The Nitty Gritty ~ Javagoth's Blog

Tamera's Tips & Bits
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Choosing Your Venues - It's Not Just About Numbers

Published: 05-08-2013 11:28pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
One of the more difficult tasks I've had over the last year is figuring out where the best places are to sell my jewelry and accessories. On one hand, you need enough consumers going to the event or venue to get a decent amount of sales.  This last weekend proved that there's more to it than that, though. You also need to consider the audience and find the right places and events to sell your products.For example:  Sunday, May 5th was the date of this year's Fremont Sunday Market Mobile Food Rodeo event.  It's a large and well attended event.  Reports are that there were more than 20,000 people through the market that day.  Now, it's true tha... » Read More

Marketing Goals

Published: 05-03-2013 07:25pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
Today I met with Washington C.A.S.H Marketing and Business Specialist, Laura Fletcher.  Together we came up with some goals for me for my business.  We discussed various strategies and talked about what I'd tried, what I wanted and needed, and what I am less interested in doing at least in the short term.One thing I determined late last fall was that the one day outdoor markets are really hard on my physically and that I didn't really want to do them on a very regular basis.  I've also determined that I'm not really set-up currently to do wholesaling and I'm not sure that's where I want to go.  I'm putting on a back burner for now. I think I ... » Read More

Why do all your blog posts have the same date of today???

Published: 11-25-2011 10:35pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
Well, I have been really busy and apparently missed the memo that the Blog feature was being revised and that the blogs would have to be started all over again. At first I thought I'd lost all my previous blog posts but then I found the migrate feature. Unfortunately, it didn't migrate the previous publish dates and there was really no way for me to find them all again (if I'd known I'd have written them down before migrating) so I just decided to re-post everything today and then start again from here. Isn't technology grand?... » Read More

Staying True to Yourself &Your Vision and Make It Work Moments

Published: 11-25-2011 10:29pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
The weekend of March 4th-6th, I was vending at Emerald City Comicon as part of the Feral Sky Studios collective. Several artists combine forces for the weekend to help off-set the cost of the booth to a manageable level for all of us. We end up having a wide variety of eclectic yet similarly themed items to offer.  All weekend long we got many compliments and comments from a lot of people who liked the variety we had to offer.  We seem to fill a niche that is needed at that event.  At any rate, it's a large event with a lot of people coming through.  It was a long weekend and a successful one.  There were, as always at these events, highs... » Read More

The Tricky Business of Pricing Beadwoven Items

Published: 11-25-2011 10:28pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
The picture for this post is a quick & dirty picture I took of my latest completed project.  It's a beaded medal that will be marketed as a Steampunk Medal.  The medal part is a coin which I have encased in Opaque Black Japanese size 11 Delica seed beads using a right angle weave which I embellished with more seed beads.  The "ribbon" part is made of a mix of Opaque Black, Matte Black, Opaque Dark Red, and Metallic Bronze Japanese size 11 seed beads using a Peyote 2-Step Odd Count stitch.  Because the number of rows are an odd count this means I have an extra series of steps I have to do at the end of every other row that I wouldn't need t... » Read More

One Day Vending Events Can Be Brutal

Published: 11-25-2011 10:26pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
I was reminded recently that one day events can be brutal. I recommend asking a friend to help you out rather than doing it all yourself. In addition, the one day event was happening 4 days before a 4 day event so I didn't really get to recover. I am paying the price now in 3 days of very low energy and a cranky back. Let's start this by giving you a general sketch of what this one day event was like for me. First, I end up staying up late the night before the event. This is a given. No matter how much I resolve not to do this, it happens. In the unlikely event it doesn't happen, there's still the issue of nerves that make me not sleep well... » Read More

Where is she?

Published: 11-25-2011 10:25pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
So much for my resolution to post at least weekly... My guilds may be wondering where the heck I've been as well. Best I can offer is that life happened.  I recently ran out of unemployment and the last couple weeks have been a real struggle for me in a number of ways.  I'm trying to figure out what to do while not succumbing to depression inertia.  I have to think about what to talk about that others want to hear or might find useful.  At the same time I'm starting to be in deadline crunch for Steamcon II - a local steampunk convention that's happening November 19th-21st.  I notice that traffic has picked up here in the last day or so ... » Read More

Two of my collections and my studio featured on the Brizel Handcrafts Blog!

Published: 11-25-2011 10:20pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
A couple of the collections I've created (Celestial & Blue Flower Inspirations) are featured on the Brizel Handcrafts Blog today!  Go take a look and check out the wide variety of nifty crafts and craft items she has there.  We seem to have the love of many crafts in common though she has a good deal more education and experience in many things.  She's one of the many helpful people here on Artfire who do what they can to help their fellow artists put their best foot forward!... » Read More

Guilty Pleasures and Inspirations

Published: 11-25-2011 10:20pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
For a number of years after my divorce, I didn't have a TV.  My ex and I had watched A LOT of TV and movies together and I was just kind of sick of it.  I also didn't want to pay for cable TV anymore.  Though I date myself by saying so - I remember when cable TV first started and I felt that the cost vs what you get now and what you got then wasn't justified.  I finally got a small TV with a built in VCR & a used DVD player so I could watch the belly dance videos I had and movies I owned.  Sometimes I would hear about a show from friends and watch it on-line or wait for it to come out on DVD (I hate commercials - about 80% of which seemed to ... » Read More

The more tedious part of jewelry making

Published: 11-25-2011 10:16pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
I love jewelry making.  I've been making jewelry for a long time and I really love all the new (some new in general and some new to me) techniques I'm learning.  Preparing jewelry to sell (particularly on-line) involves some tedious tasks I'm not so in love with.  Before I left on vacation I did a couple pours of Ice Resin so the pieces could cure while I was gone.  I had a mixed bag of items I was working on.  I was doing some finishing work on some pieces that had been put off while I was doing some arts & crafts shows, I was making some new pendant pieces, and I was doing some experimentation on what I hoped would be a new line of ... » Read More

It's the little things...

Published: 11-25-2011 10:04pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
Last weekend was hard.  I'd been doing all this work for my shop that needed to be done but seemed to be taking half of forever.  I also finally redeemed the free ad space that I got because of a billing glitch when I signed up for a Pro account last month.  I was excited that I was featured in the blog of another long term Artfire Pro and felt the need to get my shop better organized and to try to get all my latest items listed.  So all week it was work, work, work.  Then Friday I got the rejection letter from the Winter Festival and Sunday I got a rejection email for an event I applied to in October.  It kind of knocked the wind out of... » Read More

Of Crafting Addictions and Coping Mechanisms...

Published: 11-25-2011 10:03pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
Hi!  My name is Tammy and I have a crafting addiction... I sometimes joke that crafting is a positive outlet for my obsessive compulsive tendencies.  Nowhere is this more evident than in my collection of hair flower hair clip accessories - most of which are not yet posted but I'm working on it.  This week my friend and partner has been helping me by taking photos of the legion hair flower clips I've created over the last few years so that I can post them.  We had our own little sweatshop photography studio going on Wed and Thursday and he took over 400 shots.  I have about a quarter of them on a disk to work on posting this weekend and... » Read More

Blog interrupted...

Published: 11-25-2011 10:03pm
Posted In: The Nitty Gritty
I'm afraid my blogging has been interrupted by a combination of holiday craziness (making gifts for friends and loved ones - mostly cookies and some crocheted items), followed by catching the bad cold several of my friends, my roommate, and my partner had, and then finally having a rather spectacular fall just outside my house which involved half splits and a very twisted ankle. **sigh** The good news is that I'm recovering from both the cold and the fall and should be feeling back up to snuff for the new year. ... » Read More
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