Putting Patterns on Porcelain

 

Putting Patterns on Porcelain

Today there are many options for putting colorful patterns onto porcelain china. Some, like decoupage, waterslide decals, and air-dry paints like Delta Air-Dry PermEnamel, are within reach of any home crafter.

 

Others, like dye sublimation printing, transfer printing, and hand-glazing high-fired pottery, require substantial investment in equipment and are best suited to well-capitalized businesses and artists cooperatives.

 

The two traditional ways of putting patterns onto porcelain, hand-painting, and transfer printing, still exist today. In addition, there is a high-tech version of waterslide decals used commercially, which consists of screen-printing decals with glazes and applying the decals to the porcelain. In each case, the pottery is high-fired before decorating to at least cone 6. [Cone is a measure of heat absorption resulting from heat applied over time. Cone 6 translates to between 2165 and 2269 degrees F (depending on how fast the kiln heats or ramps up).] Such high-firing produces the hard almost-translucent

Turn Your Business Cards Into Hardworking Little Salesmen!

Turn Your Business Cards Into Hardworking Little Salesmen!

 

Turn Your Business Cards Into Hardworking Little Salesmen! To market and Sell Your Crafts or Services for Greater Profits.

 

Marketing and promoting your crafts can be just as fun as making them, and it doesn't make any difference how unique and special your handmade treasures are if no one knows you are in business. What is so fun about marketing and promoting your crafts, home-small biz, is that you use the same creativity that you bring to your command when you make your crafts.

 

Most of us home and small biz crafters do not have a blank check, to whatever amount we like advertising budget, so we need to come up with cost-saving ideas. There are many advertising and promotion companies out there competing for your advertising dollars, and some are better than others, and most of them are expensive.

 

Ads that tie up your advertising dollars and may not be in print for a few months or more, or expensive coupon advertising, can deplete your advertising budget with one advertising campaign and not return all that many new leads or customers. If a costly advertising campaign doesn't deliver, you don't get your money back. Following, I have included some:

 

• Quick! Low-Cost Ways to Turn Your Business Cards into Hardworking Little Salesmen!
• Many people in business don't use these to their most significant potential, even though most biz people do have them printed up. Business cards are your hardworking little salesmen, and they are your mini billboards. They work for you 24 hrs a day, without pay!…

 

1. Hand them out! Always have some on hand when you go out, and hand them out! This sounds obvious, and it is, but business cards are often left at home, and they cant be promoting your biz, left at home or in the car.

 

2. Use your biz cards as note cards…If someone needs your home address, and your biz is home biz, hand them your biz card. Or write your home address on the back of your biz card. The same goes for your telephone no, and this gives another person a reason to have your biz card.

 

3. Do a Business Card Exchange! Do a local mailing to businesses that are complementary to your business. For example, if you make candles, send a letter introducing your biz, to local beauty shops with5 or six biz cards included and offer a biz card exchange. You will hand out biz cards for them if they hand out yours.

 

4. Make Your Cards Do Double Duty As Price Tags… Make your biz card into a hanger that you attach to your handmade items or other products, with the price on the back of the card. Use a hole punch to punch a hole in the corner of your biz card, run a piece of string or small satin ribbon through the hole, and attach it to your product.

10 Steps To Clear Thinking

10 Steps To Clear Thinking

 

Does your mind sometimes feel like a television station you can’t entirely tune in to? You know there’s an exciting program on – or several, but everything is mixed with static. What if you could “tune in” at will, have clear thinking whenever you want it? Try some of the following.

Ten Clear Thinking Techniques And Tips:

1. Take a walk. Science will eventually prove this to be a great way to improve the quality of your thinking, but don’t wait for the proof. Aren’t there enough other reasons to take a walk anyhow?

Why You Should Blog!

 

Why You Should Blog!

I have been blogging for just over two months now. Many of my mentoring students have been asking for my advice on blogging. I have so far hesitated to teach much about blogging because it's not something I feel I know yet, and I feel much more comfortable teaching about things I know.

Well, I took a look at Alexa today and noticed that this blog almost hit the top 10,000 most visited sites on the Internet today. I have seen success with many of the methods that are unique to blog promotion. I felt it was time to write a post about blog promotion BUT WAIT! I haven't even explained why I have this blog thing. I can't really jump into getting traffic to your blog without explaining why I have a blog and why you should have one, too; now can I?

Who Wants to Work?

 

Who Wants to Work?

I feel a loss when pragmatism wins over the mystical. There is more incredible magic at work when you engage with Source. I believe that strength and optimism combined with hard work will keep marketing principles and other learned strategies working well for success. I have a much different story to tell.

I’ve spent many years in the corporate world and in the service and sales industry. Letting those learned and hard-work principles go to engage in a relationship with the divine has been one of the most difficult challenges I’ve ever faced. So why face it? Why not stick with the old ways?

Mind Power Games

Mind Power Games

 

Want a fun way to tune up your brain? Why not use some classic mind games to help you increase your brainpower and get you out of your thinking “ruts.” Good mind games habituate you to using creative problem solving as a regular part of thinking about things.

One lateral thinking puzzle you can try right now involves nine dots, layed out three by three. You have to connect them all with four straight lines without lifting the pen or pencil from the paper. Figure this one out, and you

’ll appreciate the expression “thinking outside of the box.”

THE POWER OF STORYTELLING

 

THE POWER OF STORYTELLING

As we build our businesses each day, we all know the key to a successful presentation is a product being sold to the end-line consumer and/or sponsoring a new person. In an upcoming issue, I will write about the difference between making a sale and having customer loyalty in the sales process. In the sales process, you are fighting many different types of animals. For most of us in direct sales, you have 45 minutes to present a product/business concept and make a person believe in you, your product, and more importantly, have them decide that they want what you are offering.