Colorado Potters Spring Show Invitation
Today’s the big day – the Colorado Potters Guild Spring 2009 Show opens this evening at 5:00pm – so if you’re in the Denver area stop by and say hello! Click here for a map and directions.
It’s almost as this day was so far away, yet so close. I finally finished printing decals and began a laser toner decal firing last night around 9 pm – nothing like last minute ventures. I’m working tonight and tomorrow from 10:00am – 5:00pm if you happen to be around. I am interested to see how the show sales fare considering our current economic woes – no worries, I’ll report back on Sunday.
With that, I bid you early good weekend tidings,
~Cynthia
Clay Roulettes Redux
Clay Roulettes
Several weeks ago, I participated in a stamp exchange with other members of the Etsy Mud Team. Swaps are fun – you just never know what you’re going to get in return. I was pretty happy with the ones I received, but didn’t know how the recipients of my stamps/roulettes had used the ones I sent. Yesterday, the recipient of one of my roulettes, shared some photos of work she has made using a roulette (left one in photo above) I posted last month. Lisa has really integrated the roulette into her work nicely – take a look at the photos below:
Platter using roulette for the rim – Photo courtesy of Lapella Pottery
Pen pillow – my personal favorite! Photo courtesy of Lapella Pottery
In my opinion, Lisa and her hubby, Alex, are Etsy success stories – they’re really selling a lot of pottery online. So go on, check out their awesome hand built and wheel thrown work in their Etsy Shop.
But, let’s not stop here…what happens when a clay roulette is “super sized”?
Tire roulette
This site was brought to my attention by another fellow Etsy Mud Team Member – pretty dang cool, huh?
Meanwhile, I had hoped to do a ^04 decal firing this afternoon, but it just didn’t happen. I’ll start the kiln early tomorrow morning – I’m going to bed as soon as the bread is done baking, hence the late (for me) night post.
~Cynthia
Tight Firing Schedule
Kiln Loading – couldn't resist photograph my floral arrangement
I’ve been firing my smaller ancient paragon back to back since Saturday getting my student’s and my own work fired in time for their class and the Colorado Potters Guild Show opening Thursday evening. Today, I’m going to unload the bisque kiln and then finish glazing work in preparation for a cone 6 glaze fire this afternoon. Nothing like a deadline to get me moving.
I’ll be using my larger Skutt to glaze fire my work – but since I’ve been squeezing a few of my pots whenever I fire my student’s work, I didn’t have enough greenware to fire the Skutt yet. It’s been gathering dust….plus I think I’ve been dragging my feet a bit because I have to grind some shelves. Ick.
I’m listening to Parliament right now – trying to get in the mood…to grind, err glaze and fire 
~Cynthia
E-Newsletter Marketing
Colorado Potters Guild e-invitation (click to enlarge)
As the web mistress for the Colorado Potters Guild, I volunteered to handle email invitations and internet sign-ups for the Guild’s e-communications. I researched a lot of different software applications and companies that could tackle the job into the future before settling on Vertical Response for a variety of reasons including ease of use, cost based on use and not monthly fee, variety of applications, and the fact that it’s web based. The first 500 emails are free to send after which the service costs anywhere from .03¢ an email to .01¢ depending on size of list – the larger the list, the cheaper the cost per email address). The Guild’s email list is less than 100 strong right now – but our snail mail list is 6,000 – 7,000 strong.
One of the goals for the next few years is to move away from mailing out invitations and to rely more on web marketing - imagine the cost savings of a .01¢ per email sent versus .42¢ to send a postcard in the mail twice yearly ($60 versus $2520 for 6,000 invitations sent – not including post card printing costs). The trick lies in getting people on our current mailing list to switch to email invitations. We do not currently advertise any other events, though we might begin opening the studios on First Fridays and other local events.
I’m learning that there is a down side to e-marketing though – based on Vertical Response’s statistical data tools, only 46% of the people on our email list have actually opened our invitation. That means that the email newsletter is ending up in people’s spam folders and might not even get looked at. I’m going to add a disclaimer on our website to please add our vertical response email address to folk’s address books so that our invitations don’t end up as spam – since these are people who want to receive an invitation. I hope to talk to people at the Guild’s sale next weekend in person to explain why they might not have received an e-invite.
Hand-built butter dishes
Meanwhile, I’ve continued making work right up till Friday – but alas, the time has come to stop and switch gears. I need to load the kiln and get this work bisque fired so that I can glaze on Monday, fire on Tuesday and inventory/photograph on Wednesday.
Flower printed box
I don’t have 105 pots (allowance per guild member), but I have made about 60 buttons to fill in the gaps. Whatever doesn’t sell, will make it’s way to my Etsy Shop – which I will empty of pots for the show next weekend. The jewelry will stay in my shop since we aren’t allowed to bring any to the Guild’s sale…yet.
Meanwhile, I thought I was going to buy a new computer this weekend. My daughter has been home sick and yesterday, she spilled a full glass of ginger ale on my laptop’s keyboard. Not healthy, non? Unfortunately (or fortunately), my geek instincts took over and I quickly flipped the computer over to allow it to drain, unplugged it, took all the guts out and waited 6+ hours before reassembling it. With bated breath, I was half disappointed that it booted right up, faster than before. Since I had it disassembled, I took the opportunity to clean everything with compressed air – no more crumbs, hair balls or dust anywhere. My daughter was very upset, thinking that I was going to be really upset with her – but hey, it’s just a thing right? Dang, no new computer…but my files weren’t lost either!
Have a good weekend,
~Cynthia
P.S. If you have a e-marketing solution that you’d like to share, let me know – I’d love to hear about what services and companies that you use to get the word out about events.
