Marketing Your Fused Glass Art...

...can't be ignored.

I wanted to write a bit about marketing yourself and your glass art as well as offer you a place to promote your work for FREE (AAE Glass). I will include some links to articles I have written for Glass Art Magazine as well as glass fusing tutorials Tanya Veit has written for Glass Patterns Quarterly.  If you don't have a subscription to either magazine they are very easy to get and affordable.  You can choose either a printed version, CD or PDF format.

I understand not everyone sells their fused glass art in a part-time or even full-time capacity, but a majority of our readers do.  Advertising can be very expensive and if not done properly, it can be a complete waste of time, money and effort.  It only makes sense to take advantage and focus on social media outlets, which cost nothing but time and effort.  Don't get me wrong, time and effort are of tremendous value, but shedding the cost associated with paid advertising will lighten the load. 

Here are a few links to marketing articles I have written for Glass Art.  These are things I have learned through trial and error over the past several years.  Social media is always changing, so giving yourself a solid foundation will allow you to adjust on the fly.  The more you contribute, the more you get out of it.
Using Social Media to Sell Your Dichroic Glass Jewelry
Blog Your Way to Sales
Partnering with Artists in Different Mediums to Increase Sales
Using Social Media with Confidence

Getting back to promoting yourself for FREE...Art show season is here.  I am happy to promote any art shows you may be attending by sharing your location with us.  We often feature artists on this blog and by sharing yourself with AAE Glass, we share it with all of our readers.  Email mark@aaeglass.com if you would like to be a featured artist or share any art shows you may have in the coming weeks or months.  Also, if you know of any quality art shows in your area, please share them with us.  I know all of our readers appreciate quality glass art.

Here are a few fused glass tutorials Tanya has written for Glass Patterns Quarterly.  Tanya believes in teaching glass artists as much as she possible can.  She will share every technique she knows with anyone willing to learn.  Tanya's class schedule can be found at AAE Glass.  Stay tuned for new, beginner classes as well as specialty classes in Cape Coral, Florida.  This is a great community to learn!
Garden Butterfly Fused Glass Barrette Tutorial
Optical Illusion Donut PendantTutorial
Pelican Beach Pendant Tutorial

As always, it is great hearing from all of you.  Keep up the great work and lean on us whenever you feel the need.

New Glass Fusing Classes With Tanya at AAE Glass

We wanted to give you updated dates for Tanya Veit's Extreme Fusing Classes, as well as give you an opportunity to get on the waiting list for future beginner and guest artist classes at the AAE Glass Studio in Cape Coral, Florida.  If you would like to get on the waiting list for beginner glass fusing classes or guest artists such as Patty Gray (early October), please send an email to info@aaeglass.com and let us know your interest.  We will give you first chance to sign up before we announce to the public.  Guest artist classes with teachers such as David Alcala (starting today!), fill up very fast.  Patty Gray's workshop is sure to fill up fast as well. 


EXTREME FUSING I (Two day workshop with Tanya Veit)
May 18-19
June  9-10

 EXTREME FUSING II (Three day workshop with Tanya Veit)
April 30 - May 2 (Only two seats left)
May 25-27
July  13-15

AAE Glass Studio Hours

The AAE Glass studio in Cape Coral, Florida will be closed from Wednesday May 2nd through Wednesday May 9th. We will open again on Thursday May 10th.  We are using this time to create new classes and add brand new equipment and tools to the studio.  Our goal is to provide you, the glass artist with every tool possible to further your glass art work.


AAEGlass.com will be active during this time, but packages will not be shipped during these dates.  If you need something ASAP, please order this week to ensure it gets shipped before these dates. 


As always, thank you for your continued support and patience during this time as we set ourselves up to better serve you.  It will be well worth the wait.


Sincerely,


AAE Glass

Tanya Veit's Pendant is Featured and Available to Win

TENDER ALLURE

AAE Glass would like to thank Linda of Tender Allure for featuring one of Tanya Veit's original, dichroic glass pendants in her giveaway.  The contest is easy to enter and can be done directly on Linda's BLOG.  Enter now to win this exact pendant!  AAE Glass is always keeping our eyes open to pass along anything that may be of value to our readers.  This fits the bill.


Linda shares fashion finds with her readers that she feels are unique and well crafted.  She has features on handbags, jewelry and more.  Take a look at her BLOG for several past reviews on some very interesting items as well as a chance to enter her giveaway and win this pendant.  I wish you all luck!


AAE Glass

AAE Glass has New, Premium Dichroic Glass

And we are going to give you 20% off to wet your appetite!  That is 20% off ALL glass fusing supplies including some hard to find and very unique dichroic glass hand picked by Tanya Veit at the CBS factory in California. Stock up on decals, silver findings, silver chains and our BRAND NEW selection of dichroic glass. The glass is going to fly out the door, so be sure to get yours tonight.

COUPON CODE: BUNNY

Also, Tanya has released several new Extreme Fusing class dates for the coming months.  The studio has never been so stocked with top of the line machines, glass and talented glass artists!  We are expecting our brand new sand blaster next week and will be sure to pass that knowledge along to anyone who wants to learn. We don't just open doors at AAE Glass, we kick them down!


There are only a few seats left for David Alcala's "Sand to Glass" class.  David is the creator of Flexi-glass and will be sharing his knowledge on April 25, 26 and 28 at the AAE Glass Studio in Cape Coral, Florida.  You can view his youtube video HERE.

As always, if you have any questions, reach out to us at info@aaeglass.com

Now what are you waiting for?  Get to AAEGlass.com now!

AAE Glass and Social Media

AAE Glass wants to share a social media presence with you.  One of the most common questions I am asked is, "Which social media outlets are best for my business?"  The truth is, you can make any outlet work if you build a solid foundation of followers. 

A solid foundation of followers will allow you to maximize the results of the time you devote to social media marketing.  Time is the biggest hurdle when using social media to market your business.  Don't follow people (or accept followers) who don't fit the profile you are looking to interact with.  We have all heard the saying "Quality over Quantity," this applies to social media as well.  When you have a group of people who share information and answer questions kindly and intelligently, you will quickly build credibility.  The more credibility you gain, the more quality followers you will attract and your solid foundation will grow into a larger and larger pool of potential customers and vendors. 

With that said, I want to offer you a "jumping off point" to help you build a solid foundation.  I am going to list a few sites that we use to promote our classes and products. Feel free to see who our followers are or what groups we have joined.  You may find some people you know and want to connect with them.  If you decide to follow AAE Glass or Tanya Veit, you will be connected with several other glass artists around the world.  Also, if you haven't already, go ahead and "join" the blog and you can be alerted of any new tutorials or new products that are released.

BLOG- Full of FREE tutorials, new products, glass art news, sales, and more!  We even feature glass artists from time to time with links to their sites, lists of the shows they are participating in or just to spread the word about glass art. 

FACEBOOK - The most popular social media outlet today.

TWITTER @AAEGLASS - Great for sharing quick information and links. You will also want to utilize BITLY.COM to shorten your links which will leave you more characters for content.  Millions of users. 

GOOGLE+ - Google's entrance into social media, still new and slowly growing.

LINKEDIN - Lots of great groups to join for anything you are looking for.

YOUTUBE - Video tutorials.

Thanks as always,

Mark Veit

AAE Glass

To Cap or Not to Cap...AAE Glass has the Answer

AAE GLASS DECALS

We receive this question from our customers often and would like to address it first hand in case anyone else is curious. The answer is “NO” and there are many reasons why. 

There are two types of fusing decal formulas on the market, put simply, low-fire and high fire. AAE Glass decals are actual enamel and are screen printed. The decals are strong, rich & detailed, this is due to the screen printing process. We are only able to do this with a low-fire formula. The higher the firing temp and formula, the less pigment color (vibrancy) you are able to achieve. This is why we made the conscious decision to stick with a low-fire formula and process.

When Tanya first started decal designing, she had a vision of designing a foreground and a background. Her thought was to create layers of glass scenery (background) while topping it off with a beautiful foreground image. When she first started creating, many years ago, only high fire formula decals were available in very limited designs. After creating a beautiful four layer background, she would place the decal between her final clear coat…not good! The decal design would spread and was distorted due to the amount of glass layers Tanya was using. Determined to achieve her vision on multilayer glass, AAE Glass developed a low fire decal formula that is fired LAST on top of the glass. This way, it would not matter if you used 2, 3 or 6 layers (as most of Tanya’s work does).  The decal can be fired on top of the glass and never distort the image, while focusing on the depth of the glass and really making the foreground decal image stand out. This method of using decals and layering has been a hit with Tanya’s jewelry with over 140 galleries and boutiques carrying her multilayer, scenic decal pendants. No Limits! That is what we at AAE Glass base our business and artistic principals on.

If you would like to learn the layering and design process with Tanya’s glass, please sign up for one of her many workshops at www.aaeglass.com