Flabbergasted....

Shopping Uptown at an artisan's shop, the conversation went something like this...

Shopkeeper-"Did you make your bag."

Me-"Yes. I made it last year, just pulled it out of the wash this morning."

Shopkeeper-"Do you make things to sell."

Me-"No."

Shopkeeper-"Here is my contact info. We'd love to see more of your work."

Okay, this is my Koi bag. The exterior is a print featuring the fish, with the the lining a light blue batik to represent water, and the binding a bright orange batik for contrast. I quilted it in concentric circles to represent pond ripples..

After picking up my jaw from the shop floor, I am now thinking fabric, designs, and how much to charge for the bloody things. (Why can't the days be 36 hours long?)

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Fabulous!!! Looks like you are in business!!!! Congrats- hope it makes you lots of $$!

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There is no problem that cannot be solved with time, patience, and a judicious amount of high explosives.

You going to do it then? Opportunities like this don't come along every day!!

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Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope. - HELEN KELLER

That's awesome! I make and sell jewelry so I can offer a little advice, though ultimately pricing art is part voodoo. Hope this doesn't overwhelm, I'm just doing a brain dump. You could use just a little of this advice as an experiment and then if you decided you're going to seriously stick with it, go further.

At minimum, you'll want to determine how much it costs you in materials to do each bag, and how much time it takes you. The wholesale price you'd charge would be (going strictly by math) about 3x the cost of materials + cost of your time (choose how much you want to make per hour). The suggested retail price would be about 5x that.

A lot of artists charge too little for their product. Too many.

Often you can't go strictly by the math. It might send you way too high or way too low (again, selling art/creative stuff is part voodoo). Personally I'm comforted by at least trying to do the math. If you decide you're really going to stick with this, you can help yourself by getting a wholesale account with your suppliers (will require a business license, but if you're going to sell your work you should probably have one anyway, most areas would require it). A wholesale account will really lower your materials costs.

Be sure that you get some kind of contract from the store (if you have a lot of product with them you want to have it in writing who's responsible if things get stolen, when you get paid, at what rate, etc). Find out if they want to buy the bags outright (which might mean at wholesale) or if they want to do it on consignment. While buying the bags at wholesale they might expect to pay 50% of retail, consignment IMO should be them taking 40% or less. Depends on the store.

A popular place to sell online is Etsy, btw. That's a whole other brain dump on how to do that well.

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Eagle Whisperer

Well, I suppose you could do it on a very small scale and see what you think. Like just for that shop. If you want to go all uber-professional you could do the designs and pay someone to make the stuff.

Or you could pass and just make them when you feel like it.

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Eagle Whisperer

Congrats
which either way you choose, you should be proud, It's nice when someone recognises your work and the effort you put in

I second that need for a picture, I love seeing others work

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May the bad things get lost on the way to you door!

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Perspective Alters Reality

I use Photobucket for all my images here. Though I think you can also upload images to the gatchamania gallery and then get an image link that can be put in a thread post.

I'd like to see your purse! And it's great that an artisan's shop wants to sell your work!

Glad it worked! And now you can copy and paste the "BB Code" provided under your image in the gallery and post it here:




I love the koi!

k2p2 -- That's awesome!

It's always nice to have your work acknowledged and appreciated, and from the picture, I can see why it caught the shopkeeper's eye in the first place!

Very nice work!

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"It is a rare man that is taken for what he truly is...We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream...." Peter S. Beagle