Life of an Item with CassieArt

My initial inspiration to begin sculpting buckles from clay came out of necessity. I love to wear a belt to add a bit of surprise and fun to my look, but I couldn't seem to find what I had in mind. On a whim, I decided to create my own. The process has been so fun, I've not stopped yet.


This squirrel buckle was created with a little backyard friend in mind. I remember it like it was yesterday...spring had just sprung and I decided to put some flowers in the ground. That weekend, we went out of town and upon our return, my entire flower bed was empty! My poor blossoms had been plucked off and just the shriveled stem remained. Then, right before my eyes, the furry culprit returned to the bed to scrounge for more flowers. Finding none, he's since taken to driving my poor cat Asha crazy by devouring the bird food we leave on our deck.

Even though he ruined my flower bed, he's so stinking cute, I had to dedicate a buckle to him. When I come up with a buckle idea, I begin by sketching out my design. Once I'm happy with my sketch, I transfer my drawing to a heavy card stock paper that allows me to trace the image into clay multiple times.



From there, I begin rolling out the clay. My favorite thing to do is roll the clay through my stash of vintage lace. I've also found burlap, stamps and even place mats offer a great variety of textures for the clay. Once rolled over a texture, I then trace my image into the clay.


After that, the buckle is finished for now. The clay must dry out completely before firing, so they usually take about 3-5 days to air dry. Once dry, the buckles are what's called greenware and ready to be fired in the kiln. That first firing leaves them with a bright white look called bisqueware. Think of the pottery you see at those glaze-your-own pottery shops, that's the same thing. My glazing process can take 2-3 additional firings, depending on the desired glazed effect. My crackle and metallic glazes often require more firings.


Once out of the kiln, I can begin pairing the buckles with my stash of mostly-vintage fabrics for the creation of the belt. Often times, I cannot find just one fabric to accompany the buckle, so I'll create a reversible belt. Some of my buckles are reversible also, so the belt can be worn four different ways.

So, that's the process for making my belts. I currently have a new backyard fri-enemy: a mole. Because of his lack of cute, I don't anticipate any mole-themed buckles soon...but you never know!

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Feature Friday with Senioritis

Please give a warm welcome to our fellow Lab Rats - Garrick, Beth and Jillian of Senioritis

Garrick

Where can we find you?

In our ongoing quest to take over the world, senioritis can be found here:

Site: www.senioritis.net

Blog: www.senioritis.co

Etsy: www.senioritis.etsy.com

Famous Senior of The Day: www.thesenioritis.tumblr.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/itmakesyoulazy

Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesenioritis

Flickr: www.flickr.com/thesenioritis

For monthly updates on all things senioritis please feel free to check out our newsletter: www.bit.ly/hellolazy

1) Tell us about yourself, your shop and what brought you to the Etsy community.

Us

Hi, my name is Garrick and I have a design problem.

I started senioritis with my sisters, Beth & Jillian, in 2006. Our childhood was typical. Winters ice fishing in the Pacific Northwest and summers spent swimming with the sharks by the Great Barrier Reef.

We climbed Mt. Everest for the first time in 2000, when Jillian was 11, with our sherpa Noomsey. Looking out from the summit we were inspired to start an apparel and design company. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our Shop

We are the purveyors of colorful inspiration.  The designs in our shop pay tribute to famous, and sometimes infamous, people throughout history with their words of wisdom and our artwork.  Many of our designs carry inspirational messages and we like to work with bright colors so make sure you have some sunglasses handy ;)

Finding Etsy

I’m going to have to give our mom credit for this one.  I don’t even remember the conversation but back in May of 2009 she had mentioned Etsy and that we should check it out.  I went online that day looked around the site a bit and created an account.  Fast forward about 5 months and we had our first print listed.  Several months after that we discovered the forums and the Virtual Labs, and got to meet a bunch of awesome Etsians!

2) Walk us through a typical day in your life.

I’ll go with a Saturday as that’s the day that we do the most work for our Etsy shop. 

I’m usually up by 6ish and the first thing I do is grab my computer.  I check out Google Analytics since we use it to track several of our sites and then I fire up Outlook.  After getting our email sorted, it’s time to post our Famous Senior of The Day (#FSoTD).  Once this has been done, BINGO, time for breakfast!

Breakfast usually consists of some senioritis oatmeal (http://bit.ly/senioritisoatmeal) and some type of citrus juice or whatever flavor juicy juice was on sale that week.  After breakfast it’s workout time, Wii Fit, Cardio Boxing, the gym; I like to switch things up.

Once all of this stuff is out of the way I check out what’s going on with Etsy.  I like to use the activity tracker because it’s simple to view and easy to read, basically it rocks.  We answer convos and print invoices as necessary,

After this it’s time for the real fun stuff, time to start creating!   This usually takes me right into lunchtime.  After lunch it’s more creating with the occasional tweet, facebook update, and blog post.  By the time I turn around most of the day is usually gone.  I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun ;)

3) Name your top 3:

Books

Beth: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; David Copperfield 

Jillian: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Black's Law Dictionary 

Jillian

Garrick: The Richest Man In Babylon, Don’t Know Much About History, Captain Underpants

Music

Beth: Sara Bareilles; Adele; Regina Spektor

Jillian: Sara Bareilles, Guster, Jason Mraz

Garrick: Jay-Z, Sinatra

TV

Beth: Modern Family; Parenthood; Gilmore Girls 

Jillian: Bones, Gilmore Girls, Fairly Legal

Garrick: Yankees, Discovery Channel, History Channel

Web sites:

Beth: Gawker; nytimes.com 

Jillian: Hyperboleandahalf.com, googlemaps and youtube 

Garrick: tumblr.com, colorburned.com, kidrobot.com

4.) What are your top 3 shops on Etsy?

We have way too many to list but here’s a few shops that we really dig their style:

Joelquiggle.etsy.com

Tsaifi.etsy.com

Everybodyelse.etsy.com

5.) What projects are you currently working on?

top secret project - a sneak peak!

This was supposed to be a secret but since you asked we’ll share ;)  We’re currently working on a higher end line of pieces; we can’t give too many details but think museum style display!  We should have a few teaser shots on our blog soon.

6.) Where do you hope your shop will be in a year?

One year from now we hope to take over the world, but at the very least, we expect to have consistent sales on a daily basis. 

At this point, the vast majority of our Etsy sales come from people with buyer only accounts, which is great.  We would love to get some more exposure and share our work with our fellow Etsy shop owners as we feel there’s tremendous room for growth within this group. 

We also plan on expanding our apparel line and increasing our brick and mortar presence.

7.) What suggestions/tips would you offer to someone new to Etsy?

Below are some things that helped us as a bit when we were starting on Etsy (and continue to help us); perhaps you’ll find them useful as well. 

Beth

Getting Started on Etsy

·         Etsy has a bunch of moving parts, don’t get overwhelmed:  Take things one step at a time.  There is a ton of information on Etsy but when we got started we found that the best way to learn how to list an item was to list our first item.  Remember, the only way to learn to swim is to get wet ;)

·         Know why you’re setting up an Etsy shop:  Will this be a hobby, a way to earn extra income, part of a career change, a virtual gallery for your work, a way to leverage online presence etc. 

·         Write your own definition of success:  Is 100 items in your shop success?  Is 5 sales in a month success?  We don’t have an answer but you should have a feeling of what you consider success.  Once you have your definition, don’t worry about what others are doing, put on your blinders and focus on your goals ;)

·         When in doubt ask:  We think that the Virtual Labs are a tremendous tool.  After about a year of attending various sessions we continue to learn new things each time we attend one.  It is a great environment to get feedback and ideas from fellow Etsians and experienced Etsy admins.  If you have a question don’t be shy just ask and someone will gladly help out.  Remember, we all start in the same place, the beginning ;)

·         Last and absolutely most important in our opinion:  HAVE FUN!!! 

If you have any questions about anything please don’t hesitate to reach out to us (info@senioritis.net), we would be more than happy to help our fellow Etsians if we can!

Last, but not least, be sure to stop by the Senioritis blog for a visit, pick up a free sticker and enter their sticker contest!

It's STICKER TIME

Sticker Contest HERE