Hi there, I'm Leslie, owner of Feisty Elle and a fiber artist residing in San Francisco. Tirsh and Kristina met me at Maker Faire, where I was selling my feisty women's accessories at Bazaar Bizarre, a craft show housed within the faire showcasing lots of great artists and indie businesses selling handmade wares.
They've invited me to start blogging here and I'm stoked to share with you future shows in the Bay Area and my experiences as a one-woman indie, handmade women's accessories business. (If you'd like me to talk about any other topics of interest, let me know.)
That said, I've been in business since September 2005, but it feels like only now am I close to getting the hang of making things, selling things, and promoting what I make and sell. Since it's just me, I'm the only one I can point the finger at if nothing gets done or changes. In that sense, it's exciting, lonely, frustrating, and rewarding. To manage the ups and downs of running a small business, I keep myself connected to communities that do what I do and support one another in our crafty business endeavors.
One such community is The Switchboards. Their tagline is, "Connecting Creative Women in Business," (yes, you can be a guy and ask questions too, we're friendly ladies), and they do just that. The Switchboards is an active forum where you can ask questions, vent, and share experiences around the creative and business aspects of running your own business. Check it out!
Also, I'm a proud member of the San Francisco Craft Mafia (SFCM), a collective committed to promoting and supporting indie with a specific focus on handmade work. SFCM which is currently comprised of eight fabulous businesses and their owners. We meeting monthly to work on promoting both our own businesses as well as SFCM. We figure if we pool our resources, skills, talents, thinking, and time, we can do more together for our businesses than we can by ourselves. Speaking of which, we put on a great show last fall at Craft Gym (also a member), so look out for more events from us.
And that pretty much concludes my introductions. Thanks for reading!
1 comment:
hey cool! Thanks leslie for the intro! I guess we all ought to introduce ourselves...I checked out the links and the craft gym looks like a great resource as well as the switchboards. I forsee more time spent reading on the internet!
ps. The bizarre bazaar link doesn't work!
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