attaching a label to a turning

Hi William. Strictly my personal opinion, but to me most (not all of course) price labels stuck on handmade work tend to cheapen it. That's ok for both ends; the Dollar Store and Tiffany's, but IMO not the in-between turned work by William Kossack (or any other turner) regardless of how trivial a turned object might seem.

If you do choose to stick labels on your work, I suggest that the label. be small, discreet, elegant and handwritten in small script...and barely stuck on, maybe with a dot of rubber cement or a peeling type adhesive made with a solvent that doesn't affect the finish. I suspect that you can tell that my only experience with labels is that my wife once worked for the Dennison company in Boston. :)

I'm hijacking your thread, but I hope it's ok to include other means to indicate prices? ex: cards for your better turnings; HFs, bowls, etc and grouped common prices for your rent payers; tops, needle cases, etc.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

Hi William

William my better half does the pricing and sticker thing as well as the paper work, she's much better at that than I. :-))

My bowls are always finished and the ones that have an oil finish do present a problem sometimes, however putting less oil on the foot has made it less so.

As I number most all of my turnings, that number goes on the sticker with the price, so if stickers fall off they are not switched to the wrong turning, also as a backup the gallery has prices and numbers to alleviate any possible problems.

The stickers themselves are very small and cut from labeling or address labels, with the # sign and number and the $ sign and price, clearly handwritten in small letters/numbers.

Some galleries do also need a vendor number, and this is on a separate little label.

This is the way we are doing it now, and it works just fine, if we find a better way, we'll adopt that.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

william kossack wrote

I had thought of small labels.

I was thinking of putting a code on each label then having a sign that explains the code ie type of wood, finish and care.

I'm not organized enough to number each of my turnings. I'm lucky if I inital and date them.

However, it is worth thinking about. I burn my initials, wood and date into the bottom of everything but I imagine a sharpie could be used for the numbers.

My SWMBO (the > Hi William

William, Try Avery labels #05424. This is a removable label, white, 5/8"x7/8". Enough space to put a price and some reference to the product (e.g. '10" maple'). They can fall off, but that's better than not coming off at all. David

I was going to say 'use thumbtacks', but forgot how to make that tongue-in-cheek emoticon. ;)

We have a fancy-smancy laser engraver at work. I'm just gonna laser burn a barcode on the bottom and be done with it.

Dan

Well I have only needed to do this once and I made small labels on the computer, punched a hole in the top and put a loop of fancy thread through it. I used that sticky putty stuff you can buy to put pictures on the wall, just a small pea sized piece, to stick the other end of the thread inside the bowl/HF. This way you can adjust the positition of the label so it is readable without picking up the turning. Never sold anything at my one and only show so I haven't done it again! Peter Visit my site at:

True, and so would I.

Hi William

Yes I know what you are saying, I'm not that organized either, that's where Anny comes in, I do like you, hot wire my name and woods name and the date into it,(We assume there is room for all) then when Anny has time and feels like it, she'll make pictures of the to be marked turnings, and put on the labels, with the number, and it's then my job to do the number burning. It does work.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

william kossack wrote:

I've been through most of the ideas presented so far, and non have worked well for me at all. I absolutely agree that a price-tag label looks tacky, always.

What I've evolved to is group pricing for my rent-payers on cards, as suggested above, and my bowls and boxes are never visibly priced. I have a display structure that I built many years ago and as I arrange my bowls/boxes at a show, I take note of where each is and write the price on a piece of paper that goes behind the display for reference (my daughters often join me at shows). As patrons wander through they have to ask for the prices of the bowls and boxes... and if we've gotten that far, they've already picked up the item, run their hand over it, we've talked about how it was made, etc.

I've found that many people cruise through a show, flipping over stuff to find out how much it costs and moving on, as though it was a race. If I can get people to slow down, pick up a bowl that has caught their eye and start a conversation about it, I've got them.

My bowl and box sales went way up when I took the price tags off them.

this is interesting

My wife was talk> william kossack wrote:

After trying a lot of other ways, what works for me is one of my cards, but I guess I should back up here..

I make my cards on the computer and print 2 kinds.... th normal ones that I hand out and a set with the type a bit smaller and white space in the middle of the card... I found a roll of "sticky dots" in my wife's sewing stuff... like the stuff they stick credit cards to cardboard to for easy removal..

I write the items description and price on the card, put a small hole in the corner and put a loop of gold elastic cord through the hole... pop a dot on the loop and stick on a handy part of the item... on bowls, the inside/top of the lip works well..

The dot is easily removed at sale and the card can be moved to see all of the bowl.. no label stuck on to hide the wood... AND.. they have my card when they leave, which most keep because they aren't going to remember what kind of wood the thing was made out of it they don't..YMWV Mac

snip

I use a Black micron Pigma fine tip pen to number, date and sign mine. Each item is listed on the price list by item number, no prices on the actual bowl.

This is a non-fading archival pigment ink and it writes fine on finished and waxed surfaces.

It really depends on where you are showing, and what the price range and ......ummmmm.....'quality' of your work. In elite shows or galleries, one adopts a more formal method.

I do about 6 shows a year, 1-2 in Spring and 4-5 in Fall, and have simply used little white stickers on most items. The exception is large, heavy and/or expensive pieces which are not convenient to pick up. For those, I make a small card to place near it. (Also, some woods are oily, and labels will not hold well)

I have sold stuff from $5 to $400, and never felt like it was tacky, awkward or tedious to have an easily removable small label. I make items from tiny Tagua nut vessels to 14" bowls and platters, and on 'most' of them, it would be a lot harder to attach other types of price labels.

You just do what seems easiest and is relevant to the type of pieces YOU make and the shows you attend.

I have a little blurb card that I attach to all my turnings. The price lable is on it, since it'll be tossed out anyway most likely. For bowls I just set it in them. For something with a finial or with a hole of some sort I punch a hole in the card and attach it with string.

The card has my logo & name/address on the outside (sorta like a business card) and on the inside it has the wood type, finish, a care and feeding write up and an 'artist's statement'. They're pretty cheap to do. I did them up in a word processor, and get several hundred printed up for around $10 or so. They take 1/4 of a sheet of paper each. The print/copy shop cuts them for me even...

...Kevin

tonight we tried several approaches Tape did not work something called tacky stick or sticky putty stuff did not work very well either

much of what we were trying were hollow forms out of aspen

We ended up using a bit of hot melt glue just on the inside lip of the hollow form with a length of string to attach the price/information tag.

We still have a problem with bowls.

william kossack wrote:

Hi William

Take a look at one of my albums, the first 2 photos show some bowls and other turnings with the stickers we use, they stay on pretty good most of the time.

william kossack wrote: