I feel like all you can see is the giant mushroom. It just draws the eye. Several of the things in this kiln are items that I made at Michael Harbridge's workshop back in May. I absolutely love what I'm seeing in my little pig planter and the birdhouse looks really cute too.
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow August 13th is the second Sunday of the month and that means it's time for the Belle Aire Market from 9-2. I am going to try out a way of doing a Seconds Sale this weekend. I have some pieces that just aren't what I envisioned for various reasons. They will be out on a table and I'm asking people to pay what they think they're worth. Minimum price is $1 only because I don't want to do anything with change.
A couple of weeks ago I responded to a post on Facebook where someone was asking how you don't let ADD take over in the studio and get intentional about making. I briefly described my process, but now I'm going to share with you how I use Excel to manage the process.
I love Excel. I don't really know when I learned it, it was just something that always made sense to me. I've ended up teaching basic Excel skills first at college and then at work. There are people who I haven't worked with in years who will text me when they have an Excel problem. I don't feel like I do anything all that fancy, but it is a really helpful tool.
I use Excel a lot when I prep for shows and when I am deciding what I need to make. This is only my second year of selling, but because I kept track of what I sold last year I had a good idea of what I needed to make the most of this year. I'm going to share with you how I use Excel to keep my prices, inventory, and pack for fairs. I absolutely know I could get more anal about this than I am. I could keep a lot of this in Square, but this way makes sense for me so it may make sense for others.
I've broken this down into 4 parts:
Part 1 - To Do List
Part 2 - Master Price List
Part 3 - Packing for a Fair and Prep
Part 4 - Tallying after a Fair
I've also created a sample file that you can use for your own studio. I do recommend downloading and using Excel vs Google Sheets as some of the formulas may not work, or work differently, in Sheets. The images and descriptions for this blog post are in the ToDo worksheet (or tab) at the bottom of the workbook.
Last year was my first year doing shows so I started by collecting data. I kept a tally of what I sold at each show. I also paid attention to what was selling vs what wasn't. I adjusted prices show to show until I found what felt like the sweet spot for a particular item. At the end of the year I summed each item across all the shows I did and that's how I created my initial To Do list for this year.
Last year I tried to keep track of inventory as I made things, bisqued them, and then glazed them but it was just too complicated. This year I've simplified it to just look at how many do I intend to make (the count column) and how many have I made to date. This gives me my "to do" as Excel automatically does the math (yes it's simple subtraction but sometimes I really fail at that). As I have sold things at various shows I will make notes on my clip board about what I need to add to my To Do.
I made probably 6 crab mugs last year and sold them all. I made 12 to start with this year and I have found that they are one of my most popular items. I make those in batches of 6-12 now and just add to the count when I need more.
The priority column is there just to help me focus. I can filter on To Do and unselect the 0 then filter on Priorty = 1. This gives me my first to do list that I can write on my small whiteboard in my studio. When I make an item, I wipe it off the board and then update the Excel on my phone or later at my desk. Once all the priority 1 items are done, I can move onto priority 2, and so on.
As I've been getting more intentional about what I make and my time to make it I have found that by making the various styles that I do in groups that glazing goes faster. I will make a bunch of crab things together so that when it comes time to glaze, I do all the crabs at once. It can feel a little tedious at times, but I'm also finding that I'm getting better at making pots and at glazing them by doing things in bulk like that.
I use multiple clays in my studio because I like all the different looks. What I don't like is getting brown clay on my white clay. So I try in a given week to only be using a single clay body so that I can do a deep clean before I move onto the next clay. This helps limit cross contamination.
If I go into the studio and abandon my list and randomly make 5 soap dispensers with a new cutter I got from De La Designs then I will add that to my To Do list. It's like writing something on my list and immediately checking it off. If I make just one thing and I don't know if I'm going to like it or sell it, then it doesn't immediately go on the list.
In the next post in this series I'll talk about the Master Price List and what it drives in the rest of the spreadsheet.
Just a quick reminder that this Sunday is the second Sunday of the month and that means it's time for the Belle Aire Market from 9-2. We were rained out last month, but this weekend the weather is looking a lot better. I am going to be doing a Seconds Sale this weekend for the first time. I have a bunch of pieces that just aren't what I envisioned for various reasons. I'm not going to price them, just going to let people make an offer for what they think they'd want to pay.
I just updated my Favorite Glazes Page. I realized I haven't updated it in 2 years and I have discovered a ton of glazes since then. I went through all my glaze pages that document every combo I've done and as I saw one that I loved I pulled it in. So this is completely from scratch. I will do better about adding to it when I find new combos in the future. My glaze pages document every combination I've done sorted by brand in the Pottery Menu.
In my last kiln opening I had these really cool tests that came out using glaze chips. I've added them here are the tests again in case you missed them. These came out amazing and the process was really simple. Each thing you do in this process will be different since the glaze chips will always be slightly different. I chose a white background because I wanted to really make it pop, but you could use any base color that you wanted. I did have one place where it was a bit of a sharp edge, but it sanded down nicely.
Mayco White Opal x3, Glaze chips
Left: Opulence Marshmallow x3
Right: Opulence Eggshell x3
Glaze chips
The glaze chips came from glazes that were almost empty, but just not quite. I left the bottles open near the kiln and let them dry out.
Once they were dry I rolled the bottles on the table and the glazes broke into chips.
I just dumped them into a large plastic ziplock bag.
I just took a pinch of glaze chips and arranged them on the plate after the glaze had dried.
For the two spoon rests that looked identical except for the glaze test, I did one left to right and one right to left.
There is nothing in this kiln that I don't love. The mushrooms! OMG the mushrooms! They came out so very perfect. I think if they sell and I make more I'll add a flange, but aside from that they are just absolutely perfect.
My glaze chip tests are also awesome. I used 3 different white glazes to try to figure out which one I liked best. The Opulence Marshmallow is definitely my favorite, although I do like the Mayco White Opal as well.
The Witches Brew mugs were tests that could have come out terrible, but they absolutely work and work amazingly well.
Can you see the mushrooms? How awesome do they look?! Still worried that for some reason they won't pop open, but I waxed and wiped them really well so it should be ok. I'm so excited for these. The worms came out exactly like I wanted them too.
Further down in this kiln is my experiment with glaze chips. Fingers crossed those came out as well.
I made a cork wreath a few years ago following a tutorial online. Every tutorial I've found uses a hot glue gun and that's what I used the first time. However, the sun on my front door is hot enough (even in winter with the glass screen door) to re-melt the hot glue. I decided to try again with e6000.
What I've learned with the e6000 is that it doesn't set as quick as hot glue. That meant I had to do only a few at a time when they were at weird angles and I had to support them.
This ended up taking about 2 weeks. Every time I walked path after a few hours had passed I would add another couple of corks. This was pretty messy and sometimes I would have to go back and add a bit more glue if something feels too loose.
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