Please help!
Okay, so everyone knows that my dream for recent years was to make cute
things and sell them online. I’ve been very diligent on that goal and I’m very close to it! I’ve gotten my state ID and will be able to get a bank account for my paypal soon. The most I need now is know shipping costs internationally and packaging. All the other little things I’ve pretty much figured out too but there is one major problem that I’ve been having. It’s been totally eating away at me for a few weeks now…
MY BRAND! D:
I know that about last year I made a few graphics for my brand but I really want a new look. But for some reason I just can’t think of a great image/style for my band “The Candy Sanctuary”. Now, I’ve notice another thing over the pass few months. There are a lot of other people doing the same kind of thing I’m doing (and probably way before me). But when I look at their graphics and the overall brand. It all looks similar to each other.
When I just started out the clay thing (over a year ago) and stuff there were a lot of people that was simply inspiring! I love looking at their products and things, but seeing at what I’m doing I’m really trying to set myself apart from the “popular cute look” they seem to have. Before I took such a notice of this I would think that two or three of these people were all the same person haha!
Even though this proved to be a problem I found it a really helpful way to define myself and my brand, but need help with it… YOUR HELP! (points at you) I want some feedback on what kinds of things that you may like to see or tell me what your sick of seeing or just anything that you think will help.
The look I wantt is cute, pink, cutting edge, café, and sweets inspired (mostly anyway) but I don’t to throw out what’s already been done. I’ve been thinking of maybe a rave inspired style or take the cute idea into something different IDK. Here are the people I’m talking about. They all are great and I love the products they make as well but take notice the similar look.
http://a-little-kitty.deviantart.com/
http://mooglegurl.deviantart.com/
http://queenofdorks.deviantart.com/
http://kickass-peanut.deviantart.com/
http://oborochann.deviantart.com/gallery/
Here are my favorite people. I love the “different” look of their works and I just want to combine the essences of their awesomeness and make it my own. XD
http://acrylicana.deviantart.com/
http://anatego.deviantart.com/
http://bara-chan.deviantart.com/
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31463231
Now I just want your opinions. I know that my crafts have been favorable where I posted them and I want to see how far I can take this with my future shop. I feel totally awesome making my little cakes and its very stress reliving!
I have tons of idea of what I can do with my brand but I want to hear from you all first. Plus I didn’t want this post to get too long. XD
Thanks for reading and provide feedback if you can!
Aye kiddies it’s me Your Truly giving you another update!
Before I start I just want to say… How retarded are people these days… Seriously… I won’t say which picture or the “artist” but to bluntly take a picture off of deviant art and slap it on here and to go along with it saying “I can copy any artist style” and “I took art classes all my life and the problem is that we were taught to copy another’s style” or some BS is mind blowing. Then I check the gallery and all the stuff were stolen because nothing has the same style AT ALL. And once again it’s “I can copy any artist style” nonsense… I feel bad because she/he can’t even attempt to draw a shitty copy of anything. Fucking sack of shit… Anyway, I reported the artist and hopefully the artist will get banned. I’m surprised no one even spilled the beans that the shit is stolen in the comments because everyone is praising the jerk…. I would like to but I like to just report shit and call it a day and hope someone else just say it “hey this isn’t your work LAWL”.
I shouldn’t let this get under my skin but it’s hard…. It really is…
Anyway, I got great news! I’ve started a polymer clay blog called “Cute Clay Tutorials” showing tutorials and things on how to make cute foods charms and things like that. I just made is yesterday and made a new post today. Please take the time to check it out. There’s going to be a new post there everyday so it there’s always something to look forward too.
http://cuteclaytutorials.blogspot.com/
In other news, I have drawn two pictures. One of a new Male mew and one of my character transformation of kyandi if anyone remembers. I’ve been posting pictures in my DA account and trying to make some really good ones to throw up there as well. I’ve have edited my pictures of my newest charms so I should have another one up there and here soon.
I need to find a new place to make them because the craft table has been taken over by my sister lip gloss making stuff. And that vendor that she had. The profit was really disappointing but she made loads of connections. People want her to sale her lip glosses in their clubs and other cool stuff. Really exciting! She also has another vendor coming up this Sunday so maybe she will make more there. The event that she was in before was really sucky in the first place so I’m sure that was the reason for the poor profit.
So yeah, I’ve been super busy trying to make this internet stuff work. Once I get in the groove of things I know things will get easier and less stressful. My graduation is next Thursday and I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to get there… I’ll hitch a ride XD…
Till next time!
Howdy Howdy!
Good god it’s been a long time since I was last active here. How is everyone doing? Is everyone okay? :0
What the hell was I up too you say? Well I just met up with an old friend of mine name Joe. He’s awesome and it’s like we never skipped a beat! He’s also into business so he going to help me out with mine. He said I should wait a bit till I’m a bit establish to open the shop up and everything and should focus on networking and such. He also said I should wait to give my charms for free as prizes too, which is a bit disappointing since I really liked the idea and wanted to keep my promise. He said that early businesses go through a lot of changes so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Soooo I the shop will still be closed. It doesn’t matter much I don’t have the money to support it the way I want too anyway. So I guess I will just focus on more light hearted things like
my TMM stuffs and just having fun here and DA.
I’m sorry that I just stopped commenting and the like for about three weeks, I just was having fun catching up with him. He’s so fun and he is good at cheering me up when things are down! I wuv him :3
I didn’t post in any of my worlds for weeks and I’m sorry for that too. I’m going to post in it and make it come back alive again! Oh yeah and if anyone notice I just made a shugo chara fan club. I notice that I really didn’t see any so I decide to make my own if anyone want to join and post anything shugo chara related there go PM me. I still have to make a banner and stuff. So yeah….
Oh yeah, I made thrid place in "make me a male mew contest". GO ME, and congratz to everyone who won. :D
I’m backz yo.
For realz. :3
Warning this is three pages long but with a good morel :D
Howdy and hello! Its Yours Truly here with her not so daily updates!
How’s everyone doing? Good I hope. Me? It’s been a bit of those rollercoaster periods of my life mostly emotionally but I’m back on track again ready to get things started! I’ll go through it all.
In the last few weeks I’ve been debating the whole charm thing. Mostly of it going up in smoke like it will never work kind of thing, especially the fact that a lot of people make them much better then I do. I tried to make a cake with the frosting and it looks okay but messy at the most but not like I was Edward scissor hands haha.
I thought to myself “this looks like crap, but I know I’m learning so don’t be so hard.. But I want it to be right now. How do those people make there’s so good looking? I know no one starts perfect EVER but I want this to work NOW. I want to be good NOW. So I can sale these NOW and make money NOW so I can be can live out my dreams NOW, even though people say that its journey of getting there but I say fuck that. I want it NOW, NOW, NOW. Get were I’m going here?
It’s so hard being concerned with being the best now because you only get stressed out and that’s more then a pain in the ass. Life itself give me enough grief, I don’t need my hobbies that’s suppose to be fun giving me stress too.
So that was the seed of it. Fun times
I think I mentioned that my older sister was starting her business. I didn’t say any details about it since she wasn’t really telling anybody about and it was in the works. Now it’s doing well, she makes her own lip glosses. All natural, and in pretty colors. I and she made the very first ones and they came out great. The thing I really want to point out is that the ingredients that the retail lip glosses have are bad for you and sink into your lips/body. My sister doesn’t have that. Its like home made bread from scratch vs. bread from a big company that puts all kinds of shit in it that you can’t even pronounce. Anyway getting to the point my sister’s is doing good and my mom sells the glosses at her job to her co workers.
This made me think “what the hell am I’m going to do sell this stuff besides the internet? Is my stuff going to be a hit too? I don’t have all the skills of those really go ones or the equipment? “. But I reminded myself that this was my learning period. I’m using this time to learn more about business so don’t freak, you’re not in the starting line yet. I just can’t help myself some times but to worry. If I don’t think about it now I will in the future, etc, etc, emo, emo.. I try to not get myself into this twisted mind set, but I’ve been a glutton of punishment these days and forget to stop worrying about things that don’t even effect me yet and enjoy myself.
Then my mom had gotten her income tax and my sister brought more things for her lip glosses. My mom wanted to help me too of course and even asked me about using the money for hosting a real website for my store. I and my older sister talked about it a few times but nothing official. At that moment I knew I wasn’t ready for that, I haven’t even sold one charm yet and If I were to get a real website I want to know that my charms can sell. My mom told me if there was anything I needed to help launch my business she would give me the money. But actually I didn’t really know what I really wanted at that point. If anything I wanted a new game for my poor DS. I explained this in an earlier post, which I only had one game on the DS since I got it which was years aka eras ago. Not to mention my PS2 died when I was really depressed and angry, I needed something to do something positive and completely fantasy. I told my mom and she understood completely and gave me here debit card to get a game for myself and her. That’s when I got “the world ends with you” and “big bang mini”. I love both games and it was something I needed to help relive the stress, anger, and depression.
Even though I didn’t feel as bad about the whole charm business I still didn’t know what to do. Then my said that she would give me 100$ for my disposal. Weeks went by and just looking at the charms on the internet I just wasn’t feeling it. I damn there didn’t want to deal with it anymore. I didn’t want to feel this way either. I wanted to feel inspired and make charms but the mojo was gone. So then I just gave it a rest just in case it was like an artist block or something.
During all this I’m always searching tutorials on charms or anything I can make on my own with low cost materials, on the internet, books, whatever I’m there. The ones I’m most excited about was a magnet book marks and hair bows and accessories. During one of my trips I got a really good beginners sewing book for ten bucks. I want to learn sewing so this was perfect for me.
Then I was on the computer thinking about all this and decided to look in my business journal to read what I wrote down why I wanted to start charm business. Long story short I just want to do something made me happy. Something that live off of one day without working at a crappy job or struggling to pay the bills. Really gave me some insight of the deeper meaning of the whole thing, but I was still wondering if this charm business was the why to go. If the mojo was really gone for good? Should I try something else completely? I STILL have the 100$ but if I was going to spend it, it was something my heart was into.
Then I start looking at other kinds of homemade crafts and jewelry. Things like ribbon chocker’s and lace arm cuffs. Also simple things I can sew together like arm warmers, hats, ties. More branching out of just charms but other things that I can just as easily make and sell. So then I start making a list of things I need to make everything I wanted. I was making progress but I still wasn’t at 100% percent like I wanted.
Then about a week or two ago just I looking at more crafts and jewelry the one simple thought came to my mind.
“Why don’t I just draw designs of my own jewelry?”
Now the killer in this statement that I did sketch out some charms (less then five at different times) like last year but never sat down and draw/planed out a design. I’ve probably said to myself I want to do a cake or food item and picked some colors that I liked and tried to make one. But when it came to more jewelry and accessories I never designed any. I would see something I like and say to myself “damn that’s cool I want to make that!” and then think of what kind of things I would need to make it and/or worry about if I was able too. Instead of simply just designing something of my own style and how I would make it rather then how SHE did it and being wrapped up on her end. All the negative stuff, the things I can’t control.
I was so into the NOW thing that I didn’t seem to get this concept. WHY? I don’t know… I guess that being human in this world. So caught up with things that you can’t control or NOW that you can’t see the simple things that can get you THERE.
Now here comes the quote of the day. This was said by a brilliant women.. my older sis.
“Sip a Nantucket and just say fuck it” XD
Or in other words… Just chill, don’t stress, go and relax, do something that you can easily unwind you. It might save you many brain cells that you can use to process relaxing better and gain the insight that you need. And to never give up and the rest of that crap we’ve been hearing since forever. It’s the road getting down there that you have to learn to avoid.
To wrap this up, when I did went upstairs and draw out designs a freak’n ass load of ideas came to me. I almost couldn’t keep up. Cool, simple, awesome, designs. Finally, I was blessed by the craft and art gods. They must love me because I’ll been getting spikes of inspiration like this sometimes then fall from cloud nine then to do it over again some time later
Anyway...
I took the money and got a lot of stuff that I needed on sale including a book on jewelry making for kids and teens. I finally had a chance to work with the camera and can take real pictures of my charms. I feel renewed and hopeful again. I hope this feeling stays this time. Forever. I can really start over.
I’m done. Just one part of my life that’s been in the works.
School killed me this week. A Final project and a final exam one coming up next Friday. I have three days off so major yay.
I hope you enjoy yet another life speech on how it’s like to live though life lessons thrown under you.
God damn I hope this is my last life time… :|
Good night and all a good life.
