Pricing and other thoughts

I have been reading some interesting articles in people's blogs lately about people under pricing their products lately and I have decided to put my two cents worth in.

I have struggled with the whole pricing concept. Each time I finish an item I have inner turmoil as to whether people will buy it or not, is it good enough, what should I charge etc. That is stupid because I have extremely high standards, I finish my products well, I don't sell anything that I wouldn't be happy receiving it. If they don't like it, it will come down to personal taste rather than quality.  Secondly, I believe that I have been guilty of underselling my items in the past, and even now from time to time.  However after attending a really useful workshop at our local Art Gallery in pricing stock for Markets, I have revised my pricing structure. They gave us an extremely useful formula, and I am sticking to it as much as possible. They pointed out that underpricing your stock can have a negative effect on your products.

I look on Facebook, Etsy and Madeit.com.au and notice that so many businesses seriously underprice their stock. They must barely be covering their costs, and definitely not making any profit whatsoever. Sure, making handmade stuff isn't about making huge profits, but you do want to make a little bit of money. Why would people pay what I am asking for? Well at the end of the day, I guess you have to believe in what you make. Now, finally I am starting to. You need to cover your costs - yes, you do it for the love, but DONT lose money. Your costs are never going to be as cheap as in mass produced shops so don't even try to worry about what they are charging. Yes, you need to be reasonable, but your time as a WAHM (which most of the people who are doing this type of stuff) is your most precious commodity and that should be factored somewhere into your pricing. You find yourself staying up till the late hours making your stuff but you still need to get up to the kids in the night and early mornings. They don't care what time you worked till!

At the end of the day, handmade clothing is special, unique. Even it's little flaws make it unique. That's what you pay for. You are supporting someone's dream to make something handmade, and you and your family are wearing wearable art be it clothing, hair accessories or something similar. It harks back to a time in the past where everyone's clothing was handmade and mass produced clothing was unheard of, and for me personally, that is something I love!

The Race Season

Wow! What a crazy week last week was getting ready for Family Day at the Hedland Races for B Tween Tides.  A few late nights, but some beautiful creations later and I was really pleased with the outcome.

I am longing to start sewing again though as my first batch of beautiful fabrics from the States arrived. I am even more excited as the girls and I are heading off for a photo shoot with talented local photographer Nicole Yardley and will get some shots of the girls in some clothing and hair accessories. I am still not 100% whether I am going to sell on Madeit.com.au the items photographed or still to facebook, but I am really wanting to get a madeit shop set up as I believe it will open up a different group of people and there are a few safety nets to selling on that as opposed to FB.

My photo of the week has to be Isabella modelling my fav fascinator I made. I named it Alice in Wonderland. I was thrilled with how it turned out. A little bit of gorgeous vintage. I

I wanted to also say that I am a huge supporter of handmade clothing and had to promote the great logo that Crafty Mumma's have set up and display it proudly here on my blog.

 

Neglected!

Gosh, I just realised how slack I have been at posting on my blog - a month! How embarressing!!!

Well April was a busy month what with househounting, a market stall and life in general. But all good. We discovered a lovely new home which will be ours by July and we now have to prepare to move from pretty much one end of WA to the other end. I will be extremely sad to leave this wonderful town that has been so good to us. And not only that, we will be leaving from the most perfect time of year here to winter!!

Good news though, we had a successful giveaway, a better market and I have been stocking B Tween Tides for about a month now and my hair accessories are finding new homes which always is a blast. I have been making gorgeous custom dresses too which has been exciting.

I am really excited about the photoshoot I will be doing next week and hopefully we can capture some of the kids fascinators that I will be working on now my supplies have arrived!

Well best go finish cooking dinner! I will post a photo of my favourite headband of the moment! It is a mini Stella featuring high quality dupioni silk, vintage lace and a rhinestone button. Bliss:)

Acknowledgements

    
    
    
         

    

I just wanted to thank and acknowledge some of the wonderful talent on the internet that has helped me get started. The first is the wonderful Frogs, Legs and Ponytails. Fantastic patterns and designs perfect for little girls. The second is the wonderful Joy from http://www.distinctdesign.blogspot.com/ or otherwise known as Snazziedrawers. The internet has opened up a world of beautiful designs, patters and fabrics to me and I just wished to acknowledge some of these fantastic ladies!

Facebook competition!

Yay! Today has been such a lovely day, and has been topped off by hitting my 150 likes on facebook:) So to celebrate this, I have decided to do a giveaway. Facebook rules are a little tricky so I have now changed the rules on how to enter the comp! Check out my FB page under the discussions tab, but people no longer have to enter on the blog... apparently it was causing some confusion and that isn't what this is about...

To enter you need to post a comment below the new post about the competition. You need to include your email address so I can notify the winner by email.  Entry is open until Monday 4th April 7pm WA standard time. I will then head over to random.org and select an entry number at random and post the winner by email and also advise on my FB page.  Please feel free to share the link with your friends. As long as they have liked my page and followed the competition rules, they too can be in the running!

Our giveaway is this gorgeous little mini fascinator. It can be attached to a newborn, toddler, teen or adult sized lace headband or satin wrapped plastic headband. The winner will be able to choose the headband type and size.

These are cute "Emily Rose" rolled flowers finished off with beautiful birdcage veiling overlay and 3 small beads off centre on the centre rose. I love this soft aqua blue. It is beautiful cotton fabric using Heather Bailey (Bijoux) for the outer flowers and Patty Young for Michael Miller (Dandelion) from the Flora and Fauna range for the centre flower. Beautiful!

Now go forth and enter!!!

A sense of achievement

There is always a great feeling that, yes - "I actually did that!" when you meet your deadline. Well, for me there is. I had a mad day yesterday when I found out that I needed to get some headbands ready for a fashion parade the next day. I didn't think I could do it, and yes I did stay up to a ridiculous hour this morning which wasn't my wisest move, but I am sooo pleased that I managed to get them done. Fantastic!

B Tween Tides is a new fashion boutique for tots to teens opening up in our town, and I am thrilled that they will be stocking some of my creations! So I spent last night creating and finishing Ava, Audrey, Isabella and Bella Blossom headbands in as many different colours that I could in a short time. The end result was that I managed to create 12 headbands and get them delivered by this morning! Here is a look at some of the creations.

This is a mini Stella headband. I was just wanting to do a simple version to match a similar styled shirt in store.

 A small felt Audrey

A medium organza Audrey

Another medium organza Audrey

I think this might be my favourite - a small Ava featuring a rhinestone centre

An experiment with an Isabella which I am really pleased with the end result - very shabby chic.

A large Bella Blossom flower

A cute, super curly Bella Blossom

Another variation on the Isabella theme

The end result, packaged, coded and ready for delivery. 

An Emily Rose rolled flower on stretch elastic.

It just shows you what you can achieve when you set your mind to it. I guess we have reserves we just didn't realise we had when there is a need!

Well, I am off to have some well deserved sleep. I am also looking forward to a night out with my girlfriends in the weekend which should be fantastic too so it isn't all work and no play!!!

Deadlines... and sneaky peeks!

Like my friend Amanda said, there is nothing like a deadline to get you moving! I have 2 at the moment. I am frantically preparing stock to go into a new shop opening up in our local shopping centre, and also trying to sewing and create headbands for my market stall at the West End Markets coming up on April 16th. Oh, and we are also going for a short weekend trip to Bunbury to look at houses in the middle of all of this! Luckily I have managed to get a good headstart on my sewing, and so far, I am pretty pleased with the results. I have sewn 3 pillowcase dresses, and have 8 skirts sewn awaiting elastic on the go. I would like to get another 3 dresses at least sewn and more skirts, but will have to be realistic about what I can do as I really need to do some more headbands.

Speaking of headbands, I have come up with a cute little headband that I love to be the giveaway when I hit my 150 likers mark on Facebook. I have attached a preview for any fans that have popped over for a sneaky peek!  So here goes...

 My cute little fascinator that is going to be the giveaway. This is awaiting headband size. It can go on a white lace headband sized from newborn to adult! Love it:)

My new pillowcase dress, sized 1. I am loving these fabrics from Hawthorne Threads:)

The size 2 - if only it was a 3, Isabella would be wearing this now...

And lastly, the size 3 featuring the beautiful Sandi Henderson fabric, Pop Daisy I think it is called. She creates the most bold and fantastic designs.

And lastly, my cute Juliette La Fleur. This photo doesn't quite do it justice as this is a gorgeous shabby chic flower, but would make a great brooch or headband.

Right, I am off to make some Audrey headbands now. Have a great night!