the highlight but I didn't have many to show. SO I will have MORE tin for my next show, and I will definitely bring some un-cut tins to show people what exactly it is I've been using. A woman stopped by and wanted to know where the pretty ceramic disc necklace went that she eyed earlier and I realized it was one of the tin necklaces she was actually talking about.

I think I need to also invest in a few more busts so that I can have a bit more to display vertically.


 I need another crate like the one above, far right that I use to display earrings. I could have used another display for the front table. I could only display about half of my stock on this one crate.

I notice in the photo above, a wrinkled tablecloth which normally doesn't bother me but makes me think maybe this would have been a great spot for a banner. I should look into getting one made up.



The first day, was kind of a disaster. I got home all excited to find out I had really done well that day in sales. Went to process my credit card payments only to find that I failed to get all the info I needed to process them manually. I had little to none cell service in Sharon Springs.  So I couldn't use my square at all and there was no free wi-fi to speak of. So I took down numbers to process them later and forget to get the CVV code on the back of each card. I did get everyone's name and billing zip code so I was able to look most of the people up online and could call home phones if they had them listed. I left several messages for people but have only heard back from one. So if you saw me at the show this weekend, made a purchase with a credit card on Saturday, please call me! I need that number to process the payment!!

This was my view at one moment on Sunday. It was nice to see many men stop to check out my booth too. These guys hung around a few minutes, looking at my jewelry.

I had really great feedback from shoppers all weekend - the majority said that my jewelry was VERY unique compared to what they saw other people selling. That's a good feeling, to know that I am actually standing out a bit from the crowd. I relied on what people were saying because I never got the chance to go around and check out what people were selling.

Packing up my booth was BRUTAL. Many trips to the truck that was parked a ways away, made me realize that I need to possibly invest in a wheeled cart that I can pile all the crates on and carry them all at once because I had to have taken about 150 trips back and forth. It felt like 150, I know it wasn't. This will absolutely be the last time that I do this show alone without an assistant. 

All in all it was a successful weekend. Sunday wasn't as busy as Saturday was, but got a few sales and had a nice time talking with people that were out enjoying the festival. Made a few new friends, and enjoyed some good conversation. 

Sale

I am offering 30% off with coupon code Lorelei til Saturday.
Sale coupon will work in both of my shops.

Earrings Everyday

Today was my turn to post some earrings at the lovely blog, Earrings Everyday. You might want to head on over there today.... I am giving away some cute shabby chic Tin earrings- and you certainly don't want to miss the chance to win them. For FREE.  right??

Later!


p.s. DO NOT COMMENT ON THIS POST!  They won't count, you gotta go to Earrings Everyday to enter!

Counting down to the J A D E S C O T T U P D A T E

J A D E     S C O T T    U P D A T E...... 
Be sure to stop by Jade's etsy shop, she's posting some cute new pendants and charms today in her totally adorable, totally JADE style.... you like paper boats? She's got em. You want hedgies? She's got em.  Oh, you'd rather have a little steamboat pendant!?  YUP. She's got those too.

Be there or be square. 
Today.
2pm Central time.3 pm Eastern time.

Weekend Woes

The weekend flew by, as always! It was nice to take a break from jewelry and actually work on my home. I did laundry. I cleaned up the bookshelves in the office, cleaned out the linen closet, creating over 6 bags of stuff that I'll drop off at the Salvation Army this week. It feels good to purge and do some things that I have been wanting to accomplish, pretty much all summer long.
I just wish I had more time.

I am glad to see that so many readers truly enjoyed my Inspiration Strikes post on Friday! I think it might be fun to do this maybe once every week or every other week. Will try to strive for this!!

Today, while football is on, I went up to the studio and broke my no-work rule on a Sunday, but kept it simple and made a few pretty girly earrings for my shop.


  These are both available for sale in the webstore. Here's the link!

This week I'll be frantically getting prepared for one of the biggest shows of the season, Harvest Festival in Sharon Springs NY.  I'll be posting a lot of jewelry on FB but probably won't be listing any of it. If you see things there that you want to purchase, please do inquire - as I may be able to part with it before the weekend show.  Here's my Facebook link in case we aren't friends there yet.

inspiration strikes

I can get inspired by all sorts of things, but the most common source of inspiration comes from a couple of genres in Jewelry.  I took a spin around Pinterest yesterday morning and favorited quite a few pieces both in Contemporary Jewelry and Ethnic Jewelry.

Inspiration for Asymmetrical design usually stems from Contemporary designs. I found this simple necklace, on a cord, with a horizontal pendant and some beads.  I love the simplistic nature of this piece, and the asymmetrical layout- but to me it looks completely balanced.

This piece is from BHMakes on Etsy.

Here is my take on this design. The general bead layout is similar but I used some art beads and a different type of wood bar focal. I brought in some faceted jade rondelles, some glass melons and a few pewter elements from Green Girl Studios. The necklace is strung on orange Silk griffin cording.



I searched Pinterest for some Ethnic bracelets and found this one. I love the texture of the wrapped seed beaded bangle and the two tone color palette, with the wood rings. I didn't have a leather or cord that was quite thick enough to achieve this look, but went with a smaller cord, one color palette, and asymmetrical design that turned out very asymmetrical and modern in nature.

This piece is from Shop-Mango.com

Here is my bracelet design. I used a long enameled tube from Gardanne beads, wrapped seed beaded wire, and just a few rubber o rings from My Elements.


The bottom line is, you can be inspired by jewelry without completely copying the design bead for bead. Be inspired by colors, shapes, general layout of design, or materials and let your imagination run wild with your own design abilities and flair.

Here are some other pieces I was inspired by in my search...

  Angela Gerhard  Love the deep red color of this necklace, and how the discs are strung through holes towards the tops of each disc. This is an element that I could used in a piece of tin jewelry but maybe in smaller amounts, or in a bracelet design. Printed tin would give this piece a totally different look and add my own flair.

   marzee.nl
 I absolutely adore the layout of this necklace above. The asymmetrical design is quite pleasing to myeye and I love the bright Splash of Green with the darkened black metal. I can see a beadedpiece using this same layout with different types of focals, and maybe some flat coins or different shaped Czech glass beads.




  Visit cosecosigioielli.com 
This ethnic necklace is a fun multi strand piece with coral and amber. The color is great, and it has so much texture. I am inspired by the design and the beautifully finished areas like the clasp and where the multi-strands begin and end.


This flat leather bracelet shows that you could absolutely use some ribbon ends that aren't exactly the same width of your ribbon. It's still quite a successful piece, and I like the addition of fringe and bells in between the colors. The colors are great for fall and I like them mixed with the antiqued brass.

Where do you get your inspiration from these days? And how do you decipher your own flair in designs that you see online?

Re-Do

 Remember this necklace? I made this and listed it back on April 29th. It sat around for the duration of the Summer. Today, I took it apart and revamped it into 2 new pieces!First I used the long Jade Scott bar pendant in a long seed beaded necklace in a pretty purple, Blue and Magenta color palette. These necklaces always are very popular and can be worn layered with another necklace or 2.
 

The second piece I created is a bracelet. I took off a few of the wire wrapped beads, added the little bit of cable chain as a second bracelet strand, and added a So Sweet charm from Jade Scott.



Have you revamped some of your jewelry designs lately? There is nothing more satisfying then taking apart a non-successful piece, and recreating 2 hopefully more successful pieces from the original!
 

Heather's Pendants

Heather Millican found some pendants that she made several years ago and has listed them in her Etsy shop! Hop on over to check em out for youself! Swoon Dimples

Hands off that bird pendant, he's all mine. :)

Some Cute Tin

I got the sweetest tin on Ebay recently that featuring adorable little song birds and bird houses. I made the necklace above,  for my friend Tara. She picked out the bird and I riveted 2 discs together, and included a sweet pewter leaf charm from my friends at Green Girl Studios.

I'm thinking of making more pendants like this for my Tin Snippets section of the webstore. whatya Say?

Here are some of the toggles and a pendant I made from the same tin. These are now available for sale in the webstore. LoreleiEurtoJewelry



double sided pendant!

DaisyChain Extra Shop Update!

Be sure to check out Jo Tinley's Etsy shop update later today, 7pm BST/ 2pm EDT

She's going to have lots of new components such as clasps, pendants, charms and bracelet bars with flowers, oak leaves, butterflies, birds, owls and more!

You don't want to miss out on this talented artists designs! I love using her components!You've probably recently seen some of her pieces showcased in the new Jewelry Stringing magazine, in the featured beads section!