Let's Celebrate!!! Sailor Studio is still here :)

I can't believe we are already celebrating our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY at Sailor Studio!!

October 8th was the official grand opening of the gallery and studio... and I am amazed by everything that we have done in just a year.

As far as the jewelry is concerned, I am proud of how much we have grown with our designs. We started out basically just doing the "Iris" collection... and we thought they were AWESOME!!

Now our designs are not so much experiments and accidents, but purposefully using the enamel colors and techniques that compliment and appeal to women. 

One of my favorites from this year is our "Fallen" necklaces. I really wanted to make a design that you could wear long or short, and I adore the shape and transparent colors.

Some of our biggest accomplishments over the past year are:

1. Mom being picked to be an artist in the ART Incubator program.

2. Being accepted into several "hard to get into" art and crafts shows like the Yellow Daisy and Marist Holiday Traditions.

3. Pulling off two successful Fashion Events within Center Town Gallery.

4.  Building up a client base of repeat customers :)

5. Being featured in several newspaper articles... Ex. The Patch,  Artist at Work

6. Having Sailor Studio jewelry carried at SPARKLE! in Lawrenceville... and already having to restock twice since July because items are selling quickly. Soooo excited to be well received there and the sparkle girls are all just amazing people! :) 

7. Creating two websites from scratch, a blog, QR code, Twitter, Etsy, and Facebook page...(now if there was only time to keep up with all of them).

8. Staying in business for a year! :)

We have a lot of great ideas for the upcoming year and I know there is never enough time to do everything we want to do, but we are so thankful for every opportunity and for every customer!

Big Goals for Year 2:

1. Apply for the Dogwood Festival and the Duluth Festival.

2. Participate in trade shows and open more wholesale accounts for the jewelry.

3. Focus more energy on online marketing and sales.

4. Finish our official business plan (almost there!!) 

To all our customers, and anyone who has given us kind words of encouragement, prayer, referrals, ideas, help, time, and love over the past year... 

We thank you from the bottom of 
our hearts :)  

We love you all!! 

~Lily
__________________________________________________

Now head over to our FACEBOOK page to enter our Anniversary Giveaway! :)

FF: Saying Good-bye to Etsy??

I haven't been much of an artist this week, as I have been spending the majority of my time researching new resources for a website for Sailor Studio.

Right now, our site is through WIX.com which is a great, user-friendly site.

It is perfect for artists and photography websites because it uses Flash. It is free (with ads), and very reasonable pricing without. It is more expensive if you want Ecommerce (online shopping) capabilities.

Because we want to move towards a boutique/gift shop feel and have an online store, we are looking for something more geared towards small businesses. 

I have found two sites that look very promising!

Shoppe Pro and Create a Shoppe Plus.

They are reasonably priced and have similar features:

Shoppe Pro:

15.00 set up fee and around $10 a month hosting

-offers shopping cart, unlimited products, descriptions, and pages, upload your own graphics,offers pre-made pages like contact, calender, wholesale (password protected), FAQs, etc.

*Shoppe Pro offers nicer pre-made templates and easy tutorials for a DIY template design.

CreateaShoppe:

80.00 set up fee and around $10 a month hosting

offers shopping cart, unlimited products, descriptions, pages, upload your own graphics, offers pre-made pages like contact, calender, wholesale (password protected), FAQs, etc.

*Offers several pre-made templates, but only one with graphics. They also offer a catalog option where you can print out your own paper catalogs from your store. I am very interested in this option (after finishing a ridiculously time-consuming spring catalog for sailor studio).

If anyone has experience with these website builders, or if you know of any other "store" builders that are good for new businesses, please share!!

Right now, we have an Etsy shop for our online selling (which we finally updated! :)

I think there are a lot of plus sides to it:

-online marketplace that thousands of people access every day.

-user-friendly, you don't have to know how to build a website or pay to have one built..

-great community atmosphere of crafters and artists

But there are a few down sides too:

-You can't customize your own store look other than a banner.

-You pay 3.5% of your sales plus 20 cents per listing

- Your customers have to make an Etsy account in order to buy from you.

- Everyone can see exactly what you have sold, and you are directly competing with a LOT of other talented people.

The biggest thing that is frustrating for us is that we have an actual store front that we sell from, as well as several shows a year that we sell to. So when we make a bunch of new pieces and get them photographed, edited, priced, and uploaded to Etsy... and then we have a good day at the studio, half of our inventory on Etsy has been sold and we have to deactivate the items and it is basically a waste of 20 cents each item... which can add up.

Now this is a good problem to have of course- we are happy to be selling! The obvious solution would be to make two sets of inventory and sell one set on Etsy and not display it in the store.

but hey, if someone is looking for something specific, we want to show them everything we have. :)

Plus, since we are really interested in getting our items into other shops and boutiques, it would great to have a wholesale catalog available on our website as well.

BTW, Facebook has really been our best resource for getting online customers. We usually end up messaging thru FB, and sending them an invoice through paypal so they don't have to hassle with going through Etsy.

Seriously, every online business should have a Facebook account! 

Great marketing tool!

So I will be glued to my computer for the next few weeks getting this new site up and running- It is a lot of work, but I know it will pay off when we finally get it the way we want it!  :)

Any thoughts, input? We are still new to all this so we are open to suggestions :)

BTW, I am working on a QR Code blog post. We went to a marketing workshop, and these things are so much fun. We just added them to our business cards! 

(just scan with your smart phone)

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!!

Giveaway Winner Announced!!

Sailor Studio has been busy busy busy at the shop... so busy in fact that our poor little blog has been neglected!! 

So here is a quick run-down of the happenings...

1. We applied to 3 big craft shows in Georgia: the Yellow Daisy Festival (HUGE!!) The Virginia-Highlands show, and the Apple Festival in Ellijay.

We actually got our applications in on time and we are just waiting to hear back- Excited!! We had to take pics of our new display to send in... it was a lot of work setting it up, but I think the pics turned out pretty nice.

2. We have been loving the warm spring weather at the shop and have created some fun spring-inspired creations!

3. Another big Art Stroll is happening this Saturday at the gallery- and it is the annual Blue Grass Festival in downtown Stone Mountain so we will be working like crazy for the rest of the week to get ready- hopefully it will be a fun day with lots of people coming to see us! =) 

4. We went to Local Three to get our "Flame" piece ready to be hang- can't wait to see where they put it!  Seriously, the food and atmosphere of this restaurant is a.ma.zing. If you live in the Atlanta area, you have to check it out!! 

5. And last but not least, we did not announce the winner of our last giveaway (I know, I know)

But, don't worry, we did not forget!

The winner is (thanks to random.org):

Mountain Mama

She also has a fabulous blog that you all should definitely check out  =) 

She is interested in the blue cross earrings, which are still available so we will get those sent out asap!

 

Thank you all for entering! 

We will be announcing a $25.00 giveaway on Facebook this afternoon, so head over and check it out :)

LOVE my job!

February is all about the LOVE right? 

 

So this post is dedicated to 

the top 5 reasons

the Sailor Studio gals LOVE 

their job:

5. Working with family (although sometimes stressful) sure beats working with people like this...

 

Not to say we aren't without our characters... but at least when my mom comes in looking like someone off that 70s show, I can make fun of her and not feel too bad about it... 

4. Enamel on Copper is a great art form for spastic people like us...  if we make earrings that don't turn out like we want....  we can take 'em back and change them into something totally different: 

 BEFORE                            AFTER

3. We can  bring our kids to work.... 

which sometimes leads to stuff like this happening in the common area....

But at least we save money on childcare ;)

2. If we get bored we can get up and spend an hour or so stretching and acting ridiculous... and capture it all in a goofyphotomontage:

 

 

.... and the number 1 reason we love our job:

the amazing support we have gotten from all our family and friends! We've just reached 300 fans on our Facebook page, and we got our first Etsy sale this week (pretty good for only having 9 items up so far :) 

Thanks y'all!! 

You guys rock! =)

Friday Fun: Video Post

We've had a great week so far at Sailor Studio!

Yesterday, Congressman Hank Johnson came by to check out the new art studios and see how the "art incubator" program was going... his whole entourage came with him (serious entourage)... 

 Photo op with the artists

                Two of his interns bought earrings from us, so Sailor Studio will be stylin up Washington, D.C.  =) 

New things we've been working on:

Enamel and fused glass soap dishes (with all natural handmade soap made by a few local ladies)

 More Expression Bracelets- two of which are heading to Ellijay this week :)

Mom made this Dove window for some newlyweds :)

And last but not least... a video, for those who would like a behind the scenes look at the Sailor Girls Shenanigans (I know you are just dying to watch)  

I apologize in advance for my editing skills... or lack thereof ... you might want to turn down the sound ;)