I have decided to start another business selling my garden art. I have spent the last 2 weeks traveling to every farmer's market in King County to figure ways to sell my wares, who my competition is, if any, and what kind of pricing the market will bear.
I have never considered myself artistic. Creative? Maybe. Artistic- never. However, I am having so much fun making this stuff, that I just can't stop. Besides, what could be more fun than browsing through thrift stores looking for the raw materials?
When I totally sold out of my garden art at my garage sale, I realized I was on to something. As I have visited the farmer's markets I have found only one other person doing the same type of garden art from upcycled vintage glass. But she uses only clear glass for her totems. She also makes wind chimes and bird feeders, not the bird baths and ceramic flowers or potted chairs, so we have a slightly different niche. Plus she only vends her wares at the Redmond Saturday market. There are at least 12 other markets in the county- every day of the week except Monday.
We spent the weekend putting up and taking down our 10x10 ft sun shade that I need for my booth. It was not easy. It took 4 of us to put it up and take it down. I also spent some time figuring out how to attach 25 lb weights to each corner so that the wind wouldn't blow it away (required by the markets).
Today I spent the entire day on the internet ordering business cards, setting up a business email account (gardendelights@comcast.net), getting a banner ordered with business name for the front of my booth (also required by the markets) and working on setting up a website to feature my products.
Until my website is operational I will continue to post pictures of my latest creations here.
These flowers are so fun to make. I love the creative process of coordinating colors and patterns. After you glue 4 plates together, the resulting flower is pretty heavy and it has taken quite a bit of trial and error to figure out how to attach them to a stake. I started out with a threaded rod/nut combination, but the success was hit and miss. Some stayed glued together and others fell off. Even the ones that stayed connected were pretty fragile and had to be handled by the stake only. If you tried to put pressure on the flower itself to shove the stake in the ground you would break the connection. As always, a search on Pintrest offered me various other suggestions to try. And I have. All of them. I think I pretty much have the hang of it now.
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