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Selling at Cons is best during the...

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Total Votes:[ 1020 ]

Kasyrrah> It is actually pretty cool to meet the people from here at cons. I've met a couple now, and would love to meet more. smile I do tend to get around the Midwest pretty well, so if you head this way, by all means let me know!

And I think I"m a masochist. I have a con in 54 days... and might be attending a con one week after it (likely not all three days). AND THEN, the next con is TWO WEEKS after that. Why can't the Midwest cons be a bit more spread out?
I'd love to meet people at Miswestern cons, too. Vicemage, I've talked to you a couple of times at Detour, but I don't know if you remember me. >.< Probably doesn't help that I've changed my Gaia screen name...

Turns out Walmart didn't have the wire crate jobbers. Not as far as I could tell, at least. I kind of wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, though. >.> I did get some of those eyepin thingys, though, so I can finally start my charms tomorrow. I'm super excited.

That said, people who do charms, how many of each design do you tend to make? I've never tried to sell them before.
I'll definitely drop a line here if I get to make it to any midwestern cons. Right now, I'm mostly East coast though--coming from North Carolina, I try and keep the drive time around 5-6 hours at most, although I did make the 9 hour trek to Atlanta for AWA last year.

I usually only take 2-3 of each of my charm designs, but then I make mine out of sculpy, and they're painfully slow to make for the price I sell them for. Although after I get my tax return back I may invest in a Printsess sample pack and see about redesigning and switching to those kind of charms. It'd be a lot easier on me when it comes time to restock inventory for cons. @.@ I think if I did something like that I'd take 5-10.

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Vicemage
And I think I"m a masochist. I have a con in 54 days... and might be attending a con one week after it (likely not all three days). AND THEN, the next con is TWO WEEKS after that. Why can't the Midwest cons be a bit more spread out?


Good luck! I think selling at one convention is already hard! eek



I want to sell some "I only date ____" buttons, but I can't decide how to narrow down my list to about 5

I only date otaku
I only date cosplayers
I only date artists
I only date J-rockers
I only date assassins
I only date vampires
I only date evil overlords
I only date demons
I only date angels

I have more off-the-wall idea like "I only date Cthulhu" too... sweatdrop
just out of curiosity, when you guys had to get seller's permits- depending on the state, how long did it take you to get it. I ordered a temporary California seller's permit at the beginning of february and I still don't have it… I already have the table and everything, I just need the permit.
I do charms too but when I'm preparing for a convention I make each design in batches. And then I have an assembly line of charms. I usually end up with 8 to 12 charms per design and sometimes I use a variety of colors to make each charm slightly different.

Question for other charm makers: how much do you usually charge per cell charm, earrings and rings?
Kaxen
Vicemage
And I think I"m a masochist. I have a con in 54 days... and might be attending a con one week after it (likely not all three days). AND THEN, the next con is TWO WEEKS after that. Why can't the Midwest cons be a bit more spread out?


Good luck! I think selling at one convention is already hard! eek



I want to sell some "I only date ____" buttons, but I can't decide how to narrow down my list to about 5

I only date otaku
I only date cosplayers
I only date artists
I only date J-rockers
I only date assassins
I only date vampires
I only date evil overlords
I only date demons
I only date angels

I have more off-the-wall idea like "I only date Cthulhu" too... sweatdrop


I would chose otaku, cosplayers and J-rockers c:

Cheery Sweetheart

I would choose...

Kaxen

I only date cosplayers
I only date artists
I only date J-rockers

I only date assassins
I only date vampires
I only date demons


The bold ones are the ones I'm more sure about, the not-bold ones I'm not sure which would be better.

As for pricing charms, here's how I'm planning to do it:

Basic beaded charms will be $1-2, depending on whether they contain big, expensive beads, or just plain ones.

Charms with drawings on shrinky-dinks + beads will be $4

Charms with Sculpey focals and beads will be $5. So will charms with 2 Shrinky-Dink pieces (for example a character on one piece of shrinky-dink and his weapon on the other piece).

Keep in mind, I have no experience trying to sell these yet.

Also, a question. Someone (I think it might have been Vicemage) or maybe multiple people mentioned sealing or glazing ShrinkyDinks... what did you use for that?
Yay, lots of posts that aren't spam today!

Muffin> Oh, I remember you. biggrin The name change threw me a bit, but I figured it out pretty quickly. And try Target and Sam's Club for the wire crates, though this might not be the best time of year to find them.

Kaxen> My vote would be for Otaku, Cosplayers, Vampires for sure, and favoring Artists, Demons, and Angels. And that's an awesome idea. (I would definitely add a Cthulhu one to my badge holder collection.)

(And I've now added Cthulhu to Firefox's dictionary.)

Regarding charms:

I make mine from printed shrink film (shrinky dink) paper that I run through an inkjet printer; it's a special kind designed to do that. I generally will take 8-12 of them, based on popularity. For the ones I know are popular, I'll make some extras and carry them along; the less popular ones I may not take as many. Right now, I'm "discontinuing" most of the fanart ones, so I'm not doing restocks on those, and doing around ten of the new designs, give or take.

I sell them for $2 each, or 3/$5, with the lanyards (or clips, for those who would prefer them) included.

And I coat them in water-based polyurethane glaze. smile The ink from the printer will run if it gets wet (or even if I don't glaze them quite right), so the glazing step is pretty important.

I've gotta get my taxes done this week so I can order my first batches of new charms... for sure I'm getting the angel and devil wing ones I designed, and I might bring some of the other designs into here for some help picking out one or two others to start off with. May as well make the most of my tax moneys.

Cheery Sweetheart

Vicemage

And I coat them in water-based polyurethane glaze. smile The ink from the printer will run if it gets wet (or even if I don't glaze them quite right), so the glazing step is pretty important.


What does this look like? Can I get it at Home Depot and/or Michaels? What is the brand?

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