Back From The Dead

Edie & Dolores
Best Friends...Forever.

 

Edie the Energy-Sucking Vampire.
She Will Leave You Feeling Drained.

Edie is quite pale in comparison to her best friend, Dolores de las Muertas. Where as Dolores is the life of the party, Edie is a total killjoy. And now things are worse! Edie’s been acting like she’s been staked in the heart since finding out her boyfriend has been fanging someone else!

Famous Last Words: “He’s so dead to me.”

Dolores de las Muertas
She's Drop Dead Gorgeous!

Dolores is a fashion magazine whore and likes to think of herself as the love-child of Christian Dior and Betsey Johnson. Her dazzling sense-of-style is the perfect accessory for her larger-than-life personality, which can make even the deadest of hearts feel a spark of optimism!

Famous Last Words:  "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that!"

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Last summer I started working on my retro-inspired Who VooDoo Love rag doll line. I was so happily in love with the idea of it! I loved everything about creating and marketing the collection ― until it was time to actually sell the Dolores dolls. The plural is the problem. Apparently, I really do not like making more than one of the same thing. It's a good thing Marissa did not have an identical twin.

Also the first version of Dolores that I did end up selling was not the one I had envisioned. And that always bothered me ― a lot. When I was offered the opportunity to sell them at a craft faire, I simply could not do it ― and feel right about it. If I could have fed Dolores after midnight so she'd multiplied a la Gremlins, that would have been awesome. But making more than two of the same doll just killed my creative buzz.

And I came to another conclusion too: I really do not like being crafty-for-profit. I know that sounds incredibly sacrilegious in this Etsy-worshipping environment. But I really do not like Etsy-Be-Like-Everyone-Else-Dot-Com either. A particular elitist attitude has turned me off from that scene and I want to distance myself from it. I did the same thing with Facebook. I've gone rogue.

All this doesn't mean the Who VooDoo Love dolls have met their true death! There are still characters I want to bring to life. And because I love the process of designing and marketing, ideas still spin in my head in the dead of night. I admit, there is an merchandising idea that I find intriguing, but I'm not sure if it'll ever see the light of day. Well, maybe one will.

Comments

[Rainy]

I think you have to do what speaks to you, and you have to listen to your heart. If your heart is telling you this is what's right for you, then you'd be a fool not to follow it!

Crafty for profit is not for everyone and I don't think you're too far off the mark with identifying that there is some elitist attitude, either. I have spent a lot of time and a lot of tears wondering why I can't break through into the "cool, hip, Etsy kid" zone. A wise man told me I needed to refocus on doing it because i love it and not to worry. And, I'm NOT a hip Etsy kid. Ya know?? That helped. But it is hard to navigate those waters on so many levels...

whatever you decide to do, you are inspiring to me and you always have my support. <3

[BellaKarma]

Rainy ~ I swear, I think all I would have to do is give you a look and you would know exactly what I meant! :)

Your description of Etsy is spot on. My biggest problem with Etsy is that IT has has become a BRAND. It has the NAME RECOGNITION. I always hear/read people say, "I bought this on ETSY." "I'm shopping on ETSY." "I'm selling my art on ETSY."

So of course ETSY controls it's BRAND IMAGE by who they select to show on their front page treasury - which, honestly, to me looks the SAME EVERY DAY. There is just so much uniformity over there, in so many aspects.

I could go on and on, and maybe I will in a blog post,lol. I understand that Etsy has "empowered" some people, but I believe that is also misleading, because a lot of those "empowered" sellers already had a huge following because of their blogs and name recognition in publications.

Etsy stresses how you should write a compelling story about your item (after you spend 30 minutes answering questions like "What materials is your item made from?" "What year was it made?" "What was the color of your mood ring while you created your item?"). Excuse me, but that's fucking bullshit! Shoppers are scanning items in a blink of an eye (since there are 1000000 other items listed to get to), and if it doesn't "speak to you" in a nano-second, no one is going to stick around for story time. Again, this is where blogs make a bigger impact.

OK, I'm going to reign myself in now and save the rest for the blog. ;-)

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for the words of support! I'm always awestruck when I see your comments to me! I believe it's been about six years now since we've "met" online, and I've admired you for so many reasons!