More Inspiration!

April 14th- World's Fair

Overall, we weren't very successful. We did have quite a lot of customers glance at and examine the items, but not a lot of them were compelled enough to pay money to buy our accessories.

Our day started off early in the morning at 8; we needed to make the necessary preparations for our booth, which included making a cardboard stand to hang some of the necklaces, finalizing the prices and making price tags, discussing how to attract customers, etc. We got to the school at about 10-ish, and spent an hour setting up our booth.

During the fair, we had quite a few friends come over and look around. Unfortunately, none of the items were of their taste; this seemed to be the case for a lot of other people. Adults and teenagers manage to notice our booth, but didn't spend much longer than 5 seconds there. It was mostly kids who couldn't take their eyes off the products; we had one girl who came to our booth 3 times and looked as if she really wanted to buy one (haha).

As time past, we didn't see much better progress, so we came to a decision to cut all the prices by 50%. When we did, we managed to sell off the most expensive items in store - the necklaces, which were originally $80, and by then were $40.

In summary, we sold 14 items, including other items not made by us:
-2 earrings
-6 necklaces
-2 phone charms
-2 rings
-1 bracelet
-1 brooch

In total, we made $370 HKD. We also received an additional $200 HKD donation. 
(I'll later update with the pictures of the items we made that were sold)

I believe that we both agree that this experience was very meaningful to us in a lot of different ways. We were able to get a glimpse of the hardships businessmen and advertisers go through to sell off their products and establish beneficial ties. We were also hit with a realization that knowing what the majority of the public likes was very crucial to success. As the fair came to a close, Michele and I came to a conclusion that our target audience (teenagers and adults) do not like cutesy designs such as strawberry hair pins, and that antique and metallic necklaces proved to be much more popular. We both decided that we should make accessories in such a way that would be more suitable to people's tastes.

We also learned the importance of location. Because we were in a room that was slightly isolated from where some other booths were, that could have been why we were not able to garner a lot of customers. We also learned that deciding on prices did not only take the amount of time, effort, and money into account, but also on how much customers would be willing to pay.

(To be updated with more photos)

Our plans from now on:
-Set up our Facebook page to help garner more attention
-Possibly carry out our business globally --> international shipping
-And of course, continue thinking of more designs and making more accessories :)

-Marcie-

April 8th, 2012

Our finished earrings (added in the earring hooks today)

A funky & colorful piece of necklace

Will rotate this later. Deer, rabbit, and bird charm with yellow ribbons for a more forest-y feel. 

Wing bracelet

Researching

Red machine gun, turtle, phone, cupcake & soda tab! :)

Monkey & forks

Brooch/ Pin in progress

- Michele

My rabbit fabric phone strap :)

Michele's candy fabric...yet to be decided

The finished product of my flower fabric pin

-Marcie-

April 7th 2012 - One productive day

We're nearing the end of our spring break, so we decided to meet up during the weekend to do some intense jewelry making, for the sake of our big day - World's Fair on April 13th! The World's Fair is an annual festival organized by the PFO at HKIS, open to everyone. At the World's Fair, we are planning to open up a booth, sell our products, and donate all money we earn to charity.

Here are the results of our hard work:

Michele making her bow

Mine! Not too pleased with how it turned out though.

Michele's. Not too bad.

Me cutting out fabric for my fabric brooch~

In the middle of sewing the mustache brooch!

While I was sewing my brooch, Michele was busy making a necklace.

Michele making her reverse plastic fabric earring

Michele making her fork bracelet - the piece she had the most trouble with.

And here is the almost complete set of reverse plastic fabric earrings. The hole-punching + hooking will be done tomorrow.

Woot, mustache fabric brooch is done!

It was a little difficult because I couldn't remember the exact process for making a fabric brooch, but in the end, it was all good :)

A simple antique key necklace

Bow bracelet - Yay! We've put my bow to good use ^0^

Michele managed to somehow make the fork bracelet! Well done, my friend :D (She also decorated it a bit later --> keep on scrolling to see the finished product!)

Another pair of reverse plastic fabric earrings done!

In the middle of making my second fabric brooch of the day!

And voila! The buttons were painted with Michele's nail polish because they were originally a boring, white color.

The back of the bird brooch

Here's my second mustache fabric brooch. Not too pleased with this one, though.

my couple bird bracelet

Of course, we've done much more than the ones we've listed here - more photos coming soon~

-Marcie-

Fork Bracelet in progress/ Close-up of bow bracelet

Marcie having the time of her life

Bracelet with Rabbit charm

Robot Phone Charm

Moustache Fabric Puff in progress

My finished product of the fork bracelet!

Our display of handmade moustache brooches!

My wing necklace

Marcie's rabbit necklace 

- Michele