29 November 2005

Santa can't resist that smile

You'd never guess from the huge smile on Miss Mica's face that she was not so fond of Santa this year. I guess that she liked the Clifford hand puppet that the photographer was wearing and tickling her with more than she didn't like Santa.

We have observed that there are few things that Mica actually fears. Masks are one. 3-D glasses are another. A young friend of ours has these Hulk Hands which terrified her. My current theory is that we can add Santa's beard to that list. In a way, it makes a certain amount of sense... Mica just doesn't like anything which obscures a person's basic humanity.

We're fortunate to have absolutely wonderful pictures of our baby girl with Santa from both last year and this year. I'm glad that the people from the mall were willing to be patient while I introduced Mica to Santa and allowed them to become acquainted gradually. Of course it helps that I was able to time our visit for a day and time when there was absolutely no line. I'm not sure that we could arrange that again on a bet. Posted by Picasa
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21 November 2005

Busy weekend

Saturday was the grand opening of my friend Helena's studio and gallery in Middletown, Ohio. After a week spent pulling the space together, everything looked great. We had throwing demos and lampworking. I spent the day making agateware goddesses.

Today, we took Mica to Indiana for pictures. It's hard to believe how much she's grown. She's a little girl now, not a baby at all anymore.
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10 November 2005

Free Beads Part II

I sent tiny heart pendants to the Sampler for the November Sampler box. The picture (at left) was posted in the Sneek Peeks so I figured that I'd finally say something about them. The hearts are porcelain, strung on vintage rubber tubing that I picked up at Mendelson's as a vegan friendly alternative to leather.

I don't really do much in the way of retail sales direct to the public. I've done 3 bead shows this year and plan to do several next year, but my primary business is wholesale to bead stores. I thought long and hard about what the Sampler could do for me given my prefered business model. I really wanted to participate in the Sampler because it sounded like so much fun.

I had been thinking for quite some time about creating a MysticSpiral Street Team and realized that the Sampler could be the perfect way to kick that project off. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten my act together to create a form for the website yet. If you're reading this and think that you'd like to participate, send me an email and I'll get back to you with details.

Notes From the Voodoo Cafe: Hey, Artists! Listen Up!

And this is why I really need to keep working on my website. I love Ricë Freeman-Zachery's work and her blog has been inspirational to me... I'd hate to hear what she'd think of my website in it's current state. It's better than it was, but it still needs work. Check her out.
Notes From the Voodoo Cafe: Hey, Artists! Listen Up!

03 November 2005

Show's over

I am finished with bead shows for the year. The show last weekend went pretty well. I'll never retire on what I'm making at bead shows, but I came out of the weekend in the black by about twice what I had invested in the show and with a new wholesale customer.

Green Girl Studios didn't show up for the show. On one hand, I kinda missed having another vendor next to my table. (There was a door there that someone kept opening because there were climate control issues with the venue. If there had been a vendor set up there, no one would have opened that door and I'm sure that things would have been more tollerable for those of us at that end of the room.) I'm sure that they'd have done well and that people may have spent some extra time looking at our table while waiting for the hordes of customers to clear so that they could get their turn to browse through and buy all the wonderful pewter charms. On the other hand, I'd have been right there next to the irresistable charms all weekend and would probably have spent more than I made. Maybe I'm lucky they weren't there afterall. I did pretty good this time. I bought 4 mixed strands of freshwater pearls so that I could work up a porcelain and pearl necklace to show off the porcelain. I also bought some nylon string for stringing the necklace because I'm thinking about knoting between the beads and pearls. The knots will protect the pearls from the porcelain.

After Louisville, I spent some time trying to figure out what I hoped to achieve with the bead shows. I reached the conclusion that, as long as I met my expenses for the shows, my real goal was to use the opportunity to promote myself, and (eventually) my wholesale customers. The shows are a way of raising awareness of artisan ceramic beads.

Post bead show, I seem to have come down with a cold. That combined with my usual readiness for a break has kept me out of the studio. It's cold enough that I need to either gather my tools and supplies into the indoor studio (which needs some pretty major re-organization before I can start working in there again) or move a portable heater out to the screen porch so that I don't freeze while I'm working.