Gearing up for 2011

(Brooklyn, after the blizzard)

We hope everyone had a warm and tasty holiday season. Our apologies for the blogging absence. What began as an innocent brainstorming session for design ideas became a vortex that absorbed us for the better part November and December.

For sellers, tis the season for making lofty goals with visions to continue building a handmade business. We opened our shop in 2010, dipping our toes in the etsy pond and getting a little overwhelmed in a chaotically exciting way.But now it's time to step back and put a business hat on. It's a colorful hat that matches my fuzzy socks perfectly, but it's a business hat still.

When you're working for yourself, creating marketing plans, product lines and accounting systems is actually a pleasure. These actions carry weight. There's no clocking in and clocking out, collecting a paycheck and leaving work at the door. There is dreaming, learning, celebrating every little success and surprising ourselves. And a lot of hard work.

I always thought "entrepreneur" was a good word, but it needed something. "Creative Entrepreneur". That's more like.

What are your big and small plans for 2011?

Brooklyn tunnel, world's oldest subway?

One of the reasons I love living in New York City is that after 10 years here, I'm still discovering new places, and I don't mean new businesses, theaters, boutiques or bars. On Halloween, we had the opportunity to go below ground and tour what we learned is the world's oldest subway.

Built in 1840 and not rediscovered until 1981, the Brooklyn tunnel runs under Atlantic Avenue in downtown Brooklyn and originally ran all the way to the port. There's currently a wall in the tunnel awaiting excavation, but for now the tour covers half a mile. Over 700 Irish immigrants built the tunnel in 7 months using the same methods the Romans used.

The tunnel is an unimproved archeological site complete with ancient mountain dew cans from its rediscovery in '81.The next tour is on November 14th. You go to Atlantic Avenue and Court Street in Brooklyn and line up beneath the clock on the Trader Joe's building.

I recommend arriving early because the line gets pretty long. Don't over dress because it's dry and warm-ish down there (not unpleasantly so, but I was expecting cold and damp and was a bit uncomfortable in a big jacket and sweater). That also shows how well the Irish built the tunnel. Contrary to rumors that poisonous gases leaked into it, as well as sewage and rain water, the tunnel was bone dry.

Do bring a camera and a flashlight. If you must bring a book bag or purse, don't fill. You enter the tunnel through a manhole int he middle of a busy traffic intersection. Each person climbs down one at a time and carrying a big heavy bag on your back makes it difficult to climb down. Plus, you're down there for about an hour and a half and any unnecessary weight is bound to be annoying.

Here's a few photos from out adventures. If you're in town, check out the Brooklyn tunnel's website for tour dates as they don't occur every week

Chain ladder used in 1981 to climb from dirt tunnel into the actual subway tunnel (15 foot drop).

 

Tunnel wall with soot :

 

back wall to be excavated:

 Ceiling hole where steam from steam engines escaped. Walls were built up to prevent passersby from being burned by the steam.

 

Stairs down from dirt passageway to the subway tunnel:

 

View walking down from the above entryway into the tunnel.

 

The Caution sign before entering subway:

Inconspicuously lining up to climb down a manhole in the middle of traffic:

Working for Nasa

Not employed by, but technically working for Nasa. As in, making my design submission for the Etsy/Nasa Space Craft Contest. When not celebrating Halloween that is.

This weekend's agenda:
Catching up on Etsy's Holiday Bootcamp
Completing project space-rock
Tunnel Exploration
Midnight movie (deciding between Nightmare on Elm Street and Poltergeist)
Possible Steampunk Haunted House

What about you?

I did get to load two recent items to the shop. Can't explain why it takes me so long to load new products other than that I'm still figuring the process out. Here's our Dandelion wish flower and Wishing Woman (or girl). We're going to offer them as a set and individually.

Nasa Contest Deadline November 2!

If you missed this Etsy announcement as I did, you will probably be thrilled to learn that Etsy is partnering with Nasa for a 2010 Space Craft Contest.

The contest has 3 categories and won't close until November 2nd so there's still plenty of time to create something spacey. You could win a trip to outer space! Not really, but that would be awesome. I would stay up embroidering for days if that were even a possibility. But the prizes are rather awesome:

You could win a trip to an upcoming launch as NASA’s VIP guest, Etsy shopping sprees, and cool merchandise from NASA and Etsy. Your artwork might even be flown on the Space Shuttle!

 The prizes aren't the point, of course. The point is to make something for Nasa! Win or lose, you get to say "...and this is the piece I made for Nasa."

I have a list of design ideas 3 pages long, but this is too fun to pass up. I hope everybody enters something, the contest is open to 2-D or 3-D handmade work. You don't even have to have a shop to enter, just be a registered user and email your photo in.

What will you enter?

New Tool: Craftopolis

I just discovered Craftopolis courtesy of the Etsy forums. Looks like you load your shop url and it tracks the treasuries you're in, hearts you receive, traffic and effectiveness of keywords. Hallelujah!

I am officially obsessed with tracking the number of views our items receive. A healthy distraction would be writing product descriptions for 5 new items staring at me with sadness saying "Why did you make me if you don't want to share me?"

Moriah, 1/3 of Wake Up Lady, keeps threatening to share her fabulous memory boards with the world. Hopefully they'll make a debut next week.

Tomorrow is farmers market day in my neck of Brooklyn. We're sad the tomatilloes and okra are no longer. Meanwhile, a plague of squash is upon us. We buy it and don't cook it. We have acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, and 'golden mango squash' (I think the farmer made this name up). We've baked it, stewed it, curried it, souped it, made pretend pasta and butternut squash risotto, but still there is more.

On a bright note, muddy bland pear cider is excellent as a smoothie base. Here's a combo I love:
6 ice cubes, 2 handfuls frozen berries, 1 banana, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, 6 drops of lemon juice, about 1-2 cups of pear cider. Tasty and purple! Next time I'll take a picture before inhaling it.

Preparing for the NY Marathon

Not the running part, mind you. Running the NYC marathon is my goal, but it won't happen this year. What will happen is picture taking for motivation. If you've never watched a marathon, there are few events that at once make you feel lazy and awesome. Runners make running look easy. I like to stand at the 7 mile point, before they've come close to reaching the half-way mark, but far enough along that many have to dig deep to keep going.

If you're planning to run the NYC marathon this year let me know! Write your name on your shirt and I promise to cheer for you - while snapping your picture.

Show & Tell Friday

Meet Time Plays. The clock is running down a fabric mountain deliberately holding the umbrella away so he can feel the rain. There are a few happy accidents in this piece. The pink fabric on the umbrella was chosen for its vibrancy, but up close it also has two tones of bright and darker pink, which makes the umbrella look wet.

The stitching on the umbrella is super tight to prevent the fabric from unraveling, and it creates this wonderful tiny fringe that gives the piece more depth. The polka dot mountain fabric was hemmed before being stitched onto the embroidery. The hands of the clock read the time of my baby niece's birth.

We're open

The good news = one item up on our etsy shop is totally cause for celebration!

Our first item is one of the first pieces I embroidered after deciding to open an etsy shop with my sisters. It's called the flower peddler, and it's about a man who peddlers giant flowers in the rain. I feel happier everytime I look at this piece.

Soooo

So the one good thing about missing our launch date by a month is that I've wrapped my head around sales tax, shipping and all things photography. Of course, I'm fibbing on the last part. Taking good photos of items is hard. I was hoping I'd have a natural, undiscovered talent for some part of the process involved in opening shop. Every aspect is fascinating, but challenging.

On a mostly unrelatd note, I'm reading Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini and find myself loving it so far. Martini has the sense of humor and casual tone of a friend, but her insights about knitting make me itch to pick up my abandoned needles. The book is also full of references to books and crafty sites that I've bumped to the top of my reading list.

I wonder if every Etsy shop is so slow to get going. I read a good bit of advice yesterday on one of the featured seller posts where the seller mentioned that doing the best you can on everything from packaging to the product is important, but shouldn't hold you up from moving forward. (Couldn't find the exact quote)

After a month and a half of planning, I can't wait to load our first items. I'm aiming for tomorrow, hoping the light will be good for a final photo.

Cheers!

Introducing Wake Up Lady

Hi there. 

Wake Up Lady is in her infant stage. She is a few bins of fabric, thread, embroidery hoops, scissors, paint,wood and a sewing machine. She is more than supplies. She is happy times and hard work. In four days, Wake Up Lady will be a little Etsy shop. Maybe in a year, Wake Up Lady will be a busy busy workshop.

Thank you for coming by.