Make It

Introducing....

Logan!

and Xavier!

I promise this won't become a cat blog, I just wanted to give them a proper introduction.

How Many of Me?

Have you seen this site? Enter your name and find out how many other "you"s there are!

Write What You Know?

Five days into NaWriNoMo and I'm in trouble.

I've only logged 2460 words since the month started and I haven't even written at all in the past two days. What's the problem? There are a few factors, including a quick visit by Matt's brother, a diversion into pet ownership (more on that later) and lastly, and most importantly: I'm bored with my story.

I actually started a story (a different one) this summer, working on it sporadically ever since July. That one is a fantasy story totally based in a different city with characters that were fully a figment of my imagination. In contrast, my story concept for NaWriNoMo is based on one of my previous jobs and the crazy characters I encountered.

I'm finding that it was much easier to plot a story and write when I was totally creating a new world. For this story, I'm trying so hard to remember my experience from this job and get all the details that I'm not focusing on telling a compelling narrative. One of the first rules of writing is "write what you know," but I'm finding out that it's possible to take that too literally. Going forward, I need to let my knowledge of this setting frame my story but not let myself get bogged down with the task of accurately recounting every element of my experience. I may not have stuck to the resolution of writing everyday, but I'm still going to strive to complete 50,000 words by the end of the month.

A Different Kind of Inspiration

I've kept my hair pretty short for the past couple of years and now I'm starting to grow it out. Even though I love how low-maintenance it is now, I'm getting a little bored. I found my new hair inspiration on Garance Dore (via Harlem Loves). Love this look!

My Next Project

I'm going to write a novel!

Or try to at least. My next creative goal is to complete a novel in 2010. And if it ends up being any good I just might try to get it published.

Right now, I really like the idea of working on a creative project that doesn't involve any special supplies or a special room of its own. All I need for this one is my laptop and my brain. I'm going to kick things off by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), with the goal of writing a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. Wish me luck!

Closing up shop

I’ve come to a decision that may not surprise those of you who have noticed the slow but steady change in the tone of my blog posts over the past six months: I’ve decided to end Rifferaff and close my Etsy shop. For good. Read on for the details.

I have been mulling over this decision for a long time. And if I can trace it back to the origins, it probably started early this year when I was working on adding the soaps to my product line and brainstorming a business plan for Rifferaff. I’d had a very successful holiday season and was riding high on sales and blog mentions. So naturally, I started to think about how to keep the momentum going and how to turn a successful season into a successful year.

I checked some books out of the library and started working in earnest on a business plan. The process of creating this plan forced me, for the first time, to run the numbers. That’s when I realized that for me to turn this into a real money-making enterprise, I’d have to increase sales to much higher volumes than I ever had. That left two options: outsource the work or essentially become a paper and soap making factory. Neither option appealed to me and so that’s when the seed of doubt was planted.

This realization effectively took the wind out of my sails. I felt like I’d spent a lot of money on supplies, papers, screen, inks and now for me to ramp up production I’d have to invest even more. I just felt that there was so much money going out (for the first time in my life I’d run up credit card debt) and not enough coming in. Further more there was no guarantee that even if I did invest in all these new supplies that the money would follow. The thought of constantly promoting myself, pursuing wholesale accounts, sending out samples, and attending craft fairs all seemed too exhausting. What had seemed exciting a year earlier now just seemed like an endless stream of chores. And the stress over money began to effect my enjoyment of the process of creating.

But I kept plugging along, keeping the store open, trying to brainstorm new products to hold my interest. I kept thinking that I’d get a burst of energy and inspiration when the holiday season returned. Then the move happened, my entire craft stash got packed up and moved – finally – into a room of its own, and to my surprise, I felt no desire to unpack it. Additionally, the thought of mixing up inks, cutting stencils, washing out screens and wrapping up soaps filled me not with excitement, but with dread. Add to that my rejection from every craft fair that I had (half-heartedly) applied to, and at this point I see no reason to keep my shop open.

What happens next? I’m going to sell off all my supplies, from soapmaking to screenprinting to lots and lots of blank paper and cardstock so keep an eye on the blog for that. As for the blog, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s not going anywhere. I will continue to blog, though I’m not quite sure what form it will take going forward. I know that I will definitely be blogging about a new creative project I am undertaking (any guesses?). I’ll reveal what that is tomorrow.

To the readers and commenters: thanks for your support of this blog and the shop. I hope that over the past 3 years I have effectively represented what my experience was like as a micro business owner and helped some of you with your own projects.

Making Lemonade

I had a mini meltdown a few weeks ago when I opened a plastic tub in which I'd been storing my soap inventory and found this:

 

You may remember that in my old place, I stored soaps in a hanging jewelry organizer inside of a closet. Since there are no closets in the new place (which has presented plenty of other storage challenges), I took the soaps out of the hanging organizer and put them in a Tupperware tub with a lid.

What I forgot to take into account is that the soap that I make is very prone to "sweating." In humid environments, beads of moisture form on the surface of the soap. In this case, the soaps in the sealed plastic container sweat all over their wrappers, effectively ruining most of my inventory.

After a little freakout (which Matt expertly diffused with Chinese takeout and beers) I sat down to reassess the situation. I went through a couple of different ideas before finally getting inspiration from one of my soap blogs. So this weekend, I decided that I'd turn these lemons into lemonade. I peeled off the wet wrappers and chopped up some of my April Showers soap into chunky bits, then I mixed up a white soap base with honey, vitamin e and a pleasant citrus scent and poured it over the chunks. I'm pretty pleased with the final result.

Reunited and it feels so good

Today, for the first time since moving to the new apartment, I pulled out my supplies and made some soap! I'm trying something new this time and there's a story behind it but I'll share that tomorrow when I post pics of the finished product. Right now it's sitting in a silicone mold doing its thing. Check out the action shot above.

Of course this project wasn't without some drama. It took me approximately an hour or so to dig up all the appropriate gear from the various boxes still piled in the craft room (I really need to buy or build some shelving so we can get organized in there). Then once I had all the supplies in place, I realized that I didn't know where my soap recipes were. You know, the recpies which I developed through trial and error over several weeks earlier this year. The recipes that have all the measurements for how to make the soaps. The recipes which I only had a written copy of and never saved on my computer (doh!). I was thisclose to calling it a day and giving up but I luckily found an early version of some of my recipes in a Word document and used that to improvise. 

Working in my favor is the fact that these are new soaps, I'm not trying to recreate ones that I've offered in the past. This allowed me to have more fun with it, since I wasn't trying to churn out some soap bars assembly-line style. I'm realizing part of my dread of crafting these days is the thought of making the same products over and over in order to keep the store stocked with regulars. I enjoy the process when I can improvise and experiment.

Renegade Chicago...Not Quite

I had been anxiously waiting to hear about Renegade Chicago and I got the word today: I wasn't accepted as a vendor but am on the short list for a space if someone drops out or wants to share a table. So now, more waiting and we'll see how it works out. Did any of you guys apply or get accepted?

Organization is half the battle

Poor organization is possibly the main thing that frustrates me about Rifferaff. When I finally get the inspiration to start a project, I usually have to spend a good amount of time clearing off my workspace and pulling out the right supplies (sometimes from the depths of a closet or from underneath piles of boxes) before I can actually get started. A well organized space would go a long way towards making my creative time more enjoyable (Not to mention packing and shipping. Don't get me started on the hour I spent looking for the plastic caps for my mailing tubes last week).

So let's take a moment to enjoy the immaculate workspace of Sharilyn from Lovely Design. Full studio tour here.

Have You Seen Regretsy?

Regretsy finds the most random, bizarre stuff on Etsy and posts it with snarky commentary. The site has some adult content, consider yourself warned. 

What do you think, is Regretsy funny or mean?

The Implications of the Gourmet Magazine Closure

As always, you commenters save the day. I think the idea of offering my preferred choice of folded packaging as the default, with a note that rolled packaging is available for an extra fee, will satisfy everyone. Thanks for your input!

I've been thinking alot about Gourmet magazine lately, devoting more brain cells to it than perhaps I should for a magazine I have never subscribed to, let alone purchased. However with the closure of Gourmet, the unsettled feeling I got with the closure of Domino has come back to rear its ugly head.

This New York Times article put it best in the opening sentence,

It’s Rachael Ray’s world now — we’re all just cooking in it.

Or, as Abbey Goes Design Scouting wrote,

What makes me saddest is that the closing of Gourmet comes after months of research by consulting firm McKinsey which means that somehow there aren’t enough people like me to keep my favorite magazines alive (Blueprint, Gourmet).

Also known as: the dumbing down of our mainstream media. Look at cable news, for goodness sakes.

When Domino shuttered, I called Conde Nast to request my subscription be transferred to Gourmet instead of Architectural Digest which was the default pub that subscribers would receive. For some reason- I don't know if I had a bad connection or if the rep I talked to simply was incompetent- six weeks after that call I received, not Gourmet, but Glamour.

There's something poetic about me transferring my subscription of one cancelled magazine to another now-cancelled magazine, only to receive the incredibly sub-par, and still on newstands, Glamour.

With Domino, now Gourmet gone, what are we left with? The Glamours of the world? Cosmo? In Touch? On the newsstand at least. Online, there are still options, but it's more of a niche. Blogs like 101 Cookbooks or DesignSponge, produce great content for sure, but they're only available to 1) people with computers and 2) people who know how to find them.

Domino and Gourmet were mainstream publications, in the sense that you could walk into nearly any drugstore or grocery store in the country and purchase an issue. You could go into a bookstore with the intention of getting one magazine and maybe stumble upon one of these mags and take it home with you. It was accesible to everyone just by virtue of being there.

I think the niche-ification of interests beyond Cosmo sex tips and Rachel Ray's 30-minute meals is a very bad thing, for the record.

Sketching

Wow, you guys really like a sale! Thanks for supporting Rifferaff by purchasing sale items over the past couple of days.

Today I started to sketch some ideas for new papers. I'm planning to cut the stencils with an x-acto so nothing will be too detailed. This time, I'm looking forward to experimenting with some two-color designs, which I've never done before.

Here's a question. I'm thinking about sending the new gift wrap sheets out folded into rigid envelopes. The reasons for this are two fold: I have lots of 12 x 12  envelopes to use up (like an entire box of 300 or so) and it should make shipping costs lower. Plus, this gift wrap will be smaller in size than the papers I've used in the past, so I may only need to fold it once to fit.

What do you think about purchasing gift wrap that has been folded instead of rolled? Would it deter you from making a purchase?

Sale on gift wrap!

Yesterday, in addition to posting the misprint sets, I also went through and posted the remainder of my gift wrap inventory at 50% off pricing. Two sheets of gift wrap for all old patterns are now for sale for $4 instead of $8. Unlike the misprints, these sheets are not damaged in any way, I've simply held onto the inventory long enough and I want to make way for new stuff. I even included this Dots in brown ink, which was a custom order for a customer last year that never made it to the shop listings until now.

After spending most of Sunday getting my existing inventory in order, I'm now turning my thoughts to the future. The goal is to spend this week cutting the stencils for three new designs so that when the weekend comes, I'll be ready to print. It's kind of an ambitious schedule, considering I haven't done any crafting in such a long time, but I'm ready to jump back into things. I even spent Sunday making lots of food so I won't have to spend too much time/energy this week on making dinners.

I'll be posting everyday this week to show you my progress on the stencils.

Misprints in the Shop

I've just uploaded ten sets of misprints. I'm selling these in sets of 6 for $4, about $.65/per sheet down from the usual $2 sheet. When I can, I've posted pics of the imperfections in each set, to give you a better idea of what to expect. A few examples are above. And you may notice, I am including misprints of the Bloom and XO papers from last year. These were a (very popular) limited edition that I won't be reprinting so if you wanted to get your hands on them and didn't have a chance last year
, now's the time!

I'll have a few more sets of misprints to post later this week once I get around to sorting and photographing them.

On a Wing and a Chair

Thanks for the great supportive comments on the last post. I actually stayed away from the blog for a few days because I was afraid of what the comments might be (or worse, no comments!) for a post that was so personal. As always, it's great to see others have been there before.

I now have a whole unscheduled weekend laying before me so I'm going to make the most of it and spend it in the studio taking some of your advice.

In non-crafty news, I have been wanting a wing chair forever. When we finally moved and got the space for it, I eagerly visited yard sales and Craigslist in search of the perfect one. My search was unsuccessful until this Wednesday when I found the perfect lime green velvet chair at the Salvation Army for $50!! I was looking for a chair with the intention of covering it with some Mod Green Pod fabric I've been holding on to for two years, but I'm loving the green so much I don't know if I'll do that yet. It's making a lovely little reading nook as the weather gets cold and grey here.

Out of Sight Out of....

It's interesting to think of where I am this year with Rifferaff compared to last year.

This time last year, I had just moved to Michigan and was unemployed (but looking), so I had entire free days to work on my small business. Couple that with the fact that in our old apartment, my craft storage and work table took up about 50% of the living room and it's not hard to see why I dedicated much time and effort to Rifferaff. I didn't have anything else to do and couldn't produce any worthwhile excuse to avoid it.

Oh but this year, excuses are plentiful.

My craft supplies and table now have a room of their own. For the last three years I've eagerly awaited the day when I could get my projects out of my face so I wouldn't have to see them (and the resulting mess) all the time. But now that that day is here, it actually might not be such a great thing. When I'm not confronted daily with the sight of projects-in-progress, I've found it TOO easy to ignore them. Was it actually better for my work ethic to have my work table in the main living space?

It also doesn't help that my interest level in craft and design is...waning. I guess this is what you could call feeling uninspired. I'm calling it bored. So bored, that this summer I started working on another long-term project that has nothing to do with craft or design. I don't plan to blog about that until the new year, but if you've been following my Twitter, I've dropped some hints. Right now this project is infinitely more appealing to me (and so I'm dedicating more time to it) than screenprinting or soapmaking, which feel like chores. Is this want I want Rifferaff to be?

Another blow came today when I received notification that I wasn't accepted to a winter craft fair for which I thought (quite conceitedly) that I was a shoe-in. Craft fairs aren't my favorite thing in the world and I've certainly put out enough negative energy regarding my experiences at them, but i have to admit, I was feeling cocky and assured of my acceptance to this fair. The rejection came as both a blow to my ego and a wake up call: You're not putting much effort into Rifferaff right now though it may have been hidden before, it's now obvious to those around you.

So, what's next?

I do want to come up with a collection of things for the holiday. I think new items will energize me and get me more active on the blog again. Lord knows I already have plenty of supplies on hand, just waiting for some alchemy to take place.  The best way to get inspired is probably going to be just to get into my work room, unpack some sh*t and get to work.

Luck is where opportunity meets preparedness

I tweeted about the above quote today but I thought I'd cross-post it here for some additional discussion. I found it on a blog and a quick Google search turned up alot of different results so I'm not sure who it's initially attributed to.

In any case, I think it's quite true, don't you? The question for you guys is: are you prepared for opportunity to come your way? If not, what do you need to do to get to that point?

Rounding up the Misfits

This weekend I took some time to do something I should have probably done before I moved.

You see, I am a self-taught amateur printmaker, so when I screenprint something, there are often lots of mis-prints, blotchy spots and irregular ink coverage before I get into a groove and start pulling some nice prints.  I don't sell these misfit prints because I don't think they represent my best work and I can't sell something knowing that it's subpar. So what this means is that I accumulate alot of mis-printed papers. Heavy mis-printed papers that I've been lugging from apartment to apartment, trying to figure out what to do with them. Sometimes I try to re-use them in other projects like making envelopes or covering boxes, but at this point I have so many mis-prints that re-using them in other projects is taking away from time I can spend making new items.

So this weekend I pulled them all out and- taking advantage of my new, nice, wide open living room- laid them all out on the floor so I could take stock of what I've got. Then I gathered them together in groups of 6, trying to get an even distribution of colors and patterns. Once I work my way through all the mis-prints, I'll put them up on my Etsy shop for cheap. Even though they're misprints, they're all usable mostly with just a single blotch section or a blurry print around the edges. They're good for gift wrap or paper projects, about the only thing they wouldn't be good for is framing an entire sheet.

I'm eager to get these misprints out the door so I can concentrate on some new designs. I'm going to retire jigsaw and jigsaw bead and come up with something new. Before I do all that, I'll have to get my work room in order, pretty much the last room in the apartment to be unpacked.

Lessons from a Pizzeria

I always love to find lessons I can apply to my own business from unlikely sources.

Via the pizza blog Slice, I found the link to this NYTimes blog post about Chicago pizzeria Great Lake. Great Lake was recently named the #1 pizzeria in the country by GQ magazine (p.s. four of the top 25 pizzerias were in the Detroit area. I promptly visited them all). Great Lake has a reputation for exceptional pizza and irregular- sometimes downright unpleasant- customer service. After the GQ ranking came out, things got understandably more chaotic for a business that is less than 2 years old, with the restaurant running out of dough as early as 8pm. When that happens, they close the restaurant, angering customers.

Here's the catch:

The owners, a married couple named Lydia Esparza and Nick Lessins, say they do not want to work more than four days a week. They are so busy that they cannot take phone orders. They just want to make incredible pizza, every time, no matter the expectations.

What's a pizzeria owner to do? You can't go on upsetting customers, running out of dough when people have made a special trip to try your food. But you also don't want to put in 12-hour days 7 days a week to meet up with the demand. This isn't what you signed up for.

The NYTimes blogger recommends this:

As a businessman, I cringe at the owners’ attitude toward their customers. At the same time, I appreciate their artistry and their desire to live the life they want. There are far too many stories of what I would call successful losers, people who find financial success but mess up their lives in the process.

The question is, can you have it both ways? Can you do what you want, pay attention to every last detail, make a good living and not have to fight off customers who want to buy a product that you cannot make fast enough?

I have a suggestion. The couple has been in business since February 2008. I doubt they are rolling in dough (sorry). It appears that they charge $22 for a pizza. I would suggest that they raise the price to $30. This is Economics 101, supply and demand. Some people will be turned off by the higher price and go somewhere else. The wait times will go down. Many people will be happy to pay more if they don’t have to wait as long. The restaurant’s net income will probably double. Maybe they will be able to hire someone with a happy attitude to assist.

What do you think of this advice? Do you think this advice can apply to artisans and crafters? If you're seeing success with your business but are feeling overhwelmed with orders and interest, will raising prices help get things back under control, while not driving away customers? Exactly how good is this pizza?
(Image via Slice)