Interesting observations....

The rush for the annual Craft fair in La Manzanilla is over and I've done my last Friday market before Christmas. Time to relax and enjoy the season for a while. 

I've made a few observations during the year with my displays. I've learned that the art work I do with sea glass is my most popular item - be it cards, trees, wall art or bowls. I worked hard since the beginning of the year to have sea glass Christmas trees available for  the markets and the craft fair. I figured if I started in January by the time the market season came along I would be in good shape. Well the idea was a good one but I was very surprised to see how many I sold during the year even without the market. The word has gotten out about my trees - so much so that I've actually run out of the size of glass for my usual design so I had to put on my thinking cap and come up with a more simplistic style. I was happy to see that these were also well received.

My sea glass cards are the next item that I'm being challenged to keep in stock. I've started to come up with a few new designs but it's still a bit of a challenge. I don't think people really understand the work involved in these cards. It's not just a matter of grabbing a piece of glass and gluing it on the card. It's so much more involved; I spend a lot of time sorting through my glass to find just the right shape for that dog or cat head, tail, body; the right number of the same shaped pieces for flower petals; the perfect "purse" pieces; shapes that with some imagination I can turn into birds - you get the idea. And then there's the writing I do on some of the cards. I am NOT a very neat writer so I pull up my word program and all my fancy fonts, then I type whatever I'm wanting to put on the card - happy birthday, Feliz Navidad etc. Then I decide which style looks right for the card I'm working on and basically look at the font and draw it in pencil on the card, erasing and redoing until it's centered and looks good. Then I write over it with a marker. It's a lot of work but I get a lot of pleasure out of my creations. 

The other thing I've come to realize this year is that less is more. When I set up my display I have a book that I write my inventory in so I can keep track of my sales. This year I took a moment to count and I was displaying 17 types of art work.  I added a few things, like framing my mandala drawings and displaying them and my addition of beach treasure mobiles. I came to the conclusion that the display looked quite busy and people just didn't know where to look and were often missing things. I also made note of the art work that drew the most interest. At my last market I removed a couple items from my display. It made for a quicker, simpler setup and I think it looks much better now, allowing people to look without feeling overwhelmed by everything. Although I enjoy doing my watercolor painting and mandala artwork I don't think I will display them on a regular basis in the future. Given that I live in a beach community and people enjoy my sea glass art work and mobiles I will focus on those in my display and just occasionally display some of my many other types of art work.

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#seaglassartist #beachmobile #watercolorartist #myrockpaperart