Viva Le Revolution!!

It's a beautiful Saturday in the Lou! The sun is shining and the temperature is a balmy 40 degrees! It's a perfect day to plaster flyers for the upcoming Indie Craft Revolution all over St. Louis!!

The Show is March 13th and March 14th at the St. Louis Artisists' Guild. What a great way to beat cabin fever!

Indie Craft Revolution is an amazing shopping experience that focuses on the handmade, including free goodie bags for the first 50 shoppers. Over 65 vendors will show off their fabulous wares within the historic and beautifully preserved St. Louis Artists' Guild and Galleries. This show aims to provide St. Louis with well-made, handmade and interesting items. You will find everything from jewelry, soap, clothing (wearable and non) to fine art objects.

The following companies help to make this event possible: Scorch, The Riverfront TImes, Paste, Yelp, Funky Finds and Well Body Acupuncture and Chiropractic.

Visit revolutioncraftshow.com for more information.

Early Breakfast with Business Network International

Running a small business can be a daunting task, especially when you also work another job. I work as an ICU nurse and do three 12 hours shifts per week. Most of my days off work are spent creating jewelry for inventory, listing items on Etsy, and the myriad other duties of daily life such as grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning.

Little time is left for me to advertise my business and network myself. I have this blog and belong to many networking sites, but they always come last on my list. Yes, I feel I am not very good at promoting myself. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

Thursday morning I was given the opportunity to go to my first Business Network International Meeting in St. Louis. What a great group of people! The concept behind BNI is word-of-mouth advertising and referrals. Only one person per professional organization is allowed to join the group. All of the members carry copies of everyone's business cards with them. When they meet someone who could use a product or service represented, they hand out the card and make a referral. It's like having salespeople working for you all of the time!

The Saint Louis Chapter meets every Thursday morning at the Drury Inn on Hampton at 7 am for breakfast.

At the beginning of each meeting, every member gives a 45 second "infomercial" of their product or service, finishing their spiel with a little rhyming jingle. Corny, but I can tell you I remember almost everyone's service or product in the room. I also received a business card from everyone in the room. Anyone looking for senior pictures, closing gifts, basement waterproofing, hypnotherapy? I can hook you up!!

Run like a well-oiled machine, each week a member also gives a 10 minute discussion on their business or product and discusses how BNI has helped them succeed. What a great way to start the work day! Breakfast, coffee and inspiration!

As a visitor, I got to speak for 45 seconds on my business and tell them a little bit about the Handmade Movement and hand out my business cards. After the meeting, I showed some of my jewelry and accessories. I sold a bracelet, got a custom wedding favor order, got numerous ideas, and have two folks who want to give me some vintage items to upcycle! I also have someone who want to help me quit smoking!

The cost to join BNI may be prohibitive to some, but I am told it is worth it. I am contemplating joining, but my work hours may not allow it just yet.

For more information on BNI: http://www.bni.com/
Saint Louis Chapter: http://www.bnistl.com/about.php

Big A$$ Indie Art & Craft Show

Busily gluing, bending and pouring resin for the upcoming Big A$$ Indie Art and Craft Show at Mad Art Gallery on July 31st-August 2nd. Hoping to do as well as I did at the Rock and Roll Craft Show.

Department store-style craft shows have really become popular in Saint Louis. I like the fact that I don't have to work a three day show, but I find the tagging of all my items a pain in the A$$! Ha! I invested in some manual plastic tagging loops that I can use for my rings and trim down. I want this to be the last time I have to tag everything. It's nice that I can use the same vendor number for each show. After this show, I will also have everything assigned an inventory number, too.

I usually sell my recycled bottlecaps individually, but do to tagging restrictions, I am going to sell them in packs of four. I found some self-sealing cellophane bags at Paper Mart (my new fave online store). I am going to place a business card in the pack and place the magnets on top of the card. I am hoping the magnets are strong enough that they will hold onto my framed piece of sheet metal that I usually use for the magnets. I have the framed sheet metal on an easel. It makes for a great display. People are drawn to it.

Back to creating! Hope to see you at Big A$$!

My Booth at Artropy

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Originally uploaded by Crafty Wino

My daughter and I at my booth at Artropy, hosted by ShowMe Etsy Street Team.

ShowMe Etsy Street Team Hosting Artropy at SqWires!

Come to SqWires Annex in historic Lafayette Square to Artropy! ShowMe Etsy Street Team and other vendors will be hunkered down for the day and ready to show you their diverse wares!

I'll be there with bottlecap magnets, felted flower bobby pin sets, resin goodies and whatever else my mind can create!

http://www.webjam.com/showmeetsy/artropy

Bring a copy of the Artropy post card to enter a drawing for a free basket of handmade goodies!

Green With Indie

Green With Indie
Originally uploaded by strungoutandwired

Hey Guys! I had a wonderful weekend at the Green With Indie Craft Show hosted by the Saint Louis Craft Mafia! Many folks out browsing and looking for cool upcycled and repurposed items.
I did very well with my resin bottle cap magnets (see right side of photo) selling about 150! I plan to make more, so keep those bottle caps coming!
It was amazing to see all of the items made from soda cans, old clothing, etc...
I can't wait to do it again next year! I have many ideas floating through this busy brain of mine.
Now I'm preparing for the ShowMe Etsy Street Team Show, Artropy.

I'm Green, I'm Just Not Motivated Today!

Happy New Year! Here I am, the beginning of a new year, still attempting to get organized. I still have to input all of my receipts and data from last year for the tax man, but hey, I still have a good month to figure that out!

I just signed up for the Green With Indie Craft Show sponsored by St. Louis Craft Mafia. I recently did the Rock N Roll Craft Show sponsored by them and felt I did all right for my first juried show. Now I just need to take some pics of my "green" items! I have tons of wooden dominoes from estate sales that I have re purposed into pendants. I also have gobs of vintage jewelry that I can take apart and make into "new" goodies!

I also have jars of buttons just waiting to be made into bobbi pins, rings, and other goodies! Not to mention the cool old black and white photos that I bought at the antique mall that are just begging to be made into some cool piece of jewelry!

Now I just need a swift kick in the butt! How does one get motivated and find their muse again? I feel mine has taken a short vacation from me! I work very long shifts as a Critical Care RN. When I'm off work I am either playing house frou or wanting to just be a sofa spud. I need some creativity to hit me in the noggin', and soon!!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to add more balance to my life. I want to learn how to balance my crafting, my friends, family, housework, exercise, and relaxation. Is there a way? I thought it would just take some extra preparation, but I did not consider that some days I'm tired and not very motivated.

So how do you do it? Do you schedule a few hours daily for creating, laundry, errands, exercise, posting in forums? There has to be a way to make this work for me!

I'll keep you posted on the progress!