Selling in Shops Nationwide

It's funny how businesses change over time. When I was doing Nice day Designs full time I felt torn about selling to shops, it seemed like so much money to hand over in commission. The truth is I wasn't that realistic about the amount of hours I was spending out in the cold trying to sell my work at markets. I wasn't paying myself for that time, and I think looking back I was too exhausted to make smart decisions about my business.

Now that I've scaled things back a lot I can make the work that I enjoy making and pass on the chore of selling onto someone else. A few months ago when I went through a period of unemployment I put aside some time to make tonnes of handmade cards to send to various shops around the country. It was a lot of work doing so much all at once. I think the concentrated working time had a two fold effect, it honed my card making skills really establishing an aesthetic. As well as that it gave me a clearer idea of the true cost of in labour and materials of the cards, without a sustained run at any craft it is sometimes hard to  calculate these things.

I'm happy to say that I'm now selling in several locations throughout Ireland, and still looking for more venues, so if you are a craft shop owner please get in touch. Thanks to all of those who have already agreed to sell my work, you guys allow me to focus my energy on what I really love doing-making stuff!

List of suppliers;
Chez Le Fab-Limerick

Lucky Lane-Limerick

Sheelagh Na Gig-Cloughjordan

Baobab Cafe-Celbridge,Co.Kildare

Coffee Time-Co.Donegal

The Ennis Bookshop-Ennis

Button Collars

I mentioned before that I have stopped making crafts for sale. I do still have some leftover from when I had a market stall and was selling in craft shops around the country. I had just made a bunch of these button collars as I was coming to the end of Nice day Designs. Which probably sounds a bit strange, but I was always working on new designs, and this was one of the last to make it past the prototype phase, but I finished them too late to really try to sell them properly. When I was tidying my studio I found a whole box of them that needed the clasps sewn on, but apart from that they were ready to go. 

Instead of the price tag of €30 which I had calculated for them I'm not selling them at €15, just because I'd be happy to see them sell rather than have a bunch of new necklaces for my personal collection-not even I need that many button necklaces!!

Here's a few photos, but if you'd like to see the full range just head over to the Facebook album and leave a comment if you would like to purchase one, I am happy to ship worldwide.

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I'm opening a Cafe in Limerick-The Stormy Teacup

It's been quite a while since I updated this blog, 2013 was a pretty strange year so I took a break from blogging. Part of this strangeness was re-evaluating my life and what I wanted, in the latter half this involved looking at what I want to do professionally. Having Nice Day Designs has been amazing but it hasn't been enough to live on, the balance of trying to make money out of crafts can sometimes feel creatively suffocating, I've realised after lots of soul searching that something needed to change.

As some of you may know I have run a craft pop-up shop Limerick Craft and Design for the past two years, and I was also heavily involved with Limerick City of Culture over the past several months. These two project taught me that I wanted to move more into retail, but do it for myself. The Creative Limerick projects, as great as they are, are not sustainable in the long term(because of the tenancy agreements), so it looked like I was gonna have to do something privately. All of these ideas about change, and my frustrations with craft were mulling around for a long time. About a year ago I became really good friends with fellow craftsperson Martins Punculis, we spent endless hours talking about how we could set up something really interesting, and eventually in the new year we decided to go for it.

Myself and Martins are opening a craft shop with an artisan tea and coffee shop upstairs, and we're calling it The Stormy Teacup. I am so excited by this new venture, I feel like it's the accumulation of all of my professional experiences; weaving together my experience in sales, hospitality, craft and books. That mixed with Martins unending enthusiasm and fanatical logic means that we make a really good team. We've already found a venue for this exciting new space and are currently in the process of raising funds for it on the crowd funding site Indiegogo. We've set a target of €6000 (but are actually aiming for €10,000), and we've managed to raised over €1,800 in 5 days. We have been amazed by the fantastic response, and only hope that this means we will reach our target in time.

Putting together an really good pitch for Indiegogo was a lot of work but we felt that it was worth it for the amount of money that we are asking for. We spent over a week working on the above stop motion animation, working lots of late nights and very longs days; from research we knew that the video is an integral part of the success of the campaign. If you want to read more about our dream cafe then head over to our campaign, if you have any money to spare we have rewards like this set of badges from as little as €7, every donation counts. 

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Show Your Mom Some Love

My cards have been selling pretty well lately at my stall, so I've been beavering away in the studio trying to get new stock made. My most recent batch was this vintage style set of Mother's Day cards. In case you didn't know it's on the 10th March, so you still have a bit of time yet before you have to go out and buy the Mammy a potted plant.

I think the bottom one is my favourite as it reminds me of all the hours I spent with my mum as a kid sewing. She started me on dresses for my Barbies with her scrap material, we moved onto things like bags, puppets and costumes as I got older. I was home a few months ago while I had a big sewing project to finish, it was really lovely to spend the day with her pinning and sewing, it brought back lots of fond memories. I'll definitely be sending her one with this image on it, I know she'll love it.

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Vintage Style Handmade Civil Partnership Cards

A while back I made some Civil Partnership cards, but to be really honest I wasn't happy with them, they weren't my normal style at all. Last week I went back to the drawing board and had a think about how I was going to do them. It would be near impossible to get appropriate embellishments so I knew I needed to make them myself. I've been making my own images for my cards for about a year now, and I've been using lots of vintage illustrations and photography. They match really well with the papers and distressed ink I use. After much Googling and Pinteresting I found vintage images of gay couples. I was hard to find the ones with the right tone, that were romantic but not too trashy for a wedding card. I must say I'm really delighted with them, I know it's really hard to get civil partnership cards, let alone unusual handmade ones. I've made about ten of them, as yet I haven't sold any so I'm starting to think I might be better off listing some online. A farmers market is not exactly the kind of place that people go looking for a gay wedding card!

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New Steampunk Inspired Cards

I'm having a card making week this week. After the Christmas I've been pretty much left with nothing and it's time to restock. There is nothing like new supplies to get the creative juices flowing, so I ordered a bunch of paper from Cork Art Supplies. I found myself drawn to  all their antique and Steampunk style paper, I got this beautiful library themed pad, this old letters one, and vintage emphemera one too.

I make all my cards as 5" x 7", I used to make other sizes but I found that people got a bit ratty about the prces being the same, so I thought it wasn't worth the hassle of weekly pointless arguments, it also makes things easier for me. Now When I get my pads of paper I guillotine them all into strips that are 5" wide, I get two of these per sheet with a little left over.

I then cover all of my blank cards with double sided tape. For about a year the €2 shop was selling this really cheap but a couple of months ago they stopped stocking it so I may need to readjust this part of my ssystem, as tape from the normal craft shop is prohibitively expensive. This is a pretty time consuming boring part of the process but it saves me loads of time down the line.

I then use one of each of the strips(there are two of each pattern) to cover my blank cards. If I was to choose each sheet individually when making every card I would spend loads of time faffing about. Since they will all get used eventually anyway this system just makes it easier and saves time. I trim off the excess with a scalpel. This means I am left with a 5" x 5" cut off, and the second strip of 5" x 12", plus the 2" x 12" left over cut off. I use all of these pieces to decorate and layer my cards, because they are all pre-cut to 5" wide it makes the whole process much faster. This may seem like a bit of a souless way to make something creative but I look at it as my prepping stage. From this point onwards is the fun bit when I get to play with ribbon, paper punches, ink, stamps and stickers.

Here are a few I've made from this paper already, I better get back into the studio and make some more for the weekend at the market!

Ps: Funnily enough my friend Dave sent me this article on how Steampunk is set to be the big trend, just a few days after I made these cards. I had noticed this on Pinterest about 6 months ago and it appealed to my inner teenage goth. Then just yesterday I met a friend for tea who showed me a load of really beautiful new Steampunk jewellery that he had made. You can say you heard it here first, Steampunk is gonna be huge!

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Stag Party Designs

As I said yesterday I wanted to work on some new stag party designs for t-shirts (but these images can easily be adapted to badges too). No sooner did I finish the post than I started doing a bit of online research. To be honest it was all a bit tame, I thought there would be far more boobs and slander, apparently it's only the ladies who like to be crass for their prenuptial shennanigans. I've only done a few designs, and I would definitely like to do some more that are little edgier, but it's a good start.

I saw lots of the boring bride and groom cartoons with Game Over written underneath, which I thought was pretty funny, but I wanted to do something fun with the image. I found a regular picture of Mario and Peaches and with the magic of Photoshop I managed to put a tux on Mario, and change her dress to white. I'm really surprised at how convincing it looks, it's definitely my favourite design so far. I might even do a series of computer came ones, Mr&Mrs Pacman maybe?

Please note the website address at the end of the image is just for online purposes, in case it get's shared without a credit on Pinterest etc. But it will not be on the final t-shirt design.

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Hen and Stag Party T-shirts and Badges

It's definitely coming into hen party season, I've just spent my morning emailing bridesmaids about lots of custom order hen party badges. About a year or so ago I made up a catalogue of designs for people to choose from. It's great to have the images already there and the names, dates, colours etc can all be changed to suit.  Lots of people still send in their own images, but I think this option helped a lot of people who really didn't know what they wanted. I tried to cater to all different style and not just the cliche pink garish ones. They are just €20 for 20 badges plus €3 P&P within Ireland. To look at the full selection of designs please click here.

Now that I have a heat press machine I can now do t-shirts, which might be more popular with the stag night crowd. I did a little research online and the range from €10-€30, which seems like an insane amount of money since they will probably be only worn once! I'm gonna sell them at €10 each and see how it goes. As with the badges the image and text can be altered to suit the customer, so if they have a really ugly photo of the bride or groom that they want on it I'm delighted to help them! I also make canvas bags (€5 each) which would be handy for giving out goody bags/survival packs.

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Handmade As Gaeilge Christmas Tags

My blog is starting to get that sparse look as I frantically try to make Christmas stock. Don't worry I haven't forgotten you, I'm neglecting everything in my life at the moment, except my sewing room, that's getting lot's of 'me time'.

I've been making tonnes of felt Christmas decorations, I hope to post some hastily taken snaps of them later in the week. Today's post is about a project I started a year ago, last Christmas, and abandoned as I was really short for time. I ordered a bunch of blank wooden tags like these ones from MissDiycrafts, except mine had a kind of burnt effect around the edge. I remember thinking they were really good value until I calculated what I would be able to charge for them, so hence the abandoned project. Stupidly this calculation only occurred after I ordered them! 

I stumbled across a bag of half finished paper covered tags the other day and remembered that we'd had a request for handmade tags in the shop. So I decided I wouldn't waste good supplies and finish the batch. I covered the rest of them in paper, varnished them, and painted the backs of them gold. After that I printed out a bunch of  'Nollaig Shona Duit' text boxes in different colours and fonts. I then realised I needed a 'To/From' label for the back which I aged with some brown ink. I had gotten a box of Christmas embellishments from the Art and Hobby Shop the other day, filled with little Santa's, trees and snowmen, it was great to have enough that they all matched(although now I have to go buy more card making embellishments!). After that is was a case of picking out ribbon, and attaching a label for price and barcode. 

I did everything in batches so it really helped with production time, if I was to sit down and compose each one individually it would have taken me a week to make them. Luckily I had loads of the materials already, I have tonnes of ribbon, paper, stickers sheets, and adhesive dots already. I'm scarred to think of the price of making them from scratch if you had to buy all the materials, you'd need to charge a fortune for them. Having said all that my initial instincts were right; they are really time and material consuming and I'm not sure if people will see the work, at the end of the day it's just a gift tag. Because of this I'm keeping the price as low a possible in the hopes that I'll sell all 50 of them, they are €2.50 each. I can't see myself making them again next year even though I think they are really pretty(although if they sell like hot cakes then I might be swayed!). 

I only realised after finishing them they then turn into keepsake Christmas tree decorations when the presents have been opened. For example a husband buys his wife something special for Christmas, and buys one of these posh tags for it, then every year when she puts this on the tree she remembers the lovely gift she got. My mother has a story behind each of her decorations, of holidays taken, presents from family, or special craft shops she visited(always in Sligo or Kilkenny strangley!). It makes our family tree totally personal to us, when the grandkids call over she tells them the story behind each one, it's really lovely actually.

Feedback on the price would be really appreciated, for once I'm quite confused!

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Illustrated Cufflinks

 These are my new range of shrink plastic cufflinks! I'm so in love with them!

I've been meaning to make more men's pieces for a while now, especically in the run up to Christmas. I got the parts ages ago, but between one thing and another I only got around to making them last week. At the moment I only have 10 sets of them,but I suspect they will be popular at Christmas so I really need to order more parts. It was fun coming up with more masculine designs, and I've had loads more ideas since I finished these.

They are €10 per pair and they come in a little presentation box. I will be selling these in Limerick Craft & Design when we open shortly,and when I get more stock I'll post them on Etsy and put them on my stall too.
To see a full album of images head over to this Facebook album here.

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Button Necklace and Earring Sets

I'm really delighted with these new sets. They came about in a strange way though. I bought these boxes for my button cluster necklaces, but I was obviously suffering from a brain fog the day I ordered them because when they arrived they didn't fit. Not one to waste money or supplies I knew I had to make something new to fit in these pretty boxes.

I have been making the necklaces for a while but I've never made this style of earring before. They are more difficult to make than the necklaces as it involves search for 9 matching buttons; 3 for each piece. This may sound simple but all my buttons are mismatched, so it's quite time consuming. Even though I have thousands of buttons left I'm fast running through my supply of bright matching buttons of this size. I made 12 sets, but I'm positive I'll make more after I restock in supplies, I'd say these will be popular as gifts for Christmas; there are a lot of fellow button addicts out there.

Again sorry for the dodgy photos, it would have been nice to shoot these on a model, but time is precious at the moment.

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