Teacher Gifts, Done!

Pretty little gifts, all in a row!

I fear this year's teachers will be a little disappointed with their end-of-year gifts because last year we gave them beautiful (solid, not segmented) wood bowls that Scott had made. This year? It's glass vases painted by Ellie, book paper flowers, and one of my dragonfly magnets.

(We also contributed to the group gifts each teacher will receive from the first-grade families, which I consider our family's main gift to the teachers. This is just an effort to make a more personal thank you to Ellie's teachers.)

Is it tacky that I tucked a business card in with the dragonflies? I hope not ... :)

 Meanwhile, this weekend is the six-state regional artistic roller skating competition, so I've also had to gather our contributions to the silent auction that will help our club raise money to send skaters to Nationals, which is being held in July in Lincoln, Nebraska.

To date, we have definitely donated far more of our work than we have sold. But I hope that will change someday! We placed a half-page ad in the program for regionals, and Scott already had someone approach him to express interest in having something commissioned before it's even been published. That would be a very, very cool thing if we actually got some business from running our first ad!

I'd love to learn how other crafty business people find ways to advertise that are successful in leading to sales. We're planning to try out google ad words when Scott finishes his current batch of variations on Chai, but that requires people to actually be searching for something to find us. I'd love to get our work in front of people who don't even know that they need one of Scott's segmented pieces! :)

Making Donations

So one of these days, I'll actually sell my work in addition to donating to good causes!

But a friend made a personal appeal for items for our synagogue's annual auction, so I buckled down a bit and finished a few pieces just for them. 

Please forgive the poor photography -- I needed to get them dropped off in a hurry so I took quickie photos:

They'll be a low-price item for the silent auction, but I know I appreciate having some affordable items when I go to fund-raising auctions; often the ticket price alone means I can't afford to buy anything. So I like to think people like me will be happy to see something they can actually afford to bid on!

I also donated a gift box with a set of four of my dragonfly magnets. I didn't take a photo of the four I donated, but for those who haven't seen them, here's a sample:

And of course we donated one of Scott's bowls too, a solid-wood bowl made of Oregon black walnut, although that won't exactly be a low price point (but I'm sure it will be far lower than the big ticket items!):