Forest City Crafters

Open Sesame- The Grand opening for Batty's Bath

2010-02-21T16:43:00.000-08:00

There's a brand new handmade bath and body shop in town! Batty's Bath officially opened online this week and the shop owner and soap maker behind Batty's Bath, Jamie Sabot (who's also the paper artist behind "She's Batty Designs"), was please with the overwhelming support not only from the only community, but also from the local community.

So what exactly is Batty's Bath? Well, Batty's Bath is a small soap and bath products company specializing in handmade cleansers, moisturizers, lip balms, scrubs and hair care products to make you feel totally pampered. Batty's Bath uses only the freshest, highest quality ingredients and makes all products in small batches to ensure the best quality possible. Batty's Bath also ensures that all products are cruelty-free and none have ever been tested on animals. Additionally, Batty's Bath holds very high ethical standards when it comes to quality, the environment, and social impact. This can be seen in the eco-friendly, reusable packaging, recycling program, commitment to charity, and the use of "Fair Trade Compliant” ingredients. Batty’s Bath sources out ethical suppliers, meaning that the ingredients they supply are “Fair Trade Complaint”. This means that the profits go back to the community, that environmentally friendly production methods are used, and that forced labor is not used. This is particularly an issue involving shea and cocoa butter so rest assured that the shea butter used in this product is Fair Trade Compliant. Batty's Bath also uses local ingredients whenever possible.

So who's this gal behind Batty's Bath? Jamie describes herself as a "star-gazing, animal-loving, tree-hugging, halloween obsessed, creative kind of gal". She's also a student at University of Western Ontario where she is currently finishing up a degree in Psychology. She's also studied animal care and visual arts in school. When Jamie isn't spending time creating with bath and body products or paper (or hitting the books), she's spending time with her fiance and their 3 rescue dogs, or participating in her long time love - photography.

If you haven't stopped by Batty's Bath for the grand opening yet, you'll definitely want to! Who wouldn't want to spoil themselves with pampering, ethical, bath products? Need a little more incentive to check out Batty's Bath and support a local artisan? You'll love this then: Local London residents get the added bonus of having their orders delivered to their door for free!

Meet The Artist- Gillian of Gillian Beads

2010-02-09T23:37:00.001-08:00

Come on in and check out Gillians Story.

I have always loved bright, shiny things and as a child collected all sorts of pretty stones, shells, and beach glass. I still have many of those cherished objects.

Beads have fascinated me for years and I have been embellishing clothing with them for a long time. I made my own wedding dress and beaded the bodice and sleeves in a vine and leaf pattern.

In my professional career as a dentist, I work with my hands every day but found that I needed a creative outlet. Jewelry making was a natural extension of this, requiring a degree of fine motor control and skill. My hobby has happily turned into a small business for me.

I discovered lampworking, also known as flameworking, two years ago, and was hooked after I took my first course. My husband recognized this new found passion in me and very kindly agreed to build a glass studio for me in our home.

Lampworking involves melting rods of different colored glass in the flame of a very hot (2000 degree) propane/oxygen torch, and winding the molten glass around a stainless steel rod (mandrel) which has been coated in a releasing agent…otherwise the glass will melt to the rod forever. When this happens it is known as a “pot sticker”. Glass rods get their color from various metal oxides, much like paint, but the colors don’t mix the way paint does…the reaction of the different metals within the glass can give rise to completely different effects at the edges where the colors meet. This can also be affected by the proportion of oxygen in relation to propane…an oxidizing flame or a reducing flame.

Proper ventilation is crucial when working with glass; both the metal oxides and the fine particulate matter can be harmful. Special glasses are required to protect the eyes from the flare of the glass as it melts. Other safety equipment includes proper regulator valves for the controlled flow of propane and oxygen, high volume ventilation hood, fire extinguisher, smoke detector, and carbon monoxide detector.

After the bead is made, a process which can take from a few minutes to over an hour for a single bead, the mandrel and bead are placed in a hot kiln (approximately 1000 degrees) to “soak” for a period of time, then very slowly cooled over a period of many hours, to relieve the stress in the glass. This process is called annealing, and is a critical part of lampworking. Without being annealed the glass will be prone to cracking, shortly after being made or many months in the future. When buying lampwork beads, be sure to ask if the beads have been properly kiln-annealed. Inexpensive, commercial, or mass produced beads often are not, and will be prone to cracking.

Lampworking has given me more freedom and flexibility in my jewelry designing than I ever thought possible….colors, patterns, and shapes can be created for custom designs, as focal pieces, or accents.

As much as I love designing jewelry with my own lampwork beads, I also love to see what other jewelry designers create with the beads I sell as components.

Go on over and check out her shop here.

Wordless Wednesday has a case of the Blues

2010-01-13T10:37:00.001-08:00

Meet the Forest City Crafters - Anne / Ennadoolf

2010-01-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

My name is Anne and my Etsy shop for handmade gifts is http://ennadoolf.etsy.com. I have 2 other Etsy shops, one for patterns and crafting supplies at http://PatternsAndSuch.etsy.com and the other for vintage at http://VintageAndSuch.etsy.com - yes Etsy keeps me busy!

My ennadoolf shop has something for almost everyone. My husband had a hand in the making of the corking sets - he made the actual wooden corkers (aka knitting nancy or a number of other names!) and I put together the kits. My topsy turvy dolls are a favourite and whenever I can find some more time I have plans to make more using different skin tones and hair colours and styles. Other than the dolls, I also sew doll clothes (for Barbie mostly) and other miscellaneous items that catch my fancy. Currently there are head bands, wristlets and wrist cuffs in my shop and my sewing could take me in almost any direction in the future.

I learned to sew on the Pfaff machine my mom brought to Canada from the Netherlands - she packed her belongings inside the cabinet along with the machine. At first I had lots of practice "sewing" a straight line without any thread and using lined paper and then graduated to sewing with real fabric and thread! I still use a Pfaff now - and my mom still has that first machine.

I learned to knit in Brownies. I could never remember how to cast on though, so I'd always have to ask my mom to do that whenever I started a new project. When my girls were young the only pattern I would knit up was the Speedy Slipper pattern by Patons ( available on my blog at http://r-anne-dom.blogspot.com ). I stopped knitting for about 15 years and was inspired to pick it back up to make Harry Potter scarves! I think
> I made 6 in the fall that his first book was published. Funny thing was, when my girls saw me knitting, they didn't know I could since it had been so long.

Since those Harry Potter scarves, I've become more adventurous, trying new stitches and even rewriting patterns. One in particular had a scalloped edge to the scarf, and I rewrote the pattern so that halfway through, I reversed the design. That way, both ends had the same scalloped look.

Now you can see the results of my knitting in my ennadoolf shop - scarves, hats, cup cozies, slippers, and mittens. I'm particularly pleased with the idea of the Work Sock Cup Cozy - a great colour combination for men and women alike! I don't have a favourite thing to knit but I do prefer repetitive patterns so that I can knit while watching tv. I am addicted to several tv shows, so if I knit, I can validate the time spent watching tv!

You may notice a few prints of flowers in my shop. They are from my gardens and I do love them. I was asked once if I had extensive gardens... [sigh] I have many gardens. I love my flowers. I love the variety of
plants and flowers we have. I just do not really enjoy gardening all that much. If only the flowers would do their thing and the weeds would simply stay away. From a distance my gardens look great ... please don't look too closely because you're sure to see a few weeds sneaking around in there.

[smiles] And outside of my knitting and sewing and such? I am a member of Girl Guides of Canada - I do the finances for a local Guide unit and I also volunteer my time for http://e-guiding.com which is run by volunteer Guide
leaders (though not an official site). 2010 is the 100th anniversary of Girl Guides in Canada so be sure to buy cookies this year!

hehe, and lots of people ask me what ennadoolf means ... I'd love for you
to leave a comment with your guess!

[Note: other Forest City Crafters who'd like to be profiled, send yoursubmissions to Elizabeth at Forest.city.crafters@gmail.com]

Tips and Tricks

2009-12-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

I am going to write this and continually add to it. So feel free to leave a comment if you have suggestions or comments.

#1 if you sell soft items such as knitwear try using a foodsaver to vacuum pack your sold items to ship. This lets you get away with sending it as letter mail which can lower your shipping rate (cause we all know CP is over priced)

Todays Kudo's goes too......

2009-11-29T19:53:00.001-08:00

As much as I'm trying to learn everyone's shop names and what there products look like you have to admit there's a lot of us. So what I am TRYING to do now is when I recognize someone on the front page or in the "Etsy finds" or even gift guides as I peruse through! I am going to make a Kudo's in honor of them. Starting with today's.

Today I would like to give kudos too She's Batty Designs for getting into the Etsy Finds email. I have actually seen this card several times this month.

Saturday Sales Pitch

2009-11-21T09:25:00.000-08:00

OK So last week I spoke on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This week we are going to move on to a listing of some interactive Twitter sites.

First off a GREAT article Done by CraftyGaGal called How to gather and Track Statistics on Links You Tweet on Twitter, gives alot of great tips and talks about Hootsuite. This is a program I personally use for my twitter account. Not to mention you can have more then one twitter account with it and just click back and forth in between them.

Anywho though I think I have gotten off subject.

Some of the best links are as follows:

http://twitter.grader.com-this lets you see how well you are doing on Twitter
http://twitseeker.com/- This is a great tool to use when looking for people with same interests and stuff.
http://retweet.it/index.php- Other people will help get your tweet spread out to ppl who may be of interest but are not yet following you. This works VERY well, as long as you do the same! It goes on a points system.
http://tweetgrid.com/- This is something new that you can toy with. I haven't fully figured it out yet!
http://truetwit.com- This is great for if you have complete strangers wanting to follow you! This way you can know for sure they are not bots.

Now on a side note! If you wanna make some spare change with your twitter as well! Try a cpl of these!!

or/and

So NowI leave it up to you! Get onto the group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/forestcitycrafters and let us know IF you tweet, and if you tweet what is your username and also tell us what you think it does for your business.

Lets get some communication going here.

London Potters Guild - Fall Show and Sale

2009-11-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone just a quick announcement that was sent to me by Jessie of Mamitosami

Please join us…London Potters Guild Fall 2009 Show and Sale!!!

More than 30 potters from Southwestern Ontario will be displaying and selling both functional and sculptural pottery.

With thousands of beautiful and professional pieces, there is something for everyone!

Meet the potters, enjoy demonstrations and take home some pottery.

Friday, November 27, 6-9
Saturday, November 28, 10-5
Sunday, November 29, 11-4

NEW LOCATION
We are proud to welcome you to the new home of the London Potters Guild,

the London Clay Art Centre at 664 Dundas Street, London, ON

Your $2 admission fee qualifies you for door prizes.

Treat yourself and a friend!Enjoy the Fall 2009 Show & Sale for the price of one admission ($2)

Print this email and present it at the door. (no cash value)

(If you would like the email I can forward it to you for the savings)

Saturday Sales Pitch

2009-11-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to start a weekly promotional teaching with articles I or you find particularly helpful. This week I would like to start with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Obviously this is one of the more important lines of promotion, because it involves getting your brand out there-in the search engines and hopefully the goal is to get it at the top of the list for your specific keywords.

Now I'm surely NOT an expert at all, but that's why the new "Saturday Sales Pitch" articles are going to be so important to us, not to mention enlightening (hopefully!)

So without further ado!..... This article has been taken from Jarrett Holmes blog post called "Search Engine Optomization Marketing Tips"

S.E.O. or search engine optimization is crucial to your websites success. The better you do it, the more hits you’ll get. There are many aspects involved. I won’t get into all of them, but I’ll share with you some great things that I have learned from very successful online marketers and you may do the research and reading on your own.

Things to learn, study, and execute on your websites are keywords, metatags, backlinks, anchor text, URL’s, keywords in the URL and quality content and services on your site, just to name a few. I am just a beginner, but I have learned a lot in the last year on search engine optimization.

Here are a few of my learned experiences:

1) Put your keywords in the title of your article or post

2) After you do your keyword research, put keywords through out your post at least 5-8 times

3) Use clickable (keyword rich) anchor text at all times, not a regular website .com link.

4) Link to lots of other major sites, especially when they are subject compatible to your post. You may also ask them to link to your site for additional backlinks.

5) Use All-In-One SEO Pack on your Wordpress blog or Google SEO Tools for your website.

6) Do your keyword research first before you post and follow the experts and what they teach and do.

7) Bookmark your posts with OnlyWire! Very important.

Don’t just write. Post videos and audio too (Podcast)!

9) Use TrafficGeyser to absolutely explode your content all over the net! Do it now!

10) Submit your articles with the #1 Mass Submitter and Article Spinner Automatic Article Submitter.

There are many great teachers on S.E.O. and P.P.C. or Pay-Per-Click marketing online. The most well known teacher is Perry Marshall. He created the 2009 and now the 2010 Adwords Definitive Guide Early Bird. He also made the Definitive Guide to Adwords, Guerilla Marketing System and his Adwords Course.

The other world-class creator of the greatest Search Engine Optimization software and information products I have ever seen is Brad Callen. Check out the #1 S.E.O. Tools on earth Keyword Elite 2.0 and SEO Elite 4.0..

I recently signed up for Jeremy Shoemaker’s 12 Week Internet Marketing course and must say it is amazing! it’s FREE and you can sign up at http://ShoemoneyX.com. His regular website is http://Shoemoney.com. I also referenced his great site in my earlier blog post. His 12-week course on Internet Marketing is the best I have ever seen and is an unbelievable value and it’s completely FREE! Thank you Jeremy for a fantastic course and all your kick ass blog posts as well. It was nice meeting you in Denver at Affiliate Summit and hearing you speak.

Here are some of the best Free Tools I have found and used:

AdWords Wrapper: Free AdWords Tool

Wordtracker is another fantastic tool to do your keyword research.

Here is a great Keyword Suggestion Tool.

I love the Google Keyword Tool Box

Then there is the almighty Google Search-Based Keyword Tool

The main one I also use is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool

S.E.O. is an ongoing learning lesson. You will continually get better as you learn more, adapt and gain the experience necessary to improve through ACTION. Experience will teach you the most and you should never stop learning. No matter what your knowledge level, the more you learn, the more income you will make. The most experienced and prosperous people I have met in Internet Marketing are continuous learners with an insatiable appetite for knowledge on the subject. Successful marketing techniques are always changing also with the market and the industry and you have to continually grow and adapt with those changes, or get left behind.

I hope these tools will help you propel your online exposure for your businesses into the stratosphere! -Jarrett

Well That is all for this lovely Saturday, I hope you learned something just like I did.

2009-10-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

I would like to take this time to welcome everyone to the Forest City Crafters Blog. We are an organization of artists from all across the city. Everyone brings a different element to the table.

We have the following WONDERFUL artists who have joined us so far!

Reidsreserves ~ the cutest clips I have ever seen

Jennifersquires ~ a photographer with an amazing eye!

Eleanorandi ~ cute purses

Craftifem ~ currently very beautiful ring slings for you and baby

Scissorkix ~ pins and buttons completely unique

Tootucute ~ wicked cute tutu's

Punchanella ~ amazingly cute stuff, everything from door stoppers to makeup rolls

PiecesofMePendants ~ wicked cool scrabble tile pendants

HelloPinkBird ~ Incredibly cute stationary and notebooks!

Customstockings- beautiful stockings just in time for Christmas

Nutmegbunny- Cute eclectic button bracelets

Aimeehines- amazing abstract art to catch anyone's attention

PoppinJFox- wickedly unique crochet wear

HolgaJen- another amazing photographer!

Shorah- incredibly detailed and beautiful tankini's, monokini's and bikinis

Fadingendlessly- knitwear, buttons and much more

Fairmontinvitations- classically gorgeous invite cards

RachelsCloset- crochet wear for little girls

Exquisitelysimple- beautiful beaded bookmarks

Lamoona- gadget cases, camera straps and eco friendly products

Jazminjules- one of a kind beaded bracelets

Beepart- wicked cool graphics and imagery! very old school pinup style.

Weezi- funky fun clothes and accessories

Gillianbeads- beautiful Handmade Lampwork Glass Beads and Artisan Jewelry

ThreadsFromTheHeart- eco clothes with heart

Mamitosami- delicious quilts as well as handbags

London666- anything you can imagine

CherryCrushShop- great handmade makeup

Emburr- Sculptural pottery

PatternsAndSuch- Patterns for plastic canvas, knitting, crochet, sewing, crafts and more!

VintageAndSuch- Vintage Military, Housewares, Collectibles & Treasures

Ennadoolf- Topsy Turvy dolls, Corking/Knitting Spool sets, Barbie clothes, Knitting,Photography

JinxMurphyDesigns- unique handmade decor

Kataish-knitwear

Elanknits- original hand knits, designs, art & vintage patterns.

Veronicadiago- beautiful artwork

Apaperbuffet- crazy creative paper products

Pinkfairydesigns- beaded flowers that look real as life

HandKnitbyCara- adorably cute knitwear for baby

Shesbattydesigns- Handmade Greeting Cards & Unique Paper Products

Hyggeligt- beautiful fabrics

Paddyk- wearable art

Elizabeth M Designs- one of a kind jewelry

All Artists can be found on http://www.Etsy.com

So I would like to welcome all of you to our new blog and feel free to spread the word!