Acrylic Charms!

Hello everyone! :D I'm happy to announce that soon I will have my first batch of high quality acrylic charms of my Nerdy Panda design, which is also the Panduhmonium logo.

 For some time now I have been having issues making large shrinky dink size pendants for this design in particular. The three necklaces of this design that I did manage to finish without a problem were sold out in my Etsy shop within one week and I've had some people ask me if I have any more of this design. Instead of ripping my hair out trying to make more, I decided its time to go the high quality charm route with this particular design. I'm so excited, because all the charms I will get will be usable charms, none of which will be warped by my evil oven! I still loveeee shrinky dinks though and will continue to do them, except only with smaller designs (1 inch or under).

Acrylic charms have been the thing for quite some time now with artist who sell merchandise of their art in the form of jewelry and there are many good reasons why! First, it saves the artist hands! This is a blessing...since our hands already get worked to death from drawing, painting, crafting, you name it! Second, acrylic charms are high quality compared to shrinky dinks and they are water proof! You can make shrinky dinks water proof with resin...but I don't think the time involved is worth it. Third, and my favorite, TIME SAVER! It allows you to focus your attention and time on your art and not so much on making your product. Also, all the charms are guaranteed to be usable, so no more worrying about duds in a batch of shrinky dinks!

I was pretty apprehensive about the "acrylic movement" at first mainly because I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Second, I personally like overseeing the process and making my products myself, so turning my work over to someone else made me cringe. I realized though, that since I'm trying to make this into a full time gig, I need to use my time more effectively as well as give my customer a high quality product. Not that shrinky dinks can't be high quality, but the time put in doing so is not worth what it can be sold for later. Especially since their are tons of artist selling shrinky dink charms who undersell them so much it is almost impossible for a business to use the medium and make profit. I mean come on...if you see someone 20 people selling something for $5 and one person is selling for $10 your going to think something is up! Hopefully, you'll think that the more expensive one is better quality...but that isn't always the case.

I finally decided to take the plunge when Paper Forest (now Printsess) started offering short run acrylic charms with the artist in mind. This was great for me, because helping another small business out didn't make me feel "mass manufactured" plus it's always nice to help another small business. :) I'm super excited and can't wait for the end of the month when my lovely charms will be here! :D

What started off as a quick post is now long and winded! LOL. Hopefully, you learned something or agree or disagree or something! 8D Just my little "rant" on the whole acrylic charm thing and why I think it isn't such a bad idea after all. :)

Thanks for reading! <3