Creating a Crafting Blog

This morning, while reading some stuff on the Hive, I came across this post, which discussed some options about creating blogs and using them as marketing. I was specifically struck by this quote:
"It works for you when you go on vacation, when you sleep, and even when you're feeling ill. It even eliminates the need for "what do you do" type meetings because it tells potential clients (or customers) what services you offer, what products you have for sale, and how they can be purchased."

Thinking about it, I realized that this is totally true, and if I was going to keep some kind of rambling blog posts over on the Hive, I might as well create a more general blog on Blogspot, and go ahead and link back to this instead. As when I started writing over there, I have no idea if I'll keep this up, but I know that at the moment I'm really enjoying disseminating information about what I'm doing more widely, so here goes.

Creating this has proved to be more involved than I thought, yet easier than I remembered. This is the, er, third time I've tried starting a blog on Blogspot (the topics for the other two, by the way, were Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series and the New York Mets, two things near and dear to my heart). I remember it seeming overwhelming. This time, it really didn't. What made it more involved is that google has definitely added a lot of different and new options since the last time I did this. Using them seemed very intuitive, though.

As part of the process, I considered a few things:
1. What do I want a blog to do and say?
2. How would I want a blog to look if I were using it? Where would I want to be able to find things?
3. How do other people's blogs look? What about them do I like? What do I not like?

Based on this, I went to work, and when I was pretty satisfied, I went and looked at about ten blogs kept by friends or those who I am following on the Hive. Based on what I saw there, I made a few changes, added a couple features, changed a little bit of layout, and reconsidered some of my own color choices.

I'm fairly happy with the results so far. If you are reading this, I'd love some feedback!

Selling at Craft Fairs

One of the things I'm starting to think about more seriously is beginning to market my patterns, dolls and cards at craft fairs. I don't feel that I have quite enough stock to do this yet, but I think I will come winter after I've made a bunch more dolls as part of commissions. As such, I'm doing a little research, and as is my wont, I'm gathering what I find out in a blog post, cause it helps me remember - I find posts with links way more useful than I find bookmarks. Anyway, who knows, maybe it'll help someone else out!

My initial search didn't turn up much, but a second search found me a link to a news article that had some useful links of it's own. This article, How to Sell at Craft Fairs and Show, was initially published at "the Entrepreneur." No idea if this is a good source, but the article is pretty straight forward and features some good common sense suggestions - the kind that you know you could have come up with yourself, but it's really grounding and helpful to see them just listed out. I'd add, "think about what you like at the tables of others" to the suggestions they made, that include exploring shows and assessing your work, considering the expense of booth space and travel, don't expect much to begin with, keep your prices reasonable, try to be able to take credit cards (which I might not do, cause my patterns and such are so inexpensive...though I know there is an iPhone app that does this, so I might be able to takecards...)...and, well, there's more - go look at it. It confirms a few things I was thinking about, too, such as the importance of marketing materials (I want to make cards for my shop) and building a mailing list.

The next step was to look through the links they provided. The most useful appears to be Festival Network Online, which lists zillions of fairs by location. (Zillions = around 20,000, in this case. :) ) Puttering around on there, it looks like there are lots of options, both juried and not. In truth, it's such a long list that it's all kind of intimidating. One of the interesting things about this site is that it appears thatyou can get them to give more information and such by paying them....though somehow I doubt that I would need that as much for the kind of thing that I intend to do.

I'm probably not going to do much more right now, but there is certainly more information that I would like. In particular:

1. How much stock should I bring?

2. How much should I really expect to make?

...uh...I'm sure there must be more questions, but I can't think of them. But, I've started. It feels like the first real lesson of looking at this is that there is so much going on all the time that as soon as I decide that I want to do this seriously, I could.

One of the other things that the article mentions is the importance of business licenses and permits. I'll admit that this isn't something I had thought about at ALL, but if I'll be marketing in NYC, I might have to worry about sales tax. Huh.

Anyway, enough of this for now. :) I'll do some more some other time.

Edit: Another area of marketing I hadn't thought about, having a REAL blog - if I'm gonna keep a blog on here, I could keep a more "public" blog. Idea came from this blog post by another Hive user.

Sold the Jellyfish!

I'm surprisingly excited to have sold the original jellyfish amigurumi, given that I sold it to a friend. Still, it's the first time I've been asked about buying one of the original dolls that wasn't a commission to begin with - up to now, only the patterns have sold, and the one other request I got about buying the doll didn't pan out. So...it's nice. Every little step on the way towards success is nice, I guess. Though one of these days, I'm going to have to figure out what exactly I think success is, and to what extent I'm aiming for it. Unlike many others on here, I have never intended to attempt to have my artistic crafting be my source of income. That's what the day job is for...I seriously doubt it would be possible for me to make enough to support myself in my current situation by selling dolls. But once again, I appear to be rambling. For now, celebration of selling the Jellyfish!

Squee!

Here are some pics:

And then there is the version that my friend didn't buy - it has fewer tentacles:

Oh, and if you're just stumbling upon my blog and like what you see, I'm just starting to take commissions for the holidays! (hint hint, nudge nudge. ;) ) Alternatively, the pattern is for sale on etsy and Ravelry...

A Crafting Blog? Really?

I'm a terrible blogger. Every once in a while I make the attempt, find I get distracted and that it takes a long time, and I stop. However, I'm going to go ahead and post occasionally, just to decompress craft-wise.

Recently, I've definitely been on a big crafting kick. It definitely comes and goes. I did a lot in March and April, then much less in May, but in June I got in the mood to craft stitch, and then I spent all summer working on a craft stitch project! When I finished that, I turned around and immediately started working on a couple amigurumi, and now I'm making what was supposed to be an afghan but is likely to turn out to be a shawl, and learning out to do thread crochet (ie, make doilies). In between, I knit one scarf and crocheted another.

This is kinda how it has always gone. And I'm used to it, so I guess it's all good. However, as the amigurumi really are my main emphasis, I'll try to mostly talk about that.

I've been assuming all be making a lot of dolls around the Christmas season. I'm going on vacation for a few weeks starting next Wednesday, but when I get back it'll be nose to the grindstone. I've already got two items I'll be making as gifts (my step-mother has requested a blue and white butterfly, which I'm feeling in the mood to start and may actually work on this evening), and my dad made some jokes about otters that have me thinking I'll make an otter. Beyond that, as soon as I get back I'll start advertising on my facebook about making dolls, and I know at least one of my friends intends to give me a commission. I wonder if I'll get much more than that? If not, I'll be able to work on my own ideas - of which there are too many to list here.

The disappointing thing about entering the "trying to sell" world has been the response (or lack there of) to my photography. I love taking pictures, and certainly all my friends seem to think I take pretty good pics, but I guess they are just not good enough to stand out in the world of the digital camera, amateur photographer, and photoshop - the more so cause I don't like to modify my original pics. Still, I figure if I just keep at it, I'll make some money doing SOMETHING.

One area I'd really like to break into is craft fairs, but I'm intimidated because I'm in NYC. I figure that there is so much talent in New York City that it'd be REALLY hard to stand out. Despite that, I'm hoping that when I have more like a dozen patterns, and some more actual dolls to sell (as I have the original models for about half of my patterns, the ones that weren't commissions), it might be worth giving it a go...

Anyway, enough of this random train of thought! Until next time...