Made a new dragon last night. I may or may not put up a sneak preview - depends on how soon I do the scales. I'm trying a new method putting these guys together. I'm doing everything but the scales and then baking the dragon so the body cures, and then I'll put the scales on with a bit of adhesive help from some liquid clay. The theory is it should be easier since I'll have a firm body to work with, and I won't accedentally squish the body out of shape while I'm applying the scales. Also, this way I can experiment more without fear of messing things up too much by mixing the clay if the scales don't come off clean. I can also fix cracks and "moonies" during the scaling step.

That said, I baked the dragon itself last night (it's so cute!). And lo and behold there's a thin crack running along its side. So I'll fix that with some clay and then do scales. I know what color they're going to be, just not what shape.

I've been thinking about ways to do the dragons in stages to better control their construction, and this method may work out.

Meanwhile, I've finished a matching chain for the Marble Ice pendant. I was adjusting the bail this morning, and it broke. But that's okay because the bail sucked anyway. The weave on it was horrible, and now I have a chance to make an all-new bail with a much better weave. I've improved by leaps and bounds since I did this pendant, and I'm glad I get to repair it. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure how yet, but I'm working on an idea which will incorporate a bit of chainmaille into the bail. Preview pictures of that will be forthcoming. Hopefully I can get it finished and on etsy this weekend. I really want more jewelry stuff on there.

Also going to organize the basement a little to get my supplies in order. With all the house stuff we had going on, the basement just sort of became a dumping ground. I've started making it usable again, but it's got a ways to go. At least I can move my stuff off the kitchen table now.

Sedona Pendant Preview

I finished the Sedona pendant last night, more or less. Not quite sure how to finish the bail, but the pendant itself is done.

I'm not as happy with it as I wanted to be. You can't really see the outside wrap around the frame, but I'm not thrilled about it. And I still might scrap the cactus bead on top (it's real cactus). It makes the piece look kind of like a Christmas ornament and it doesn't sit as well as I wanted it to. I used my dremel to put an indentation across the middle so it will sit on top of the frame and cover it, but it's a bit loose.

But overall, I'm not disappointed. This was my first wholly original design, as in it was not an attempt at, or inspired by, a tutorial. And I am very happy with the weave on the right. I think it came out very well.

Not sure if this is going into the shop yet. My fiancee says to list it and see what happens, and if it's sold she'll keep the other one I haven't made yet.

The rock itself is red sandstone from the red rocks are in Sedona. Unfortunately, most of the real red color came off when I cleaned it, but I really didn't want that dust getting everywhere and potentially staining the clothes of whoever wore this piece. I've got other nice rocks from the area, too, and I'll be doing a few more of these.

The burgundy and yellow are inspired by the agave plant. They spend about 40 years growing, flower once to reproduce, and then die. And they're really pretty when they flower.

So that's the first one. I'll post another picture when it's finished.

I think I figured out how to stage the dragons for pictures. Board games!!! My only concern is the pictures are now a little too busy in the thumbnails. That will either turn people off or get them to actually click on the item to see a better view. Not sure which.

That Sedona pendant I started the other night is coming along very nicely. Once I figured out how to do the frame it got easier. Unfortunately, I dropped it and broke one of the glass seed beads so I have to reweave an entire section. Good thing the artistic wire I'm using isn't expensive. It's probably not being listed on Etsy (my fiancee wants it), so I'll put up a picture here when it's done.

Still not sure the showcase was worth the money. Once I get a few more things listed I'm going to try a Project Wonderful ad campaign. But I need a little more variety first in terms of jewelry.

Next up, a dreamcatcher.

Things I have learned...

• You need to have nails for wirework, but you need to NOT have nails for polymer clay.
• Design work involves lots of yelling and cursing.
• I need to do more tutorials to put more "tools in the creative toolbox."
• I am a harsher critic of my work than my fiancee is.
• There are people out there who will actually buy my dragons. I just have to find them.
• I can make some really pretty jewelry.

I sort of let the crafting fall by the wayside a bit while I pursued my full-time-job passion - opening and running a game store (and eventually designing games). I have most of the business plan done, and I made a whole boatload of wonderful contacts, and everything's in place but the money. Ah, money. I've worked hard to repair my credit, and now the only thing that can help me is time. And since I'm in a holding pattern, I can devote some of that time to the crafting hobby.

During the lull, I figured out that I'm pretty good at making little dragons, and have since found the theme for the shop, and my own creative style: whimsy. The non-chainmail jewelry pieces I have done and have planned are all fun and, you guessed it, whimsical. The clay stuff, especially: dragons, face magnets... flowers and plants, eventually, once I get better at canes.

I was trying to design a piece based on my vacation in Sedona, AZ. I brought back a few rocks from the area and I'm trying to turn them into pendants. Apparently the one I'm trying to do now is a little too advanced for me to figure out how to do it. I wasted quite a bit of copper this evening. And as I write this, I think I figured out what I did wrong and how to do it right. Maybe I should blog more often.

In other news, I purchased a Showcase spot in the Dolls & Miniatures section on Etsy. Not sure it was worth the money, but it did drive some traffic to my shop.

Back to work.

I'm trying to solidify some sort of store image. I let all the polymer clay stuff expire, and I'm leaving it all as craft faire fodder. I'll still be working on my magnets and globbers and whatever (plants and dragons, oh my!) but unless I feel the price point can be over 10 or 15 dollars, it's not worth it to list them in the shop. When I get a bit more comfortable with skinner blends and canework, the flowers and dragons will probably hit that price point.

For now, I'm focusing on jewelry. I still have several projects I'd like to finish, so I'm working on all those before going back to the clay. But I really enjoy messing about with clay, so I won't stay away long.

My love for chainmaille has reemerged, so that's what I'm doing at present. Desiging a ring at the moment. The first try is pretty good, but needs work. I'll put up a picture when I finish it. It's almost what I'm going for, but has some pesky details to iron out.

I just wanted to post something to say that I'm still alive and haven't given up on Crifmer Creations.

We're having our bathroom redone at home, so the past month or so has been crazy with preparation, and now the house is five shades of disarray... couple that with limited funds for supplies, and I haven't been doing much crafting.

I need to finish that telephone wire piece I was playing with and figure out a better clasp, and I have a couple of other projects in mind. One of them being a housing for that art glass my mother gave me.

I got a very nice compliment on my style choices for the two marble pieces I did, and it's been in my mind lately. I was going to skip over to some other technique-oriented piece, but I have this luckstone, see... at least, it was called a luckstone. It's green and I can't remember what the real name of it is. But I'm getting an idea to do a cage for it as well. Once I clean up my work area a little and get my equipment in order, I'll start messing around.

Advertising

Now that I've got stuff in the shop, I have to think about selling it.

You can post in the Promotions forum of Etsy until your fingers fall off.. it seems to me that that's really not an effective way to advertise. Yes, people probably go in there looking for new items and deals and such, but it looks like there're far more sellers than buyers frequenting that forum, all trying to promote their product. And most of the promotion threads are firesale threads. Bah.

Really, to promote effectively, you need to first find your market. That's one of my bigger hurdles. I make jewelry..... and anything else that comes to mind. So far I've got a bunch of funny face magnets, some globber figurines (of which I will be making more. I like them.), and some random jewelry. We're talking at least two separate demographics.

So I need two different ad campaigns. One focusing on the humorous polymer clay products, and one focusing on the jewelry. And then perhaps a third "general" campaign that just elicits interest in the shop.

For each campaign, I'll need a button, square, banner, half-banner, etc etc... I think there are about seven different sizes of ads I can have. Generally, we'd want these to be static, but animation has its place - button ads, for example, can convey a lot more information if they're animated.

For the moment, I threw together a quick animated button ad. I then quickly made a LOT of bids on Project Wonderful for $0. Probably kind of cheesy, but what the heck. Most of the sites may never display it. I figured I'd try a shotgun approach and see if anything happened.

I will budget money for advertising eventually. The nice thing about project wonderful is it may not actually cost that much, and you get what you pay for. I like their "infinite auction" system. So when I have all my ads, I'll put together some campaigns and actually pay for advertising. Until then, I'm using this guy to do some free bidding and get the hang of using Project Wonderful.