And of COURSE it rains

I'm moving quite slowly today, due to a lack of decent sleep and late nights and working. But I have a lot to do so I'd better get moving. This afternoon Allen and I will be attending another Roller Derby match and as pulled up blogspot.com to post this, the sky turned dark and the thunder started. Of course. It has rained every day this week.

So, I'm off to do chores and clean and list. But before I go, here's a new Etsy favorite: fishfanaticI've seen gyotaku before at a local weekly show on Singer Island. I love the style of these rubbings and that they're on handmade paper. Check out this store for some beautiful original art!

So..... It's really just me.

I've been getting frustrated at my own lack of sales. I think what fuels my frustration is watching others, some of whom seemingly take little pride in their creative process and work ethic and yet at the same time charge ridiculously exorbitant prices, excel and be praised. Jealousy, I know. The green-eyed bug has me. But really, I'm in a down in the dumps kinda mood. I know our work is stellar - our products are completely unique and extremely well made - but I am terrible at promoting myself.

That's where the real issue lies. When we first started helping my father make leather goodies and would go to shows more frequently, I used to wonder why we always bombed. Was it the prices? Was it the quality? Are my leather goods "something only a mother could love"?

I recently found out - no, it's just me.

I had a wholesale order for sandals a while back from a wonderful woman in Texas. She had planned on taking my sandals to a festival to sell. After taking her order I thought, "Pssh, good luck," since every time we tried to sell ours at shows all the patrons nearly fell over after looking at the prices.

Well, she hasn't even started her festival yet and she's already called me back for more sandals. I'm expecting a call for another batch once the show is complete.

So this whole time, it's been me.

What am I doing wrong? I need to acquire some marketing skills that work! I'm not unfriendly. I'm not scary looking (at least, I don't think so). I know my craft well enough to talk about it for hours on end (not that I do).

Well, if anyone reads this and has some legitimate advice please feel free to advise me. I could use a pick-me-up.

In the meantime I will leave you with my newest cuff bracelets. I call the sea sponge cuffs and I love them. You love them, too.

Great little things

I've been creating a bit lately:

Why always at the PO?

So today Allen and I stopped by the Post Office on our way home to pick up a package that we missed the day before. We're waiting patiently in the Long line as a woman next to us jabbers on and on into her cell phone in both a combination of english and some other language (arabic?). I was thinking about how much I'd like to be fluent in another language to the point where I could carry on a conversation in both languages flawlessly like that.
But, to my point -

As we move up in line the woman in front of Cell Phone Talker turns and says, "you shouldn't use another language to talk about other people. I heard and understood everything you said and it was very rude. You should look at yourself!"
CPT simply says, "I don't care," and they proceed to bicker back in forth in whatever language it was. The lady in line behind me says "that bitch is going to get her ass whooped in the parking lot," and I start to giggle.
Why is there always some sort of ordeal every time I go to the Post Office?
CPT was with her young daughter in line and I hope that she took away a lesson in why you shouldn't badmouth and gossip about others.

In other, non- post office related news, I'm almost done with my new shelf. It was a raw wood color and I painted it up pretty:

Fathers and Pottery Goodies

Happy Father's Day!

I think I'll be taking my dad out to eat at the Thirsty Turtle! My father decided to spend the entire day fishing and whatever he catches they'll cook. And I'm extra excited because it means Allen and I can enjoy their amazing cracked conch again!

The front page of Etsy seems to be changing more frequently! While it's sort of a bummer that some really awesome items are only featured for a short time, it's also pretty cool to be constantly exposed to something new. Today I caught this front page picked by DiklaFellner.

The items are by:
etcArts
marymarkeenan
whitneysmith
kimwestad
elizabethcohenpotter
juditavill
MSPottery
scrumdidlyump
misslo

I love handmade ceramics. I have no need for more (but i really need more)!

SATURDAY

I finished my additional watermelon sandals - it was easy-breezy this time around since I didn't need to: a) order anything new, b) I already knew the pattern, and c) I didn't need to take a week off of work to run the counter.
Now I need to get started on a custom order Buddy Bag and maybe a few other goodies. I'm also interested in finding another venue to sell my handmade leather wonderfulness. I've explored DaWanda and WWcrafter (or whatever it's called) but I'm a little hesitant to upload half my items into a new site if I'm not sure how well they will do.
Has anyone had any success selling on any non-Etsy handmade sites?

Troubles and Adventure

Well, yesterday was another one of those days.
First, my new camera, the Nikon Coolpix, wouldn't upload any photos. I've been having a little trouble this past week getting the USB connector to actually connect and it finally refused. My only other hope was to find my card reader that we used with an older camera but couldn't find it. Suggestions were made that I go buy a new cable - which may fix the problem, but I shouldn't have, to! We just bought this camera! But if I were to try to get a new cable via the warranty I bet they'd want me to ship the whole camera off somewhere for weeks at a time while I sit around with no camera at all.

So, I figured I would try to get some cleaning done and.... discovered the water was out. So I go to check the mail before running errands and when I try to gently hang up my keys my mirror/keyholder falls down and smashes the switchplate under it.

I add switchplate to the list of things I need to buy during my errands and start walking out the door with my packages I needed to mail. My mother is dog-sitting and as I'm stepping outside the dog bolts out the door. Figuring she must really have to go potty, I let her sniff around the yard. Then she bolts out the gate and I spent the next 20 minutes chasing and screaming at this monster until she finally runs back to the house.

Finally I get on the road.

At least one good thing came of yesterday:

Goodness....

Well, I can't blog that much, as I have now have a custom cuff order to finish, a wholesale order to finish, and a custom bag to begin (hooray!) but I wanted to show off Allen's two new cuffs:

We have a couple exotics lying around left over from various custom work - so Allen went to town to make these! Originally I wanted to have lacing around the edges, but Allen went with his idea, which turned out really cool, too.

Bikes and Leather Mixed Together

I've been doing a lot of creating and not a lot of blogging. Allen made this bicycle seat for the Freak Bike Rides and I'm just now getting around to showing it off:

He tooled the leather and sewed it into some oiled leather and stapled the whole thing to the bike seat. I think it looks freakin awesome!
I also made this new pink Buddy Bag mini. It's an embossed leather with seashells and seahorses and starfish - combined with an exotic pink on the front and back.

Telephone Needs a Home

Yesterday I made a cell phone case out of a shiny red fish skin.Pink edge-stitching and lined in a thin red leather.
Pretty cool, 'eh?