In the end I didn’t manage to make anywhere near the range of things I was hoping to, but managed to fill out my little table well enough. I was lucky enough to borrow the organiser’s spare gazebo tent, which worked out wonderfully.

My idea with the stall was to try and make it look like a little cartoon world, with the faux grass and little wooden signs. The grass turned out to be too small for the table and my white tablecloth doesn’t really work too well the with the metaphor, but I have some more ideas for next time!

I was really happy that a lot of people seemed really into the things in my stall, were impressed with my work and took a business card. I managed to sell more than enough to make back the cost of the stall and materials too, so I’m very happy with that! A huge thanks to everyone who dropped by my stall and/or bought something, especially to all the fantastic Twitter people who came along.

Overall it was a really good experience, and definitely something I’m planning on doing again in the future. I have about half of my stuff left, so I won’t have to be making things so manically next time. I’m thinking of setting up that online store I’ve been meaning to for ages, but we’ll see if I have the time!

A quick comment on prices - I know some of my things were considered quite expensive. I did lower some items through the day based on my observations and I think I have a better idea of what to charge now. I do think that some people come to markets with the wrong mentality - some people think that things at markets should cost less than those in a regular store, without thinking that a huge amount of time and effort, not to mention costs of material, go into making these things. My logic was that if people (and I’ll admit I’m one of these people) will pay so much for mass-produced plastic costume jewellery then why not pay the same for something unique and handmade? Just some food for thought.

Things I’ll do differently next time:

• make some sort of frame to hold some of the grass at an angle to give everything more height
• more plushies!
• more low priced items like button badges, bookmarks and stickers
• some better stands to give more height variation
• green tablecloth

Some more photos from the day:

Here’s the details:

Date: Saturday 23rd May
Time: 10am - 4pm
Location: Albert Hall, Commonwealth Ave, Yarralumla
Price: FREE (so no excuses)

And here’s a sneak peek at what I’ve been making so far!

No bio/cryptic bio

The first thing I look at when I click on a new follower’s profile is their bio. If they look like they’re somehow related to something I’m interested in (and don’t fail in some other area), I’m likely to follow them back. If they have no bio it’s a bit harder to figure out if they’re interesting or not.

Longitude and latitude for location

The next thing I look at is location - if someone is local or from somewhere interesting, they might be worth following. If you have a bunch of numbers as your location I have no idea where the hell in the world you are, and generally don’t care enough to look it up. Sorry.

Only retweets

I think that retweeting is a fantastic idea, and have found some really interesting articles and sites through it. But if all you do is retweet links and never introduce anything of your own, it’s really hard to figure out your personality or anything about you.

In a bubble

Twitter is all about being social (for me anyway), so if all you have is post after post about your own little bubble without replying to or engaging anyone else that (to me) defeats the purpose.

Automated anything

Perhaps I’m not a unique and special snowflake, but I like to believe that I am anyway. So getting automated messages on Twitter annoys me because it makes me feel less special, less cared about and less of an individual. So your generic ‘thank you for following me, please check out my website :D’ DM doesn’t make me feel welcomed, just irritated and faceless. I (and most people, I think) check out a person’s website when deciding whether to follow them or not, so if you don’t need to make that push for attention.

Constantly mentioning follower count

I don’t want to feel like you just followed me so I’ll follow you back so you can have x number of followers. Snowflake, remember?

Protected updates

I can absolutely see why someone would want to protect their updates rather than having them all public, and have no problem with them doing so. It does make me wonder why I should follow you when I can’t see how you use Twitter though - especially when you have no bio and your location is a jumble of numbers. Give me a reason to care about you!

Ads

There’s a service or two out there that gives people money in exchange for allowing automated ads to be tweeted from their account at random intervals. Not cool. If you’re happy to inconvenience me for a few cents, why should I be following you?

It’s easy in times of economic crisis to start chopping marketing budgets, however we believe the web is a solution to survive economic hard times, not a budget item to cut. Simply put, the web is more important now than at any other time.

- www.embracetheweb.org

Embracetheweb.org seems to Bam Creative’s latest little side project, and I couldn’t agree more with its message. Having an appealing and functional website isn’t just a necessity to compete with others and cater to an internet-savvy audience - it’s an extremely cost effective choice for marketing. If you ever had any doubt about the importance of having a website, take a look at these reasons and I’ll be surprised if you’re not convinced.

Of course, if your budget doesn’t allow you to hire a web design firm to work on your project you can always consider hiring a quality freelancer such as myself ;)

Recently I completed a new blog theme for UI&us, a blog about user interaction and how people use stuff by Keith Lang. Last week I received this email from Keith:

Of course Keith’s site wouldn’t have been featured if his blog didn’t contain a lot of quality content, but it’s really nice to know that I played a small part in his success. This just goes to show that a combination of good design and good content can bring a lot success to a website, and is absolutely worth investing in!

I’d been in meaning to make some larger clay mushrooms for a while, so decided to stick with that for this swap. To save a bit on clay and baking time I made the general shape in aluminium foil and wire, then layered the clay over it.

You’d think such a simple shape would be easy to do, but it’s so hard to get the parts smooth! In the end I had to settle for some bumpiness and hope that it would add ‘character’, heh.

After spending almost an entire weekend sculpting, baking then painting these guys, I finished them just in time!

They are now making their way to the US via airmail, and will hopefully arrive in time for the swapping. There have been some incredible designs posted in the Flickr group for this swap, I can’t wait to see what I get back!

Not long after posting the tutorial I was contacted by Jörn, who runs a company in Germany. He liked my idea enough to ask a tailor friend of his to make one for each of his staff members as a Christmas present, beautifully packaged and everything.

IE Voodoo Dolls from Jörn

I thought it was fantastic, especially seeing photos of so many of them! But that wasn’t the end of it. Just after Christmas this year, Jörn contacted me again. He said that after calling his tailor to tell her how successful the Christmas party and presents were, they started talking more, going out together and fell in love.

In October they were married in Berlin, and guess what they decided to model their wedding cake after in memory of how they got together?

IE voodoo wedding cake

Yes, that is a giant Internet Explorer voodoo doll cake, complete with a giant needle!

So there you have it, a tale of love, voodoo and Internet Explorer. Thank you to Jörn and Julia for allowing me to post their story, and I wish them all the best for the future.

]]> http://www.chigarden.com/2009/02/of-love-voodoo-and-internet-explorer/feed/ http://www.chigarden.com/2009/02/of-love-voodoo-and-internet-explorer/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Chigarden/~3/xTzxMEEFNXE/ http://www.chigarden.com/2009/02/nesting/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:10:09 +0000 admin http://www.chigarden.com/?p=260 Now that my partner and I have settled into our new place, I thought I’d post some photos. I’m really happy with our little apartment, and things are going pretty well!

Start networking

If you know where you’ll be moving a while beforehand, it’s absolutely worth focusing your networking on the place you’ll be moving to. I’ve found Twitter works particularly well for this, and started following Canberrans in web and related industries months before moving here. Besides being interesting people in their own right, people have been fantastic with giving me advice, suggestions about where I can get work and general information about the city. If you’re willing to put in the effort to sincerely get to know people, people tend to respond to that - even through something like Twitter.

Moving to a new city is hard in itself, and moving a business on top of that is even harder. It really helps to have a network of people with similiar interests ready to meet you and help you out as soon as you arrive, both in a professional and a personal sense.

Once you get there, scope out what networking and industry events are on and go introduce yourself. Canberra has quite an active and friendly web community, so I was quite lucky in this sense.

Have business cards ready

Unfortunately I left the printing of my cards too late - by the time I was ready the printers were on their Christmas holiday. The lesson is - make sure things like this are prepared early! I think handing out cards when you first meet people is a good way to be remembered and easily contactable, rather than being that new girl in town whose name no one can remember. Make sure you leave plenty of time for printing (unlike me) so that you’ll have them all ready and with you when you leave.

Back up everything important

So many things can go wrong in the process of moving (my mattress was lost somewhere in Sydney or Newcastle by the removalist company, for example) that it’s incredibly important to back things up if you aren’t doing so already. Sounds obvious I suppose, but I forgot all about this until the last day and was running around backing things up like crazy at the last minute.

Make sure you have temporary internet access

My hotel said that it had broadband internet access, but as it turned out it was expensive, unreliable and after a few days dropped out altogether. Cafes with wireless internet can be okay, but can be quite inconvenient if you’ve just moved to a new place with no car. In the end I bought a mobile broadband USB key and some prepaid credit, which served me nicely while I was in that hotel and will continue to until I have internet set up at home.

Having internet access was important to me so I could keep in contact with people, look up new rentals to check out while we were still finding a place to live, and most importantly get some work done. I’m sure some people could live without it for a few weeks, but I don’t think I could do much without it! Being a thrifty sort of person I was hesitant to get mobile broadband at first, but it’s certainly a business cost, very very useful for now and in the future,  and reasonably priced for the short term (as long as you don’t go downloading anything gigantic). I wish I had bought it before instead of messing around with the hotel’s overpriced internet, which is why I’m telling you now.

If you’d prefer to not fork out the money for mobile internet, check around for nearby cafes with free wireless beforehand so know where to go when you need it.

If you’re working from home, make sure there’s room for an office

I insisted on finding a place with at least two bedrooms, because I really, really didn’t want to have to set up an ‘office’ in a corner of the bedroom or lounge room. It meant that rent is a bit more expensive, but when I consider that I could be attempting to work on the dining table I’d say it’s absolutely worth it. If the option is there, the separation of Life and Work is great to have, I’ve found. So keep it in mind while looking for a place to live, or you might find your productivity and general happiness sinking.

Those are the main things that I found in my experience moving, although since my business has really just started it might be different for others. It can be quite a stressful experience, so stay cool and good luck!

This is just a quick piece of fanart of Lambo from Kateikyoushi Hitman Reborn, since it seemed appropriate.