Tuesday, March 10, 2009

something old, something new

completeAs my mom was recently wading through her overflowing sewing room and giving me as much as she can (much of it from my very talented Grandmother and Great Grandmother) she came across these two beauties:
These two Vogue magazines, from 1893 and 1894, were my Great Grandmother's. One of them even has some of her doodles.

My favorite parts are the advertisements. Pretty cool.
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I just finished up a blank book for a customer who plans to have her son use it to practice handsewing. Just another example of my ingenius customers who come up with the things that I'm too entrenched to think of. I think it will work really well. I also made little 4" x 4" patches to whip stitch onto the backs of any "through" work so that all of the pages can be used.
This was also a very useful exercise in evaluating the amount of time it takes to make the base of the book, giving me a really good sense of the value of the book itself. I'm struggling with pricing, not wanting to charge too much but realizing that in most cases I'm actually charging too little, but this has given me the idea of coming up with a sort of unit pricing scheme. Such as:
x amount for the blank book
x amount per image (with a higher price for very complicated images)
x amount per page of embroidery
Each x amount to be determined, but I think this could be a bit more fair. With the numbers I've been plugging in the amounts are fairly close to where they are now, but I will be increasing a bit, as well as giving options for more complicated work.
I want everyone who wants one to have a book. I'm not into making a ton of money, but I do need to help support my family. Useful/beautiful trades are always welcome!!

6 comments:

  1. Victoria! Love the vintage Vogue's! As far as pricing goes, it's super hard isn't it? I seem to always price too low in my opinion but I don't have the sales to justify an increase yet. I think you are doing great and the new pricing scheme is brillz!

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  2. It IS hard to figure out pricing. But the more I sell and the more super-positive feedback I get the more justified I feel in raising my prices a bit (especially when my customers are telling me the books are worth more!). I definitely don't think I would be where I am now if I started with these prices, it was almost like I started with "introductory prices" to get people to give it a try, and then they got hooked! A large percentage of my sales now are to repeat customers.

    I do think you can charge more for your work, but I also think you've got some good "introductory prices" right now. Sometimes people just need some assurance before they take the plunge, and like I said before I think finding a popular blog or two to feature your work would be really helpful. I really think your work would appeal to a broad spectrum of people and could do really well.

    I'm rooting for you!!

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  3. I think that's a great pricing idea, it seems like it would finally be fair for you. I think you're going to do well with it.
    t

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  4. Those Vogues are everything I love. Can I see them?

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  5. kathy at pink chalk studio had two really great post about pricing:
    http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2008/10/02/the-business-of-craft-pricing-part-i/
    http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2008/10/06/the-business-of-craft-pricing-cost-of-materials/

    definitely worth checking out.

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