New Autumn Japanese Maple Leaf Piece

Ok so the leaves are completed, that's 5 in all.
I think I am going to make an attached stationary bira bira and shidare but not as big as the last piece I did.

Its hard to tell from the photo but the largest leaf is a deep russet bronze outlined with red.  Then a straw yellow, then a sunflower yellow, then plain red leaves. 

Right now the are bound with some wire, when I finish building the bira bira and shidare frame I will attach the whole thing to a traditional hair fork.  Probably thread wrap it in red too.

Work Update

Japanese Maple Design

I've been hard at work.
The bottom pic is a custom job I just finished.  Hopefully she approves and we can move to the payment process.  Both sticks have the rotational bira bira design.

Custom Order

Now I have started a new Japanese Maple leaf design.  I am making five of these to go into a bouquet piece with a bira bira and maybe shidare, haven't decided on that one yet. 

Going through the Back Log

Mardi Gras Kanzashi

 Its been a busy day at the Temple!  Got started with some photography early, going through a back log of pieces I had yet to photograph even though I finished them in February. 

Rose Garden Temari

Custom Set 

SO The custom set turned out really well.  The blue fireworks kanzashi came out just great, and the rotational bira bira was a huge success.  I managed to get about 350 degrees of rotation out of it. but if I had wired it for a full 360 it would have fallen off the back of the fork.  I am sure this design will do better with sticks than forks. 

More good news, I have finished thread wrapping that chrysanthemum bridge I started forever ago.  It is ready to be framed and have the leaves attached.  Then I have to re-wrap the frame.  Still lots of work on that piece, but coming along again!

Sales and Designs

 Yep, it's me!


The only photo I have from the burlesque show. But it has a good shot of the table and for me, the picture came out pretty well.  I don't usually post pics of myself, but I wanted to post something from the show. 

The two bottom pieces were sold Monday and shipped off yesterday!  With these two last minute purchases, I have almost made enough to cover the costs of the show.  Which is all I really wanted anyway. 

Now I am working some prototype pieces, a gift to a friend.  She gave me 3 colors to work with, purple, blue, and red.  I couldn't get the red to work in with purple and blue, so I broke up one medium sized piece into a variety of 3 small pieces.

What I am really excited about though, is I have engineered (aka sketched) a design for a rotational bira bira.  I have it worked out so it forms its own loop and can be attached with a jump-ring for easy movement, and will look correct, no matter how you hang your kanzashi. That is the next piece I am working on, and should have a prototype soon!

Left Over Inventory

Hairsticks and Satin Kanzashi with Feathers are $10
Bobby pins are $5

I am only going to load the pictures, each one is described in the listing with its proper color name.

Keep in mind I made ALL of these in 10 days.

Aftermath

It was one HELL of an experience.

I think I was overly prepared, which is good I guess, but I spent more than I should have. I made about a third back of what I put into it, but the networking and experience made it totally worth it.  I had a great time talking face to face to customers! It was so nice to be able to do that again.  And if it wasn't for kids, I would truly feel prepared to do a convention now.

But everything I DIDN'T sell now has to go in the shop.  I only sold a few hairsticks, mostly satin kanzashi with feathers, and one set of bobby pins.  But NOW I know my market, and purple is the color to work with.  I had several requests for purple, but all I had was black, red, gold and blue varieties.  I didn't get to work into the pinks and purples and oranges.  I should have.  But photos will be up soon, and it will be lots of editing since each stick must be labeled in the pictures with a letter system so that I can put multiple sticks in one listing.  May be a while, but I will get started on it next week now that things will have slowed down.  That and I want to finish all my photography before kids get out of school soon.  Then I will have NO time.

Also, next time I will have tophats!!!! I am lining up a new tophat designer so that I don't have to make them from scratch.  Hopefully those will be back in stock soon.  She makes hers with an elastic chin strap rather than a headband, and frankly I like the change, it will be more comfortable for the customer to wear. 

Now I have to re-inventory and label my pieces since everything went askew when packing up for the night.  Not to mention I have one heck of a mess to clean up on my workstation, and I have to find a place to put all my new supplies.  I am glad I got into the satin for this, it was a BIG portion of my sales, almost half. 

Definitely want to do this again though.  But not this month.  Ha.  Too much stress.

Inventory

24 Hairsticks
21 Satin Kanzashi with Feathers on hair clips.
10 bobby pins (and still going)
plus all my other pieces in the shop.
Table and coverings are reserved. 
Bought a lamp (as necessary for the event) at goodwill for like 5 bucks. 
I even have a costume.  (not Japanese mind you, this is not the kind of event for kimono)

Now I need a few price signs, a sign for the store, a custom order form, and to check my card reader and I will be all ready.

I still can't believe this is really going to happen.