April 12, 2012

Things were so different when I was a kid. It wasn't just that I was naive, the whole world was. Those of you who are older know. Those of you who watch Mad Men can see for yourself. No one even imagined that little Sally could suffocate in that plastic bag, or get addicted to those sleeping pills. What was the harm in that? Everyone was innocent back then. I'm recalling how I loved my baby seal skin hooded jacket and my baby alligator purse. I didn't know back then that someone was killing babies. I don't even think my family who bought them really realized it.

OK, so today I just killed a bunch of ants that were trying to get into the cereal and my crock pot. I'm not a Buddhist after all.

Today I did some more photography and listing of my flowers. But as promised, I'll review what I did for my product design business.

I was only supposed to be getting myself ready to present my product to potential clients, but somehow I ended up with paying clients. Not a lot of money, but some, and maybe more sales in the future. This was all from updating my linkedin resume. Not a bad idea to just add something once in a while. When I am done with my website, I will add that too. My portfolio website, that is.

What did I plan to do, that I didn't. I planned to loose weight so I'd look more professional. Nope. I planned to learn my CAD program so I could send clients, CAD drawings. Nope.

I did however learn to use the CAD program enough to make some rough base drawings and alter old drawings so I could work on Photoshop to finish the designs. About the only thing I did accomplish is to work on my website and even that isn't finished. Although it is very close. The way business is going this month, I'll have plenty of time to finish it too.

The big thing I have yet to do is make my resume. I have an old one that I need to polish up, things like explaining what I've been doing for the past 4 years. I need to take a peek at how resumes are written these days. Formats change like lighting and I haven't written one for 4 years. Progress is a fickle companion.

April 2, 2012

I've been beating myself over the head lately for not accomplishing all my goals by the end of the four months. I didn't loose weight (meh), I didn't finish my brochure or packaging, I didn't learn my CAD program well enough to use it exclusively for my designs and more, but I don't want to bore you too much. But I have to stop that now, because I've already done more than half of what I set out to accomplish.

Yesterday, I sold another set of brooches on my Artfire shop. In the beginning of the four months, I sat down and examined my product line. I thought to myself, what would the average buyer want. I thought I had a unique product, and I did. My asymmetrical three flower necklaces, while beautiful, are not for everyone. I thought that I should add single flower necklaces, bracelets, hairbands and brooches.

Not sure that I could make a decent profit on the new offerings, I made spreadsheets of cost of materials and time involved to make. It turned out that the cost of materials for the headbands and brooches, made them very profitable, and the labor was really not that bad. It's actually the cost of chain  and findings that is the highest, even though assembly is pretty quick.

I also noticed with my Apron shop, that your sales increase on Artfire, after you reach a certain number of sales. It's actually about 80, but recently my sales have doubled there, and I've done some off line selling. My goal is to wholesale, but adding a website and offering more product has done wonders. I've also done a little off site advertising (free) and will continue to find more venues and blogs to make offers to.

What I'm suggesting is, that if you are not doing as well as you expect, take a good hard look at your product. Sit down, have a glass of wine, take a bath, visualize your product and what you could offer. Look at what other sellers are doing. I see so many beautiful elegant earrings on Etsy that have the wrong earwires on them. It just takes a little effort to finds a simple clean elegant earwire to raise your beautiful earrings up a notch or two. You can even make your own, fairly easily, or buy from another crafter.

I was shocked at how my efforts have paid off. I've been on Artfire for almost 2 years and was about to give up and close the shop. Last month I sold twice as much jewelry as I sold Aprons/bowties on my other shop. It's a little bit of work and planning, but after all, we're not just crafters and artists, we're entrepreneurs.

March 12, 2012

I was a Girl Scout leader for many years. I was involved in my troop and my unit. I actually received honors as an outstanding leader and volunteer. I had to pay those girls a lot of money to nominate me. (enter snicker) I'm proud of the work I did with the girls. They are all grown now and wonderful strong women. It's almost like my co leaders and I made a difference or something. Well at least I know Scouting did. It made a difference to me too.

Today I did some lighting designs again. I'm having to learn/relearn a lot of things. My server bounces emails from their server so I have to use gmail. I'm not fond of it at this point because I don't get everything there. I use it as an alternate address and have mail forwarded to my other account. Another skill I must learn.

Then there is this darn CAD program I have. It's kind of like Autodesk, but not. Every time I try something I learn something new. I can almost draw on it now. I can at least add dimensions now, but I still can't figure out how to draw things the size I want in the first place. I find the tools, but don't know how to use them. It's really annoying. And I really need to learn it if I'm going to do work for people. Or I could just shell out $500 for an old used Autodesk program. Not likely to happen.

I remembered a friend suggested another program, just looked up the price $1200, better than Autodesk $2600, but if I had either of that, I'd have working car. Oh well, I'll just struggle with the program I have and someday, I'll be a better person for it. After all, I was one of the first designers, at least in lighting to use CAD to design at all. I've talked many a designer into using it too.

At least I can use the program right now to alter my old drawings to make new ones. That's better than nothing.