The last Craft Mutiny show of the year is happening at Design Within Reach in Georgetown, this Saturday, December 13th! Shop for awesome handmade goods while hanging out in the sleekest home furnishing showroom in DC.

Craft Mutiny, DC’s most exciting craft collective, has been hosting holiday shows for the last 3 years, encouraging shoppers to buy handmade during the gift giving season.

This is your last chance to get your hands on fabulous Craft Mutiny finds, as well as a slew handmade gifts from local vendors such as Jaime Zollars prints, Spaghetti Kiss Sci-Fi tees, Imogene’s lovely silver jewelry and recycled leather wristcuffs from Fisticuffs Leather.

You can check out the vendors and get directions here.

Craft Mutiny Holiday Trunk Show and Sale
THIS SATURDAY, December 13, 10am-5pm
Design Within Reach – Georgetown (3307 Cady’s Alley NW, Washington, DC 20007)

For more information go to craftmutiny.com.

It seems that the most elusive thing to new crafters or “dabblers” is how to create a product line. How do you go from the early phases of making stuff to give to your friends as gifts to making stuff that you want to sell (and that people want to buy!)?

Here, I put this question to Annie of Imogene, a jeweler who uses mostly sterling silver and traditional metal fabrication techniques to create simple and lovely pieces.

Annie says:

I went to university for jewelry and metalsmithing, but when I graduated, I discovered that I didn’t know how to market these skills or where exactly to go with it. Shortly after school ended, I was offered a job as an assistant to a jeweler. I turned this down because the pay was dismal and offered no health benefits on top of that. Instead I worked as a legal secretary. By the time I left my cubicle, I was earning almost three times what I would have earned as an assistant to this jeweler AND I received health benefits. While working at the law firm, I opened up a little online boutique representing indie designers. I guess this was my own way of keeping craft in my life. I began to sell my own jewelry creations in the store alongside the other work that I carried just to “see what would happen.” I also participated in craft shows as the boutique. I then realized that my work was as marketable as the work of the artists I carried in the shop! The income from my day job and craft shows allowed me to expand my jewelry line and eventually quit my day job. I’ve been selling my work now for about four years and have been self-employed for a little over one year. Now I carry only my jewelry line in the boutique.

My advice to everyone is to believe in yourself, your vision, and your product. You have to push forward with no fear. I’ve been rejected to many shows (even Crafty Bastards!), I’ve encountered criticism, skepticism, you name it, but you just have to pick yourself up and move forward. Constantly work to improve and innovate.

Annie’s comments about fear are really valuable. When asked this same question myself recently, I answered that the real failure is the fear. Many new crafters are afraid of failure and the truth is that as long as you are making something that you are not failing, you are learning and getting closer to your goals.

You can check out Annie’s lovely jewelry at Booth #119 this Sunday, September 28th from 10am-5pm at the Marie Reed Learning Center in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC.