Positive Yarn

Journey with me, won’t you, into my email in-box? I subscribe to many small-business e-newsletters from all over the country, just to see what’s going on — and I’m intrigued by several of the initiatives I’m seeing this holiday season. What follows is just a sampling:

• One yarn shop has “Snowflake Surprise,” where once a week a snowflake ornament is hidden in the shop and the lucky winner receives 10% off his or her purchase. Even better, the shop sends its e-newsletter to customers with a photo of the smiling winner, along with a note about what he or she bought and an announcement of the next “hiding day” for the ornament. A needlepoint shop is having similar fun by hiding a little gnome for customers to find and win a prize.

• I thought it was a smart move for a needlepoint shop to offer a “Finishing 101″ course during this holiday season, so folks could turn completed projects into keepsake gifts. And even if the customer is like me and has barely anything finished, just learning (or “re-learning”) how to make an i-cord or tassel is useful for the gift-wrapping process we’re all rushing though these days.

• On Day Two of a wicked snowstorm that hit this week, a toy shop made sure its e-news readers were aware that “our lots are plowed and our sidewalks are shoveled!” In case you needed another reason to break free from house confinement, they offered a one-day-only deal: “Any 2 items of your choosing for a 25% discount, plus $10 to use on whatever you want!”

• A yarn and gift shop is putting a new twist on the Sock of the Month Club: It is hosting a contest every quarter, judging the participants’ socks to vie for a small prize from the shop. They plan to feature the sock in the shop, along with the pattern the winner used. And out-of-towners don’t have to be excluded — they can simply email a photo of their masterpiece for judging consideration.

• A bead shop has a “Giving Tree” covered with necklaces, bracelets and more — all priced for quick sale and easy stocking stuffers. They switch up the selection daily, so the regulars have something to check out often. For every item sold off the tree, the shop makes a donation to the American Cancer Society.

• A scrapbook shop recently celebrated its one-year anniversary with cake for its customers (and presumably soon-to-be customers, too). To keep with the holiday spirit, it also hosted a female soloist who sang Christmas carols while people shopped.

• An embroidery designer/retailer’s holiday program, “Stitch It Forward,” includes a $5 gift certificate with every purchase. The certificate is meant to be passed along to a newbie stitcher to introduce him or her to the stitching world, although the purchaser also benefits with a special coupon code for the next purchase.

Whether these cool ideas are turning into cold hard cash for these businesses remains to be seen (and if you recognize your business in one of the above, I’d love to hear about how it’s going!). Regardless, I applaud each of them for thinking outside the box for holiday sales.

I’m also always on the lookout for more: Please feel free to give me feedback on an unusual program that worked — or didn’t — by commenting below or emailing me at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com.

I recently came across a press release touting the results of a brand-new study from the Craft & Hobby Association. (To see the release in its entirety, click here.)

Designer Beth Gantz may be onto something sweet and delicious: combining needlepoint with "cake decor"!

The 2009 Attitude & Usage (A&U) Study surveyed approximately 6,000 households to see how many craft projects they did during the year. Although there was an estimated $27. 4 billion spent on crafting (supplies, classes, etc.), the study found that the percentage of participating households has remained at a steady 56% — the same as in the previous three years, in fact. In 2008, sales were $27.3 billion, so that’s not exactly a huge gain. But on the other hand, there’s something to be said for it not being a loss.

“The A&U Study tracks trends in four broad categories comprised of General Crafts, Needle & Sewing Crafts, Painting & Finishing Crafts, and Floral Crafts,” the release explains. “During 2009, the General Crafts category represented 44% of industry sales and was +18% over the prior year.  Strong category performance was driven by growth in the Woodworking, Cake Decorating, and Jewelry Making segments.”

While the other three categories saw declining sales overall, there were some segments within that did well: “Home Decor Painting/Accessorizing/Finishing, Knitting, and Wedding/Bridal crafts all grew in 2009.”

The study ranked the Top 10 segments, based on sales and participation, and it’s little surprise that scrapbooking remains No. 1. While many of us have all the paper, stamps and stickers we could ever hope to complete albums with to last a couple lifetimes, it seemed that handmade gifts from the heart — like a special memory box for grandma at Christmas, for example — were popular. (For the record, cardmaking is broken out from the scrapbooking category and is ranked at No. 7.)

Because we are taking more “staycations,” it also makes sense that home decor comes in at No. 2. If we’re stuck at home, we might as well spruce it up, right?

I suggest needlepoint businesses in particular take note of what came in after No. 3-ranked woodworking: cake decorating and art/drawing at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.

Whether you’re talking color, clean lines or overall artistry, there are definite parallels to cake design and needlepoint design. In fact, Medina’s own Sandy Rodgers was a very well respected cake designer before she turned her considerable talents loose on the more permanent medium of fabric — check out her gorgeous work on her “Life Before Embroidery” page here. (And if you’re not familiar with her current needlework, for shame! Click here!)

If your local bakery is offering cake-decorating classes, for example, see whether there’s some synergy to be had with their students. Offer to promote their teaching schedule in your shop if they do the same for yours, with flyers touting something to the effect of “Got cake? Get canvas!” Or perhaps co-sponsor a seminar on color choices.

Similar opportunities may lie with the local community center’s introduction to drawing and painting classes. Offer to be a guest speaker and show in what ways painting on a canvas to be stitched can be similar to and different from just regularly listening to your muse.

I’m actually surprised that jewelry-making came in at No. 6, because it seems so popular with crafters of all ages — and especially working moms. Projects you can do with a glass of wine on your right and a good conversationalist on your left, and still get something beautiful completed in less than three hours, are few and far between. Still, traditional shops take note: Once consumers get the “bead bug,” so to speak, they’re looking to embellish everything they can. Do you have beads on display that can complement certain projects? Selected packets of beads to add sparkle to that shawl they’re currently working on? Quick kits to work up a beaded key fob to go with that new felted purse? Tiny needlepoint frames that can go on a chain and let them show off their work like their Victorian counterparts once did?

Perhaps most important to note is what the study found to be the main motivators for crafting. At No. 1 was a sense of accomplishment. Think about that: Are you letting your customers know that you’re proud of their work? You, the expert, are seeing them transform from novice to skilled artisan with each project they complete? Are you giving encouragement to students who are looking at a mistake or a daunting task, and showing them just how much they have achieved already? When they ask for your input on choosing a project, are you considering how much they can challenge themselves without getting in over their heads?

That final point is important because of Motivator No. 2, relaxation!

I encourage you to read over all the survey’s results, and see how they apply to how you’re currently doing business. The release has a lot of info on its own, but CHA makes a full review of their results available for purchase.

I’d love to keep the conversation going, so please share your questions and insights in the comments section below, or drop me a line at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com.

With two big projects for work taking up so much of my time, I haven’t had a chance to stitch for weeks. And I miss it, terribly.

The fruits of my "non-labor."

Lucky for me, several friends took it upon themselves to throw me a surprise birthday party a couple weeks ago at The Potomac Bead Co. It was so wonderful to kick back, gossip with friends and simply create.

This weekend will be my needlework guild’s annual show (at the Brunswick, OH, library if you’re in the vicinity!), so I’ll once again be surrounded by inspiration — and hopefully, a little bit of time to stitch.

If you’re feeling like you’ve become too immersed in the day-to-day of business, and not enough time for the reason why you got into it — the creativity — I encourage you to take a step back, even if it’s just for a little while. Spend some time with a loved one. Call an old friend.

It’s a goal I have for myself this week. It’s easier said than done, but it’s probably the most important thing on my to-do list.

Share your tips for setting aside time to create — post a comment below or drop me a line at positiveyarn@goochandgooch.com!

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to take a class from Jennie and Kathy from Studio Bead. While it was a bit of a comedy of errors at first (no one had the key to the church where our guild usually meets, so one member generously offered her house — which is both stunningly gorgeous and reaaally out of the way, especially when you’re the sixth car in a caravan on some very busy streets), when the eight of us finally got down to business at the dining room table, it was a lot of fun.

Two of the eight students had already taken classes at Studio Bead’s Copley, OH, headquarters. A couple others had done some beadwork in the past. But the rest of us were newbies to the process of crimping the clasps and tying the knots to make a piece of wire and some beads into a thing of beauty.

Because when you get 10 women together around a table, you’re bound to have lots of conversation, talk turned to how the studio offers more than 50 classes and actually is owned by a woman who relocated to Berkeley, CA. Jennie, who also assists her daughter, Katelyn, in an awesome children’s party/craft franchise (Noah’s Art Animal Workshops), is Studio Bead’s manager and trusted guide. All this I learned while trying not to embarrass myself with the crimpers, pliers, and other foreign tools. “You’re all needleworkers, so I assumed you knew everything about knots,” Jennie teased us, to which we replied in unison: “We don’t use knots!”

I believe every business owner would be so lucky to have employees like Jennie (not to mention Kathy, Tammy and the other Studio Bead staff, from what I hear). Jennie puts her heart and soul into the studio, but her loyalty to the owner, whom she’s known since they were both 5 years old, means she always respects the decisions and directions that come from the “California office.” In fact, it seems that success is built of mutual respect and trust, and never losing sight of the fact that beading is a creative outlet that is meant to be fun.

It’s just my food for thought today in this post-election season, where people relationships and skills were at the forefront of every debate — and probably will be for the detractors to chew on for the next four years to come.

Politics aside, I invite you to look at your employees and think about what shape your business would be in if you “ran” it from 2,000 miles away. Hopefully, you’re in Studio Bead’s situation: Your people would look out for your company’s best interests.