Renaissance Faire Update --

I've heard back from the people who carry my toys at their Ren Faire booth.  The chinchillas were a HUGE hit, they sold out the first weekend and needed a lot more. Good thing I bought all the fake fur at the store from that style - I have 3 yards.  I can get 30 chinchillas out of half a yard.

 

The dragonflies went well too, the vivid colors helped. My wings on them are two toned.  I did most of the bodies in a purple speckled with gold (cotton print), and the wings in felt, green and blue, or green and gold, or purple and blue,  or blue and red, etc.  What makes them stand out is the spray of ribbon on the end of the body, I knotted 1/8" ribbon and sewed it on at the tip, cutting the two strands about 1 1/2" long. It makes the toys 'pop' visually.

 

A clear great seller was the superhero Comic Books For Cats.  The main winner was Thor!  Then Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, and way down on the end was The Hulk.  Poor Hulk, nobody wanted that one.  All the Dr. Who Books For Cats sold out too. I forgot to ask about the 50 Shades Of Tabby Gray.

 

Mice went well, as usual.  I had some done in cotton prints related to Steampunk (keys, gears, clock faces) and those got grabbed up fast.  The rest of the sales are spread out over the range on the remainder of the toys. 

 

One lady told them that her cats went absolutely bonkers over a cat toy called the Giddy Kitty Ding Dong she got from a little sex shop called the Tool Shed in Milwaukee.  I made those -- and the ladies selling my toys at the Ren Faire knew it, so they informed the person that I was the one supplying all their current cat toys.  She asked for more Ding Dongs when they stopped on the way back to the event so the booth now has a half dozen hidden behind the counter for 'secret stash'.

Simple Simple Bees

Someone wanted a bee toy for her kitty.  Trying to get inspiration from cat toys online wasn't helping much.  Neither was the fabric store - no yellow and black striped fabric available.  So I went with a black and white stripe.

 

Easy pattern ---- Cut 4" by 4" squares of the black and white striped fabric. Cut 2" by 4" rectangle of black polar fleece.   Set both to the side.  Take yellow polar fleece and cut one pair of a 3" long, curved-back letter B.  You will need the two layers.

 

Take black thread on the machine and sew a curved line along the back of the letter B about 1/4 inch in, continuing around the B letter shape..  This locks both layers together for the wings.  Take a scissors and cleanly trim around the stitch line.

 

Set one striped square in front of you so the stripes are going side to side.  Lay the wings on the top about 1/4" down from the edge.  Use your sewing machine to stitch vertically down the short center of the wings to attach it to the square (you go down, then back stitch back to the top, it saves thread).  Then attach the 'head' area, the black strip of polar fleece. It lays on top the upper edge of the body (parallel to the black and white stripes).  Sew down the length to attach it.  Remove from the machine.

 

Now take your bee body and fold it in half the long way. Tuck in the wings so you don't catch them on the stitch line.  Sew from the bottom side up the length and across the black head, rounding as you do the head. You don't want it square at that end. 

 

Turn right side out, stuff the body with fiberfill and catnip.  Do a gather stitch on the butt end of the bee, pull tight and tuck in the rough ends. Close.  Use 8mm beads for the eyes on the black head.  You can take a stitch for the mouth to make the bee 'smile' too. 

 

I did them in batches of 10.  From start to finish it took maybe an hour at most.

Chinchilla Toy

My latest foray to JoAnn Fabrics (I got out with ONLY $48 worth of fabric, most of it on sale this time) had me see a really nice short napped fake fur that looks very very realistic.  It's gray mottled and looks like bunny fur, but was $14.99 a yard.

I got half a yard and used my coupon on it, and was going to make catnip bunnies but decided to instead make them all chinchillas.  White bellies, same pattern as the hamsters, black felt ears, and for the tails I had light gray wolf fur that matches really nice. 

They ended up like chubby chinchillas but they look fun.  And the idea is 'classier' than bunnies. Plus I didn't have to sew the bunny ears. That's always a plus.

This is the fur --

http://www.joann.com/luxury-faux-fur-rabbit-fur-fabric/14387591.html#q=faux%2Bfur&start=2

It wouldn't let me post a picture.  The fur length is about 1/4 inch long.  Man, the fallout when I cut the pieces!!!!  I had to take them outside and give them all a good shake. There's fibers all down the driveway.

 

But it's very soft, very realistic, and make nice cat toys!  The half yard made 31 of them with virtually no excess trimmed off.  So with my 40% coupon I think it came to $4.50 for the half yard.  31 chinchillas x $1 each wholesale is $31.  Retail at $2 each (low end) is $62.  Course there's the bit of fake fur and the bead eyes and felt ears and stuffing used too, but hey, there's profit here.)

Marketing - Get That Customer To Pay Attention To Your Item

Sorry, it's been pretty busy lately and there's been no time to post.

 

The Renaissance Festivals are coming up again and it's been time to make enough items to sell there.  I have two friends who have a booth and they buy stock from my finished pile.  Some things go over well, others don't, so it's trial and error, but when a 'good' item is found, I get to supply them for the 6 weeks the event goes on.

 

Cat toys are always good sellers, but some items better than others.  HUMOR is the deciding factor.  Why buy a mouse when you can buy a fuzzy mouse butt?  Why go for a regular mushroom when a 'questionable' mushroom covered in tiny skulls is offered?  Why sell a bird when a dead bird with X's for eyes is laying there?  Yes, you get people's funny bone engaged, they pay more attention to the item and are more likely to pick it up.

 

And all merchants know that something picked up is under more consideration to being purchased than an item that's left on the display.  Get it in their hand and half the sale is done.

 

Well, yes there will always be a certain group of customer who go for the traditional catnip mouse or other 'normal' type toy.  But then they've already seen those in every pet supplies shop like....everywhere.  It's more fun for me to make something that is a bit unusual, downright weird, or even just with a great print (for instance the tiny Minions on some of the fabric selections lately are perfect).   And being different does translate into sales.

 

It helps, too, to have a good line of schtick going --- 'We put those two dragons into the birdcage because they were spitting at the customers'.  'The fox doll comes with a pouch around his waist, and inside is his lunch, a white mouse'.  'Yes, all our catnip birds died, they're laying over there in a bowl sort of expired so they're on sale today for a dollar off.'  'We got infested with faeries in the booth, it was real hard to fix till we tried a can of Raid, they're all over there in a pile now, deader than doornails, wanna buy one?'  "The purple snakes are the poisonous ones'.

 

Sometimes just one comment like this helps get the item into someone's hand and brings a smile. It's worth doing.  Not only are you playing to your audience, you've gotten them to take that extra three to five seconds to actually CONSIDER the item.  That's all it takes to get a sale sometimes.