Thursday, December 31, 2009

Happy New Year!

We hope to start posting some of our new items on Etsy by this evening, but I wanted to just share with you something I just worked on that came out super cute.

Being from a Japanese family we grew up with many traditions. One of them being celebrating New Year's with mochi pounding and making mochi for God and loved ones who passed on before us. Not that I'm highly religious, but I do believe we have nothing if not for God! Anyway, I always grew up learning it to be "God mochi". My grandmother passed away the day before Thanksgiving and we miss her and the traditions she lead for so many years. This year is no different, even without her, my aunties and cousins rallied together to continue this long and never dying family tradition. Granted, we don't have the granite bowls to pound mochi with wooden mallets and all the women making the perfect round balls. The mochi this year was not to my grandma's standards, but I'm sure she got a good laugh up in heaven.
So, last night I got an idea, why not create the mochi in clay. Granted I don't think these would sell to anyone other than those who celebrate this tradition, but I intend to keep one and add it to our Christmas ornaments, but to give each one to my aunties and uncles so they will always remember all the wonderful times we shared making mochi as a family! These mini "God mochi" only measure 1.25" top to bottom and maybe .5" in diameter. So cute. :)

Happy New Year to all of you and we look forward to bringing you many cute designs for cupcake toppers as well as favors! We're very excited about what's to come!

Sunday, December 27, 2009

gofigurette! Logowear!

Today has been a busy day of running around to buy some supplies and to make some of our logo wear. Although Myrna and I are not sure if we'll sell our logo wear (namely the shirts), we decided it would be so cute to have our own company shirts. So since it's winter we opted for the long sleeve shirts and maybe towards summer and spring we'll do t-shirts and tank tops. We both agreed how cute it would be to have one shirt in every color palette! Think we're addicted? The above and below pics of the purple color palette happens to be my shirt.
The pink color palette shirt is Myrna's. I have to mail this to her so how cute would it be to offer gift packaging for our logo wear! :)
I have to mail this to her so how cute would it be to offer gift packaging for our logo wear! :)So here's the color palette of muslin bags with our logo, this will be an option for customers if they want a gift bag included, they can purchase it off our website. We will also include the hook pin and ribbon as well to sell it as a complete package for those who want to give them as favors/keepsakes after they are done being cupcake decor!
Lastly, I had worked on a prototype surfboard and just decided to see how the penguin would look on top of the surfboard. I'm thinking this would make a really cute Christmas ornament for someone who loves the beach and loves to surf!

From baby showers to kid parties....

When Diane came up with this idea to join forces to work together, I never knew it could be this much fun! As you can see, Diane has been busy working on all different cute animals and we were also trying to come up with different themes to focus on. I decided to work on a baby shower theme and this is what I came up with.We plan to offer the babies in different colored blankets and as you can see, no two baby's expressions are exactly alike! Thinking about children's theme parties, I decided to make a prototype of a mermaid. I think little girls would love to see these on cupcakes and be able to take them home as a keepsake.
Both Diane and I are having fun coming up with different ideas and we're excited to see each other's original designs finalized in clay :)

A few more CUTE designs...

Making figurines is kind of addicting! Go figure, LOL! Both Myrna and I had fun on our respective coasts making some cute little animals for the gofigurette! site on Etsy. I came up with a few more last night. We will be selling them in sets of 12 and have options to purchase the little ornament hooks with ribbon as well as the little logo muslin bags. Simply wipe the frosting off the base of the clay figurine, then glue the ornament hook on and place in the muslin bag and viola, you not only have a great cupcake decoration but a favor for each child or guest to take home!Obviously the first two figurine heads are my interpretation of Hello Kitty and Chococat!The above are a panda bear, brown bear and bunny rabbit. I guess maybe I had my son's children's books stuck in my head "Brown bear, brown bear what do you see." LOL.
This last figurine is a little cute hedgehog. My friend who saw my penguins told me that a hedgehog is popular and similar to making the penguin so I gave it a shot. Not bad! Looking forward to offering these new figurines on our site soon! Stay tuned!

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Coming Soon!

Myrna and I have been busy creating some cute little figurines to launch our Etsy site. This is what I came up with today. Myrna will be doing her own post on what's she's been busy creating. Of course the penguins have been very popular so I did some mini penguins that measure 1.25 inches high before the hats went on. So miniature is the key. They would make perfect cupcake toppers and then simply wipe off the bottom and let dry and they are keepsake party penguins. I also decided to make one with a pink rose and some leaves.
Who doesn't love purses and monkeys? I experimented a little while ago with them as well and I love how both of them turned out. There still is some fine tuning to be done, but almost there!
And of course, I love turtles. This one is super small. Would make a cute little miniature ornament for a tree.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

gofigurette! packaging!

Yes, we even work on Christmas Eve. Blasphemy I know. Myrna has been busy creating some cute ideas for baby showers and girl's birthdays and so excited to share those with you soon. While I was getting my Santa Penguins ready to give to my family and friends, I realized we needed some cute packaging.
So I used our square logo to create some SUPER CUTE muslin bags in various colors. Besides, not everyone who gets one is a girl so I thought it would be nice to have them in various shades.
More to come as we continue creating some pieces to introduce our new line! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Welcome to gofigurette!

You must be wondering what is "gofigurette!" What does it mean? Well, my dear friend, Myrna from PetalChic is one of my dear friends and students turned instructor. She's what I call a clay freak (I should know one when I see one because I am one). She's like me in that she practices and works with the clay almost every day. We have become good friends over the last year and a half and we tried to see how we could work together. To give you some back story, she hated making figurines in Curriculum 1 and was so glad when she was done with having to make them. Happy never to see them again. Figurines are not my favorite thing either when it comes to the clay because I've naturally just enjoyed making flowers more. I think part of it is proportions, getting the faces just right, etc. Well, Myrna started to excel with the figurines, namely angels. We often joked about it because we knew how much we hated making figurines.
Right around Thanksgiving she made an elf for her sister on a votive cup and I thought it was super cute so I told her she should make them and sell them on Etsy. She made penguins a snowman and a Christmas tree. It was SO DARN CUTE! I bought one and then asked her to make 2 for my son's teachers for Christmas gifts. She really loved making birds while we were taking the C3 course in November together. I remember one night going to bed at 2:30 and she said she was up until 3:30 and I wake up to 2 birds sitting on my side of the table thinking, what was she doing. She made birds for me before going to bed. LOL. So she inspired me to make penguins for Aidan's classmates to give as Christmas ornaments and they turned out rather cute. I surprised myself. Then people started telling me I should sell them or they wanted to buy them. Myrna made a replica of our Boston Terrier dog, Brig with his Christmas elf hat jumping out of the top of a Christmas present which I thought was so imaginative and she did such a perfect job of replicating our beloved pet!
Then it dawned on me, why don't we create a company that makes figurines and small flowers for cupcakes, specialty cakes and decor (favors, ornaments, etc) out of clay. My company name I thought of was "curiously cute". Myrna suggested, "figurines are fun". So I turned to my dear friend Lea McIntosh who is so amazingly talented and comes up with the best company and branding names and explained to her our business concept and the names we had come up with. I gave her a 20 minute time limit since she's super busy these days and she hit the nail on the head. "gofigurette". Go figure, meaning go figure that Myrna and I would turn out to like figurines and start a company making cute figurines for birthdays, baby showers, wedding showers and more. figurette (figurine, cute/coquette/minuette). she suggested a cherry blossom at the end so she sent me her font style and i thought about it and then it dawned on me, swap the "o" with the a cherry blossom (we're both Asian) and add 2 cute birds since we both make birds and we're west coast to the east coast which was even better!

So, in the coming months we'll be creating some wonderfully cute figurines for birthday parties, showers and more. We hope you enjoy what we create and follow along in our journey working together from the opposite ends of the US to bring you some really creative items for your next special occasion! As a mother, I often see what parents give as favors or things for their kids to give to their friends and cousins and I always try to get something that will be cherished or remembered. I even make t-shirts and keepsake ornaments even though I don't have much time, but I think the other parents appreciate that it's not candy or something that they just end up tossing. My son loves the fact that I take the time to at least make something cute and creative for his friends. There's always a big smile on his face!


Please visit our online store at www.gofigurette.etsy.com!
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