Gainesville Art festival pictures

It was a beautiful and busy time last weekend at the Downtown Festival and Art show!  I enjoyed talking with so many people and getting the opportunity to help people with their holiday gift giving needs.  Here are a few random pictures from the event:

I painted bulletin boards to be used as display pieces for the jewelry.  I used those this time because I could load them with jewelry the days before the show then just hang them in my tent once I got there.

This time, I included a table out front for people to easily sign up for my mailing list.   I also had a basket of jewelry for people to peruse.

Once again, I went without glass over the jewelry.  It felt like I was 'nekkid' as I had used it for so long, but I think customers really enjoyed being able to see the jewelry without waiting for assistance.

This show also marked the debut of the recycled bottle caps with resin.  These cute little caps are the perfect refrigerator accessory.

I had more colors of the resin and silver pewter jewelry to show off.  I've been going a bit crazy with the colors lately.

While the earrings looked great on the colored flower trees, I displayed the pendants on the table. The displays looked a bit too crowded hanging on the displays.

I'm working on a video of the event too, to give you the 'full effect' of the weekend.  Thanks to everyone who stopped and shopped! 

P.S.  I'll be a Linda Blondheim's loft studio at Paddiwhack this Friday evening, 5:30 PM to 9 PM and Saturday noon to 4 PM.  Come and enjoy art, jewelry and Christmas cake!!

From bulletin boards to jewelry displays

I'm trying something new for my art jewelry booth this weekend at the Downtown Gainesville Festival and Art show.  Since I will be doing everything by myself this weekend (no hubby to help), I wanted something that I could easily set up myself.  Part of the plan involves repurposing bulletin boards that could become jewelry displays that I could prepare before the show and hang that morning.


I started with buying 4 el-cheapo bulletin boards.  These are 36 inches by 24 inches. I bought them online and got all four for under $100.












I got a garden variety off-white paint to coat the corkboard portion.  (Notice the small paintbrush in the lower left?  It is attached to a hand of a baby T-Rex dinosaur that insisted on helping me.)









This is what the board looked like after the first coat of paint.  When I came to check on it in a couple of hours though, the paint had soaked into the corkboard pretty well, so I needed a second coat.

You can see the difference here with a second coat of paint.  The lower left quadrant has had its second coat.










Once I let the paint dry, I put painters tape around the inside edge.  I sanded the frame so that it would soak up the paint better.









This is the orange frame after the second coat.

Unfortunately, when I removed the tape, it pulled a bit of the corkboard with it on one of the bulletin boards.  A little spackling compound and some more paint hopefully will keep anyone from noticing. 

This is a finished board.  I randomly put some squiggles on the board to give it more artistic interest.  The hardware will get applied tomorrow and I will take jewelry up Friday.  Then, all I have to do Saturday is to put up the boards.  This will save me a lot of time!

Random jewelry making pictures

It's a little hodge podge of everything going on in the studio right now. I snapped some random pictures yesterday.

These bottle caps have had their magnets glued and are drying.  The magnets do look tiny, but these rare earth magnets can hold three pounds of weight.

(Future) resin scrabble tile pendants are drying.  I've applied the images and the glue sealant.  These are for a wholesale order.

Same wholesale customer, but these are finished pendants. 

These resin and pewter earrings and pendants are halfway through sanding.  They have three more grits of sandpaper to go.

These are some of the new pendants and earrings made from recycled gift cards.  I need to make earwires and jump rings for them.

I'm anxious to see how these do next weekend at the Downtown Festival and Art show.  That will be their first time available to the public.  (Hope to see you there!)

Thornebrook Festival pictures

I am FINALLY getting around to getting pictures up from the Thornebrook Art Festival this past weekend. What I've been so busy doing the last few days will be in a few future blog posts.

I completely revamped my booth for the festival.  While the wooden boxes with the glass were very artsy, I desperately needed something I could easily handle myself.  I used two folding tables and covered them with ivory tablecloths.  I used risers to bring them up to counter height. 

This festival also kicked off my once a year sale.  You can see all the sale items in the basket on the right.  (By the way, I'm working on getting more sale items on the KMS Designs website).  Stay tuned.


The colorful wire flowers made another appearance.  The picture doesn't really do them justice.  The resin and pewter jewelry looked great on them and they made a nice pop of color on the table.








Isn't if funny how the scrabble tile pendants display nicely on the scrabble game racks??  The flowers and circles are the little foam sticker types that you can get at a craft store.  They were a last minute addition to break up the whiteness of the table.















There was Halloween jewelry galore!  Get your ghost on and be ready for the holiday.












The funny part for me?  Not a single customer said anything about the new display.  Here I worry and fuss over the little details and no one said anything.  Not that I was expecting people to oogle, but I was a bit concerned that people wouldn't know it was me since I had changed the display.  I suppose this also turned out to be an interesting experiment in human behavior.  (Although several customers said they were looking for me in this spot.  Sounds like location is more important that appearance.)

Overall, I really liked how the booth finished and it was MUCH easier for me to handle by myself.  You will see this again at the Downtown Festival and Art show in November, but ramped up a bit more.

Resin jewelry pendant pictures

I haven't been making new pendants so much this week as I have been attaching the silver bails to the pendants I have made.  Here's the assortment that will be at the Thornebrook Art Festival next week.

Birds.  Pretty fall colors.  My kids love birds.  But I don't have cardinal pendants...yet anyway.  Those are their favorites (mine too).

Geometric pendants.  A neat little way to be funky without people thinking you've lost it.

Wow, almost looks like a tray of cookies.  With sprinkles.

Still thinking cookies.  Must focus on jewelry.  No cookies until September 26.


There were three more batches of these.  I hope I will be covered.  I never know these things.  All I know is that I will run out of one or two patterns and those won't be the same one or two patterns at the next show.  (Note to self -- invest in a good crystal ball). 

See you next weekend!

How To Make Bottle Cap Jewelry Using Resin

I know I have a lot of resin jewelry making enthusiasts who follow my blog, so I'm always on the look out for useful jewelry making articles and videos to share. My google alerts let me know this video got added a couple of days ago and looked like a neat thing to share with blog readers.  (Video is below.)

As I started watching it though, I found this video showed some techniques that, in my experience, may not result in success. So if you're going to watch, here are my comments, precautions and recommendations before you get started:

1. I have not personally used ICE resin (as the video shows), but I have heard mixed reviews about it. Research before you try it.

2. Use separate mixing cups when measuring the resin and hardener. That way if you overpour one of the components, you won't have to waste any.  Pouring both into the same cup and not being exact means your resin won't harden correctly and you will be left with a gooey mess.

3. I like to pour the hardener (from its own cup) into the resin (in its own cup) in a slow stream while I'm mixing. I think you get a better mix and fewer bubbles that way.

4. I like to use my resin right away, even if there are bubbles. There is only a limited time you can use the resin before it hardens. I can always go back and get bubbles out.

5. I think there are safer ways of getting bubbles out of resin than using a torch. One of my methods involves using a hot air gun.

6. I would caution against drilling holes for findings BEFORE placing the resin the bottle cap. What happens if you change your mind and decide you want it to be a magnet? What happens if you place your art in there wrong and realize later that the hole isn't in the right place?

7. If I did decide to place a hole, I certainly wouldn't put the ring in the hole until after the resin has cured. If you spill some resin on your ring and you don't know it, your resin will cure and your ring may be in an unusable position. At least if you spill resin onto the hole, you can go back and drill it out later.

8.  Use extreme care when pouring the resin directly from the cup onto your project.  It tends to come out in big globs and will overfill quickly.  (at least that's what happens to me)

All this being said, I think this video is a great inspiration for a future project!

Resin jewelry I'm working on now

Maybe you'll believe me. Maybe you won't, but I'm already working on Halloween jewelry.
 
Seriously lady? Like the kids haven't even gone back to school yet??

It's all about wholesale and being ready for the Thornebrook Art Festival next month.  I like being prepared rather than running around like the proverbial headless chicken (like I used to).

Here's what you'll see next month.  They're not available for purchase yet, but email me a request if you see something you like.  Enjoy!

Resin jewelry by Katherine Swift - new locations

Excited to share these new retail locations for my resin jewelry:

• Serenity Bookstore, West Palm Beach, Florida
• Coastal FX, Stone Harbor, New Jersey
• Virginia Handcrafts, Forest, Virginia
• Simply Elan, Versailles, Kentucky
• Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio

Any by the way, if you're in and around Gainesville tomorrow, stop by the Hen party at the art studio of Linda Blondheim.  It promises to be a good time!

The weird adventures of resin jewelry making

Resin can be a fussy beast. I thought I had experienced every weird thing that could happen with resin, until I saw this.

I poured a batch of resin, which covers about 30 or so pendants.  After the 3 days curing time, I went to take them off the curing tray and noticed this one looked "sticky" around the edges.  I touched the top, and it slid off the tile.









The resin had "cured", but didn't stick to the image on the scrabble tile.  Don't ask me why; this was the only one that did it.  Lump that one into the bizarre adventures in resin jewelry making.

Random thoughts on resin jewelry making

No, I haven't thought about gnomes, but maybe I should.

A few things have been hopping through my head in the last few days.  I won't share them all with you (thank goodness, right?), but a few of note:

I need to have a few days break in between sanding the resin and pewter jewelry pieces.  It's killing the thumb on my right hand.  Okay, maybe not killing, but I've sanded the end of it off ---- again.

It looks like I'm going to have to upgrade the shopping cart on KMS Designs myself.  I learned how to build websites a few years ago, but as online shopping has gotten more complicated, I thought it might be best to have someone else upgrade the shopping cart.  The local web geek guy that I hired to do it has failed to deliver on everything that I need in a timely fashion.  I've gotten a few suggestions on the software to do it and will be exploring that this week.  For those of you who have been so patiently waiting for the upgrade (and all the new jewelry that comes with it), hang in there a bit longer. 

I need a grown up artist studio.   Either that, or my family needs to quit eating so that I can use the entire kitchen to pour resin.

What's been going on in your week?

New resin jewelry pictures

I'm changing things up a bit.  While my new website is under construction (don't worry -- same look, but a better shopping cart), I'm playing around with some new pictures of the scrabble tile jewelry.

What do you think?

The part of the art business I hate

I love making art jewelry, even the business part.  But.  There is one part I don't care for.

Not really my phone, but looks like one I would totally have

Making "unannounced" phone calls.

I've been following up with my new wholesale accounts that I've taken on since the beginning of the year.  I've stayed in touch by email, but, as I have been coached by others within the business, nothing beats a phone call.

If you know me, you know I could talk an African violet to death so what's the problem with the phone call?

I hate interrupting people when they're not necessarily expecting me to call.  It's just a respect thing.  So I try to keep it short, sweet, to the point.  All about what I can do to help them and their business.

What about you?  What don't you like within your job or business?

Sunburst pattern resin jewelry

I am happy to announce that my scrabble tile resin jewelry will be available at the Akron Art Museum starting next week. As I was pulling their order, I was impressed with the selections the museum made. Most of my wholesale clients get an assortment of several different themes. They just ordered from the one theme: the sunburst pattern. They all looked so good together! I had to take a few pictures to share.

I don't want to speak with someone in middle India!

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

When are businesses going to learn that a person with limited English skills from halfway around the world does not make good customer service?!?

I need to freight some materials up north.  I won't get into why, but I've been researching freight options since it's too big to go as a typical package.  A few of the online websites that I have tried to get quotes from require a customer service representative to call me back.

Ok, fine.

When the phone rang the other day, with one of the "customer service reps", this is what I got:

(From this point forward, it might make more sense if you read this aloud)

"Hell-o.  Katureen?  I am Mee-Linda from (x company).  I want help you sheep your package."

The 45 minute conservation of me trying to explain the three scenarios I wanted prices for eventually came to this response:

"Yes, Katureen.  I understand you want to ship package to Pin-sill-vane-e-ah.  I can help you with that."

NO YOU'RE NOT!  YOU ARE P*SSING ME OFF!

My response?

Click.

When are these companies going to get it?  I have been around the block a time or two on these people.  They aren't listening at all.  (Kind of difficult when you're only reading from a script.)  Have you ever tried asking them something they don't have a written script for (like in this case)?

Rest assured that when I finally get my day on QVC selling my jewelry, I will never allow my beloved customers have their phone calls sent to some call center anywhere near India.  My promise to you.  *smile*

Your invitation to a jewelry open house in Gainesville, Florida

Join me at the loft studio of Florida landscape acrylic painter Linda Blondheim for a HEN PARTY.  Her studio is upstairs at Paddiwhack, 4128 NW 16^th Blvd., Gainesville - next to Fresh Market.  (Just walk to the back of the store and look for the neon sign.)  The event is on Saturday, August 6, and runs from noon to 4 PM.  I will be there beginning at  1 PM and will have my scrabble tile jewelry, along with my new resin and pewter jewelry.  I'll be there to answer questions, demonstrate  some jewelry techniques, and maybe pick up paint brush -- only to look at.  I will have small resin jewelry gifts for attendees (until they run out), so get there early!  Other artisans will be there sharing their handmade soaps, washcloths and handbags. 

Did I mention there would be music by guitarist Bob Brounley from 1 to 3 PM along with light snacks? 

RSVP's appreciated, but not required.  (By the way, the guys can come too.)

Jewelry making on the 4th of July

Even though today is a holiday, I've been making more resin jewelry.  Why?  Because I took a few days off last week, full well knowing that I was going to have to make up for it when I got back.  I have two new accounts in Texas that have placed orders for my scrabble tile jewelry pendants.  Here's a preview of the "bohemian hearts" pattern assortment that they chose:

This pattern is a little different from what I've done previously in that they will have a horizontal orientation.

What I really like about the pattern is that it's not the "cutesy" pink and purple hearts.  It's more artistic and easily wearable throughout the year.