Upcoming Show Schedule - Updated

Just a quick update up upcoming shows where Juli's Jewels will be vending.

Restoration Church, 8098 Foothills Blvd #900, Roseville

Saturday, October 5th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm

2nd Annual Craft Fair, Arden Church of the Nazarene. 3337 Arden Way, Sacramento

Saturday, October 12th from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm

I've applied to and I'm still waiting to hear back about the Nevada City Craft Fair, which will be held in December, and the Orangevale Parks and Recreation District's 16th Annual Holiday Craft Fair; It's in November. I'm also looking at a couple other dates and IndieSacramento is in the planning stages of a pampering/pre-holiday shopping day! More details to come on all of these.

 

 

IndieSacramento May Market Wrap-up

Well, IndieSacramento was today, rain or shine, and boy did it rain! All things considered (and again, lets consider the rain) there was a terrific turn-out. Way to go all you die-hard Indie Supporters.

A boy asked me today, why we did this. I was thrown for a second. He asked, "Is it just a thing to make money?" How do you answer that? First, I was kind of, "Well, yeah". But then I had the right answer, the real answer. I said, "This is an event for little businesses. I'm a little, tiny business and that guy over there (Wear Yeti) is also a little, tiny business. All of the people here are little, tiny businesses (my husband chimed in here and said "And artists"). Events like this help little, tiny businesses get their name (and merchandise) out into the public. We can't afford shops in the mall. We might sell some stuff on the internet, but mostly, we do shows like this where people can see our stuff and meet us, and if we are lucky, they might like it and buy something." The boy said, "oh, that makes a lot of sense." (at this point I am feeling good about explaining this to the boy, who I guess to be about 10). After the boy left, I asked my husband (Steve), if he thought what I told the boy was right. He said yeah except I forgot to mention that we are really a bunch of artists, not just business people.

So for all of you who came out, thank you for supporting IndieSacramento. Thank you for supporting out little, tiny businesses. We are artists. We believe in what we do. I love making jewelry, it makes me incredibly happy. You people, our customers and supporters, make all of this possible. It was nice to see regulars and meet new people (shout out to Evie, here).

Again, thank you.

IndieSacramento Blog Special

Sorry, I didn't get to this yesterday...The super secret password for my IndieSacramento Blog Special is "Rain, rain, go away! Come back tomorrow, okay?" I will have a little treat for the first ten people with the Super Secret Password.

Hope to see you there, rain or shine.

IndieSacramento blog special

If you don’t know already, I will be out at IndieSacramento this Saturday (no rain on Saturday, no rain on Saturday…chant with me now). I have decided to have a blog special! If you are one of the first ten people to come by my booth and say the Super Secret Password, I will have treat for you. Tune in tomorrow for the Super Secret Password (sorry, I am still trying to think up something suitably Super and Secret, otherwise I would give it to you today).

And now for something completely different...

This is my first Artist Trading Card (ATC). I was feeling just a tiny bit stressed out about the big craft fair weekend that I will be having next weekend (May 2nd & 3rd). Frankly I was overwhelmed. I had about 15 pieces that needed to be finished, as well as a a bunch that needed to be priced and carded. I had so much to do, I actually made a list. (Those of you who know me, know how I feel about lists.)

Well...I craft to relieve stress (which is why I have so much to sell, hehe), but the thought of making more jewelry made me a little more stressed (gasp). So I was trying to clean up my paper area, when I picked up my bag o' images and (many from the ARTchix Studio) and an ATC kit fell out onto my lap. I had purchased it some time ago for inspiration in my bottlecap and domino designs but most of the images where too big. (In the past I would have given the stuff I can't use to my daughter, but she doesn't live that close any more.)

So anyway...I thought I would try out the ATC kit. It had a bathing beauties theme. This is what I came up with. I don't know if the scan really does her justice, but you get the idea. I had a hard time keeping the glitter to a minimum. I painted a little bit of glitter on the star fish and let the rest of the sparkle come from the blue shell border on the bottom.

Just to let you know, I figured out how to turn her into jewelry anyway. I scanned her so that I can change her scale and print her out and put her between glass and turn her into a soldered pendant. But this way, I can keep my original ATC as inspiration. By the way, I have begun a second collage, called a twinchie (2" square), that actually has a jewelry theme. I'll let you know how it turns out.

IndieSacramento is coming!!!

IndieSacramento's May Market is quickly approaching. Swag bags for the first 150 attendees, Craft University, live music, all kinds of great stuff. A beautiful day in the park. Bring a picnic or eat nearby.

I have been making all kinds of new stuff that I will be showing for the first time.

Swag is SCARY...but maybe not too much.

There are 107 definitions for SWAG in the Urban Dictionary, I think this one is pretty close to what I had in mind...

SWAG -- Stuff We All Get - Relating to the trade show convention industry, where exhibitors hand out "free stuff" to visitors. Most of the time these items are purely promotional materials, and are fairly worthless. ie. pencils, mugs, and mouse pads. SWAG always has the company name, logo, slogan, product, service, and contact information clearly printed somewhere on the item/s. Some convention goers have made a hobby of collecting as much swag as possible, and compete with others at the show. - "The online gaming booth is handing out swag demo disks." - "That beats my swag bag of stationary!"

Why am I concerned with Swag, you might ask? Because I need some! I am doing a craft fair in May (IndieSacramento) and there is a swag requirement (minimum is 30 pieces/50 and you get pimped on their website).

First, I had to find out what swag was. Google and done. Next, check out previous swag. There was a note to check out the blog archive from last December and check out the Swag updates...done. OOOOKKKK. Hmmm. Well-then-there-now. Most of the swag was those little buttons, mind you way cooler than most but, plenty of them. There were also little soap samples, little earrings and some neat paper crafts (bookmark, gift tag, or mini card).

Okay, so what to do...Steve said do those little buttons. Yeah, okay, but really, what will that say about Juli's Jewels. I pride myself on the one-of-a-kind or seriously limited edition. But now I'll have a hundred of just one thing. Not really me, I'm thinking. So, again, what to do. BOTTLE CAPS, of course.

I've got plenty of them. I can make them into something pretty quickly, but what? Pins are popular swag and mine would be different. But, not everyone likes pins. So have pins half keychains.

So, I made 25 bottle cap keychains and 25 bottle cap pins. It took me parts of 4 days to complete they but they turned out great. I think they give a nice snapshot of what Juli's Jewels is about (Just like snowflakes, no two are the same). Check out the picture to the left and you will get an idea of what I did.

Be one of the first 150 people at Indie Sacramento and you might just get one!