I'm always lookin'!

I love this tiled photo as it shows a lot of my super early work in the design process for Red Marionette. Variety is the spice of life!

If you have peeked into my store you are aware that I name all of my creations.
Not fancy names, but names like you would name a child.
Not always are they normal.... ie: Fortinbras, Eros, Mr. Snuggledoodles, Beauregard....
But they are all like little children to me and as they develop they begin to come in to their name. Their personality is based on their name. Stereotypical of me, but sometimes when you hear a name you have an idea of what that person might like or do. That is what happens with my critters.

As I come up with new color combinations or critter types, I need new names.
Up to this point I feel I have done a good job keeping them fresh and interesting.
However, I have yet to tap in to your brains! Do you all have names you think are cute, wacky, interesting or bizarre?
I am looking for a few good names to incorporate in to some of my new critters! Would you be so kind as to share some of your ideas?

Silver Lining Treasury

I woke up this morning to a wonderful email saying I was included in a Treasury East Treasury called Silver Lining!

Isnt it Beautiful!
I am so honored (and surprised) that my William the Whale could be included in something so utterly elegant!
He looks so fancy!

If you would like to comment the link to the Treasury is HERE

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Snip, Snip!

Tis the season for cutting out felt critters!
I have been diligently working on cutting out felt shapes of all colors and sizes for my critters.
The total count for cutting out last night was 14 Tom the squirrel, 4 Blanche the Owl, 8 Boris the Sleepy Owl, 6 Buddy the Sleepy Owl, 6 Pink Octopus, and last but not least 21 Lydia the Brown chickens.
This includes ears, eyes, wings, tails, feet, freckles, beaks, bellies and anything that each of those items take.
Yes, all by hand.
I have often been asked if I have a pattern for my critters. The answer is Yes and No. I have a pattern for the main body shape and sometimes the tail/belly if it is something unique. Like the panda, I have a pattern for it for the white on the head, the main body and the little black ring on the eyes. Everything else is hand cut. It keeps each one looking just slightly different to maintain the originality of each one.
Eyeballs and pupils are always freehanded. Ive gotten pretty darn good at cutting circles over the years.
These critters will end up as ornaments, or hand stitched on to tree skirts or even possibly on to wall art or pouches. So here is to keeping my hands limber!

What are all of you working on today?

Fancy Sneak Peek! Upcoming Website!!

Ooooooo! Take a gander at that!

This is the mockup for the Red Marionette website coming soon!

A friend in California is working on this! He is super talented! His website is HERE

It will be a splash page (Meaning nothing fancy but links to a couple of basic pages - I didnt know either, I had to ask)
The page will end up with a bit more texture like felt layers laid out. The pages that will open will be a biography for Red Marionette. Access to shop by opening the Etsy shop. And then I will have a contact me thingy on there too. It had come to my attention (My mother, brilliant as she is informed me) that it is sometimes difficult for people to contact me directly if they want to email about something. If they didnt want to sign up for an Etsy account, there really isnt much of a way to contact me. So this site will help with basics like that. Make it a little less confusing.
I am hoping to eventually have little animations like the clouds moving and the owl blinking. All in due time. So it will change a bit but this is the first pass! Exciting times!
What do you think?

Ive upgraded....

I have officially upgraded to a large tub for my ornament stock.
The tub size is 71 quarts. LARGE. You know the big storage kind. I have very nearly filled my first one.
Tomorrow a trip to Target is in order for miscellany around the house and another LARGE 71 quart tub.
If this puts it into perspective a small adult could take a bath in my ornament tub.
Seriously.
I should take a photo like that! Well...then again, I wouldnt want to see all of those startled eyes looking back at me in a photo....
Erm...
anyway...
Point of the story was (until it horribly derailed into naked people in a tub of Red Marionette ornaments. Sometime its a bad thing to be an artist cause you SEE things when people say them..) that I am now building up enough stock to be a force to be reckoned with this Holiday season. Yay!

I reached my 600th sale on Etsy on Friday! Whoopeee! We celebrated by getting ice cream!
Thank you to all of you for your support!

Secrets, Secrets....

So far 2010 has a lot of potential to be a firecracker of a year! I know it sucks when people say "Oh! Something amazing just happened" and then go on to say "But I cant tell you." Dont you hate that? It makes me so mad when that happens!

Well guess what?
Something amazing just happened! But I cant tell you.
I am sorry.

But really, it did, and I cant.
I will announce it when I am sure it has worked out.
No, I did not win a million dollars, nor am I pregnant. It is Red Marionette related.

Dont you love surprises?

All Stocked Up!

I took most of yesterday afternoon to clean and reorganize my studio space.
It had gotten out of hand. I didnt want to work in the studio cause I knew I had to get things rearranged for more space!
Joanns had recently (two months ago - but I tell myself recently so I dont feel so bad that it took this long to organize it) gotten some new colors in felt by the yard so of course I had to pick some up to play with! I had purchased bolts of Christmas Michael Miller fabrics last year and never really had found a home for them so they were under my cutting table. And then I had picked up miscellaneous fabrics along the way that were just stacked willy nilly on the shelf with tubs of fabric. My sheets of felt along the right side of the yards of felt wasnt organized by color so who knew how much of each I had.....
It was bad.
I am happy to announce that now everything has its place! All organized and ready for the mass production in Red Marionette Land!
There are some major things stirring up for this Holiday season as far as exposure and I will tell you all when I can. But for now its time to hunker down and sew sew sew with my newly organized space!

RedMarionette.com

Hello out there!

Yesterday I discovered that my site www.redmarionette.com was down. I had purchased the domain name for my company years ago and had it forward back to my etsy store. It stayed put until recently I realized it wasnt forwarding to my shop.
A big problem considering www.redmarionette.com was all over my business cards, return addresses in emails, etc. Eek!
So who knows how long this has been going on, hopefully not too long!
But all is well now!
Due to recent circumstances it has propelled me in to contracting a website made by a family friend Brandon Dicks. Here is his website: www.maddoc3d.com
I am super excited to actually have a face page for the Red Marionette site. It will direct you to the etsy store if you would like to purchase goods, but also allows a way to contact me without signing in through Etsy. It is very exciting! Ill keep you all posted over the next few weeks and we may have to do some exciting website launch doodad!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

New Prototypes! Jack the Parrot and Herman the Hippo

I just finished up my two new prototypes! Jack the Parrot and Herman the Hippo.

I am still working on little biographies for these guys but they will be listed in the store soon!

Herman the Hippo will also come in other colors. I am fiddling around with a purple scheme, pink scheme and green color scheme! I think they would all look nice!




Oh! And Happy Mothers Day to all of you wonderful moms out there! The world appreciates you for all that you do!

No Rhyme or Reason

Everyone you come across that has their own business or Etsy Shop has tips and tricks for you on how to drive more traffic to your shop.
I have heard many in my two + years on Etsy. Aside from advertising in an outside website which costs major cash for most reputable places that actually WOULD drive traffic to your store, there are a couple other options.
Options like rearranging your shop to keep things fresh. Someone may click on your store once a day for a week but if nothing changes then it begins to be stagnant. I try to list something new every day for my store. If I cannot, I try to rearrange the order things are displayed in. Keeps it fresh!
The listing something every day normally works for me, but recently it has been quiet. Crickets.
I do have a lot of holiday items in my store. It is not a shock to me that Spring and Summer are my slowest seasons. However, I did three times the sales in April of 2010 than I did of April of 09. I haven't done anything different than my normal shop running and upkeep. And its 2010 people that are in a worse financial situation than 2009. Perhaps I have more viewers now and my little store has grown up some. Sure. But really what it boils down to for me, is that there really isn't a rhyme or reason for retail sales. They ebb and flow like the tides. Unfortunately much different than the tides, retail sales don't rely on the moon cycles. How cool would that be? Full moon = more sales!
Moral of the Story: Some times are slower than others. Do what you want to feel comfortable with your budgets and all the while keep talking about what you do. Sales will come eventually if you are persistent and slowly but surely they will grow. Just remember, when you think you got it figured out, you don't.
The one constant in life is change - so keep changing it up!