I really do want to thank those of you who heeded my mid-week plea to check out Wire-Sculpture.com's 2011 Gold Club "OOAK" (One-Of-A-Kind) Contest and vote for the Popular Choice winner. Although I could not campaign for my piece, a few determined friends did email me to verify their choices were the one I'd created. ;) Most knew my style, although one or two were a bit overwhelmed with the choices. I did not win, which didn't at all surprise me. Most of the entries were well beyond my current wire-wrapping capabilities. That will hopefully change by next year! :) I have to say, some of the pieces were beautiful, but others were too elaborate for my taste. Some of the wire and beadwork overshadowed the one-of-a-kind pieces, which is a bit silly in my opinion. If you have a special stone, why would you want to detract from it with a lot of embellishments? Save that for the plain, ordinary stones! :p
The reason I did not post yesterday -- aside from the fact that I sent out a Special Edition on Tuesday -- was because I had a wave of inspiration/creativity hit me last night, and I thought it best to go with it rather than stop to write my blog post. I struggled most of the day with one particular project, and once I finally completed it, I tackled another three relatively painlessly. ;) Most of them are "on spec," so I may or may not sell them even though they were made by request. I have a hard time estimating projects in advance, simply because I don't know what materials will end up in the final piece until I've completed it. I started out with the intention to create a wire knit chain for a pendant, but after three attempts -- two using different wire gauges and a third switching to WireLace® -- I ended up using a ready-made chain I had in my stash. The first chain was too bulky for my drawplate and I had to fight with it to make it fit through the holes. The second one was too short, and I ran out of one of the three colors of wire I was using. The WireLace® knit chain turned out very nice, but it ended up making the overall piece too expensive for my buyer. So, I looked through everything I have and came up with something that complimented the pendant nicely. However, that was not at all my original plan, so had I given an estimate it would have been inaccurate. :\
In any case, I've completed most of my "promised" pieces...I have two more that were "abandoned" concepts from last year, but I came up with ideas for both during yesterday's burst of creativity. :) I hope to develop them this week, and maybe salvage those potential sales. :)
Second quarter sales weren't much better than the first quarter, but I was not surprised in the least by that. I kind of "burned out" after the December holidays from working full-time as a temp at the office and trying to maintain my business at the same time. Plus, I was devoting a fair amount of time to holiday craft shows/exhibits, so that took up many of my weekends. Accepting a part-time position at the office back in January took the pressure off a bit to generate sales so that I could pay my bills, and I took a physical and mental health break for a few months. Needless to say, that affected the bottom line. In the past month or so, I have gained some of my momentum back, and I will hopefully be able to balance things better from this point forward. Wish me luck with that! LOL ;)
I have a bunch of new photos to post to the Facebook photo album later this week...I will be starting a third one pretty soon, as the second one is approaching the 200-picture limit. :) I still haven't updated the website, but I don't think it gets much traffic, anyway. :o
Moving right along...I have go price out some items for display at my chiropractor's office tomorrow. Have a great week! :D
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