in progress/life lately

I got a few questions yesterday about the grid pictures. I don't really have a good picture of the entire structure, but it's a trellis that supports the sound system for the pavilion. You can see a fairly complete picture of the lawn, trellis, and pavilion right here.

I have been taking pictures of so many different subjects lately and have gotten out of the habit of shooting "in progress" pictures of my work. I made a point to get a few of them this past week.

Here are a few of the non-crafty things that I've been doing this month that I haven't already included in one of my Scavenger Hunt posts.

Check out all of that farmers market basil. I wish that I could capture the smell in a picture. I made it into pesto.

I took a bunch of pictures during the most recent Museum After Dark event at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Apparently they change the outdoor lighting sometimes. I don't ever remember seeing blue lights before.

This is Jake's favorite.

In case spending time by Lake Michigan in Chicago on Thursday and then at the museum on Friday, I insisted that Jake and I walk over to the lake while were in Kenosha at an event six blocks away from it on Sunday. Heaven.

Check out the front moving into the area.

You can see it even more in this picture. We did make it back to the car before the rain started. I'll have a few more pictures from Kenosha in my next Scavenger Hunt post. Stay tuned for that on Monday.

Now that it's finally cooling down to 60 degrees at night, we've been able to use our new fire pit that Jake got for his birthday. Since we don't have a working fireplace, the next best thing is that fire smell right in our own yard.

The one failing in all of this is that I didn't take very many pictures of people at any of these events. I do have some from the event in Kenosha, but we also saw a bunch of Jake's family while we were in town and ran into friends at the museum. I don't have pictures of any of that. I am not one to jump in front of the camera so I feel awkward asking others to do it. They are both things to work on I suppose.

What have you been up to this month and/or what have you enjoyed photographing lately?

New article:

Tailgating Party Ideas and Tips: Food, Recipes, Supplies, Decorations, and More

another idea for selling or giving magnets

For my open house earlier this month, I put together tack and magnet box inserts.

I still love this option for people who want to put together their own tack and magnet sets.  People can mix and match different sizes of glass and button magnets.

For the open house, I did a freebie basket with items that were all $5 or less.  Everyone got to take one.  It made more sense to have small magnet cards with 1-2 magnets each than to package sets that small in those boxes.

All of my freebie sets are the small cards on the bottom with 1-2 magnet spots.  I also created a couple larger sets of 4 for my two hosts.  For the small cards, I used the design that Edi created for me for my earring cards.  Instead of punching earring holes, I glued magnets.  For the large cards, I printed sheet music from a legal download source on card stock.  Note: If you are going to cut your own cards, please use some sort of paper cutter.  It will look much more professional than a scissors job will.

I used the cheap magnet rolls that you can buy at any craft store.  I don't recommend using them for glass or button magnets, but they work really well for the cards.  Some people also use tiny washers for their cards.  Magnets rolls are cheaper, but washers are obviously very inexpensive, too.

Here's the larger size done.  I think that these cards are about 3" x 3."

Here's the small size, single magnet version done.  I knew that the sheet music was going to be a popular choice with this group so I made a lot of them.  (I was right.  I don't have any left in either size.)  The flower is the only other design I've really standardized so far in both the large and small sizes.  I will keep developing more sets this year.

Here's the smaller size, double magnet version done.  I use the small glass pieces that you can buy in floral sections.  You can see from the photos that the glass isn't as high a quality as the larger glass I purchase, but it still works well for the magnets.

I use neodymium magnets for all my glass magnets so they held just fine in a bowl with my other freebies.  In the future and/or for gift purposes, I would like to make something like this for my little magnet squares.

Click on the photo for the great blog post about these with more examples.  You can buy lots of different kinds of treat bags online, like this set here.  It would be super easy to create a top with your business logo or create a cardboard backing for your business card or some sort of business logo sticker.

As I've mentioned before, the freebie bowl was a hit.  I wouldn't do this at larger shows, but it's great for open houses.  This would also be a great favor option for baby showers, wedding showers, birthday parties, or even wedding receptions.

I used the same small cards for my freebie button earrings, hair pins, and rings, too.  I'm planning to put a post together about my entire freebie basket later this month or early next month.

Tips for selling or gifting magnets?  Tips for freebie bowls at open houses or small shows?  Share them in the comments!

getting ready for my first 2012 event

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, one of the biggest things going in this month is an open house in the Chicago area.  It's this coming weekend.  I swore that I wasn't going to do a lot of display or product upgrades for this event, but of course now that I have all of these new ideas floating around, I had to make some of them real.  I shared my new thumb tack and magnet packaging earlier this week, which I will have at the open house.  Here are just a few of the other things that I've been working on for it the past couple weeks.

New Display Banner

Edi very generously did the graphic design work for a new banner.  We coordinated to make the layout, font, and color choices, but she put it all together.  This would have taken me hours, so I'm very grateful for her help.  When she had the final design done, I uploaded it to VistaPrint and ordered a banner.

The blank spaces are for 8 x 10 photos.  I cropped 8 of my photos to 8 x 10 size and had them printed through Target (which was a cheaper option than ordering and shipping with Shutterfly).  We decided that this would be a better option than printing the photos right on the banner because this will allow me to switch them out as my product lines change.

I feel like I've mentioned this 100 times here, but I'll say it again because I know I'll get questions otherwise.  I ordered contact paper and Velcro dots in bulk when I was teaching and still have lots of leftover materials.  That's what I used for my banner.  I covered all of the photos in contact paper and attached them to the banner with Velcro.

Jake is the only one who's seen it in person so far, and he was very impressed.  It will look even more amazing when I have it mounted on the front of my display.  I will definitely get pictures of this at the open house.

New Free Shipping Cards

I send or give out a discount or free shipping card with all of my orders, both online and at shows.  My old free shipping cards were business card sized and very plain.  I just ran through the last set that I'd printed, and it was time for an upgrade.  One thing that I'm really working on this year is building return customers, especially from shows.  I hope that these will help.  (Yep, that code does work all the time.  You can steal it any time you like.)

New Price Signs

Most of these signs are simply for new products or for products with slightly adjusted pricing.  They match many of the signs that I already use, except that these all use the new font that I have on my new banner and free shipping cards.  Here they are matted before I covered them with contact paper.

New Small Button Items

I pushed really hard to get enough of these items ready for my final 2011 shows.  I am going to pace this better for 2012 and just made a handful for this show.  I'll work on making more slowly for spring shows throughout the next couple months.  We were blessed with some sun this week so I was able to take a number of these photos with natural light.

 

New Glass Magnets

I am still in the beginning stages of my glass charms and magnets, but I've found a couple designs that I really like so far so I've been working on a few more sets of those designs.

That's a mean tease, right?  These all have music or flower designs.  I'll get some pictures of them sometime before or at the open house.

Greeting Card Packaging and Display

The biggest investment, both for money and time, for greeting cards has been the packaging and display.  I went ahead and made a full set of tabs for my display box.  As you can see, they are not tall enough to be seen over the card sleeves.  They will be alphabetized so people can find what they need easily enough.  I may adjust them at some point but not for the open house.  At this point, I only have cards for about 5 tabs so it won't be a big issue.

I packaged all of my cards in sleeves with price/description labels.  I bought most of my card packaging materials like these sleeves in bulk through ULINE, and I use address labels for almost all of my shop labels (like the ones on my jewelry boxes).  Eventually I'll have cards in different numbered sets and lots of mix and match price options, but as my inventory is not large enough to do that yet, I'm simply offering discounts for multiple card purchases.  I'll have signs with all of those numbers on my display.

What's Left to Do?

-I'm going to have a basket of $5 or less freebies.  Everyone who attends will get to pick one.  Most of these are ready to go, but I still have a few magnets to finish.
-I got a custom order within hours of creating the open house event on Facebook.  I completed the order (which was for 2 bracelets) and sent her pictures a couple days ago.  She loved them, and yesterday, she ordered 4 pairs of earrings to coordinate with the bracelets.  Those earrings will be one of my main priorities today.  I'll get pictures of all of those pieces up after the open house.
-Then I need to get everything packed up and ready to go!

What have you been working on this week?

Newest Article:

Yep, I got another Valentine's Day article together!

Valentine's Day Desserts: Recipe Ideas

I included this post in Erika's It's a Wrap Link Party - 2/6/2012.