Etsy, RISD, and Creative Entreprenuership

“Creative entrepreneurship is the marriage of inventiveness to an evolving climate. 
A creative entrepreneur is an ever-curious, ever-mindful explorer, seeking to bring 
a product or service to viability, and adapting their thinking as the business grows.”

Etsy is encouraging art students at RISD to be creative entreprenuers. Interesting blog post about it below 

http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/entrepreneurs-out-of-art-school-students/?ref=fp_blog_title

Piles and Piles

I photographed a stockpile of things yesterday, all of which I found this weekend when I went thrift shopping in Helena. I took a snapshot of everything to document what I purchased, so I figured why not post the photos here to share?

Vintage Moccasins and red Justin granny lace ups

both of the above are made in brazil. To the left is a pair of Quali Craft heels, leather with wood soles

To the right are some tall campus equestrian boots leather tops and a stacked leather heel

Here's some designer finds. Tony Lama boots and a Coach bag

An antique pharmaceutical crate, and a cropped mini wool coat with a large sheepskin/ shearling collar

Gold Lame peep toe heels, and a bunch of crocheted gloves

a cover for a triangular stool, bought because the tooling is really neat and unique

Well that's most of it, but not even everything. I also bought a mint condition hudson blanket, a handful of tooled leather belts(including a Tony Lama one) a 70's sears bathing suit, a leather ammo case from the 50s, and a 40's woven basket purse.

Wow looks like the majority of the things I bought are shoes. Really though I didn't plan that, shoes aren't my favorites or anything. When I go into 2nd hand stores I look for anything wood, leather, wool, or silk. These materials are dollar signs because they aren't synthetic and usually mean they're well made, high quality, and old.  Apparently this time around, most of the wood/leather found was in the form of footwear!

etsy

Wow I’m really no good at consistency. I’ve been trying to stick to at least a weekly post here, but time continues to slip away from me.

I finally started an etsy account, which I have high hopes for but at the same time, understand it will be a  slow start. 

Last week I worked for hours in GIMP creating banners (because I’m too poor for photoshop) I just kind of pulled whatever images I had and played around with resizing, color effects, transparencies, and millions of fonts. Here’s the one I ended up using, but hopefully it’s only temporary, since I’ve got a slightly different vision for the final result.

However I made two others, which I like but decided not to use

I also have been trying to list a new item every day. You can be very startegic about when you post your listings. If you’re  really with it, you research the hour of the day/ week with the most site traffic and post then. This is my goal today; RESEARCH!

You can see my store by clicking here. I was excited this morning to wake up and see that someone “favorited” my charm bracelet. I’m still working on figuring out treasuries and circles of etsy friends. One step at a time!

as a side note, here’s an AWESOME video I found on facebook via miss Cassie Stone, who also happens to be a great artist.

see the photos here

Also I have a new business I’m idolzing. I stumbled across this little jewelry shop; Agas and Tamar in the east village while in NYC. The beautiful window display caught my eye, and then from there I just fell in love with the rest of the store.

They have this awesome rustic and raw looking jewelry which is worn by celebrities (I guess Sex and the City’s cast are big fans, as well as the Olsen Twins) but what really stands out are the simple but gorgeous natural elements in display. In the photos you can kind of see what I mean. They wouldn’t allow me to take pictures, but these are from their blog. They had old fashioned dress forms, antique barn wood, and sets of extremely old wooden boat oar tips they’d lay bracelets on.

getting organized

I apologize for being M.I.A. these past two weeks. Since the funky junk fashion show it’s been a whirlwind of Halloween costume collecting, snow tire gathering, and jetsetting madness. But here I am, back on the blog to fill you all in.

Here are some pictures of my Halloween get up; Lisbeth Salander(the girl with the dragon tattoo). I’ve always wanted the chance to dress up kind of Goth, with piercings and tattoos. Coincidentally, the day I decided to put this costume together, was the day that one of my favorite stores; H&M, announced their new fashion line inspired by Salander's character! I thought this was crazy cool. Heres some of the new line with the costume designer for the 2011 film; Trish Summerville

Anyways, last week, I flew home to Niskayuna, NY to for an 18 day trip, the first time I’ve been home in 10 months! Since landing in the east, it’s been hard to find time to sit down and post on this blog due to the funk that being here puts me in. When I get home suddenly the important things on my to-do list get shoved into the back of my brain and all I want to do is sit by the fire, go goodwill shopping, eat all the delicious food in the house, and work for my dad (which pays $10/hr to chat with interesting people and catch up on all my People and Whole Living reading).

One thing I’ve forced myself to work on since arriving is creating a method to pick up my mother’s Ebay/ Etsy selling momentum,(as well as my own). We both are avid thrifters and collectors, with online stores, but it’s difficult to stay organized when you start selling a lot of stuff, and buying even more. Also this is the biggest selling season of the year, which puts the pressure on us to get the ball rolling. I had talked to a creative entrepreneur a week or so ago who had given me some advice he’d learned in the business. He said that what most creative business people don’t know and have trouble with is that you really need to spend 70% of your time making sales, and 30% creating products, because essentially, whatever order comes up, you’ll always find a way to fill it, but it’s getting that person to request what you’re supplying that’s the uncertain part.

I see my mother and I spending 70% of our energy accumulating merchandise, and only 30% of our time making sales. In order for success that needs to change, so I started brainstorming ways to go about this. I came up with this spreadsheet that we intend to use to stay organized(sorry the photo is so awful, best I could do);

This along with an inventory/ index will hopefully help us to better visualize what we have, and what we need to get done. It also helps us to stop shopping so much when we see how much stuff we have at home waiting to be photographed researched and listed.

I’ve pulled out so many treasures from our closets since getting here, I'll be posting photos here shortly!

Some Recent Findings

Yesterday was the tweed ride, it was quite smashing, but I will first get access to photos before I write a post about it.

In the meantime I thought I'd share some recent thrift store treasures, and sources of motivation.

Above is a beautiful vintage camera bag that I have quickly become inseparable from.

It's gorgeuos honey colored cowhide leather, about 11 inches long, 7.5 tall, and 4 wide.  You can find out a lot about these cases just by googling them. This one is a 503 model Sportsman- Buckskin "Perrin".

I'm unsure how old it is, so if anyone want's to shoot out an estimate that'd be great.

I know I could sell it for a good sum, but I'm too attached at this point. Right now I wear it as a purse, but wouldn't it be a perfect bike pannier?

This purse is made in Argentina from thick saddle leather. Black and brown, in great condition, only a small scuff on the bottom left. My favorite part is the brass link. It reminds me of a bridle bit. 

Again and again I return to the "Steal like an Artist" blog post on Austin Kleon's website, and this talk he gave was great, so I thought I'd share

here's another favorite, A speech on being a creative genius by the author of one of my favorite books, "Eat, Pray, Love"; Elizabeth Gilbert

and finally, a great quote on my mind, from one of last weeks featured sellers on Etsy:

"I’ve always admired how beautiful art can be when made from bare bones. I’m talking about what comes out of times of turmoil, and how invention is spurred by limitations. Look what pioneer women and men did in the Americas, or any indigenous art, or consider how war-torn Europe rebuilt its beautiful cities. Any kind of primitive art, folk art, even the art of the early 20th century — it’s all an inspiration to me."

-Dawn Dodson

for the full interview click here

First ever BLOG POST!

Since I’ve dropped out of college, with only a part time job, people keep asking me; “what are you DOING with all your free time?” I often times have to take a minute to recall what I’ve been filling my days with; although they’re packed, it’s challenging to describe how I’m spending them. Usually it’s a combination of drinking lots of coffee, being inspired, fabricating earrings, collecting antiques, photographing said antiques, researching said antiques, and studying blogs and Etsy forums until I’m dizzy.

So instead of boring people with that awful lengthy list which barely scratches the surface of my day to day life, I figured a I’d start a blog. Hopefully this will show the world what I do, as well as document it for myself. I plan to center it on my “studio” which doubles as my living space. It's covered with my projects, inspiration, motivational quotes, and notes; and happens to overlook the Missoula mountains you see in my banner.

I’ll try being more visual than wordy here. I’m an artist and therefore a visual thinker, and believe that ideas can often be expressed better through pictures, sketches, or videos.

Also I'd love feedback in any form from those who take time to check up on me through this site, so please comment and discuss what I post.

A brief synopsis of my latest Finds and Creations:

 

A Foraged vintage World Classic Replogle Globe

                Hand Made Vintage Button Earrings 

Retro books copyright of 1962 

        Part of my Bicycle Bit collection. They're made with used bike parts, and I sell them at Upcycled

A bracelet I made out of vintage buttons