AlyxAndrea Design will be at the 2013 Fresh Air Craft Fair 
 

Date: May 11th 2013, 10am – 3pm Rain or Shine

Location: Elver Park, 1250 McKenna Boulevard, Madison, WI 53719

 

 

What is the Madison Parks Fresh Air Craft Fair?

Madison Parks is pleased to host the Fresh Air Craft Fair on May 11th, from 10am-3pm. Local artists and craft vendors will be showcasing and selling their original works including jewelry, pottery, paper goods, glass works, and other handmade items.

 

Activities

Kids: There will be plenty of activities for kids including spring themed kid’s crafts. The Wisconsin Kiter’s Club will be flying kites for demonstration, as well as hosting a kite making workshop, so kids can bring home their own kite creation. Also, Madison Parks hayrides will be available for $2 per person around Elver Park.

Food: Attendees will be able to purchase snacks from Curt’s Gourmet Popcorn and Jim’s Kettle Corn. The Santa Fe Food Cart will be serving burritos, tacos, and other southwest classics.
Music: Local folk/pop musician Adam Rostad will be performing from 12pm-3pm. This versatile artist creates original songs and unique covers in many different styles and genres. Don’t miss this up-and-coming artist!

Vendor List

• Jenny Blasen Pottery: Handmade stoneware pottery, coffee mugs, yarn bowls, ceramic plates, and soap dishes.
• Copper Heart Designs: Handmade jewelry created using a variety of metalsmithing techniques including etching, enameling, soldering and wirework.
• Makers Guild: Paper and Fiber Arts with a focus on eco crafts - felted crowns, whimsical up-cycled fiber critters, felted wool balls and blocks, pin cushions, journals and stationary
• Meredith Dillman: Watercolor fantasy art
• Danidorem: Handmade Eco-Friendly Jewelry
• JS Designs Studio: Custom children and infant clothing and accessories with comfort in mind
• Three Fates Design: Beaded art work
• Twisted Planet: Upcycled jewelry and crocheted stuffed animals
• Hazy Daze Glass: Unique handmade glass items
• One Thirty Jewelry: Handmade jewelry: Rough cut stones. Wood. Metalwork. Vintage chain. Organic. Asymmetrical. One of a kind.
• One Thirty Jewelry: Jewelry that combines metal techniques with traditional materials, including wood, semi-precious stones and vintage beads
• Shari Wittman: Paper creations including envelopes and note cards, as well as origami items
• Deirdre Adele Thompson: Beaded jewelry
• The Gourd Lady: Painted bird house gourds, butterfly houses, wood bird houses, and suet feeders, as well as solar garden art
• Mrs. Bow Wowz: Handmade dog treats
• Akarim African Enterprise: Hand woven baskets
• reVINYLized: Repurposed records created into fashionable jewelry, clocks, and other items.
• Randee’s Rock Gardens: Container gardens
• Aych: T-Shirt Design, Screen Printing, and Drawing
• N*Studio: Functional pottery/ceramics with a touch of color and whimsy. Textile goods, including handbags, quilts, and home accessories.
• ECE’s Candle’s: All-natural 100% Soy Candles
• Valora Vintage: Vintage rings and earrings, as well as hand blown glass ware
• Ashley Schultz: Handmade polymer clay sculpture and hand beaded glass/stone jewelry
• Selina De Haan: Beaded jewelry – Bracelets, earrings, and necklaces
• Bibi’s Arts: Handmade sterling silver, copper and brass jewelry
• AlyxAndrea Design: Beaded ribbon jewelry and accessories

Admission

Free

 

Parking

Parking will be available at Elver Park in parking lot adjacent to the Craft Fair as well as in the additional lot at Elver Park.

Custom piece

A friend of mine asked me to make a custom necklace for a good friend of hers.  Her friend who is 39 just found out that she has a 7cm tumor in her brain.  My friend wanted me to use her favorite color green and find a pendant that portrayed a sense of peace.  She expressed that there are few other sentiments for her friend from childhood who will soon be leaving her 2 young children.

I was worried that I would have a hard time but me friend was happy with it.  I wasn't able to take a quality picture of it but here it is.

I went to the craft store with no clue what I would get. I ended up going with a phoenix because it represents   rebirth or transformation.  I also feel all birds portray freedom and insight.

I've been in social services for over 10 years and it's a new concept for me to help people in this creative way.  Just like counseling someone in my office doesn't solve a problem creating a piece of jewelry doesn't either.  All we can ask for is that our words or actions may offer a little bit of comfort when life hands you a lousy hand.

I'd love to hear thoughts about this.  Thank you!!!


www.alyxandreadesign.webs.com

Ho Ho Ho

I took the last hideous necklace apart and made a new one. https://www.etsy.com/listing/117989629/steam-punk-watch-gears-pendant-bead-and  I'm calling it "Steam Punk" because of the watch gears but I'm not entirely sure if this will appeal to the steam punk crowd.  I'm still working on getting my titles and tags perfected to draw in the right customers.  Suggestions welcome (wink wink).

I'm also gearing up for the holidays by creating gifts for friends and family.  I'm working on a custom piece for a co-worker would like a gift for a friend who just found out she has a brain tumor.  I making necklaces for my nieces and ornaments for all the relatives,  

Just for fun I put an ornament up on Listia.  http://www.listia.com/auction/7296156-ribbon-and-bead-ornament  I'm giving this away for free so I can get Listia points to get free stuff for myself.  Genius idea!!  So if your not in the mood to purchase something bid on a free something :)

As for my last rant...I'm feeling a little better about work.  Homelessness still sucks and I don't know if I'll be able to listen to these terrible stories forever but I do feel like I'm making a difference.  Many of the ladies I work with are truly appreciative of my help and I'm glad I am able to do what little I can for them.  Even if the only thing I have to offer most days is a sympathetic ear.  I guess I'm not quite ready to move on yet.  If you too would like to help all you have to do is ring bells for The Salvation Army :)

Hello all...Below is a pic of my newest creation.  I really love this piece because of crazy cool glass filled seashell pendant.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/117295377/seashell-necklace-with-beads-and-ribbon


So that's that happy bit, now I need to grumble a little.  Having an Etsy shop is HARD WORK.  I'm barely getting any traffic and not a single sale yet. ( I hope the items have have at Edge Collectibles are doing better.)

I'm staying up way to late but instead of making jewelry I'm browsing through tutorials and forums on how to improve my shop.  I just spent 5 hours updating my listings and titles and I only have 25 items for sale.  At this rate, by the time I actually sell something I'll have made about 2 cents per hour.  Not that one sale will get me out of the hole.  I'm starting to think I just have a really expensive hobby.  You don't even want to see my accounting which of course took me several hours to set up too.  I'm in social services which roughly translates to no business sense and terrible at math.  All I really know how to do is help people.

Even just the process of taking the stinking pics is way too time consuming because I always have to edit them.  I can't take a good pic to save my life and the #1 advice all the forums give is have good pics.  Arg!!

OK, I'm done ranting....I feel better now.  Maybe I should get to sleep so I'm not completely exhausted...again :(

The Big Day

So it's been an extremely long day.  My amazing husband, Dale Mitchell, is a graphic designer and he stayed up all night creating these amazing tags for my jewelry.  It only took so long because I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted.

He designed this wonderful logo an came up with the tagline: "Every Design One of a Kind"

Then the entire fam spent all morning hand cutting the tags and attaching them to the jewelry.  We next took them to Edge Collectibles but the hooks weren't working right so we spent the next several hours going to nearly every store in Janesville to find something.  We finally came up with some cute ornament hooks that we bent to fit in the slots of our display.  The display is actually old slated closet doors.

I think it turned out really nice and I really appreciative of the help I received from my family.  I couldn't have done this without them.

 Of course you can still visit my online store at: alyxandreadesign.webs.com

Big day

Today is the day!!!  My husband was up all night designing a logo and the tags for the store and he is about to print them off so we can put them on the jewelry.  Then we're heading over to the store after 10am. !!

Experiment

So it took me about 3 hours to perfect this new design but I really like it.  This ribbon is more whimsical but I think a solid colored ribbon will be attractive to people that are looking for a more understated look than some of my other pieces.

Brick and mortar

So it's official...I will have a display to sell my jewelry at Edge Collectibles at 4 E. Fulton St. Edgerton WI.  I will start on 12/1.  I'm soooo excited.  I absolutely can not believe that something I made is going to be on sale at an actual store.

Here's a pic of the necklace I was wearing to make the sale.

I also brought in ornaments and other jewelry to show her.  She loved it and is excited to have my products in her store.  She even told me to raise my prices!

New Adventure

I'm embarking on an exciting new adventure and blogging seems to be the thing to do these days so here goes nothing.
About a month ago I made a necklace inspired by pic on Pintrest.  I put my own spin on what I saw and ended up with this 

I thought I had created other people might buy so I decided to look around for a way to sell my new creation.  I had heard of Etsy through my addiction to Pintrest so I started a shop.   Here's me: http://www.etsy.com/people/amitchell182  Now I have 25 products in my "shop."  I've also had over 130 views of my necklaces.  However, I have had zero sales except for a couple of co-workers.

I currently work full time in social services and consider myself a very patient person but when it comes to dumping money into a project that I'm hoping to make some extra money from I get a little nervous.  But, today I got some exciting news as well as did some scary math.

For the scary part first...I started using accounting software to track my expenses and hopefully income soon.  I have kept MOST of my receipts so I went to town adding $1.47 for ribbon here and $6.00 for a pendant there and found out I have invested a LOT of cash into this little adventure.  I really thought I had been keeping my spending to a minimum.  I used to have a part-time contract counseling job in addition to a full-time job but with the state's last round of budget cuts my contract was not renewed.  So, I've basically been living paycheck to paycheck and I can not to be throwing money around like this.  I know it takes money to make money but jiminy crickets this is scary.  So, I have been a tad bit anxious today which has caused me to pour my stress into making more jewelry :)

But like I said I've also had some exciting news today.  Due to an amazing husband who has been working hard to build up local contacts in order to expand his graphic design/visual comm. career he encouraged me to speak to a local store that is looking for local artists to rent display space.  So we made a trip to Edge Collectibles in the lovely tiny town I call home, Edgerton WI.  I spoke to the owner and have an appointment with her tomorrow to show her my jewelry and discuss the possibility of having it on display and for sale in an actual store.  From what I've gathered in my recent research this in practically unheard of especially for people who have no idea what they are doing.  So wish me luck!!!!!