Finding myself, re-inventing myself, and taking the summer off to boot!

Last fall I found myself getting the inspiration bug sometime in September, and started working again, (finally). I told everyone that I un-intentionally took the summer off, which wasn't a lie because I hadn't planned on not doing anything work related all summer. This spring I felt determined that I wasn't going to do the same thing but here it is almost mid july and I haven't much of anything. Well, I've thought a lot about things, things like my style, my design, my business acumen, and all sorts of other "junk" and here's what I've come up with so far...
Somehow in 1999-2000 I managed to lose my style, this is due to a two part situation. First I had cosmetic surgery that changed to overall shape of my body and second I moved from NY to Ga. The Georgia part impacted me in that I fell madly in love with southern food and couldn't stop eating it, so like "poof" I gained a bunch of weight, which further affected my not knowing how to dress my new body shape. Then there's that crazy heat down south, who the hell wants to put clothes of any kind on when it's 98 degrees with 89% humidity. Also I feel there's a whole different aesthetic and sensibility down there that I just never "meshed" with.
So finally this spring, after almost 3 years of being back up north I've found my style and remember how much I love the fun of fashion, the art of decorating ones self, and the burn I've always had to create my own decorations for this purpose!
With all of that being re-discovered I now plan on proceeding this fall with work that follows my passion, things that make me smile as opposed to things that I think will sell. In the past few years I've had these basic thoughts in my head when writing patterns or working on one-of-a kinds, "keep it simple so I can keep the price down" or "will it appeal to the masses?". I didn't worry about these things when I was creating without the intention of trying to earn a living and my work was so much better then.
Now I'm thinking about just how I'm going to retool my on-line shops to best highlight my new found self. Am I going to remove the items that I made with saleability in mind rather than my aesthetic? Will I keep all of my shops around, (I've been flirting with ditching some venues for other reasons anyway), or streamline back into one store? For now I'm in the very early stages of my re-invention and I know I have a ways to go, but every day I make a new decision and come closer to having a finalized vision. By then it should be late summer and I'll be ready to get back to work.
Oh yeah, about that summer hiatus thing. Seems it's just the way it's going to be for me, I do have some summer pieces up and will probably have some next summer too. But really, once that mercury starts it's climb I'm just out of inspiration so I'll consider myself on hiatus until fall.

Spring Teaser

I had one of those fabulous bursts last night! You know how it goes, one idea hits you and then an aftershock of 12 more. Well here you have it, my teaser of at least one of the hopefully many things to come this spring/summer.

Oh another Valentines day behind us and I still have the only 3 heartsy items that I've ever made in my shop. I was thinking about it last night and maybe it's because they're cutsie and not diamond encrusted or chocolate covered? Oh well, I do keep them in my shop, (well not the hat), year round. After all VDay isn't the only time people like hearts is it?

This one is cute but doesn't fit on my big head!
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38589769

I may just keep this one, it is kind of nifty
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19997416

I really am surprised this one hasn't sold yet.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19891176

The New Alice

one of the biggest hurtles I've been facing with my two shops have been achieving the right "feeling" with my photo's. I think I"ve finally found it with AliceToowilliger! I am very excited to introduce the new Alice:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/alicetoowilliger

Hellooooo

I'm feverishly working to make myself one of the Etsy Success Stories. I know I can do it! I have two great shops and I just don't want to be a graphic designer anymore, and I don't want to be penniless either. I found some good strategy advice and have been following it. Google Analytics is my new hero, and I'm patiently waiting for syndication of my shops at Etsy.
I know about a year ago or so I had the five a day project and after about a week I gave up, but this time I'm going to preserver! Hopefully soon I"ll be blogging tips about what worked for me, or someone will want to interview me as a fine example of a success story.

Hmmm....

OK, so this didn't work out at all like I thought it might. But you know what; Alice was just featured in an article in the Etsy Finds about noobie shops. Soooo, I'm thinking that in a week maybe we'll try again.

OH! I forgot one detail.

I will be tweeting when it's time to start e-mailing. And here's a hint: my lunchtime in noon. the discounts will be good from today until Friday Feb. 5th.

Contest Today!

Hi all! So here's the deal, the first person to e-mail me at: tamarandesigns@gmail.com

with the subject line "Make Alice's Day"

will get 50% off any one item at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/alicetoowilliger

I've decided that the second e-mail sender will get 25% off any one item from Alice! And remember just about anything in Alicetoowilliger is available in any of the colors in the color chart in the listing.
Good luck to everyone!
Tamaran

going to try a contest with Twitter

I would really like to get the ball rolling in my sistershop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/alicetoowilliger
by having a sale, by that I don't mean a "20% off everything blowout!", I mean one item that was purchased by a potentially happy customer.
So I had a thought about how to utilize Twitter in order to help this along.

Tomorrow at lunchtime, (because GA says this is when my sites have the most traffic), I will tweet a link to my blog, (here), with the directions on how to get a 50% code for anything in Alice Toowilliger.
I'm just wondering now if I should post some teaser hints in the etsy forums at all today? You know what, that might not be such a bad idea.
See you all tomorrow,
Good Luck!

My secret criteria

So I just started twittering about shops picked using a secret criteria. I'm not trying to be all clandestine or culty, I swear. I just don't want to offend any of the artists purposely excluded. Here I can explain better than in a tweet. Many of us know about the ridiculousness going on with the gift guides at 1000mkts, this is why I started this tweetstravaganza in the first place. And I do really believe the admin there have some sensible reasoning, (whether it works or not), for handling things the way they are. And hopefully if it works we will all benefit in the end. However, this is a very important time of year for the independant artist and many of us trying to sell our wares do this as our only fulltime business, (which makes it even more important!). So what we have are aprox. 2,500 artists at the site, 240ish being featured in the guides, with aprox. 12 being very heavily rotated. So I'm spotlighting artists not in the guides to give them a fair chance too!
Now also know that I truly am happy for the chosen few of the gift guides, and was really sorry to hear that thy're not really seeing any benefit from it. I also fear there may be a backlash towards them because of this, (technically what I'm doing is a backlash towards them), so I didn't want to blather it all over the message boards, or twitter, and I know no one really reads my blog.
If anyone at twitter is really, really curious about my first tweet regarding the secret criteria and happens upon this post, shhh....please keep it secret after all the artists of the gift guides are trying to earn a living too and I just don't want to seem like a jealous bitch. Thanks!

My Twittering Extravaganza!

A Twitteraganza maybe. It started with my dissatisfaction at the lack of variety in certain "gift guides" and has turned into a wild ride of silly searches, serious searches, and just plain looking for something "really" different and unique in the handmade world.
Here is a link to my twitter, follow me down this path of hilarity and nifty stuff.

http://twitter.com/TamaranDesigns

New York Festival

I joined a great new market at 1000 Markets last week. It's a regional market, I've been keeping an open for a regional market to join and somehow missed the most obvious one, (I'm from New York), for many months!

http://www.1000markets.com/groups/nyfestival

A special selection of casual gifts

Office "Secret Santa", the babysitter, your kids school teachers, the list could go on. Well, I've decided to put together a special selection of gifts under $25! Scouring the malls, department stores, discount stores, any store where you think you might find something nice that won't break your bank for these people on your list could drain so many hours from your happy holiday season, (they certainly did from mine in the past). And I don't know about you but I've always thought about how much money goes to waste every year on gifts that although they're reasonably priced really aren't ever going to be used, just more stuff to ad to the pile in the back of the storage closet. Well now you can have a one stop place for all of those "casual" gifts that will be used, appreciated and not break your budget!

Upping my blogging anti

I've been wracking my brain for two weeks now trying to come up with something clever, entertaining, or informational to blog about. I really want to blog on a regular basis, really I do. So I've asked for advice and got some, (really good advice too). And now I'm just going to jump in and start doing it. So check back regularly because there'll be no more posting once every now and then, (I hope).
Here are a few of the thing I've been working on for winter. I'll probably be talking about them and other things in my future, (and more frequently posted), blogs.

Summertime

Summer is almost here and I've been busy working on my new summer line. Late in the winter while giving some thought to what I was going to do with my skills once the weather warmed up I seriously considered just taking the summer off. After all there didn't seem to be too much one could make that wouldn't swelter in the summer heat. Then my friend requested a crocheted skirt for a wedding and the lightbulb went off. Beach coverups, lacy light shawls and wraps, and of course my everyday hats! That would great summer fare to entice my cusotmers. Well, I'm just starting to photograph the first large batch of goods and here are some samples!
They can be purchased at the sites listed to the right or you could always contact me for special orders: tamarandesigns@gmail.com

Bohemian Spring

One of my favorite fashion statements is bohemian, I love it's flowing ease. Fortunately it is in fashion about every 3rd year or so, not that I don't wear it in between, and this is an "in" year! This means that there will be a lot of smashing choices out there for me to refresh my wardrobe and the work I've been doing so far is quite boho so it will be popular too!

The new face of TamaranDesigns

Introducing the lovely Denise, the newest face to represent TamaranDesigns. The dressmakers form was getting a little temperamental and we here at Tamaran felt we were at creative differences with it, so we began a search for a new face to represent TamaranDesigns. After an extensive family wide search we finally found someone whom we feel will be a perfect fit, the lovely Denise. Lets all give her a warm welcome!
And don't forget to check 1000Mkts. and Etsy, (links to right), in the next few days to see her debuts there!

Vive la Productivity!

I have been having a spurt of the most amazing productivity for the past week or so. Even with the hectic holiday recently past I've still managed to create a nice bunch of collars, cowls, and scarves, which is great since I will be doing the Indie Market http://buffaloindie.blogspot.com/ on Dec. 14th. I think the collars, cowls, & turtles are going to be very popular.

I joined a new marketplace!

Last week I joined 1000Markets! I read about it at a Yahoo group that I belong to and the moment the page loaded I had a good feeling about what I was looking at. So I joined immediately, well, it's juried so I applied immediately. It's still very new and "in the works" even, but it looks great, has a nice professional feel to it and I suspect it will be the on-line hand made "place to be" very soon!

http://www.1000markets.com/users/tamarandesigns

The 5 a day project

Well, having your model also as a family member doesn't, (unfortunately), put them at your beck and call and mine,(the lovely Stacy), is a busy woman whom I've not been able to get together with for over two weeks now. So, I've come up with a stand in for her until we can set up a shoot. I will probably use this acceptable model for stand in use from here on in. I will however be photographing all of these things on the lovely Stacey as well as soon as possible.
That being said, I've decided to try to post about 5 things a day to see what it does for sales. I will probably stick with this plan for only 2 or 3 days however because it really is a lot of work. So we'll see how it goes, I'll keep you posted.