Cinnamon is a busy girl, besides having a fabulous job she sells handmade bags at Poise, writes several columns, is part of the Chicago Craft Mafia, started and continues to organize Chicago’s DIY Trunk Show and manages to answer her email. She is a good friend of mine and has given me lots of advice business advice I couldn’t have done without. Her generous spirit makes it’s way into her business as well, she donates portions of the total for various bags to deserving charities.

You are one of the founders of Chicago’s DIY Trunk Show. How did the idea come about? How different was the first year from how the show is now that it’s grown?

Amy Carlton and I had applied to be in the first Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago. We were turned down. After we announced on our blogs that we’d been turned down, we heard from a number of other local crafters who had been turned down as well. Amy got the idea of us creating a show that focused on local talent since the organizers of Renegade seemed to have a national focus. So we mustered up our courage, fueled our energy with Chicago pride, and found 36 vendors for our first show. It was amazing and exhilarating and we vowed to do it again. After four years, Amy decided to step down so she could enjoy her new job, new apartment, and time with her hubby. The Chicago Craft Mafia eagerly agreed to take over so we could keep this great show going in Chicago. I have to say that getting turned down for Renegade is the best thing that could have happened to me. If I’d been a vendor I never would have gotten the urge to organize a show that is now in its fifth year. I wouldn’t have met as other crafters and craft show organizers as I have.

Do you have a perspective as a show organizer that someone renting a booth could keep in mind?

It’s hard to do, but try to look at your work from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know you and like you. Look at people making work similar to yours and find out what you can do to make your work better than theirs, and better than your work is now. And find ways to describe your work that make it sound different and better. And read about how you can take the best quality pictures. Many show organizers will only look at the few samples you email them and the one paragraph describing your work. There is a lot of competition and if you’re not going to take the time to compete, then a show organizer is likely to think that you’re not going to take the time to create an attractive display, or maybe even pay attention to the details of what you make. Understand that getting turned down for a show is not likely a personal jab. And while it hurts at first, don’t give up, just find out what you can do to improve and find other shows to participate in. If you have friends who are writers and photographers, ask them to help you create your promotional information for shows.

How has being a part of the Chicago Craft Mafia affected your business? How does the group help each other and the Chicago craft community?

I’ve got to thank the other Chicago Craft Mafia members for all the absolutely wonderful advice they’ve given me over the past four years. I’ve learned so much from these creative and encouraging women. They’ve helped me realize that I need to narrow my focus and refine techniques and styles. They’ve offered suggestions for accountants and wholesale suppliers who have saved me tons of money. It’s been great to just have a group of people who are going through the same challenges that I can spend time with and understand myself and my business better through. We started off trying to focus on just our businesses, mostly because we were overwhelmed with even accomplishing that. But we’ve since created The Craft Racket, which is a quarterly networking event for crafty-oriented business owners together and share information with each other. It’s low stress and our hope is to foster more partnerships and create a community that will encourage others to share and grow together. Anytime we have a show that includes non-mafia members we choose crafters who we feel have great work and in return for being in our show, we give them the right to say they are a “Friend of the Famiglia”. It’s a small way we can support them, while still keeping the mafia small and sustainable.

Are there any crafty business sites you find to be a good resource and guide?

Oh heavens, there are so many. I would encourage people to start at the links page for the Austin Craft Mafia. About halfway down on the right you’ll start finding some business links. The first other place I turned was to the business forums on Supernaturale. I’d also suggest signing up for the private boards at The Switchboards. You’re likely to find any introductory question answered here. Craftster also has some good forums, especially if you’re looking for tips on where to buy something or how to craft something better. And I can’t forget about Etsy forums. There are some good tips here as well, although they’ll be focused on how to sell on Etsy. I think it would actually be harder to start up a business now than it was 4 years ago for me, just because there is so much information available that it would be easier to get overwhelmed.

How do you source materials? How do you approach companies that are used to working with larger manufacturers and how do you convince them to sell to you if they initially seem reluctant? (I know this is something you are particularly good at.)

Google is my BFF. Through Google I’ve tracked down a supplier for my favorite interfacing three times because the companies located in the US that sell it keep going out of business. I’ve also spent dozens of hours looking for zippers, webbing, ribbons, fabric, snaps, and so much more. Chicago is blessed to have a few small shows related to sewn goods, but they’re small and frankly unimpressive. If you can afford to, I would suggest going to New York City for a couple of days and just wandering through the Fashion District. There are so many great shops on so many different floors over a huge area that you’re likely to find dozens of businesses that don’t even have websites, let alone catalogs.

I really struggled with connecting with suppliers who seemed to dismiss me before I could ever find out what their minimum purchases were. I was hung up on twice, I have been treated rudely, I’ve had my emails and voice mails ignored. And I took it personally until I got a copy of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing. There is a section that gave concrete information about what to say and what not to say and it worked. It also helped to look at things from the seller’s perspective. Many of these people are struggling to run a successful business so their time is limited and its improper to expect them to help you figure out what you want and need if you don’t understand this. But being polite, even in the face of rudeness, and being politely persistent is helpful. And be prompt when asked to fax or mail information so accounts can be opened. If they think you’re flaky, they’re not going to pay much attention to you.

One of my other challenges is that I try to source everything that is made in the United State or at least sweatshop free. I joke that I’d rather have a heavy bag, than a heavy conscience, but its true. However suppliers have gotten offended when I’ve asked if they can prove that their business has fair labor practices. I’ve been lucky to find a few companies who have been happy to prove to me that they treat their employees well. But it has made sourcing much harder.

You do a lot of hand beading, how do you keep on top of that amount of detail work?

I don’t do as much of this as I used to, nor do I do as much as I’d like to. It is so time-intensive that it is rare that I can find someone wiling to pay for it. But I enjoy it so much. It’s much like knitting for me. It’s cathartic and relaxing. Creating the design is intense and scary, but once I’m just in production-mode, I find it a great time to catch up on all the shows I have saved on Tivo. I have more ideas for beading than I’ll ever accomplish in real life. And I have more size 11 seed beads than I really should have any business of having. I love sparkly, shiny, delicate things. Which is ironic since I’m such a jeans and t-shirt wearer most of the time.

Your handbag business is only one of your jobs, how do you balance time for making bags, organizing a huge event and having a life?

Aside from my day job and my purse business, I also write a monthly crafting column for Time Out Chicago, a weekly cooking column for Gapers Block, I spend half the year organizing the DIY Trunk Show, I have monthly meetings for the Chicago Craft Mafia, and I have my other hobbies and I like to spend time with friends and doing activist and political work that inspires me. And balancing all of these is very hard, actually. My spouse and I have had fights about my time away from him. My day job is currently very stressful and has left me tired and burnt out and home late frequently and it is hard to muster the energy to come home and be productive. I’ve worried about friendships dying because of my time doing my various projects. But balancing is something that I feel I’m getting better at. Knowing how long things take me has helped. Keeping an eye on the clock when I’m making the first bag of a new style, or being aware of how much time I spend answering email, are good first steps. The internet seems to suck away a lot of my time, so I don’t permit myself to log on until after I’ve accomplished what I need to get done for the night. It also seems a given, but I’ve grown more comfortable saying “no” and it has been a huge relief to learn this skill. But its hard because there are so many cool things I want to do, and I just have to prioritize and determine what is most important to me now and focus on those things. I also have to admit that I rarely fall asleep before 1am and I get up for work at 7:30. I catch up on sleep a little bit on the weekends, but I often feel sleep-deprived. Getting to bed earlier is my next personal goal.

How do you deal with the craziness that is gift season, especially with the DIY Trunk Show being held in November?

My friends know that they’re not going to see much of me between October and January. We have a Halloween party every year, which helps keep people in my life during this crazy period, and I throw a huge New Year’s Day brunch to signify the end of my crazy time. But in between it is a crap shoot if I get to see people as often as I would like. I’ve become a huge list-maker. I grew tired of losing my paper lists and I discovered a web-app called Stikkit. I wrote about it on my blog and it has really helped me get organized. I keep all of my fabric and supplies orders in it, I keep a list of all the upcoming orders I have on it, I also keep to-do lists organized and arranged around a calendar. I can add a date to a task and on that date I get an email reminding me that an ad needs to be placed, a show needs to be applied for, or an order needs to be shipped. It helps keep my on target and organized. Finding ways to do things faster and more efficiently has been the best skill I’ve developed from running my business.

Any favorite anecdotes?

It really is true that inspiration comes in the most unusual places. The name of my business is a good example. In 2002, my guy and I went on vacation to New Orleans and decided to stay at an amazing bed and breakfast (Banana Courtyard). The AOL homepage that we fell in love with would have been 80 pages long if we printed it. But tucked way down at the bottom was a list of words and how they were pronounced in N’Awlins. One of the lines said “poise = a woman’s handbag”. I laughed out loud. And six months later I was trying to come up with a name for my business when I remembered this line. It seemed perfect on so many levels, and still does.

What is next for your business? Is there anything you’d love to take on in the future?

I’ve spent the last four years creating a style and now I need to refine all the aspects of my business. Everything from realizing where my sewing skills could be improved, taking better photos, and making better hangtags and show display materials. I’ve gotten some advice from people outside my circle of friends about their impressions on my business, my website, my bags. And while it admittedly crushed me a bit to hear some of their comments, I’m now very grateful for what they’ve told me. It required me to look at my business as a business, and not just as this cool, fun extension of myself. I’m refocusing my business and rebranding it. I’ve got an upcoming website redesign by my dear friend Naz Hamid of Weightshift, I’ve created new hangtags, I’ll be getting new business cards, and I’ll be simplifying the styles I sell while expanding the fabric choices in those styles. I love doing custom work, but I need to take some time away from it for a while. It’s time-consuming and I feel like I need to find and refine my vision before I start designing for other people’s wishes again.

I want to be vague about some of my other goals, because I’ve got these teeny-tiny ideas and I’m afraid of squishing them before I make them a reality, however I have an idea for a book and am hoping to find the time to write it, let alone find an agent or publisher. I have a few ideas on ways to grow and support the greater Chicago crafting community. I also have several ideas for different craft shows with themes to support growing niche markets that have sprung up in the past few years. I have a lot of ideas. I’ve written them each on a card and I’m trying to assemble them in the correct order that I need to accomplish them in. But not until after I’m getting more sleep.