Local Featured Seller: Love, Ellie

Who are you? my name is ellie jacques-capon and my shop is love, ellie.

Where are you located? durham, nc

What do you create? i create jewelry, knitted and crocheted goodies, needle felties and paper arts/watercolors. my stuff has an organic vibe to it

aqua element earrings

 What is your favorite place to visit in the "triangle?"  wow, hard question. i like so many places (that's why i live here, right?) one of my favorites is the american tobacco district down by the ballpark in durham. i love grabbing a cold drink and sitting by one of the inventive waterfalls (you must see the train waterfall) and take endless photos of the moving water, write, sketch or paint. it always feels so good to me. shopping for supplies...i head to ornamentea in raleigh for jewelry ingredients, yarns etc in chapel hill for yarn and fiber yumminess and jerry's art-a-arama in raleigh for endless art supplies at great prices.

When did you start creating?  shortly after i developed fine motor skills!

Why did you choose your medium? i haven't chosen, really. i love to do so many things and while i really admire people who can specialize, i just can't. i dig cold metal and warm fibers, love the soft colors of gemstones and the knock you off your feet vibrancy of koi watercolors or fabulous batik fabrics. so while i would love to have A medium, i have a coven of muses instead.

tribal agate and leather earrings

 What inspires you? color, nature, moments, other artists, texture, magazines, print ads, artist interaction and love.

Where do you create? i have a fabulous studio that was once our second bedroom. someday, when it is straightened enough for a little photo session, i will share it with everyone here. but everything i do is really portable because i like to create wherever i go. i was recently away for a week and had one overnight bag for clothes and three bags for art supplies.

Why did you choose your shop/company name? i really love creating, like crazy mad love it, so having 'love, ellie' as my business and shop name is completely perfect. everything i do, i do because i love working with the materials and knowing that someone will adopt the piece and love it too. makes my little crafter's heart sing.

brown and white agate and leather bracelet

What are your goals? it was several years ago that i decided to become a creativity coach (did i mention that? hm) and to not only send my little creations into the world but to let money come back to me in exchange. i have treated this more like a part time business than a full out, full time business since then and it is time now to sprout some wings and take off. i have laid the ground work to create this vision i have of a coaching/creativity mega that encourages women, whether they are entrepreneurs, artists, coaches or just fabulous, to dream their most vivid dreams and then help make them make those dreams into their glowing gorgeous reality. personally, i am totally in favor of becoming rich, traveling the world, biking northern italy and acquiring supplies from all over the globe.

What do you do when you are not creating? help others create, play with my dogs, enjoy life, sleep.

Love 'love, ellie'?  Don't forget to find her on facebook and read Ellie's blog!

NCTriangle Members who'd like to be featured, please contact ShoreDebris.

Local Featured Seller: Kelley Road

Who are you? My name is Wendy York and my Etsy shop is Kelley Road.

Where are you located? I live east of Raleigh in Wendell, NC.

What do you create? I am all over the place! I teach art at a local elementary school during the day so I find myself doing chalk, painting, and pottery at least every week and I love it! For my Etsy shop, I create fabric flowers out of satin and cotton, wire wrapped jewelry, and fabric purses. I put my fabric flowers on everything I make from hair clips to jewelry and purses. I am also currently working on some fabric batiks for my shop. My hands are dyed a little blue as we speak!

What is your favorite place to visit in the "triangle"? There are so many great places in the triangle. I love, love, love to go to the state farmer’s market in Raleigh during the summer. It is sweltering hot most of the time but I love seeing all of the colorful, fresh produce and the gorgeous flowers the farmer’s bring. The best part is taking some of it home! I also love Meredith’s campus in the Spring. Meredith is my alma mater, so I am a bit partial. The amphitheater is breathtakingly beautiful when the azaleas are in full bloom. A favorite shop that I wish I could go to more often is Ornamentea. That store is pure bead, ephemera, paper heaven! I have two young children so I don’t get to go as often as I would like, but when I get a chance to sneak away, Ornamentea is one of my favorites!

When did you start creating? I have been making things as long as I can remember. I had absolutely fabulous art teachers all throughout my school years that really nurtured my creative abilities and inspired me. They are the reason I am an art teacher today. Beads and fabric have been a consistent material I have used since I was a child. I still have my bead box that I toted around with me since age 10. About a year ago, I revisited sewing. I got my first sewing machine when I was 13 and I piddled around with it from time to time until right before Christmas last year. I discovered a love that I had gotten lost in my art teacher/mom/kind of hectic life. I have been sewing and creating with fabric just about every day since!
What is your most cherished handmade item? My two most cherished items were things I made for my grandparents. My grandad drank coffee every day out of a coffee mug I made for him in my college pottery class. When he passed, my mom saved the mug for me and I have it on a shelf beside a photo of the two of us. I miss him everyday. When I was a teen, I made my grandma a really cheesy underwater themed sweatshirt. It was pink, no less, and I painted the scene on with neon fabric paints. She loved it and wore it with pride. I still have that sweatshirt and it resides in my hope chest in its full glory.

What inspires you? Natural beauty inspires me. I am constantly in awe of the beauty of nature that surrounds us. In my artwork, I try to recreate that natural beauty. Flowers are my favorite source of natural inspiration. I also love sharing and receiving ideas with other artists and crafts people.

Where do you create? I have completely taken over our office/guest bedroom. I have an old sewing desk that I got on Craig’s list and I love it. It was a really ugly brown and I repainted it white and stenciled a damask pattern on the top and sides. It’s my favorite creative spot to be now. I also have a “tower” of bead boxes in the office.
Why did you choose your shop name? I grew up in Falmouth, VA on the street, Kelley Road. My large extended family lives on this road to this day. My cousin and I spent our summers at our aunt’s house on Kelley Road creating paper lanterns and making doll houses out of cardboard boxes. My family has been so supportive of me over the years, I wanted to honor my roots and name my shop after the very place where it all started. It is a special place where I was nurtured and allowed to blossom. My own kids spend part of their summers on Kelley Road now.

Be sure to swing by Kelley Road on etsy, we're sure you'd love to add her beautiful items to your favorites!

NCTriangle Team members who would like to be featured, please contact ShoreDebris.

Local Featured Seller: Amy Jo Art and Jewelry

Who are you? Amy Jo Art and Jewelry

Where are you located? Durham, NC

What do you create? Custom paintings and handmade jewelry of all kinds.

What is your favorite place to visit in the "triangle?" I love Ornamentea. They have wonderful classes and great technique projects available. The staff is helpful and friendly. I also love to go to Marbles Museum. I have three kids and they love it there!
When did you start creating? Since as long as I can remember. I've been painting and making jewelry most of my life.

What is your most cherished handmade item? A pair of earrings my daughter made for me when she was 8 years old. They are silver plated with dangly glass pearls.

Why did you choose your medium? The body is a work of art. I love to make jewelry that will compliment the body and to help the wearer express themselves with more art. I chose to paint because I love it. I like to incorporate symbolism and hide small features in my paintings that only myself and the buyer know about. I love to paint trees. Trees are special in many ways.

What inspires you? I get inspired by nature. As I said before, I love trees. Flowers and insects are beautiful, too. I love color and style and organic shapes.

Where do you create? My "studio" is currently my dining room table. I hope someday to be able to use a spare bedroom in my house so that I can dedicate a space and not worry about having to clean up for guests!

Why did you choose your shop name? Well, it's my name and what I sell. I'm not a very creative writer. I suppose I could have come up with something a bit more original and expressive, but I was lazy and this was the best I could come up with at the time. :)

What are your goals? Personally, my goals are to raise my children to be creative people. All three of them are creative in their own ways. Professionally, I'd love to be able to paint and make jewelry full-time. Unfortunately, right now I work part time to pay the bills and make my jewelry in my free time.
What do you do when you are not creating? I love to play with my kids. I also love to be lazy and vegetate on the sofa with a good book. I should be ashamed to admit that, but I'm not. I hate cleaning.

So once you've perused the beautiful creations available at Amy Jo Art and Jewelry, don't forget to stop by her facebook page.

NCTriangle Team members who would like to be featured on the blog, please contact shoredebris.

How to set up a booth for a craft show

OldBroomStreet came across a wonderful blog post by Cynthia Deis of Ornamentea, How to set up a booth for a craft show. We got her permission to share it with you.... enjoy!



How to set up a booth for a craft show

We had the Designer's Downtown Market here at Ornamentea this last weekend. It was fun, the weather was a bit cold to begin with but warmed up nicely. I enjoyed seeing everyone and bought some lovely gifts for family and friends including a scarf from Flamboyant Scarves that I wish I was keeping.

During this craft show season I get so many requests from customers for tips on setting up their booth at a craft show. While I do teach a class at Ornamentea called Crafting For Money that class doesn't go into great depth about booth set up. We just don't have time with all the other business details we have to talk about. With that in mind, here are my tips for making your booth work.

1. Bring enough product. There are two reasons to bring enough product. One reason is that a full booth looks more interesting to browsers and makes them want to see what you have. An empty booth looks picked-over or amateur or worse. You can fill up a booth just a bit with more props or signage, but product is what sells.

The second reason to bring enough product is economic-you want the show to be worth your time. How can you know if you have enough product to do a show? Think about it from a percentage standpoint. You will have a good show if you have a 30% sell through, a great show if you have a 40% sell through and a fantastic show if you have a 50% sell through. Anything over that is in the once-in-a-lifetime realm*. Keeping that in mind, look at the amount of product you are bringing and do the math. If you feel that the show will be worth your time if you sell $1000 worth of merchandise but you only bring $1500 worth than you are anticipating not just a fantastic show but a once-in-a-lifetime, quit-your-day job kind of show. Artists who do shows on a regular basis know that you need a full booth with lots of selection so you can make sales.

2. Create a line. Look at what you are selling. Do all the items look like they were made by the same person or do they look like the contents of fifteen different artist's studios? Yes, you need to experiment but not every experiment should make the show. Too many different crafts in too many different colors and shapes and sizes is just confusing. If shoppers can't decide if they want to come into your booth or just lie down with a towel over their eyes they will keep walking.

If you do create more than one grouping of work than keep them separated. Put your quilted pillows together on one table and your resin belt-buckles on another.

3. Define your space. If you are showing outside, get a tent. Inside or outside, get table coverings and use simple, repetitive props. Make sure folks know where your display ends and the other displays begin. I like rugs or other floor coverings if the show allows them and one of the simplest ideas I have ever seen was to use checkerboard squares of Contact paper on a concrete floor in an indoor show. The floor was eye-catching & cheap and at the end of the show the squares were peeled up and tossed out.

About props- I am a big fan of using props in a single color scheme and even a single shape if possible. Mixed up tables with cuff-links in a vintage pie plate, a crystal bowl of earrings and two different department-store looking necklace bars make me crazy. I get so distracted by the props I can barely concentrate on the artwork. Repeat shapes and colors and edit, edit, edit.

4. Communicate with your customers. Of course, you should talk to your customers (duh!) but you should also use signs to communicate with them. Do you take custom orders? Have free gift wrap? Ship? Have a website or etsy site? Do you teach classes or are you featured in a book? Make signs and put them in your booth. Print your signs out on a computer, use a large legible font and use all the same colored paper. Signs are props!

Do you have any booth display ideas you'd like to share? Post a comment here or email me...I'd love to pass them on.

*If you have had one or more of these 'once in a lifetime' shows than you, my friend, need to post some tips at the end of this column! Come on, share!