The Mouse Market

Nutter Butter White Chocolate Ghost Earrings

This has been quite the busy weekend, and on Friday afternoon I finished the entire consignment order for Assemble Shop and Gallery and promptly started in on Halloween jewelry pieces, completing a couple of pairs of sugar cookie mice earrings with a twist–naughty and nice. I was also in the mood to make more spirited accessories (heh), so I created a pair of Nutter Butter White Chocolate Ghost Earrings and Ghastly Sugar Cookie Ghost Earrings–boo!

Naughty Sugar Cookie Mice Earrings

Today, I’ll be working on more jewelry pieces, and I’ll also be putting together the little scene for my 3D banner. I have the background prepared and the dishes laid out, and now it’s time to fill it in with tricks and treats of the miniature variety, including a spiderweb cheesecake and a little bowl of candy corn (the latter of which, if my initial attempt is any indication, will take for-EVER to make). I also need to leave myself a bit of time to drag my table and risers upstairs so I can start planning out my booth display, and I’m looking forward to sharing some pictures, because I found a neat wire cupcake stand and super cute patterned cupcake liners that will be perfect for displaying small accessories, along with mini topiary sign holders.

Ghastly Sugar Cookie Earrings

And now, on to the free stuff! Green Eyed Monster is hosting a tomato themed giveaway, and one lucky winner will be sporting a pair of my Redfield Beauty Tomato Earrings. The post will go live at 1 p.m. EST, so be sure to check it out for your chance to win. Good luck, and happy Labor Day!

Cuteness at Great Smoky National Forest

We’re back! The Louisville show was a ton of fun, and while it wasn’t the best show I’ve had in a financial sense, I still did quite well, and it was totally worth it in other ways. I met so many wonderful people, both vendors and customers, and I also met one of the regional coordinators for the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts (NAME), who was a wealth of helpful information, and she convinced me that I needed to apply for the NAME National Convention in July 2011. The deadline was yesterday, which was also the day that we were driving home, so there was a bit of circus-style finagling at FedEx Office as I pulled photos from my Flickr page to use for the application, but I managed to get everything in on time.

Unbelievably Gorgeous Rainbow Falls Trail

Why all the fuss? Well, for one thing, it’s a huge show with tons and tons of people, and the vendor selection process is pretty competitive, so it would be really exciting to have the opportunity to participate. Of course, the stories of artists who sold out on the first day at past conventions also doesn’t damper my enthusiasm.

Straight-Branched Coral Fungi, Perhaps?

I have so many things to share about the trip, but I want to give you the low down on my Etsy shop sale before I get carried away. While talking to other vendors and shoppers at the show, my eagerness to start making holiday minis and jewelry, which was already running high, reached near-dangerous levels, and I’ve decided to put a ton of pieces on sale in order to make room for my new pieces, otherwise my workspace will be completely overrun by teeny, tiny foods. So…be sure to check out the sale section of my shop, because there are roughly 80 discounted items, including loads of dollhouse pieces, and many of them are marked as much as 50% off. (I told you I went a little nuts.)

Tomorrow, more news on my upcoming projects, as well as additional thoughts on the Louisville show and how I plan to modify my booth for my St. Louis show in two weeks.

Playing Dress Up Sugar Cookie Mice Earrings

Over the past six months, I’ve received a handful of emails from businesses requesting wholesale or consignment information, and I’ve been very reluctant to do that sort of thing, partly because I don’t want to sell my pieces at 50% less than what I can make in my Etsy shop, since I’m already making such a slim profit margin given the time that goes into each piece, but also because I want to maintain exclusivity of my work. But…a few days ago one of the co-owners of a lovely gallery in Seattle, Assemble Gallery and Studio, contacted me about consigning some pieces for the holiday season, and after paying a visit to their website I fell in love with the place. Their workshop/lecture listings alone was enough to make me swoon–sewing! Bookbinding! Printmaking! *sigh*

Long story short, I’ve decided to work with them on a consignment basis this fall/winter, and while I will likely return to selling pieces strictly in my shop after the holidays are over, I’m definitely much more open to selling a select amount of pieces in various shops and galleries during the busy gift-buying season. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes, and if anyone has any wholesale/consignment tales of their own to share, comment away!

Red Velvet Cake

In other exciting news, I was finally able to purchase a pound of Silicone Plastique, which means that I can make high-quality molds for regularly-shaped pieces, something for which I previously had to shell out $4-6 per mold. That also means that I might start selling molds in my shop in the not-so-distant future, and I’m toying with the idea of creating mold and tutorial sets as well, i.e. a cupcake tutorial with a cupcake mold, donut tutorials with molds, etc.

Last bit of news: I created a holiday meal flyer for my upcoming show, advertising a selection of festive entrées and sides that customers can pre-order for the holidays. Since I won’t have time (or display dishes) to make turkeys or hams in time for the show, I at least wanted to show off a handful of pictures that I took of my recent custom order to gauge what sort of interest exists for such holiday pieces. We’ll see how it goes!

The (Almost) Finished Turkey

I know I’ve been neglecting the ol’ blog lately, but I just finished the holiday meal custom order that I’ve been working on for the past week, so I should have a bit more time in my schedule. I do need to replace a handful of foods to fill up a few holes that have appeared in my show display thanks to Etsy sales, but that shouldn’t take me too terribly long. After that, my goal is to make as many jewelry pieces as possible in anticipation of the September show, since I’ll only have two weeks in between my show in Louisville and the September event.

If things go according to plan and and I have a little wiggle room for modest spending after the show, I’m going to purchase the license for my online shop, and slowly but surely, you’ll see some changes begin to unfold at the Mouse Market. I know I’ve explained my tendency to get bored with the look of things from time to time, and the fires of change have certainly been lit beneath my behind, judging by the fact that all of my recent journaling has focused on my plan for Mouse makeovers.

Not-Yet-Varnished Veggies & Potatoes

For one thing, I’ve continued to experiment with the watercolors here and there, so hopefully I’ll be ready to launch my revised banner relatively soon. With the new banner, I’m aiming for a different “color atmosphere” with bright, yet soft, colors taking center stage, much like the decorating collages I put together in an earlier post (the pastry shop and kitchen collages). My goal is to transfer this color change to my Etsy shop as well so the photos look a bit more tied together.

Before I sign off, I want to leave you with a few random tidbits that might be of interest:

• If you have an Etsy shop, you might find this application super helpful.
• For a cute and clever use for Moo’s Mini Cards, check out how Etsy seller, Tamar, incorporates the cards into her product packaging.
• My Redfield Beauty Tomato Earrings were featured in a Try Handmade post, and the website is a wealth of handcrafted eye candy, so be sure to check it out.
• From the above mentioned post, I followed a link to a seed-selling Etsian, the Bear Foot Shaman. Their shop is awesome!

Happy Wednesday, and I’ll be back in mini-making action tomorrow!

Deluxe Bento Prep Station

For those of you who subscribe to the Etsy newsletters and/or frequent the forums, this might be old news, but I just found out that Etsy shops will be getting a spiffy makeover, including wider pages with bigger thumbnails in gallery view, a less obtrusive shop announcement, and a shifting of the sidebar. You can read more about it here, and be sure to check out the screenshots–they really do look quite fab! (And speaking of Etsy, if you have a moment please check out this lovely blog post featuring yours truly!)

Singing, Happy Eggs

In similarly exciting news, I’ve finished all but one piece for my dollhouse show, which is a lucky thing, too, because I just received a commission for a tasty holiday meal that will take a good amount of time (and I’m so eager to see the finished meal!). My last miniature show piece is…[drum roll, please] a bento-making station. I bought a green kitchen hutch as part of my last supply order, and I’ve been itching to try my hand at mini bento for quite some time, and the hutch has kindly agreed to participate in my little experiment.

Bento Kitty & BBQ Pork Buns

[Update: I wrote this post last night, and this morning I went ahead and filled the cabinet, so everything is completed with the exception of the cookbook.] My tentative plan is to fill the top shelf with little metal bento tins and a box of rainbow colored tissue papers (for decoration and presentation of the finished bento boxes); the middle shelf will feature two bowls of dyed rice, a little glass jar filled with chopsticks in an array of bright colors, and a platter of hard boiled eggs with little kawaii faces; and the bottom shelf/counter will contain a bento tin in the process of being assembled, a cutting board with a cookie cutter and various food shapes, and two plates, one with colorful veggie pieces, the other with animal-shaped buns. There are also two (very shallow) drawers under the counter, and I might design a little cover for a bento cookbook to slip inside one of them.

Tiny, Little Drawers

In the future, I’ll buy a lighter colored cabinet or table, because the dark green of the hutch wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Adding decorative paper to the inside of the shelves certainly helped, but I’m excited to see what my next piece will look like with a white or pale pastel cabinet. For whatever reason, I’m really enjoying creating the complete food sets at the moment (such as the fully stocked pastry case), and while I know I certainly couldn’t make a living selling these sorts of things exclusively, I’m curious to know if an entire roombox with removable accessories would be of interest to buyers. I’d love to make a fairy tale box!

Fairy Tale Tableware

As you may have guessed, I’m not serving on jury duty today–yippee! There’s still a chance that I’ll be called in tomorrow or Friday, but after that, I’m a free Mouse. Last night, I finished a few more mini pieces for the show, and all I have left to do is a produce basket filled with…well, produce, and a green kitchen hutch that will be filled with as-yet-undecided minis. I might do a cool dessert preparation station or something along those lines. Then, it’s back to crazy jewelry production as I feverishly attempt to increase my inventory for the September show.

Japanese Tea Time Collection

I received an exciting package in the mail two days ago: my very first Re-ment pieces! I’ve been searching for 1/6 scale dishes in which to cast bowl and plate molds for future use, and these were the only pieces that I could find. I know there has got to be another source for 1/6 scale dishes, so if anyone has any info, I’d greatly appreciate it. I’m particularly excited about the strawberry picnic basket and the fairy tale plates. My plan is to create tasty-looking 1/6 scale treats to go along with each Re-ment piece, leaving them unglued so shoppers can reuse the plates and foods however they choose, and sell each as a little set. (That is, unless I decide to keep them for myself, because they’re so darn cute.)

Merry Strawberry Picnic Set

One last bit of news: It looks like my online shop launch is going to be postponed. I’ve been struggling with WP e-commerce, and I was beginning to wonder if was merely going insane (still a possibility, I suppose) or if the software was buggy. After reading a bunch of reviews, I believe it’s the latter, and the WordPress plugin that seems to be earning the best reviews from developers is Shopp. I’ll have to wait until after my show, because the license is $55, but after reading through all the specs, it sounds pretty wonderful and just what I’m looking for. I’ll probably buy another domain name just for my shop, so I don’t have to worry about separate themes for different pages, but everything will still be accessible from this site. I can’t wait to have this nonsense finished!

P.S. Later this afternoon, I should have the chocolate cake earrings, and a bunch of new ice cream accessories posted on Flickr and in my Etsy shop, so be sure to take a peek.

Sea Bass w/ Olive Gremolata

This was quite the busy weekend for the Mouse, and I caught up on a great deal of mini-related work after my family’s visit last week. After completing more rainbow cake accessories for custom orders, I started in on a series of preparation boards for my upcoming mini show (see the full photo set on Flickr). I also knocked out three new dessert preparation scenes and a handful of jewelry pieces, including yummy-looking artisan bread earrings and a new collection of Heartthrob Cookie Earrings.

Citrus-Glazed Chicken & Broccoli

In no particular order, a few bits of Mouse news…If you missed yesterday’s post featuring pages from my digital decorating sketchbook, be sure to take a peek. I received a few lovely emails and comments in response, and while the pages take a good amount of time to put together, if there’s enough interest I would be more than happy to share more when I’m ready to start on future roomboxes.

Cheese Skewers w/ Fennel White Bean Salad

Speaking of lovely emails, I’ll be starting work on a carnival-themed tutorial next week (a double issue this time–ooh la la!) due to a very positive response to the first one, and I’ll try my very best to have it finished before we leave for the Louisville show. I do need to work out another option for sending the files, since the last tutorial was too large for one customer’s email client’s limitations. Perhaps I’ll need to upload it to my online file storage and share a link with customers. Hmm…

Pork w/ Plum Sauce & Noodles

I’ve also put in a bit of work on themousemarket.com shop, and things are moving right along. I’m not thrilled at the shipping calculation options available with WP e-commerce, but after slogging through the specs of four more shopping carts yesterday, I still feel rather confident that this is the best option for the time being. Hopefully, by the end of next week, I’ll have enough products listed that I’ll feel ready to launch the shop, because I’d like to have any potential kinks worked out prior to holiday shopping madness. And now…back to the mini-making!

Peep, Having No Part of this Kitchen Business

Well, believe it or not, I finally had my husband take a picture of me, and then I enticed my little peanut, Peep the gerbil, to pose for a few shots as well. I attempted to set her up in the mini kitchen with the Nutmegs, but after giving Mama’s dress a cursory sniff, she promptly embarked on her own tabletop adventures. Eighty percent of the photos I took were of hind legs about to jump out of frame or a complete fur blur on its way to something more exciting. Surprisingly, she stopped for a moment and fixed me with her cutest questioning look (which I almost missed, because I was so distracted by overwhelming amounts of adorableness), and then it was back to scrabbling underneath the mini kitchen in a most unsociable fashion. Pop over to the about page to see the photos that made the final cut.

I Have About 15 Variations of this Photo

I won’t be posting for a few days while my family is here (and I might be slow in responding to comments to this post), but I’ll be back in mini action on Friday. In the meantime, be sure to make your way over to my Flickr page to see my latest sugar cookie mouse earrings. I think they’re an improvement on my earlier pairs, and I’ve discovered that the secret to a more realistic sugar cookie icing is to add more Liquid Translucent Sculpey. Now that I’ve achieved the look I was after originally, I’m totally hooked, and I want to create a whole line of sugar cookies. Have a great week, everyone!

I’ve been working quite a bit this weekend in preparation for my family’s visit, and I only have one day left before they arrive, so I’ll have to bust my mini-making butt today in order to get a few custom orders finished, along with a handful of new jewelry pieces to list during their visit so my shop doesn’t look stagnant. We also have a new roommate moving in as we speak, so things are busy on multiple levels.

Some of you may have noticed a new addition to my site’s navigation, but if not, you might want to take a peek at the “mice” page. In conversations with my friends, Chani and Lisa, I realized that I needed to offer more information about the adorable mouse family that features so prominently in my photos, particularly for readers who haven’t been following my blog for very long and who may have missed earlier introductory posts. In the future, I’ll be posting links to Nutmeg family photo albums that will be viewable online (probably on Scribd), but in the meantime, there’s plenty of information to satisfy your curiosity about my whiskered friends.

Speaking of curiosity, I’m finally going to take some pictures of myself next weekend so I can post something a little more personal on my “about” page, and for those of you who know me, this is quite a milestone, since I’m fairly certain that Bigfoot has been captured on film with more regularity. In a similar elusive fashion, I’m going to try my best to photograph one of the smaller members of my family who also happens to be the inspiration for my business name. She’s quite the fleet-footed little bugger, but perhaps with enough treats she can be persuaded to pose for a quick photo shoot. Stay tuned…

I Told You it was Huge...

On the clay front, I embarked on what might be a completely insane (and most certainly masochistic) endeavor this weekend: I’m attempting to create a polymer clay cane with the phrase “eat me” for use in Alice in Wonderland mini confections. As you can see in the photos, I created all of the letters using stacked rectangles of dark pink clay, and I surrounded the letters with sheets and snakes of light pink clay. Madness! It’s possible that the letters won’t show up properly once I’ve reduced the cane to roughly 3/8 of an inch in diameter (a monstrous task, indeed), but my fingers are fervently crossed that everything will remain intact, because it’s taken me hours to get to this point, and the reduction will likely take at least a few more hours (with frequent thumb rests).

Green Tea Macarons

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, I’ve been busy giving the Mouse Market site a little makeover in preparation for a handful of larger changes I’ll be working on over the next month. While I was hanging out in Memphis this weekend, waiting for Jake to take his paramedic practical exam (he passed!!!), I had a great deal of time to myself, and when I wasn’t working on web design stuff for a client, I was busy journaling about my business.

Here’s an overview of my weekend journaling and how it relates to the Mouse’s new groove…First, as I mentioned last week, I want to revamp my branding a bit. I have a few watercolor instructional books waiting for me at the library, and I’m going to try my hand at creating a more children’s storybook-esque banner with ink and watercolor. It will retain the soft colors and the typeface of the current design (I think), but I’m aiming for a more hand drawn look. Once the new banner is completed and I’ve transferred that design to all aspects of my online presence (Etsy, DaWanda, Twitter, Gmail signature, etc.), I’m going to build a shop page so I can start selling directly from this site.

Coffee Toffee Macaron Earrings

The next phase begins with the roomboxes I mentioned in an earlier post. To bring new readers up to date, in brief, I want to create a series of roomboxes that I will use as part of my display at shows. What’s great about these roomboxes is, because they’re modular and I can take them apart, I can use individual boxes not only for shows, but also to stage great photographs for my shop. Those photos can then be used for a project about which I’m not quite ready to spill the beans, but it involves magazine-like issues of tutorials. Those tutorials in turn are a stepping stone to a future project which involves culling some of the best of the magazine tutorials combined with new tutorials for a mini food how-to book.

Here’s what I most excited about: While I was journaling about my new online shop plans, it occurred to me that I could take advantage of additional categories to organize my products beyond Etsy’s limit of ten. It’s always irked me a bit that I’ve had to divide my Etsy shop by item type for simplicity’s sake (such as earrings, hair accessories, and dollhouse miniatures), but within those types shoppers have to slog through the offerings, and I can’t subdivide my pieces further into categories such as cupcakes, sushi, or BBQ/picnic treats.

Pepperoni Pizza Hair Pins

You might be wondering why categories would be so thrilling to me, and here’s why: When I’m making new pieces, I generally work on foods that are trendy (like macarons or cupcakes, for example) or seasonal, or I make whatever appeals to me on a given day. There’s isn’t necessarily a rhyme or reason, and I sometimes feel overwhelmed with how to choose from the huge list of foods that I’d like to miniaturize. When I have an opportunity to browse new cookbooks, like I did this weekend, that only compounds the problem with an influx of new ideas and images, and I need a way to whittle everything down to a more manageable work load. This is where the categories come in.

With the option of organizing items however I choose, I now have the freedom to launch new lines of products. For example, a few months ago I was working on a number of French pastries, and I dubbed them the Marie Antoinette Collection, but there wasn’t a great way to highlight those in my Etsy shop. With my new online store, what I aim to do is create distinct lines (Marie Antoinette, Asian Bistro, Ice Cream Parlour, etc.), and shoppers can choose to browse a new line as a whole or by item type within that line (earrings, dollhouse miniatures, tutorials, etc.), and each line will have its own flavor of branding that will be consistent with the overall Mouse Market brand while still standing apart.

Sausage Pizza To-Go

When the time comes to build the roomboxes, I can style each one after a particular line, and all of the products associated with that line will be photographed in that roombox, and the product cards to which I attach all of my jewelry pieces will also reflect that particular line’s branding. When my mini food how-to book comes out, each chapter will focus on a certain type of food, and the design within that chapter will be consistent with that of the product lines, such as pastel for the Marie Antoinette or minimalist for the Asian Bistro line.

It probably sounds like a lot, but this new way of thinking about my business has enabled me to pare down my never-ending list of tasks to the essential projects necessary to launch my business into the next stage while also giving me a framework for creating new items, which will not only streamline my daily mini-making process, but it will also bring new focus to the time I spend researching new foods. Overall, I’m super excited to see where this will take me, and I’ll be sure to keep you posted as things develop!