Amy Abrams Designs » post-game analysis

Arts On Foot was great!

Amy — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 18:04:47 +0000

Arts On Foot, produced by Diverse Markets Management Group took place this past week (Sept. 8-11). I was there for all four days and had a wonderful time. The event was very well-organized, the staff was great and our patrons couldn’t have been more wonderful! We met some really great people, heard great music, ate some great food and enjoyed perfect weather for the run of the show.

Our booth design has been evolving over the last few years, here is an old booth shot (from an indoor show):

From 2007 Frosty's Fair

The silhouette is my partner in jewelry. Last year, we decided to move to shelving for the most part and this is what we slapped together:

From 2009 Downtown DC Holiday Market

Better right? Cleaner, easier to see, easier to navigate, but very busy, and the bamboo blinds as a backdrop didn’t work as well as we had envisioned.

For Arts On Foot we had a little more time to plan and decide how we wanted to present ourselves. We had to change some things a little bit but overall how we planned it was how it looked:

From 2009 Downtown DC Holiday Market

The green is really fresh looking and the dark espresso brown is a nice accent and combination with it. Our silver pops nicely against both colors, which is nice. It’s really hard to find a color that works for silver jewelry. We got rid of the large table in favor for a much smaller one just big enough for our mirror, business cards, mailing list book, and my humongous laptop, which we use to process credit card sales. We incorporated two “pedestals” fashioned from stools with trays velcroed to the tops for our pendants. Overall, the booth was much cleaner and easier on the eyes, and there was little of the dreaded “butt brush issue”.

Finishing New Work

Amy — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:18:52 +0000

Here’s some advice: When finishing your new metal clay pieces (pre-firing) be really careful. I spent all of yesterday evening sanding and filing all my new work and now, instead of 68 new pairs of earrings I have 64 and two of the new “triptych” necklaces I had planned are now single pendant necklaces. Why? Because while I was sanding and filing several pieces broke. Some of this was while I was re-drilling holes, some of it was while I was just sanding. I tend to make small earrings thin as I know that this makes the earrings light weight and more comfortable to wear, but I shoot myself in the foot sometimes because all it takes is the slightest bit of pressure and the piece, still in its “leather stage”, snaps in two.

Bummer.

Anyway, I got everything fired last night. 200 grams of clay (minus a few pieces – probably about 25 grams worth) in only 3 firings! I was impressed that I was able to fit so much onto one fire brick at one time.

And I got my least favorite part of the process over with (the sanding and filing – which I dislike because it is tedious, but also for the reason stated above).

Tonight? My second least favorite part – brushing. Then? Tumble-a-thon! Yay! I love tumbling my new pieces because when they come out of the tumbler they are so sparkly and beautiful.

Tomorrow? Actually making jewelry out of these new pieces! Whoo hoo!

Old Work, New Shows

Amy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:48:14 +0000

The fall season brings lots of shows to any jewelry maker, I have a few that I am scheduled to do and I’m awaiting confirmation of some others. This means pricing new work for sale.

Kiddies, I have a word of advice for you: Always, and I mean ALWAYS input newly purchased materials into some sort of inventory control system. This may seem like a “no duh” piece of advice but I can tell you from experience that not doing this will result in frustration down the road.

I just spent the better part of my Sunday pricing a few pieces very inefficiently due to having to page through several lists of materials that I jotted down on paper when new materials were bought. It wasn’t until a little while ago that I started entering materials into a spreadsheet onto my Google Docs. You don’t need a fancy and costly program for inventory control, you can use any spreadsheet program. I like spreadsheet because you can have one page for each type of material. I have a page for pearls, another page for loose stones, a page for clasps, etc., etc., etc. I like Google Docs because you can access your spreadsheet from any computer that has internet access.

I wish that I had entered all materials, the minute I got home with them, into a spreadsheet as one of the pieces I was pricing yesterday (the Morning Glory Necklace pictured in my previous post) took over an hour to price! This is a lesson to me that as I go along pricing my work I will add any material that I am looking up retroactively to my spreadsheet.

For a list of upcoming events that I will be showing at please go to my website.

Fun mini-”show” last night

Amy — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:20:29 +0000

Every year for the last 6 years I have participated in a fund raising craft show for a cooperative nursery school in Garrett Park, MD.Â This past year I was approached by the chairperson and asked if I would be interested in coming to one of the monthly parent/teacher meetings and doing a low-key “show”.Â I said “Yes!” and last night was the night (just in time for Mother’s Day).Â It was a lot of fun for me and very low stress as all I did was pull things out of my jewelry case – it only took a half hour for me to “set up” instead of my usual three hours.

I would consider the evening a success and hope to do it again next year.

Also, I sold a few pairs of the new earrings I just made (that I featured in my last post) and I sold the Sphinx pendant (also featured in the last post).

The jewelry is still on loan for the chairperson to show for the next couple of days.Â I’ve got my fingers crossed that she’ll sell a few more things for me.Â When I get the jewelry back my next step will be to actually photograph it for real (not just scan it like the images I posted recently on Flickr).