spring fever

when i was a little girl in grammar school (second grade, actually), i wrote an impromptu poem entitled 'spring fever'. somehow, the nun who was the principle at the time saw it, and decided it would be a good idea to have me read it to the entire school over the intercom...right away.

and thus began my public speaking career...lol. i was reminded of this little episode when i noticed not one, but four (!), robins in the tree outside my house this past week. what a welcome sight! one of the things i love about living in a place like buffalo is that we get to experience all four seasons. while my favorite is fall, i really look forward to watching the transformation that occurs as each season fades into the next. thankfully, big, scary, snowbound buffalo enjoyed a mild winter, and now, it looks like we are about to begin our spring...thank you, mother nature!

so with this unexpectedly early visit from spring, i've been a busy chick...spring cleaning? check. seedlings started for the garden? check. easter items for the shop? check. now, if only the sun would keep melting the snow in the yard, i can begin my spring cleanup outside too...

in the meantime, i have enough custom orders to keep me happily busied in the studio. a couple of weeks ago, i was invited to a birthday dinner for my very good friend's mom. not wanting to show up empty-handed, i decided to whip up a birthday party hat just for her. well, it was so well-received, i decided to post it in the shop. that led to three custom orders in a matter of days! needless to say, i think i need to get to work on expanding my birthday line a lot sooner than planned.

amongst these custom confections was a frilly, pink birthday banner for a little girl named 'olive' and a new, sparkly 'happy birthday' banner (also for olive...boy, that girl is going to have one heck of a birthday party!). both are available through the shop, so stop in and take a peek. the frilly 'olive' banner was very much like the one i was commissioned to make for a surprise family reunion a few months ago for a dear customer in texas. she had just located a long lost sister, and she wanted to surprise her with a custom confection for their first meeting. i was so touched and honored to be able to participate in such a momentous occasion! in fact, i thought i would share with you a picture of lee with her sister carla...

needless to say, i admit that i am suffering from a serious case of spring fever...the sun is shining, we can see more blue skies, and i am itching to get outdoors. what about you? are you jonesing for the sunshine and fresh air like i am? do you have any special rituals or practices that you do to ring in the season? do you like to change up your decor, like i do? are you in the midst of your winter sowing for the garden?



whatever it is you do, wherever you are, i hope the sun, the warmth, and the flowers find you soon...

well, we're movin' on up! to the eeeast siiiiddee...

yup, i was a kid who grew up watching the jeffersons...but that's not my point here today, though it would be fun to reminisce about how great tv shows in the 80's were...mr. belvedere...benson...the facts of life...falcon crest...sigh.

oh well, back to work here...

a few weeks ago, the crepe confectionary was honored to be asked to participate in a discussion panel at the North Tonawanda Public Library!

so amidst filling the shop full of valentine's day goodies and preparing for the february Buffalo Indie Market, i began to catalog all the things i had come to learn in my very short time as a business owner. like, always get payment for a custom item before you begin spending time and money on it. or, that good pictures of your work are your best advertisement. by the time i had finished, i had identified a number of tips that i felt were helpful to me in my work thus far. the presentation was a success, and was so well received, that i thought i would share them with you here...

now, if you're anything like me, the crafting part is what comes naturally. the challenge i faced when turning my hobby into my livelihood were all the details related to running a business. i am a doctor by training, with a very little bit of design schooling under my belt. i possess zero business acumen. so i found myself doing what i always do when i take up some new venture, and that's educating myself. i went looking for resources that would be useful to me. these included, but were not limited to: my brother, who has an MBA; my sister in law, who has a very entreprenurial brain; the Canisius College (my alma mater) women's business center, which offers free consulations to new business owners; and last but not least, Craft, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco, a fantastic 'how-to' guide for the beginner.

when it came down to it, i found myself focusing the "business" half of my brain on two areas: branding, myself and my shop, and marketing, my shop and my little creations. these are the tips i had to share with those in attendance at the "how to be an etsy seller" workshop...

when it comes to branding yourself, think about the image you want your shop to portray, the type of customer you are looking to attract, and the level of refinement you desire as a business owner.

• be creative, but not confusing with your shop name. (though 'crepe confectionary' often gets requests for crepes...to which i must regretfully inform the inquirer that i only make those on saturday mornings and they're not for sale...)
• be consistent! use the same name/logo across any websites, including blogs.
• develop a logo and create a shop banner. a logo is a great way to leave a lasting impression with browsers and customers.
• make or purchase business cards or ATCs (artist trading cards), and ALWAYS have them with you. don't be afraid to hand them to people - you are your own marketing department!
• create your own packaging theme and stick to it. customers love when they receive a package that has been carefully and thoughtfully wrapped. it reflects your own level of professionalism, as well as demonstrates the worth of your product.
• surprise your customers with a small token of appreciation for their purchase (i.e. a small photo if you're a photographer, extra scrap supplies, postcards, etc). this will keep your customers coming back, fo sho!

so you have a product, you have an etsy shop, and you're ready to go, right? nope. lol.

marketing yourself is key. sure, your store will get some traffic from the casual etsy browser, but you should strive to build a following, because those are the customers that will continue to support you. etsy is a community more than anything else. to be successful there, you need to be personable and willing to connect to your fellow craftspeople/artisans, as well as your customers. furthermore, you need to be the face of your shop and product. etsy buyers shop on etsy because they desire handmade, quality, one of a kind items, and they want to know from whom they are purchasing.

• create a blog. a blog is a great way to introduce yourself and your product to the world. talk about your inspiration, your creative process, your hobbies, your favorite recipes, whatever! provide tutorials and contests to keep your readers interested.
• network with other etsy sellers and creative bloggers. you would be surprised how many etsy sellers are also etsy buyers. look for other shop owners who have 'hearted' you, and 'heart' them back, or send them a message thanking them for their support.
• read and comment on blogs that you feel capture readers suited to your ideal customer. people will notice you, and the blogger may even give you a shout out on his/her blog. this is a great way to increase traffic to your shop.
• participate in your local community. look for other local etsy sellers, and get to know them. being your own boss and running your own shop can be a great way to make some money, but it can also be quite isolating. furthermore, your fellow artisans/shopkeepers can be excellent resources and wonderful free advertising.

whew! this turned out to be a marathon post, no? lol...well, nonetheless, i hope this was helpful to any of you readers out there who are on the fence about taking the next step with your hobby. i can only speak for myself, but my experience thus far has been nothing but positive. remember, you reap what you sow, so opening an etsy shop can be as simple as a side project for extra cash, or you can be like me, and decide to see if you have the guts to do something that really tests your limits, but feeds your soul. the beauty is, it's all up to you...

what about you? do you have a tip to share? a question you need answering? have you opened an etsy shop recently? i'd love to hear what your experiences have been like...post a comment and feel free to plug your shop or your site or your own blog!

And the winner is...

well, my first blog contest has come and gone...

as expected, turn out was low, but that just means your odds for winning my valentine's vintage wreath were excellent for those who were kind enough to leave me a comment!

first, i would like to thank all of my readers...anyone who stops in, whether it be intentionally or because you stumbled on to me amidst the great worldwide web. if you stay awhile, i'm grateful.

second, thanks to all of you who were kind enough to leave such sweet and heartwarming words for me on my birthday! you should know that comments are always welcome here, and they are often where i cull my greatest inspiration...

so, without further ado, drum roll please...

the winner is: NANCY!

now, nancy, if you're reading, you need to contact me through the blog so i can send you your prize! you are registered as 'anonymous' and i wouldn't want you to miss out! now, for the rest of you, better luck next time! and, hey, if nance does not contact me to claim her prize within one week, i will use my trusty random number generator to produce a new winner. so stay tuned!

and please, please, keep reading!

its my brithday and i'll share if i want to...

i officially turn 33 on friday, so in honor of my birthday and to celebrate where i am in my life (new beginnings, etc, etc), i have decided to do my first blog contest!

while i realize this may turn out to be a bust, depending on exactly how large my readership is, i'm still pretty happy to share some bday love with those of you out there that do come around to my glittery, dusty little corner of the digital world.

with that in mind, i'm going to keep this first time out simple. here's the deal: all you have to do is leave me a comment on this post -- anything, really. on friday, february 12th at noon, i will use a random number generator to pick the winner.

now, i'm sure you're all dying to know what the prize is...

TAH DAH!! its my vintage heart wreath, featured in my etsy shop for valentine's day. i realize that valentine's day is next sunday, and the winner will not receive this sweet little treat in time. i apologize in advance, but complaints can be lodged with my parents, richard and sylvia, for not getting it on sooner! (giggles...)

so happy birthday to me, and good luck to you all!

and the coffee filter insanity continues...

yes, it's true...

i am still playing with dyed coffee filters...and i'm still completely taken with the aesthetic concept. its so...fluffy. and romantic. and just plain cheap. AND so simple to do. in the last week or so, i've made a very large pom in a robin's egg blue and taupe for my studio -- this thing ended up being roughly the size, or larger, of a basket ball. it looks so cute hanging in the corner above my sewing table. i plan to do a few more in varying sizes so this one doesn't look too lonely hanging up there by itself. i've also put together this rather large heart that is currently hanging in my entryway. i got the heart-shaped form from Hobby Lobby and just dyed, oh, about two hundred (!) coffee filters pink. it actually didn't take too long. in fact, i thought that the large heart went much more quickly than the smaller heart i showed in my tutorial last week.

what about all of you? have you caught this coffee filter bug yet? if so, what have you whipped up?

this time of year in buffalo can be tough to get through...while we don't really get nearly as much snow as the rest of the world seems to think we do, it can be quite cold and quite gray. i yearn for the sun...the warmth...the garden. its time for me to start my winter sowing, which has turned into quite an ambitious undertaking for me, but one that i am very proud of. last year, i started hundreds of seedlings...all of my perennials and tons of annuals. i only have a small garden in the city (about 20' by 16'), so i ended up gifting a lot of my babies away; but i was so thrilled to have grown nearly all of my garden plants and flowers last year. it was really rewarding to nurse them from tender little seedlings to these lovely flowering beauties, AND i found it helped alleviate some of the winter blues to be looking after something that was alive and growing despite the inches of blowing snow outside the door...

my newly found obsession: coffee filters and how to dye them

yes, you read correctly. i am currently absolutely obsessed with coffee filters. i'm literally dreaming of them...toying with new ways to use them in my crafting adventures.

and it all began with the latest issue of Somerset Life. now, this is a magazine that i have heard mentioned many times before, but i never really gave it any notice. however i recently found myself killing time at my local Borders, browsing through the magazines. i came across the illustrious Somerset collection of mags, and decided to give them a closer look...
there are a number of Somerset publications, and if you give it a google, you can see for yourself. i'm not a scrapbooker, or a doll maker, or a collager. i am, however, a designer at heart, and i instantly fell in love with Somerset Life, as well as Somerset Holidays & Celebrations. the pages abound with wonderfully inspiring photos and ideas, featuring a lot of artisans that i was surprised to find myself familiar with either from my favorite etsy sellers or blogs. i was literally charmed as i turned each page...

my experiments with crepe paper have given me an appreciation for the plasticity, if you will, of a sheet of paper. actually, i was taught to recognize this unique characteristic back when i was a grad student studying architectural design. there are a limitless amount of possibilities for transforming a flat, plane of paper into something more dimensional, something whose presence in space is completely different just because you folded or rolled it. so basically, what i'm getting at here, in a totally verbose way, is that i like making ruffles with sheets of crepe and ribbon. so naturally, i was totally taken with a picture i found in this issue of Somerset Life of a large pom pom ball made of tea stained coffee filters. i immediately imagined at least ten to twenty of them hanging from the ceiling of my studio...

however, since i currently find myself creating romantic little confections for the shop, i dreamt up a little valentine's day project using coffee filters dyed with food coloring. you can purchase the finished product in my shop, but i enjoyed playing with this otherwise mundane medium so much, i thought i would demonstrate the process for you. this is also a great project for the novice crafter, or even as a rainy day craft with the kids.

here's what you'll need:

• package of plain 'ol white coffee filters
• food coloring or tea brewed for staining
• straight pins
• styrofoam heart or other foam form
• card stock
• vintage sheet music or other decorative papers
• vintage trim or other ribbons
• glitter
• glue gun

here's the how-to:

you must begin by staining or dying your coffee filters. the number you choose to whip up is really dependent upon how large of an application you're using them for. i do a bunch more than i think i will need, because i know i want a nice, fully look at the end. next, you must decide whether you're going to use a tea stain or a food coloring dye. for this project, i used red food coloring, in three different concentrations or shades. i simply filled a large, white bowl with water, dropped a few drops of coloring in, and mixed. when i was done dying a number of filters with this shade, i simply added a few more drops of food coloring to the same bowl of water in order to deepen the color. i did this three times, but there is no precision to this craft! do as many shades as you like...do a number of different colors...whatever! that's the beauty of this -- there is absolutely no wrong way to execute this!





now, before i dip my filters into the dye, i pinch them at the center and twist them into a bundle of sorts. then, all i have to do is dip them in the dye bath, and then gently squeeze them out. i lay the stained/dyed filters on a large tinfoil lined cookie sheet and place them in the oven on its lowest setting to dry. you could air dry the filters, but i'm ridiculously impatient when it comes to these things. even with the oven, the drying process will take at least an hour. during that time, keep a close eye on them, and turn them often, fluffing them gently open to facilitate drying.



finally, when these babies are all dry, its time to craft up something sweet with them. i chose to affix them to a heart shaped piece of styrofoam that i picked up at my local craft shop. i simply put a dollop of hot glue on the filter's pinched end, stand it up on the styrofoam, and then for a little extra hold, i stick a short straight pin through the filter and into the styrofoam. you want to place the filters rather closely together, but try to space them evenly. the fullness of your finished product will vary depending on how many filters you use and how closely they are placed together. to make the aforementioned pom pom, you would simply use a styrofoam ball (does anyone else find the price of these things as ridiculous as i do? what is it about styrofoam that makes it so damn expensive??).

finally, to complete the heart project i have above, i affixed a piece of sheet music to the back of the heart. i then trimmed the styrofoam heart off with a strip of pink card stock that i cut with a pair of decorative scissors by hot gluing it tightly around the edge of the heart. i also added a strip of velvet rick rack for some extra detail. my final touch was a banner reading "BE MINE" in a decorative font, printed on white card stock, and trimmed out with some vintage glass glitter.

my hope in sharing this little project with you all is that you have just as much fun playing with the process as i did...if you make something great, send a pic in and share! i'd love to see what you all come up with!

hello, 2010...

for those of you who haven't lost interest yet and are still checking in, i thought i would drop in and leave a quick post to get you all up to speed on what's been going on for The Crepe Confectionary...

christmas sure came on like a freight train, didn't it? it seems like just a few weeks ago i was still raking leaves and carving pumpkins, enjoying the final sunny days of our indian summer. i started the noel season with a ton of ideas for products and projects for the shop, but found that there just wasn't enough time available for a prolonged 'exploratory' process when it came to designing new pieces. therefore, i found it necessary to organize my christmas line so that i had a handful of pieces varying in size, detail, and price point. i made certain that i had a small items, such as ornaments that could be used for display on the tree or as extras on gifts. there were also some midsize pieces, such as fancy word banners and tussie mussies. i even designed and handcrafted my own version of the Eiffel Tower, bathed in glitter and adorned with a crepe rosette. in fact, many of the pieces in my christmas 2009 line were french-inspired, and if you're at all interested, you can still view them in the shop to your right. and then finally on the more involved, and therefore more expensive, end of the line, i crafted some larger, vintage inspired "Putz" style christmas village houses. there were snowy little cottages atop boxes covered in vintage sheet music, as well as larger scale glittered houses and a chapel complete with their own charming little scenes.

the christmas season was also remarkable for The Crepe Confectionary because it participated in its first exhibition/show. while the show was by no means a large scale, full fledged craft festival, it did provide me with an invaluable first time experience as i begin this journey into the craft fair world. the buffalo indie market (buffaloindiemarket.com) is a monthly gathering of local artisans and vendors in a relaxed, casual atmosphere (a brewery, actually). one saturday a month, buffalonians can shop the wares of smaller, independent artisans while sipping alcohol. this, in my humble opinion, is just pure genius. participating was definitely a stress i did not count on for the christmas season, but i am thrilled that i was given the opportunity to set up shop and put myself and my little confections out into the world amongst such talented and wonderful people. it really gave me a sense of community and belonging to something bigger, and i think as an independent business owner/artisan, that is so very necessary. sometimes whiling away in the studio can get lonely, and just plain isolating...

and so, i will try to pick up where i left off...i have a ton of resolutions for the new year, both for myself personally, as well as for my business. i strive to develop a solid business plan...research and apply for grants...establish and stick to a more sensible work routine...refine my packaging...design my show space/experience...and finally, participate in at least five craft shows this year.

tall order? probably, but i think its doable. and really, its necessary. if i am earnest about pursuing this ambition of mine, i need to treat it with all seriousness. so in this coming year, i need to determine if -- and just how -- viable The Crepe Confectionary is...i need to know if i can support myself, at least at some point in the near furture. that, my friends, is my measure of success...