Shop is online!

I am exceedingly proud to announce the opening of my new store, The House of Spook. (Seriously, what else would I call it?)

I will be offering the following:
My art/craft/sculpture
KillJar Jewelry (with a new line coming soon!)
Clothes/Shoes/Accessories
Housewares
Vintage/Thrift items and
other goodies with an 'alternative' flair.

*INDIE BUSINESS OWNERS* - If you would like to be listed on my 'friends' page both in my shop and on my blog, please contact me :)



Do you dig it? Leave a comment sharing your opinion.

New in the KillJar shop, 1/21/13

Get it while it's hot

New in the KillJar Shop, 1/9/13

click to visit

New in the KillJar Shop, 1/3/13

Whoops, all wasps! :P I didn't really mean for that to happen, I had to re-cast all my other non-wasp stuff. These are, as per usual, available for sale in the KillJar Jewelry shop.

New from KillJar Jewelry 12/12/12

KillJar Analytics 2011-2012

I've made maps of all the places I've had customers in :)


visited 25 states (50%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Canada

visited 3 states (23.0%)
Create your own visited map of Canada


visited 9 states (4%)
Create your own visited map of The World

New from KillJar Jewelry

Centipede Frustration!!!

If you can identify this, please let me know!

Papa Spook caught this for me under a log out in our bayou. I like to somewhat identify the bugs I sell, but I have no idea what this little bugger is. It's a red centipede. There are over 8,000 species of centipede, only 3,000 of which are described, and all I've got to go on is that it's red.
Go me.
 I feel as if Grandmother Spook would give me a very hard time for selling this ring- she's terrified of centipedes and millipedes. You can't win them all, I guess- sorry grandmaw. I think he's cute, in a deceptively fast, aggressive, toxic and prehistoric kind of way.
I've got another one still alive if anyone is interested in a custom piece.

I also have an unidentified spider, and apologize for the crappy picture:

What the EFF is this thing!? About the size of a penny, He's lightning-fast and can climb up the sides of the glass jar. Tan-brown legs with a black body, distinctive tanish-white markings on abdomen. He's still alive, and most often curls up as shown in the photo.

Reaching International Customers

Second to the U.S., the most hits I get from my etsy shop are from France. Parisians like bug jewelry, who knew? I have other hits from places like Latvia and Romania, which I could honestly not pinpoint on a map for you. (No child left behind in geography class!)  All my shitty cartography skills aside, there is a real thrill in knowing that other people in the world are viewing your products. It's so cool to know people who speak a different language and are from a completely different cultural background are interested in your hand-made American goods.

So, how do you get more international views and thus international customers?
Fish where those exotic little fishies are. 
I think my biggest draw for international views is DeviantArt. There are many excellent professional and aspiring artists on this site, ready to be supportive of you and your awesomeness! It's not hard to get people to pay attention to you on DevArt, while great artists share a bit of their portfolios, there are *many* heart-wrenchingly awful MSPAINT files uploaded to this site and called art.


How else can you connect with people overseas?

Rape and pillage your analytics. Find where your international customers are and learn more about their locale. It can't hurt.

Online art/craft communities such as Crafster, Cut out + Keep, DeviantArt, ect.

Social networks like Twitter (best bet), Facebook and Myspace (I include myspace because I hear people still use it)  - Follow/friend some people from around the world- blogger is also a great place to meet new people from different places.


SEO for overseas- try tagging your items with alternate spellings- jewelry is jewellery in the U.K.

Show some good-old-fashioned Etsy Love to 'foreign' sellers  Poland makes pretty much the best goth/metalhead clothing in the world. 

 Like what they like, make what they're making.- Decoden is JUST NOW getting some kind of popularity here in the states, and even the people wearing it have never heard the term before. Scope out trends in other countries (my favorite is Japan) to see what will be popular in a few years!

 
Good luck, y'all!

Custom Order, Da-da-da-dun!

Alyssa, a super-cool lady who owns an Apairy, sent me about 50 of her bees to use my jewelry    :)

I've made her 2 pairs of earrings:

2 Necklaces:

AND

A Queen Bee brooch :

More insect jewelry at www.etsy.com/shop/killjarjewelry

Bug Process

I'll give you a not-so-enlightening glimpse at my bug jewelry process today!
These are the bugs I caught last Saturday:

From left: Grasshopper and (dead) Damselfly, crane fly, Damselfly, cuckoo wasp

The Damselflies still in molds. I decided to pose the one on the right to look more alive than scientific.

The cuckoo wasp and crane-fly, unmolded. Crane fly has now background yet, and I used a marble effect for the background of the cuckoo wasp.

Here are the finished products!  Click the image to see the listing at my Etsy store.

Damselfly Necklace

No-kill Damselfly Necklace

The glue on the crane fly isn't dry yet, so I'll post it when it's listed

GO OUTSIDE!

Went on a bug-huntin' excursion today, here's the booty:

Damselfly OR Dragonfly nymph

Freaky mosquito-hawk looking thing

Cuckoo Wasp - He is covered in dirt but is a bright blue color. It took me and Aaron ages to catch one, illusive little bastards!

The KillJar Influence

These are all the places my customers are from.

It was like pullin' eye-teeth to find a decent "pin"able map online, so if anyone needs one I encourage you to use Zeemaps. 

Shop Makeover!

I drew my logo in illustrator to re-do my banner and icon. I also used my new vector logo in the corner of my pictures and added a rounded edged two-color border. Good,yeh?

Before

After

 

Close-up of banner with the fancy new logo: