10/7/12

being at the 1st Annual Boston Seafood Festival

Yesterday I had the honor to be part of the first annual Boston Seafood Festival as an artist vendor. It was my first time being part of a crafts fair, and it was so exhilarating, scary, and fun!! 

It was at the end of August that I got a message from my friend, Ivy about becoming a vendor at the seafood festival. I was intrigued. I've never done such a (cool) thing before. I've been to crafts fairs but never did I really think I would be the one behind the craft table with my stuff. But I decided to take the plunge anyway. However, I did seriously ponder over the option of pulling out of it, not gonna lie. I'm so glad I followed through with it though!!

The day of the festival, I woke up at 6:30am, which surprised me because I don't think I fell asleep way past 2am... 'twas the butterflies that kept me alert, I guess.. I got into bed much earlier, but then remembered, "PRICING." So I got back up, filled out an inventory sheet with all the prices and items, packed a small carry-on suitcase and then went back to bed. That inventory sheet proved to be very helpful, too. So I'm thankful for that.

At around 8am my trusty friends Eugenia and David came to pick me up. Not only did they bring me to the festival with all my stuff, but they also spent the entire day with me in the sun and boisterous wind and helped me not lose my mind and sold some of my creations together! They are sooooooooooooooooo wonderful and I don't know what I would have done without them. I would have been so lost!

We arrived at the Bank of America Pavillion around 8:30am and started to set up. The festival didn't open until 11am, so we had some time. Time went by so fast, though, I feel like I took a couple of breaths and then people started to trickle in. 

post-setup (minus coffee cup) :)
Earring display
more display and treasure chest (that was NOT for sale ;))
A bunch of people including friends came and went, and time went by fast and slow (it was particularly slow when the coffee wore out). Some people swiftly walked by without giving a single look, some came by made a few comments and left, and others stayed and engaged in conversation.

The most memorable person during the day (I wish I got her name) was a young lady maybe twelve or thirteen years old (I'm really bad at telling age). She came to my booth, gave a thorough 10 minute look at my jewelry and left, then brought her grandmother and looked hard at what I've got again. They left, and then came back, bought a pair of earrings for the young lady's mother, then left. And THEN, she came back again WITH her mother to show her what I had, and after they left together she came back by herself again just to look. It was such an experience! I am flattered by the fact that what I created could catch someone's attention for that long that many times. 

The best selling item was the button rings:
It was a HOOT!!
Which was great information.
I need to make a bunch more!! and this time, in more colors and various sizes. Some of them turned out to be just too small.

The very first customer bought a pair of button rings, but there wasn't a pair of rings her size in the color she wanted (she likes anything pink). There was only one ring that fit that criteria, so I offered to make another one on the spot for her. She came back a half hour later and picked up the finished rings with a smile. 


One of the special things about yesterday's selling experience was that I pledged to donate 25% of the proceeds to Rosie's Place, the first women's homeless shelter for women in the US. I have a deep connection with this organization, because I worked as an intern at the Women's Craft Cooperative (WCC) of Rosie's Place a couple years ago.  WCC helps women help themselves by turning new and vintage buttons into decorative accessories. That's where I learned to play with buttons and make things out of them. Actually, the button ring was the very first product I've ever made!! 

It was awesome that my very first (signature) product, the button ring, was the most popular item at my booth.

I raised $40 to give to Rosie's Place, and I am so pleased that I can contribute to this great organization in any way at all. 

Overall, great experience was had, and I look forward to another opportunity to be creative, productive, and put myself out there and try to do good all at once.

We'll see what my next move will be!!

c'est moi!

There are so many people I would like to thank for helping me make this possible. Just to name a few, I want to thank Ivy, Eugenia, DavidNorah, and massmouth, inc. for helping me in such concrete ways throughout the process and the day-of. 

8/23/12

New creations (jewelry & website)

Hello!
So I want to introduce you to some **new** creations of mine...

First off,
say hello to my new website!!
I'm so excited to have a website with my name on/in it.
and I think it's going to help me get the word out a lot.
Yay

I even have a "contribution" part where people can help me out by "Levels of Support"
and look how cute the options are!!
• Latte ..... $5
• Lunch ..... $10
• Dinner ..... $25
• Tripod ..... $50 (support... get it?)
• Ext Hard Drive ..... $100

I'm so in love with it.

Let me know what you think?


Moving on....

Here are some pics of new creations....

this was inspired by something I saw in the Bazaar Magazine... I didn't save it, but it was something with black and gold, and I thought "what can I make that would look good with that color combo?"
So here you go... :)

 I intended this necklace to be something totally different. Like, I wasn't planning on useing those ceramic beads at all..... but I'm pleased with the outcome. Now what to name it?

I like this pair a lot. I love the pink drops especially.
Without them, it was kind of dull to be honest. But I think it works.

















I also discovered that it's fun to do a "Name this product" contest via Facebook.
and I thank everyone who participated in naming this  pair of earrings.




That's all for now.

Thanks for reading!




•• Coming up ••
Story behind the name LBEW...

3/6/12

"Everyday is SOMEBODY's Birthday"

I have mentioned this before, but I find creating much more fun and rewarding when I think I am gifting it to someone.

Rather than making for selling.

And it's true, Any day, Every day is SOMEBODY's Birthday!

But the other day was my dear friend Heather's day, so I made this for her:
Labradorite (?), pearls, garnet





I think she liked it. 


and this is what I made for my recipient:
Also, I'm participating in an Art Exchange project where each month People get creative, make things and send to another person participating in the project. It's quite fun!

Quartz, onyx, metal balls

The following two pairs I didn't make thinking about a specific somebody, but tried the design anyway:
Stone, coral



this is a new design i'm trying...
I haven't done linking beads together the way I did here before. It was tedious, but I like the result.
I've only seen it done with pearls, so this was a nice contrast.
I think the colors complement each other, which I like...
Sapphire, rose quartz, fire-polished beads
 this was very much inspired by the earrings I made for Heather. The drops I used for this pair and heather's pair came from a pair of earrings my mother gave to me with all these semi precious stones hanging like a chandelier. I should have taken a picture. It was a beautiful collection of gems, but somehow the length and everything didn't work. So I' deconstructed the beautiful pair and am recreating earrings from it.



the aftermath of deconstruction of my own b-day gift


I'm using more natural light for my jewelry photography, and I think i like it (?).
It's less harsh, it seems.

2/24/12

Metalsmithing

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post! It's a new year now, and I have good feelings... So what have I been up to? Well, last fall I took a beginning jewelry metalsmithing class at MassArt. and it was AWESOME.

 Here are some samples I've made:

Silver ring. It's of my logo. can you tell?
"Hug" Pendant.... it's two people hugging... made this via cuttle fish casting technique. it was a lot of fun. I realize that many people think of boobs when they see this, but my intention was to depict an embrace.
Made this pin thinking about my friend who loves mountains... it's really small. a little bigger than a thumbnail probably.
This one became a pair of earrings after I made another side to it. It's kind of funny looking because each side is different in size. but hey, no one can say I didn't try :)
This one I made thinking of my mom who is fond of square shaped things...
And this was the last object I made... right now, it's just a "thing" perhaps a paperweight of some sorts... I used the lost wax casting technique. so much fun!! and here you may be able to see more easily that it IS indeed a HUG an embrace!! :)















 I had a lot of fun with this class. Thanks to Peter Evonuk at MassArt for his patience and teachings.

I would like to create more things in the future using Metalsmithing techniques. But it is by NO MEANS an easy method....


I'm gonna leave you with one freshly made pair of earrings. and I will promise to update more regularly. Thanks for reading!! <3