October Kraftbomb + Nurie

Kraftbombs Halloween Extravaganza went really well this month! I sold over $150 worth of goodies which made me super duper happy as last time it was a lot quieter and I was worried it was an indication of my items but im feeling a lot more confident now. Thanks to anyone reading this who purchased from my stall and also a big thank you to Kessia who helped me make sales and pass the time :) She also made some delicious halloweeny meringues which I scoffed down 5 minutes after taking them home!

Guess what, I didn't take my camera... i've come to the realisation that I need to buy a small compact model that easily fits in my bag. I just loathe the idea of lugging around my giant sony828. Its funny because I used to have a tiny slimline sony that I sold to help pay for "the beast" but now im regretting it. Of course it takes MUCH better photos but thats a bit pointless if I never get to use it anywhere but at home. There should be a couple of snaps of my stall though that i'll post once theyve been uploaded by their rightful owners.

So every month I comment on the exchange rate... well I thought it couldn't get any worse than what it was but hey the other day it dropped to a six year low of 54 cents. FIFTY FOUR CENTS!!!??? I mean seriously wtf. That means if I want to buy anything from the US its going to cost me DOUBLE. This is not good at all seeing as almost all my supplies are sourced overseas.
It must REALLY be hurting importers.. I heard the reason Real Groovy is in receivership is partly because of a huge import of crappy vinyl from the US that they just couldnt sell. Oh dear.
This is how I feel about it all :

Anyway bitch bitch whine whine..

Recently I discovered Nurie's which are basically Coloring Books for people other than preschoolers :P I have been buying a whole lot off yesasia and they are just amazing. My favourite are the artist series. Most begin with a dozen or so full colour illustrations by the artist and then follow with a whole heap of thick high quality blank backed coloring in pages which include the images at the front (which I guess are examples/reference). You can use paints, pencils, crayons, markers etc etc. Next post I will post some detailed photos.
For now here are a couple of pics from Renee's flickr (hope you don't mind me posting them!) They are from the Rune Naito Book. The drawings in this are quite simple in contrast to some of the other books i've got...but i'll post those tomorrow :)

Horrayness

I am such a dork, I came here to blog about my wonderful surprise and ended up getting lost in crafting mania... anyway, so I opened the mail the other day to find this...



Now if you do not know what a Boopsie Daisy Dolly is you have to have been living under a rock for the last year... They are only the cutest handmade dolls made by one of the sweetest pixies on earth, Missy (aka BoopsieDaisy). She is one of my favourite people online. Another one of my favourite people is Linda (Felted Folksies) who creates the most adorable little creations with chenille as well as other amazing cutsie goodies. Now awhile ago Missy dedicated a doll (Teeny Eyeleenie) to me as it reminded her of me (heehee) and the lucky person who bought her on etsy was..yes... Linda!!
I never in a million trillion years expected to find teenie eyeleenie on my doorstop all the way on the other side of the world. Honestly I am flabbergasted by Linda's sweetness and generosity.
It has to be one of the nicest random (or not so random really...) acts of kindness ever done for me. I am plotting my own suprise for her now :D

Seeing as this is such a positive entry I may as well talk about some other people I love..

Annette from Japanese Sweet Shop!! If you haven't checked out her shop yet you are really missing out. She stocks it full of the most amazing stuff from Japan (new and vintage). She is a total pleasure and I am so priviledged to know her! She also has a wonderful blog here that you should read :)

Renee is one of my other special dolly friends. She has such a kickass doll collection and I swear we have the exact same tastes! She too sells bits and pieces (and sometimes dollys) on etsy under shoeflower and really great jewellery here.

Of course I can not forget to mention Gretchen and Shop66! I have aquired soooo many of my fabulous dolls and goodies from this lady! She has THE biggest and best Vintage Japan collection probably of anyone in the US (possibly the world :P)

I am probably going to forget someone here.. hrm, I have been sitting in front of this screen for too long, Im going to go grab a drink and hopefully if I have missed anyone super important it will come to me...

Oh just came to me.. City the NZ Cupcake Queen and founder of kraftbomb!!! She makes the YUMMIEST cupcakes and some really sweet cross stich kits and wooden jewellery.

Kraftbomb Halloween Extraveganza!

Here is a little sneak peek of what i've been up to :

Blah

I am really worried about how our dollar is falling at the moment. I just do not know how I can buy the supplies I need (which are always in US dollars) and still make a profit at the prices I can charge. If I was breaking even that would be okay but if im losing money thay is a worry...
I am paying nearly double what you guys in the USA are, I cannot believe its dropped to 59c (as of right now). Horray for five year lows......... Not only that but it also means I can not really justify buying ANYTHING for myself online. No more dollies or goodies :( which means no more cute photos to share :( which means less participation in all the fun communities I am a part of :( which means total shittiness for moi.
Everything we (as a country) import from overseas (especially europe and us) will inevitably be raising in price too.
I am almost at the point where im thinking I may have to sell off a large portion of my collection to make some dollars while its so low.. only problem is I don't know how to set up paypal to put money into my bank account, i've always just used those funds to pay for other onine purchases.
If I was to sell all my dolls, supplies and collectibles at what they are worth I would be able to make around $10,000. Thats terrifying because that means i've SPENT ten grand on that stuff to begin with. I know this is a very negative blog entry but im totally freaking out about it.

I am also not sure if crafting is financially viable for me anymore. I am just not selling enough. I dont know if it's because im not promoting it enough (quite possible) or in the case of actual craft events like kraftbomb, my stuff is just too niche. I know theres a huge market for cutesie frou frou stuff online (I mean look at lollishops!) but maybe not so much here in Auckland. I seem to be popular with the kids though haha guess adults aren't so into the idea of cupcake rings and pony brooches :*( And to be really honest I think my ideas and actual skills are just not good enough... nothing I do is really unique and no matter how hard I try and think of new ideas I just hit a brick wall. I have hundreds of dollars worth of jewellery supplies and fabrics just sitting around gathering dust. Maybe it is just time to forget it and move on.

I don't know...
:/

My Stall

IMG_0881
Originally uploaded by City the NZ Cupcake Queen

Looking a bit bare and messy haha I think this photo was taken towards the end of the day so lots of empty spaces.

A photo...

At the Car Wash...
Originally uploaded by ♥♥ Sugar Lemon ♥♥

of my gorgeous girl, just because I want to share her sweet face!

The Craft Aftermath

Kraftbomb was a lot of fun yesterday! It wasn't as busy as last time but I made a few sales which is good. Next month will be in a bigger venue so hopefully that will attract more customers. I also spent way too much on goodies for myself... I bought THREE furry bunny plushes from Anemone Crafts (photo taken from blog here) a hedgehog necklace from 'Lilys Make Believe' (blog here) and a bunch of badges from Nut and Bee (site here). My stupid camera was out of batteries (okay maybe i'm the stupid one for not charging it) so no photos from me :( BUT there were many photos taken by other people so they should be floating around the net anytime now so i'll snag a couple then. Hopefully I don't look like a total dork in any!

After looking at what other people were selling their items for I am starting to wonder if im pricing my stuff too cheaply...I noticed one stall was selling a necklace using a charm that was on one of my necklaces but mine actually had two charms on it but they'd marked theirs at $20 and mine was only at $15. I am crap at the business side of stuff and really have no clue what I should be pricing at and normally make up a price on the spot ha that's terrible. I should really be keeping a record of how much im spending of materials so I can work out cost+labour for a reasonable sale amount. I have a feeling I am possibly losing money... I know im putting way more money into materials than what im getting back in sales :/ I just love the process of creating things though so I almost don't really care about the profit.
The other thing I picked up on was people are more interested in the more pricey items (sterling silver necklaces etc.) so im wondering if I should shift focus on creating higher ticket items using quality materials - only risk with that is not selling anything... Suppose I could always try out one or two items and see what happens and if noone bites keep them for myself.

I have reduced my ebay spending a LOT recently.. I was spending way too much and with the NZ dollar being so weak against the US it was getting ridiculous. I did however succumb to buying a few things I just couldn't resist...

IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE!

Yes I actually do make things...
not that you would know as I seem to have managed not to blog about it, well, EVER. That was a mouthful. I used to run things under the name "Oh Deery Me"selling things from myspace and through the now closed down "Lady Eves" (in st kevs arcade) but I had a pretty long break and wanted to come back with something fresh including a new name so Sugar Lemon Sweetheart was born. At the moment im just making stuff to sell each month at kraftbomb (see info below).
So all that said, here are some of my bits and pieces!

Cupcake Pouch (which will be for sale at kb) This was really time consuming sewing on all the sprinkles by hand.


Vintage Celluloid Charm Cameo Brooches. Sold out of these!


This was my first (and err last) real embroidery attempt. As you can see its the promo cover for one of my favourite movies Cry Baby... Sadly it is still sitting in the hoop, I just cannot decide what I want to do with it. I thought maybe a pillow or maybe a patch for a bag or shirt? Indecisive.


Here is one of many bags i've sewn up using ridiculously expensive Japanese fabric. How can anyone not love Alice in Wonderland kawaii styles!?


If you haven't noticed by now I like to dabble in all mediums... this is a dress I whiped up for my daughter Lily. I can't remember but I think this is an Alexander Henry print (could be wrong)


Cards I made for kraftbomb using my dolly photography... I did not sell even ONE. Boo... I know they are kind of only appealing to crazy vintage japan nuts like me though so it's kind of understandable really. I think these would do better on etsy where I know other pose dolly nuts would appreciate them :D


I made a few of these matryoshka pillow dolls last year but then everyone started doing russian dolls and I stopped making them. This one sold at Lady Eves from memory.


Necklaces for this weekend. I really love these and kind of want to keep all of them! (well not really... buy one!)




So after all that show and tell I want to speak of the fantastic new craft event thats happening monthly here in Aucks (well Grey Lynn to be precise) called Kraftbomb! The amazingly talented City and her equally talented friend Karla have done such a fab job organising it, I can't wait until the next one on Sunday. Last month went really well and I made a few hundy which is always nice.. probably didn't cover my costs ha ha but who does? I figured at the prices im charging it works out to be about $6 an hour NOT including the material cost.. BUT I love tinkering around and making stuff so its a labour of love more than anything. I think one of the coolest things is having someone love something you've created so much they just have to buy it. Hopefully that happens a lot this weekend, we shall see. I have kind of got a bit of a theme going this month.. "sickeningly sweet", think cupcakes, sprinkles, pink pink pink, cuteness overload etc. If you know my stuff you're probably thinking "err isn't that ALWAYS the theme?" maybe kinda sorta... ;)

Anywho, check out the kraftbomb blog here and the flyer here:

I am pretty sure that is all I wanted to write... I know im such a slack blogger but I might take my camera along this time and take some snaps to put up. I wish I had a second camera for this kind of thing, something small and lightweight. My sony828 is a dream but its soooo clunky and annoying to take out, I really wish I hadn't sold my tiny slimline cybershot :/ although my 828 takes way better photos so its a catch22.

Hopefully some of you are still actually visiting my blog... it's been so long between posts I wouldn't blame anyone if not. I see blogger has a cool new "follow" feature, ABOUT TIME! That was always the one thing I hated about it. I used livejournal for years and it was so convenient to have all my "friends" saved to a list, I am too useless to go and visit individual blogs every day.
Please add me to your list and i'll be sure to add you back :)

I've been burning the midnight oil too often this week and I can feel my contacts sticking which is a sure sign I should head to bed...
xxoo

Oh my god....

the NZ dollar has dropped to 69c to US$1
argggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh only a few months ago it was at 79c!!
I am going to go totally and utterly broke!

I am the most useless blogger in the world, it's probably even official! I suck at updating.
I haven't really got any "news" as usual so i'll just share some fun stuff.


I won this lovely Missy the Model doll (and her dog Gigi) w/ box, I can't believe I got her as I was sure I would be outbid at the last minute. She looks gorgeous in the photos... can't wait to get her! Here she is :

Another super add to my collection are these vintage dakin dream dolly twins (and cow!). I only have one other like this so I was desperate for these.. I had lost an auction for a similar pair a little while ago so was so happy to see more listed! I feel bad though about having to outbid people I really like :( goes with the territory I guess...I've lost plenty of stuff recently too. Its so hard not to want every single thing that fits into that cute japanese cloth doll category. Anyway, here is a sneak peak until I can upload some pics of my own.


I received a super duper package from Annette (japanesesweetshop) today! I love getting big doll lots in the mail. These are YJ and Ebay finds via her. She is so sweet to help me out :) *big hugs and thanks* Heres the loot :D
and a couple of my own recent ebay finds... more things I really cannot afford but had to have!!




Ok enough enough..
I found a really cute site that I have to share!