1. What kind of art or crafts do you make? Most of the crafts and projects I work on for “Glass Action” are more fun than traditional: Night lights, jewelry and tie clips, boxes and picture frames, and custom orders.

2. When did you get started – and when did you realize this could be a business? I got started working in stained glass right out of high school and was a designer and fabricator for many years. It’s a very, very small market in metro-Detroit and suddenly I found my self an unemployed in 2004. Being a homeowner, I knew it was time to convert that basement room and do my own thing!

3. Where do you get inspiration for your projects? Originally it was out of boredom and from what I’d been working on all those previous years- Birds Of Paradise, Grape clusters, tulips and the like. I wanted to make art for people that have outgrown hanging posters in their bedrooms, but will always love pop culture.

4. What do you like best about selling through more traditional venues (craft fairs)? Walking up to a display and seeing that piece of art that grabs you or makes you smile, and the immediate thought of who it would make the perfect gift for. It’s a feeling I love to have and love seeing when a customer approaches my table.

5. Now, what do you like best about selling online? Ugh, it’s a mystery to me! Truthfully, I’ve had way more success through my Myspace page than on esty or ebay. In the latter two I’m a needle in a haystack, and haven’t quite learned how to “work it” correctly! People will write me for quotes and send me ideas through Myspace. Sadly, it’s slowed down a bit, but it’s still the best for directing people to a photo gallery of work (when you don’t have a website up yet).

6. How do you price your work? I base it more on what I think people can afford vs. what it’s worth in labor. I try to make a lot of one design at the same time which cuts the time down. When I make Michigan necklaces for example, I try to cut a million out, then grind them into shape, etc. Making a few at a time slows me down!

7. What has been your biggest struggle with your business? How did you overcome it? I’ve had to train myself to keep track of hours, form a budget, and figure out what I spend on supplies. I want to run Glass Action like a lemon aid stand, but my CPA advised me otherwise!

8. What has been the most rewarding part of your business? Having repeat business, great word of mouth and people really seem to like what I make. Not just the “quality,” but my ideas and designs. That means so much and keeps me inspired!

9. What is something you wish you knew when you were first starting your business? I would have been serious sooner – I wasn’t consistently making and designing as much as I am now. I think I would have a broader range of projects. But there isn’t much i’d change. It’s been so fun year by year working in glass and doing shows!

10. Do you mind sharing a business goal that you hope to accomplish with your business? www.glassactionhq.com is the next big challenge. I have a very talented and patient friend that’s helping me.  And I’m getting into the “wedding” game! I’m designing custom jewelry for brides and bridesmaids, and reception gifts. That’s a direction I’d love to explore more!

1. What kind of art or crafts do you make? My husband and I have a mom and pop shop named Stinkybomb Soap. We have created a line of bath and beauty products that take irony to it’s sudsiest form. Our soaps resemble hand grenades and our cassette tapes appeal to anyone over the age of 10 who remember tape decks. All of our soaps are created by us by casting molds from their real life counterparts, therefore carrying all the detail that the original product contains into our soap. Our beauty products appeal to the ladies but continue our militant theme with products like bath bombs and napalm lip balm, which is vegan friendly. My husband, Rob, makes all the molds and while he is a silent partner, he offers support and continued inspiration.  I manage the day to day operations, handle all the production, marketing and sales.

2. When did you get started – and when did you realize this could be a business? I should state that I have all ways been a crafty minded individual.  My grandmother gave me my first lesson with a sewing machine. I’ve dabbled in candle making, beads, and created a line of plush dolls.  It wasn’t until after the birth of our daughter that the Stinkybomb line came to be. I should also divulge that Rob has a side business where he makes replica knives and grenades out of resin. He had a bunch of old grenade molds lying around the house and I just kept telling him that I thought those molds would make some sweet bars of soap. So with nothing but time, and diapers to change, I went to work sourcing out different soap bases.  Once the recipes came to be, then it became searching out containers and creating labels. As soon as I started telling my friends I knew from their response that we were really going to have a lasting product and brand.

3. Where do you get inspiration for your projects? Our inspiration comes our general interest, Rob’s being military history, mine consisting more of pop culture and movies. A good deal of ideas come from our friends. We saw an artist friend speak the other night about her body of work, she resculpts and transforms plastic baby dolls into sculptures. It immediately gave us the idea of baby doll head soaps. It took less than two days for Rob to come back with a mold ready for soap production.

4. What do you like best about selling through more traditional venues (craft fairs)? First, would be the networking of other crafters and artist. I spend so much time in my work room or behind a computer, I love getting to talk them in person and seeing what they have been creating.  Next, is seeing the look on people faces when they walk by my booth. People either fully embrace our Stinky personality or walk away in disgust. I love engaging with those people in particular. They tend to walk away with a better idea of what this whole indie art movement is all about.

5. Now, what do you like best about selling online? Attempting to work from home while my daughter explores the house.

6. How do you price your work? This is always so hard. I do take a mark up from my cost of supplies. Every item used for the creation of one soap has been measured. From the colorants to the crinkle paper used in our packaging. I then have timed each step of the production process, that includes pouring soap to shipping. All of this factors into the product cost.

7. What has been your biggest struggle with your business? How did you overcome it? My husband plays such an integral part to Stinkybomb but it comes down to him finding time to create new products for the line. I am currently starting to learn more about his process so I can rely less on him and start making my own molds.

8. What has been the most rewarding part of your business? Hearing customer feedback. People love our soaps but are not likely to use them as the shape gets washed away with each use. So when people actually use them regularly and rave about the soap itself, I get warm fuzzies. REALLY PEOPLE: wash, rinse and repeat!

9. What is something you wish you knew when you were first starting your business? It takes time to grow a business, nothing happens over night. Also constantly apply yourself. Oh and relish in the parts of the process you love most.  I guess that was three things.

10. Do you mind sharing a business goal that you hope to accomplish with your business? We hope in a years time to attend a wholesale mart as a vendor. A very scary thought for many reasons but one that could lead to an exciting new place.

1. What kind of art or crafts do you make? I make things from fabric and pixels. Wow, if I could ever physically combine the two that would be cool! Hmmm…For now I suppose I’ll stick with glitter as the pixel part. But I make accessories that are useful and pretty. I call it fengtual – the merging of function and beauty. This includes cat toys made of good fabric they already destroy such as velvet and sequence.

2. When did you get started – and when did you realize this could be a business? It all ignited after I took a fashion design course at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) here in New York. I was a closet drawer, and sketching out outfits inspired by non-clothing, like lipstick bottles, was really fun for me. Pattern making, however, is not part of my brain, so it became too expensive to think I could launch a clothing line. I’ve always liked making things that work, so I started designing accessories. To make the patterns, I worked with a friend’s sister-in-law who was a seamstress/designer at the time for a store in Brooklyn, and is now a rock star on Etsy.

3. Where do you get inspiration for your projects? From my needs, and the needs of others. I wish I could think more abstractly, but I’m purpose driven, so I get to unleash in creativity with unusual fabric and color combinations, and uses for something very simple that no one thought of before.

4. What do you like best about selling through more traditional venues (craft fairs)? I get to see the personal reaction to my items. It helps me realize if I’ve got a winner or (sadly!) a dud. For my dog treat pouch, an accessory I designed at the request of a dog trainer, I had always thought it would make a nice pocket-purse to just drop in credit cards and a phone and go to the grocery store. So when someone bought it as a binoculars case for her bird watching, and then another woman bought it to hang from her baby stroller for her own little items, that confirmed for me that it could have dual purposes.

5. Now, what do you like best about selling online? I love selling online. I love the freedom it has. I love the challenge of trying to reach people. I love the little email I get when something sells. i love packaging the order! I loved designing my site, and I love the ability to expand on my site whenever I want to. It helps that I designed it myself, so I have a little more freedom there, but…

6. How do you price your work? Well, I look at the price of the materials and labor, first and formost. Currently, a woman in Alabama makes my accessories for me because she’s better at it than I am – plain and simple. But, if I made them myself, I’d still factor my rate in there to pay myself for the time it took to make it. I use high quality fabric that is closeout, meaning, there is no more left of it, and sometimes it is designer fabric. Then I look at the beauty factor, and if it’s unique enough to have higher price. I imagine what I would pay for it in a boutique. My jewelry bag for travel, for instance, gets a lot of nose turns from people online because they want one for $10 that an Amish woman made. This isn’t an Amish jewelry bag. It’s a carefully thought out one with square pockets and secured ring loops for easy access, funky color and fabric combinations with beautiful fabric that you’ll never see anywhere else.

7. What has been your biggest struggle with your business? How did you overcome it? Pattern making, I’d say. I am dependent on someone else to help me make prototypes. I did take a class at FIT to help me in this department, but fitting pieces together that didn’t look like they went together just gave me stomach aches. I am still overcoming it, because I need to find someone I have good synergy with to crank out new inventions. I don’t actively look for this person, however, so it takes a while. So far, I have left it to fate.

8. What has been the most rewarding part of your business? Producing the design, and someone buying it. I love matching all of the trimmings (and by matching, I mean unusual matching), sending them to who will make them, and getting them back in a box full of color. I also love growing my business in different directions. When I launched the website division of my business, Katie James Pixelated, I put up free desktop art and Twitter paper on my site, and the possibilities for where that can go is like a new frontier.

9. What is something you wish you knew when you were fist starting your business? You know what I wish I had? www.Collective-E.com. This is my second business I co-founded with two other hands-on partners, and it’s such an expansive outlet and learning center for business owners of all kinds – indieprepreneurs, craftypreneurs, etc. I’m so function happy, so we built with lots of ways to answer all kinds of needs from getting your own PR to building out your website for SEO, to business development in other areas, so many things. It’s also an online and offline group connector that has proved invaluable to growing my little Katie James in all sorts of directions.

10. Do you mind sharing a business goal that you hope to accomplish with your business? Boy oh boy, where to start! And what secrets to entice you with? I want to really launch Friends of Katie James on my site. I have my first designer on the site – Perry M Tote Bags. She hand draws super detailed designs on canvas totes. Hours of work. I want to transform my blog, www.FashionMista.com into a…blog with more dimension, let’s just say. It’s had many makeovers in my mind, and it’s time to put thought to pixel!

Featuring Beth Nixon of Reware Vintage

2. When did you get started – and when did you realize this could be a business? I’ve always had a fascination with vintage clothing, and with records. For years I would customize my own clothing that I’d found in thrift shops, and people would stop and ask me where I got my outfit…that’s how it all started! My husband and I started building a website to sell vintage clothing and items that I’d put my own touches on. I’d read a book a few months before the website launched that had a couple of projects made from records in it, and I made Christmas presents for our friends with the ideas. Everyone loved them, and I was so hooked with records as a new craft material. I worked for a while on the notebooks and gave them away to a few friends to try it out, and the response was overwhelming. I started getting requests from friends and friends of my friends, and from then on I knew that I would always have a destructive relationship with vinyl.

3. Where do you get inspiration for your projects? I love to learn and try new crafts! I’m also the type of person who focuses on function. I love to look at something that might be junk or trash or just something to look at to the average eye, and try to find a new purpose for it that will make it better or more usable in a way. It’s a puzzle to me, and I just need to figure out what to do and how to do it – the process is the best part for me!

4. What do you like best about selling through more traditional venues (craft fairs)? I love selling at craft fairs to see the response to my items! It’s so great to meet people and see their reactions to what I make, and it is very inspiring. There have been many craft fairs where I have sprouted a totally new idea of something to make based out of a customer’s comment or conversation. It is incredibly rewarding to have that customer interaction from time to time!

5. Now, what do you like best about selling online? Selling online is great because I am able to reach audiences all over the world! I’ve sent items to Japan, Greece, Australia, Great Britain, Mexico, and that would never be possible without my website. I love the idea that someone in Tokyo is using a Michael Jackson record notebook that I made in my home – It’s a pretty amazing concept!

6. How do you price your work? I personally am a very price-conscious consumer, so I price according to what I think is a reasonable cost for the item. I also take into account the time and energy that I put into it, and the cost of my materials. It’s not an exact science for me, and it’s always a battle in my mind!

7. What has been your biggest struggle with your business? How did you overcome it? My biggest struggle is definitely the self-promotion aspect. Having an online store is so different than a brick-and-mortar store. No one is driving past you on the street. You have to create your own opportunities every day, and you have to find the people in the world who are really going to love what you do and make yourself known to them! I work at it every day, and it is a learning experience every day.

8. What has been the most rewarding part of your business? The most rewarding part of my business has been all of the friends that I have made over the years because of a similar interest and passion for the crafting community, especially my fellow members of Handmade Detroit. It really is an amazing, massive, and awe-inspiring network of people and I am so happy to be part of it!

9. What is something you wish you knew when you were fist starting your business? I wish I would have had a DeLorean and a flux capacitor to know that it all worked out later. The first year was difficult for me, and I repeatedly questioned whether or not it was a good idea to quit my job and go for my dream job of working for myself. I knew I had some great ideas, but I wasn’t sure it people would really “get it”. The day of my first craft fair – The Detroit Urban Craft Fair - was the day I knew I had made the right decision, because I almost completely sold of my notebooks, but until then I sometimes doubted my sanity! My advice to anyone starting out is to just be confident in themselves and go for it without fear!

10. Do you mind sharing a business goal that you hope to accomplish with your business? I have so many goals and dreams for my business! This year my goal was to do a few out of state shows, and I’ll be traveling to Cleveland, Ohio in a couple weeks for my first! My main goal is to always keep waking up excited for work, and to live passionately for my work and the friends I’ve made through it every day. Oh, and I want to send Mickey Dolenz a Monkees notebook, because he’s my favorite!

Megan Reardon

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CraftBoom!’s 5 Questions

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If you could be any crafter/artist (past or present) for a day who would it be and why

I would like to be Elsa Schiaparelli for a day, especially around 1927. She lived a remarkable life and didn’t bow to societal pressures. She was a fashion designer who hung out with Surrealists and collaborated with Dali, she was a rival of Chanel. She used innovative knitting techniques and wasn’t afraid to shock anyone. You can read about her on Wikipedia. I went to an exhibit of her clothing and they were things that wouldn’t be out of place in shops today, and almost seemed unremarkable unless you knew what decade they were designed in. This photo exhibit online from the Philadelphia Museum is great if you’d like to get to know her work.

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If you had magic powers what 3 things would you do to advance the Crafting Movement?

I would go back in time and make sure Sassy magazine didn’t fall before it’s time.

I would create grants (or just piles of gold coins) for those who put so much work into creating craft shows like Urban Craft Uprising, Bizarre Bazaar and the DIY Trunk Show.

I would create a neverending supply of fabric so that certain styles wouldn’t run out, and I wouldn’t feel the need to hoard fabrics quite so obsessively.

Some things just defy explanation; which means you’ll probably find them hanging around on Megan’s blog.

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What are you most skilled at craft wise and what craft skills would you like to be more skilled at?

Having studied it in college, my sewing skills are the strongest (if a bit rusty when it comes to making clothing). I would like to be more skilled at graphic design principles in order to adorn my own work, or print my own fabric Spoonflower or Ink&Spindle. I think knowing more about graphic design would also help me design, or at least make decisions about, my house, garden, and website.

Megan is also pretty handy with the baking too. Will you get a load of that perfect pastry on that pie; why don’t I have neighbors or friends who can do that?

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What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?

I think it may be the bacon cups, though it was almost accidental. They were created as a result of being invited to a bacon-themed pot luck at the home of a chef and a food writer. I don’t have a lot of aptitude for cooking so I decided, the morning of the pot luck, that if I couldn’t do something that would taste good, I might as well do something that looked dramatic. I had no idea they would be so popular on the interwebs.

Megan’s world famous bacon cups. Drool…only another 2 hours before lunch…

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Besides family/friends/home/health what is your most treasured possession?

At this very moment I’m smitten with my iPhone, I feel like I have such freedom to have access to any information I might need or want from wherever I might be. I can look up recipes, yardage for yarn, maps and addresses, and all that stuff I print out but inevitably leave on my desk on the way out of the house. I’m hoping it will make my scattered self run a little more smoothly.

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Megan’s 5 Questions

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“Megan please choose another 5 questions to ask yourself. So these self chosen questions can be about anything you like. It would be nice if they are somewhat craft related questions, but they don’t have to be; I happen to think things like that “who would you like to share a roller coaster ride with” or “who you would to knit a jumper for” or “your favourite brand of chocolate milk” for example, quite interesting “

NB: Meg thought it would be a cool idea to ask her Not Martha readers to think up some questions for her to answer:

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What do you do when you’re suffering a creative block to unblock?
I find something in my daily life that I would like a solution for but cannot buy. My shoe racks are an example of this. Not only did I end up with a solution for keeping shoes my tight little corner but I found myself wandering around hardware stores completely engrossed in discovering what I could do with things I could find there. This lead to a bunch of other things I wanted to do and suddenly I find myself inspired to work on a bunch of things.

Megan’s stylish DIY designer shoe racks.

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What are your fledgling hobbies–as in, what would you be tackling next if suddenly the craft world went boom, yarn disappeared, and uh, food made itself? Are you a closet golfer? Aspiring Toastmaster?
I would love to make video games and study game theory and structure. I grew up playing the Kings Quest games, and credit the early ones with teaching me how to type properly. I really admire Erin Robinson at Livey Ivy, and I’m a fan of Ragnar Tornquist.

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Was your business planned, or did it naturally evolve? I mean, did you actively seek out having a business, or did the business find you?
My business, The Organized Knitter grew from not being able to find the type of knitting needle cases and storage that I wanted. Once I had my idea I set out to make it a business. If I could do it again I would wait longer to quit my job until the small business absolutely demanded it, I did a lot of floundering around initially and would have felt more secure if I hadn’t put so much pressure on myself. I wish the books Craft Inc. and The Boss of You had been out when I was starting my business, they would have helped a lot.

Inside view of one of Megan’s crochet cases. Enough organization to bring on a feeling of peace and calm.

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What are the crafting tools that you cannot live without?
I cannot live without disappearing markers, the packaging often calls these ìair erasableî. They make it so easy to place something and you don’t have to worry about washing or brushing away chalk later on. I never did like thread tracing. I also really love the Clover fabric eraser, I mark all my sewing and cutting lines in pencil and this does the best job of getting that up out of fabric if I need. It’s pencil shaped as well so it’s easy to keep in with my other marking supplies.

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How did turning your hobby into a business change your feelings about it?
Since I spend all day sewing I now considering checking my email to be relaxing. I still enjoy sewing but I’m less likely to think up projects that involve it. I do think I have focused my excess creative energy on knitting and cooking than I would have otherwise.

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Thanks so much for the interview Megan. So many of us check-in to Not Martha daily wondering what type of coolness we’ll find, so it’s really nice to know a bit more about the driving force behind such a wonderful site. Wishing you lots of happiness and wishing you luck in your business. I wonder is it possible to Fed-ex Jar Pies to London?

I hope you enjoyed that. More of these 10 Crafty Questions are in the pipeline. Look out for them!

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CraftBoom!’s 5 Questions

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If you could be any crafter/artist (past or present) for a day who would it be and why?
I am pretty happy as myself right now – of course there are lots of things I would like to do better – and I admire women who seem to be able to combine their dreams with being wonderful mothers at the same time. Two women I am attracted to for both their talent, their devotion to their children and to their craft/art are:
1. Blogger/homeschooling mama – Amanda Soule (of Soulemama.blog) she is so kind and talented but it is her mothering style that really draws me in – I love reading her blog and her recent book – both very inspiring. (read Amanda’s Crafting Heroes Interview here).

2. Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton, won the Archibald prize for painting this year with a work titled “You are What is Most Beautiful About Me”, it was a self portrait with her children. I have always loved her paintings and drawing but recently saw her soft sculptural work at the Melbourne Art Fair and it simply blew me away. She says “Mum taught me to sew, fairly unsuccessfully, but I like to keep it rough because it gives a quality of vulnerability and honesty to the marks I’m making.”

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If you had magic powers what 3 things would you do to advance the Crafting Movement?
If I had magic powers I would be stopping wars and saving trees and whales – but if its a crafting hero you want – Crafting seems to have a momentum of its own that needs no help from magic – unless you call the internet the hero of the crafting movement – which in a way it is – it has brought together people and ideas from such disparate areas that any magic I had would only be enhancing that effect.

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What are you most skilled at craft wise and what craft skills would you like to be more skilled at?
Sewing is my most craftiest thing – I make clothes and house accessories and am obsessed (still) by quilts, I make bags (for myself mostly but for friends and kids too) and make presents for people – I like to have a stash of tiny baby pants and shoulder bags to give as gifts. I also dabble in handmade books and dyeing fabric – but mostly my love of crafting revolves around an obsession with fabric. I would love to get into fabric design – but this is just as yet a very vague desire.

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What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?
My children for sure. They are the love of my life. I couldn’t imagine my life without them. I do think though that completing my postgraduate studies with top marks while having two children in the midst of it all was a pretty good achievement too.

Awwwwww! Such a lovely picture.

I also think that Whipup is a good achievement – I have really loved being part of the craft blogging world and am grateful for all the people I have ‘met’ through Whipup and before that through my blog Redcurrent (which I know only update on a very irregular basis).

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Besides family/friends/home/health what is your most treasured possession?
Photos – I have so many gorgeous photos of my kids that I love. Apart from my enormous photo collection I also treasure the handmade lace from my late grandmothers estate.

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Kathreen’s 5 Questions

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Kathreen please choose another 5 questions to ask yourself. So these self chosen questions can be about anything you like. It would be nice if they are somewhat craft related questions, but they don’t have to be; I happen to think things like that “who would you like to share a roller coaster ride with” or “who you would to knit a jumper for” or “your favourite brand of chocolate milk” for example, quite interesting

Oh ok here goes – no celebrity questions – I admit to knowing next to nothing about celebs and wouldn’t want to go on a roller coaster with someone I was not very comfortable in the company of…

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What was your first crafting disaster and success?
I started crafting by making dolls clothes – I went from that to pillow cases and patchwork cushions – I made a few shirts which were difficult and took ages – with button holes and tailored collars – then took a leap into the unknown and made my end of year dance (prom) dress. It was a spectacular disaster. I took my (over protective and no fashion sense) mothers advice and bought dark green taffeta and made a bouffant thing that never quite fit properly, didn’t stay on my shoulders and gave me no confidence at all – I believe I looked quite frumpy – it was the late 80’s after all …

Crafting success – the best thing I have ever made has got be these pants for my boy – 2 years on (and a bit taller) he is still wearing them – they are a bit faded and bit short but he wears them nearly everyday – they are comfortable, easy to wash and super duper groovy.

Aw man! Those pants seriously rock!

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What crafting experience would you never repeat?
I used to have a market stall every Sunday at the local craft markets – but after a year of Sundays and early mornings and weekends used up I decided to quit and oh boy what a relief! I wish that Etsy was around back then – what a bonus for crafters now having such a fabulous marketplace to sell their wares.

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What skills would you like to pass on – and which ones do you feel you missed out on?
I would like to teach my kids to cook and to sew really well – Also to teach them an appreciation of handmade and handcrafted things. To teach them to enjoy the making as much as the using/eating – we don’t go to fast food restaurants for that reason – and we now spend our Sundays baking bread or gardening or making something – instead of rushing around like we do the rest of the week.

Mmmm I can almost smell it!

The Ricketson family’s earth oven.

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My favourite snack to munch on and favourite music to listen to while crafting away?
I will always love banana on buttered toast with a cup of tea. not too practical to eat while crafting as it is a bit crumby and buttery – but I like to pause and sit and enjoy my tea break before getting back to the cutting/sewing bench. Music though is a different matter – I enjoy a range of old jazz, musicals and moody music – my husband calls it wailing music – but i find the old women of jazz very soothing to listen to.

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What do you want more of and less of in your life?
I want more space – I want a sewing room (I have given up my dedicated sewing room so the children could have a room each – boo hoo!) but as we are currently extending our house I will hopefully soon have my own space back again – smaller but more compact and organised. I want less stuff. I can’t bear all the junk that seems to accumulate – I love to chuck out clear out and give back to the charity shops – I am striving for a simple life without lots of mass manufactured stuff around me.

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Thanks so much for the interview Kathreen. So many of us check-in to Whipup each day so it’s really nice to know a bit about the driving force behind such a wonderful site. Wishing you lots of happiness and many more craft successes. I don’t suppose you could whip up a pair of those groovy pants for yours truly?

I hope you enjoyed that.  More of these 10 Crafty Questions are in the pipeline.  Look out for them!