Always the Forest’s Blog

Billy and I will be manning a table at the Flint City Handmade Spring Market this year. I’m pretty excited, since this is our first show of the year. So if you’re a local, or just in the area, head on down to the Lunch Studio and the Brown Sugar Cafe this Saturday between 10-4 to check out hundreds of unique, handmade items. And, goodie bags will be handed out to the first 50 shoppers who arrive at the Lunch Studio starting at 10am. There will also be a raffle to win one of 25 items donated by the vendors.

Craft show season is almost here, and we’ve been very busy with production. We have some great new designs coming soon. In the picture on the left, I’m hemming one of our new dress designs, which still has yet to be named.  So to keep things moving right along, I’ve given myself a working schedule, lunch breaks and everything.  I’m the type of person who works well within a schedule, and it doesn’t make crafting/sewing/designing any less fun.

Our new clothing tags came in, and they look pretty spiffy.  Designing the little things like promos, business cards and clothing tags is one of my favorite parts of this business.  This year I decided not to print and cut them all out myself, that took way too long last year.  I ordered them through kittycrossbones.etsy.com. She has a wide variety of promo items, including stickers, buttons, scratch-offs, and mirrors. The prices are pretty reasonable as well, and buying indie is also a plus!

We just received our new business cards from www.vistaprint.com and I am really happy with their service. I went with 250 Premium business cards, and the grand total was $19.69. They arrived quickly, even thought I chose the cheapest shipping option (21 days!). The colors were also accurate. I have heard some people say that the colors on their orders were off, but I think if your design is CMYK compatible, you should be fine. For more info on CMYK colors, check out www.printingforless.com/rgb-cmyk.html. Vista Print offers free business cards, but you have to use one of their images, and the paper quality is not as good. I uploaded my own image, but there is a fee for that. They also sent me a bunch of offers for free postcard printing, brochure printing, and 80% off my next order of business cards, so I will definitely be taking advantage of those. Vista Print has good prices and good service, so I will definitely use them in the future.

So we’re already well into March, but I figured it would still be a good idea to outline my goals for Always the Forest this year. I would say 2007 was a good first year. We did two shows, made some sales, started an online store, started a blog, and learned quite a bit along the way. So now that we have a better idea of what we’re doing, it’s time to improve!

1. Accept credit cards - Currently, our website goes through PayPal. So customers can use their credit cards to order, they just have to go through PayPal, and a lot of people don’t like to do that. By accepting credit cards, we would probably increase our online sales. Also, accepting credit cards at shows would almost certainly increase our sales.

2. Streamline our products - Right now, we sell a large variety of things from purses to skirts to leggings to paintings to vintage finds. By narrowing the selection, it would allow for faster production, because we wouldn’t have to design something new every time we made something. It would also allow for more clothing sizes because I could easily grade patterns of say, five designs, instead of doing twenty one-offs.

3. Do more shows! - First of all, craft shows are fun. I really enjoyed the ones we did last year. I like meeting the other vendors and shoppers. Second of all, we make a lot more sales in person. People like to see the item up close, feel the fabric, and ask questions. I would like to do at least four shows this year.

4. Update the site and blog more - Nobody likes to see a site/blog that hasn’t been updated in forever. It probably even feels a bit sketchy to them. Well, we’re definitely not sketchy, just bad at updating. And that needs to be fixed, pronto.

So I’m going to start off on the right foot and get right to grading the lovely dress pattern I recently made!

Thing-a-day is almost over! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically a collective blog where artists and creators of all types and backgrounds make one thing per day and share it online. It’s a pretty neat idea, and there are some pretty cool things floating around on that website. And the fact that it’s just plain fun to participate in. You have to sign up for it before February, so if you missed it this year, you have to wait for next February.

From Thing-a-Day.com:

“This project was started as a class thought by Ze Frank at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Fall 2005. Every day, the twenty something grad students of this class has to post something new. In February 2007, inspired by the Ze Frank effort, we created the thing-a-day platform and opened it up to the public.”

Some of the items I made, starting at the top left, are: stitch art, whole wheat bread, a needle case, a portable/flexible tripod, fabric flower pin, painted chia herb planters, blueberry-frosted cupcakes, and homemade veggie stew. To see the rest of it, my thing-a-day page is here.

Pattern grading: making sets of patterns to fit a range of sizes, the next step in the design process. Ever since the 1950’s, there have been machines that will do this for you. But, having your patterns graded professionally can cost a lot. Luckily, grading one manually is not too difficult. The website www.burdastyle.com has some great tutorials on grading all different kinds of patterns.

Burdastyle has a ton of great free patterns, as well as a sewpedia, a comprehensive tutorial section, and a place for members to showcase their creations. It’s definitely a site worth checking out, and maybe spending some time there learning a few new things.

Grade a skirt and pants pattern
Grade a sleeve pattern
Grade a bodice pattern

I’m fortunate to live in an area that offers a variety of fabric stores other than the usual Jo-ann Fabrics and other craft store chain giants. Those are nice for getting basics like lining and thread, but if I want something unusual and unique, I go to one of those other independent fabric stores. There are also some really neat fabric shops online, in case you don’t have a local fabric supplier. Here are some of my favorites:

www.reprodepot.com - great source for vintage reproduction fabrics.
www.kitty-craft.com - really, really cute japanese-inspired prints.
www.kiitosmarimekko.com - great source for buying Marimekko fabrics, my favorite design company.
www.melinamade.com - neat vintage inspired prints.
www.denverfabrics.com - lots of everything.
www.purlsoho.com - a ton of really nice fabric, and you can search by the type of print. Good resource for yarn as well.
www.wazoodle.com - great prices on knit and jersey fabric.

And if you’re still looking for more places, craftster.org has a whole directory here, with about 85 listings! If anybody knows of more places, feel free to post them in the comments.

There are a few things that help the business end of Always the Forest run smoothly, I call them business essentials. Not to be confused with craft essentials, which would be the obvious sewing machines, fabrics, thread, etc. They are:

1. Computer with internet access. I use my MacBook all the time for ATF related activities. I used it to build the website, and then to edit photos for the site and blog. With 24/7 internet access, I’m notified of orders as soon as they come in. I can also keep track of the latest craft shows and opportunities.

2. Shipping center. I have my very own shipping center in my hall closet. Inside, I keep bubble wrap, packing tape, postage labels, and different sizes of shipping bags and boxes. I also keep promo buttons, stickers, and business cards in there. When I get an order, I can go straight to my shipping center, package everything up, and it’s ready to be sent out. I ordered all of my boxes completely free of charge at www.usps.com. I didn’t even have to pay for shipping!

3. The Switchboards. The forum at www.theswitchboards.com is a wealth of information ranging from legality issues to website help to helpful hints from other indie businesses. It has proven to be indispensable whether I’m baffled about taxes, business insurance, suppliers, and most every other aspect of running an indie business.

“I pledge to buy handmade this holiday season, and request that others do the same for me.”

That’s the handmade pledge from www.buyhandmade.org. I took it yesterday, and as of today, more than 8000 people have taken it as well. The three reasons the site gives for buying hand made are: it makes for better gift giving, it’s better for people, and it’s better for the environment. For the complete list, click here.

I plan on making most everything I give away as gifts this year. I’m thinking of doing plastic bag holders for the kitchen this year. Natalie bought quite a few presents at the Handmade Detroit Holiday Market. My stepmom has been making gift baskets of handmade bath salts, bath bombs, and chocolate-covered spoons along with crocheting everyone mittens, scarves, or slippers! Making things may be more time consuming, but making things with your friends on craft night is far more rewarding than getting packed into the mall spending tons of money.

I check the stats on our website all the time. My husband Billy does too. We think it’s the coolest thing ever, but we’re just kind of silly like that. One of the neatest stats is the world map that shows the people who visit our website. The US, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Thailand, and more! The one visit from Kuwait is Billy.

All those visitors got me thinking. We get quite a few hits on our website, but not so many buys. Why? I think it’s because of the very nature of what we sell. People want to see it in person, to touch it, try it on. Buying things over the internet is tricky because you’re never sure that the picture is a totally accurate representation of the product. I strive to take pictures that accurately represent the product, but people won’t always know that. I think sizing is another issue too. I definitely need to make some more sizes. Improvement is a very good thing.