Empire State Building

NYC Stash!

Tourista Madge and her wayward bra strap...oops.

Click on images to see close up!

Mike Hartnett from CLN online included a copy of my recent blog post "What Happened to the Creative" in the CLN e-letter! Thanks Mike! That was really nice of him. You have to join CLN to read it, but it's a great insider view into the craft industry. Now I'm absolutely sure I'll not be hearing from Martha's staff anytime in the foreseeable future. Ah well...

We had a busy day in NYC yesterday. My friend Stannie of Great Craft Works made me hoof it all over Manhattan looking at costume jewelry showrooms. We were both a little uninspired and by day's end my dogs were seriously barking. I did get a kick seeing a bunch of knock offs of my Beadalon woven wire designs on a panel in one of the Chinese jewelry showrooms. Since they're techniques, there's not much I can do about it. It's just an affirmation of my being on the right track. It'd be nice if that affirmation arrived in the form of a large royalty check, but what's a gal to do? One must keep on whipping up fabulous new ways to do the same old thing until you build a big enough name to warrant that large check. I reinvent the wheel on a daily basis and lately a few things are starting to look like they're going to stick. If just one of the big ideas sticks hard, we may finally be in a place where we're no longer struggling just to survive. Oh that is a day I'm very much looking forward to living to see!

We stopped by to see Carl at CJS Sales in Manhattan. I think he doesn't want folks to find him now, so I'm not linking up today. I guess he's been inundated with fruit loops, nit pickers and strollers as of late and really needs serious customers. I scored some huge faux pearls, plastic vintage cameos, a bag bursting with vintage foil backed glass and plastic gems and more vintage plastic beads. I really need to get this stuff together and up on Etsy. I'm thinking my best bet there is to sell vintage components. I've not really put much energy into my shoppe; I've been so busy with other things. Honestly looking at the very low prices on there, I simply can't afford to sell things that cheaply. Your time is worth money! I wish people would get that. You can't just charge the cost of materials and not factor in your time and creativity. People sell themselves far too short and in doing so they also sell others short which isn't really very fair now is it? Everything in sales is about perception of value. Even if your house is incredible, if the rest of the neighborhood is undervalued, you're in the same place.

I'm working on some updated bio materials and my husband finished up a new demo reel we've been editing. I have a little opportunity brewing that means yet again we have to sit and stare at tons of footage and try to narrow it down into three fabulous minutes that will capture the attention of the network execs. We've done this so many times it's become a running joke. This time though...I have an idea that I think is really cool and totally different from anything out there. So we'll see. I'll show you my demo reel clip tomorrow after we take the phone number out for public viewing. We're thinking we don't really want random YouTubers calling us.

Big thanks to Rebecca Peck from Fiskars for inviting me to a live chat with folks from the Fiskars community last night. I had a blast! What a great group of creative minded people. Thanks to all of you for being such fun!

I'm off to work on my new materials and a few projects that are this close to being over due. Until tomorrow...craft on with your bad selves!

xoxo
Margot