Friday, October 15, 2010

Much to update, PRICING and a prayer request please

First the prayer request: My dear mother in law is in the hospital now battling pneumonia she is 75 years young. It took them about a week to finally get to what was the matter. She is great one day and not very good the next. Keep her in your thoughts for a full and speedy recovery... THANKS

About the pricing of my shuttles:
I had some people tell me my new resin coated shuttles aren't worth what I am charging... I am not good at pricing and if someone makes a comment on the prices of things I tend to make them lower, then I feel I am selling myself short.
YES polymer clay is not THAT expensive and it does go a bit far but lets look beyond the cost of supplies for a moment... You have to figure in alot of factors,
Time: Lets see here I made 4 batches of shuttles allthough I use cutters and templates for my shuttle shapes, it takes time to roll out the clay, cut, stamp, add pretties etc... My shuttles bake for an hour or so on very low heat so you have to figure electrical cost and wear and tear on my toaster oven. I still have to color and add further pretties. Which can take several hours, Seal them with an acrylic sealer outside since its aerosol and it smells icky too. Drying time is needed. Coat them with resin, this takes a long time I worked on this today and it took me about 5 hours to just do what you see pictured in the photo below. I still have to drill the holes, cut the slices, sand and perfect the shuttle, as well as package it in a bag with a piece of sand paper damp absorbing material and little info paper. So far to this point I have put in atleast 35 hours on the 4 batches of shuttles seen below, and there are alot more steps to go.
Now lets just figure 35 hours x $7.25 / hr (minimum wage in pa) = $148.75.. I looked up online about pricing your things and they say not to charge less than $10 per hour of your time if the supplies cost that or more, so that would be more like $350.00 for my time so far. So at this point the 4 batches of shuttles (30 individual shuttles) that would be $11.67 per shuttle and I am no where near finished.
 Supplies:
 Resin is not cheap as well as the clay alot does go a long way, but this is a very tedious step. As I said clay is not THAT expensive but its not cheap either. Electricity for lights and the toaster oven is not cheap. I use cornstarch so the clay does not stick, glitters, paints, stamps, ink, paper towels, gloves, my drill, sand paper, exacto knives, blades, scissors, punches, papers, glues, micro marbles, stickers, confetti, beads etc... And then you have packaging and postage, bubble wrap, driving to the post office etc...
Next time you think something costs too much, take a moment to think of all the work that goes into an item.
Here is the link on pricing that I spoke of above if you are interested http://www.whatthecraft.com/arts/pricing.htm
Here are the 4 batches post resin coating it will have to dry for another day or so... Before you count and say there arent 30 there there are 50... 20 of them are pendants for my daughter and her friend that they made over the weekend... those were not included in the 5 hour time today...

 Here is one of my favorites...
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I have been working on my book and I THINK I have all my designs I still have to draw them out and my test tatters are hard at work for me ;)

Here is something that was going to be in the book but I decided to pull it because I was having too much fun and couldnt pick just one I liked best.





The above pieces are for chokers you add a beaded strand or chain or a tatted chain on the p's of the 1st and last chain... Pretty, Simple and the variations are still coming

I did this last night when I was angry I am not sure what it will be but I plan on working on it later


I have also been pretty down on myself lately with my weight and looks I need to accept myself as I am like everyone else does. I just cant see what others do but I am trying... I did put some make up on and do my hair up a little yesterday I thought it looked nice for awhile, until I looked again... I dont show many pictures of me on here but here is one from yesterday, you know unless I decide to take it away.

BLAH!


7 comments:

Bonnie said...

I will pray for your mil.

I'm sorry someone made you feel like you had to explain your shuttle pricing to us. They are beautiful and worth what you decide, it's not up to someone else.

Lovely picture of you, Heather.
Keep Smiling!

God's Kid said...

Your shuttles are so neat!
I just received the hearts and will try them soon! Thanks!
And your tattings are very nice! :)

Stephanie Grace said...

My prayers are with your mother-in-law, hun. (((HUGS)))

As far as pricing, Just the calluses that working the clay to softness is worth a few extra bucks! (And/or the Carpol Tunnel Syndrome from working the pasta machine!). Drat! Now I kind of miss clay again.. Ugh...

Next, I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the choker designs... Any chance you'll be gracing us with a pattern? :-D I have some black cord chokers that I'm itching to decorate with some tatting (Well, that is why I bought them! LOL).

Now, for the last thing... I'm the same way. My hair is pin-straight and will take to slight waves from the curling iron for maybe half an hour (after a good two hours of trying for curls), so that and make-up only happen on rare occasions. I think my major problem with make-up is that I just don't want to wear it and then put my glasses on. If I have contacts in, for some reason, I'm okay with it, but not with glasses... Are we both crazy?

Imoshen said...

As I've purchased your shuttles before in the past, I always thought your pricing to be reasonable. I actually thought you'd charge more than what you're charging now. You make wonderful pieces of art, I use my shuttles, but I have duplicates of a couple that wanted to make sure I didn't lose/break for my collection. I know how annoying it can be to have to over-explain something that would seem like common sense to everyone else. Oh and I did recieve the new shuttles today and I'm so looking foward to trying out the 3 hole shuttles.^_^ *hugs*

Bree at "Bree's Way" said...

I am sorry you had to explain the pricing to someone, a lot of people just don't take the time to think about things being hand made vs cheap factory made. Your shuttles are definitely worth what you are charging, and probably a little more. Especially since the shipping has gone up so much recently, and that is another thing people don't consider. Hand made crafts well done are always worth more and if people are going to complain, they don't deserve your beautiful work. Keep your chin up :)

victats@gmail.com said...

thinking of your mother-in-law.

victats@gmail.com said...

sorry..one more thing...no-one forces them to buy your shuttles. If they don't like the price they don't have to purchase.

~TALES~FROM~THE~TAT~BAG~