At the start of sum­mer, I found out I would be a fea­tured arti­san on BRIKA! I was so excit­ed, but lit­tle did I know how crazy my sum­mer would turn out to be!

In addi­tion to my sis­ter’s wed­ding prepa­ra­tion, I’ve been prepar­ing for my Bri­ka launch!

BRIKA will first fea­ture some of my clutch­es and a can­vas tote bag. The tote bag is made of a col­or­ful kil­im style fab­ric with gen­uine leather straps. This east­ern European/Turkish style is said to be replac­ing the chevron trend! (So I’ve heard.) But, I did­n’t choose the kil­im pat­tern for that rea­son! Instead, the print looked word­ly, mod­ern, and remind­ed me of Ukrain­ian artistry!

I think the kil­im design will look real­ly nice with fall attire.

I’m inter­est­ed to see how they sell!

So…what is BRIKA?

BRIKA is a Toron­to based ecom­merce web­site start­ed by two women, Kene Para­jape and Jen Lee Koss. Their mis­sion is to “build a beau­ti­ful life through well-craft­ed, every­day objects” and cre­ate “a unique online shop­ping des­ti­na­tion that offers a curat­ed selec­tion of spe­cial pieces that are des­tined to become heir­looms.” Every­thing on the web­site is hand­made with a sto­ry behind the prod­uct and the mak­er. Below is Bri­ka’s YouTube Video:

[youtu­ber youtube=‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBSlNfGzDcM’]

TAKING GOOD PRODUCT PHOTOS

Pro­fes­sion­al prod­uct images (or pho­tos with prop­er light­ing) are extreme­ly impor­tant in ecom­merce and with­out them, I’m not sure if any­one can suc­cess­ful­ly sell their prod­ucts. Luck­i­ly, I have some tal­ent­ed pho­tog­ra­phers in my fam­i­ly and resources that have allowed me to take pro­fes­sion­al look­ing pho­tos! (I’m still learn­ing though!!) My home­town has a fam­i­ly owned cam­era shop (Gene’s Cam­era) which recent­ly opened a new stu­dio space that allows pho­tog­ra­phers to rent. The equip­ment and space is state of the arc and the own­ers have been EXTREMELY help­ful to me! Also, I’m for­tu­nate to have some love­ly sis­ters who I can per­suade to mod­el for me 🙂  I per­suad­ed my sis­ter Kate to spare some time to mod­el gar­ments, purs­es, etc. in exchange for all the time I spent sewing and prepar­ing for her wedding!

The pic­tures turned out bet­ter than I imag­ined and I was extreme­ly pleased! How­ev­er, ear­ly last week I need­ed to take more LAST MINUTE pho­tos! This time I was in a pinch for mod­els (they were all back at school) and so I had to do the mod­el­ing myself. I don’t feel com­fort­able post­ing so many pic­tures of myself, but they say a prod­uct sells bet­ter on/with a live mod­el. (Plus it saves me mon­ey to not hire models!)

If you can’t find a pho­tog­ra­ph­er to help you out with prod­uct pho­tos, Kol­lab­o­ra just post­ed a DIY prod­uct images video. Click here to check it out!

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Please PLEASE please PLEASE go check out Bri­ka and read my story!

It’s a great web­site and I’m hum­bled that I get to be a part of it!

Below are some of the pho­tos from our pho­to shoots! Enjoy!

 Bri­ka has free ship­ping for orders over $75!

Thanks for reading 🙂

Next Post: MOTHER OF THE BRIDE DRESS!!!