Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Big Things A-Brewing and Continuing Education

But First, Housekeeping: A new batch of claws came off the bench last week, and all the Etsy and Artfire listings have been updated with the new quantities.  Subtle design updates will be happening in both the shops and the website this summer, and there will be new products being rolled out.

Big News #1: My Jewelry can now be found available to purchase in the wild at Ventures: Gifts for Good on the mezzanine level at Pike Place Market! Ventures is the retail incubator store of Washington C. A. S. H..  I spent April and May attending their Business Development Training class, and it was incredible.  I got a fresh look at my business and my goals, and a better handle on the direction the studio is headed in, and a consignment slot at Ventures.
The interesting thing about all this is that when I started NightshadeRose Studio, my intent was to be an artist.  I was going to be making fancy one-of-a-kind jewelry and big illustration pieces. It turns out that I'm not really suited to that kind of work.  Flights of fancy are great for product development and goofing off, but not for paying rent and putting food on the table.  Doing something completely new every time, and then selling it retail in-person is a) exhausting, and b) outside my capabilities. So, rather than being all over the place all the time, I'm mostly narrowing down to specific themes and styles that are the most interesting to me to make and to customers to wear.  The business development training gave me an opportunity to talk to buyers for established, respectable retail shops about the sorts of things I'm doing, and it turns out that not only is my current work (like the coffee pieces) marketable, but some older ideas that I thought maybe weren't going anywhere in fact have legs.

Y'all remember the Different Worlds pieces, yes?
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Well, the idea is being revisited in a neater, more put-together line:
Earth
Mars

2 Venuses
3-phase Moon Bracelet
Hemisphere Earrings (an Earth-like planet)
Waxing & Waning earrings

The reason I focused on these things in particular is that one of the buyers I met showed specific interest in space-related pieces, and will likely be giving me my first real wholesale order at the end of the month.  It's not a done deal yet, so I'm not going into detail  just now, but when the order is delivered, I'll brag about it to the high heavens.

In other news, I've decided I need to knock off Lucretia Borgia's comb from the first episode of Warehouse 13.