Um… yikes!!! In just 28 days I’ll be standing in my booth at the One of a Kind welcoming you to my world. And in just 12 days I’ll be in my booth at Circle Craft in Vancouver. 12 DAYS!!!! Right now that world is piled all over a couple of tables and the floor. There’s boxes of packaging arriving that I have no room for. There are boxes of boxes, shiny bright teal boxes that soon will contain lovely jewelry. And there are lists upon lists upon lists of stuff still to do.

So let’s have a quick recap on what happened over the past 2 weeks. Here’s what I was  supposed to do and what I actually did.

Booth display
For Vancouver. I found last years checklist, good thing I am excellent at keeping notes. I’m going with the same display so it’s fairly easy. I am constrained by the fact that I have to build the booth out there and bring everything else, like curtains, packaging and product on the plane with me. Shipping is prohibitively expensive and I am so fortunate that my product is small. I have a list of pieces that I get cut at Home Depot. I am bringing my trusty cordless screwdriver. Add in a can of lime pop paint, some blue curtains and Bam! Booth. It’s a good thing I’m handy with power tools. I do want new photos, these will also be used in Toronto. On the list for this week is to decide on which photos for the booth.

Display for Toronto. I’m going with hard walls like I had last year. I really liked the look of these. The debate is whether to rent them again (yikes it’s expensive!) or build them. Building them is a bit of a pain because I have to rent a van to move them as they won’t fit in my car. And after the show I have to store them somewhere. And next year I think I want a different size booth. So I’m going with renting them. Again, I have last years notes so nothing too hard with the actual structure.

I have worked out a display for my long necklaces, that’s the good part. Here’s the bad part. My usual source for acrylic displays tells me they no longer do what I want done. Crap. So I’m trying to source out having these displays made. Within the next week before I leave for Vancouver.

New booth sign. Not done. Designed yes, sourced out and ordered, no.

New silver charm. Working on it. My original idea turned out to be less than functional. Great in my mind, not so much in the prototype. I still have high hopes this will be ready by the show. It’s going to be awesome just you wait.

New booth photos. Well this gets interesting. The photos I use are a mix of jewelry and inspirational, where the jewelry comes from. Those are easy in that I know the photos I want to use. Except that I have a ridiculous amount of photos and they aren’t really well organized. I’m searching for a specific boat at sunset photos. I have over 5,000 photos. Talk about a needle in a haystack. Argh.
The jewelry photos have become a bit more of a problem. The photos are of the work on display. This means that I actually wrote down what I’m exhibiting and guess what, I have too much work. The variety of work is bigger than my booth space. Now I know that I don’t have to put all my work out but it’s really hard not to because I love it all. So I’m trying to curate a really good selection that shows the best of the best. Vancouver is even harder because my booth is smaller. Cramming in too much just leads to overwhelm. Once I have laid out exactly what I’m showing then I can take some photos. So on my list for this week is that task, layout all the work, take some photos and have them printed in large format.

Social media. OK, I’ve been not bad with this. I’m managing to do a daily photo which I really like doing. Ideally I would have a bank of photos so that I can schedule them instead of doing this daily. Put that on the to do list.

Production. Torch torch and more torching. Then bead cleaning and assembling. Lots done. What I’m working on now is mass producing best selling items. Like my XL Ocean pendant. I know it sells well, the question is how many do I need to make? This year I’m introducing this size on a new heavy silver chain and also making it in 5 new colours, (why make my life simple?).

One small glitch is with my competition piece for the One of a Kind show. The theme is silver and gold and I know exactly what I want to make. Except that it is technically near impossible. Still working on that. The real glitch is that I am out of gold leaf. Leaf comes in small sheets in tiny books. I have a book of gold leaf that has been sitting here for years. Unfortunately I didn’t check to see how much was in it, only 1 sheet out of 25 left. So… I can’t find a supplier in Toronto that has any. I have ordered some but it is in the mail. This may not arrive in time for me to make this before Vancouver. Good thing I have a week in between the shows.

It’s been a busy 2 weeks. Next week will be the stupid busy week. Here’s what I need to get done:

Vancouver show packed by Nov 6. All jewelry cleaned tagged and bagged and in my carry on. Yes, I bring my entire inventory in my carry on luggage on the plane. All the display items packed in my suitcase.
Long display busts designed in a CAD program and sent to somewhere unknown to be produced.
Booth sign ordered.
New photos shot and printed.
Production. Make more more more more and then some more.

26 days Toronto people. 12 days Vancouver people.

NOOOO!!! How did this happen? I missed last weeks diary update and I blinked and it’s 16 days since the last diary update. And it brings us to 42 days until the OOAK! Even scarier, it is now 27 days until Vancouver Circle Craft! In exactly 4 weeks today I will be standing in my booth in Vancouver saying Merry Christmas! Seriously????

So where did this last 16 days go? What have I accomplished and what needs to be done this week?

Well, I admit it, I slacked off. Last week was my birthday and while I don’t make a really big deal about it (unless it’s a trip year and a special occasion) this year there was some down time for it. There was cake, there was wine, there was patio time because it is still so darn nice outside it feels like a crime to be indoors.

It was also a busy busy online sales time as I ran my annual birthday sale. (This is for my Awesome Amigos on my mailing list only. Not on the list? Sign up on the side and be in the know for the next private sale). So pretty much anything I made for the past 2 weeks is already sold and out the door.  Packing all this up took 2 days.

Checked off the list:

• an inventory of all packaging and a list of how much I need to order and when. Order dates are on the calendar
• exhibitor kits for both shows read and deadlines on the calendar. These are boring deadlines for stuff like electrical and parking. Yes, we pay for the hydro for our booths.
• travel details done for Vancouver. Flights, check. Airbnb, check. Car rented for one day, check.
  reading over last years booth notes and checklists. As I’m using the same booth size and configuration in both shows this year as last year it’s much easier. And I was really good at keeping notes! Yay me!
• a couple of long torch sessions for building stock on standard items. Still fun but not as fun when you sit down and think, hm, I need to make 100 of these small snow queen beads.

• a list of the beads still need to be made for standard items. Again, it’s production work, making a lot of the most popular items.

So what on the list for the upcoming week?

• thinking about the booth. I need to find a good way to display long necklaces. I’m making and selling more and more of these, how do I show them?
• design and order a new booth sign. Preferably one that I can roll up and take with me out west.
• booth photos. i want new ones. these are a mix of inspirational photos and jewelry. i need 16. this week i need to think about what photos i want on the wall. what am i showcasing this year?
• there is a silver charm that I really want to make. It’s been in my sketchbook for 2 years now. I want this done for the show. It’s become my motto, it needs to happen. I’m playing with how to do this. I need the lead time to make a couple of prototypes and test them out.
• social media. Not only do i have a boatload of jewelry to make, I also have to let everyone in the world know what’s happening in my world. I’ve been pretty good about doing a daily photo on Instagram and also on Facebook. Time to step up the game. Continuing on, at least one photo a day sharing the prep for the show.

The tough call is deciding what is going to be popular this year. No matter what as makers we can’t predict what customers want. Some years it’s a certain colour, some years it’s small work, some years it’s big and showy. When I come up with something new I always put in online and ask for opinions. I have also learned that what sells online and what sells in person is totally different. So for now I will just make as much as I can.

The super nice weather meant that this weeks show prep was more of the online stuff and less of the actual making stuff. Since I’d done a major inventory of my supplies there was some ordering to be done, fortunately I could do that from a patio! Oh the joy of a laptop and wifi! I ran into a few issues with getting some of the special glass I want, no one in Canada has any. I located some in Oregon, and some of the other in Arizona, neither of which will not ship to Canada. So the glass is being shipped to Buffalo and I’ll be taking a road trip in the near future. Yay road trip!

Also on my fun list from this week was a trip to the Chihuly exhibit at the ROM. Oh swoon. Seriously I could have spend the whole day there. The best part was the installation of the Persian ceiling, they placed bean bag mattresses on the floor so you can lie there and stare up into the colour. Talk about inspiration! It sent me straight to my sketchbooks. One of my favourites was the red reeds on birch trees, the combination of candy red and the silver birch…. And another favourite was a section of giant white pods with grey reeds on the black floor. Not colours I normally work with much but these are ticking away in my brain. I’ve pulled all my grey glass out and I’m staring at it, waiting for it to speak.

I did squeak in a little torch time to play with something new which I’m really happy with. This is definitely going in the fall line up. Now I need a name, Midnight Sahara? Tempest? Saturn Skies? All suggestions from the post on Facebook. We’ll see. First I have to make sure I can reproduce this!

The One of a Kind show also announced this years competition. Every year I have great intentions of entering a piece into the competition, I usually forget until the last minute and then don’t have time. Not this year! The theme is Silver and Gold and I know exactly what I want to make. The challenge is that what i want to make is technically very difficult/impossible but that isn’t going to stop me. Just you wait to see this, it’s going to be spectacular.

It feels like not much got done this week. I’ve set up a series of boxes for organizing inventory, they didn’t fill up much. That’s okay, I still have 58 days to go.

Guess what arrived in my inbox this week? An email i was too afraid to open for a few days. Because I knew, I knew without a doubt that opening that email was opening a pandoras box of busyness that right now in the sunny humid lazy dog days of august I just couldn’t deal with.
What was it you ask? What few words could strike such dread in one who prides herself on dealing with the busy of life?

My “Welcome artisan! to the Christmas one of a kind show” email.

CHRISTMAS one of a kind show. The countdown is on my friends. Yes I opened it today because it is the last day of August. I was thinking I’d open it when the heatwave had broken however the heat shows no signs of abating. I thought I’d open it after Labour Day because no matter how long it has been since I was in school the day after Labour Day has such a feeling of hope and new beginnings. I thought I’d open it when my summer brain woke up and it felt like time to get going again.

And today my summer brain woke up screaming at me that NOW is the time to get going. After all there are only 121 more days in 2016 and I have stuff to do.

While there are 121 days left in 2016 my backwards calendar tells me that there are 84 days until the 2016 Christmas One of a Kind show. That’s plenty of time if I get moving now. It’s really hard to think about Christmas when I’m sitting in a tank top on a patio with a frosty beverage however waiting until the last minute means too many late nights, stress, and promises that I won’t do this next year. That last bit about the promises? Yeah, that’s on a post it note on my desk dated November 20 2015.

The Christmas One of a Kind show is an 11 day arts and craft show that this year takes place November 24 – December 4, 2016. There are (I think) 800 artisans from across Canada and it is a really big deal for all of us. This is what we work towards every year.  It is where I present all my ideas in glass and jewelry. It is a chance to hang out with fabulously talented makers who inspire me. And of course, it is a significant portion of my annual income.

With such a large undertaking there are a million details that need to be worked out. My participation is so much more than just making some jewelry and showing up. There is my display to be thought about, packaging to be ordered, photos to be taken and printed. How many business cards do I need? Postcards? How am I hanging my new long necklaces? What about those Bubble necklaces? Tricky little devils to show properly. And I want a new front sales counter.

And of course, the jewelry. Hm. What colours do you want this year? What can I make that is new for all my collectors who already have everything? How many earrings should I make? Is it a bracelet year or a necklace year? Small or big necklaces?

Oh the details!!!! Right now I am in full on panic because those pesky details are swirling around in my brain in a total mess. I need to tame them into lists to make sure none of them go astray. Kind of like herding cats.

There are 12 weeks before I stand in my booth welcoming all of you to see my work. To make sure I stay on track once a week I’m going to sit down and write about what I’m up to, what needs to be done, what I’m working on. The timeline for my show. Join me weekly to see just what goes into that lovely booth full of pretty shiny things you can visit on November 24.

 Last year this had a lovely bandstand on it. There were avenues of trees along the paths providing shade. My booth was here. 

The new location was a few blocks away in the school yard. To support the town I ate at the Shriners fish fry (totally yummy), picked up a bunch of books at the book sale and did my fair share of cupcakes. How fantastic is it when cupcakes show up in your booth while you sit in the sun and chat with friends? It was a weekend where I spent every minute thinking how much I love my job. 

it starts to look like a booth

ta da! Booth!