1.) felt flower brooches! I originally made a few of these for xmas presents back in '09 and had such overwhelmingly positive feedback that I decided to break them into craft shows too! I whipped up 20 of these babies back in april for my very first craft show and...they didn't sell at all. Seriously - I think I sold a total of three over the last year. Rats. At my last fabulous finds show I ended up consignment selling all of my carefully handcrafted brooches to the super awesome shop funktional. I figured it was a good idea to whip up a new batch of these brooches since (list time):
a) brooches are back! And this time I'm not the only one saying it for the last two years. They are popping up all over the place and are totally due for a fashion comeback!
b) it's spring! and spring is all about pops of colour and flowers!
and
c) the super trendy kelowna shoppers will have spotted my felt brooches at funktional and will want to get the crafter direct sale price for these babies!
Hooray! Take a peek at the fabulous fresh spring colours they're available in:
Yay! But not to worry - I made a whole slew of flowers (in loads of colours) just in case they are a giant hit:
2) felt flower hair clips! I hinted about these last tuesday and luckily they turned even better than I was expecting! I really wanted to have a few items that were more spring and summer appropriate than all the tweed bags I had for my last show and figured wool felt hair clips were it! After all, I think they are awesome (always a good place to start right?) and I just bought a ton of wool felt squares from etsy (which, by the way, was an absolutely fantastic experience I totally recommend to any felt crafters)! I was inspired by the wonderful felt hair accessories mayi carles and made stacked felt circle flowers:
Here's a peek at the back of the clip too (notice my sneaky snap clip concealing) :
Hooray! And (of course) I made a ton of hair clips in an assortment of fun colours:
Woo! Now to figure out how much to price them at! What do you think?
3) felt flower hairbands! When I was looking for hair clips to use for my felt flowers I impulse bought a package of elastic hairbands and after watching 3 hours of petticoat junction followed by countless hours of elvis (can you believe I own 10 elvis movies?) I thought I'd whip up some higher price point hair accessories just in case they are a hit. Take a looksie:
What do you think? Certainly a springy bold accessory for the fashion forward right! As always I made an assortment to chose from:
I had a ton of fun making all the felt flower goodies and I really hope I get a good reaction for them at the show! I don't plan on selling any of these online since mayi carles' shop is the ultimate one stop shop for felt accessories (she is so awesome) but I figure if they are a flop I will just have to become well known around town as "that girl who has 31 felt flower hair clips and 8 flower hairbands"! Perfect plan right?
Whew! I can't believe how much product I whipped up this past week! Now I just need to figure out how I want to showcase the items at my table and work on packaging! Oh and pricing! What do you think I should sell them for?
Holy do I want that fushia! I need to go curly again so that I can pull off the head band. Seriously! (No actually, I'm not joking. We'll text.)
ReplyDeleteAs for pricing...
Clip- 8$ (I think it needs to be under 10$)
Headband- 18$ or 22$ (I really think 18$, but I tend to under value so I put 22$ in for good measure.)
Fushia!
Wow have you been busy! See you saturday. Mom
ReplyDeleteI think the hair clips should cost approximately 1 million dollars, and the headbands are about 2.5 million. Yeah, you're worth it!
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, I think about 10 for the clips and 20 for the bands, but I don't really know what the going rate is for things like that.
I should have mentioned this in the post (since it influences my decision making)but online pricing is about $15/hair clip and about $28/hairband. Hmm...decisions!
ReplyDeleteI definitely would NOT pay $15 or $28, but that's just me...
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, Leslie, it is not just you...But Kelowna is filled with spoiled rich girls who don't know the meaning of a dollar. Oh, and it is the month for Birthdays.
ReplyDeleteGood luck Kate! I think your online prices sound very reasonable ^_^ but I think crafters are always willing to pay a little more because they know how long things take to make!
ReplyDelete"I was inspired by the wonderful felt hair accessories mayi carles"? it looks like copying to me! not very ethical + not very nice!
ReplyDeleteNot very ethical??? As if being inspired by something you've seen on the internet that's made by someone who lives on a different continent (meaning this person will NOT be at the same craft show) and something that's NOT protected by copyright law is at all wrong. I think the fact that Kate has given credit to the place she first saw them is pretty ethical AND nice. She even links to the shop where you can buy the damn things. Look at etsy and tell me that you can't buy 50 things that are exactly the same made by different sellers all over the world. Who came up with it first? Who knows. It's piecemeal business, not brain surgery.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I think leaving an anonymous comment with negative feedback is cowardly and "not very nice", so climb down off your high horse and get a life.
Actually Lesliejm, just to be clear, if you talk to Etsy's lawyer, and I have...and my husband happens to be a lawyer as well, once you design something you own the copyright to it. So, it is protected by copyright.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't the Anonymous person above--I sign my name to things. But, I thought that needed clearing up.
I guess the issue then is whether Mayi Carles was the original designer. I wouldn't know if that's the case or not, since I don't know if she has registered a copyright. It's so hard to say with things for sale online who came up with it first if they don't do the paperwork. I know that something you design is your intellectual property and that something you create is your copyright. I still think that the comment posted was mean-spirited and plain rude.
ReplyDeleteIt seems clear to me from the original post that the intention is not to steal business from Mayi Carles, and that the original post gave a lot of credit to Mayi, as well as posting a link to her shop where people could purchase her products online. I think it's probably a big misunderstanding, though I'm riled at the anonymous commenter who jumped quickly to accusations of copying instead of being polite or looking closely for differences instead of assuming the flowers are exactly the same.