I'm BACK!

I'm back! I'm back! I'm back!

So, after getting disheartened by lack of sales, and chasing these proverbial customers to absolutely NO success, I left Etsy. And was further planning on never coming back. Perhaps this arts and crafts creation, was just not for me. But about two weeks ago I log on to my email to that wonderful wonderful message in my inbox that says "YOU'VE MADE A SALE!". Immediately my jaw drops, thinking that this must be some sort of joke. I had long abandoned my shop, thinking that it was more likely that my items had long since expired. But after about five minutes of incredulous investigation it was true, I had indeed made a sale.

I still garner frustrations with Etsy. The market, it seems, has become utterly flooded. And my product is, quite simply, not desirable enough to be effective. I'm a business student... an MBA student, and I understand quite well how markets work. And I'm not the type of person to chase a failing venture. I don't put myself into denial, thinking that I can miraculously revive it. If it's not going to work, then it's simply not going to work. People don't care about hand painted candle holders. *scoff*

I love painting. I truly do. And It's not like I'm giving up art. Heavens no. I've been an artist literally forever, and I'll never stop being one. But I need to find a different outlet that IS desirable in some marketplace. What that exactly is, I'm not sure yet.

And until then, I've taken to selling to 'randoms' on Etsy and Ebay just to make some sort of semblance of a meager profit.

I'm now in the midst of a complete shop and mission restructuring. I've thrown out all the "advice" that I've been given and am trying my best to start over as efficiently as possible. Not quite sure what my new central core product is going to be. Still working on that. Hopefully I'll figure it out... soon!

As I sit here...

As I sit here, in my dachshund PJ pants, sipping my morning S'more flavored coffee, and listening to the Beatles on repeat, I think of how much my life has exactly changed just in the past year.

I tend to get introspective from time to time, so just bear with me.

Let's start this story at the beginning. In 2005 I graduated with a BFA in graphic design. I immediately began work as an in-house designer for a local sporting goods company. As the sole designer for the company I basically ran to entire Marketing operation. It was quite awesome to be honest. Well, in 2007, January or something, they got a new CEO. And with that, a new business plan. By May, I was unemployed.

So I set off on the hunt. And a mere 2 months later landed a job. Problem was, it was an hour and half away from my home and also had ungodly hours to begin with. So I was NEVER home. Now for me, being the home body that I am, this created a huge problem. Apparently, my disdain for the job was showing through to my work output. And in December of that year they let me go. (Yes.. December.. i.e. two weeks before Christmas. And they gave me no severance OR unemployment payments.)

I digress.

As it were, that Christmas was the day that my boyfriend had been planning on proposing. After 8 years of dating, he was finally going to pop the question.

The only upside of being unemployed at that time, was that I could dedicate my full attentions to wedding planning. Which was nice in its own way. The trouble was that I spent probably literally thousands of hours searching for a job that would never come. Around July of 08 I decided to hold off the job search until the wedding was over. Which was in October.

Yes... I began job searching again in October of 08. When the economy literally took the most drastic nose dive that most people had ever seen. Awesome.

Needless to say, if you can't tell from the opening sentence of this blog, I never found that elusive job. Rather, about 2 months ago I jumped on the crafting wagon.

Hopefully some day I will find this venture to be more successful than my previous graphic design career. Because God knows that I already find it more fulfilling. And isn't that kind of the point?

Inspirational Wednesday

Heh So, yeah. I know "Inspirational" doesn't technically have anything to do with "Wednesday". But I just felt like it. And this is my blog. So there.


Deep Crimson, Violet and Blue Hand Painted Glassware
Click to view full listing



I'm really thinking that I need to come up with cool interesting names for my glassware. Just calling it "hand painted glassware", while descriptive, doesn't really have a whole lot of... punch. Or at least some kind of interesting little back story. Let's see... "The world may never know how exactly these glass pieces began their lives. But somehow, by some twist of fate and universal alignment, they found their way to my local thrift store. Each piece of glass then sits there patiently waiting. Until, quite unbeknown by them, I come along to give them a different fate. No longer are they destined to be clear, sparkling glass candle holders, dishes, or cups. No. From that day forward their lives will only be filled with luxorious and rich color. With their sole purpose to pass their colorful beauty onto you. Enjoy."

...
No?
I actually kinda like it. I might have to put that in my Shop Announcement. *smug face*

This one is actually one of the first ones that I've ever made that didn't have ANY light colors in it at all. And seeing the dramatic glow that it gives off, I don't think that it lacks anything. The reason I did that, is because I've started to notice that if there's white in the paint, it makes it that much more opaque. Which, is quite obviously, the exact opposite of what I'm going for. So this was necessity birthing invention.

LOVE it when that happens.

Help Support The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

My sister in law will be running a half marathon (I'm not sure on the exact date) in San Francisco this summer. And I want to show as much support as I possibly can so I put an announcement in my shop that fifty percent of proceeds from each purchase will go to support the cause. :)

Oh!

And she's keeping a diary online about it:
http://pages.teamintraining.org/nce/nikesf09/akulik

Just in case anyone would want to read about it from her personally.

Now I have much more of reason to support my shop than I did before.

On a completely unrelated side note: I went to see Shinedown last night in concert. It was SOOOOO awesome. It was one of those concerts where there's no seats and the entire time there's people thinking (for whatever reason) that they're more important than everyone else and will push in front of people who've been standing there for literally hours so THEY can get closer to the stage. <_< I got stepped on. Literally. A lot.

Most. Stop. Staring. At the. Computer.

I've been in front of this silly machine literally ALL day. Promoting. Marketing. Tweaking my shop. It is literally starting to rule my life. I did, however, pull myself away for a few hours so that I could work on stock for a little bit. So... at least I did something artistically creative today. ^_^

That's something, right?
Right?

But! I have a new banner that looks FANTASTIC! Judging from the banner I had before, no one would ever have known that I literally spent half my adult life as a graphic designer.

Now, since I've officially been working for the last 14 hours, I think it's officially time to relax.

Night!

New item and Name History

So real quick before I start my day...

First of all new item:


I did a few full size paintings about... hm... 6 months ago. Where I'd literally add SO much water to the paint that it seemed unworkable. Then I would splatter the canvas, and in doing so, I noticed that it would give such a gorgeous wave pattern to it. It didn't outright mix the colors, it just... smooshed them together in a really interesting way. (And yes, "smooshed" is a technical term.)

But I decided to try doing a few glass pieces using the same technique. And it came out SO pretty. I think I'll have to do that a whole bunch more times.


And second of all, I've been hearing a lot of name history stories lately so I thought I'd share mine.

My maiden name is Winson, and as you can tell just from the name, my family was obviously English before they moved to America. Around the same time as making my shop initially I had just come out of about a 10 year quest to trace my genealogy. (Love the internet! heh) But using the internet, and a lot and LOT of patience, I was able to trace it back all the way to the late 1700's. Anyway, I digress.

In my searching I discovered that family had come to America around 1915 or 1920. This I really didn't know before. My grandfather's father had died when my grandfather was only about 3 years old or so, so that part of my family history literally died along with him. And for some unknown reason, this unknown history has ALWAYS facsinated me.

I had always wondered why in the world, when the world is literally your oyster, WHY move to South Amherst, Ohio. I mean. Florida, California... somewhere WARM perhaps? But no, Ohio. They land in Ohio. Awesome. But why?

In my genealogy questing I learn that my family had all been Quarry workers. They moved from a limestone Quarry town in England to THE biggest sandstone Quarry town in America: South Amherst.

At the time of creating my shop I had literally JUST come across this information. And since then, all of my ventures have incorporated the word "Quarry" in some way or another. As an homage to my family history. The reason they came to America, and the only reason why I am even here today.

So there you are.
:)

And the Photo Flurry is over...

I've spent the entire day re-shooting all of my photos. I mean, it was a sunny day... and I couldn't just let it go to waste, so I set up shop on my balcony and went crazy with the camera. I'm sure the people driving by thought "why is there a crazy girl with a camera in snowflake pajama pants on that balcony?" But, still. I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. Awesome awesome.

Although, as someone told me *waves* I'll probably end up re-shooting them again in a few months. But for now they look awesome. ^_^

Here's a few: