So 2009 is almost over. This has been a real whirlwind year for me, the business has grown far faster and further than I ever expected. At the beginning of the year I had only a single line of cephalopod jewelry, the cuttlefish, and that has expanded to octopus, squid, and the nautilus. I've scrapped the old trilobite design for a new one and added horseshoe crabs and the specimen jars. My monthly sales have gone from around $300 a month to over $1000 monthly before the holidays and exceeded $2000 in both November and December.
Looking ahead to 2010 there's a load of stuff coming up. I just bought a new camera and I'll be redoing a lot of photos with it. I'll also be shooting with the intent of putting together an art book later this year that will be self-published (probably with Lulu.com) and hopefully a lot of fun.
Speaking of books, the Regretsy book is looking like it's coming together really fast and I'm probably going to be featured in it.
I have some new jewelry planned. One is a Cthulhu cameo pendant that will be press molded from polymer clay, fairly inexpensive and fast to produce. The other will be on the higher end. I've had some precious metal clay for a while and I'm hoping to get the silver cephalopods coming along soon.
In personal news, I'm looking for an apartment right now so I'm really excited about finally getting out on my own. Just me and my dog.
So it is finally Squidmas/Cephalopodmas/Cthulhumas take your pick of the tentacled one you prefer. In celebration I will have 1/2 off shipping for all cephalopod items in my Etsy shop along with a free surprise goodie with each order.
To get you all in the mood, here's a wonderful video of the song "It's Begginning to Look a Lot like Fishmen" from the A Very Scary Solstice CD.
Sunday, December 20, is the last day to order in time for Christmas. USPS says that the 21st is the last day for shipping Priority in time to arrive by the 25th.
For those wanting to buy something for themselves and don't care to have it arrive by Xmas, the 22nd is the solstice and more importantly Cephalopodmas! I'll be discounting shipping to half-off and including free goodies with all orders for the day.
So it's the craziest shopping day of the year. I will be spending it at home, nice and comfy on my couch shopping online.
Of course Noadi's Art isn't going to be without a deal this weekend. I have free US shipping (and reduced shipping for international orders) from today through Monday night in my Etsy shop. This is the last time I'll be offering free shipping this year. I'll also be including stamped Giving Octopus cards that you can use to send cephalopod holiday wishes.
Oh yeah, I also have some new jewelry. Finally the cephalopod family tree is complete and I have Nautilus Jewelry! My brand new trilobite jewelry is also slowly being added to the shop as well.
My original plan had been to make a holiday horseshoe crab ornament but once I had sculpted it I realized it would make a fantastic necklace instead. I really like how it turned out and plan to make more.
I was also thinking of doing other ancient animals both living and extinct in a more realistic form like this. Say trilobites, scorpions, etc.
Since I'm not doign the holiday horseshoe crab ornament I needed to come up with a new idea. I'll be making a Christmas Coelocanth ornament in the next few days.
So now for the cuteness. My brother and his wife have welcomed their very first child into the world. Little Joshua was born on October 17 and is a healthy little guy weighing in at 6lbs 4 oz (not bad for 2 weeks early).
I just put together a quick little survey to find out a little more about who is visiting Noadi's Art and to help me do a little informal market research. The survey is totally anonymous, I'm not collecting any top secret information.
I have a lot going on lately so here are some updates:
International Cephalopod Awareness Days have ended. The giveaway and shipping special was a success. Jae has claimed her octopus and hopefully she loves it when it arrives.
To make room for a new trilobite design I'm planning I've dropped the prices on the current design to $15. You can find them on Etsy and eCrater
I've also lowered the prices on my gargoyle jewelry. I'm going to be completely discontinuing the line since it no longer really fits Noadi's Art very well. On Etsy and eCrater
I'm working on a commission of 20 pins for a member of a Mardi Gras Krewe, very cool and fun.
I sometimes have crazy ideas that I really want to make happen and one from this weekend is the Holiday Horseshoe Crab ornament so keep an eye out for that. It continues the theme from the Xmas Platypus of strange animal ornaments.
I created a new squidoo lens for my steampunk jewelry. It's been pretty popular lately so trying to get it a little more attention and making more multiples than I usually do.
The time has come to see who wins the octopus necklace. There were 49 entries (excluding two people who posted as Anonymous) so drum roll please:
The 4th entry wins and that is Jae!
Jae said...
Cuttlefish is so cute, but the giant squid... those guys I can just watch in awe 24/7. I anxiously wait for the day when we can actually find and watch these amazing creatures on a regular basis instead of only catching glimpses or finding corpses.
So please contact me Jae at NoadiArt@gmail.com with your mailing address in the next 3 days to claim the necklace.
On October 8 it is International Cephalopod Awareness Day and in celebration of this day I'll be doing several things:
1: I'm giving away the necklace on this page. Here are the rules:
To enter all you have to do is leave a comment on this post saying which cephalopod is your favorite between now and 6pm (EST) on October 8. I won't consider any entries posted after that time.
I'll be pulling the winner out of the virtual hat at 7pm on October 8. I will announce the winner shortly after 7pm so watch this blog (if you're on twitter leaving your twitter username will make it possible for me to contact you directly as well)
The winner will have 3 days to claim their prize by emailing me their mailing address.
In the event the prize isn't claimed I'll pull a new number out of the hat.
2: Free shipping October 8 on everything in my Etsy shop featuring a cephalopod (necklaces, earrings, perma-pets, etc.) sorry that I can't offer international shipping free but it will be greatly reduced.
3: Little cephalopod surprise with every order. It's a surprise so I'm not telling you what it is.
4: Today is my one year anniversary on Etsy (yes I know my account says September 28 but I didn't actually open shop until October 1st last year) it's amazing how far I've come since then.
I'm keeping the shop open but just a heads up if you planned on ordering that I won't be mailing orders on Saturday and since I'm going to be completely wiped out when I get home I probably going to be able to get things packed Sunday night to be mailed Monday morning. I'll try to get them out Monday afternoon but more likely they'll be going out Tuesday morning.
I have been working my tush off this week. First of all I've been getting things set up for the half off shipping special I'm running this weekend.
Monday I started a brand new blog called the Culinary Cuttlefish which is all about food and cooking (two things I love to do).
As always I've been busy making stuff too. Pretty new Cosmic Octopus and Cosmic Squid necklaces with Swarovski crystal stars on them. Also a brand new baby rat sculpture, I'm thinking of doing a series of baby animals in everyday objects and this is the first one. He's in an altoid tin.
Several years ago I worked on this crazy, fun, ultra-low budget zombie movie. Well after many delays it is finally being posted online in several parts. So here is Color of Cannibals - Episode 1. I'll be posting the other parts as they go up.
I've now set up my Etsy shop for shipping to all of Europe as well as the US, Canada, and Australia. Etsy just introduced this wonderful new shipping region feature that makes it easy to set shipping to large regions of countries. This makes it easier for those of us who would like to offer more international options.
I've also been making some more specimen jar necklaces. Here's a couple more, brain and heart.
Halloween is coming up in a couple months. My jewelry generally would be fun for Halloween with the squid and fetuses in jars but I wanted to do something really fun for the holiday. So the Frankenpod was born, a creature that would have been created by Dr. Frankenstein if he were a cephalopod. So far I've only done the first test necklace a cuttlefish frankenpod.
I also have some upcoming holiday sales:
Labor Day Weekend Sale during September 4-7 - Half-off shipping and discounts on some items.
International Cephalopod Awareness Day on October 8 - Free shipping and goodies for all purchases of cephalopod jewelry, ornaments, and tins. Half off shipping and goodies for Perma-Pets.
I've been starting to stock up for the holidays. Soon I need to order more clay and jewelry findings. This week I got enough little jars to keep me making specimen jar necklaces for a while, 50 to be exact, got them from judgedredge on eBay. Also a whole quarter pound of itty bitty watch parts from ChaoticSupplies on Etsy which should keep me supplied to make steampunk cephalopods for quite some time.
I also got a goody for myself. This absolutely amazing vintage bowler from Dress Up Doll Vintage on Etsy. She even included a cute matching scarf.
This week I'm working on new jewelry. I have quite a to do list that includes Frankenpods for halloween (yep, frankenstein cephalopods).
I've set up a brand new page on the website all for fans of Noadi's Art. Right now it's sad and empty so if you've bought anything from me get a picture of yourself modeling with your Noadi's Art treasures and send them to me. If you also want a link back to your site, blog, or twitter make sure to include that as well.
I've been busy making lots of new stuff lately. Most of it has been replacing things that sold but I have a few things to show off.
First is this Cuttlefish Specimen Jar necklace that I absolutely love. Of course once I started doing these necklaces I just had to make a cuttlefish one.
I've also been doing some fun illustrations lately that I'm putting on products in my Zazzle Shop so you can get them on tshirts, stickers, and other goodies like that. It started with this holiday/birthday octopus that I sketched and I'll eventually have a rubber stamp made out of it for making cards.
Then since I was on a roll I sketched up this nautilus and squid that I'm on the process of reworking in Inkscape and they'll be up in my shop soon.
I always have fun when it comes to shopping for supplies. Last week I had some new clay cutters, clay, and nice brass wires come in. Then I bought some rhinestones at a craft store that I used on my latest Cosmic Octopus.
Today I had beads, gold and silver wire, clip-on earring findings, lobster clasps, more hair sticks, and a grab bag of gemstone cabochons.
So my plans for all these goodies?
The clip-on earrings I got because I've had requests for them, I'm going to offer to switch out the hook earring wires I usually use for clip-ons for whoever wants them.
The precious metal wire is for my specimen jar necklaces. I thought mixing it up with a little gold as well as silver would be nice. The brass wire is for those larger bubble shaped bottles I got a few weeks ago. Their going to be in the tradition of my Perma-Pets and Specimen Jars but a little different.
I can't wait to show all the fun new things I'm making.
Another week another art show. This is my last one for the near future so I can go back to focusing on making new jewelry and sculpture for a while. This show was a lot of fun here's how it went: Scroll to the bottom or go here if you just want photos.
Friday night: I was maybe less than smart about this but the James Randi Educational Foundation was streaming the Amazing Meeting live and I had to watch it. I was up until about 2am watching George Hrab perform his Occasional Songs for the Periodic Elements live which was incredibly good. The streaming video had a chat along with it which made it all the more fun to talk with all these other skeptics. The down side of course was that I had to get up at 5:30 in the morning. That's right I did the show on 3 1/2 hours of sleep.
Saturday 5:30 AM: I am up and getting ready for the show. I already had all the boxes packed so it was just a matter of dressing, eating breakfast, and getting everything loaded in the truck.
7:30 AM: Arrive at the show, sign in and drop off my Natural History Cuttlefish Necklace for judging. Setting up the tent went fast but getting the display ready took me until 9 AM.
9:00 AM: The show starts. From here to 4 PM I didn't keep much track of time but this is more or less in chronological order. These are the highlights that stuck out to me. I wish I'd gotten some pictures of a few things but I was so busy the thought just never crossed my mind.
First sale of the day came early, maybe 20-30 minutes in by an adorable little girl of maybe 5 years old. She really wanted a necklace but Daddy said no because $30 is a little too much for something she's likely to break. I do have the tentacle charms that are a dollar and she went for that idea because she got to pay me with her own money. She was so proud of herself, and she paid me with a dollar coin which was cool first of the new presidential ones I've received (William Henry Harrison on it), Daddy pitched in the extra nickel to cover tax.
Around 10 AM or so Danyelle and James came to help me out for the rest of the day. They live in Norway so a nice short drive for them. They were a huge help, the show would be so much harder and longer without them.
Noon was when the winners of judging were announced, I didn't win anything. Too bad but my jewelry is pretty unusual so I can't say I'm surprised. The winner was a beautiful gemstone and wire-wrapped necklace and totally deserved a prize. All the other jewelry was great too and it had to be a really tough job for the judges.
Shortly after lunch (yummy sandwiches made by Danyelle) a family with their kids came by. Little girl really wanted a squid necklace. Mom said "You don't need a squid necklace", little girl relied "Yes I do!" in a totally serious voice. No sale but a good laugh.
Some entertainment was provided by a procession of pro-marijuana protesters. Now I fully support their position and think marijuana should be legal and treated the same as alcohol (but this is about the art show not drug policy). I still had to find the phrase "I smoke pot but I'm not a criminal" incredibly funny and ironic.
I learned it was a very good idea that I brought findings and tools with me just in case. A girl wanted some of my earrings but the price was more than Grandma wanted to pay so I put a couple matching tentacle charms on earrings and charged her $5 for it.
The only sale of one of my big necklaces (sold a lot of tentacle charms and $5 pieces) was to a girl in her late teens who loves squid. The whole day would have been worth it for just this sale because she was so excited about it and took quite a while to pick out the one she wanted to buy. Finally she settled on the gilded steampunk cuttlefish but took some cards so she could get another one later.
Later in the afternoon I see a couple come by with the guy equipped with a baby sling. Only there was no baby human in it but two adorable kittens. They are fostering the kitten for Responsible Pet Care in Norway a no-kill cat shelter until they are of adoptable age (old enough to be spayed or neutered). I really wish I had thought to get a pictures because it was really cute.
4:00 PM: Show finishes. With Danyelle, James, and my dad it didn't take too long to get everything down and packed in the truck. We listened to the Dr Horrible soundtrack on my laptop while working on it. Done and left by 5 PM.
Yes, I do think I'm crazy in doing 2 art shows in 2 weeks. The second show is this Saturday, July 11. It's the Sidewalk Art Show in Norway, Maine, check out this page I put together for info and directions on how to get there.
I just reached a major milestone for my Etsy shop, I've topped 100 sales. This is pretty big for me, I only opened the shop about 9 months ago, it's amazing to see how much it's grown.
Now how to celebrate? I'm thinking with chocolate.
So Saturday was my first art show of the year. Here's how it went. (scroll down to the bottom if you just want to see the photos) Friday 7:00 PM-9:30 PM: Janet threw a party for the Shy, Novice, and Closeted Art Show. I was the graduate this year so they sponsored my booth for the show on the Common.
The party was a lot of fun. There was wonderful food provided by some of the artists in the show and Janet's house looked gorgeous with all the art displayed. The party didn't go totally smooth, shortly after it started a big thunderstorm hit, so we lit candles around the house just in case the power went out.
10:00 PM: I get home and with my dad get the truck packed up to go. I don't get to bed until 12:00 AM.
Saturday 5:30 AM: I get up to get ready for the show. I got maybe 4-4.5 hours of sleep. This was not a good idea. We also had to repack the truck to make sure none of the boxes got wet because it was raining a bit.
7:00 AM: Arrive at the show, check in, start setting up the booth. It was still raining but lightly.
9:00 AM: Show starts. There was a good crowd starting off pretty early and the first half of the day went great. This is when I made the most sales and got a lot of compliments on my work. I sold one of my octopus necklaces to a lady who wanted to give it to her daughter who's a veterinarian and octopus lover which was just great.
Why do so many people break the rules? The show stated very plainly that dogs were not welcome but there were so many there. I have no problem with well trained dogs (and most were wonderful and friendly) but why bring a puppy that isn't even leash trained yet? Luckily I had no mishaps with dogs knocking things over but it was close.
12:00 PM: Friends Danyelle and James come to help me out the rest of the day.
12:30 PM: 10 minute downpour. Unfortunately this is when the show started dwindling in visitors, the rain drove off a lot of them and they didn't return. Still had a good crowd but not as good as in the morning.
There were a ton of kids at the show, a lot more than I've seen at other shows I've done. Most of the kids were great and a lot of fun. There was one boy in particular who was probably about 9 or 10 who loved my squid necklaces. He came and looked at them then ran off and brought his mom back, she said no. About 5 minutes later he was back with his dad who also said no. I'm surprised I didn't see him back with a grandparent. I felt kind of bad for him but I don't blame his parents, the necklace is $30 and while my necklaces are fairly tough I don't think they could survive an active 9 year old boy for too long.
4:00 PM: Show wrapped up and with Danyelle and James' help I got everything packed up pretty quickly except the canopy. It had started to rain again just after 4 so we waited under the canopy until my dad arrived with the truck.
Good:
There was a great crowd with a lot of enthusiastic people.
The organizers and other artists there were all incredibly friendly and helpful.
Sales met my goal, obviously selling more would always be great but the show is about getting my name out more than making a lot of cash.
Bad:
The weather.
Visitors did skew to older folks and couples with young kids which are not my best audience.
I didn't set up my booth in the best way I think. Too much high priced sculpture, next show I'm not bringing so much. Also I should have arrange the tables in an outward face U that people could walk around rather that face in because not enough people could fit inside the area.
So I'm down to the wire preparing for these two shows. Getting a little stressed but also really excited.
If you're in the Bethel, Maine, area for the 4th of July please come to the Art Fair on the Common. The Norway Sidewalk Art Show on Main Street in Norway, Maine, is on the 11th. Both go from 9am to 4 pm. Expect to see lots of photos after the shows.
I'm getting more prepared for the art shows coming up. I got a 3rd large table and a little side table for my checkout area, a new cashbox (this one actually has a working lock!), and a few other things. If it ever stops raining this week I need to do a test run setting up the canopy and tables.
I also got yet more supplies. This time a collection of little bottles to fill.
Things have been a bit crazy the past few days but in a good way. Here's what's going on:
Tuesday was my birthday! I'm 27 now. Thursday some friends threw me a little party complete with a cake that had an octopus.
I've had the combination birthday/Yart deal going with half off shipping for jewelry and free gifts going from the 9th and going until tomorrow the 14th.
Squidoo made some major layout changes including the introduction of themes so I've been updating my lenses to take advantage of them.
Still preparing for the art shows coming up.
Between replacing what's sold during my special and preparing for art show I've been busy making new jewelry including these weird specimen jar pendants.
The show I'm doing July 11th has a $200 jewelry prize so making something special for that.
Etsy is having a Yart Sale from June 10th-14th. My birthday is on June 9th so I'm going to kick it off a day early. From Tuesday through Sunday I will have discounted shipping throughout my Etsy shop.
I have my first show of the summer in just over a month so I'm busy getting ready. Part of it is a total overhaul of my display. One thing I absolutely had to have was a new canopy because my old one is in bad shape which will teach me not to buy a cheap canopy that wind can tear apart. This time I went for sturdy..
I also feel so much more professional with the display busts and earring card racks I bought too. I like to make my displays as much as possible but these were things I thought it was better to buy. They're all black so they will go well with the trays I made last year and contrast with the light color of the sea shells and glass I have too. I don't have them assembled yet but I'm going to put half spheres of styrofoam in fishbowls and use that to display my hair sticks which I think will be really cute.
I also just got these great stamps made. They're for a lot of things but one thing I'm planning is to use the big logo stamp on paper bags for the shows to put purchases in.
I have a little store on Zazzle when I have tshirts and stuff of my designs and I just added some with the cuttlefish illustration form my logo. They're in the original green and also one in red. Zazzle is a lot of fun and I've done some printing of business cards and a tshirt with them and the quality is very good, I highly recommend them.
After avoiding it for a long time I decided that Noadi's Art really needed a logo. Graphic design isn't something I have a lot of experience and it took me a while to get the hang of using Inkscape to trace and color the sketch I made. I like how it looks though.
Here's the full color logo on the background color I use in my shop banner. I have several versions like the grayscale, and black and white along with a few others. One of the nice things about using a vector program like Inkscape for this is it made it very easy to do the color swapping. Of course my logo is of a cuttlefish.
So I just got done making, photographing, and listing a bunch of new steampunk cephalopods jewelry in my Etsy Shop. Along with the distressed gray metal look I had been doing I created a more fanciful and feminine steampunk look in a deep burgundy red with antique gold edging that makes it look gilded. I'm very happy wiht how these turned out and how popular my steampunk cephalopods have been recently.
I decided I wanted to do a slideshow of them and this is what I created using animoto.
I'm excited about doing some cool faux surface cuttlefish and stuff. The other two are more to help me on the business side of things and I'll be reviewing them on the Handmade Business Blog in the next few weeks.
Twitter is a wonderful thing, I was talking about how I wanted some old mechanical watches for parts and one of my friends put me in touch with a store that sells vintage items. I got 12 lovely but broken ladies watches.
Now what do I use these for? Well the innards get used for my steampunk cephalopods, I now have cuttlefish, octopus, and squid in this style. The cases are all quite pretty and I'm thinking of using them so make mini shadow-boxes. Whether they'll all be necklaces or if I'll use the wrist watch cases for bracelets I haven't decided yet. In any case I'm having fun taking the watches apart.
I have some ideas for switching up the steampunk cephalopods a bit. First of all a more feminine version in red an gold rather than gray and brass.
I love my Amazon Associates account, once a month they pay me in gift certificates so I can indulge my book addiction (if someone clicks an amazon link from this blog or my Squidoo lenses and buys something I get a percentage). Last few months I've been getting astronomy related stuff but this month I got some clay related books.
I bought a metal clay kit back in February but haven't really wrapped my head around it yet, much different feel from polymer clay and it dried very rapidly (partly the dry winter air, I hope it won't be so bad this summer). The book has already answered some questions I had and it came with a free DVD that I need to watch soon.
The second is a book on polymer clay that I've been looking at for a while. It's all about different surface effects you can get with polymer clay. I'm always looking for new ways to finish my jewelry to give it different looks.
So I got a big box of new clay today. Some fun new colors of premo and also some of the new Studio by Sculpey clay. It's a nice clay, easy to condition but way too soft for me. I need a firmer clay even Premo is too soft for me sometimes when sculpting. So definitely going to leach it.
What about the finished clay? Well it lives up to it's hype about having a suede-like finish, very soft and pretty. Definitely gives a different look to this cuttlefish.
I'm working on planning the shows I'll be doing this summer. So far I'm completely registered and paid up do the Bethel Art Fair on July 4th in Bethel, Maine. I'm also planning on doing the Norway Sidewalk Art Show again (in Norway, Maine) which is the next weekend July 11th but I haven't gotten the application in yet.
I also found out that the Western Maine Art Group has spaces for artists at the Oxford County Fair. I'd like to do that for one day (it would be between the 13th-19th of September) but I'm waiting to hear back on some questions I had before I apply.
I'm sure you've noticed a nice big gap between July and September? Well I'm hoping to fill it with one or two more shows but I haven't found the right ones yet. My transportation options are limited because I can't drive (have to recruit family to help me) so it has to be local. Depending on how things go I might do a show or two during the holidays but that's too far in the future right now to know.
Now I have to plan the supplies I need to get. My canopy has worn out so I need a new one (and not so cheap and flimsy this time), another table because 2 wasn't enough space last year, stuff for displays, etc. Shows are fun but they are a whole lot of work.
This is one of those strokes of luck when a customer requests something that you've been putting off doing so it spurs you to do it. I was contacted by a customer to create a custom squid necklace for a friend of hers. Now since I already make cuttlefish and octopus the logical next step is of course to do squid. However cuttlefish and squid are pretty similar so I'd been putting off figuring out how to do a squid that is sufficiently different from my cuttlefish. This custom request made me actually site down and do so.
It took me some planning, sketching, and looking at squid photos to make up my mind but I'm happy with the results. I hope this new line is as successful as my cuttlefish and octopus have been so far.
This of course leads to new octopus jewelry. I now have a good bit of the new line up on my Etsy Shop.
I recently got a big new order of supplies so lots of new jewelry is in the works including some cephalopods in pure silver! Trying to expand Noadi's Art into new areas and this higher end line of jewelry is the first step.
I got some feedback on one of my cuttlefish necklaces today that totally made my day.
Thanks for the necklace! It's even prettier in real life, and the pictures had me going 'wow' in the first place. The cord is the perfect length, you have no idea how frustrated I get when I buy a pendant or necklace and the cord automatically makes it a choker. The little charm included is cute too and makes a nice earring! What really won me over was the fact that you actually INCLUDED an invoice and a neat pamphlet about your work. Many people on Etsy and other sites often forget to include the invoice, and the pamphlet and business cards are a nice touch and chance for the buyer to learn a little more about the artist and the jewelry as well (storing and cleaning instructions are greatly appreciated). Thank you so much for this order! I love the pendant and the care you put both into making it and sending it my way!
Creating my jewelry and to have people buy it is thrilling enough but to hear from someone so excited about it is just amazing.
and I'll be redoing a lot of photos with it. I'll also be shooting with the intent of putting together an art book later this year that will be self-published (probably with Lulu.com) and hopefully a lot of fun.
book is looking like it's coming together really fast and I'm probably going to be featured in it.
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