Restarting Website, and My First Custom-Made Item October 1, 2016 – Posted in: Accessories, Crafts – Tags: accessories, chrysanthemum, Hair pin, Japanese Traditional Art, Kanzashi, Tsumami-zaiku
Journey restarted
It has been a very long time since I wrote anything here. I wish I could do a bit more work on the website but I’m not exactly good at writing. I have been using Instagram and Facebook to showcase my work because they are more picture-orientated, but I guess it is also important to have a website of ourselves in case anything goes wrong. I guess it will be easier for me if I write shorter articles but do it more often.
Anyway, since June, I have been putting all effort into making Tsumami-zaiku accessories. From then on, Tsumami-zaiku accessories have been the focus of our range of crafts. My skills have kept improving and I have gained more confidence on my crafts in these few months.
First Custom-Made Order
Perhaps one of the most memorable things happened in this period was my first ever custom-made order. I received a message on Etsy asking me if I could make a hairpin that based on one of my previous design but with a different colour scheme. This customer is a cosplayer of Japanese Animes. To give me a better understanding of what she was hoping for, she also sent me a picture of the character that she wanted to dress up as.
Side tracking a bit, I don’t know much about Anime and I was curious, so I did a little image search. The anime character is Wataru Hibiki from the Ensemble Star.
Final Product
Anyway, I think the overall the shape of the hairpin in the illustration is similar to my original work. I just need to change the colours. After we had a chat and talked through a few things like how to mount the flower and what embellishment to use, I started working on the hairpin. Below is a picture showing how it looks like. My customer was very happy when she received the hairpin and she wore it with her costume to a comic convention. Of course, I was very happy too.
Since then I had received a few other custom orders for other things. Sometimes people don’t really have anything in mind and just want to have something special. In that case, I would gather some information about the person who will be using the product, and base on that I would decide what flowers and colours to use. (I will talk about those orders in another post.) Making a craft especially for someone is very enjoyable and every experience is unique, so I really enjoy working on custom orders.
That’s all for today. See you next time. If you are interested in the original hairpin, you can find it here. You can also visit our store to see the other products available. Commissions welcome.
