ConDUIT Recap! (Finally!)

As you probably know already, we opened our Etsy shop in April. In an effort to spread the word about all the cool stuff we make, we decided to go to ConDUIT and have a table in their dealer's room to sell our perler sprites and also give away tons and tons of business cards. ConDUIT is an annual convention for science fiction and fantasy held in SLC every year in May. It's primarily geared towards aspiring writers and fans of sci-fi/fantasy authors, but there's a decent mix of other fans that attend as well (think Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Dr. Who, etc.). It's a fairly small con (300-500 attendees typically) but we really just wanted to get our feet wet in the world of selling stuff at cons. And did it accomplish that? Most definitely!

First of all, I was glad we allowed ourselves a month and a half to prepare for the con. It takes time to beef up your inventory and gather all the supplies you need. For us, it took several trips to Lowes, Target, Joann's, and Staples, not to mention lots of use of Amazon. I tend to over-prepare, but having extra stuff is better than not having something you desperately need and having it cost you the sale. Even with a month and a half to get ready though, I was still a little stressed out last week as we reached the final few days before the con began.

Once we arrived at ConDUIT Friday morning, we made about 4 trips to bring all of our stuff in to set up our table. After a few minor mishaps involving two damaged sprites, we got everything in and our table set up, at which point I set about repairing the damaged sprites (and I thought I was over-preparing to bring the iron! Ha!). The dealer's room was open from 12-6 on Friday, and we were all set up and ready to go by about 11.

Front view of our booth at ConDUIT. 

Left side of the table

And right side o the table.

Everyone around us said the first day is always the slowest for sales, but we actually did pretty well despite that. We got a lot of traffic at our table from kids and adults alike. You could definitely tell who played video games - those who didn't gave us a brief glance and maybe a comment of "those are clever/cute/etc." and moved on, while those who did play games at some point stopped and had to look at everything before moving on. We ended up selling about 15 items or so the first day, including one commissioned piece that we promised to complete that evening.

By the time the dealer's room closed at 6, Nathan had been awake for 22 hours (isn't working graveyard shift fabulous when you want to have a life?). We made it home in one piece and got the commissioned sprite finished before Nathan crashed.

You saw Niccoli ironed in my last post, but this was the commissioned piece. I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Day two started bright and early with the dealer's room opening at 9. Except some people didn't get the memo, and thought it opened at 10, so we had a couple unmanned booths and few customers the first hour. But no worries, because between 10-6 we got plenty of business, more than enough to pay for the cost of the booth and all our supplies we purchased in preparation for the con. There were definitely some slow patches, but overall I felt that it went quite well. It was fun to see people come back two or three times before they settled on which sprite they wanted to purchase, and I enjoyed watching people geek out over seeing a part of their childhood represented.

By 6pm though, we were glad to be done. With the help of a few writing group friends, we packed everything up and headed out. We opted not to sell any on Sunday, even though we still had a table reserved for that day, and I was glad of it Saturday night. Two days was plenty for me; a third would have been exhausting. (Funny how just sitting behind a table can be so tiring.) We hit up a few used game stores on the way home and called it a night. Overall, we ended up selling about 40-50 sprites to about 30 customers. Of course, we have tons of inventory left over, because it is impossible to predict what people will actually want, so now I get to do the fun task of listing tons more stuff in our Etsy shop!

By the time everything was all over, our house was a complete disaster from being neglected all week. Luckily Monday was Memorial Day so I could spend some time putting away 4 loads of clean laundry, putting away all the leftover convention stuff, etc. And now I finally feel like I've caught back up with my life. Dishes done, trash taken out, fridge cleaned out of moldy leftovers, and of course the best part of all: staying caught up on orders in our Etsy shop! We got three this week, one very large one, one small one, and one medium sized one. I don't know if it's coincidence or fallout from handing out business cards, but I'll take it! It's so fun to get custom order requests for massive projects I never would have come up with on my own. I will leave you with a picture of the very large order we just completed Thursday night.

All 10 robot masters from Mega Man 10, As well as Dr. Wily, Mega Man, Proto Man, Bass, and three other dudes with names I don't recall at the moment. 

Pretty cool, huh? I have a feeling the final wall art will be epic!

I'll try to post a separate blog entry about what supplies we needed for the con and the best way to prepare, because I feel there is a serious lack of tutorials on the interwebs that are applicable to selling perlers at a con. I chose not to include all that here so as to avoid boring my family to tears when all they really wanted was to know how the con went. :)

Not Dead, Just Busy

It's been crazy hectic the last week or two, but I promise I will have a proper blog post up soon recapping ConDUIT. Until then, here are a few pictures of recent projects to tide you over.

Business card holder (pattern created by me, based off the actual NES controller and the pattern Nathan made for NES controller earrings)

Our first commissioned piece in the upper left: Niccoli from Legend of Mana, as well as Evee (Pokemon), Wreck It Ralph, and Fix It Felix.

New recipe: Chicken, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Stew

I made dinner last night. And now I have enough leftovers to feed us for at least a week, assuming we eat nothing else. But it tasted good, so I am recording what I ought to do next time so I can eat delicious food but not have 5 containers of leftovers. (Yes, it's true; I usually only post recipes so that I can find them easily and not have to remember what I modified last time.) 

Please note I didn't actually make the recipe below as written this time - I made twice as much and it completely filled my large crockpot and cooked fully in 6 hours on high. So this theoretically should be a more manageable amount.

Chicken, Quinoa, and Sweet Potato Stew

Probably serves around 4-5.

1/2 T dried minced onion

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/2 T chili powder

1/8-1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

2-3 c. chicken broth (depending on how liquidy you want it)

1 very large chicken breast, cooked and shredded (use a hand mixer)

1/4 c quinoa (uncooked)

1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped

1-2 medium red potatoes, peeled (if desired) and chopped

2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped

1 can of beans (red kidney or black, or another kind of your preference)

Mix everything in a crockpot and cook on high 4 hours or low 6-8 hours (or until potatoes are tender). If you cook it too long, it still tastes fine but looks kind of mushy.

Modified from recipes found here and here.

Perler Beads: Smorgasbord Sprites

I totally intended to post these pictures weeks and weeks ago. Whoops. Well, have some random sprites.

Final Fantasy (all from VI unless otherwise noted): Esper Terra, Interceptor and Shadow, Chocobo, Chocobo (FFIV), Magicite, Ultros

More Final Fantasy VI: Turtle, Dragon, Draco and Maria (from the opera), Ultros again with the 4t weight, Cactrot/Cactaur, Gogo

Bunny Link from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Link with a flock of Cuccos from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Hyrule Crest

Wiggler, Baby Yellow Yoshi, and Rex from Super Mario World

Sprites from Super Mario World and Mario 2

ExciteBike

Quick Update on the Perler Front

I just wanted to give a quick update: we finally opened an etsy shop! We are selling perler sprites there under the name of VGPerlers (which stands for video game perlers, if you're curious). We also have a Facebook page now, where we will post more pictures of completed projects. I'll still try to post them here too though, don't worry!

Speaking of new projects, here's what we did this past weekend:

BioShock: Infinite fan sprite, Hero from Lufia, Monty Mole and Pokey from Super Mario World, two Pokemon and several Pokeballs, and a set of awesome Pokemon coasters

The Pokemon coasters aren't quite done yet; I still need to attach cork backing to them. I already did that for Bidoof last night, and I'll finish the rest tonight (hopefully). I'm really pleased with how they turned out!

Perler Beads: more Final Fantasy goodness

We've been busy making some pretty cool stuff. And by we I mean Nathan. He made all of these (occasionally asking my input on color choice), and then I ironed them. And let me tell you, ironing Terra was definitely not my favorite thing to do... the beads shrink when you iron them, and then when they cool they curl - so if you iron something really big, and don't iron it thoroughly as you go, then you get curling that knocks over unmelted beads and causes major headache. I am not the most patient person when it comes to ironing, so even my best efforts led to two spots that required reconstructive surgery.

Terra and Kefka (I think Terra's going to win) plus the Final Fantasy III/VI game cart and little Terra for scale. As you can see, big Terra took up 13 trays. 

Nathan holding Terra. Terra is based on a fan sprite created by AbyssWolf.

Terra compared to the Metroid, our previous record holder for largest sprite (also a pain to iron)

Sephiroth & Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) and Vivi (Final Fantasy IX). Again, AbyssWolf is the creator of these fan sprites. (view more of his sprites here)

After Terra, Sephiroth and Cloud seemed downright modest. But they're each pretty good sized too - I'd estimate at least a foot tall each.

Perler Beads: Zelda items and Ganon

Look what I've been doing for the last week!

Zelda: Link to the Past items 

I must admit I got a little obsessed and had to do as many as possible. But aren't those bottles AWESOME?And there are so many cool things we thought of to do with the keys...

Zelda: Link to the Past items (arrows, rupees, bombs)

Fun fact: these are actually the sprites you see in the world, not the menu screen. The menu sprites are significantly simplified and not as cool looking. So for example, the bug net (pictured below) is the bug net you see when Link finds it in the game and holds it above his head.

Zelda: Link to the Past items

I really like the flippers. And the net. And the ocarina....

Zelda: Link to the Past Ganon

As an added bonus, I decided to make Ganon. I felt my Zelda sprite collection was severely lacking in bosses. Maybe I'll make one of those worm bosses too... after I do the fat fairy!

The Legend Zelda items

Nathan made some Zelda 1 items too. I like making items; they're fast and relatively straightforward.

What are your favorites pictured above?