Creativity takes many forms. Sometimes it’s tangible art work and other times it is simply an idea. I recently got reconnected with a friend from high school on facebook. Only to learn she had just launched her own website TraTutti.com. It’s online consignment with a conscience.
She’s blended fashion with charity work and saving the planet - one garment at a time.
20% of every sale is donated to a charity of the buyers choice, 40% goes to the consignor, and 40% goes to my friend.
She’s does a fantastic job organizing and presenting the clothing to the customer, so they can inspect every detail, and find the right size for themselves. I’m really floored by the innovation. I suspect that it will take some time to build momentum and get the name out there, but once she gets rolling I imagine it will be quite successful.
I got my purse back today. With a refund of my shipping costs and a beautiful pendant in addition.
Kudos to Niclana of Barking Maddison. You get an A+ in customer satisfaction.
Since discovering Etsy (thanks Amy) I’ve been addicted to buying as much as I can that is hand made. In that time I’ve experienced a few blips along the way. Once a shirt arrived that was ripped at the seam. I contacted the seller, and she sent me a new shirt with in the week.
This time the problem was a bit more complicated. I bought a dyed leather purse. Everything was great till I got caught in a rain storm, and noticed my hand was red afterward. I love this purse mind you. It is the perfect size for all my necessities, and I get compliments on it all the time. I contacted the seller to find out if there was anything I could do to fix it.
Her response: “Send it back to me. I will fix it.” The seller’s confidence in her product, and determination to make me (the customer) happy was incredible. You don’t find that kind of customer care in big retail shops, and it goes a long way. I would shop with her again knowing that she takes good care of her customer base.
I recently picked up a really nice knitting pattern from etsy seller- jmaccknitt. This is the first clothing pattern for anything I’ve ever used. It has been a bit of a challenge getting it started, but now that I’m rolling and understand what the pattern is asking me to do. I really love it.
It was lucky I saw my family at Thanksgiving last night. My mom lent me the size 5 DPN (double pointed needles) I needed to get started, and my sister was able to clarify the pattern for me. New techniques for me with this pattern, are the cable knit and knitting in a round. So far I have the knitting in the round down. I got through the preliminary part of the pattern and had to take it out, as I missed adding a stitch and messed up un-kitting the row. Un-knitting makes me cringe and laugh. Unwinding hours of work is a strange feeling, but I look at it as good practice.
Two great sites my sister shared with me are:
Knitting Help.com - has great videos of stitches being done. If you don’t know how to do something you can pretty much learn how there.
Knitty - has pages of free patterns you can use. I like the black and white optical illusion blanket.
I’ll post a pic of the arm-warmers when I’ve finished.
I will be finishing graduate school soon, and out in the working world. I’m a student acupuncturist, and I hope to open my own business one day. With that I’ve turned my recent attention to thinking about business cards and other promotional supplies.
I have a very clear idea of what I want to use for my business card. An image of cherry blossoms embossed on the right hand side of the card, with my name and contact info in the middle. Simple, but elegant. The difficult part is with such a unique design I’m sure to pay a premium for production. I’ve been researching embossers and different options for printing a card like this.
Because I want a custom design my options are limited. Do I want to purchase a custom made embosser, and press every single one of my cards on my own? Or do I want to pay someone else to do the whole thing? Because there’s so much to consider I’m starting to think of these things early, so I can have a clear handle on them when the time officially comes to start handing out cards that say Lic. Ac.
Here’s a link to an incredible display of art work. The entire series was photographed in a giant tank of water. The model was sewn into her costume, and divers were on hand monitoring her oxygen. It’s incredible, when you think of how much detail went into the planning of this shoot.
I was over my friend Nathan’s house the other day, receiving my first reiki treatment, which is not the point of the story only a side note. The Decour in his home was so simple and elegant I was really struck by it. What I loved the most were the prints he had on the wall. They looked like professional pieces of art work. When I asked him about them he told me he had simply wrapped Japanese Print Paper from the Paper-Source around a wooden canvas frame, and stapled it to the back.
It looked so elegant, and was a fantastic and cheap way to add color to his space!
A friend recently directed me to the site etsy.com. It’s a marketplace for people to sell their arts and crafts. People have everything there from beautiful butterfly wings encased in glass and strung on a necklace, to silk screened t-shirts, and something I’ve never heard of before the “apple cozy” keeping your fruit from getting bruised.
The site is really nicely laid out. It’s easy to navigate, and you can view items in a number of different ways. I think my favorite feature is the recently listed items. It automatically updates. Every time you list a new item it is on the front page it may not be for very long but it still means every one gets to be front and center at some point in time.
It inspires me to go back to making jewelry again. One of the fun things about being creative is seeing your ideas come to life, but when you run out of people to give to and the crafts just pile up in the corner, it can become disheartening, and demotivating. Having an outlet, and audience for your creativity is very valuable to an artist.
