Etsy Canada : the results are in

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying the weekend! :) Mine has been quite busy (and a tad stressful) as you can imagine. I was waiting anxiously Friday night, as Etsy Canada was sending out their replies to the Montreal fair application.
And so… the results were in… And Kirameku didn't make it.... Snif snif. There's 60 spots for the artisans at the Montreal fair and Montreal is quite a creative town and is full of talent, although I was really surprised Kirameku wasn't selected. I'm still waiting on some feedback on this point but my guess is that there's a ton of great jewelry makers and those spots fill in fast as jewelry making is quite popular.

Our Frosted Blueberry necklace is finally out! It will be perfect for any occasion! 

I'm sorry guys, I really wanted a booth to an Etsy event and meet you all as well as my fellow crafter's. I keep my fingers crossed that the Etsy Made in Canada event will become a regular and yearly event. You can be sure that I'll do my best to go visit the show and will keep you posted with the details.

But if you wanted to stop by a Kirameku's exhibit,  no worries! My craft shows aren't done for this year! :) Next on the list is Henryville on September 13 and 14. Yep that's pretty much around the corner! I have plenty of ideas and I will be launching a new type of goodies exclusively for my craft shows. Also I've been working on some new packaging since those goodies will be bigger then what I usually sell at craft shows. I can't wait to post some pictures and have your feedback! :)

On this everyone, I'm leaving you on that suspense! I have to run for now but not before I wish you all a great week! :)

*M*

Projects countdown - July

Hi everyone!

I hope you are enjoying your week! Here in Montreal we are having a second heat wave and let me tell you that it is abnormally hot at Kirameku headquarters.

Last weekend though we escaped the heat and went picking up raspberries and blueberries in a field. And like an idiot I forgot to bring my phone with me and take pictures of the lovely scenery... My apologies everyone, I'm working hard to always think about my smart phone and sending you news on the spot. But let me tell you the freezer is full of yummy berries to keep me inspired and healthy until next summer.

That being said, I promised you a final picture of the geisha artwork and I think you guys have waited long enough! So here she is! Isn't she beautiful? I'm really happy to see how she turned out even with the minimum of colors involved in that artwork.

That else does Kirameku has on it's plate? An actual lot! I've ordered some paper samples as I want to find a special way to make unique gift tags for all my Christmas orders. I've also been translating - slowly but surely - my entire Etsy shop in French. Between working full time, making new items and working on my future craft shows I hope to have translated all 75 items by November, as the shop policies and about page are finally finished.

I'm also working on special items for my craft shows and I'm currently shopping for some new colors. This part is always tricky since there's always soooo many lovely colors and shades but I really must narrow down my choices otherwise I would end up buying way too much. If ever you'd like to see something added at Kirameku, now is the time to make your special requests! :)

I'll leave you on this new idea I had at the end of last year. Kirameku wants to support small businesses as well and has added a supplier that handmades all her glass drops. Can you guess which berries in our limited editions are made with her drops? :)

On this everyone, I have to run. I hope you'll all have a lovely night and weekend! :)

*M*

Ok, lets talk about prices

Hi everyone! :)

I don't know if you have heard but Etsy is launching a big event in Canada for September yay! I'm so excited about this event and I find the concept absolutely awesome!! Quickly for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about : Etsy Canada is having a massive event on September 27. There will be Etsy craft show hosted throughout Canada. I'm so glad Etsy Canada is making more events I think it is time that we get to know more about Etsy up here. As you can imagine I applied to the fair and I'm anxiously waiting for the answer as my application is getting reviewed. After 5 years on Etsy I just couldn't wait to be part of their event...!

It will be a bit weird for me as usually none of my customers in craft shows have heard from Kirameku before, and not a lot of them know about Etsy. I was super lucky and once met another crafter that had already purchased from my online store. I was so happy to meet her in person and get to know her! Unfortunately, that was a one time thing over the 3 years I've been attending craft shows.

Here's my latest addition! The Canary Berry Ring

I know this is a big intro for this post but I believe it gives you the right context. Bottom line is : now with the Etsy fair I hope it will be the opposite situation and that the people who will attend will have heard from my shop at least a little bit. And if you know my products from my online shop you might be surprised about the difference in prices. I really wanted to take a minute and elaborate on that part, after all it is the same product. For example the rainbow berry ring is sold online for 13.75USD$ (about 15CAN$) and it so sold at a fair for 11USD$ (12CAN$). The difference in USD$ isn't much but it is in CAN$ - well in my opinion at least.

I agree with you there's a price gap. Thing is, I spend 80% of Kirameku's time on Etsy and about 20% on craft shows. That means a bit less time marketing and less supplies for the show compared to all the expenses surrounding my Etsy shop. Also, there's no shipping costs and that allows me to cut down my prices. But one of the main factor is that there is no resin on most of my rings at a fair. This way, I was able more than once to accommodate my customers at the fair and unstrung the beads to transform my last piece of a limited edition ring into a custom necklace. Although I sell mostly rings, I have about 40% of my customers at fair who would rather purchase a necklace instead of a ring. I try to make necklaces in colors I believe my customers would like, to the best of my knowledge, but there are soooo many colors available it is not possible for me to make as many necklaces as rings simply because I don't have enough time. There's more resin at the back of the necklace and with the drying time, first thing you know two days went by.

But why add resin on the rings you might say? I find it helps keeping the beads together in a more "sturdy" shape rather than having a bit of "loose" between the teardrop beads. But even without the resin there's no worries about the solidity. I personally wore a peacock ring without resin non stop for a year and everything stayed in place as it was supposed to be. I eventually had to put the ring down as I had a contract job to clean and file a sample room and it was too risky to get the ring stuck somewhere and break it. The berries rings are not made for massive packing, after all they are made out of glass beads. I then decided to switch to the necklace version of the berries as it was more convenient for me.

Well then I think that sums it up pretty well! I hope I have enlighten you on my process and that you now have a better idea of the making process. I will definitely be back to give you some updates on the Etsy craft shows and my exclusive items for that fair. Meanwhile if there is anything you would like me to make for that particular show or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate. On this, have a lovely end of week everyone! :)

*M*

So, how was it?

Hi everyone! ;)

I hope you all had a great weekend! Here I've been swamped catching up on the short weekend I had because of the fair. Are you curious to know how it went?

We got to Venise en Quebec on time despite a little accident I had in the morning (orange juice on my white shirt the minute I got in the car….. my kind of luck) Everything went as planned, or almost. The organizers were super nice and the fair was set up very nicely. It was a tiny fair but there was still a small "coffee shop" table if I may say were we could fill up on a few snacks and drinks. We had unusual freezing temperature for this time in July but by early in the afternoon the sun was up and burning, and our bottle of water became our best friend.

I must admit we had fewer visitors than I expected - it was a small fair after all - but the fact that it was something that was going on every Saturday of summer and the many years it has been going on was an aspect I relied too much on I believe. I could not have the information on how many visitors they had last year and I thought it would be something difficult to evaluate too since the fair is spread on nine weeks. I had a chance to test some new adjustments I had made on my displays and I was quite happy to see it was working really well. Although I'll still make some more updates for my future fairs this year like in Henryville. Unfortunately I had no place to hang my lovely new banner from Vista print, I Was so hoping to try it out last week-end! Oh well, another time then ;)

But you say, how did you find the outdoor experience? Well as much as I love summer and outdoors I can't say I really enjoyed that part of the show. The fair was on the yard or the church with a big and solid tent and looked quite nice. But fighting with insects flying and crawling on my table, the concentrated heat inside the tent was no fun part for me but I could cope with it. What really made the balance shift is when the wind started to blow in the middle of the afternoon. It was a storm wind and by the time the fair ended we were afraid to be caught in that storm. I had to be extra careful all afternoon as the wind flew over my table and threatened my watercolors that were on display on various small easels. Needless to say I had to put the artwork flat on the table to prevent them to fly around and get damaged. Thank God the cardboards I put behind them helped them stay on the table because of the weight. So unfortunately I wasn't able to take as much picture of the fair that I would have liked but I've shared in this article all that I have.

Lessons for the other craft shows? Always bring a change of clothes you never know what can happen. Also, research the fair and get to know the number of visitors they had the year before. I know there are many articles on the web that stress the importance of this part and I totally agree but in this case I was invited to the fair. It wasn't the first time I was invited to a show and I had as many wonderful and not so good fairs this way, so I decided to leave it up to chance this time. No more outdoor fairs for me as the wind also brought dust all over my display and I spent an awefull lot of time cleaning everything when I got back home.

But I'm happy to say despite everything I met some lovely new artisans and say some familiar faces too, it was great to catch up with them and see what they had new. I had overall a nice experience and I can't wait for my other fairs...! :) And obviously, I'll share know all the juicy details! :)

On this everyone have a great day!!
*M*

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The show is on...! :)

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a marvelous week. Here I've been working hard to get everything ready for this Saturdays craft fair…! I had my marvellous stamps from Baisimu just on time to make my authetification certificates for my artworks yay! I'm also hoping to finish my geisha piece soon and show you final result! :) But with the sudden heatwave hitting Montreal these past few days, I'm scared to ruin the paper with all that humidity! Hopefully, they are saying that tomorrow will be getting back to normal. *Fingers crossed*

I don't know if you guys would like to have a post about how to prepare for a craft show? I didn't do a lot of them but I've traveled around a lot and had some great and bad experience. What's new at this fair is that it will be Kirameku first summer fair and I'm super excited!! :)  I have to go fetch my banner from vista print at the post office and I can't wait to see what it will look like! Creating something on your computer is sooo different than seeing it printed! For sure I will let you guys know about my feedback on my banner as it is my first time doing business with vista print. Thanks to the recommendation of my follow Etsians, I was able to have a quite large banner printed and that fitted my budget. I promise I will be back with some pictures too!

But meanwhile, here is a photo of the beautiful peonies of one of my neighbours. I had to post it, peonies are so gorgeous!

To sum it up….! If you have nothing planned for the week-end or if you are curious and want to meet me in person, I will be more than happy to have you visit my table at the Venise-en-Quebec Samedis Artisans fair, this upcoming Saturday, from 10 am to 5pm. We'll be at the Church on 151, 14e Avenue ouest, inside if it rains, and outside if it's bright and shiny - and which is the original plan.
I hope I will meet many of you dear readers! :D

It is quite late up here and I'll try to catch some sleep despite the 34 degrees in our headquarters….
On this everyone, have a great night and I'll keep you posted on my social medias for those of you who can't attend this fair. Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to get all the behind the scenes goodies! :)

* M * 

Projects countdown

Hi everyone! :)

My apologies if you have seen a few ''test'' posts in the last  couple of days. I've unfortunately had issues with the blogaway app on my phone... I thought I had solve my problem switching to the blogaway app since I had so much technical problem with the blogger one. Well that's a bummer. In any cases, I'll try to solve this problem this week so I could be more active on this blog and update some more photos of Montreal ;)

Speaking of pictures, I promised you guys some photos of the photoshoot I had a couple weeks ago, well here they are! I had so much fun in that photoshoot! Do you like how it turned out? :)

Oh and, I don't know if you'd noticed, but that's the Coquette Dress dress from Fleet Collection that I'm wearing for the first part of the shoot! :) Love that dress! So comfortable and elegant!

And here's another shot, for your eyes only ;)

I'm sorry I haven't had enough time the last few days to edit all those gorgeous shots and put them online. My weeks were so full! The sweet Anna who won the The Stilettosaurus giveaway (congrats again dear! :) ) and I'm also working hard on my kiosque for the Samedis Artisans de Venise en Québec craft fair. Don't worry, I'm really not taking a vacation yet! I've been busy making some new models for the fair as well. I like for people who know my online shop to see some novelty and exclusivity whenever they stop by my table at a fair. I will list a brad new Berry ring tonight though. Didn't I promised you all some lovely shades of green? :)

I must admit it has been great on my eyes to take a break of my computer screen to focus more on manual things like drawing. You'll bappy to know that my geisha artwork is almost done! Yay! I've just got the flowers in her hair to finish up with a few touch ups and it will be all done! :) Here's where I'm at, I hope you like to see how it's coming along! :)

On this, I hope everyone had a great week! :) I'll be back very soon with the final results of the geisha artwork! :) Stay posted! And please, don't be shy and let me know how you like how the projects are coming along! :) 

* M * 

My travel Art kit

Hi everyone!

Summer is finally here, and so is vacation time! Yay! I'm actually planning a small trip with my amazing boyfriend, but for now I can't say more than we are still looking where to go. There are so many beautiful destinations, but we can only spare a few days for travelling this summer. We would hate to visit a place and only see a third of what it has to offer us...! If ever you have any suggestions for a 3-4 days trip, we would be more than happy to be inspired! :)

Speaking of inspiration, I hope I could inspire some of you with my recent artwork posts. I thought that with these posts and summer at our door, I would give you my list of materials whenever I'm on the go. I always find it fun to see what people bring with them on a trip, I always learn something from it! May it be ''that was a bad idea'' to ''This is genius…!'' 

So here's my list of art material when I'm travelling :

* Digital tablet - I have some pre-loaded reference pictures on my tablet in case I go somewhere with no internet connection, otherwise I browse on my extensive Pinterest account. I find this is way more practical to be able to switch from picture to picture. It also saves some trees since I don't have to print 10-20 images to be able to bring them with me. Oh and yes, I always use references whenever I'm creating artwork, may it be for proportions, shadows or colours.