Farmer's Markets

I was reading another bead artists post about how summer sales were going and thought of talking about how the farmer's markets do good for us.

We are currently doing four farmer's markets in closeby towns (same four as last year) and we are a guest in a further town twice for the season. The sign up price was really affordable, between $50-100 for either may-oct or june-oct depending on the market location and they are all weekly rain or shine. The sales were a little slow at the beginning of this year but they have picked up quite a bit. We mostly sell beads and pendants on handdyed silk cords and solid copper chains. We have earrings and rings available but they are slower selling items, we don't have an earring display which would probably help. Soon we will be adding sterling silver chains as an option for necklaces. The sales for each market can range from $0-$275. Somedays it will seem like the sales won't be great because of weather but one or two sales can boost the numbers significantly.

A few people also want beads/pendants that we don't have so sometimes that gives us ideas for new styles or just fun projects. When we sold on eBay there were a lot of requests for different beads but since we no longer sell on eBay we haven't gotten much requests for something different, usually now it's something similar to what we already have which isn't a bad thing but nice to get new ideas :)

There are often owner's of stores that come to a market and invite us to a consignment shop/gallery. Sometimes it isn't what we are making at the time, last year someone wanted ornaments in their shop towards the end of the market season. Often it is a store that we don't know about or been to but many others have heard about it or been there.

This year with us moving the studio we are creating a mailing list that we have at our booth for people interested in classes. There is a lot of interest and this way we are advertising to four local towns for free. Even if they aren't interested in the classes they can be informed when the gallery/retail section is open so when the markets close they can still see our work offline.

Our online sales are still going as well, last year we stopped listing on Etsy while we did the markets.

I think I covered most of the info about the markets :) If you got any questions let us know!

Jason

New Pendant Style

I've been working on a new style of pendant yesterday, I like the idea of these pendants but they don't seem to be coming out 100% like I want. I've kept them plain for the most part and maybe that's what I'm not liking about them but I do like this one. This weekend I'll probably work on the design a bit more.



Here's another bracelet from Phyllis Martin (Goldbracelets.etsy.com) using Andrea's flower beads :)



Jason

Goldbracelets

We added a few ways to get a discount on our Etsy shop and one was to post pictures of finished jewelry using our beads. Phyllis Martin from Goldbracelets.etsy.com posted a few gorgeous gold bracelets using some of our beads :) Her descriptions can be read here. I love the look of them all, the second one is my favorite and love how the opal yellow goes nice with the gold.





Jason

Some Garden Photography

It's such a lovely day today! :) It was nice and cool at the New Boston Farmer's Market this morning and in the afternoon I decided to have some fun taking some photos of the garden. I've always been drawn to macro photography, so that's mostly what I'll be showing. I took these photos using a canon g10 powershot. It's not as bulky as my Nikon D70s and has a ton of manual modes which I love.


























































The last shot is pretty cheesy, but I still love it. I set the self timer on the camera, tossed it in a flower pot and ran across the yard, haha :)











Andrea

Vessels, Vessels, Everywhere!

Jason has been working on so many vessels lately! They are coming out awesome. He's been working in both boro and soft glass for these. Later today we'll upload a video of him making on one youtube. I'll be sure to post the link. We've got some corks coming in this week for the vessels, and once they're here these will all be ready for sale! :)
Andrea

Our Pendants Reviewed

Check out this review on our pendants and also a chance to win a FREE pendant!!!!


http://singlemama-reviewcorner.blogspot.com/2010/04/powers-art-glass-review-and-giveaway.html

More marbles

AHHH I'm in love with soft glass marbles! So much easier to work silver glass with limited oxygen. Also can get decent sizes with only one concentrator. With boro I'd have two concentrators but seemed to take forever to get a decent size marble made. I just fixed this marble yesterday, I was surprised that this size marble could be fixed since it was soft glass but I had no problem reheating it in the flame. Anywho here is the marble.

Marble Pendant

We are having a 40% off sale in our Etsy shop for Monsters only :)

Here's one of the marble pendants. Probably going to try some small marbles to do the same thing but for earrings.

Soft Glass Marbles

Wednesday I ended up making one soft glass marble that turned out great but had a flat spot where the final punty was. Yesterday I didn't have much time on the torch but I was determined to make a perfect soft glass marble. I made four total, one had a mark that almost looked like a chip came off the marble so I wirewrapped it for myself :) It was a nice organic one with silver leaf on it. I was surprised I did so well with soft glass marbles since I like to use a lot of heat and thought boro would be easier because of that. It turns out the soft glass ones took quite a bit less time to shape.

I am starting to wirewrap some of my old boro marbles that have been sitting waiting to be listed online. Those will start to be listed on the upcycled copper Etsy now.

Here's my soft glass marbles from yesterday (only two out of the four)

Wire Jig

Our packages came in Tuesday and I am loving using the wire jig! Here are a few of the beads/buttons pendants I've made (middle one just sold and is our first sale!!). More on our new etsy upcycledcopper.etsy.com :)

New Etsy

I don't have a picture of the copper bracelet that I said I would post because our wire straighteners are coming in today so I figured I would show the one I make next that is a better quality. We opened up a new etsy shop, www.upcycledcopper.etsy.com It has only copper wire pendants with lampwork beads so far but will have much more variety soon. We ordered a tumbler so going to put our stained glass/fusing glass scrap in the tumbler and then make some home decor items. Probably also get some earrings and rings up but that won't be right away.

We placed a few different orders lately so waiting on a bunch of new exciting things :) From Arrow Springs we got some puffy mandrels, adventurine and a JC sifter with coil actuator. From Rings and Things we got some greek beads, wire wrapping jig, wire straightener, ring sizer and ring mandrel. From Monsterslayer we got sterling silver wire, sterling beads and the tumbler. The Arrow Springs order got delayed and should be in today along with the Rings and Things order :) It's so fun getting new stuff to play with :)

Here's a few of the copper pendants in our new shop

Beadroller

We ordered the classic four beadroller (has round, tube, disc and long barrel bead shapes) from CGBeads and it works great! I've been working on some sets with it and getting more used to it. We will definately be getting some more. I also worked with bullseye glass for the first time and seemed a lot stiffer to work with but was happy with a set I made below. The round beads were made with the new beadroller and focal was with Val Cox marver.

The lentil press also came in but it requires more glass than we thought to make a lentil so that will probably be put to the side for a few.

I'm loving the warmer weather, today was amazing out! On weather channel it says 44 for Monday's high!!!! Yaaay for warm weather :)

Spring is coming! + Sale

Today I was outside with Zoey, Andrea's mom and her new dog, Jack and she showed me some plants starting to make their way out of the ground! It's nice to see and makes me even more excited for spring! It even is starting to warm up a little in the studio which will make it much more bearable to torch longer :)

Been working on making sets now using the Val Cox marver which is going great. I have one finished set (pictured below) and a bunch that are almost complete and will finish those up this weekend. The Jim Moore lentil press will be here this coming Friday :)

We are starting to plan our shows/markets for this year and first one planned is Mother's Day Gift Show at the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, NH. This will be our first show so hope it goes well. We are hoping to do plenty of farmer's markets this year, so far we have heard from the Amherst, Peterborough and Newmarket markets.

Tomorrow is Zoey's first doggie play group! It is an hour long and hoping that goes well since she is scared of large dogs :( She has been getting better around people though! I brought her to the vet on Tuesday and she did not bark once! A much better visit than previous times, she barked about the whole time on those visits. So proud of my little hound haha :)

We are having a Valentine's day weekend sale with our Etsy shop, 20% off till midnight of Sunday EST. Here's the picture of first set finished using Val Cox marver :)

Flower Hearts

Yesterday I ended up making some flower hearts. Probably should have made them a little earlier for Valentine's day but oh well. Here's a few of them

Flower Pairs

Yesterday I worked on more flowers and made 9 pairs. I tried a few different layouts for the flowers and was happy with the outcome of all of them. I still have more ideas for pairs but it is quite cold out so not torching today. We will start listing them tonight on Etsy most likely :)

Flowers

The other day I was thinking of what would be new/good for farmer's markets for this summer and thought of the flower pendant I did the other day. I decided to make focals instead of pendants and had quite a bit of fun making them! The one in the first picture was challenging since the flowers are in different directions so it was hard to lay down the flowers. I've made seven so far and definitely going to make a lot more :) Next ones I'll try adding flowers, grapes and other stuff to the focal.

Again, love Terranova

I was making a fritted stringer bead with Gaia and was unhappy with how it looked and pressed it and that's when the magic began! The bead completely changed from a bleh green to green and blues with webbing effect! I liked it a lot so I did the same with Terranova/Gaia (accidently dumped Gaia frit into Terranova container) fritted stringer and this is the outcome of the Terranova/Gaia one! Same bead opposite sides.

Sale

We are having a sale on our etsy shop, 25% off the 100th item sold in our Etsy shop. If you order additional items with the 100th item those will be 25% off as well. Money will be refunded after via paypal or can send a message and we will make out an invoice :)

Rats!

With Andrea's family they open ornaments on Christmas Eve so I made her sister an off mandrel rat since she wanted a real one. I was happy with how the first one came out, picture of it below, so I made a family yesterday :) Still working on some soft glass pendants as well and haven't touched boro for a while now besides the one day to finish up some ornaments/gifts.

Candle Holder

My grandmother is coming home from rehab today!!! Anywho I was working a little with boro yesterday and this is one of the things that came out of the kiln
today :)