Saturday, May 16, 2009

New Stuffffffff

So MsItoMosquito has a taken a turn for the time being. I needed to do something new just to shake things up a bit. My friend Julie carves her own stamps for her Etsy shop, www.mailday.etsy.com. and I talked to her about carving my own. The first time I did it I absolutely hated it. Hated. IT. Then while watching her make stamps at the craft fair (remember we had some down time...) I realized that I was doing it all wrong. Figures. So I decided to give it another shot...and I love it.

The only problem is I can't think of things to carve. I'm wanting simple, quirky things to stamp in the lower right corner of cards. Simple, just one stamp and that's it. I'm only going to sell them as sets and because they take a lot less time making them (once the stamp is carve) I'm going to sell them for a lot less than my other cards. Just trying to shake things up since while sales on Etsy have stopped completely.

So shoot me some ideas for stamps, something that you would want on a card, or just an idea you have. If I make a stamp with yours suggestion I'll give you a free card. Deal? I'm expecting ideas to start pouring in now...

Here is one of my first run of cards...

Sunday, May 3, 2009

I'm so sorry to all my blog readers, all 6 of you. I have kept you waiting on the edge of your seat for my next installment of msitomosquito musings. But wait no more..

As many or all of you know I was preparing for my first craft show. Well that show has come and gone and only two of you showed up. Rude. Ha. And don't try to tell me that you came and I just must have not seen you, because believe me I know everyone that was there, all 15 of them.

So ya it was a slow day..but not a total lost. At least in my eyes. Mom would stop giggling at the whole situation and cracking jokes which at least she thought were funny. Kidding mom.

I'd been stockpiling all my cards and gift tags to make sure I had enough of an inventory for the big day. I did, with an extra 100 left over. I was asking my twitter friends for advice and got some great advice and encouragement from a talented, sweetheart that I talk to from somewhere in Canada, PEI I think, I'll have to google. Her main advice was to be organized. And I think I was, especially for my first event.

We set up the table in the house hallway the night before. Dad was my only customer and he almost fell over when I told him my prices, but then again he's probably never bought a card in his life.

I made an adorable banner that I found on a website at 11 the night before. We packed up the table and tried to sleep. I knew I had an early morning, for me at least, but couldn't fall asleep with jitters and ideas for the next day.

Amanda went with me to set up which I definitely appreciate, she was the best helper/salesperson I could have asked for. Except when she gave a 90 yr old woman my business card and encouraged her to shop on my online etsy shop. Mom joked that she'd be trying to find it on her TV that night.

We set up shop with tons of time to spare...especially since there wasn't a customer in sight until two hours after the fair opened.

The customers trickled in throughout the day, most everyone belonged to someone vending at the fair. I'm guessing most everyone's sales came from someone else selling at the show. But the vendors could not be any nicer! It was so nice to meet so many talented local crafters. I sat across from my good friend and coworker Julie and we had a lot of fun talking back and forth while crafting with our spare time.

I sold a whopping $21.00 worth of cards. And paid the library my measly 20% of my sales. Thankfully the table was free or I wouldn't be so cheery about the situation. It was a learning experience and am still happy I did it. It was nice to see people appreciate my cards and nice to get most of the kinks out my table set-up etc.

Special thanks to my Mom for all her hard work the night before and for bringing me food. To Amanda for ALL her help, couldn't have done it without you thanks for not burning my cards. To Joe, if you read this for coming to my crap fair and for working your clean up shift. To Tarynne and Doreen for coming to the last 10 minutes of the fair when everyone was cleaning up. I'm glad you got to shop on NSD when I didn't. Thanks for buying my infamous Tricycle card, and for the adorable eraser/soap.






I'm sure there are more stories I could tell about this event but I can't think of anymore and I've been hassled about getting a blog post up.

Here are a few pics of my table and Julie's, the lighting was kinda crappy.