Tales From The Disabled Crafter - February 2017

So I’ve got to the end of January and finally my craft room is back to some semblance of order apart from still being overcrowded with crafting items that I cannot find home/space for.  I should feel proud as literally after the craft fairs in December it not only have the decimation of the remanence of makes for the craft fair, but everything unsold and the structure of the stand got dumped in there.  But I’m not proud, I knew it would be some recovery for me after the events, and we had a very quiet Christmas too, but I still beat myself up over not achieving more.  So why am I telling you this, well in fact this is not uncommon with any crafter, those that are well, those that run crafting part time alongside other jobs, those that are a house-parent and a crafter and those like me disabled and crafting all set ideals that sometimes we know from the outset are beyond reach and then punish ourselves when we feel we have not done enough. What is enough?  Here lies the problem, crafters/artists have to in a lot of cases create and sell their work, it’s a dual role one that is difficult to balance, you can spend all your time at fairs, marketing on social media, topping up your websites, stocking shelves in shops where you have rented space and therefore neglect the creating side of the creative wheel. Or we flip that round and spend all the time creating (especially if your busy with orders)and neglecting our presence outside of the ‘Crafting Zone’, to future and repeat customers and finding that when we have dropped out of people’s minds the sales do too.  We have to keep that wheel turning and turning smoothly.  Now I admit I am a failure, I am a cheeky fat hamster who looks at the wheel and feels daunted by it. I step on, go for a little spin, get out of breath and exhausted, to then step off and leave it in the corner for a while, achieving very little. Come on hands up all those that have started a new year’s resolution and haven’t maintained it. So what am I doing, I’m creating fits and starts for both the sales and making, this isn’t good I’ve not got my wheel running smoothly, and risk it coming off its frame altogether.  So, I have started a new plan (not a New Year’s Resolution, I suck at those to), to research ‘the wheel’ to make it work for me and keep me running at a pace that I can and then implement and maintain.

Well how on earth do I do that, in truth I’m not yet sure, I have started by buying an A4 diary, and I’m looking at and trying bullet journaling. I’m researching more into social media and the platforms and tools to help make this work for me.  I plan to start a mailing list and engage my followers, with my future and existing customers with direct contact of my makes, well as we know social media doesn’t show all our magic to all our followers so I need them to be able to see the magic I am making.  I’m working on my selling platforms, current and future ones, I have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from me don’t I?  But I can’t do this all in one day, and if I tried I will have pushed my little fat hamster body to exhaustion on the wheel.  So I’m making to-do lists, daily ones (yes even weekends) and there is only a few items a day, but I also add in the other things that may crop up and throw themselves into my day, like an order, *whoopee*.  This is so that when I’ve not completed an item on the list I can possibly see why the day didn’t go to plan,  though, I don’t have as yet a tick box for the cat sleeping across my keyboard therefore I could not type *grins sheepishly* which I think should be added. 

It’s even got me on a new make, a stencil to slot into a diary that gives you tracings to bring alive your bullet journal *go me*. So as I move further into February I am still using the diary, which has to be a first for me.  My planning today is already interrupted with an order, a make which will take me most of this coming week, but I have a stencil for that to add it to my journal, so when I look back I can see that is why the next article for the Professional Crafters Guild took me longer,  *sneeks off to make a coffee while no one looks*.

Catch you soon xx Saz xx

You can purchase my Bullet Journal here on Etsy at http://etsy.me/2leqi1g or you can come and chat to me on my face book page Spratt’s Designs www.facebook.com/sprattsdesigns

Helenka White Design celebrates its 6th anniversary – It’s been a rocky road.

The other day I noticed that my jewellery business Helenka White Design turns 6 in September. I actually had to check my FB page to find out the exact date I created the page! The exact day is the 7^th.  The first incarnation of my website followed in the same month or in October 2010 (I honestly can’t remember). 

Like most crafters I started selling when friends who received jewellery from me as a gift suggested I should sell my designs.  I got interested in jewellery making in 2007 when I joined an evening class to learn silversmithing for a year and I finished it with a City & Guilds certificate. I also got married that year and in the run up to our wedding I made my own tiara and gifts for my bridesmaids. I occasionally made jewellery, but not for sale. 

As working with silver is not cheap – and if you sell it you need to get it hallmarked as per law – and due to my chronic shoulder pain I focused my jewellery designs on bead work in the first few years working with semi-precious stones, seed beads, Swarovski crystals and other materials. 

And then I discovered polymer clay. I first took a day course with Alison Gallant after reading about her in Making Jewellery and got hooked. Alison has become a friend of mine too and I also wrote an article about her course for Making Jewellery (amongst other articles I have written). It’s a fantastic medium to work with as it’s so versatile – you can mimic semi-precious stones, sea glass, wood etc. It lends itself for making colourful pieces and it’s surprisingly light weight when you’re wearing it. Since discovering polymer clay I have attended 3-day long workshops and met famous artists such as Donna Kato (who invented her own clay brand Kato Clay and has written 2 seminal books about polymer clay) and Bettina Welker. 

My website underwent two more makeovers, with last year’s one being the website I always wanted. Because I love animals, especially cats, I decided to niche down to cat jewellery. Of course I also make other designs. I created my own logo, because why outsource something you can do yourself? 

I also started sculpting with polymer clay last year and have now a whole range of animal sculptures on the website. I find sculpting way more challenging than the jewellery as so much can and does go wrong. And given the small scale it is often tricky to get it right. I keep developing new sculptures and taking notes and photos as I go along – mainly with the view to teach how to make them eventually.

Six years seem like a long time in business, but it hasn’t been easy – and I still have to break even or make a sizeable profit from the venture. I have learned the hard way what works and more importantly what doesn’t.  I have learned how soul destroying craft fairs can be and that ETSY is not the right marketplace for my one-of-a-kind pieces. I also learnt to use giveaways only occasionally and that you need to really budget strictly for ads. This and the coming year I am focusing on PR for my business and will continue developing new products such as journal covers, more sculptures – and I want to get back to working with sterling silver and PMC. A kiln is still on my wish list and if things work out I can keep one in our newly tidied and painted garage.

My three tips for making your business work:

• Be authentic, original and true to yourself – if you don’t want to make run-of the mill popular things- don’t. Leave the cheap Disney rip offs to others.
• Be super patient. For some people success comes quickly – but who knows why. Maybe they had more money to invest in the business? Your time will come. 
•  Make sure you really enjoy what you’re doing. Unfortunately running your own business means you spend an awful lot of time on admin and marketing. So finding time for the actual craft is important and enjoying your craft is vital. If you feel you are losing your mojo – you might want to check out my blog post on how to get it back.  (blog link: http://www.helenkawhitedesign.com/jewellery/15-things-you-can-do-to-get-your-creative-mojo-back/ )

Helen White  - www.helenkawhitedesign.co.uk