QR Codes...It's hip to be Square!

Wow, did I just date myself!  You've seen them...heck, unlike me, you may have had one and used it for a few years now.

What is a QR code? QR stands for Quick Response. Per Wikipedia, it is a type of barcode,  a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.  You see them all over the place and I have known, more or less, what their purpose was, but never really put much thought into getting one for my business, since I admittedly came pretty late to the technology party.

This Sunday, I will be vending at my very first show of the year, the Sykesville Art & Wine Festival, here in Maryland...all you locals come on over and see me, ya hear? Since I signed up as sort of a spur of the moment thing, I didn't have time to get any new cards or marketing materials printed, so wanted to create some homemade labels, etc. to add to my existing business cards and for packaging.  I came across some little 1.5 inch square labels I purchased some time ago but never used.  On the package cover was a sheet of labels with neat rows of the ubiquitous black & white squares.  After I "googled" QR codes I chose a code generator.  What the heck!  A few short minutes later, I was the proud owner of a little square of my own!

Yes, it says Melismatic Art Jewelry, can't you tell?!

Okay, all I have to do is print this on those little square labels.  Meh.  They looked sort of boring.  I had decided that I was going to add these to the back of some older business cards I have that just have my Etsy shop, but also wanted to add them to my little kraft paper bags I have been hoarding for shows.

I wanted to fancy it up a bit, so went to PicMonkey and played around with the collage function and added text and some clip art.

I went a step further and made up some other labels for other packaging, just to have on hand.

Just as an FYI, the code generator I used (Smartytags.com) gives you an account and tracks your 1st 500 scans for free.  Not sure if it is a service I want to pay for, but this will give me a chance to see if it boosts sales or traffic.

Of course, then I had to download an app on my iPhone to be able to scan the codes myself.  I needed to be sure mine worked!  It did!

The cute square labels are from Avery, product code 22805.  They also have fun round ones! Avery.com has templates for creating your labels, but I just used MS Word (mailings, labels).

It will be interesting to see if this actually garners any new interest or hits.  I would love to hear from you!  Have you utilized QR codes in your marketing?

***Breaking News!! The winners of Sue Kennedy's gorgeous lampwork beads for the May Component of the Month Challenge are:  Suntsa, Shaiha and Carolyn's Creations! Congrats!***

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Go get Sidetracked!

Happy Saturday!  OMG, it is November already!  I can't believe a year has gone by since I first was honored to be a part of this amazing group of artists here at AJE!

Today was supposed to be Inspiration from my Closet, Part 2.  As those of you who "get" me know, I am a total procrastinator...it is my mantra: "why do something today, that you can put off until tomorrow?  or the next day?"  So, while I do have something simmering for that post, today, I wanted to talk to you about jumping on the opportunity to create when it presents itself.

A few weeks ago, I signed up to show my jewelry at my 12 year old son's middle school Fall Bazaar.  I knew I needed to create some things that would be at a different price point than I normally sell at, which meant I had to re-think some of my design strategies.

A little Czech glass earring collection!

I had some ideas, and wanted to get into production mode and was doing pretty good...had a bunch of my Czech glass out and was cranking out some of the earrings pictured. My mind and eye kept wandering to other things on my table, though.  While my hands were wiring together Czech glass beads into colorful, fun combinations, I kept looking at pretty beaded beads that our own Kristen Stevens sent me a while back.

Kristen's amazing beaded beads!

I had been wiring some of my Czech glass bead flowers for another project and saw a bracelet in my head with creamy ivory, butterscotch and deep chocolate brown.  But, Melissa, you are supposed to be working on things for the Bazaar, or your COM piece, or your unfinished Day of the Dead piece, or twenty other unfinished things!!

Yes, I was supposed to be doing that, but I decided I should strike while the proverbial iron was hot! Here is what I came up with...

I really love what happened when I gave myself permission to stop worrying about what I needed to do and let my heart do what it wanted to do.  As luck would have it, I had a few other AJE member artisan beads to add to the mix!  There is Kristen's beaded bead, right next to Sue Kennedy's raku frit lampwork bead, and across the way is a chocolate brown ceramic bead by Karen Totten.  Other beads in the mix are my Czech glass flower, a bronzeite rondelle, faceted agate of some sort, and some other stone beads that I can't identify, but love!  The lampwork leaf was from a set of headpins I got from Karen Leonardo at a beadshow a couple of years ago.

The cool thing?  After finishing this, I had some of Karen's leaves left and thought...hmmm, these would be cute as a charm-type pendant.  I also loved the wire-wrapped circles I made, so I made a couple more of those and they sort of morphed into sweet, simple necklaces that I know I will make more of!

I still had time to crank out some copper swirl rings (which were a big hit!).

So, the moral of this story is, don't be afraid to get sidetracked...sometimes doing what you want to do, instead of what you need to do is a positive thing!

Have fun getting sidetracked!!

Melissa Meman

Melismatic Art Jewelry

Art. Life. Love.

Creating "Art"

Last month, I entered some jewelry pieces in a local juried art gallery show. It was kind of a big step for me - I've had my work in gift galleries before but never anyplace "serious." And since submitting the pieces involved creating around a "theme" and preparing an artist's statement, it was WAY out of the box for me. So I thought I'd share some of the process with you!

The theme of the show is "Texas Heat." If you aren't from Texas, perhaps this Colby Jones cartoon will help you understand a little bit about our climate.

(Side note: It was not quite 100 degrees here yesterday; the day before it was 108. I actually said to someone on my way to a meeting that I was glad it was "so much cooler." Not kidding.)

The first challenge was to create a piece or series of pieces that could relate to Texas Heat. Since I am currently obsessed with enamels, I decided to torch-fire some forged panels of copper in a series meant to evoke the progression of the immediate after-math of a fire through the regrowth that happens months or years later. Here is a really bad photo of those panels.

The "immediate aftermath of devastation" is on the left; the "inevitable rebirth" is on the right.

I was pleased with how these turned out - the torch firing left some charred edges that I didn't stone away because they played into the theme. And I loved the colors - this photo doesn't show it well, but I used a mixture of transparent and opaque enamels so that the reds seem to float in the green, sort of like flowers sometimes seem to float in a sea of grass.

Then I was stuck with trying to figure out how to set them - I had to be careful not to bend them and crack the enamel. After some trial and error, I designed slot and tab bezels for the ends and prong set the panels into the resulting cradle. Here are a few shots of my process:

Preparing to test the slot and tab idea.

Tabs dry-fitted into their custom sawn slots with a bead of paste solder ready for firing.

One of the textured backplates with the sawed slot.

You'll have to use your imagination, because I completely forgot to take photos of the prong portion of the adventure. (Enter dream sequence music here!)

Ta-da! The completed pieces.

So there I was, happy with how the pieces turned out... and I had to write an artist's statement. Wait, that's not quite right. I had to write TWO artist's statements: one for my overall approach to my work and one for the pieces or series I was submitting.

And "I make jewelry because I like pretty things" wasn't going to cut it.

I'm going to be painfully and transparently honest here: I loathe artist statements. Loathe. With all due respect to people who think artist statements are important and meaningful, they often wind up sounding - to me - like badly-written and very pretentious wine descriptions. ("A faint oaky bite marries perfectly with the long-legged whisper of citrus that tantalizes the..." What??!) But I had a glass or two of wine, girded my intellectually-deficient loins, and dove on in.

Four excruciating hours later, here's what I came up with:

While fire can wreak havoc and bring destruction, it is also the age-old natural agent of necessary growth and change. Stands of timber and open stretches of prairie alike benefit from being "burned off", so that old dead growth is cleared away and returned to the earth as ash to nourish future growth.  This series of necklaces is a reflection of the effects of the extreme heat of the Texas environment, and – taken together – is meant to evoke a sense of the immediate aftermath of a fire or drought through the inevitable period of recovery, rebirth, and regrowth.    

Not a whisper of citrus or an oaky bite to be found, my friends.

Here's the truth: this was a really good exercise for me. It was painful at times, and I have way (WAY) more hours in these pieces and the entry process than I can ever hope to recoup, even if I'm fortunate enough to sell one or more of these pieces. But it forced me to do several important things:

• I was working against a rock-solid submission deadline. Deadlines are a good thing for me.
• I had to think hard about what I was creating and how it fit into a pre-determined theme.
• I had to figure out why I was creating these pieces and why they spoke to me and then figure out a way to describe that in a way other people could relate to.
• I had to problem-solve a new type of construction (to me) without ever having learned it from someone else. I really like problem-solving.

So in spite of the fact that I felt hugely self-conscious and inadequate in making and describing these pieces, I'm grateful for having forced myself through the process. I have no idea if this makes them "art" or not, or makes them any more "art" than the work I normally do, but I can tell you that these pieces have greater meaning to me.

It doesn't hurt that I found out yesterday three of the four were accepted into the show!

::happy dance::

So are you pushing yourself to work outside your comfort zone? If you're not, identify some places where you can push the envelope a little - you never know what might come of it! 

Until next time -

The Brain Dump System

Today I'm going to introduce you to my simple plan to keep from going insane. I have dubbed it the Brain Dump System.

Between prepping for Bead Fest Philly, transporting two very intense and driven kids around to their various things, (one wants to single handedly improve and increase mass transit and got himself an internship with the city bus service without any parental assistance. The other wants to be an actress/dancer on Broadway and has play rehearsals, drama camp, dance class, and is in a film currently shooting locally), two houses to care for, bills to pay, pets to feed and care for, summer parties to host, etc etc etc.

 

 I have a system for keeping track of our daily agendas involving Google calendar and a weekly chalkboard calendar (photo is from May 2011)

These two things working together help make sure I always know where and when. However, it's the "to do's" that were killing me. I was trying to remember them. And doing them on my phone just didn't work well for me...

Last weekend I was at the store and ran across a 4 pack of cute journal sized notebooks clearanced for $4. That was when the idea was born....I bought a pack of the notebooks.

They were located right next to the scrapbooking aisle. So I picked up a few inexpensive things that would make the book functional AND cute. I am pretty sure they all came from the "Smashbook" line.

First I added the blank sticker and titled it Brain Dump. Then randomly glued some "fortunes" from one of the scrapbooking things I picked up.

 

I also picked up some red and white striped paperclips that came with little adhesive flags and labeled them for my needs.

Here's a close-up of one of the tags. How you label your tags depends on your needs. But I have so many to do lists under separate categories, that 3 of them are specific to business, house, and lake house in addition to other categories: to make, to buy, party planning (yes, I do a lot of that), and Remember This (for misc stuff). I have a couple leftover paperclips I can use if needed.  

 

As soon as I started "dumping" all my to do's onto the page rather than trying to keep them filed in my brain, I already started feeling less stressed. I even have a list of specific beads to make for Bead Fest.

I also found these super cute sticky notes/page markers that are stickers. Super convenient to just stick one set to the inside cover of the journal to use when I'm "on the road".

 

 Lastly, I wanted to make sure I always have a pen with me to write with. After all, what good is a brain dump system if you can't write in it? I bought some of these journal bandoliers a while back as gifts. I forgot to give them (oops) and took one to use for myself.

Hope this inspires you to create a system that works for you!

-Jen Cameron

Glass Addictions

Jewelry Show Preparation & A Giveaway

OK, I know you want to hear about the giveaway, but be patient.  The giveaway information is at the end of the post.

Show Prep

I live near a finger of land that juts out into the most southern part of Puget Sound, in Washington State, USA.  The area is called Boston Harbor, (for some unfathomable reason), and this weekend Boston Harbor is hosting its semi-annual garden tour and artisan show.  I will have a booth in one of the gardens there, along with a nice group of other local artists.  Keep your fingers crossed for pleasant weather!

Boston Harbor

I don't actually live on the water or even right in the little community of Boston Harbor, but water is never far away here.  Our home is tucked away in the woods and today you will find me there trying to get prepped for Sunday's show.

This afternoon I was checking through my jewelry and making sure that it had all been entered in my inventory spreadsheet, prior to the show.  I know that some of you have purchased programs that track inventory, supplies etc.  I just simply assign each piece an inventory number and then I add it to a simple spreadsheet.  For example, this bracelet is #1305.  That means it was the 5th item I made in 2013.  

AJE CoM bracelet, with focal bead by Starry Road.

My spreadsheet has columns for the type (earring, bracelet or necklace), the inventory number, the title of the piece (this piece is titled the "Blue Leaf Bracelet"), the main components it is made of, length, cost, & retail price. I have a second tab on the spreadsheet for sold items.  When I get back from the show, I'll "cut" the items that sold and "paste" them into the sold spreadsheet.  On the sold spreadsheet I also keep track of the venue from which they were sold, the date sold and the person to whom I sold it, if known.

After I entered everything into my inventory spreadsheet this afternoon, I then, sorted all the jewelry according to if I have a picture of it or not.  Even if something sells without ever being seen online, I still like to have at least one picture of it, for my records.  Most of my jewelry had been photographed, but not all.  So a photo shoot is the next order of business.

Matching earrings and necklace with copper components by
Kristi Bowman  Design.

If I were super organized (which is a joke for the likes of me) all my jewelry would already have earring cards or tags on them with the components listed and the price. However, this is another task that is only partially complete.  Tomorrow I'll finish adding tags, earring cards and prices to everything.  Its a tedious job and it will necessitate caffeine and loud, upbeat music.

Somehow, I'm never really satisfied with my tags.  But here are the cards I designed a couple of years ago, that I am still using.  Inside I write the title of the piece, the length, main components used, price and inventory number.  When I use these tags up, I think I will get some Moo Card Minis to use as price tags.

The "Lighthearted Necklace" and a few others still need tags added.

Heart Pendant by Suburban Girl.

My earring cards are just business cards that I designed in a portrait format.  I stick plastic earring adapters on the back and add the price and inventory number.  Here are some of my earrings from a show I did earlier this spring.   

The earrings below, plus about 5 other pairs still need earring cards after which I'm all done.  Then its "On with the show!"

AJE Giveaway!

Unfortunately not many people linked up for our last AJE Earring Reveal.  Our next reveal is this Sunday and  I'm writing the reveal post. I want to be able to choose the featured designs from lots of earrings! As an incentive our AJE team has gathered up all these goodies to giveaway to one lucky participant.  I rummaged through my newly organized bead stash and came up with bunches of art beads, as well as some gemstones, polymer clay, resin and glass beads.

Plus, Kristi is adding a pair of her awesome copper metal clay charms.

The giveaway charms will be these or something similar.

And Francesca will be adding a pair of her handmade argentium earwires!

One, randomly chosen earring designer will win all of the above items. All you have to do is add the link to your earring reveal, using the Linky Tool on the AJE blog.  I will post the Linky Tool sometime on Saturday evening (PST). To be entered to win, you must link up no later than Sunday at 5:00 p.m. PST. So get your photos up on Pinterest, dust off your blog (if you have one) and add your earrings there too! Good luck!

Linda

Linda Landig Jewelry - ArtFire 

Linda Landig Jewelry - Etsy