Art Shows - Are We Making Money Yet?

As I've written in earlier posts we started doing some arts and crafts shows. Mainly, in our neck of the woods - meaning Palm Springs and out to San Diego. As total novices we didn't know how to get connected to the shows so I subscribed to the "Craftmaster News," - yes, you have to buy a subscription, nothing is free, but I digress. I'd read the shows listed by month and of course, noted the price of shows which has so far determined whether we go or not as we don't want to put out the big bucks for shows until we know what we are doing. One of the art shows that caught my attention was "Recycled Treasure," in Paso Robles, California. Reasons for applying to this particular show: 1. entry fee $40 (price is right), 2. sea glass is definitely recycled treasure and 3. the clincher - my sister Julia, who doesn't do jewelry lives in Solvang so we can stay with her, get in a visit, then do the show. Perfect. Well, not quite.

I applied to the show, sent in pictures of our sea glass jewelry. Got accepted, then learned that sister Julia and her husband were going to be in Key West, Florida that weekend. So we'd get in a dinner and stay at her place alone on the way back. Disappointing, but hey, I'd committed to do the show. We left Palm Springs in the morning drove to Los Angeles and left our black poodle, Dylan Thomas, with Steve's parents then headed up to Solvang. We had a great dinner with my sister, then drove another two hours up to Paso Robles. I'd booked us into Motel 6 - hey, I have to save money where I can. It was late when we arrived. We got lost and then finally found the motel. Now it was really late in the evening and we were exhausted. First lesson of the road trip - don't save money on a motel if you don't know where the motel is located. And you know of course, that Motel 6 is no longer $6 if it ever was - "They leave the light On," but that is about it for amenities. This particular motel was $79 a night with tax. Once in the room, I noticed that there was no coffee pot, so much for bringing tea and apple cider drinks, and no shampoo. I hadn't brought any as I'm used to hotels having shampoo. Anyway, I went up to the desk and asked for shampoo - nope, they don't provide it nor do they have any to buy. So bring your own shampoo if you stay in a Motel 6, (must be one of their cost cutting schemes). My husband suggested we go out and find an all night drug store, but we'd gotten lost once and I didn't want to get in the truck again. The room was clean and the shower hot so that was good. The bad was that the Paso Robles Motel 6 is situated right next to the freeway about two feet away. I could swear that if a semi-truck pulled over to rest it would be in our room. The freeway noise was loud and all night long. So be careful of where you book your stay before a show.

We got up early, found out how to get to the Paso Robles park, then headed off to Starbucks for coffee (remember there was not pot in the room). The Recycled Treasure Show was held in the downtown park. We found our allotted space, unpacked, then Steve went to park the pickup. Now, you'd think I'd be setting up while he is parking. No. I wait for him to return because our tent/gazebo is like stiff and hard to erect. I see other people putting up their tents and it looks easy. Believe me, for me it's not. I could maybe do it if I had all day - I'm not mechanical and I hate contraptions that can pinch fingers and crash on my head. I couldn't put up the tables either because instead of buying light weight folding tables at say WalMart, we were using our old banquet tables that weight about 500 pounds (a little exaggeration) and they too have folding legs that pinch fingers. Finally, Steve gets back and we start setting up our space. First, we erect the tent and I have to drag the sand bags over to secure to the legs so the darn thing doesn't fly away, then we do the tables, then the table cloths, then the display boards, then we have to take all the jewelry out of plastic bags and display it prettily on the tables. Oh and the earrings, hundreds of them, it seems like hundreds, have to all come out of tiny plastic bags and be placed on earring boards (something we've just designed and are trying out for the first time. These boards are all heavy too - made out of plywood and not the thin plywood.)

(Here is a picture of one of the earring boards. The board works, but I'm not in love with the way it looks so we're still on the hunt for an attractive way to display the earrings. ) When we are finally set up it is about 8:00 and the show doesn't start until 9, but people were walking in the park and started to stop by the booths so it worked out fine.

Angles of booth. Sorry, didn't get a straight on shot.

While we waited for customers, Steve started leaving the booth to get food. He was hungry. He started with a hot dog and then went back for tamales and sodas. Then later, he made a run to a nearby coffee shop for frozen coffee drinks and scones. This is another expense, you have to consider when doing shows. Either bring your lunch or plan on spending your profits at the food vendors who always seem to have the most customers of all. Hmmm, what does that tell you?

We made a few sales and that always makes me happy. One of the biggest sales was my sister Shirley's gray sea glass pendant necklace, but that money would go in her pocket not mine. She had split the $40 entry fee and I was in charge of selling at this event. Anyway, when I started to add up my expenses in my head, I knew we were in the red big time. First, we had gas expense, not cheap when your husband owns a 1 ton pickup truck, 2. dinner in Solvang with my sister at restaurant, 3. Motel 6 at $79 for the night, 4. Food vendors, - and I knew there were more expenses to come for the trip home. On the bright side, I saw my sister Julia which was a treat, we got to see a little bit of Paso Robles which is a really lovely little town with old time square and shops and we got a little more show experience.

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign

Handmade Spark - SistersJewelryDesign

Art Fairs, Craft Fairs, Sidewalk Sales

Picture is table set up. We're getting ready to go to a Kite Festival in Ocean Beach, outside of San Diego, where we will have a booth to sell our Sea Glass and Other jewelry. The festival is on Saturday March 6, 2010 at 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. - outside. The weather forecast is now calling for some rain showers - oh, great. We were juried into the show, meaning we had to send pictures of our work and hope they like it, then we were accepted and had to pay a nonrefundable fee and now it might rain - I'm quickly learning that outdoor venues have a major drawback - the weather.



As I've explained in earlier posts, we are new to making jewelry and marketing. We've had home jewelry parties and we've had one indoor art fair, an easy one as it was up the street and one side walk sale that no one attended, and a few sales on our internet site Etsy. How do we get our jewelry out there for people to see and buy was the next question we asked. Luckily, there are nice people who share and one such person told us to buy the magazine "Craftmaster News," which I did. It's not cheap, but it lists almost all the big events on the West Coast - 2,500 evens to be exact.



So now I have the magazine and I begin looking at all the events listed by months. I looked at the location - we can't be driving to Idaho, right, then I looked at the cost of the event. We're small and right now we can't afford to put out $500 or more for a weekend event. I circled the shows in our area and in Oregon because the other half of Sisters Jewelry Design is Shirley and she lives in Oregon (a long way for us to drive, but I can see my sister so it's worthwhile). And I have to look at the type of show - if it is an auto show or farm equipment show for example, I know that sea glass jewelry won't be a big seller.

Okay, so now I have three criteria for picking an event - location, type of show and cost of show. The first show I picked is the one mentioned above, The Kite Festival in Ocean Beach, San Diego. It is a two hour drive for us, but it is near the beach which is a great location for a sea glass jewelry artisan booth, and it is realitively inexpensive at $35 for a 10x10 space. I took some pictures of our jewelry and submitted to the fair committee and waited to hear if we got into the show. We are accepted - yeah.
Back to the garage and the table set up. We've got our first art fair show lined up, but now we have to get ready. I learn that a lot of art and craft shows have rules - for example - they want all the tables to be covered with the cloth falling to the ground, they want fire retardent table covers, and of course, they specifiy the size of the booth. Originally, when we had the home shows and the one show up the street, we just used a bolt of material from Wal-Mart and cut it to size. Now, we realize we have to have something that looks professional. My sister suggests we have the table covers made - that idea turned out to be quite expensive so I went on the internet and found these black covers made to order - not cheap, but fire retardent and cheaper than having a seamstress make them. (There are a lot of sites on the internet that sell table covers and booth setups - ranging in price from low to high. You can even have your company's name or logo on the skirt of the covers, of course that is not an inexpensive option.)


I forgot to tell you that for tables, we had a bunch of banquet table legs, so Steve went to Home Depot and bought plywood and made the tables to fit the 10x10 space. We saved on not having to buy professional convention tables that fold up, they can start at $100 and go up, but our tables have two drawbacks - heavy and you need a pickup to carry them to the site as they are long. Luckily, we have a pickup and Steve is strong so he's in charge of setting up the tables. I am thinking that if we are successful at selling our wares at art fairs we may eventually buy the fold up tables - for now, we're on a shoe string budget.


Okay, we've got the tables and the covers, the next big questions to solve is how do we display our jewelry. In the past, we'd just put everything on the table flat - easy, but not really attractive. My sister and I hashed over some ideas, nothing grabbed us. I decided to go to an art festival and see what other people were doing which led me to The Southwest Arts Festival in Indio, California at the Empire Polo Grounds. This fair charged a $10 admission fee and you had to pay for parking in a big dirt lot. Approaching the Polo Grounds, we could see a myriad of tents set up on the polo grounds grassy area.

The art fair included a myriad of artisans from rug weavers to fine artists, watercolorists, sculptors, leather bags and of course, jewelry artists. There was food and music and lots of people milling about. We mapped out our course of how we would see the booths - doing the full circle then the inner rows.
(I've learned there is actually an art to picking where your booth is located as psychologically, most people enter say a room and turn right, often not seeing the row down the center or the left side booth area - interesting, huh?)


There was a lot to see and as we went along I asked if I could take photos for my blog and some people graciously said yes, and some were paranoid that I might copy some of their work - not, but that was okay too. One of the artisans I really liked was a woman from Albuquerque, New Mexico - Karen Carlson - she creates with leather and her bags were simply stunning. Another artist, I really liked was Cameron Kaseberg from Redmond, Oregon, who does solvent transfer of images. He had wonderful images of crows and as I'm a big fan of crows I was drawn to his work. Note in the above two pictures, you can see the two different booths and the set up. We also saw several jewelry booths and their set ups.

Note the plastic boxes and the large photos of jewelry on back and side walls of booths. These last two pictures show very sophisticated booth layouts. Hopefully, as we do more shows and learn more about the business of selling our jewelry at shows, we'll develop more of a look for our booths, but right now time and money dictate a simpler look for us. We left the art fair with more knowledge and more questions in our mind. So much to learn and yet, I'm confident as we sally forth to do a few shows this summer we will answer a lot of questions we have on "how to."

As I write this and look at these pictures again, I realize that most of the pop-up tents are white.

We bought a pop-up for this weekend because of the forecast of showers, but they didn't have white. I hope our light brown one will be okay. I'll let you know in my next post which will be after the show coming up.

Blue Moon and A Learning Curve

Before I get started just had to share this shot of Palm Springs mountains with dusting of snow. We had a big rain storm last week and voila - snow. It is warm outside today if you're in the sun, but not warm enough to swim.

Took Dylan to the dog park where he ran around in the mud and had a great time after three days of rain and no walks. Here's a shot of Dylan lounging. And a shot of his cousin Bogey up in Oregon -

Bogey loves walking with Dylan when we are in Oregon. Black and white, the color of the dogs and my new long rope necklace of black and white beads and white sea glass which you can see more of on http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ Here's a picture to entice you to go to Etsy -

As you have already discerned this blog post is all over the board. Where's the beginning, middle, and end? I don't know, I'm in a rambling mood and trying to figure things out as I bumble around the internet today.

I titled this post Blue Moon and Learning Curve. We'll get to Blue Moon in a bit, now I want to focus on Learning Curve. Lately, everything is a learning curve for me - the jewelry, the marketing, the internet marketing etc. Designing the jewelry is really fun. Ideas just pop in my head. But once the piece is made it has to have a price point? How much should I sell it for? I try to take in the scarcity of the sea glass, the components cost and also the time it takes to make the piece. A few days ago, I started listing the sea glass rope necklaces in my Etsy store at a low price. The first one, made by Shirley, sold within the hour . Wow, that was fast. It's a gorgeous necklace, but what made is sell so fast? Was the price point too low? Thinking about it more, I realized that there is a lot of sea glass in the necklace (hard to find, and time consuming to drill all the pieces), so I adjusted the price upwards to reflect the work and components of the piece. Naturally, I should have thought this out earlier before listing, but hey, it is all a learning curve. Here is a shot of the necklace that sold so fast -

It's very pretty and can be worn in one long strand or looped over the head for a double strand look. We have other sea glass ropes on our Etsy site.

After I adjusted the prices in my Etsy store, I went on Twitter and posted a few tweets. I've been gathering followers and finding people to follow. Sometimes, I click on a person's tweet and read their tweets and even go to their websites. If I do go to the website, I'll go back to Twitter and make a comment to that specific person. Everyone is tweeting and most are tweeting about their products or businesses. I'm wondering what percentage of people on Twitter actually go and look at my store or blog? Is it worthwhile to be on Twitter? Is tweeting helping my jewelry business? All unanswered questions that bounce around in my brain. And the biggest question of all is - Am I even tweeting correctly to really interest others to stop at my store or blog?

And I'm on facebook http://www.facebook.com/sbrin1 and again, is this social networking site reaching anyone out there or is it just another place to go and post. Do people see my Facebook page? Do they click on my Etsy logo from Facebook? Are we really all connected? Again, I feel that I don't use my Facebook correctly or even know how it all works, yet I'm on there posting and sharing like crazy. Again, the learning curve comes into play. Is it for naught? I don't know.

I'm even on several nings like Handmade Artist Hangout and Seaglasslovers.com. I finally figured out if you're in one ning you have the same password for all of them! Geez, what I don't know could fill a book. It's all trial and error with me. I'm like a character in Alice in Wonderland stumbling around the ether world - bumping into this and that.

I could go on and on about the learning curve with topics like Art Fairs and Shows - what is needed, how do you get in, what kind of display do you need and so on. But I want to get to the Blue Moon part of the title - Blue Moon is the title of one of my favortie songs, I especially like how 10,000 Maniacs sing it and it is the name for my latest long rope necklace just listed in my Etsy shop

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Any suggestions or help on learning my way around the social networking sites, please email me or comment here on the blog. I need all the help I can get. In the meantime, please check out my Etsy site at http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/ P.S. I should have labeled this post All Over The Place, but I won't because it is too hard to redo this darn blog and get it to look right - LOL.

Quartzsite - Rock and Gem Show

We just spent two days in Quartzsite, Arizona - a dusty, flat place that has for most of the year a population of about 200 people, but in January of each year it becomes the third largest city in Arizona. January is when vendors from all over the world descend on Quartzsite to sell their wares which range from beads to bananas. There are three venues, one right in Quartzsite on the main street behind a huge metal building called Gem World, then if you go down the street and cross over the over pass you'll find two more venues which are so big all you see are tents for miles. The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells. We were looking for beads and jewels to use with our sea glass for necklaces and bracelets. There were so many bead sellers our heads were on swivels - looking, looking, looking.


There were tents and awnings and booths and some metal buildings for the big sellers. There were people selling giant slabs of rocks, crystals, marble. There were tool sellers, fashions, roots, nuts, silk, tribal treasures, jewelry, opals, paintings and more. And in the middle of all the aisles, there were food vendors selling all those greasy and inviting foods with thousands of calories like corn dogs, home made potato chips, carmel corn, burgers, lemonades, and everything fried you can imagine. We had hot dogs and fried onion rings and French fries and a stomach about 20 minutes later. When we went back the second day, we had sandwiches from a deli before hitting the vendor area. Here's Steve with a corn dog for breakfast that first day. Later, he ate a burger. What can I say? Men are always hungry.

The venue we went to was called Tyson Wells and they have had this event for 32 years at Quartzsite. Some of the events there are as follows, just in case you want to venture over there - Rock and Gem Show - January 1-10; Sell-A-Rama - January 15-24; Art & Craft Fair - January 29-February 7, 2010. If you want to visit or even sell next year you can contact the promoters at tysonwells@tds.net.

Across the highway is another venue called Rice. We didn't get over there. Shoot, two days and we didn't even see all of Tyson Wells. It was fun and exhausting and dusty. Quartzsite is the desert so it is dusty and in this area very stark. We found wonderful beads, crystals, turquoise, glass beads and more so the two day trips were a success. A two hour drive from Palm Springs so another two hours to get back home each day which was tiring. You're probably thinking why not stay over night? There is no place to stay in Quartzsite unless you have a tent or RV. We saw hundreds of trailers, rvs, tents and camping sites all full of people. But we don't camp or trailer so that's why we did the drive each day. Just a few of the beads we picked up. If you work with beads and semi-precious stones, you'll want to go to the event next year - it truly is amazing. And the prices are so low compared to sites on the internet or those large catalogue companies. Great deals and savings.

This last shot is of us - two sisters tired yet still smiling at the end of the day shopping in Quartzsite.

We love making sea glass jewelry and finding natural stones and crystals and beads to use in our necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Here are a few shots of pieces we've created with some of our finds.

Please visit our website on Etsy to purchase Sea Glass jewelry hand made by Sisters Jewelry Design - http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Why Sea Glass Jewelry?

Why did my sister and I choose to work with sea glass in creating our jewelry? First, we love sea glass - we love the look of it, the feel of it and the collecting of it.

Authentic sea glass looks almost frosty, muted because it has been in the ocean. Some pieces look frostier than others and some even look like rocks. The longer a piece of sea glass is in the water the frostier and sometimes darker it becomes. Water leeches out the lime and soda in the original piece of glass leaving sea glass with a pitted effect on the surface and the formation of tiny crystals - the frost. The leeching or hydration process is a long, slow process which is why when hunting for sea glass you will find all sorts of glass in varying stages of hydration (some pieces of glass have been in the water longer than others.) Often, when searching for sea glass you will find it sparkling in the light like a treasure waiting to be found. In this necklace there are three small sea glass stones that come from the North Coast of England. These sea glass stones are dense in color and have been in the sea for many, many years. Note how the glass is frosty and a bit pitted and so unlike the clear piece of glass it was originally.

Fake sea glass or glass that has been made to look like sea glass usually comes from a rock tumbler. You can spot fake sea glass because of the look and feel. It is has a smooth satiny feel to the touch and it does not have the little "c" shaped patterns on the surface of the glass. Sometimes, people make fake sea glass by soaking the glass in acid and then tumbling in a rock tumbler, but it still looks different from real sea glass. No one has been able to duplicate the process glass undergoes in the ocean as it tumbles in the sand and waves over time - which makes authentic sea glass so special.
Sea glass comes in a limited palette of colors because they are pieces of glass that ususally come from broken bottles. The very common colors are - white, green, brown and they can be found on beaches throughout the world. Unique colors are green, brown, and white glass that show age in that they are thick or have patterning. A little harder to find sea glass is in the colors of sea green, cobalt blue, lavender, light aqua, amber. And even harder to find are the light blue-cornflower blue, lime green, red, orange, yellow, gray, teal, pink, aqua, opaque Glass. You might also find if you're lucky pieces of glass so unique that they truly are treasure liks pattern glass, bottle stoppers, marbles, old glass tiles. I haven't been there, but I've heard on the Northern California beaches you can find rare colors because years ago glass blowers used to throw their unwanted creations in the ocean and now those mistakes are washing up on the beaches as lovely sea glass.

Collecting sea glass is so much fun. You need a beach where shells, rocks and sea glass wash up on the shore - so you need some wave activity. How will you know if a particular beach is a good place to hunt for sea glass? Most times, you won't know until you explore the beach at low tide, but there are some sites on the web that list good beaches for collecting sea glass. There is even a couple in San Francisco that will take you to hard to reach beaches that are known for their sea glass bounty. My sister Shirley and I check out every beach we visit on the West Coast and we dream of exploring European beaches. Right now, our best finds have come from the beaches in Mazatlan, Mexico. My sister has a condo on the beach in Mazatlan so we go there a few times a year and spend hours on the beach. Here are a few shots of us and our husbands scouring the beaches for sea glass. It really is like a treasure hunt.

There is no way to look pretty or graceful while collecting sea glass. Your head is down and your bottom is in the air. You will attract people who are curious as to what you are doing - it goes with the territory. Often, we found strangers starting to search for sea glass too and then giving us their finds. (Maybe, I've hit on something here for single women looking for a mate - try searching for sea glass in a bikini on a beach where there are good looking men. Okay, not a great idea, but there are stranger ways for people to meet.) Exploring for sea glass is a great exercise - the time flies by and you don't notice that you've just spent two hours walking and walking and walking (I never feel that way at the gym). Exercise and being outdoors are just two of the side benefits of collecting sea glass. There is also an almost zen like quality that comes over you as you concentrate on finding sparkling jewels in the sand - all your worries and cares are pushed from your mind.

The uniqueness of sea glass, its beauty and its mystery captured our imagination which in turn led us to think about creating sea glass jewelry as a way of preserving our memories of the sea - the romance and the mystery. Please visit our store at etsy.com to see our unique - one of a kind sea glass creations. http://sistersjewelrydesign.etsy.com/

Medford, Oregon - Sisters Jewelry Design Sale

Sisters - who make up Sisters Jewelry Design - left - Susannah, right - Shirley.
A little slow in getting this blog going again after summer. And here we are in November. Okay, I'm going to back track to August. We went up to Medford, Oregon where my sister Shirley lives - Shirley is the other part of Sisters Jewelry Design. We combined a visit, a vacation and a sale at her home of our combined jewelry.

Here is Shirley working hard to get ready for our jewelry show. She loves to do sterling wire wrapping around the lovely sea glass we find on the beaches of Mexico. Just two of Shirley's many sea glass wire wrapped pendants. Check out SistersJewelryDesign on Etsy.com to see more of her original designs.
Two of Shirley's friends, Mary Lou and Dottie wearing Shirley's necklace pendants of sea glass.

As you can see we have quite an assortment of sea glass pieces and styles. Each piece of sea glass is unique and created with attention to detail and an eye to fashion.





A few pictures of the lovely women who attended our first Oregon showing of our sea glass designs.
Not all of our vacation was spent selling jewelry, we also attended a small craft fair at Jack and Nancy Day's winery where we enjoyed their RoxyAnn Wine - grown and bottled in Medford, Oregon. There are a lot of vineyards and wineries in Oregon, but we think Jack and Nancy's is one of the best. Here are a few shots from the fun time at the winery and craft fair. Nancy and Jack Day.

Shirley checking out crafts - competition?

Old barn now used as a winery.

Bottles of RoxyAnn wine.

We left Shirley and Pat's house and headed up to Bend, Oregon where Steve fished and I thought about designs and wished I was at the beach. The cabin on the Rogue River is a fun place to go - too bad there is no sea glass there to collect, but hey, I shouldn't be obsessed, right?

Pictures on the Rogue River in Oregon -

Steve fishing. He'll go anywhere if he can fish. We did find a little lake with a sandy beach, but alas no sea glass. This is a shot of Twin Lakes in Oregon.
While we were at the cabin, we decided to have a jewelry show at my niece Alison's house in Bend. Only a few people came to the show, but we sold a few pieces and had a lot of fun visiting my niece and nephew Adam shown here with his fiancee Joanna. Alison is in the picture to the right at the end.

We hit up all the relatives for jewelry shows on this vacation. Even Mom, in Tigard, Oregon got roped into inviting a lot of her friends over for wine and jewelry viewing. Mom is 84 and still going strong. And yes, we gave her a necklace as a thank you for having the jewelry sale and for just being her. And a picture of Mom's garden - her pride and joy.

The Oregon trip was a success and we had a good time. What is so fun about designing jewelry is not only the creative aspect, but also the people you meet and the places you go in marketing your jewelry. We look forward to more road trips and making new friends along the way. Here are some new designs in necklaces -


Next time, we venture to Malibu, California to a friend's home for a little autumn get together and another jewelry sale.