Archive for the ‘Bookmarks’ Category
New Bookmarks
My most popular product last year was the wood bookmarks. They flew out of my booth by the handful and continue to sell well online this year. Because of the popularity, I have added a few new ones to my normal selection.
I hunt around through my local lumber supplier, as well as Ebay and other places for unique exotic woods that I think would make eye catching bookmarks. I let some of my wood finds stand on their own, and others will receive some domestic trim pieces from my scrap pile. Many of the pieces I use are purchased as pen blanks or turning blanks. They range in length from 5 to 6 inches which is the reason they tend to vary in length.
The ones in the picture are the new ones I have added this year. From left to right are:
1. Quilted maple and jatoba
2. Burl walnut, cherry, and maple
3. Florida grapefruit walnut and jatoba
4. Hawaiian mango
5. Quilted maple and bloodwood
Sandy Springs Festival
The Sandy Springs Festival was an interesting show. Saturday morning was threatened with rain, which impacted customer participation. At about 2PM, the sky opened and the rain came down in buckets. It poured and poured until show personnel finally canceled the rest of the day around 3PM. The good news is that Sunday almost made up for it. The day was nice and sunny and I think all of Sandy Springs turned out for it. You couldn’t stir them with a stick, and everyone came out to buy something. It was a busy and lucrative day for most.
I have to hand it to the show personnel; this was the best run show I have ever attended. There were a lot of volunteers and everyone seemed to know what to do and when to do it. From the Friday night setup to Sunday night tear down, they kept everything organized and traffic flowing. I have never seen this many artists on one street and no traffic jams. The show personnel were beyond friendly and helpful, and they kept coming around all day to hand out cold water. This show is definitely a keeper for me.
To all my customers who find their way to this site, thanks for your business. Your patrionage helped make the show a great success for me and I hope you will remember my products when Christmas shopping this year. Regards!
Early Saturday morning before the crowds
This was the first show using my new shelves. My old shelving system took about 30 minutes to assemble. There is no assembly required for these and it only took a couple minutes to set them up. I am so excited about this change.
The new shelves
The new shelves handle more product, freeing up my tables for other items. I’m am going to add more shelves on this side soon which will allow me to get rid of one table and utilize the empty vertical space. I never seem to be satisfied with the layout of my booth and i’m always tweeking it. The biggest problem is not having enough space on the left side for all the items I want to include at a show. I hope to have this resolved in a couple of weeks. I’ve only been working on a solution for over a year.
New Bookmarks
I finally found time today to get pictures taken of my new bookmarks. I tend to procrastinate on pictures because it takes a while to set up my lights and umbrellas, so I usually wait until I have a lot of things to shoot. These bookmarks are made with both domestic and exotic woods and are around 1 1/2″ wide x 6″ long x 1/16″ thick. My first try with bookmarks last year were just domestic woods. They have sold very well at shows,, so I have expanded my designs to exotic(non-domestic) woods. My next show is in a couple of weeks in Tennessee and I am anxious to see how well they are received.
Watching Glue Dry
My world is centered on watching glue dry. No matter how many projects I have in progress, invariably, somewhere in the process, I have to glue something and wait for the glue to dry. Most everything I glue up has to have 24 hours to fully cure. It’s not that big an issue except that the more items I have glued up and in clamps, the more places I have to find to set these items until they are ready to come out of the clamps. Today was no exception.
I assembled the raised panel doors for the bar I am working on. Once I got the spaceballs in the grooves, I glued the rails to the styles, clamped them square, and then set them off to the side. I have a small shop and with the doors, a few cutting boards, and an assortment of cabinetry in various finished stages, space was becoming a challenge. I needed a little diversion from watching glue dry, so this afternoon I took a break and worked on bookmarks.
I glued up scrap wood a couple of days ago and put them in the corner while….you guessed it, the glue dried. I have a two day show in a week and I needed to build my inventory of bookmarks back up. Bookmarks are one of those easy things to make, and sells well at shows because I price them at $5 each. At slow shows, bookmarks have made the difference between breaking even and losing money. The Virginia-Highland show last weekend was very slow due to the weather. However, I saw a small profit because of my bookmarks.
I spend an hour cutting out strips, glue, clamp, and wait. The easy part is cutting them out. Today I cut out 55 bookmarks on the bandsaw in about an hour. I set the fence to about 1/8” from the blade and ran block after block though the blade. Thirty minutes later, after running through the drum sander to get them to the final thickness, they are ready for a clear coat finish.
