Handmade Parade Planning Meeting Report

We had a really productive planning meeting last Sunday, and have made big steps in getting ourselves organized for this year’s Handmade Parade! We have a wiki site set up for planning purposes, all details about the event planning and running the event will go there.

If you are interested in being part of the planning committee or being involved in Handmade Parade in any way, please send me an email and I will give you the login information for the wiki. The planning committee will have monthly check-ins, we are doing some exciting stuff!

Our tentative date for Handmade Parade 2009 is Saturday, December 12.

Who Arted? Art Show

The Who Arted group (www.whoarted.ning.com) is hosting their first art show this Saturday, June 13, 2009. The event will take place in the lot next to Chic Cheap Resale Boutique located at 3617 Shore Drive, Virginia Beach.

We have a few spaces left, so if anyone is interested, please contact kellygstudio@gmail.com

Worldwide Knit in Public Day

7 Cities Crafter Shannon is organizing an awesome event: Life, Love and Yarn (her super cool blog) and KnitWits will be celebrating World knit in Public Day a whole new way this year! Knit or crochet all day at the store and join us at 9pm this Saturday, June 13 for fun filled yarn out at Finn McCool’s in Virginia Beach! Music, food and drinks! $2.50 glass of wine and house drinks! Door prizes and more! Please bring cash as the restaurant will only allow is to have 1 check. Also bring a chair to Knitwits for the daytime! Please RSVP if possible on Facebook or in our forum.

Hampton Roads Burdastyle Sewing Circle

7 Cities Crafter Kristin (owner of Craft & Sew Studio) is starting a Burdastyle sewing circle. You can view the group on Meetup.com and get updates about it here.

This group is about SEWING! Stitchers of all levels (including beginners) are welcome to attend monthly sewing circle meetings at Craft & Sew Studio in Virginia Beach. This group is sponsored by www.burdastyle.com, which is an open-source sewing website. Here is what they have to say about the aims of the group:

“A BurdaStyle Sewing Club is a group that meets on a regular basis where people can drop by and ask questions, practice their craft and be creative together.”

The focus of this sewing circle is mainly on fashion sewing, but quilters and stitchers with other areas of interest are welcome as well. It’s a chance to get together with some like-minded DIY folks, make new friends, and get advice on sewing dilemmas. We may also do some stitch-alongs or tutorials if members would like to!

Craft & Sew Studio has four sewing machines as well as a full stock of tools and supplies, which group members are welcome to use during meetups. Please see the website for more information: www.craftandsewstudio.com

Bring in your sewing projects for show and tell, advice, troubleshooting, or just to make some progress on them! We will also discuss possible stitch-alongs for future meetings.

The first meeting is scheduled for Sunday June 28 at 6pm

Handmade Parade Planning Meeting

Thursday, July 9, 2009 7:00 pm @ Azar’s in Ghent

Our monthly craft-together for July will be cancelled because of the holiday weekend, but the following week we’ll be having a little followup meeting for Handmade Parade, our big annual arts & crafts show.

Please come to Azars for yummy food and to get ourselves organized on sponsorships for Handmade Parade. Azars is at 2000 Colley Avenue in Norfolk’s Ghent.

The situation in the craft room is dire. At first glance, this disaster appears to be the result of a tornado, tsunami, hurricane or other act of God. It actually was caused by:

• Getting married and sacrificing your office to be the ManCave. All shipping supplies or anything remotely arty got dumped into the craft room.
• Rushed holiday crafting and shoving half-finished projects and leftover supplies onto every available surface before hurrying out of town.
• Having your fabric bins stolen lovingly giving away your fabric bins to your husband so he can use them for god knows what.
• Not ever needing to iron anything (hey this ironing board makes a great clutter collector!)

This is a great example of how clutter attracts clutter until it’s out of control. Don’t let this happen to you! Nip it in the bud. Or if it does get out of control, don’t get overwhelmed, just attack it in an orderly manner.

Here’s how I approach it. (more…)

{Hi there!  I’m Amanda (former member of the Seven Cities.)  Here are a few of my tips on selling handmade items and supplies online.  I hope you find them handy!}

Etsy!  A fun marketplace for selling your handmade goods, or vintage items and commercial crafting supplies.  I opened my first etsy shop, A. Bel Studio, in December 2006.  I stocked the shop with all kinds of handmade items, often leftovers from the craft shows I was in.  Eventually I started selling a few cupcake decorating supplies too, and soon after, I created a separate shop for these items called A. Bel Emporium.  That shop sort of exploded, and I had less time to work on the studio shop.  At some point, I opened a third shop, Out Like Bandits, to sell select vintage items.

Whew, so that’s my etsy history in a nutshell!  Now, two years and over 3,400 sales later, you think I’d have some wisdom to impart.  Not really.  At least, I don’t think I have any amazing, earth-shattering secrets to success on etsy.  I’m sure everything I know has been said over and over already: take good photos, re-list to stay visible, keep a full shop, etc.  Often times advice is easier to give than it is to follow, but I tried to come up with a few, semi-original tips:

1.  Ship internationally. A staggering percentage of my Emporium sales were to  international customers.  France, UK, Australia, Italy, Japan, and so on.  You are turning away customers if you do not offer shipping to other countries.  Yes, it takes a little more time.  You must fill out a small customs form, and there is a good amount of trial and error involved in getting your shipping costs straight, but I promise it can be worth the effort.  I realize this can be cost prohibitive if you make/sell heavy items (see #4.)

2.  Go for variety.  I’m sure some will argue this one, but I stand by my claim.  Variety is the spice of life, and there is a very fine line between having a niche and being in a rut.  The more you have, the more you can sell.  Colors, styles, items….it’s all about choices.  The more you have to look at and think about, the longer customers will stay on your site.  But, of course, there is a limit.  You must be true to yourself and your site.  I was browsing a packaging supply shop the other day, you know, corrugated boxes and duct tape, and there was a big link at the bottom that said “Click here for our selection of Country Cross Stitch Samplers!”  Don’t be that site.

3.  Stay away from the etsy forums.  They are full of miss-information, the promotions simply don’t work, and worst off all, they are a major time-suck.  If you have a question, look it up in Terms of Use or google it, someone has probably blogged about it.  I know people love the forums and the treasury, but with a small biz, time is money, and your time is much better spent elsewhere.  I guarantee you that the top etsy sellers spend little or no time with the forums or treasuries.  Follow their example.

4.  Make/sell lightweight items.  “But I want to carve giant slabs of marble!”-you might be thinking.  Too bad!  Be honest and ask yourself if someone is really going to pay $15 for you to ship them a $4 paperweight?  If I can buy heavier items (candles, soaps, paperweights) locally, I will.  The shipping on heavier items is just too cost prohibitive.  Obviously, more exotic and harder to find objects don’t really apply, but it’s still in your best interest to give your customers the best deal on shipping you can find.  I’ve abandoned shopping carts before because I just *knew* they were majorly overcharging me on the shipping.  If you want to add money for “packaging and handling”, that’s fine.  I just believe that that should be included in the price of the item, not the shipping charges.

5.  Be brutally honest about your profit margin. (This can be a real tough one.)  Factor in your etsy fees, listing fees, paypal fees, materials, time, etc.  If you are happy having a hobby-business and you’re not all that concerned about the profit-aspect, then don’t stress about it.  There is nothing wrong with that, and it’s your shop - you can do whatever you want.  For many of us, however, making money is not just a part of the business, it’s the point of the business.  There is nothing wrong with that either.  Just keep a sharp eye on your finances, and you will be OK.  If you find yourself getting wishy-washy with the details, get someone else to crunch the numbers for you, and don’t be scared of the truth!  Often times the brutal truth, no matter how dismal, does not force you to give up, but will encourage you to try harder.

6. Make/sell what you want, but play fair.  Touchy subject, I know.  I try to stay away from it, personally.  My opinion is it’s not so much what you’re selling/making, but how you are selling it.  The devil is in the details.  I do truly believe most people have good intentions, and that everyone makes mistakes.  There is rarely, if ever, a need to call-out, cat fight, or publicly humiliate someone.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t defend your original ideas, but just be kind to people and keep some perspective.  Deal with complex issues privately and people will respect you.  I know that the internet is an easy place to let loose, rant, rave, and point fingers in an anonymous and non-confrontational way (see #7.)  Don’t be one of those people.  Be a good-guy, and enjoy your moment in the sun.

7.  Get thicker skin.  If you stick around long enough on etsy (or the net in general), you are bound to come across people who are going to a.) not like you, b.) accuse you of something, c.) be irrationally mean for no reason, d.) all of the above.  If you go into it expecting that things like this are going to happen, you will not be caught off guard when they eventually do.  Don’t waste time or angst on these jerks, it’s just not worth it.  If someone gets to you, just remember: you have no idea who this person really is.  It could be a 12 year old that had a few hours to kill before his Magic tournament and decided to harass people on the web.  In these cases, I think a passive approach is the best one.  If you don’t fuel the fire, it will go out on it’s own.

8.  Don’t sell jewelry.  Ha-just kidding!  Seriously, though…how do you jewelry sellers do it?  There are just so many jewelry makers on etsy, I can’t imagine how hard it must be to compete in that arena.  What I’m really trying to say is, of course you should follow your passion, but if your market is very saturated (like jewelry) you are going to have to work extra hard to get yourself seen. You should expect this and be ready to fight a long, hard battle. Don’t act all confused when your charm bracelets aren’t flying of the shelves after a day or two.

9. Pretty packaging is nice.  BUT - make sure you plan for the future.  You might not be packing 30 orders a day now, but it could happen sooner than you think.  This is something I struggle with still; how can I create attractive packaging that is pretty, special, economical and earth-friendly?  I love the cello-bag, paper shred, ribbon and decorative card presentation.  It’s gorgeous, but it’s not very practical. Keep in mind that 90% of your customers are going to throw the packaging away almost immediately.  Of course you want to your packages to be lovely, but it’s great to be a little eco-friendly, too.  Also, do you really need to include lots of business cards with your orders?  Do you keep the business cards YOU receive in packages?  I’m switching to non-bleached, recyclable paper bags in my new shop…just one small way I can help do my part for Ma Earth.  I will continue to use recycled packaging materials too, like filler materials and such.  It’s not something to necessarily obsess about, but it’s good to give it some thought.

10. Don’t offer custom, made-to-order items.  Especially if you are procrastinator that gets behind easily.  After the Strawberry Sachet debacle of 07′ I learned an important lesson: don’t offer something for sale if you haven’t actually made it yet.  You never know what is going to take off (I never expected those strawberries to be so popular.)  The orders started rolling in and it was great!….until I had to actually make hundreds of tiny, intricate, scented berries.  My fingers were raw, the scented filling made me constantly nauseous, and I almost overdosed on SVU reruns.  The worst part was it totally killed my love for those little sachets, and now I never want to make on ever again.

There they are, my tips for selling on Etsy (or any online venue.)  I hope they were somewhat helpful!  If any of you have a special, secret, amazing tip you’d like to include, please add them in the comments!

To all our talented crafters, vendors, artists and friends,

After much deliberation and deep thought, we have decided to cancel Handmade Parade this year. Those of you who applied will be receiving an email from us with details so please watch for that.

We are sorry for the last-minute change in plans, but between the situation with the economy this year, getting a late start in planning, one of our most active members moving away and my own part in taking a backseat in planning this year, we ran into some financial difficulties and decided the best plan would be to call it off this year and make next year’s REALLY special. We are disappointed but at the same time we’re excited to make Handmade Parade 2009 an awesome event.

So now that we have our schedule freed up for this fall/winter, we are going to plan a really kick-butt Holiday Craft Workshop as well as a rockin’ Holiday Party! Please visit the forum to vote on the format for those awesome events and if you haven’t signed up yet, please do and join in the discussion!

Thank you so much for your interest in Handmade Parade and we hope you will check back with us for Handmade Parade 2009, which is expected to be the best yet! You guys are awesome!

First off I have to say big-huge thanks to Trena of The Slapdash Sewist for schoolin’ me with this knowledge on Saturday night. I was up in DC for a great gathering of crafty internet friends, and we hung out at Trena’s house one night and she showed us how to make a skirt. This is so easy and I think it would be a very satisfying first sewing project for anyone. You even end up with clothes. Let’s do it.

Step 1: Measure yourself. You need two measurements to get going here. First, the widest part of you below the waist. For most people this is their lower hips, for some, the thighs, whatever. Write that measurement down. The second measurement is the distance from your waist (where the skirt’s waistband will sit) to wherever you want the hem to fall. This will be a straight skirt, the same width all the way down.

Step 2: Calculate the fabric. For the width, you want the first measurement you took, plus ease. Ease is however much extra fabric you want that will allow you to actually move in the skirt. It’s totally a personal preference, but I think 3-5 inches is good for this project. You also need to add seam allowances. You can sew whatever width seams you want, but we’re doing 1/2 inch seams for this project because the math is easy. So here’s how you calculate.

Width equation: Hip measurement + ease + 1/2″ seam allowance times 2. (There is only one side seam, there will be 1/2″ of fabric on each side of it, so that’s why the times 2.) Let’s say your hip measurement was 45 inches and you wanted 3 inches of ease. You would get:

45 + 3 + 1/2 + 1/2 = 49 inches. Your piece of fabric needs to be 49 inches wide.

Length equation: Length measurement + seam allowances for waist and hem (1 inch each). Let’s say your waist to hem measurement was 22 inches. You would get:

22 inches + 1 inch + 1 inch = 24 inches. Your piece of fabric needs to be 24 inches long.

Step 3: Cut! Measure your fabric and cut out your piece.

Step 4: Side seam. (If you have a serger, you can go ahead and finish the raw edges before you get started. If not, ignore that last sentence.) Fold the fabric in half widthwise, with right sides together. Pin if you want, or not, whatever works best for you. Sew a 1/2 inch seam with a straight stitch along where the edges meet. Make sure you backtack on both ends of the seam, your machine will have a button or lever for this. This is the same as tying a knot. Some tips for sewing a straight line: watch the lines on the needle plate, not the moving needle. Keep the fabric aligned with the line.

Step 5: Finish your edges. If you’re working with a knit, don’t worry about it, but if your fabric unravels, you want to finish your edges of the seam. Change your machine to a zig zag stitch, and stitch as close as possible to each raw edge of the open seam. Eventually you’ll want to be able to get that zig zag stitch right on the edge so it actually holds the edge of the fabric, but at first, just do it as close as you can, it’ll keep it from unraveling. Depending on how you cut your fabric you may need to finish the top edge or bottom edge of the skirt too.

Step 6: Press! As Burda says, well-pressed is half-sewn. Pressing is crucial in any sewing project. This will make the difference from people asking, “Did you make that yourself?” to people asking, “Where did you get that awesome skirt?”

Press your seam flat, then open the seam and press it open so it lays flat against the fabric.

Step 7: Elastic waist time! Grab a length of 3/8″ (or similar size) elastic. Pull it around your bare waist until it’s pretty snug with a little overlap, then cut it to that length. Sew the elastic into a tube (just sew the two ends together).

To attach the elastic to the skirt (obviously the elastic tube is quite a bit smaller than the skirt tube you just made), you want to mark both tubes with 4 pins each, at equal distances around. This will make attaching them to each other easier. This is a bit tricky to explain so let me show you with a crude drawing. An easy way to measure this is to lay the tube flat, put a pin at either side, then fold it flat the other way (your two existing pins will now meet in the middle) and put a pin at each side.

Once you have marked with pins, match up the pins and pin the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric. You’ll be removing a pin each time you line the marking pins up, and attaching the elastic to the fabric. Don’t put the seam of the elastic on the side seam of the skirt, it makes for bulkiness.

Now you will pull the elastic taut and use a zig zag stitch to attach it to the skirt. If you use a straight stitch, it’s not going to work, because a straight stitch can’t stretch. Keep the elastic pulled tight so the skirt fabric lays flat as you sew. This is a little tricky but you can do it.

Step 8: Finish waist. Your elastic should be on the inside of the skirt now. Stop what you’re doing and try it on! Hey look it’s becoming clothes! Now turn the top edge under to cover the elastic. Pin it to hold it down and sew with a zig zag stitch down the middle of where the elastic is. You’re gonna have to pull tight again so the skirt fabric lays flat.

Step 9: Hem it! Iron down your hem edge to the inside of the skirt about an inch all around (iron the crease so the wrong sides of the fabric are together). Double fold the edge and pin to hold it down. Double fold just means you fold the raw edge to the crease you just made, then fold it over again. Sew your hem with a straight stitch with the left edge of the needle foot against the folded edge of the seam (or approximately 1/2 inch). Press your hem, and give the whole skirt a once over with the iron if you want.

Step 10: Wear it! Whipped this one up last night in mere minutes from an old sheet. I’m gonna be making a lot of these! Perfect for summer.

I hope this tutorial is helpful. See, you can make clothes! If you have any questions or if I got something wrong, which is quite possible, please leave a comment!