Firstly, let me apologise (again) for my last of posts, I have just realised it’s been over a month! Throughout the past week I have been a very busy girl. In order to take my jewellery to the next level I have enrolled on a Princes Trust Enterprise Programme in the hope of achieving some further funding for more jewellery making equipment. My hands are slowly seizing up from all this sanding by hand and to increase production in order to meet local demands I need a bench drill and belt sander/grinder, unfortunately these do not come cheap.
This is where the wonderful Princes Trust comes in, if you are aged 18-30 and are unemployed or work less than 16 hours per week you can apply for a loan (set at 3.6% APR) of between £500 – £4000. All you need is a good basic business idea and they will do all they can to help you make it a viable business venture. Of course they cannot guarantee that the business will work in the long run, that is down to you, so maybe a water zorbing park in your back garden may not be the best idea but they will certainly make the idea of being self-employed a lot less daunting.
The road to achieving funding can be as short or lengthy as you need it to be and consists of an initial 4 day business course where you learn everything from the basics of whether self-employment will suit you, to finding customers, marketing & advertising and more importantly the financial tax/bookkeeping side of running a business. After the course you then get given a business plan template to complete and a personal mentor who will guide you as much or as little as you please.
When your business plan is complete you submit it to your mentor who will write a reference and submit it to a panel of 3 Princes Trust volunteers. Now, here comes the scary part… You will then be asked along to a Dragons Den style meeting with “The Panel” so they can ask further questions about your business. In true Dragons Den style you will get a decision there and then and could end up walking away with all of the funding you applied for!
If this sounds appealing yet scary to you do not despair, I am now embarking on this journey for myself after choosing to leave the day job permanently and although I was fully planning on writing this blog after each day of the course last week it was just so jam packed and exhausting that I have now decided to write weekly posts to share with you everything I have learned. In my eyes, whether or not I get awarded the funding I am asking for this process will benefit my Folksy store and hopefully will help some other draftees who are thinking of doing the same thing. I hope you come with me on my journey.
So, here I am! In my new house and beautiful new garden with a wonderful new Suffolk beach to explore almost at my doorstep, hence the lack of blogs – for which I apologise. A lot has happened in the world of Laura by The Sea in the past few weeks… My new studio space (AKA: the spare room) is working nicely for me, my first craft fair Clutter City at The Norwich Arts Centre went very well and feedback towards my work was just overwhelmingly positive. My favourite comment on a unique vintage ceramic necklace which was promptly sold was “Oh wow this is fantastic! I wish I had thought of that.” As my Mum put it there have been many PPM’s, “Proud parent moments” recently.
Whilst setting up at Clutter City for which we were quite late no thanks to the frustrating Norwich road works and silly one way systems a blonde lady started perusing around my stall, examining every piece of jewellery I put out. I can remember nervously approaching my first potential customer and to my utter amazement she said to me… “Have you ever thought of selling wholesale? I own a shop in Norwich and would love to sell your work”. I took her card and was just absolutely buzzing for the rest of the day. Overall, sales were as expected for a first craft fair, a few small pieces but nothing spectacular.
Anyway, to cut a long story short you can now purchase my handmade jewellery at Poppy Valentine, Royal Arcade, Norwich and thanks to an old colleague of mine at Big Blue Sky, Wells-next-the-sea. These two wholesale orders, amongst other Internet sales via Folksy have completely cleaned me out of stock! I am now trying to make more jewellery to replenish my stock so it is a very busy time. I never expected Laura by The Sea to take off so suddenly. Next stop, London (hopefully)! I am trying to find some more contemporary jewellery fairs to sell at and fingers crossed The Princes Trust will award me with a start up grant to get things moving a bit faster.
I am going to have a stall at Clutter City, Norwich Arts Centre… I do hope you can all cone along and see what unique vintage upcycled jewelry I have for you! Live music and BBQ all day… Be there or be square!
See advert for more details…
I have some great news!… I have been invited to sell my ceramic jewelry pieces at my very first craft fair! Called Clutter City Markey at the Norwich Arts Centre, UK, it is “a platform for creative independent crafters / artists / collectives to sell their work” and they “focus on original, quirky and unique items including DIY clothes, jewellery, badges, sewn items, paper goods, prints, paintings, comics, zines and more”. I think my work will fit in fantastically and am over the moon they want me to have a stall!
It is in just 3 weeks time (on Sat 26th June) so I had better get making. There are now so many things to think about – making stock, of course, handmaking labels, getting a craft table, marketing, printing more business cards, updating all websites (beginning with Artfire of course!) and possibly most important of all finding display stands for my work. I would like to use only recycled/upcycled things to display my items and am thinking about using vintage tea cups to hang earrings and antique suitcases to hold smaller items. Considering the name of the craft fair I think it would be a good idea to sell less expensive items alongside my regular items that customers can rummage through. Maybe I could sell some vintage crockery that is not suitable for upcycling into jewelry? Hmm…
Well, I must get cracking. Please contact me if you have any advice or experiences you want to share from your first craft fairs. I’m treading into unchartered waters for me here!
I have recently started writing a regular blog for Beside The Seaside (See http://www.besidetheseaholidays.com/blog/) and taking research from my BA Hons degree dissertation on The British Seaside I am writing a regular article to drum up support for a revival in all things from the sea. From Punch and Judy shows on the sands to that holiday feeling one gets when walking around the colourful seaside resorts. As a result of this blog I have had various compliments on my writing style and am building up quite a wide reader base. I have been considering making my 10,000 word dissertation into a book for a while now however, have never had the confidence to even begin thinking about a project of that magnitude! But after some wonderful comments I am beginning to grow as a writer and my confidence is flourishing. This is directly influencing all of my creative processes and the huge task of getting published now seems not quite as daunting as once thought.
My mind has been full to the brim of jewelry design ideas, writing ideas and blogging thoughts and this morning I got thinking about a particular comment from a regular reader who kindly said “You have a wonderful writing style Laura”. For years I have been trained in the fine arts, in particular painting and contemporary ceramics and have never studied English literature except during my GCSE school days. However, after many years of student life those days seem somewhat hazy. I was therefore both surprised and puzzled by this compliment, what is my writing style? Or more to the point what are writing styles? Until now I only knew of fiction and nonfiction writing but after punching the words into Google I quickly found the fairly recent genre of creative nonfiction…
I am by no means one to stereotype people and constrain myself to a certain box because that would, of course, dampen my creativity and restrict inspiration but after considering writing my book and approaching a few publishers this writing style seemed to pop out at me almost immediately. I say it is fairly recent in terms of being scrutinized by the critics the same as fiction and poetry but ultimately, the primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that it reads like fiction. This could include personal essays, memoirs, travel and food writing, biographies and/or literary journalism. Therefore, in the future if anyone asks what type of book I am writing I will say “a creative nonfiction about the British seaside”.
I am hoping to turn my knowledge of history and the seaside alongside personal experiences and family stories into a book. I will write about my great Grandfathers fishing boat that was lost at sea in 1957 with all of the crew members and want to use accounts from newspapers and my grandparents (his daughter) to make it a moving yet educational read about all things by the British coastline. I have the research and background knowledge and just need to get my pen and paper out and begin writing. Yes, I know what you are thinking… Pen and paper?! I much prefer actually feeling what I am writing and write outside most of the time so I guess the first thing I need to do it buy the biggest note book I can find and try to fill it with my passions and ramblings. I can only prey that someone likes it and wants to turn it into a book.
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