Working Wednesday: Counting Down To Craft Show

There's just so much to do as we get ready for the craft show coming up on May 5!

Scott is putting finishing touches (literally, since it's the final coats of finish!) on more than a dozen wood bowls.

And I've been organizing Ellie's and my inventory, making sure quantities match what my spreadsheets say they should be and getting everything tagged with inventory numbers and prices.

So much to do!

Meanwhile, I decided it wasn't fair that only people who come to the show can get the social networking discount, so I decided to give those who aren't local the opportunity to save money in our Etsy store!

Through midnight Saturday, May 4, you can use the coupon code SHOW10 to save 10 percent on everything in the store.

Happy shopping!

Working Wednesday: A Peek Into The Woodshop At Works In Progress

Seems like every time I walk through our garage woodshop, there's something new to see.

This time, I marvelled over some "texturizing" Scott did to help make his solid wood bowls each one of a kind. (Of course, I'm convinced they're each unique simply because Mother Nature makes sure each tree's woodgrain is as individual as a fingerprint.)

Aren't they lovely?

A group shot of others in progress:

Meanwhile, Scott has started working with a slab of spalted maple burl, and we're hopeful that he will be able to stabilize the wood enough to turn it. He already turned a small (~4inch) bowl that is stunning:

Just look at that grain! Here's another view:

I'm tempted to tell Scott that we need to keep that one. Or at least one of the ones he makes from that gorgeous slab.

Here are the other bowl blanks he roughed out from that slab:

Scott has taught me that the messiest, nastiest looking pieces of wood are actually the most beautiful when they're cut, turned and sanded. By that standard, this is going to be GORGEOUS!

Working Wednesday: Keeping Creative Embers Alive (When Feeling The Business Grind)

Scott and I are hard at work increasing our product inventory in preparation for a May 5 craft show, and even though we love making our products, sometimes that can become a stressful grind.

So to balance that grind, I think it's important to experiment with new-to-me art or craft experiences. Lately, I'm enthralled with fused glass. I've taken two classes now at Live Laugh Love Glass in Tigard, and next month (after the craft show!) I'll be taking a class at Bullseye Glass in Portland to learn a new technique.

Here's my latest fused glass creation:

 

I'm really happy with how the slightly wavy, organic edges worked out.

Scott and I are playing with the idea of getting a kiln, so maybe someday, fused glass pieces will be part of our offerings in our Etsy store. But for now, it's just plain fun as well as good for refilling creative juices.

What do you do to recharge your creative battery?

Working Wednesday: Fabulous Flowers

Last week, I posted some photos of kanzashi flowers in progress.

They now have their centers and are mounted on brooch pins, ready for next month's Mother's Day themed craft fair!

What do you think?

Meanwhile, I finally got a photo of my flowers that I like well enough to use on an updated business card. I'd hoped to use my kanzashi dragonfly magnets, but they're proving challenging for me to capture in a way I like enough for a business card.

Here's what I'm going with for now:

Meanwhile, here are some more kanzashi brooches I've been working on, featuring a microfiber fabric that feels like super-soft suede:

I'm hoping to get at least some of these lovely brooches listed on Etsy over the next week or so; the rest I will wait to list until after the May 5 craft show. If you want to buy any of them, send me an email and I can put it up on Etsy as a reserved listing for you so you don't miss out if it sells before I list it! :)

Working Wednesday: Kanzashi Flowers in Progress

Last week, I officially committed to a Mother's Day themed craft show (May 5 at the Lakewood Center for the Arts in Lake Oswego for any locals reading this!), and that got me cranking out things to sell. Especially since I signed up for twice the space we had at our Christmas show.

Since the show is aimed at folks buying gifts for Mother's Day, I'm focusing on brooch pins right now. (I also need to increase my dragonfly magnet inventory ...)

Above are small (~2.5-inch) Kanzashi flowers in progress. They still need felt backings, hardware and centers.

Last week, I worked on a whole bunch of organza and crepon flowers:

Wouldn't one (or more!) look great as a corsage, whether for a wedding, prom or just adding a little bling to an outfit?

I'm also playing with beaded centers for some of the flowers. I'm curious to see whether they attract more or less interest than my typical rhinestone or vintage button centers.

Which do you  like better -- the flat beading in the centers (bottom flowers) or the stacked bead centers (top flowers)?

 

Working Wednesday: Small Steps Add Up

Scott continues to make progress on his stave project. He has now joined the top and bottom sections, and is pondering going with a wenge base and top lip, or putting a thin layer of the pinkish-colored pear wood and then wenge.

Remember, the wood at the bottom is cherry and not actually part of the piece.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out a name for it. Aren't those whorls of wood grain on the Oregon black walnut gorgeous? I'm considering calling it Storm Front, but if you have other ideas, I'd love to hear them!

It's amazing to me how some of Scott's projects come together seemingly so quickly (although I'm still comparing turned pieces to the amount of time it took to make a single piece of furniture) so I can see the piece evolve.

Another view:

Ignore the messy glue on the joints -- that will all be turned or sanded off! But isn't it a neat interior view?

I can't wait to see how that grain is going to pop when it has finish on it!

Hope your week is going well!

Working Wednesday: New Year, New Project

With a new year, there have to be new projects underway, right? I'm pretty sure that's Scott's attitude!

This one actually started a couple weeks ago and is only partly assembled, but I think its beauty is already showing. Scott put a small amount of finish on it just so we could see how the pinkish pear wood would contrast with the gorgeous Oregon black walnut in the final piece. I think he's got a winner in progress -- what do you think?

Ignore the wood at the bottom, which is simply helping hold the piece so it can be turned on the lathe and isn't part of the project.

Apologies for the photo quality -- it was one of those nights when Scott came in from the woodshop to show me something and I liked it so much I immediately reached for the camera.

The finish is definitely bringing out the color of the pear wood! And oh, that walnut grain is going to be just stunning! Scott did a great job of cutting it so you can see the grain move from one stave to its neighbors.

There is another section that will be added to the top of this one over the ring of pear wood with more of the alternating walnut and pear. Scott will turn the pieces separately to get their shapes the way he envisions, and then glue them together and probably do some final lathe work on the outsides.

Apparently doing stave projects is very tricky. This is the first time Scott has tackled stave construction, and I'm hoping to persuade him to write a blog post about what's involved in the near future.

I never get tired of Oregon black walnut. The colors and the grains vary so much from tree to tree. The wood Scott's using on this piece has some blue tinge in addition to the usual browns and reds

Happy new year!!

Working Wednesday: Post-Holiday Planning

It may be almost a week until Christmas, but I'm already thinking about next year.

Scott and I are cautiously optimistic that 2013 will see our business become self sufficient and ideally even profitable. :-) Of course, I expect that most of our Foster's Beauties income will get reinvested in supplies and materials for awhile more, but things are definitely looking potentially rosy.

Meanwhile, I have been slowly listing more of Scott's Chai Variations in our Etsy store -- take a look! Those are truly works of art that he created. I keep getting comments from folks who think they look like intricate pottery and are simply floored when they realize they are wood.

Here are a few of the newest listings:

This is the second (but still unique!) Blonde Chai Variations (SF111).

Chai Variations II, featuring the beautiful red-brown colors in bubinga as its main wood, complemented with maple, Oregon black walnut and wenge.

And of course you've seen Rhythms of the Heart in previous postings, but it's officially listed now! :)

(I love the little diamond created in the feature ring where the woods meet up to point down. There's got to be a name for that, but I have no idea what it is.)

What are your creative or business plans for 2013? I'm currently trying to figure out how much inventory we need to have completed by September if we want to do craft fairs once or twice a month for the last quarter of the year. I'm terrified of registering (and paying!) for, say, six shows over a 12 week period, and doing tremendously well in the first or second and running out of inventory. (I should get so lucky, right?) But how do you figure out how much inventory you need to have on hand to commit to multiple shows?

Meanwhile, although our online sales have been slow throughout December, I'm delighted that we've finally achieved one of my goals, which has been to break 1,000 pageviews in our shop during a calendar month. As I write this, we've had 1,193 so far in December, the first time we've broken past 850/month since we opened our Etsy shop. Woohoo! While views aren't nearly as good as sales, you can't sell anything if people aren't seeing your work!

Working Wednesday: Working For The Weekend!

Things are really coming together for our craft show this Sunday!

Scott has finished the batch of Chai Variations that he's been working on for months. Here are the batch:

Yes, there's a black walnut/purpleheart swirl hiding among the Chai Variations!

Each one is unique, either with the combination of woods in the places Scott used them, or by the width of the stripes and/or triangles.

My favorite is one I'm calling Rhythms of the Heart, and Scott calls it a "second generation" Chai Variation:

Isn't it gorgeous?

Of course, it's hard to pick a favorite because I also love the blonde Chai Variations that Scott made:

Check out the original Charismatic Chai listing on Etsy for comparison. They're all pretty amazing, if you ask me!

Meanwhile, if you come to our craft show on Sunday in Lake Oswego, let me know you saw my blog posts and I'll give you a $1 or 10 percent discount, whichever is larger, on any purchase over $5!

Working Wednesday: Just In Time for the Holidays!

Our first holiday fair is right around the corner, and I have to admit I’m getting a little nervous. We visited another holiday fair last weekend (and I did my best to spend money supporting local artists and craftpeople!), and now I’m a bit intimidated by how professional most of the booths looked.

I did have to laugh at myself a little for noticing all kinds of things, good and bad but mostly good, that I never would have paid attention to before launching Foster’s Beauties: 

• Table skirts that didn’t come to the ground and let the vendor’s bins and supplies show underneath; 
• How most vendors managed to get their merchandise vertical;
• Some really inventive displays, including using cookie sheets standing on end to show off magnets.

But mostly I panicked because how are we going to show off all our beautiful items on a single 6-foot table?!

In preparation for the craft fair and the holidays in general, it recently occurred to me that I could make kanzashi dragonfly magnets in Christmas colors. And Chanukah colors too! It’s the first time I ever tried to make the dragonflies mostly identical, with just a few variations on the glitterboard and wire colors.

One of Ellie's favorite holiday books was Chanukah Bugs, so in honor of that beloved book, I'm calling these guys Holiday Bugs.

And then I made some in gold and silver, figuring they would be good for both holidays as well as elegant party favors for weddings or events. (New Year’s Eve party, anyone? Or Oscar party?)

What do you think?

And going with the same naming idea, these are Glam Bugs. Aren't they elegant looking?

Meanwhile, I’m going to drive Scott crazy by taping out the space on our dining room table (which, unlike most people I know, we actually use to eat because there’s no room for a table in our kitchen) and start playing with displays to figure out what looks good and what else we need prop-wise.

Hope your holiday preparations are going well. Leave me comments and let me know what you’re working on this month!

Gearing Up For Our First Craft Show

Sorry about missing last week’s Working Wednesday post! Life has been a bit hectic and stressful, for reasons I can’t go into here, but I promise to try to be more reliable in the future!

Our first craft show is coming up in just about a month, and we’re realizing there’s a lot more to having a successful show than having lots of great products to sell.

I’ve been soaking up the wisdom of the Craft Fairs...It’s A Living team on Etsy, and making my list of things to remember to bring along.

Although many folks say they rarely are asked for bags, they recommended we have them anyway for those who want them. I had already bought a custom-made stamp for our logo, so Ellie and I got busy stamping onto the small bags that will fit our work. (We’ll be getting some larger bags for Scott’s woodworking pieces!)

 Don’t they look great?

We also need to figure out our display. It’s an indoor show (which is good, considering it’s generally cold and wet in Portland in December!),  and we only have a 6-foot table. Although we have some items to use for display, including a cake stand with three different-level surfaces that I intend to use for Scott’s bowls, we haven’t entirely figured out the best ways to display other items. We will definitely be practicing our display setup at home to try to get the best looking table we can manage.

In the meantime, Ellie and I are busy making gift boxes out of scrapbook paper for my dragonfly magnets and maybe even some of the fabric flowers. And I have a new batch of dragonflies in holiday colors that are in process. Can’t have too many of those, right? 

If you've sold at craft fairs, we'd love any advice you might care to share. Just leave us a comment! Thanks!

Working Wednesday: Notes From The Woodshop

I just love when I get to put a first coat of finish on a piece.  Up to this point the wood has been cut, assembled, shaped, and sanded.... and the colors have been getting nicer and the grain has been growing in depth.  But when that first coat of finish goes on, the colors and depth just pop.

It's been a while coming, but I recently got to move a few items forward in the queue to their first coat stages.  In addition to the latest batch of segmented bowls there are a few solid wood ones and one of a prior project that needed a little more work on it's bottom.  Most of the bowls here are getting coats of lacquer, but a handful are getting shellac and a couple will get 'Salad Bowl' finish.

It'll be a while longer before these are all completed.  It takes a few coats before the finish has enough depth to stay glossy.  Then they can be rubbed out on the lathe before I remove their base holders, brand them, sand the bottoms and add the finish. 

And of course, then comes the real photography work and listing them, although some of them will probably make their first appearance at a local craft show this holiday season.

In the Chai Variations, there are mostly two of each color combination, one with narrower triangles and one with broader triangles.  

 In some there is a variation in the combination or cutting of the zigzag in the center 'feature' ring.  And I made a conscious effort to vary how the base meets the table, with some having a broader squat curve, some having a single curve to the table, and some having a reverse curve.  Once they're all finished, I plan to do some photography and see which look is more frequently preferred. Maybe we'll have a poll here on the blog and you can vote for your favorite!

Meanwhile, if you have a favorite you want to be sure to be able to buy before someone else nabs it since, despite the similarities, they are each one-of-a-kind pieces of wood art, drop us an email and we'll be happy to reserve it for you! :)