Moving Forward

We left the Paradise Market in July and headed to Summerfest at Brushwood Folklore Center for four nights of camping and to "peddle our wares" as vendors. We had an excellent time, though due to some tent issues we only vended for about a day. Since then we have done a psychic show at Beardslee Castle, and intend to do a Shoppingtown Mall show in two weeks.

As for other news, we have decided that it's time to expand. In the coming months you can expect to witness the launch of our new line, RockinWare, which will be a Rock 'n Roll-inspired line of hardware-embellished leather jewelry that we're hoping will appeal to both men and women. We'll be teaming up with local bands to promote the line and launching an e-commerce shopping site in the spring.

More sites and projects are in the works, and I have made a commitment to keep up with this blog on a weekly basis once the holiday craziness is over!

Visit Us in Paradise

We have been at the Paradise Market on Erie Blvd. in Syracuse, NY for the last 4 weekends, and we plan to be there indefinitely! Look for our banner near Puerto Rico!

Links

Well, I'm kind of on hiatus for the moment, as we have no shows coming up.  We'd like to do some jewelry parties, and if you go to www.sankofaquest.com/party.html you can check out our offers.  We give a lot of incentives for the hostess and even run a bracelet making workshop at each party.  Guests get at least one piece for free-and they make it themselves so it's still one of a kind.

Today I'm just going to give you guys some links that could be helpful if you want to learn to make some stuff:

Master Jewelry Course

Jewelry Making Beads

Jewelry Making Tools

Good luck!

New Photography Equipment

One of the most frustrating/cool things about Cindi and I doing this all ourselves is that we end up in over our heads with some of the projects we undertake!  Like the photography--taking good up-close photos of jewelry is very difficult without the proper equipment.  My mom, Laura Vryhof, who has done all of the pictures we've uploaded into the photo gallery at www.sankofaquest.com/photos.html has what we need, but we can't count on her to be at our beck and call every time we make a new piece and want to post it.  Soooo, we've picked up a mini photo studio.  We got this 16"x16" one from Harbor Freight of all places for $25!  Here's what it looks like:

EZcube light boxes are the same type of thing, but they cost $55 for the 12"x12" one, and that's just the box with no light or tripod.  We're in the process of setting up and getting ready to take some pictures, so be on the look out for pictures of some of the new stuff we made while we were at the Rotterdam show!

Finally feeling better!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I had the flu!  I didn't touch the website or my jewelry supplies for a couple of weeks.  Our first show is tomorrow, kind of a warm-up at East Syracuse Minoa High School.  We're basically just hoping to get some practice setting up our displays and to make sure we haven't forgotten something major.  As for my lessons with Cindi, they've been put on hold because of the flu and whatnot.  But I'm still creating at home!  I've been trying to incorporate some more metal pieces into my work, like special links, chain, and decorative bead caps.  It's become a de-stressor for me, which is nice!

Different styles

So we've been out all week shopping for supplies, which is annoying because we could be getting much better prices buying in bulk online!  However, we're impatient and need supplies so that we'll be prepared for our first show!  Through these shopping trips and our recent sessions, we're finding out that we have vastly different styles.  Cindi's much more into gunmetal findings and blood red and black beads, while I'm girly and use a lot of pink, purple, and green with silver findings.  Neither of our styles is conducive to producing Christmas-themed pieces, and we think we should have some for the upcoming Christmas shows.  I'll post pictures of some of what we've come up with, but I'm not promising it'll be pretty!

Check out the pics on our website!

The pictures are up at sankofaquest.com!  Check them out, they look great thanks to my mom.  She is the photographer and she did an excellent job, especially since we took them on my kitchen table with a random lamp!  This is really moving along, and we're getting excited...