Green Music Fest

This is where I will be this weekend!  MasiDesigns along with several other Urban Folk Circuit artists will be sharing some tents at the Green Music Fest in West Town this weekend.  You can find me on Saturday, but the festival runs both Saturday and Sunday.  There will be music, food, beer, and vendors with a green-living focus.  Hope to see you there if you're free!

Spring!

After a long hiatus (I am not so hot at this blogging thing!) I am back.  I'll do a small sum up of the past few weeks:

As of my last post, I was hard at work preparing for the Urban Folk Circuit craft show at the Abbey Pub in mid-March.  After a few weeks of prep and a little work on my logo/displays, I did the show, and I think it was a success!  These picture is kind of dark, but an idea of what my booth looked like:

Urban Folk Circuit at Abbey Pub, 03/19/2011

I brought my headband/earwarmers, scarves, strawberry baby hats, coffee cozies, and a small selection of fiber jewelry/spring headbands.  I was pretty happy with the day overall - made several sales and had a good deal of interest, which is all I could have asked for!  Definitely had too much fall/winter merchandise which I thought would happen - which brings me to my latest projects!

I have been working on more spring/summer floral headbands and accessories, as they seemed to get the most interest at the show.  Here are a few examples:

Bohemian Floral Headbands

Hair Accessories

Fiber Jewelry

I have a lot more still in process - I've been fooling around with different designs, and have been working mostly assembly line style, so I have a lot of loose pieces still to be assembled.  My hope is to have a lot ready for a photo shoot next weekend to updated my Etsy, which brings me to my next thing...

If you take a look at my Etsy site, you'll notice 2 lovely models gracing the page.  Two of my girlfriends offered to model for me, and the photos came out great!  I will slowly be replacing all the photos on my site, as the items I've already updated with fresh photos have gotten a lot more traffic.

My favorite tools to keep an eye on traffic and trends on my site are Google Analytics, which you can link to any site to get very detailed specs on site usage, and Craft Cult, which is specifically designed to track Etsy.  I would definitely recommend both for all Etsy shop owners!

I have two more shows coming up in the next couple of months: Urban Folk Circuit at Quenchers Saloon on May 21st, and Green Music Fest, where I'll be sharing a tent with 2 other crafters on June 25th.  Until then, I'll be hard at work on my new spring/summer items.  I can't wait!

Week 1: Knit Headbands

Now that I'm gearing up for the Urban Folk Circuit March 19th show, I've set a schedule for myself in the hopes of reaching 100 items to have at my table.  I already have several scarves and a couple of items in my other products made, but only about 30 items total.  So week 1 of 4 before the show was dedicated to my knit headbands/earwarmers.

They are still unfinished in this shot - I took this on Saturday and finished with the embellishments on Sunday.  I basically took over the living room working on them though - good thing Ryan was in rehearsals almost all weekend!

 

Although, our living room almost always looks like this these days.  A one-bedroom apartment is not quite enough room sometimes for two people living and often working at home!  Do you have an extra room, studio or designated space for your hobby or business?

I haven't had a chance to photograph the finished headbands yet (I'll be listing them in my Etsy shop as made-to-order items) but hopefully this coming weekend if not before.

This week is baby hats - it's been a little slow of a start as I continue to run into sizing issues (it's a little difficult without having a baby to test on, numbers on paper just doesn't always work out somehow) but I've narrowed the styles I will have at the show from 5 to 2, and am just making a variety of sizes and colors.  I kind of figured that would happen, anyway.

Stay tuned for strawberry and heart baby hats - suggestions welcome on color combos for my heart hats!  I'm only at pink/red and aqua/blue so far.

Urban Folk Circuit in Chicago, March 19th!

Well it's official...in less than one month I will be doing my first craft show!  This is excluding when I would sell friendship bracelets at my mom's shows when I was 10.  I figure making less than $5 doesn't count :)

 Two female artists in the local craft community here in Chicago created the Urban Folk Circuit a few months ago, and once I stumbled upon it I couldn't wait to apply.  They have consistently held shows each month at a different local venue with local artists and local bands. 

I attended their February show to see what kind of artists where their and the types of products - everything from jewelry to stationary, knitted goods to handbags, photos to soaps.  This upcoming March show it their biggest yet - about 60 artists.  Very exciting stuff!

I've been working like crazy the past 2 weeks in the hopes I would get accepted to the show - now that I have the okay I have a packed schedule for the next 3 1/2 weeks.  I'm 'hoping' to have an inventory of 100 items at the show (which sounds loftier than it is - about 30-40 will be my coffee cozies which are pretty small) and I'm at about 40 total so far.  I also have to plan my displays and all the little details - It's going to be a busy month!

I have been putting up new items in my Etsy shop fairly consistently as I complete them (and get a chance to photograph them).  Here are a couple samples from my new line of Spring Fling Crochet Headbands:

 I'll have a couple more up this week, and many more to come in the next few weeks.

Lunch break is over, back to work and then home to knit and crochet.  The next month will look pretty much like that!