Hello, my Lovlies! Long time no write, eh? In response to some of those American snickers, saying “eh” at the end of a question is perfectly acceptable and in no way means that I just run about saying “eh” all willy-nilly, nor do I say “aboot” ;p Actually, while on the subject, due to the fact that I’ve moved about 24 times and thusly, picked up whatever accent I was subjected to, after living in the States for 4 years and being a workaholic and college student, who had no time to talk to “my people”, to this day I still say “about” and “out” like most Americans would. Just a little more “me trivia” for ya ;).
Alrighty, now that pleasantries and trivia is out of the way, onto the subject for which this post was entitled, which had nothing to do with linguistics. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day!
So, you may have noticed that the timeline for This Week’s Focus is not the traditional full week that it once was. The reason for this is that to further attempt to better discipline myself, “work smarter, not harder”, and better balance work and family, starting May 1st, I put myself onto a Monday to Friday schedule. I will no longer be doing business on weekends. But perhaps more on that later.
This Week’s Focus is going to be officially releasing my newest product line, “Lexi’s Woodland Preserves – Faery Ring Edition”! Here’s a picture:
Yep, I’ve created something completely new! Isn’t sweet?! :)
These Woodland Preserves are made from 2 kinds of decorative moss that I purchased from 2 different stores, which make up the forest floor. The little pinecones and bits that look like shrubs, trees, and such are things that I actually picked up from my surrounding area and carefully dried. This is a non-living terrarium, so it will have no problem taking international trips! The mushrooms are individually handsculpted, with no molds and their custom color stems and white polka dots glow in the dark! I have mixed glitter into all of the non-glittery clay for the mushrooms caps (some clay already had glitter in it, to which I did nothing) and then embellished them with Swarovski crystals – ooOoo! All of this is whimsically preserved
in an upcycled baby food jar, which actually fed my daughter, Lexi, for which they are named, as she inspired them and helps me pick things for them ;) The tops are not glued on so, not only is the proud owner able to peek in, but also so that, should any debris get knocked loose, you can simply open the jar and remove the debris with tweezers or a Q-Tip! Finally, each of Lexi’s Woodland Preserves are all titled, numbered, and signed by my hand on the bottom of the piece.
They also come with a little poem (as shown below) that I wrote, which I based off of the Faery Ring folklore. This poem, as shown below is included with every purchase of Lexi’s Woodland Preserves, the Faery Ring Edition, along with the blurb about the creation itself and me; also shown below:
For those who don’t know, Faery Rings/Fairy Rings (click the link for one example of the lore, and here’s Wikipedia’s info on them) themselves are not my original concept, nor are terrariums, but the manner in which I present the combination – in the baby food jar with the traditional decorative cloth used in making preserves – is my (to the best if my knowledge) original concept and I searched high and low to make sure that this claim is an accurate one and again, to the best of my knowledge it is. These are some of the best examples of what sets me apart from other artists in my field – the high quality of my work and the fact that, though I may get inspired by others’ work, I have never copied anyone. All of my work to date is completely from the womb of my imagination, brought into the arms of reality, by my own to hands and I have yet to ever use a mold to assist me in the process. I have also never had an unsatisfied customer, even when my skills were lacking and unrefined.
I have already released these offline, as I had brought the only 2 that I had made, at the time, to a one-day sale (on April 27th) that I was at in Miramichi, New Brunswick, which sold out – yay! On a side note, those 2 Faery Ring Editions that sold, are the only ones that are not numbered on the bottom. I have made 6 more since then and all different colors! I gave the third ever created (similar to the one shown, but with clear crystals) to my mother, as a much loved Mother’s Day gift :).
So, needless to say, the Faery Rings, as well as two other secretish projects, we’re my focus from April 24th to May 4th and focus for May 7th until the 14th (took longer than expected *grumples*, I was working on a custom order of name tags, for a special client of mine.
Now we finally arrive at This Week’s Focus (as you may have noticed, I enjoy the scenic route ;p Actually, this was just me thinking it best to work back to front), which is not going to be actually involving a great deal of business, but just enough. Reason being, I have a greenhouse that has been getting cleared out to make room for my vegetable and herb garden (we bought our house a little less than 2 years and there was only chives left in there when we got it, which I have transplanted – hopefully successfully ;)) and thusly, have yet to plant anything in it. I also don’t really have any experience in gardening, so I’m quickly researching and teaching myself everything that I need to know to make this garden successful and start saving ourselves the $100 a month, that we spend on produce. Yeah, we like our veggies – well Mummy and Baby do (she LOVES broccoli – yeah, we lucked out on that one ;)), Daddy, not so much ;p
In regards to business, I will be working on finishing up the Etsy listing and therefore, officially releasing Lexi’s Woodland Preserves – Faery Ring Edition, within the next couple of days (hopefully by tonight). It is extremely difficult to photograph these creations, which has been the major part of the hold-up in their online release. That and trying to decide how much of their fictitious history I want to include, as it will be apart of that massive project that I spoke of, which is far from being ready to release in any official capacity. But I think, as I have the option of editing things in at a later time, I will probably just do up the listing in the same manner, with the information that I used during their special release, at the sale in New Brunswick. Other than this, I plan to make a few minor changes to the website, which will include a quick snippet as to why I, awhile back, stopped selling my creations on my website itself and now only deal with Etsy and randomly sell offline.
To answer those questions here, I sell randomly and not regularly offline (I once owned a permanent booth that I ran with my parents, at the Harbourview Village Market, in Dartmouth, which we permanently closed just before my daughter was born), as my husband and I are Lexi’s only caregivers and I do not feel we are at the point (scheduling being our arch-nemesis) for me to personally attend regular shows and sales. I do, however, occasionally enlist the help of a wonderful associate of mine, Paula Sepp-Shultz, who owns Out of The Broom Closet, to sell my work on my behalf, from time to time. That aside, for more reason than one (most are obvious, like flexible hours and schedules, that it’s much like being at a show/sale that never ends, and it is available on an international level), though it’s slower and harder to rise to the surface, where everyone can see me and what I have to offer (though this is temporary – heavy advertising is in my future, once I have a few more ducks in a row) I prefer the online world and have decided that my shop needs my full attention (and stock ;)), as this is where and how I will build my online reputation.
So there. Now everyone knows what’s been and is going on and why I’m doing it, which is a load off my mind, if nothing else.
If anything is unclear, or you want to know more, just ask! Make a comment to this post with your queries and I’d be happy to answer them :)
Well, off to study gardening! Got any tips for veggie gardens? Post them here too and help a buddy out ;p
Have a Guintastic day, my Lovlies! Hopefully you’re getting more sun than I am *crinkles nose*!
The Hopefully Green-Thumbed,
~Amanda~
Mompreneurial Musings 