sharing goals for 2010 with crafty types

Picking up supplies with my bicycle

In the past few months, I’ve been thinking about business growth. This year has been good and positive and has shown me that there is potential to grow. My challenges are making a profit on wholesale sales because I did not really start with wholesale in mind. I like to keep my items affordable for my direct retail sales while still be able to continue working with wholesale customers. I know this is a problem for many of us handmade types that started our small ventures with other things in mind. Thanks to Etsy, I’ve been able to test my products and to grow more than I expected. So these days I find myself strategizing and reading as much as I can about how I can grow, make a profit, and budget for a salary.

To grow in 2010 I will have to:

• raise my prices so I can make a profit on wholesale
• figure out my competitive advantage that will justify price increase and marketability
• focus on increasing direct sales, that is my online sales and craft show sales

I plan to achieve the above by:

• strategic and consistent online paid advertising
• free advertising – contacting blogs with new lines, press releases to local media
• increase show schedule to 6 – 8  shows throughout the year (including the US)
• design my own fabric to meet my competitive advantage and continue to focus on linen made products
• expand my product line e.g. offer more household items (through my survey, I have found that people would like me to offer a few more things and I wouldn’t mind expanding)
• apply for a line of credit or a business loan that will facilitate growth
• get sewing help to increase productivity
• budget for a salary for myself so I can focus on design and marketing — doing everything yourself is unrealistic
• improve bookkeeping and accounting processes

Major Challenges:

• crossing the US border with goods – needs research on customs procedures and laws
• deciding on a profit margin that will still make my wholesale clients happy, some suggest that you double your COGS to get your wholesale price but that would end up making my retail too high, my current small wallet would end up costing $46 compare to $23 now
• finding reliable, detail oriented seamstresses (this is harder than I expected)
• getting financial information ready to approach lenders with

Some of my Resources:

• Women’s Enterprise Centre – Canadian focus but lots of info for any nationality
• Small Business BC – as above
• Vancouver Grassroots Business Association – a local meetup group, going to my first meeting next week
• The Boss of You – a book for us handmade types by two local women Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon

What do you think? How are you planning for growth?

new stockist & new survey

Xmas trees Cup Cozy

I’m happy to announce a new stockist for my line.

be Clothing Boutique in Courtenay, BC  has a selection of my wallets, flat pouches, and deep pouches as well as some fabric pins.

Find them at:
113 -255 6th Street
Courtenay, BC
Phone: 250 331 0588

Gold Snowflakes Cup Cozy

I’m currently offering a 10% discount on orders (before shipping) to customers who complete my survey. This offer is available to new and existing customers even if you’ve already completed my survey through my recent newsletter (there’s new questions to answer). Offer is available until I collect sufficient data. Requires only about 5 minutes of your time. Click Here to take the survey

Go Green gift ideas

Thanks to Sew, Mama, Sew for including one of my cup cozies in their Go Green gift ideas guide on November 4th. The guide includes ‘make it’ ideas, ‘buy it’ suggestions, and a ‘win it’ opportunity.

Also, check out their other guides:

• wear – there’s a wonderful pattern for a ruffle top
• adorn
• sleep – check out the pyjama pants

new stores and new fabric buttons

My latest buttons - provocative and evocative!

I am not spending much time on the blog these days as I am busily working on building up inventory for upcoming shows as well as completing wholesale orders.

Two new stores will be caring my line. I ‘ve sent off a cup cozy package to Perch Home in Maplewood, New Jersey. And locally, that it Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, there’s a spa boutique called Bubble Pop Beauty that will be receiving wallets, flap pouches and the deeper pouches.

I will be at Portobello West on November 28 & 29 as well as December 12 & 13. It’s open from 12 – 6.

Above are some of my latest fabric pinback buttons — these are provocative and evocative and the message is sometimes ambigous. Fun!

the work of christina norberg

It’s always exciting to discover a new artist, especially when they’re local. I stumbled upon Christina Norberg’s work at the one-of-a-kind show here in Vancouver a couple of weekends ago. She had two types of works — sculptural paintings and large plush figures.

It is hard to convey the depth of the paintings through photographs. Her scultpural papier mache paintings presented complex image layering with beautiful natural shapes intensified by deep colours. A glossy finish of laquer (or several coats of it?) if I remember corretly adds depth to the layering.

You might call her work eco-friendly as it is in fact made up of found objects and post-consumer waste products such as newspapers and magazines.

Wonderfully charming and quirky (also eco-friendly) were these large plush dolls above. They’re pretty darn neat and unique.

I hadn’t asked her about these little pieces above but I see little television monitors.

If you’re local, catch her work during Culture Crawl in the Mergatroid building and at Portobello West in December. I’m also going to be at Portobello West in November and December.

find me at Agnes Jean and blog mentions

Oh, what a fun Friday! Today my bicycle buttons were featured in Cuteable’s post Flickr Friday — I always wanted to be featured in that blog and I finally have something that fits within their style. Thank you Lynsey!

Also, thank you to Lisa from Australia for very nicely featuring my work on her the red thread blog.

Other news of interest to local folks is that you can find my wallets, flat pouches and deeper pouches, and cup cozies at Agnes Jean Boutique in downtown Squamish, BC. They’re located at 38016 Cleveland Ave. I just sent off a package to them, so it should be on their shelves soon.

And new buttons in my etsy shop:  owls and other fabric pieces.

flowers fabric pinback buttons

owls fabric pinback buttons

green dew drops fabric pinback buttons

screenpriting on ceramic tiles

A couple of weeks ago, I took a workshop at Blim where we learned how to screenprint an image onto ceramic tiles. We were able to screenprint two images, on 4 inch and 6 inch tiles. Here’s my experiments. The 4 inch tile below is quite obviously a tribute to Canada – seen here is an old Canadian map, some wildlife, and you can just make out the wheat stalks in some of the provinces. I wanted to see how text would show up, so I put in a year. The text is 18 points, in Times New Roman. It showed up all right.

I prepared and composed my image in Photoshop and turned it into a black and white image — no gray tones are allowed for screenprinting. Then Yuriko at Blim checked it and printed it onto transparency film with a laser printer. We then burned the image onto a screen, and after washing out the excess emulsion and drying the screen, I was ready for printing.

Here’s my image on the 6 inch tile — a bit artsier and personal.  Some of the fine lines are quite soft, so in the future I would make sure that I have stronger, bolder lines. Anyway, this was fun! It’s great to have Blim as a facility as you can rent studio space including equipment and inks. A bit of playing around is necessary to get superior results but for a first try this was great!

fun with fabric pins

I’ve been having fun making a whole bunch of fabric pins.  I’m always looking for ways to use up all those little scraps I end up with in my sewing studio. Doing cup cozies was a great idea and they ended up being a popular item for my shop. But then I’m also left with even smaller pieces of fabric that I couldn’t use for cup cozies…so here come fabric pins!

Although I’m leaving some fabrics as they are, others are fairly plain that they were jus asking for a stamped image. I’ve added a whole bunch to the store and I’ll be adding more today. My favourite so far is the bicycle pin!

wool felt cup cozies

Looking through my stash of fabric, I found some pieces of commercial wool felt. I’ve turned it into pretty simple cup cozies. I was thinking about men when I did these and I must confess it was hard to keep them so plain. But these I think man would use. Of course I think they will appeal to a lot of women too. I can see using one of these myself.  I don’t usually create by thinking of possible audiences, or of trying to capture a specific audience. I am mainly driven by what is appealing or fun for me to do or create. I’d like to keep my business that way as much as possible because I think that it is only by doing that, that I will continue with my business.

Anyway, they should turn up in my Etsy shop sometime Saturday. I have very little of this felt, so once it’s gone, that’s it for these.

pretty simple wool felt cup cozies

interview at akane designs and screenprinting experiments

Read a short interview about me at Vancouver’s Akane Designs Blog. Christina has done quite a few interviews now where many tips can be gleamed from experienced online shop owners. If you click on the “Business” category, you’ll find a whole bunch of tips. I’m also offering a 20% discount, but you’ll have to read the interview to see how to get that.

Frida Kahlo Book

Since I bought a bottle cap pendant with a Frida Kahlo image, I seem to have developed a serious interest in the artist. I don’t know why now and not before when I saw a movie about her back in 2002. Anyway, the second object with one of her images was an oversized match box which now hangs on my wall. And the other day I went to the shop at the Vancouver Art Gallery to see what they had.

This book called Frida Kahlo is a great and light introduction (as opposed to pedantic art books from art school days). It has lots of images and is very legible putting her life in context with the political and international scene, as well as her personal life including her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera.

copyright Laura Bucci 2009

Anyway, Saturday I impulsively registered for a workshop at Blim on screenprinting on ceramic tiles. I’m really looking forward to it. A good part of the weekend had to be spent on preparing images (images need to be black and white with no gray at all, text minimum size 18 pt font). This is one of the images I played around with and that is inspired by Frida Kahlo –  in my mind at least. I have combined some favourite images, my love of the Spanish language and attempted a narrative, perhaps cryptic to most but personal and clear to me.

The text translates to “he/she turns 19″ and at the bottom “however.”

I’d like to work on it further and turn it into a colour piece — so this is definitely a work in progress.