Store Rants

If you’ve been reading my last few posts, you’d know that my plan was to take the next several weeks to explore crafting and handmade mediums and figure out profit potential and my general attraction to said medium. This was going to determine the new direction of my little crafting business.

Well, change of plans.

I’m going to quickly talk about my experience with mediums of the past… (mediums of craft shows past?) and why I don’t want to do that anymore…

Bath Products

So, I made soap and bath products for almost 10 years. For me, it was pretty, smelled good and it was a renewable item… no brainer, right? Not really. It’s a huge liability, most insurance companies won’t touch it, it has a limited shelf life, everyone else does it and the profit margin is minimal. So, when I got my store, I had to separate the handmade soap products from everything else and give that company its own LLC to protect my assets. Pain in the ass. I had all sorts of soap, bath bombs, shower gel, lotion and a few other fun things. My labels and packaging were artsy, unique and people purchased the items based on that alone. They looked snazzy and it was great having an exclusive line. But… I think I made $500-$1000 a month before having to pay the $800 a year LLC and extra fees to my tax guy to file the damn thing. Scoop your own bath salts were popular and worth it alone… barely. But there was this one time a child inhaled the salts (up his nose… and it burned. Terribly. Because… duh) and the mother was completely pissed off at me… I had thoughts of a lawsuit because the jars of salt were at child level and looked like candy etc etc. Made me very nervous. There was talk of wholesaling out the salts and doing salts only, but it never happened. Take that idea and steal it from me… because it honestly did well and the overhead (not counting the LLC) was minimal. Don’t invest in SOY, bath salts is where it’s at! (Thank you 80′s wall street movies).

Candle Making

There was a point in time where candles were REALLY popular but you couldn’t get the good ones everywhere, Illumiations hadn’t opened yet and nobody was putting them in fun containers. So, I poured wax into anything cup-like, made some great labels, had great smells… it was neat. But it made a huge mess. Wax gets everywhere. People don’t want to pay what you think it’s worth. Unless you have a warehouse and hundreds of molds or containers, doing small batches was irritating and not cost effective. Oh, and one by one my friends started making candles… so, I stopped. (Sidenote… don’t put fresh lavender in candles… apparently it turns the candle into a little flame thrower. There, you’ve learned something).

Tole Painting

I made my first tole-painted thing when I was 8. It’s in my blood. So, I made signs of all sorts for decades. For your garden, for your powder room, to tell your guests to kindly “take off their shoes”. They did well, but once China could stick little blushing cheeks on bunnies, we were done. My $30.00 sign looked almost like the $5.00 one from China. I switched it up and made more detailed French-inspired and vintage-inspired signs. China was right behind us. Now I think the trend is behind us completely. Unless you do hand-painted cutesy baby room name plaque things. I’ve seen a few businesses do really well with the custom name signs. But if I did signs for the umpteen million Katey/Kate/Caight’s of the world, I might lose my mind. Next.

Paper Products

I’ve had cards and stationery made up using my art (see tole painting). Cards and paper products do well in stores. They did well in my store. So, if you don’t have a store, selling cards is tough. You have to print thousands to get the price down and then try to sell them to other stores. The investment and commitment is pretty intense. Leave it to Hallmark. Their cards light up, vibrate, spin and play Pointer Sisters songs now. You can’t compete unless you go into the specialty invitation realm or have a very large, cohesive and amazing line that you’ll probably end up selling to Hallmark.

Other things…

I’ve also made floral arrangements, sewn pillows, hand-embroidered on onesies and baby shirts, puffy painted things (I don’t miss this at all), adorned dog collars, made tote bags, mosaics in the form of tables and other decorative pieces, hand-painted glass, hand painted on furniture, chalk board art, hand-frosted art cookies… I know I’m forgetting stuff. Long story short, each was canned because of not making money on it, being irritated by it or not having the room to store it. Another reason… someone copied me. Someone took my idea and blatantly copied it. It’s a great way to lose friends.

What the one medium I think I might continue?

Jewelry.

I’ve made jewelry for about 20 years. What’s cool about gemstone jewelry is that you don’t get too many people doing it because the investment to get started is high. Getting your hands on gems and findings is a little bit harder than purchasing anything found on my lists above. Michael’s won’t carry a $1000 strand of tourmaline stones, for example. So… it feels more like an exclusive club… sort of. Oh, and you get to play with sparkly, shiny things. Win.

A few issues with it, though… in this economy, people aren’t spending a lot on “luxury” items like jewelry. Also, the competition is pretty fierce, but it’s not that hard standing out in a crowd if you do your homework. I plan on having a range of items for every budget and try to migrate over to the higher-end realm. I’ve never tried to get into that tier, so… it will be a challenge. I welcome it!

So, first thing… liquidate all my old gemstone jewelry inventory and any items that I feel won’t benefit the new line. My new look is as strong as its weakest link, so to speak.

I’ll probably keep all the crafting supplies from my hundreds of handmade business experiments. I currently have 300+ bottles of scent oil, hundreds of pounds of tile, stained glass supplies (forgot that!), and about a ton (literally) of sea salts. A very expensive, but fun, journey

Polymer Clay… an epic retrospective journey…

It’s 1993… I’m enjoying a good bottle of strawberry kiwi Snapple and listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Pearl Jam… possibly wearing a flannel… you probably were, too.

I’m fiddling with Fimo, a polymer clay that you can mold and bake. At the time, it was being made into little plain shapes or you could mold several colors together to make “canes”. I tried both. (Please note, all the following images are NOT things I made… all of my creations are looong gone)

The first thing I made… cliche little red and white polka dot mushroom necklaces. My friends think it’s pretty neat. So, I buy a book on the world of Fimo to dive in deeper.
	Two blocks of color turn into several dozen… had to have every color.
Normally with Fimo, you take individual blocks of color and put them together to make large “canes” of one design that you slice. One cane could take you hours and hours to WEEKS of work to make. You then had that one design to work with until you ran out of that cane. So, you would make as many canes as you could and have a library of images to “slice” from.
	You can make simple mosaic pattern canes…

Or get into some really ornate canes… like this dragon here…

So, I’m deeply obsessed with Fimo at this point in 1993-1995. I’m making Fimo canes and slicing them and sticking slices of said canes onto anything that doesn’t move. Frames, light switch plate covers and other assorted home decor things. Mushrooms, stars, moon faces… lots of celestial beings and sunflowers. A local shop sells my things on consignment… I did pretty well with it.

Then, all of a sudden, Fimo beads start emerging covered in psychedelic patterns and icons. It went hand-in-hand with macrame hemp jewelry. It was showing up all over Lalapalooza, head shops and frankly, it was everywhere besides the cute boutiques I sold my items at. So, at that time, Fimo lost it’s fizzle for me.

After my kneading fingers couldn’t knead any longer (I never did get the pasta maker to flatten and roll out the stuff for me) and I was a bit turned off by the new Fimo movement, I started working with Fimo’s softer, lazier cousin, Sculpey. Sculpey became my friend. I started making little sculptures, ornaments, book covers, figures, jewelry and other little things. Sculpey was great because I would roll it out, add shapes, bake it, sand it, then paint and seal it. I used soft pastel colors and I had the flexibility to change designs and add things you just couldn’t do with Fimo. I made tons of rosettes and three dimensional things. It was pretty great!

Sculpey came in a larger box. It was plain white and oh-so-soft compared to Fimo.

Of course the art of Fimo canes reached China and you can find cheaper designs all over the place. In finished beads, pre-made canes that you slice yourself. Apparently (I’ve been out of the loop so long), they even sell canes of different designs for use on acrylic nails. There’s even Chanel Fimo slices available. How about that.

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I think my favorite Fimo use has been miniatures. Mini food things for jewelry, doll houses, etc. The work here is really impressive!

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I’m not a fan of “serious” grown-up Fimo jewelry. I like the whimsical stuff. But this bracelet and necklace set… is impressive:

Admittedly, I’m completely intimidated by all of the above Fimo work. You have to have some amazing skill, tiny tools, great hands and GREAT vision to accomplish that stuff. But it may be a fun challenge to tackle? Upon further investigation however, the mini food pieces sell for under $10.00, jewelry pieces sell up to $50.00 but… not much over that. That’s a LOT of work for $10.00.

And Sculpey… I found a few fun things made of the stuff (the rest was mostly dragon sculptures):

I haven’t picked up polymer clay in years… until recently. I was asked to participate in an art show and I decided to use Sculpey. It was food-themed, whimsical and a little silly. I did a few sculptures and some jewelry in the theme of the Art Show. It was received well, although only a few pieces sold (and they didn’t sell for very much). There’s this optimistic voice deep down inside me that says… “do mixed-media art sculptures! One-of-a-kind folk art pieces!” But alas… not sure if that’s the direction I want to go in?

So, as far as bringing polymer clay back into my business plan… hmmm. Buy it in bulk and sculpt all day long? I don’t think so. The time spent vs. the money made using the stuff doesn’t seem to pay off. I’ve seen a lot of work done with it that is phenomenal, but… are there buyers for such a thing? I’m not going to put it away completely, but I don’t want to spend 8 hours a day with it either. Perhaps… as a hobby?

Fimo… I love you, but I’m not in love with you.

p.s… cool polymer clay review & idea blog: Craft Gossip

I’ve worked in the retail gift and home decor industry most of my life. I have many years under my belt as a buyer and merchandiser and have a passion for creating beautiful displays. I have also sold my handcrafted “it” for many many years. I followed trends, whims and whatever seemed fun at the time. Jewelry, bath products, furniture, paper products and so much in-between… I could never focus on one thing. The “it” evolved and changed as I did.

With my brick and mortar closed, the economy helping to slam those doors, I took some time to wallow in self-defeat and wonder what went wrong. I have opinions, but I can’t be sure.

We are flooded with things that are made in China and although the prices are excellent, we’re not getting a lot of unique things anymore. What you see at Target is also at Walmart, Home Goods, Big Lots, Macy’s and it’s also in those sweet little retail boutiques that are becoming an endangered species. The lines of “exclusive”, “unique”, “limited edition” and “designer” have been blurred, mass marketed, ripped off and licensed out to death. China can reproduce something in the blink of an eye for a fraction of the cost.

Before I opened my store, I sold in a little portable ten foot by ten foot booth at street fairs… outdoors, under the sun. Dirt, children with sticky fingers… kettle corn and Peruvian flute music abound. I felt like a modern day gypsy. I made the majority of everything under that EZ-up. There was a lot of pride in that, and a whole lot of work, too.

After a year of tortured bliss owning my very own store, I realized… hey… I could BUY more things and sell them for a profit! Handmade is great, but… how am I going to fill this space, all by myself? So… that’s when I got 1000 square feet of “Made in China” merchandise. Most of my customers didn’t seem to notice… or care… why should I? My deep respect for handmade was sort of… squashed. Why pay ten times as much for something that looks almost identical… but it’s made in China? Made by me or made in the USA didn’t matter anymore. At the time, to me, a full store was a happy store. I no longer had to struggle to keep up with my inventory demands or care where it came from. End of story.

All eco-landfill-social-global-economy-buy-american rants aside… why wouldn’t you want to save money? Why wouldn’t you want to have the newer and shinier… and get in some much-needed retail therapy time? As a store owner… why wouldn’t I want to showcase the new gotta-have-its and make my customers happy? It made sense. Everyone was pleased (yet, a wee bit ignorant).

So… now that we’ve maxed out our credit cards and filled our storage bins with SO much stuff… how could we ever go back? Have less things? How do we start respecting the handmade again? Smaller quantities… keep for a lifetime, not a season… supporting our local friends. There is a culture and a movement going on but… I was queen of consumer whore-ism… how do I change my ways? How do I convince my customers to change their ways? How do I not look like a total hippie? I’d like to buy handmade as well as BE that handmade vendor that people want to buy from because I’d rather not be a hypocrite, thank you very much.

So, I’d like to be a better/different consumer. I’d also like to be a better/different supplier/vendor. But I have NO idea where to start. I guess I’ll start with what I sell. I’m liquidating everything I didn’t make myself on ebay and I’m going to start fresh. A new look, a new philosophy. Ugh. I’m completely overwhelmed.

With that all said, I’m on a quest to find a new handmade medium to pursue. Over the course of my life I’ve worked with so many different types of arts, crafts and materials, but I feel like I have not mastered any one thing. So, I’m going to re-visit my crafting history… one medium at a time… and investigate its trends, popularity, appeal, longevity, profit potential and basically educate myself (and you!) and/or convince myself if this is the direction I’d like to go in. I will investigate a new medium every week. Here I go!