GOOD SCENTS & SILVER TREE JEWELRY

INTERVIEW WITH C SHANNON OF GOOD SCENTS & SILVER TREE JEWELRY

Tell us a bit about yourself (name, location, personal stuff).
I’m a single mom of two teenage kids. I am currently working as a substitute teacher in my kids’ ISD while I obtain alternative certification to teach full time next fall! I also am highly creative (always have been) and have two Etsy.com shops: Good Scents and Silver Tree Jewelry.

Are you a full-time artist/crafter?
No, but that is my goal, quite honestly. It may not happen for 5 years or more, but it is my goal to have a business location (brick and mortar) selling my products locally while I also sell them via Etsy.com.

How long have you been in business?
I began making my products about 6.5 years ago. I owned a local gift shop (now closed). I’d go to the local market (World Trade Center, Dallas) and when I just couldn’t find the items that I knew would sell, I began making them myself. I began with candles, moved into soaps and lotions, then into the rest of the bath & body products. My sparkling Swarovski© jewelry came into production sometime during this time.

What percentage of your income is from "online" sales?
About 50%. I do have a significant quantity of local customers for my candles and bath & body products. I have wholesale customers, too.

What can your customers look forward to for 2008?
My personal commitment is to always be working on something. I have a great sugar scrub, but it melts in the heat of summer (and therefore, I can’t ship it). So I’m working on a new scrub that will be much more heat resistant. Of course, new scents are always being evaluated. For jewelry, I have a lot of new stones and crystals. I find myself drawn, this year, to turquoise and brown, gold and blue colorations.

What do you utilize most for INSPIRATION?
Something within. I cannot really explain it, but I seem to have an inner knowing about things. I do examine the other products ‘out there’ and while I know the quality is fantastic on many, I also know that no one is offering a funky, fun, high quality product line mine (Good Scents).

How does being CREATIVE effect your life?
Affect my life? It IS my life. Without the ability to be creative, my life would not be worth living, quite honestly.

What do you love most about what you make?
The fact that I can make pretty much anything that I set my mind to do. I have a great many ‘crafty’ skills: I make stained glass, paint, sew, etc.

Do you offer any services such as, wholesale, custom orders, swapping or bartering?
Oh, absolutely. I welcome wholesale. Remember that my bath & body products (Good Scents) came from my frustration with being unable to find quality products at market that weren’t either overpriced or everywhere I looked in competitive stores. It does a store no good to have no differentiation with other stores. Having the exact same set of products offers the customer no real benefit. I welcome custom orders, too!

What advice can you share with other artists/crafters?
To believe in what you make. Every product, provided it is made with attention to quality, has a customer. You just have to believe and to work to find that customer.

If you had "studio elves" what job would you give them to do?
Can, I have a maid instead? I find that I’d rather work on my products than clean my house.

Do you have studio tips on staying organized, and working efficiently?
A fabulous filing system is important to me. I make a lot of different products. And without careful files, I would always be looking for my labels. I have my raw ingredients in one area of my work space. And my finished goods carefully organized in yet another. I do alphabetize as much as possible, too. So if I’m looking for Paradise Flowers fragrance (which I custom blend) I’m not pushing aside Amaretto or Basil Sage Mint to find it…

Please share why "buying/selling handmade" is important to you...
It used to be that the artisan was the heart and soul of the community. Creating fabulous things in small quantities, made the items more precious. And more respected. Then came the huge manufacturing entities, selling everything from A to Z, and the soul left the business. The heart went comatose and the head took over, counting the shekels and cutting every corner possible for greater enrichment.

I’m definitely a capitalist. I love making money. I consider money a great boon to my world! But I’m not going to cut quality to make a few pennies more. It simply isn’t worth it to me. To downgrade and make inferior products is something that I simply cannot do. But big companies either have lost touch with their soul (or never had one in the first place) and they care not a whit about it.

If you buy handmade, you are pushing the pendulum back. To where quality and standards were more important than speed and profit. As mentioned, I’m definitely in favor of profit. But, the world is somewhat out of balance, at the present, and places like Etsy.com, and artisans like myself are helping to bring some fiscal and creative sanity to the wider world.

Finally, you are supporting small business. Everyone knows, if you listen to the news or read the paper, that small business is the utter backbone of our society. In many cases, you are supporting a woman run business, like mine. And in some cases, you are supporting a single mom (again like me) who is trying to do the best for her family while providing beauty to the world at large.

Besides creating & selling handmade goods, in what other areas of your life do strive to be 'independent, resourceful, & creative"?
I write novels, too. Any literary agents are welcome to write to me! I’ve been trying to break through that concrete ceiling (and find an agent) for nearly 4 years.

Where would like to be in 10 years?
In 10 years, my last child will have been out of my house for about 5 years. I will have taught for about 10 years. And it will be time, I think, to start looking into that smaller house. In a smaller town, and starting my store. At least, that is my personal dream.

I sincerely appreciate being able to share my thoughts and feeling with you!
And we sincerely appreciate you sharing all your wonderful, heartfelt insight & inspiration with us! Thank you

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT ALL THE WONDERFUL CREATIONS FROM ALL C SHANNONS SHOPS!!!
GOOD SCENTS BATH & BODY PRODUCTS (official website)
GOOD SCENTS ETSY SHOP
&
SILVER TREE JEWELRY SHOP AT ETSY