Scentbird packaging is cheap and they overcharge out the wazoo for their fragrances. By the ounce, you're better off buying from Nordstrom or literally anywhere else and not being ripped off.
Right like why do we need to see you guys making vids. Like just text eachother if you felt something was wrong!!!! Or talk to someone IRL about it, not publicly blegh about it.
Exactly, what the heck even is this BS about Team Soph Team Shelby? This is not a sport competition. This is a slight dispute between two people that can easily be resolved privately in 10 minutes.
The best outcome of this drama is that it made me realize the $50 handmade ceramic Opossum mug I’ve had my eye on for a year is totally worth it and bought it.
It sounded like it was standing on a shelf far away and she had no time to look at it closely due to the crowd of people in line. Depending on how the mug was standing, there's a chance to only see one handle.
@@LaNoir. Except for the fact that she literally had to pick it up off that shelf and bring it to the register and pay. She knew damn well it had two handles, and if she didn't she's the moron.
I think how she talks about is what does bother me a lot, partly as she still couldn’t have just stepped up and said “Nevermind, no.” before going to act like is was their fault for her continuing to get the two handled mug. Treating it both like it’s a children’s cup and that no one would like or use a two handled mug even if not disabled just feels condescending to the design she still bought guilt or not.
Just chiming into this as a potter myself, what Shelby does is called slip casting. From the outside looking in, it does look extremely simple but there a lot of factors that you have to consider when casting in slip. The consistency of the slip, acquiring/making molds, drying time to calculate thickness, trimming and cleaning, full drying time, glazing and multiple firings. So I can see why people who are not potters or who have never done pottery/ceramics don’t understand this price. You have to calculate cost of materials (slip, tools, plaster for molds, glaze, kiln upkeep), time spent making & glazing, electricity bill for kiln and kiln maintenance supplies. Every single one of those things goes into every single piece of what we make, so honestly if someone who does ceramics full time wants to make a live-able wage these prices are reasonable. I personally under charge for my pieces because pottery is a hobby for me. Me personally, I think there’s no “sides” in this, Shelby’s audience understands and likes her work and Soph’s audience likes her and understand her business. A misunderstanding between two people should be kept between those two people in my opinion 🤷🏻♂️ I have followed Shelby for almost two years now and I love her work, never heard of Soph but I’m sure she’s lovely and is passionate about her business as well. I’m of the opinion that if you think something is not worth the price then don’t buy it.
As an amateur who has taken a couple ceramics classes I can confirm-slip casting is hard. I tried 4 times and only one of those times came out ok. Shelby makes it look easy but that’s how you know she’s good at it.
For me, Shelby is 1000% in the wrong. Customers are allowed to discuss what they purchase. She can charge whatever she likes, but soph can also post a video about her experience. Soph didn’t even mention the business are Shelby. No one knew who/what soph was talking about. Soph didn’t even bash Shelby, she just said she was shocked by the price and Shelby was condescending. I genuinely think that is so strange.
@eamcbmsc well, while you have the right to criticize things you purchased if it was of poor quality, you shouldn't take it out on a ceramic artists perfectly good piece just because you had buyers remorse. Soph told Shelby she was going to buy the ceramic piece. It was Sophs own fault for not checking the price or verifying the price. She could have said no to buying it but she purchased it anyways to save face. Soph can not feign ignorance here. It's a bit condescending of Soph to undervalue Shelbys work because it's a "mug". She's valuing that ceramic piece as if it's a mass produced factory mug. It is obviously handmade, hand painted or glazed, and fired in a small batch kiln as with many ceramic pieces in other arts and craft fairs around the world.
@@MundaneParticle According to Shelb she was just surprised at the cost and didn't know what the mug was for. Maybe it's just me but I'd walk away like "yeah makes sense I'd be surprised too but it's probably worth it"
I think the best clue we have is that Soph clearly wasn't paying much attention. In her original video, she said that she didn't notice the price or the fact that the mug obviously has two handles, meaning she probably was pretty disingaged. Add to that the fact that Shelby says she talked to her about a lot of stuff (her work, Soph's accomplishments, the prices, "feel free to look around", the Strawberry Collection), yet Soph could barely remember who was running the booth (cites long hair but no other discription), and it paints a picture of mismatched engagement. Maybe Soph just totally tuned Shelby and her prattle out, and could remember a conversation she didn't care about in the first place, whereas Shelby remembered her VIP visitor with clarity and thought they had an understanding.
This was my take too. I don't trust your memory if you didn't even notice how many handles are in the mug in your hand. Not observant. Believable that she didn't notice the price labeled on the item in her handle. Believable that she wouldn't recall details of an interaction.
Yeah. There’s some definite confabulation here and people being more brittle than necessary. I totally understand Shelby’s feelings, but perhaps it wasn’t worth responding to Soph in the first place. Publicly, anyway. I’ve regretted it every time I did something similar.
i feel like this is another case of people forgetting DMs exist, like why couldn’t shelby and soph talk this out privately so there wasn’t all this confusion
Attention, clicks, public support, idk anymore but it's all ridiculous. We existed just fine without running to TikTok for every little thing people, my god
I'm Team 'This is a simple misunderstanding that's being instigated by the drama hound Tiktok is by design and its need for there to be a good guy and a villain in every single issue no matter how mundane.' I really don't see any sort of malice from both of them here and I think it's just being overblown.
@@stooglesgoogles7246one of Shelby’s employees has long brown hair, they posted about it on instagram around the time of the market. I think it’s super possible the brown haired girl was the one wrapping the pottery or taking payment at the register so that’s the person Soph remembers while Shelby remembers grabbing the mug for Soph or talking to her at the table? Idk this whole situation does feel like a big misunderstanding that could be settled in the dms
@@stooglesgoogles7246It’s not surprising though. Strawberries have been having a big renaissance right now. Plus it isn’t uncommon for people to copy popular designs they see. I don’t think Steph makes her prints originals or copyrights them either.
I think the clothing girl probably wasn't giving her full attention to the situation. She overlooked mug girl, didn't notice the mug had 2 handes or the price. I accidentally bought an entire box of soy sauce instead of 1 bottle. So I know normally attentive people can make silly mistakes when they're unfocused. There's no villain.
@@stooglesgoogles7246 Maybe Australia is more diverse, but there were like six Soph look-alikes at my high school in the U.S. lol. I was more thinking some vendors have helpers and that could explain how they were at the same booth but Soph interacted with a brunette girl for her transaction. Regardless, I think Soph and Shelby can be right. The cup is sold at a premium, but at the end of the day, Soph wants to keep it so who cares.
I am glad you point out how Soph did imply it wasnt worth the price. Every other vid i have seen says "she didnt SAY it wasnt worth the price so thats a lie" like nah she def implied it wasnt worth it and made digs at the design.
She does also seem to me more likely to lie (on purpose) than the sensitive small town girl... but then the other side is like recall memory can so often lie to yourself, like the whole, only 30% of your childhood memories are actually real and as you remembered them, crazy right... so...hot day, many people, tik-toker likely filming some of her shoping spree or any number of reasons was zoned while she was being rold about the stuff, and bam, both are telling the truth... sad the internet is all for jumping on and destroying another purely based in hear say...what a world.
Exactly! It bothers me that people don't pick up on what Soph's words imply. Being shocked by the price and seeing it's more expensive than you thought it would be means you valuated the product at a lower price. Meaning, you thought a fair price for that product was lower than the asking price. Meaning, yes, you did indirectly say you believed the mug was not worth that much money.
@@nicky23981 why though? as a influencer this big you have to do something really BAD BAD to be cancelled or loosing a significant amount of followers. She had nothing to gain and almost nothing to loose over this interaction. Shelby on the other hand had a lot of attention to potentially gain. I can also imagine Soph walking around the market feeling like she was some exhibition or something and didn't pay much attention to anything.
@@kristin123a as i said, just my oppinion on the person... first impressions and all, vrs small town girl, they grow up very different... the influencer, no matter what to keep her image will lie to some degree, not because who cares if she lose 1k followers, i bet she does...influencing becomes big about their image, and these days, shits crazy might not just be a few k lost, she could find herself getting cancelled... hell as a kid i remember lieing becausr i didn't want my 2 friends to think bad of me... when there is thousands or more involved, high chance any might lie.
Huh, I was at this market, my friend bought something from Shelby, and neither of these stories match up. The prices were definitely all on the bottom, but we weren't asked about packaging, it was just default. It was BUSY and Shelby was not always there so she definitely could have been served by an assistant. That said how do you not notice two handles? For additional context as well, it was like a 40 degree day which drains you mentally, and quite busy, so I think the heat got to everyone.
In Shelby's defense (because she was definitely exaggerating her customer service in that stitch lol) she did really make an effort to interact with people who recognised her from tiktok or whatever, going as far to throw in a free trinket for us. I think she should have focused on that BC no-one can blame her for not explaining prices to everyone. Literally would have been impossible to do so
@@asmrtpop2676 I don't know if it was lying lying. And she's possibly not the only one. People are really good at recalling the same event differently. It's not like when politicians or big businesses lie in really serious impactful ways. It's just a bit unsatisfactory. Meh.
@@asmrtpop2676 I mean, if Soph saw the price at checkout, she doesn't have to pay. She chose to pay. It's understandable if it's too expensive and she could've checked the price of other things if she still wanted to support Shelby but didn't want to pay that much
I don't really have an opinion on the drama, I think you're probably right about just needing to relax. As far as the pricing goes, my mom's a ceramist and I've seen plenty of handmade mugs priced around that same price point. Hand painting the designs on these is a big time outlay plus all the training that's gotten her to this point. As far as using molds goes, I don't know anything about this particular artist, but my mom has always made her own molds and I'm sure a lot of ceramicists do as well, so it's still not comparable to a mass market product. A lot of skill's in the pouring of the mold and having the right consistency, too. I think it's probably just a lot more complicated than people unfamiliar with pottery would think.
Yeah I’ve done pottery before, it’s a bit insane, it’s incredibly hard and glazing is difficult to do! It’s hard and it deserves the price that it’s put at by the artist.
Yeah, I don't truly care about the drama here, but I have been very annoyed by some responses that her mug wasn't hand crafted bc it was from a mold. She didn't throw the mug by hand but it was most certainly a hand-crafted item.
I’ve been following Shelby for a while, from what I know, I don’t think she makes her own molds. She blew up on TikTok because she bought a huge lot of molds off an ebay-type site and was discovering what they were with viewers, then painting and selling them if they were good
i checked her price and i was like 130 DOLLARS?! but then remember it's australian dollar lmao. i think she's charging properly for being a big name social media potter.
How in the world do you a) buy an item without asking the price before the point of purchase and b) not see the mug has two handles? Price is meaningless
You would be surprised by how many people don't pay attention and get to the register, they are then told the total and go "whaaat?" Even with price stickers on the front or with multiple signs showing prices for different categories. I've had people both accept the cost and go ahead with purchasing, and people who decide actually they don't want to spend that much and either cancel the sale or return one or more items. Hell it even happens with online purchases where the price is literally right in front of you.
True! The price is one thing if you've got the money, but like... you didn't notice it has two handles??? That's on her for sure, sounds like she was being super careless and doesn't really have room to complain, IMO.
@@sullendragon8900 what’s even funnier is the “i cant gift this to anyone because it had two handles!!”. i fully thought i was going mental watching her video because i really don’t see how it’s that big of a deal? people who don’t need two handles can still drink with this mug???
Exactly! I can maybe accept the buyer overlooking the cost if she bought many items & didn't notice the price at checkout, but not noticing the mug had 2 handles shows how negligent a shopper she is. She has absolutely no right to complain about any aspect of her purchase, sure seems to be a bit of a drama queen. It was in person, she actually held it in her hands, hard not to notice 2 handles. Makes me wonder if this 'influencer' was under the influence of something & not in her right mind at the time of purchase.
@@AniMerDol Only she didn't hold it in her hands. The mug was on a shelf behind the counter (2nd handle hidden from view), she pointed to the mug and asked for it. She never seen the handle because the way the mug was angled on the shelf.
hot take I don’t think anyone can be team a or team b because they’re just describing two entirely different events. It’s not seeing two sides of one story, it’s hearing two different stories where one person has to be lying Edit : I see a lot of ppl saying they could skewing their memories, but their experiences simply don’t line up at all. The influencer girl says she literally never even saw the other lady. So did the business owner false memory herself into thinking she had a whole conversation w/ a million+ follower recognizable influencer she remembered from even a month later? Or did the influencer's brain come up with this long haired brunette lady from the ether? Idk it just feels like a stretch to believe either of them at face value. I still can’t believe someone would hold a mug long enough to purchase it but somehow not notice it having two handles, an extremely obvious design trait.
@@sarahwbsyeah to me personally both sides of the story seem fairly biased to make themselves look better. And no one is ever gonna know the true story
I don't think that either is lying, the human memory is not very reliable especially since both have clouded judgment since Soph was annoyed at the price and Shelby felt like her work was being insulted, that can really impact how you remember things, though I do think that Soph's memory would probably be more reliable since she made the video not long after it and also, if Shelby was working a full day, she could have blended multiple customers into one in her memory. Neither has anything to gain by lying, it would have been smarter for them both just to say nothing but they both got defensive about their buisness and characters and so it's really understandable how they both reacted
@@aderynamos1866 bro when someone remebers a full ass convo with a tiktok microcelebrity and the other is denying ever interacting someone HAS to be lying. It's not just a small difference in accounts
I was wondering if maybe the mug had gotten moved to another store or something, and someone sold it who didn't have the right to? Idk, that's my best "assume positive intent" take on this.
One thing that really annoyed me was all the other potters/ceramist making TikToks about their own mugs being like oh I make mugs and mine are only $50/60 but their price in their currency converted to AUD is often roughly the same price as the strawberry mug anyway 🥴
It's so mildly infuriating when people just forget that us currency isn't the end all be all. Like when you convert it to usd they're very standard prices for handmade mugs
I've also seen people realize that they take way too little for their work when you break it down to how much per hour they're earning, their skill level and also just cost of materials and stuff like that. Hand made stuff is expensive because it's one person working on it for hours but also learning this craft for years.
@@AverageSeaMonster Idk if the original commenter was talking about USD, but like Emma pointed out in the video, $80 USD for a handmade mug is still very high
@@MY-ho7mt I've seen a lot of handmade ceramics, and bought a few myself. Is on a bit on the higher end? Maybe. But 80$ isn't some crazy unheard of price point for a handmade mug
Even the first statement is objective! Expensive, from the point of view of you or me? Or relative to a standard Two-Dollar-Shop ceramic mug? Yeah! Expensive from the point of view of a billionaire who'll pay thousands of dollars for a random decoration on a whim? Or relative to a one-of-a-kind ceramic piece in an uber-trendy designer boutique shop? Not so much! "Expensive" really is relative. I saw a tiktok recently made by someone who went wandering around one of those fancy designer boutique furniture shops. They said that they saw a random stick lying on a table. It was about the size of a stick you might pick up while walking around a park or along a nature trail to use as a walking stick, so at first they assumed it had been left there by a customer. Then they noticed the little price tag attached. Curious about how much a stick was being sold for, they flipped the tag over. $250. For a _decorative stick_ . There was absolutely nothing special about it - it was exactly like any other stick, and hadn't been processed or modified in any way. So to someone who'll shell out $250 for a bleeping decorative stick, that's hardly expensive, lol. These people live in a different world, man.
Someone once explained to me how she tries to make distinction between 'it costs a lot' (meaning its a lot for me but it's worth it) vs 'its expensive' (meaning its overpriced). Ofcourse it's still very subjective but changing my way to think about it like that helps me to take in consideration other values besides monetary values! Like something can cost a lot but its hand made and ethical and sustainable and i will use it a ton, so its worth it for me. While for example luxury brands are expensive to me because the added values don't compensate for the price.
Finders Keepers is also an expensive market have a stall at ($1000-$4000 depending on your stall size) so having to recoup those costs means a lot of the items at them are expensive!
Handmade items are just expensive anyways. I wanted some homemade ramen bowls and I saw that price and was like, "damn, I shouldn't have given up ceramics.😂"
@@ChickadeeTwee it's perfectly fine that shelby prices get items however she wants, what's not okay is playing the victim when someone says buying your item was a bad decision for them.
@@camiloustau2942 I still think it's understandable to get pissed off by someone publicly complaining, and shitting on the product, because of what sounds like a case of buyer's remorse.
@@camiloustau2942 She is blaming someone else for her stupidity. It was on her to not look for the price before she agreed to pay for it. It's on her to see the product, check it over before she pays for it. It's on her to say no thank you after she knows the price. If someone was blasting my handmade goods online II would do the same and defend myself regardless of if you have named me or not. If you spends days making something, it's no different to someone coming up and telling you your child is ugly. You produced that, with all the love and care you have.
Opinion from an Australian: They're both in the wrong and inclined to lie. Soph has a very specific set of behaviours distinct to the 'Sydney private all girls school bully' brand of Australian (see "J'amie Private School Girl" for a pretty accurate parody) and Shelby has a very specific set of behaviours distinct to the 'therapy speak, "I'm so nice why would anyone be mean to me", outer suburbs artist' brand of Australian (yet to be documented in media). The truth is somewhere in the middle. I think Shelby did talk to Soph, but in a way that annoyed her. So Soph recalled the experience poorly even though Shelby thought she was being nice, which then upset Shelby and set off a revolving cycle of Soph being annoyed by Shelby and Shelby being upset by Soph and responding in the therapy speak that annoys Soph, which Soph then responds to negatively and starts off the cycle again. It has nothing to do with the mug.
Yep, I am only part way through the video and was just thinking that these two types of people do not mix well. I moved away from Aus years ago but can totally see this. I have a soft spot for Shelby because I went through that phase, and was mercilessly bullied by Soph types. I hope she can get genuinely good anxiety support. Ppl like Soph tend to do just fine because they conform to society more easily.
yeah I totally get what you mean. it’s definitely weird to have this kind of cultural insight to a situation and the majority of ppl who care about it just don’t see the nuance. I don’t care who’s ‘in the right’ but seeing all the ppl who look like they would have blindly bullied someone like shelby in high school, if that was the popular thing to do, dogpile on her to agree with the beach blond tanned rich girl, made me feel like we’re all back in senior school.
I have been watching Shelby’s videos for two years now. She works really hard on her ceramic pieces. It takes her hours and hours to pour the pieces, fire them, paint each design three times to get the bright colors and glaze fire them again. She is also very genuine person and I don’t think she would lie about something like this. One other relevant point in my opinion she sold everything in her stall in that market. People stood in line for hours to buy her pieces. So, if Soph didn’t buy it, someone else would have bought it and loved it. So, Shelby didn’t need to lie to defend her pricing or her art.
It's a weird point for Soph to make it out the Shelby was using her for views, when Shelby has almost double her tiktok follows. Who is using who in this?
I've followed Shelby for a couple of years now, and she's honestly not all that thick-skinned, and seems to take a lot of things to heart. I also think that influencers complaining about people "using [their] name" for things is so tiresome, and the influencer not understanding how much handmade things cost is ridiculous at this point.
I unfollowed her months ago for that reason... I actually find her kind of insufferable 😂 I think Shelby didn't even meet Soph, and either thought she was someone else, or made it up. Soph didn't tag her or name her, this didn't need to go like this but Shelby got a bee in her bonnet. (Also people seem to forget Shelby has over a million more followers than Soph....)
As someone who does pottery, no this mug is not worth so much, bakers aldo hand made their pieces but you don't pay 100+ for a croissant, that does need days to rest. If you are skilled and know what you are doing the mug takes 20 minutes of actual labour, all the other is resting time, for the clay to set and then to bake it.
@@elifarabac4110 it's made from a mold, but it's small batch, which I think ups the value. She can only make as many as can fit in her home kiln. Tbh I would never sell anything every 6 months that I couldn't take shortcuts in making whatsoever. If we're lucky, we're looking at a week per mug if we're sculpting things.
@@elifarabac4110 The technique alone doesn't make it any less handmade, since it's still a small handpainted batch and for all we know the mug that the later casts copy was made by the person. There's just so many techniques you can use for a certain result - and a lot of them were adapted for "mass production" long before the industrial age.
Converting doesn't matter because it happened in Australia, both the people involved are Australian and the cost of living in Australia is different than in America. Economic reality is different in both countries so saying "it's just x on this currency" is useless
@@deebrandao5679I think OP’s point is that a lot of Americans will be watching this and may not understand what the actual cost of the mug is to them. Of course the cost of living and everything will affect the pricing, but it’s crucial to have an understanding of the og price when converted. Mainly because I’ve seen a lot of Americans say “$125?? That’s insane!” Without realising it’s a separate currency.
It depends but since soph mentioned there was like a line and stuff I wouldn’t be surprised if the mug was placed at a certain angle to where she couldn’t see it probably by a customer and since the booth was crowded, the booth runners probably didn’t have time to fix the mugs, it’s happened before
OMG ! All my love goes out to both of you ❤️❤️❤️ Thank you so much ! That's so sweet Sippy cups mugs for the win Thank you to your mom for helping us being comfortable with our mugs ❤️🥰
I had to share this story.. I was on a staff trip with my whole brewery crew in January. Two of my coworkers are a couple and she was still pregnant at the time. They were killing some time walking around the adorable town center we were in. They went into a small pottery shop highlighting local clay artists. She absolutely fell in love with a beautiful sunflower mug, but it was $70 so she told her partner no way as they were about to have a baby, so they left. She told us all about it when we all regrouped at our Airbnb, clearly smitten with this mug. Her partner left a bit later saying he was going to the grocery store to grab some stuff for dinner. He came back with her beautiful sunflower mug. She cried. She’ll remember that mug as a memento of her pregnancy and the start of their new family. If it is an item that speaks to your heart, it’s worth it.
I am a ceramicist, that's a pretty reasonable price like it's on the higher end, but it's very detailed and it's obviously a huge amount of work has gone into it. It's been slip casted, so it's been through multiple versions, she's made the mould (which takes ages) and it's hand painted. Ceramics takes absoluty ages and you need to know what you are doing. It can harm you if you do it wrong, you need to be incredibly highly skilled at every stage to make something well in Ceramics
Also a potter! I think Shelby is using pre-made molds, not making her own, which I do think changes the story a tiny bit. But agree with the rest of what you said
@@jubi0622 can’t speak for this exact mold, but she does a combination of pre made and her own molds. I believe her tiktok initially took off from her making ‘mystery molds’ of ones she found at garage sales but I could be misremembering 😅
@@jubi0622 is it still a custom mould though? Still would have taken a long time to perfect. Also, slip casting moulds wear out. You only get about 50 or so casts out of them before they start to deteriorate, and so if you are making a lot of them you need multiple moulds. Again, it's on the higher side, but she likely has assistants and given her popularity status it's still reasonable. Half of ceramic pricing is knowing what you are worth in any case. I throw, turn, handle, sgraffito/decorate, and glaze my own mugs, which I sell for about £20. I'm under charging by a huge amount, but I don't reliably sell mugs all the time.
I'm a seamstress/fiber/embroidery stuff and you *know* when the leaves turn colors and the chill enters the air and the tooting horns of the RenFaire and Halloween start going off in people's heads...I have like 20 brand spanking new besties who all want garments. I only see for free for three people - my neices (you can have whatever ya like bebe's) and an SCA longarm fighting goddess - when she asked initially years ago about me making a garment for her, the first thing she asked was "Hey I'm curious about your rate for making _____" My rate just went from it's 45 an hour tooooo...min wage. Because in *25 years* she's the only person to ask. Now I do it because she's fucking amazing to work with and has the best ideas.
honestly i wouldn't be surprised if shelby did serve soph and mentioned that prices were on the bottom but soph didn't hear her so missed it. it's a busy market, things are loud and overstimulating. And, cause it happened 2 months ago, there's a good chance soph just doesn't remember what the person serving her looked like very well. i severely doubt anyone is bold face lying. it seems like things just got lost in translation and blew way out of proportion.
Also, Shelby has darker roots, so maybe her hair was up, or pushed back, and Soph didn't paid much attention, so she remembers the lady having darker hair. I mean, she bough a mug with two handles and didn't realize it had two handles
@jessigirlrae1688 you can apply this logic to Shelby's response as well? Sophie didn't mention Shelby by name or by business and nobody recognised Shelby's work in Soph's video until Shelby decided to respond to it lol
@@camiloustau2942 Sellers generally don't change their prices based on where the art is sold. That's actually something artists are taught not to do (or at least I've seen warnings about it multiple times). If people think they can get your stuff cheaper online then they won't buy in person, defeating the point of setting up a booth.
Okay, sorry for two comments, but I am SO glad you think "if it's made with your hands, it's handmade". I see making pottery with molds as akin to making knitted garments with a hand-cranked machine (yes, even if you use a drill attachment to make it run faster). People who aren't artisans themselves are so quick to dismiss the skills needed to use these tools appropriately and get good products out of them, and it just shows a lack of understanding of the craft.
Also making plaster molds yourself is truly a full art form in itself. I know this isn’t the case for Shelby, but most potters I know who slip cast make their own molds. Really wish people understood the amount of artistry that can exist in that process!
@@jubi0622Shelby does make her own moulds for her original designs like the Australian animal pots, but the vintage mould video series is also a big part of why her business has been able to grow. And every piece is hand decorated, so it’s the equivalent of a machine-knitted sweater with hand embroidered details - there is expertise to both components, and unquestionable artistry in the latter part of the process, so reasonable people should understand that it’s going to be sold at artisan rather than industrial prices.
Same here. I knit using circular knitting machines and I get SO tired of all the “Well, it’s not handmade” comments. I still have to use my hands to turn the machine, cast on and off, and assemble the dang thing. Not to mention all the Row Math I’ve had to do to perfect my own beanie and plushie patterns. I think it’s plenty handmade, thank you.
I’m a painter who’s been doing art since I could hold a pencil. I’ve tried painting simple designs on pottery, and even with professionals guiding me, the medium and materials are so unfamiliar to me that it never turns out half as well as shelby’s stuff. I think it’s easy to look at the strawberry cup and think “oh she just took five seconds to paint a strawberry a child can do that”, but I personally find painting ceramics to be really difficult, especially if you want to make each strawberry look similar. So yeah, even if you don’t consider her stuff handmade because it isn’t thrown (which I also disagree with), I think just her designing and painting them is enough to qualify them as homemade.
I'm team "we need more people to make art as a hobby so that they understand why it costs so much to buy art". If you look at something and go "ugh it's expensive and I can make it myself", go ahead! The world needs more artists :)
This is how I got into resin dice making! I saw these beautiful sets of handmade dice going for $100+ AUD, and thought "nah I can make them cheaper". Now I have tons of pretty dice and would ABSOLUTELY charge over $100 to sell any of them for the trouble they're worth 😂
Idk how people can call that mug a rip off but justify a Stanely cup price. Thats a $45 factory made cup, while heres is hand painted with a way more limited supply vs demand
@@anna.owo.I, unfortunately, have. I’ve heard a lot of people saying “Oh, but it’s worth the price because it does what it says!” No one wants to believe they’re being played.
Well to be fair, 45$ for a cup that has a lid and a straw, holds 40oz of drink and keeps it cold for over 24 hours has more features than a "hand painted ceramic mug" that holds 8 ounces and probably isn't dishwasher safe, since it is hand made and all. If the mug was $45 I wouldn't bat an eye. But just because someone spends a lot of time doing something doesn't automatically mean it's worth a million dollars.
Also, no I do not own a Stanley, I'm not a Stanley girl, but I do enjoy a cold beverage and I previously worked 12 hour shifts and insulated bottles are the bomb for keeping my drink cold all shift, vs a tiny little tea cup that wouldn't last me an hour for hydration.
If I had to guess, I don't think either of them are lying. One thing I've noticed is that people are a little bit more faceblind than they think they are. I fully believe Shelby had that interaction she described but with some other generic blonde woman that she confused for Soph.
i think since she knew who Sophie was its more likely Sophie forgot Shelby and was like ‘i swear ive never seen her’ if yu get me. plus she remembers selling the specific cup
People’s memories are not as good as they think they are (which is why eyewitness testimony in court is actually super unreliable). I think it’s completely possible they both just remember the encounter different, or like you said, they’re mixing up the other person with someone else
i think that's rather hard to be a possibility. Why would she confuse a random blonde woman with a tiktok microcelebrity that just so happened to buy her mug. If anything soph may have confused haircolour
I agree with you generally - this is mostly nobody's fault and has been blown out of proportion. One thing I would note is that most of the mugs you looked up for comparison were not hand-painted. I've watched Shelby for a while now and the designs she paints on her work take AGES. Each spot of colour takes two coats of underglaze to get full saturation, and you can see that there's a lot of detail. So I would guess that's one reason why her mugs are so much more than the plain glazed ones from other makers.
I think a few things are throwing (ha!) everyone for a loop. 1) This interaction happened 3 months ago! Neither of them will recall things correctly 2) Shelby has her own studio and Australia has some of the highest electricity/fuel prices in the world. The prices will be higher because it costs so much more to fire. 3) Shelby has stated that she sells out in these markets. Could that have put pressure on the buyers? Yes. Could that have made everyone's memories a blur? Also, yes.
It won't cost that much more to fire though, let's be honest. Even if it's $10 extra per cup, and it does not, that should push it up $10 above what's reasonable, not $50. I like that it's a dignity cup, but why overprice an accessibility item so badly?
@@TheGrinningVikingmost handmade ceramics cost this much, it's not just the materials but the skill and time put into them. If she charged half the price she usually does then she'd have to make double just to make the same amount as before, which might literally be impossible and her bills might not get paid.
@@TheGrinningVikingmaking a single ceramic mug with a mold and premade glazes will STILL take a few days to complete. What we're not gonna do is tell artists they can't charge whatever they want. If ur in the pottery community, $60 is average for a handmade mug Edit rant: no matter what you do in pottery in takes a lot of physical and mental effort. You still need to a scientist, artist, content creator and sales person. Most full-time potters like her also buy materials in bulk at 500-1000lbs at a time so you need some way to move it and somewhere to store it. There are a dozen other things I could mention to justify to price of pottery. But as an artist I any price is reasonable if people are willing to pay for it.
But she uses a mold. As a professional ceramist myself. No thanks that's not unique enough to be over 50 USD. Sorry people just don't understand what the process is but she's overcharging a lot. Flowers and strawberry fruits etc are design 101. Try joining a pottery class you'll see. That's the second thing we'll teach you.😊 So imo it's not over 50 USD. This exact cup . I don't know or are bothered about other things she made or personally am saying anything against her. Please get that clear because many of you take it as a personal insult if someone criticizes something they're aware of. I am an artist and this is my professional opinion . Yours can differ. Thanks.
Shelby's pieces are seen as collectors items by people who follow her channel and love her work. There's a reason why she sells out at craft markets. The fact that the influencer didnt even look at the mug long enough to notice there were two handles shows how much respect she has for hand made art and craft.
I still don’t understand why anyone bothers with influencers. If they need someone else to tell them what to like, they should be figuring out why they don’t have a personality of their own.
u guys are so fucking annoying. influencers are ppl too what makes u think u have the right to treat them like they dont have a personality unlike ur ugly one??? @@DJFPhantomPhan
The thing that confused me is why Shelby chose to bring this up months after the initial video was posted. And the video didn't actually name her or her business. So it was already a nonissue before she decided to respond and make it an issue.
@@ysodora8030 That's likely! But I still don't get why she didn't realize the other person never mentioned her business by name and then just not say anything. Businesses get way harsher reviews than that all the time and if they just don't respond, it blows over. I get being defensive. It's her art, after all, but it had already faded away with not even a blip when she responded and blew it up into a huge thing.
@@PizzaPartyTime I don't know whether it was planned or not but having it blow up into a huge thing rather than just go under the radar is probably a good thing for her business. As you say, it's not like the review is saying she uses lead based paint or child workers which would put her out of business. It's basically says "It's pretty but expensive" which her target market would expect it to be. It's basically free advertising and getting her name out to people who would never have heard of her business otherwise.
Anyone familiar with Shelby's work would instantly recognize that mug. It's from her Strawberry collection. I knew it was hers the moment I saw it. "I'm not naming names" as she holds up a perfectly recogniable piece of artwork from a person with a massive following isn't as anonymous as people seem to think.
I’ve been watching Shelby passively for quiet some time. Some extra information that didn’t get touched on: Shelby sells out often, that’s also contributing to her prices, she talked about that briefly last year on adjusting the prices. Also casting in molds is a learned skill, it also takes up a ton of time and she still is hand painting them.
Yeah!! Ive watched her mystery moulds seiries, and she is clearly is a master of her craft, plus this is AUD not USD ive not done the conversion but aus is gonna be significantly cheaper
Esp when 99% of the stuff she makes is "hollow", requiring the cast to dry a specific amount of time for a specific thickness and consistency. And pieces can crack and warp all the time
As someone who hand paints pottery, it takes HOURS to do what Shelby does. She is creating art on those mugs. The majority of the mugs you showed as comparable are wheel thrown or hand-built, but they are also mostly dip glazed or have underglaze transfers, that takes SIGNIFICANTLY less time to do than hand painting designs on every mug. The time spent on a handmade product factors into the cost. I expect to by twice as much for a hand painted mug than I would a dip glazed mug. I don't have anything to say on who is right or wrong because honestly I don't care, but I wanted to add some color to why hand-painted ceramics are often more expensive than something you might consider comparable if you don't know how long it takes to make each item.
I think lying is the wrong word. Soph sounds like she’d waited in line for a while and Shelby was just another vendor to her. So when Shelby was excited and yammering on Soph went full peanuts teacher mode and registered nothing right down to Shelby’s appearance. Shelby on the other hand was so hyped and gushing she didn’t realise Soph was checked out of the conversation until checkout. Both of them are accurately detailing their subjective experiences but what is happening and how much you notice changes.
This!!! ^^^^ I feel like in memory based drama people rush too quickly into "who's lying" without thinking about how complicated and weird memory can be!
In the book world there is a concept that books belong to their readers, not to the authors. Most authors don't read their reviews on places like goodreads and certainly dont respond to them. I think the tiktok world would benefit from this. I get that part of the small business hustle is constantly putting yourself out there and selling yourself/products, but not everything needs to be responded to because not everything is for you. It's a hard lesson to learn but I think its important.
yeah! especially when the business name was never mentioned in the “review” tiktok. It wasn’t like everyone who saw that TikTok would get a negative impression of Shelby’s business because they’re unlikely to know it’s hers. Even jsut a dm
@@lieeeleeee it was bought at a localized craft market that people knew she had visited. That's like saying you didn't mention the author but you heavily quote the first page of thier book when talking about them
@@BarefootCMNo, it isn't. You can't google "fuckin mug with flowers and berries" and get hers straight up because unless you were actually there, know who was exhibiting or are a big ceramics fan no one knows who tf you are talking about. If someone read out the first page you could google that shit and find it. She did not name her and only people in a very specific niche would know and those people might have been able to leave a comment or two on creators video and that is about it. It is also complaining about the price of a product. If something feels worth the money you paid for it is a very standard part of review.
And as a business works, you're supposed to get top dollar for your product..you go out of business if no one buys your product. Being in business means getting profit, not being a philanthropy group. Philanthropy comes after your business is successful. If you don't like the price, make your own mug.
I’m disabled and have never seen a dignity mug in my life. Love the idea but it’s pretty absurd to accuse someone of ableism for not knowing what it is.
Also ceramic for disabled people is not always the best idea, as it can chip more easily than other materials and not every disabled person has the control to be careful with a ceramic cup. Also 100+$ is absurd for a dignity cup/mug.
thats what I was thinking if someone has a mobility issue to the point of requiring one of these cups it's not a stretch to assume they struggle to find employment because ableism in the work place, how would they even afford this mug. Just cause the product is designed for disabled people doesn't mean its accessible to them@@elenacampedelli7914
And 99.99% of disabled people can’t afford a million dollar mug, and I’d personally feel exploitative if a disabled person had no choice but to buy a $125 mug from me bc they can’t find a duel handled one anywhere else. Doubt any disabled person would find this that useful, but still - making that much profit off the needs of disabled people is gross to me
@@nola1439 also while disabled people do deserve accessibility items that look cute and not medical like a lot tend to be, a mobility item being made from a material that even non disabled people tend to break a lot seems also very counter intuitive, like she claims its an accessibility item but its outside of the price range and usefulness for that market. Seems like she just wants some inclusivity points and praise from people not even in that community
Small correction on the slipcasting process: You pour the clay, let it set up a specific amount of time and de-mould it, trim/refine the piece, allow it to dry into "Greenware" (which can take days depending where you live/local humidity levels), fire it once into "Bisqueware", underglaze/paint it, and fire it again, then wax the bottoms, dip glaze it and fire AGAIN into a finished piece. It's a longer process than people realize, and firing the kiln typically takes a full day for the size Shelby has, so that's three days just on firing alone.
@vero9348 leather work isn't time dependent though. Clay has to be done with very specific timings or it won't work. There's a huge number of variables with it too- even commercial ceramics manufacturers have a loss rate of around 12%. 12% of the work explodes or breaks or doesn't fire properly and can't be sold.
@@vero9348if the amount of time and work, and the quality of the materials put into it is worth it, sure, go ahead. who cares if it's 500 dollars. just don't buy it if you don't want to. frustration at rising prices of essential items are understandable but if it's a luxury item then who cares. buy it or don't, make it yourself if it's easier.
i hate the pricing argument and comparing different prices. Some people (on a different vid covering this story) was talking about how they got a similar mug for only $20, which means that Shelbys mug is overpriced, not realizing that the mug they bought was UNDERpriced for that amount of work. I could crochet a plushie and sell it for $50, while someone else makes the same and sells it for $10. Underpricing your work doesn't mean that my work is overpriced.
Imo, as someone who is around a lot of ceramicists and potters because I perform at ren faires, Shelby's work is somewhat overpriced, but not to a massive, disgusting degree. It's priced at a point that makes me say, "Okay, part of this cost is her name" and tbh that's fine. Artists and artisans aren't obligated to price their items as cheap as they possibly can manage
This. I saw a video where a women sold her mugs for 15$ HOW ARE THEY EVEN MAKING MONEY?! I also sell plush toys and those ceramics being cheaper than my most simple plush….insane 💀
It just depends on how you value your time, how quickly it took, materials etc. I do believe most artists under-price their work though or it doesn’t sell. It’s an unfortunate cycle.
Products are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. If there are people out here buying $80 mugs when you can easily find bigger mugs of the same quality for a lot cheaper then that’s on them.
I feel like if Shelby just hadn't responded to the video this wouldn't have even become that big of a deal. The influencer didn't even mention who the mug came from to begin with so most people wouldn't of even known and the few that did probably wouldn't of thought much of it. I LOVE Shelby's work and her channel, which is why I wish she just hadn't gotten wrapped up in this drama in the first place. Her channel growth, business, and the things she sells all speak for themselves. There's no reason to worry about some influencer who isn't even making content in the same genre as you.
Thank you! Some people won’t like your product, or think you charge too much, but the best thing to do is to ignore it or modify your business. People don’t need to respond to every criticism, as hard as that may be.
Shelby brought this on herself though. Technically what Soph did is pretty damn benign, didn't drag her name and business through the mud. I'd stay away from Shelby's business if she's the type to feel attacked over someone expressing dislike over what she sells.
Memory is such a funny thing. As an art market shopper, vendors *have* blended together for me. As someone who has staffed craft fairs, I have forgotten a shopper wearing a different outfit the next day - none of them “famous,” though. It’s easy to conflate memories and faces.
I think people kinda underestimate the difficulties that can still come from from slip casting (molding with the plaster molds). I am a ceramicist and I have made pieces with slip casting, wheel throwing, and hand sculpting. While I personally agree that slip casting is the easiest of the three building methods, it still does take time and skill to do. You have to know how long to leave the slip in the mold before dumping the excess out (which is different every time based on how dry the plaster is). You also have to know when to finally take the piece out of the mold and then you have to go through the process of cleaning up and mold lines and patching any area that has issue. And porcelain (which is what I think Shelby uses) is super temperamental and can crack even if you do everything right and those cracks appear after firing so you could waste your time painting a mug just for it to be unsellable. I totally get that people think slip casting is so much easier than the other methods especially when you have never worked with clay but a lot of time and skill still goes into it.
I think it’s fair to say that there’s basically an influencer merch up charge on the mug since she is a content creator, plus this mug was hand painted in detail rather than just glazed over in a wash of one color like some of the ‘comparable’ mugs. Painting the strawberries would be significantly more time consuming and merit higher price. That being said, I think it was a bizarre and emotional response that didn’t need to happen in public or possibly at all (nobody would even be criticizing her directly if she didn’t announce it was her mug).
The best things about these videos is listening to Emma's very matter of fact presentation while saying things like "taybeepboop" and "sofadofa". It's like listening to Katie Couric talk about the latest Jigglypuff beef.
As someone in a mug phase, THRIFT also sometimes people put mugs out on the street and you can just pop them in the dishwasher/bleach soak them in a bowl I’ve gotten most of my silverware free from antique shop free bins and people putting boxes out on the sidewalk. Merry mugging
I have a few friends who are full time ceramicists and it’s a REALLY difficult job with a lot of steps where disaster can strike and ruin hours of work. Honestly a lot of people don’t price the works what they deserve, considering the time and effort that goes into it. My friends do charge around 40-60 USD for mugs versus the 80 USD in this video BUT they really really struggle to make ends meet. It’s definitely not a case of what a mug is worth but what people are willing to pay. And if people are willing to pay an artist a price that allows them to pay their rent, I actually think that’s a good thing. The rising tide lifts all ships and underpricing your wares sets an expectation that a lower price is sustainable and properly values the artist’s time. Which isn’t a dig at people who price low so they can sell- it’s more me saying, if you can get people to pay a price where you can afford to live, I support you doing so. In terms of an accessibility item being priced at a price point out of range of many people with disabilities, I do think there’s a middle ground. It’s becoming increasingly popular for many artists to charge on a sliding scale based on what the purchaser can afford. Something like this, especially for items created with an often low income population in mind, might be a more fair and accessible pricing structure to implement.
My two cents as an visual artist: the fact that Shelby hand paints all the mugs makes a huge difference to me. That’s a HUGE time commitment & makes the mug a little work of art in itself- it’s both a mug and an art piece. As for offering options with two handles i really don’t see any issue? Is an artist only allowed to make disability friendly items if they are affordable by the average person? Art is always a luxury and i don’t see the harm in having the option avaliable for those who are financially able. Not to mention gifting- i can totally see someone buying this for a elderly relative who loves pottery but needs to use two hands for stability. I kinda find the whole pricing thing very moot. (Tho the other girl saying ‘who would EVER want two handles’ does seem kinda insensitive)
@@emilymartinko720I was noticing that in the video! The mugs shown at lower price points were, by and large, not the ones with the hand-painted designs. The more expensive examples shown were. That takes a really long time to make and sometimes requires multiple firings.
@@sharimeline3077 Have you ever been around an elderly person? I can see a lot of people benefiting from a dual handle. Also kinda weird to assume all physically disabled people are unemployed, im pretty sure there’s a large variety of jobs that can accommodate such disabilities. Even so, it could make a lovely gift. Really don’t understand this take of ‘if it’s not broadly financially accessible, don’t bother trying to accommodate disabilities’
@@emilymartinko720 the problem is they are easy to break and the price that and the fact they didn't check to make sure they grabbed her the right one as they all look the same and blend in to one another
I am in college for ceramics right now and once I graduate and don't have access to a huge studio with unlimited clay, unlimited glazes, and (the most expensive art supply no one thinks about) kilns, I won't be able to afford my own artistic practices without a reliable full time job. My university in Texas just spent a little under $500,000 for two new automatic kilns from the Netherlands and that doesn't include the huge energy bills they now have to pay from those kilns to reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit everyday all day long. I had no idea how expensive it was to own your own practice before college. I've been looking at small used kilns online and anything that actually works starts at $1000 lol. Clay is just clay until you fire it to at least 1065 degrees, only then is it ceramic. Getting shit that hot is expensive
definitely the kiln!! my mom got one somehow when i was a kid and we just kept it in our garage until she got divorced so i sold it to sum local art guys and sold a drum set and violins and violas to a music teacher. i didnt do no research into the proce of kilns ans was 16 so i sold it for like 150$ as soon as i saw their face ik they would've paid like 600 for it. but honestly i didn't know if it worked and i just needed to get rid of it
Yes!! I went to school for ceramics, and since I graduated I don't have the financial security to keep doing it. The ceramics to crochet pipeline has been so real for me personally
Doesn’t shelby have her own studio too? I used to watch her and it always seemed like she had her own studio (although I’m not confident in that) which would definitely be super expensive to run
@neonradius gods, you have no idea how expensive it can be. My industrial unit costs me £1k a month and that covers the rent plus some towards the electricity, I'm currently about £600 in arrears for electric. My landlord knows I'll get it caught up in the next month or so once my shows start again in just over 2 weeks. It costs me £75 to glaze fire The Alchemist. It used to cost me about £30.....
Another Aussie here. Yes, it was expensive. But, it was a hand-made/painted item. As knitters we constantly say ‘don’t undercharge for your labour/materials etc’. We know how much work goes into a full-size Shetland shawl, and that you would never be paid for the hours and hours of work that went into it. I know nothing about making/painting ceramics, but I assume there is a lot of time and skill involved. So good on Shelby for charging what she does. The market will decide if it is a fair price or not. Australia is an expensive country and kilns must use a fair bit of power. So her overheads could be on the high side.
Last year, I traded one if my Yarnhoarders (huge yatnbowl with a dragon wrapped around it), the price tag was £250, because it took me 3 days to make, for a hand knitted jumper. This trade was with a freind, an indie dyer with her own business. She used her own hand dyed yarn after we worked out the colours etc. I'm still trying to work out what else I can give her to make the trade equal even though she said she would use my jumper to work out a new pattern she's designing. I bought some luxury tops from another indie dyer in a set of complimentary colours and am spinning those, but that's her xmas present so doesn't really count. I also have a plate in The Alchemist right now with mushrooms (she LOVES shroomies) on it in her favourite glaze, which I might give her if my hubby doesn't see it first. I know I owe her big time for this!
I’m a potter as well as a crocheter and people who just watch pottery videos have no idea how long it takes! Firing a pot alone takes at least two days. Plus molds aren’t infinite use, once you make a mold you can use it a certain amount of times before it becomes too chipped/deformed and you have to make the mold again I’ve been watching the potter for a while, and it takes a lot of money to get the studio she has. The glazes are pricey, you have to buy clay, buy the kiln, buy the brushes, and clay is fickle and cracks and breaks at every step of the process through no fault of your own. It’s a pricey trade, so hand made things are naturally going to be more expensive than the 20$ mug at target. I’m Australian and it’s a reasonable price knowing how much effort goes into “just a sippy cup”
Well with ceramics, especially moulded ceramics, you can make more than one at a time, they all go in the kiln at once and you can do other things while they’re in there, they don’t take THAT LONG to paint, and when they’re drying you can do other things. Vastly different to yarn work.
@Eihpos97 all ceramics are batch production. Also, if you only have one mould, you can only cast one item at a time, and only so many in a day before you have to dry the mould out. And due to the deflocculant that helps the casting slip stay in suspension, the moulds deteriorate over time, because it eats away at the plaster. Also, a lot of casting slip is wasted in the process because once it dries, its a LOT harder to reclaim than normal clay, to the point that professionals mostly don't bother because time is money too. We potters with our own setups, fill our kilns every time we want to switch them on. We can't all be Grayson Perry and make one pot per year to sell at £40k or more.
Looking up the prices of other Finders Keepers sellers mugs on their webpages after the fact may be unrealistic. Pricing at the market would have to take into account the overhead costs of selling there. You can price lower when you’re selling from your own home. Also, it’s the labour intensive hand painting of Shelby’s mugs that make them more expensive than your standard hand made mug.
I did a ceramics class, so I don't recall the cost of the clay or the paints (thought the professor said the paints were *very* expensive) and during our mug making assignment, I made a dignity mug (without knowing what it was) for my spouse. He has hand tremors and it doesn't impede normal mug usage, but it would make it far easier for him to hold. I can understand someone without disabilities never even thinking about two handed use.
Exactly! I don’t know these people besides the ceramist but as someone disabled myself (without issues with holding stuff), I didn’t know about dignity mugs and immediately likened it to a kid sippy cup (especially since it’s SO small). I don’t understand why people are acting as though that influencer woman was out there ridiculing the disabled community when she just… didn’t know something she had no reason to know ? This whole ordeal is very mind boggling, but I hope your husband love his special cup :)!
@@happyjellycatsquidin my opinion, a lot of the frustration comes from how little able-bodied people seem to think about us or consider us. you obviously can't be aware of every challenge someone could have from disability all at once, but still i think it's fine to get a little upset over someone saying something like that. the sippy cup is an understandable comparison to make but people with disabilities are often likened to children which makes it a bit worse to me. ableism is rooted so deeply in our societies that it's bound to happen, it's not unforgivable but it's perfectly fine to have a problem with.
@@milk-in-the-box Yeah, I definitely get what you mean and obviously I can’t police people’s feelings, but the ceramist reaction (« it’s suuuuch a special cup » in a baby voice) really rubbed me the wrong way, it almost felt as though she was weaponising the fact that she did a (mildly) nice thing for the disabled community for her own personal interests, and obviously people getting offended by the sippy cup comment even if it was in earnest is normal, but the whole thing just kinda rubs me the wring way i guess
1) thank you for presenting this in a calm, practical, clear way. I'd never heard about either of these people but you made it so interesting! and 2) to be fair, if she didn't notice it had 2 handles (very obvious) then it tracks that she probably wouldn't notice the (more subtle) written price either 😂
this is just online bs. its totally normal to be suprised by the price of something. Thats normal. anyone who says they've never bought something they didnt want because it would be awkward to back out is a liar. I worked retail i saw this happen everyday also emma did pretty much the same thing as soph at the end. she said she got the dragon mug for $60 (cheaper and larger than the strawberry mug btw) and that it was 'kinda alot for a mug' not saying its not WORTH that price, but it IS alot!
Ya, I think Sophie got buyers remorse. When I learned sales for photography, we learned the psychology of buying. If you don’t set expectations early, buyers are more likely to get ‘sticker shock’ and then buyers remorse after leaving- which a lot of times leads to returns/refunds etc. Not that I’m saying Shelby was totally wrong, she had all her work priced and Sophie should take more care when she’s buying things. Not just point and buy without any examination. But also, Shelby needs thicker skin as an artist. Critiques can sound/feel like attacks, but they’re not.
It’s possible Shelby even mistook Soph as someone else, like the interaction did happen it just wasn’t with Soph. Regardless, awesome video as always!! I’ve loved every one of your videos so far
To be completely honest from an outsider looking in? They're both insufferable. Someone is allowed to be shocked at a price, and someone who pours a lot of time, materials, and skill into a craft doesn't really have to justify their prices. It was never that serious, and they should both be ashamed of their actions after the fact.
A huge issue with simply comparing market rates for handmade ceramics is that so many artists who run small businesses undercharge because they think people won't buy the item if they charge what it's actually worth. Many of those mugs that were only $40-60 would have taken hours to make, especially if they have small, hand painted details. Artists often undercharge for their time and skill, which means when one person knows their value - it can seem outrageous.
I absolutely agree. However, adesigner maker needs to know and understand their target audience. I'm lucky as a full time potter, I found my niche within the UK fibre and textile world. The only reason I can sell my work for near to True Value, is because of two factors.... fibre fam Know how much effort goes into making something by hand, and nearly everyone who attends the fibre and textile shows has seen at least one episode of Great Pottery Throwdown. Even still, I'm always shocked when one of my statement pieces sells for over £250. The last one was £500. Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about that
I’m Australian and my best friend is a ceramicist. This is a hot topic with my friends. The artists seem to be taking Shelby’s side out of principle. I kinda think that it’s a free country and Soph can say what she wants whether we agree or not. Your skit cracked me up. Your Aussie friend nailed the voice dubbing.
I think people really need to be ok with the idea that you don’t have to take a side lol. I didn’t like the way Soph put the blame of not asking for the price, not looking at the cup, and then not saying “actually I made a mistake” and blamed Shelby for it. But I also dislike how Shelby made it into a problem, brought it up months later and went about it in a kinda snarky way when she could have just- never made it a problem. It’s not like Soph blasted her store, and it’s not like she forced Soph to buy a $125 mug. So tbh I think no one is in the right and people just need to see that sometimes, most situations aren’t just black and white.
I'm an artist (I have a bachelors of fine arts) but I agree with you. Honestly I know the feeling of regretting an expensive purchase and expressing it just to let off steam. This doesn't mean you necessarily think the business is bad or that they should stop or anything, more just a complaint about a personal decision. Of course, I think shelby is allowed to price her work any way she sees fit, so I really don't think there's a bad guy tbh. There may be some personalities people don't like but I don't think either did anything morally wrong
@@neff6185The funny thing is that the mug looks like any other ordinary mug that could've been made by ANYONE and we would not know it's from Shelby until she spoke up and when she spoke up, she went on an unnecessary tirade. She looks like a snowflake that got offended over an opinion. Sophie looks like your typical idiot, shelby looks like your typical snowflake.
As a freelance artist who makes money off of his own work, and is familiar with this world, I appreciated the way you approached this situation in your video. I'm relieved when I hear people remind the judging public of some of the reasons why someone might price/value something higher than what might not seem reasonable at first. It was also nice to hear you go a little bit into the details of what the process is like to make pottery and how it may differ between pieces done in a wheel and ones done in molds, even if you weren't that familiar with it. I would like to point out some things I know about Shelby's work, however, that may make a difference in how pricing is considered that I believe may be helpful, as well as some other things that may deserve extra consideration. Now, to preface this, I want Shelby's shorts on TH-cam a lot, so I am not guessing here. I've also watched a good bit of other TH-camrs who also do pottery in the same and even different ways than this person, as well. The first thing to consider, and the most important in my opinion, is that this artist uses a lot of vintage molds to cast her products in. Vintage molds require more attention, maintenance, and there's often more trial and error involved with them than newer molds. Sometimes vintage molds are too dry, and they end up sucking too much moisture out of the clay you poor inside, resulting in your cast being ruined/not turning out as expected. I'm not sure what all can be done in this case to make the mold usable again, but I saw one TH-camr have this issue and when they tried casting in the mold a second time, they were lucky and that time the mold wasn't thirsty anymore because the clay from the last cast blocked up the tiny holes in it. Just because a mold looks easy to fill and like the cast will cure and demold well, doesn't mean it will. Getting the liquid clay into every bit of the mold isn't always as easy as it seems, and with molds that aren't filled solid, wall thickness is something surprisingly difficult to control. Recasting is also something that can easily double, triple, or more the time it takes to get a piece you can move on to finishing. I do wonder if the fact that this mug has two handles opposite each other contributed to the difficulty of painting it? Because you wouldn't be able to hold it like a single handled mug, having to be careful not to break two handles instead of one? That may have something to do with the price, especially since the design painted on the mug was little strawberries. Painting it would be tricker, because of these two things. I also wonder if there was added cost for splitting it from the rest of the collection? I imagine the hope was to sell most, if not all, of the collection together. Often I've heard of artists charging more for a single item being sold by itself when separated from an intended set. This may be due to the set being less likely to sell with that item missing, or for other reasons (I've heard them, just blanking on it right now). To me, this makes sense, as the set loses more and more value as a set each time a single piece is bought separately. People also really really like having matching ceramics. Either way, I think the other creator should have realized she brought on a lot of the hate she got by making the comments she did about the mug's size and handles right before talking about the price and how she decided to buy it still because she didn't want to be rude. By making those comments, she ended up being a lot more rude than she would have been if she just changed her mind on buying the mug. It sounds like, from how she described her interaction with who she thinks she bought the mug from, she wasn't taking the time to really consider her purchases or appreciate what she was looking at, which is extremely disheartening as an artist. That's why I'm "siding" with Shelby, because she actually took the time to make this mug (as far as we can tell that's true), she has taken the time to learn why it has two handles and appreciate that, called attention to the infantilization of people who need to use cups with two handles, and was very sweet about how she explained things as well as started her video with a thorough thank you. This other person's story just sounds like she wasn't remembering things super clearly because she wasn't paying that much attention at the time, and her brain was just trying to come up with a quick defense without double checking the memories because she was offended/felt attacked. I understand she felt attacked, and that Shelby's video response triggered the negative attention, but at the same time, you can't completely control your audience, and Shelby wasn't at all encouraging her followers to go after this person. (I'm gonna edit in the creator's name once I check what it is)
About the pricing: For someone who doesnt do pottery moulding probably sounds like an easy cheat but it is not. Slipcasting is fickle and time consuming on this small of a scale. Pottery is really expensive and time consuming to create in general. On top of that Shelby uses a material that is see through, and it requires her to paint the same image over and over on her pieces to make them vibrant and it takes a lot of time. Not the most efficient way to paint, but this is her art and her right and she can price the items in a way that works for her. If i missed a whole handle on something i bought i'd probably would be really mad and embarrassed with myself too. I feel like the other person misplaced their annoyance there. I dont really think there needed to be drama. But i think Shelby heard about the piece being misunderstood and disliked by a huge creator and let it get to her too much.
Ceramicist here. Charging 125 AUD/80 USD for a mug isn’t super crazy IF you have the right kind of audience. People will pay that much if they love your work. I have one artist I would kill to have a mug from and that’s exactly what he charges. People tend to charge based on size and time spent on the piece. For instance, I throw my mugs on the wheel, slip/paint multiple layers, and then carve into the clay before I let it dry, which is time consuming. That time consuming process alone gives me the right to charge more. I charge around 40-50 USD for what I do since I’m still a student and my audience isn’t very large yet but could definitely charge more in the future. Personally, I think that’s a lot of money for something that is slip casted rather than thrown or hand built since it doesn’t really take a lot of hands on making to create. But hey, that price must be working for her if she’s charging that much and people are still buying.
I don’t mind is something is slipcast IF the artist created and designed the original piece. I got my Dad a puss in boot cast Bronze statue by an artist I absolutely adore. Cost me $1000. And she guaranteed me that she would only ever cast that piece 5 times in total. Because it costs her so much to do the cast. So it’s not a mould she will be churning out multiple pieces from.
I followed a cermicist on Instagram and even paid to be part of their mug sale o let to find they were charging $700-800 PER MUG. But even then I was like, well damn if people pay for it get your coin girl (just not from me)
If Soph had mentioned Shelby’s name or business name in her initial video where she was complaining, then I could understand Shelby’s response. But she didn’t mention her, and even though Soph was clueless about why the mug is the way it is and why it’s that price, it feels very silly for Shelby to make the response video she did. I could understand her making a video saying “Hey, this is why the mug has two handles. I hope you can enjoy it even if it wasn’t what you’d thought it was. Thanks!” But even then, that’s still inserting herself where she wasn’t mentioned. It feels like Shelby got defensive about something that wasn’t an attack. It was a clueless influencer being a bit careless with her words. Instead of doing the reasonable thing of DMing her or even venting to her own friends about her frustration, she escalated things to make herself feel better. In my opinion none of this is really about the price. It’s about an influencer making some careless comments about an artist without naming that artist, and then that artist getting her feelings hurt and turning it into an argument. It doesn’t matter how nice Shelby tried to sound, what she said was confrontational and accusatory. It was a fight not worth starting and frankly put a bad taste in my mouth towards her and her work. I think her art is lovely and while I wouldn’t pay that much for a mug, especially one that’s supposed to be “accessible”, I don’t think the price is unreasonable for a piece of art. But her response was unreasonable and in my opinion just as frivolous as Soph’s original comments. It was not a fight worth starting, but she come in and started a fight because she knew people would have her back and it would comfort her. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out the way she thought and now things suck for both parties.
Thank you for pointing out how aggressive shelby was being. Just because you hide your words behind soft tones and baby talk doesn't mean you're not hounding a random person for daring to criticize your business which they supported by buying a product. Wtf no customer should get attacked by a business and their millions of viewers for having an opinion, even if it was an uninformed one.
I think that whatever their interaction was, it must have been somewhere in-between what theyre both saying. Maybe sophie was so busy trying to find a lot of products to review, she doesnt remember everyone she talked to. And vice versa, maybe shelby didnt go into as much detail as she claimed; her booth was extremely busy and maybe some things slipped through. As for the price, i think it was mentioned that shelby has over 2 million followers? Her price might be higher because of the extreme demand, and she can't physically keep up with having enough stock. I don't think the price is accessible for the target demographic of the mug, but i think taking into account the size + demand of her products it makes a bit more sense? Idk, most things aren't black and white and i think this is def a grey situation thats probably a mix of both sides
ceramic pieces take a lot of manual labor and steps in between like the time commitment of hand painting so I'm not even surprised that the pieces she makes are more expensive than mass produced mugs
Haven’t watched the entire video but the costs to vend at the Finders Keepers market can also be expensive, so the mugs could also be priced to recoup the costs of vending (like a first timer small stall Is around min $1000). I also feel like the whole issue could have been resolved if Soph originally wasn’t concerned about being embarrassed with admitting she didn’t see the price (since it can happen, people get confused, though imo it would have been better practice that before the mug was wrapped to go the price was reconfirmed)
I also find it hard to believe she didn't notice it had two handles if she had to wait in line for a 'long' time I feel like you'd notice and prob flip it over and see the price but maybe I fidget in line more than her lol
@@kilrkitty0818 they didn't hand it to her, they were in the back so she couldn't have know the price and they wrapped it right away and no way I would pull out an expensive easily broken item in the middle of looking around
See the part i dont get is why did Shelby make the video response to Sophie who did not name the store. Shelby was the one drawing attention to the fact that this piece was from her store.
Look at it from her pov, they've been told at the market that this tiktok influencer is coming so be on the lookout, she buys something, she must have been anticipating a review and when what she did get was negative and (unfairly in her opinion) she would have been hurt and felt like she needed to address/justify herself. I think no one's really in the wrong here, more of misunderstanding. I am side eyeing Sophie for saying Shelby did this for clout though....when Shelby has more followers than soph. Her attitude just rubbed me off the wrong way.
@@namayra299 look dude I follow Shelby im familiar with her work, my issue is Shelby responded 2 months after the fair and as such Sophie's video was probably not getting anymore traction as it was about an event from 2 months ago. Why respond now when a DM would have been better. My opinion on this is Shelby doesn't take criticism well and shouldn't be looking at reviews of her products and Sophie should be more observant of what she's buying
I have a feeling she didn’t even know about Soph’s video until someone showed it to her or sent it to her? It wouldn’t make any sense of how she’d even find it otherwise 😅 not excusing the fact she responded bc… yea
I’m disabled. I require various implements that the average person would never consider should they come across them in their daily lives. Say, a double handled sippy cup. Sof wasn’t being disrespectful when first talking about the mug. She was simply unaware. It’s asking way too much of people to be knowledgeable about everything in the world that people like myself might need or use and why. Everyone needs to calm down. Unless someone is being directly disrespectful to a specific person, it’s truly not worth the minutes off your life to get upset over it. Especially when chances are the people you are upset over aren’t upset themselves. The thing I took notice of with that cup was the cost for one. Disabled people aren’t wealthy generally and live well below the poverty line. My benefits are $900/month! Then, we pay $100 for our health insurance plus. Next, it’s ceramic. We disabled tend to break things due to the nature of our disabilities. That’s why there’s 2 handles…for grip issues… Third, it was quite small, so you’re giving that $100 ceramic cup to a disabled child? That’s actually dangerous. It’s just common sense. The cup was cute and all. I would never pay that for it, but cute. But, you all got to leave that poor girl alone for not knowing why it had 2 handles! She just didn’t know and that’s ok. Nobody knows everything about medical devices and implements or clothing. How can we possibly? We can’t. It’s an impossible standard. You see that a lot anymore, those impossible standards. Yet, we sure don’t like being measured by them ourselves now, do we?
Ok, but if you're going to make claims about a handmade product from a small sole trader to your very large platform, you should probably do a quick internet search. . . and get the basic info that is clear on the creators page. This influencer is a privileged drama queen and she's consistently nasty to other creators. Take it from someone who sold her a handcrafted witch hat at the markets.
@AleksandarBell I did it in art class in middle school and even that throwaway project was hard. Like why is everyone acting like she's hoarding accessibility devices from those in need amd charging 100× the price? It's a normal price for a hand made ceramic and if you don't like the price there's cheaper ones literally everywhere online. Or mad that she's saying it's accessible. Like yes...hc it has an accessible design. It's not lying to call it that because it IS.
I've purchased a handmade 70 USD mug before because the price was worth it to me for a handmade piece of art, and that artist wasn't even Internet famous lol. It is a handmade piece of art, which is a luxury item and will be priced accordingly. People are so so so spoiled by mass production and don't recognize the worth of handmade items.
I could understand the price if Shelby's stuff was actually handmade from A to Z and not made using a mould she just bought from someone. The only things that are actually handmade are those simple painted decorations. And it's not like her things are super original, pretty or even detailed. That mug looks like something I would find at target for 5$ 🤷♀️
@@user-cq5gl1ri7qthe molds are vintage. By all means if you can't tell the difference between a hand painted piece from a vintage mold and a mass produced mug from target please buy the target mug lol
Mug and pottery fiend here and I have definitely spent more than $100 on a mug. One of my favorite makers is OneElevenPottery and makes some gorgeous intricate pieces. One I own has a skull, some entwining vines, and little cauldron feet. Shelby might charge a lot, but she has an entire studio, hand paints everything, and also does have a small team of staff now. We also need to consider price conversion from AUD to USD. There's a pretty sizable difference. $120 AUD is about $77 USD, and I have easily paid that for handmade things. The thing I find most surprising is her not noticing it had two handles. It makes me feel like she didn't even look at it or pay attention which is...really confusing. Also the person you reference from TikTok at 21:25 is just a red rectangular error message?
Yeah, like why would you pick up something without even looking well what it is or the price of it? Like I am sorry if you thought that was too much money and anxiety made you unable to undue the purchase, but I just can't imagine how in one of those markers you don't see that something has two handles.
In the world now where we can have cheap stuff shipped to our door in a couple days people have SERIOUSLY started to undervalue the work that actually goes into making something by hand. The stuff im familiar with is hand spun wool clothing since i raise sheep and attend lots of craft faires. Its easy to look at a cute wool top and then be shocked when it's like 70 to 100 dollars but never take into account: cost to raise and feed sheep, time to care for sheep, effort to shear sheep, time to clean and card wool, time to spin wool into yarn, time to then weave the actual garment, cost to rent or buy trailers to haul your homemade stuff to faires, and time needed to simply man the stall and do the sales. If anything a lot of handmade stuff is sold for LESS than it really ought to be. We're all really removed from the process of making things from scratch.
Call me cynical if you like, but "I accidentally bought a two-handled mug for $125" makes for way better content than "look at these cute things I bought".
Honestly the last show she was at she sold out super fast, so I can understand really high prices because her demand is so high. That's how supply and demand works isn't it?
As to the prices, most of the other "most expensive" mugs were "just" glazed with special glazes, but those strawberries were handpainted on there. And that makes quite a difference in the time invested in the piece. Is 125AUD a lot? Yes. For a hand painted one? Not really.And also is the price justified because there's a lot of demand for Shelby Sherrit pieces? Yes! So I am not really on board with the "let's talk about the price" section here. But I'm also absolutely not on board with the drama itself. Handmade stuff is expensive, so ask for the price if you're not sure what it is. My take on that.
if she never actually picked it up, as she said, then she would have seen it displayed amongst a bunch of other ceramic pieces (as shown in pictures of the stall display). factoring in distance, perspective, and shadows, it wouldn't be hard to either not see the handle on the furthest side, or to see it as being attached to some other piece. especially if you have no idea that two handled ceramic mugs exist.
@@samanthaabreu782 according to her, the seller picked it up and wrapped and boxed it. We weren't there, we don't know whether it was boxed out of sight, whether the seller took extra stock from below the table, whether it was busy and her line of sight was broken, or even if she just... looked away for a moment.Trying to pick out inconsistencies from a scenario neither of us was present for is a waste of time. But I can logically assume that after she had committed to pay, not thinking there was anything odd about the mug, she was probably not staring at it intently as the seller was wrapping it, and the seller probably didn't hold it up and show it off by every angle since, again, she'd already committed to buying it. People aren't all that observant, the mind makes up and fills in the missing pieces.
I just love that the arts and crafts communities have drama about "only" minor misunderstandings, miscommunications and like sometimes shady business practices and honestly also sometimes inconsequential lies, as opposed to like other communities with NFTs, people losing their entire savings, legal allegations, threats etc etc. This community is my happy place.
I mean, there definitely have been things like sexual assault and harassment within certain communities and businesses. (I can’t think of two yarn companies…) But it is nice that most drama is not actually sad.
I am currently studying to become a sculpture master and let me tell you, that price is kinda fair. Its like placing a price to a hand knitted garment to be sold at minimum wage per hour, while also making at min 10% gain. When I started my sculpting career I thought well clay is cheap, recyclable and not that expensive. Of course clay might not be expensive, but we have to consider clay consistency, a lot of trial and errors in the kiln, because maybe the high temperature on the kiln afffects some of the pieces even though you used the same process and others are not affected. Even the paint and glazing you use can affect things. The kiln is a huge oven with a certain amount of space that uses high heat to make the cups how they look at the end, many ceramist, do not own their own because they take a lot of space, and the electricity consumption on those things is rough to pay. So when someone is doing a collection, a lot of trial, error, experimenting, broken cups, electric bills, paying employees, advertisement, paying for a booth, the hours you spent making each piece, then painting them, and then market them to be sold, plus adding a small percentage of gain for yourself, it adds up and then rinse and repeat. I am also a knitter, spinner, crocheter, and weaver, and I also understand why someone will not make a small boutique of hand knitted garments because we all know that it takes time, yarn is not cheap, and not many of the customers would be willing to pay 800 bucks for a hand knitted sweater when they can get either some from a brand for that price, and/or cheaper in a fast fashion industry. I think the question is, how to price hand made stuff at a reasonable price, to be also able to have a living?
I appreciated that you argued both sides and showed both of their points of view. This is how disagreements occur in SO many human relationships/interactions. Each side is convinced of their perspective, but maybe both were right, because we experience and remember things differently. Same thing with the mug - like you said, one person would never spend $125 on a mug, while another person might find it absolutely worth it. Perspective is everything.
Soph's video was basically a review. So to me it’s the same thing as an author going around personally calling out reviewers. NOT EVERYONE IS GONNA LIKE WHAT YOU MADE. Yes soph was insensitive about the handles, there's no denying that, but she still has the right to feel some way about the pricing. I'd even go as far as to say, if she had said the piece is not worth the price, she's well within her rights to say so. What's even more annoying to me is that NO ONE KNEW WHO SOPH WAS TALKING ABOUT. There’s a timeline where this interaction was never made public and I’d like to go there.
I’ve seen this argument equating it to reader reviews but it is NOT the same thing. Books cannot be gauged simply by look, so reviews are there for other potential readers to determine if they want to spend the time energy and money on the book. This is an item you can clearly determine what it is by looking at it. If it was a review based on quality (it broke easily etc) that would be different. But her critiques are on things she could very clearly see/determine upon just looking at it.
@@caidelehanty-rm2pm does it matter though? What I mean by asking is that, she is (in my opinion) giving her "review" on the art itself so does it really need to be about quality for it to be considered a review ? (I'm genuinely asking, just so you know so it doesn't come across as condescending). Because my perception is, she did a haul and after purchase realize it's not for her. Thank you for responding by the way!
@@IckyNikky19 that's understandable though, she works hard for her business and art. If someone puts in so much thought and effort into something and then a person goes 'I can't see anyone using it, who's this for', they're bound to feel hurt.
Bougie disabled babes only 😮 Couldn’t afford that shit so I guess it’s for influencer prices? The combined things of this mug make it feel like it’s almost for like? One specific mystery person 😂
@@emmainthemomentcompletely understand that but that’s equivalent to about $80 USD which seems reasonable to me for a handmade ceramic item- i think anyone looking to purchase an item at that price point can prob afford it, otherwise they’d look to cheaper, mass produced items
125 Australian dollars. Around 80 USD. Between the skills for molding and hand-glazing designs, the costs and time of handmaking ceramics, and the high demand for her work because she’s an influencer, it’s high but not ridiculously so. Handmade ceramics are expensive, they’re not for everyone
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I’m team “this sounds like a very human interaction and it did not need to be a public drama.”
Influencers make their living off drama, it's why I'm not on tiktok
@@belindaroadleygood for you ig
Right like why do we need to see you guys making vids. Like just text eachother if you felt something was wrong!!!! Or talk to someone IRL about it, not publicly blegh about it.
You mean it didn't need any swearing on anyone's LLYYYYFFFF.
As an Australian I laughed so hard
Exactly, what the heck even is this BS about Team Soph Team Shelby? This is not a sport competition. This is a slight dispute between two people that can easily be resolved privately in 10 minutes.
The best outcome of this drama is that it made me realize the $50 handmade ceramic Opossum mug I’ve had my eye on for a year is totally worth it and bought it.
Is it shaped like an opossum or does it have an opossum on it 😯
@@Musicanimedork01 i also wanna know
I also have to know if the mug is opossum shaped or not. I don't know why, but please, PLEASE, I just need to know.
Please answer the previous comments, its a matter of life and death
WE NEED THE LINK TO BUY ONE TOO!!
“I didn’t even notice that it has two handles” no wonder she didn’t notice the price.
I thought the same thing 😅
Right??? Who is THAT oblivious? It's not like it was a secret, hidden handle that magically appeared after she bought it!
It sounded like it was standing on a shelf far away and she had no time to look at it closely due to the crowd of people in line. Depending on how the mug was standing, there's a chance to only see one handle.
@@LaNoir. Except for the fact that she literally had to pick it up off that shelf and bring it to the register and pay. She knew damn well it had two handles, and if she didn't she's the moron.
@@LaNoir. Exactly and if it is facing a certain way you wont notice or asume it hs 2
the only thing that bothers me is “it has 2 handles i cant even gift it to anyone” like… someone who doesnt need two handles CAN still use it lmao
Right? And the symmetrical design might be aesthetically appealing to someone regardless of whether they usually use two handled mugs or not
Right? Not to mention mugs don't have to be used as mugs. I use one for pens lol
I think how she talks about is what does bother me a lot, partly as she still couldn’t have just stepped up and said “Nevermind, no.” before going to act like is was their fault for her continuing to get the two handled mug. Treating it both like it’s a children’s cup and that no one would like or use a two handled mug even if not disabled just feels condescending to the design she still bought guilt or not.
@@bunji_beans a 125$ pen holder?
@@annie-tz9jy they're really nice pens! Lol nah, it was just an example
Just chiming into this as a potter myself, what Shelby does is called slip casting. From the outside looking in, it does look extremely simple but there a lot of factors that you have to consider when casting in slip. The consistency of the slip, acquiring/making molds, drying time to calculate thickness, trimming and cleaning, full drying time, glazing and multiple firings. So I can see why people who are not potters or who have never done pottery/ceramics don’t understand this price. You have to calculate cost of materials (slip, tools, plaster for molds, glaze, kiln upkeep), time spent making & glazing, electricity bill for kiln and kiln maintenance supplies. Every single one of those things goes into every single piece of what we make, so honestly if someone who does ceramics full time wants to make a live-able wage these prices are reasonable. I personally under charge for my pieces because pottery is a hobby for me. Me personally, I think there’s no “sides” in this, Shelby’s audience understands and likes her work and Soph’s audience likes her and understand her business. A misunderstanding between two people should be kept between those two people in my opinion 🤷🏻♂️ I have followed Shelby for almost two years now and I love her work, never heard of Soph but I’m sure she’s lovely and is passionate about her business as well. I’m of the opinion that if you think something is not worth the price then don’t buy it.
As an amateur who has taken a couple ceramics classes I can confirm-slip casting is hard. I tried 4 times and only one of those times came out ok.
Shelby makes it look easy but that’s how you know she’s good at it.
For me, Shelby is 1000% in the wrong. Customers are allowed to discuss what they purchase. She can charge whatever she likes, but soph can also post a video about her experience. Soph didn’t even mention the business are Shelby. No one knew who/what soph was talking about. Soph didn’t even bash Shelby, she just said she was shocked by the price and Shelby was condescending. I genuinely think that is so strange.
@eamcbmsc well, while you have the right to criticize things you purchased if it was of poor quality, you shouldn't take it out on a ceramic artists perfectly good piece just because you had buyers remorse. Soph told Shelby she was going to buy the ceramic piece. It was Sophs own fault for not checking the price or verifying the price. She could have said no to buying it but she purchased it anyways to save face. Soph can not feign ignorance here. It's a bit condescending of Soph to undervalue Shelbys work because it's a "mug". She's valuing that ceramic piece as if it's a mass produced factory mug. It is obviously handmade, hand painted or glazed, and fired in a small batch kiln as with many ceramic pieces in other arts and craft fairs around the world.
@@MundaneParticle According to Shelb she was just surprised at the cost and didn't know what the mug was for. Maybe it's just me but I'd walk away like "yeah makes sense I'd be surprised too but it's probably worth it"
Also coming from someone who enjoys smaller sizes and could probably use the second handle to carry it more comfortably
I think the best clue we have is that Soph clearly wasn't paying much attention. In her original video, she said that she didn't notice the price or the fact that the mug obviously has two handles, meaning she probably was pretty disingaged. Add to that the fact that Shelby says she talked to her about a lot of stuff (her work, Soph's accomplishments, the prices, "feel free to look around", the Strawberry Collection), yet Soph could barely remember who was running the booth (cites long hair but no other discription), and it paints a picture of mismatched engagement.
Maybe Soph just totally tuned Shelby and her prattle out, and could remember a conversation she didn't care about in the first place, whereas Shelby remembered her VIP visitor with clarity and thought they had an understanding.
Couldn't agree more.. I feel bad for Shelby, she seems genuinely sad and hurt in her video..
Jip. Soph doesn't seem very friendly, nor interested in anything other than herself in the videos I've seen.
@@sabinej.3410that's most influencers it seems.
This was my take too. I don't trust your memory if you didn't even notice how many handles are in the mug in your hand. Not observant. Believable that she didn't notice the price labeled on the item in her handle. Believable that she wouldn't recall details of an interaction.
Yeah. There’s some definite confabulation here and people being more brittle than necessary. I totally understand Shelby’s feelings, but perhaps it wasn’t worth responding to Soph in the first place. Publicly, anyway.
I’ve regretted it every time I did something similar.
i feel like this is another case of people forgetting DMs exist, like why couldn’t shelby and soph talk this out privately so there wasn’t all this confusion
Attention, clicks, public support, idk anymore but it's all ridiculous. We existed just fine without running to TikTok for every little thing people, my god
"Still no tiktok account" crew where you at?
@@dearrationals We are such a minority. Ugh.
@@dearrationalsI have one strictly to watch stuff my best friend sends me. Otherwise I don’t use it at all
Bcs tiktok
I'm Team 'This is a simple misunderstanding that's being instigated by the drama hound Tiktok is by design and its need for there to be a good guy and a villain in every single issue no matter how mundane.' I really don't see any sort of malice from both of them here and I think it's just being overblown.
Yeah, it does seem overblown. It's not that serious. I can understand buyer's remorse though but still.
@@stooglesgoogles7246one of Shelby’s employees has long brown hair, they posted about it on instagram around the time of the market. I think it’s super possible the brown haired girl was the one wrapping the pottery or taking payment at the register so that’s the person Soph remembers while Shelby remembers grabbing the mug for Soph or talking to her at the table? Idk this whole situation does feel like a big misunderstanding that could be settled in the dms
@@stooglesgoogles7246It’s not surprising though. Strawberries have been having a big renaissance right now. Plus it isn’t uncommon for people to copy popular designs they see. I don’t think Steph makes her prints originals or copyrights them either.
I think the clothing girl probably wasn't giving her full attention to the situation. She overlooked mug girl, didn't notice the mug had 2 handes or the price. I accidentally bought an entire box of soy sauce instead of 1 bottle. So I know normally attentive people can make silly mistakes when they're unfocused. There's no villain.
@@stooglesgoogles7246 Maybe Australia is more diverse, but there were like six Soph look-alikes at my high school in the U.S. lol. I was more thinking some vendors have helpers and that could explain how they were at the same booth but Soph interacted with a brunette girl for her transaction.
Regardless, I think Soph and Shelby can be right. The cup is sold at a premium, but at the end of the day, Soph wants to keep it so who cares.
I am glad you point out how Soph did imply it wasnt worth the price. Every other vid i have seen says "she didnt SAY it wasnt worth the price so thats a lie" like nah she def implied it wasnt worth it and made digs at the design.
She does also seem to me more likely to lie (on purpose) than the sensitive small town girl... but then the other side is like recall memory can so often lie to yourself, like the whole, only 30% of your childhood memories are actually real and as you remembered them, crazy right... so...hot day, many people, tik-toker likely filming some of her shoping spree or any number of reasons was zoned while she was being rold about the stuff, and bam, both are telling the truth... sad the internet is all for jumping on and destroying another purely based in hear say...what a world.
Exactly! It bothers me that people don't pick up on what Soph's words imply. Being shocked by the price and seeing it's more expensive than you thought it would be means you valuated the product at a lower price. Meaning, you thought a fair price for that product was lower than the asking price. Meaning, yes, you did indirectly say you believed the mug was not worth that much money.
@@nicky23981 why though? as a influencer this big you have to do something really BAD BAD to be cancelled or loosing a significant amount of followers. She had nothing to gain and almost nothing to loose over this interaction. Shelby on the other hand had a lot of attention to potentially gain. I can also imagine Soph walking around the market feeling like she was some exhibition or something and didn't pay much attention to anything.
@@kristin123a as i said, just my oppinion on the person... first impressions and all, vrs small town girl, they grow up very different... the influencer, no matter what to keep her image will lie to some degree, not because who cares if she lose 1k followers, i bet she does...influencing becomes big about their image, and these days, shits crazy might not just be a few k lost, she could find herself getting cancelled... hell as a kid i remember lieing becausr i didn't want my 2 friends to think bad of me... when there is thousands or more involved, high chance any might lie.
I'm not her fan but she's right. It was too expensive no matter who made it.
Huh, I was at this market, my friend bought something from Shelby, and neither of these stories match up. The prices were definitely all on the bottom, but we weren't asked about packaging, it was just default. It was BUSY and Shelby was not always there so she definitely could have been served by an assistant. That said how do you not notice two handles?
For additional context as well, it was like a 40 degree day which drains you mentally, and quite busy, so I think the heat got to everyone.
In Shelby's defense (because she was definitely exaggerating her customer service in that stitch lol) she did really make an effort to interact with people who recognised her from tiktok or whatever, going as far to throw in a free trinket for us. I think she should have focused on that BC no-one can blame her for not explaining prices to everyone. Literally would have been impossible to do so
@@tea.and.leavesThe reality of it is Shelby is lying about this interaction, full stop.
Good info.
@@asmrtpop2676 I don't know if it was lying lying. And she's possibly not the only one. People are really good at recalling the same event differently. It's not like when politicians or big businesses lie in really serious impactful ways. It's just a bit unsatisfactory. Meh.
@@asmrtpop2676 I mean, if Soph saw the price at checkout, she doesn't have to pay. She chose to pay. It's understandable if it's too expensive and she could've checked the price of other things if she still wanted to support Shelby but didn't want to pay that much
I don't really have an opinion on the drama, I think you're probably right about just needing to relax. As far as the pricing goes, my mom's a ceramist and I've seen plenty of handmade mugs priced around that same price point. Hand painting the designs on these is a big time outlay plus all the training that's gotten her to this point. As far as using molds goes, I don't know anything about this particular artist, but my mom has always made her own molds and I'm sure a lot of ceramicists do as well, so it's still not comparable to a mass market product. A lot of skill's in the pouring of the mold and having the right consistency, too. I think it's probably just a lot more complicated than people unfamiliar with pottery would think.
Yeah I’ve done pottery before, it’s a bit insane, it’s incredibly hard and glazing is difficult to do! It’s hard and it deserves the price that it’s put at by the artist.
Yeah, I don't truly care about the drama here, but I have been very annoyed by some responses that her mug wasn't hand crafted bc it was from a mold. She didn't throw the mug by hand but it was most certainly a hand-crafted item.
I’ve been following Shelby for a while, from what I know, I don’t think she makes her own molds. She blew up on TikTok because she bought a huge lot of molds off an ebay-type site and was discovering what they were with viewers, then painting and selling them if they were good
i checked her price and i was like 130 DOLLARS?! but then remember it's australian dollar lmao. i think she's charging properly for being a big name social media potter.
@@mial6076 no, she makes at least some of her molds, she has a tutorial on her channel on mold making
How in the world do you a) buy an item without asking the price before the point of purchase and b) not see the mug has two handles? Price is meaningless
You would be surprised by how many people don't pay attention and get to the register, they are then told the total and go "whaaat?" Even with price stickers on the front or with multiple signs showing prices for different categories. I've had people both accept the cost and go ahead with purchasing, and people who decide actually they don't want to spend that much and either cancel the sale or return one or more items. Hell it even happens with online purchases where the price is literally right in front of you.
True! The price is one thing if you've got the money, but like... you didn't notice it has two handles??? That's on her for sure, sounds like she was being super careless and doesn't really have room to complain, IMO.
@@sullendragon8900 what’s even funnier is the “i cant gift this to anyone because it had two handles!!”. i fully thought i was going mental watching her video because i really don’t see how it’s that big of a deal? people who don’t need two handles can still drink with this mug???
Exactly! I can maybe accept the buyer overlooking the cost if she bought many items & didn't notice the price at checkout, but not noticing the mug had 2 handles shows how negligent a shopper she is. She has absolutely no right to complain about any aspect of her purchase, sure seems to be a bit of a drama queen. It was in person, she actually held it in her hands, hard not to notice 2 handles. Makes me wonder if this 'influencer' was under the influence of something & not in her right mind at the time of purchase.
@@AniMerDol Only she didn't hold it in her hands. The mug was on a shelf behind the counter (2nd handle hidden from view), she pointed to the mug and asked for it. She never seen the handle because the way the mug was angled on the shelf.
hot take I don’t think anyone can be team a or team b because they’re just describing two entirely different events. It’s not seeing two sides of one story, it’s hearing two different stories where one person has to be lying
Edit : I see a lot of ppl saying they could skewing their memories, but their experiences simply don’t line up at all. The influencer girl says she literally never even saw the other lady. So did the business owner false memory herself into thinking she had a whole conversation w/ a million+ follower recognizable influencer she remembered from even a month later? Or did the influencer's brain come up with this long haired brunette lady from the ether? Idk it just feels like a stretch to believe either of them at face value.
I still can’t believe someone would hold a mug long enough to purchase it but somehow not notice it having two handles, an extremely obvious design trait.
I assume they are both lying about something.
@@sarahwbsyeah to me personally both sides of the story seem fairly biased to make themselves look better. And no one is ever gonna know the true story
I don't think that either is lying, the human memory is not very reliable especially since both have clouded judgment since Soph was annoyed at the price and Shelby felt like her work was being insulted, that can really impact how you remember things, though I do think that Soph's memory would probably be more reliable since she made the video not long after it and also, if Shelby was working a full day, she could have blended multiple customers into one in her memory. Neither has anything to gain by lying, it would have been smarter for them both just to say nothing but they both got defensive about their buisness and characters and so it's really understandable how they both reacted
@@aderynamos1866 bro when someone remebers a full ass convo with a tiktok microcelebrity and the other is denying ever interacting someone HAS to be lying. It's not just a small difference in accounts
I was wondering if maybe the mug had gotten moved to another store or something, and someone sold it who didn't have the right to? Idk, that's my best "assume positive intent" take on this.
One thing that really annoyed me was all the other potters/ceramist making TikToks about their own mugs being like oh I make mugs and mine are only $50/60 but their price in their currency converted to AUD is often roughly the same price as the strawberry mug anyway 🥴
It's so mildly infuriating when people just forget that us currency isn't the end all be all. Like when you convert it to usd they're very standard prices for handmade mugs
I've also seen people realize that they take way too little for their work when you break it down to how much per hour they're earning, their skill level and also just cost of materials and stuff like that.
Hand made stuff is expensive because it's one person working on it for hours but also learning this craft for years.
@@AverageSeaMonster Idk if the original commenter was talking about USD, but like Emma pointed out in the video, $80 USD for a handmade mug is still very high
@@MY-ho7mt I've seen a lot of handmade ceramics, and bought a few myself. Is on a bit on the higher end? Maybe. But 80$ isn't some crazy unheard of price point for a handmade mug
@@MY-ho7mt$80 would be a lot of the mug was completely plain; the strawberry design is hand-glazed which adds a LOT of time to the work.
"The mug is expensive" -objective, true.
The mug is too expensive" -subjective, not necessarily true.
Even the first statement is objective!
Expensive, from the point of view of you or me? Or relative to a standard Two-Dollar-Shop ceramic mug? Yeah!
Expensive from the point of view of a billionaire who'll pay thousands of dollars for a random decoration on a whim? Or relative to a one-of-a-kind ceramic piece in an uber-trendy designer boutique shop? Not so much!
"Expensive" really is relative.
I saw a tiktok recently made by someone who went wandering around one of those fancy designer boutique furniture shops. They said that they saw a random stick lying on a table.
It was about the size of a stick you might pick up while walking around a park or along a nature trail to use as a walking stick, so at first they assumed it had been left there by a customer. Then they noticed the little price tag attached. Curious about how much a stick was being sold for, they flipped the tag over.
$250. For a _decorative stick_ .
There was absolutely nothing special about it - it was exactly like any other stick, and hadn't been processed or modified in any way.
So to someone who'll shell out $250 for a bleeping decorative stick, that's hardly expensive, lol.
These people live in a different world, man.
@@cyphermage6112no it’s not, weirdo
Minimum wage in the US is 7.25 😂
It’s an expensive ass mug
@@TheBiggestMoronYouKnowand guess what? You don't have to buy it.
Someone once explained to me how she tries to make distinction between 'it costs a lot' (meaning its a lot for me but it's worth it) vs 'its expensive' (meaning its overpriced). Ofcourse it's still very subjective but changing my way to think about it like that helps me to take in consideration other values besides monetary values! Like something can cost a lot but its hand made and ethical and sustainable and i will use it a ton, so its worth it for me. While for example luxury brands are expensive to me because the added values don't compensate for the price.
Bahaha!
Finders Keepers is also an expensive market have a stall at ($1000-$4000 depending on your stall size) so having to recoup those costs means a lot of the items at them are expensive!
Handmade items are just expensive anyways. I wanted some homemade ramen bowls and I saw that price and was like, "damn, I shouldn't have given up ceramics.😂"
@@ChickadeeTwee it's perfectly fine that shelby prices get items however she wants, what's not okay is playing the victim when someone says buying your item was a bad decision for them.
@@camiloustau2942 I still think it's understandable to get pissed off by someone publicly complaining, and shitting on the product, because of what sounds like a case of buyer's remorse.
@@camiloustau2942 She is blaming someone else for her stupidity. It was on her to not look for the price before she agreed to pay for it. It's on her to see the product, check it over before she pays for it. It's on her to say no thank you after she knows the price. If someone was blasting my handmade goods online II would do the same and defend myself regardless of if you have named me or not. If you spends days making something, it's no different to someone coming up and telling you your child is ugly. You produced that, with all the love and care you have.
@@camiloustau2942 oh 100% - I was just adding some more context for people about this market
Opinion from an Australian: They're both in the wrong and inclined to lie.
Soph has a very specific set of behaviours distinct to the 'Sydney private all girls school bully' brand of Australian (see "J'amie Private School Girl" for a pretty accurate parody) and Shelby has a very specific set of behaviours distinct to the 'therapy speak, "I'm so nice why would anyone be mean to me", outer suburbs artist' brand of Australian (yet to be documented in media).
The truth is somewhere in the middle. I think Shelby did talk to Soph, but in a way that annoyed her. So Soph recalled the experience poorly even though Shelby thought she was being nice, which then upset Shelby and set off a revolving cycle of Soph being annoyed by Shelby and Shelby being upset by Soph and responding in the therapy speak that annoys Soph, which Soph then responds to negatively and starts off the cycle again.
It has nothing to do with the mug.
Yep, I am only part way through the video and was just thinking that these two types of people do not mix well. I moved away from Aus years ago but can totally see this. I have a soft spot for Shelby because I went through that phase, and was mercilessly bullied by Soph types. I hope she can get genuinely good anxiety support. Ppl like Soph tend to do just fine because they conform to society more easily.
yes i agree, you need aussie knowledge to understand
Another Australian here: you’re 110% correct in everything you just said
yeah I totally get what you mean. it’s definitely weird to have this kind of cultural insight to a situation and the majority of ppl who care about it just don’t see the nuance. I don’t care who’s ‘in the right’ but seeing all the ppl who look like they would have blindly bullied someone like shelby in high school, if that was the popular thing to do, dogpile on her to agree with the beach blond tanned rich girl, made me feel like we’re all back in senior school.
Even as an American, I definitely got that vibe
I have been watching Shelby’s videos for two years now. She works really hard on her ceramic pieces. It takes her hours and hours to pour the pieces, fire them, paint each design three times to get the bright colors and glaze fire them again. She is also very genuine person and I don’t think she would lie about something like this. One other relevant point in my opinion she sold everything in her stall in that market. People stood in line for hours to buy her pieces. So, if Soph didn’t buy it, someone else would have bought it and loved it. So, Shelby didn’t need to lie to defend her pricing or her art.
It's a weird point for Soph to make it out the Shelby was using her for views, when Shelby has almost double her tiktok follows. Who is using who in this?
I've followed Shelby for a couple of years now, and she's honestly not all that thick-skinned, and seems to take a lot of things to heart. I also think that influencers complaining about people "using [their] name" for things is so tiresome, and the influencer not understanding how much handmade things cost is ridiculous at this point.
I unfollowed her months ago for that reason... I actually find her kind of insufferable 😂 I think Shelby didn't even meet Soph, and either thought she was someone else, or made it up. Soph didn't tag her or name her, this didn't need to go like this but Shelby got a bee in her bonnet. (Also people seem to forget Shelby has over a million more followers than Soph....)
shelby is insufferable. gonna go follow Soph cus she doesn't seem like an asshole like Shelby.
As someone who does pottery, no this mug is not worth so much, bakers aldo hand made their pieces but you don't pay 100+ for a croissant, that does need days to rest. If you are skilled and know what you are doing the mug takes 20 minutes of actual labour, all the other is resting time, for the clay to set and then to bake it.
@@elifarabac4110 it's made from a mold, but it's small batch, which I think ups the value. She can only make as many as can fit in her home kiln. Tbh I would never sell anything every 6 months that I couldn't take shortcuts in making whatsoever. If we're lucky, we're looking at a week per mug if we're sculpting things.
@@elifarabac4110 The technique alone doesn't make it any less handmade, since it's still a small handpainted batch and for all we know the mug that the later casts copy was made by the person. There's just so many techniques you can use for a certain result - and a lot of them were adapted for "mass production" long before the industrial age.
I feel like we must acknowledge that 125 Australian dollars is 80 USD.
Converting doesn't matter because it happened in Australia, both the people involved are Australian and the cost of living in Australia is different than in America. Economic reality is different in both countries so saying "it's just x on this currency" is useless
@@deebrandao5679I think OP’s point is that a lot of Americans will be watching this and may not understand what the actual cost of the mug is to them. Of course the cost of living and everything will affect the pricing, but it’s crucial to have an understanding of the og price when converted. Mainly because I’ve seen a lot of Americans say “$125?? That’s insane!” Without realising it’s a separate currency.
@@ghoultooth Yes exactly.
Which is a completely normal price for handmade ceramic mugs.
That’s about £70 in gbp and that’s ridiculous.
"why would i lie about this?"
Because Lifestyle influencers in particular love to lie to generate interaction and start drama.
Yet Shelby was the one who started the drama
The thing I find most confusing about this drama: how do you buy a mug without noticing it has two handles?
Agree
Yeah I'm stuck on that! How do you even miss something like that?!
Yeah, it makes me question her version of the interaction as she clearly wasn't paying very much attention..
It depends but since soph mentioned there was like a line and stuff I wouldn’t be surprised if the mug was placed at a certain angle to where she couldn’t see it probably by a customer and since the booth was crowded, the booth runners probably didn’t have time to fix the mugs, it’s happened before
Tiktok influencer spending too much time staring at her phone or talking with admirers, probably. 🙄
Made with mud (the video you used to describe dignity mugs) is my mum! Love your channel ❤️❤️😭
Bet you had a shock seeing me pop up there! 😳🥰
This is the cutest comment ever :)
Schweet! I now have mad respect for the art and design of a dignity mug.
OMG !
All my love goes out to both of you ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you so much ! That's so sweet
Sippy cups mugs for the win
Thank you to your mom for helping us being comfortable with our mugs ❤️🥰
@@MadeWithMudI was surprised your channel isnt bigger! I'm totally subscribing.
I had to share this story.. I was on a staff trip with my whole brewery crew in January. Two of my coworkers are a couple and she was still pregnant at the time. They were killing some time walking around the adorable town center we were in. They went into a small pottery shop highlighting local clay artists. She absolutely fell in love with a beautiful sunflower mug, but it was $70 so she told her partner no way as they were about to have a baby, so they left. She told us all about it when we all regrouped at our Airbnb, clearly smitten with this mug. Her partner left a bit later saying he was going to the grocery store to grab some stuff for dinner. He came back with her beautiful sunflower mug. She cried. She’ll remember that mug as a memento of her pregnancy and the start of their new family. If it is an item that speaks to your heart, it’s worth it.
I am a ceramicist, that's a pretty reasonable price like it's on the higher end, but it's very detailed and it's obviously a huge amount of work has gone into it. It's been slip casted, so it's been through multiple versions, she's made the mould (which takes ages) and it's hand painted.
Ceramics takes absoluty ages and you need to know what you are doing. It can harm you if you do it wrong, you need to be incredibly highly skilled at every stage to make something well in Ceramics
Exactly this. Pay artists their worth!
Also a potter! I think Shelby is using pre-made molds, not making her own, which I do think changes the story a tiny bit. But agree with the rest of what you said
@@jubi0622 can’t speak for this exact mold, but she does a combination of pre made and her own molds. I believe her tiktok initially took off from her making ‘mystery molds’ of ones she found at garage sales but I could be misremembering 😅
@@jubi0622 is it still a custom mould though? Still would have taken a long time to perfect. Also, slip casting moulds wear out. You only get about 50 or so casts out of them before they start to deteriorate, and so if you are making a lot of them you need multiple moulds.
Again, it's on the higher side, but she likely has assistants and given her popularity status it's still reasonable. Half of ceramic pricing is knowing what you are worth in any case. I throw, turn, handle, sgraffito/decorate, and glaze my own mugs, which I sell for about £20. I'm under charging by a huge amount, but I don't reliably sell mugs all the time.
I'm a seamstress/fiber/embroidery stuff and you *know* when the leaves turn colors and the chill enters the air and the tooting horns of the RenFaire and Halloween start going off in people's heads...I have like 20 brand spanking new besties who all want garments. I only see for free for three people - my neices (you can have whatever ya like bebe's) and an SCA longarm fighting goddess - when she asked initially years ago about me making a garment for her, the first thing she asked was "Hey I'm curious about your rate for making _____"
My rate just went from it's 45 an hour tooooo...min wage. Because in *25 years* she's the only person to ask. Now I do it because she's fucking amazing to work with and has the best ideas.
honestly i wouldn't be surprised if shelby did serve soph and mentioned that prices were on the bottom but soph didn't hear her so missed it. it's a busy market, things are loud and overstimulating. And, cause it happened 2 months ago, there's a good chance soph just doesn't remember what the person serving her looked like very well. i severely doubt anyone is bold face lying. it seems like things just got lost in translation and blew way out of proportion.
I would be shocked beyond belief if she remembered it a month after the video was made.
Exactly
i’m positive shelby is lying
Also, Shelby has darker roots, so maybe her hair was up, or pushed back, and Soph didn't paid much attention, so she remembers the lady having darker hair. I mean, she bough a mug with two handles and didn't realize it had two handles
@@asmrtpop2676with zero evidence 😂
Soph's video was so casual and flippant and she didn't even name-drop the shop so I don't think it needed this airing out months later.
But she didn't NEED to make the first video. It's that simple.
@@jessigirlrae1688 the overall first video was just her showing off stuff she bought around xmas
@jessigirlrae1688 you can apply this logic to Shelby's response as well? Sophie didn't mention Shelby by name or by business and nobody recognised Shelby's work in Soph's video until Shelby decided to respond to it lol
Also Finders Keepers is $1000+ for a stall (even for first timers), which more than likely factored into the price of the mug itself, too.
the mug is 130$ online. the stall price has absolutely nothing to do with it.
@@camiloustau2942 Sellers generally don't change their prices based on where the art is sold. That's actually something artists are taught not to do (or at least I've seen warnings about it multiple times). If people think they can get your stuff cheaper online then they won't buy in person, defeating the point of setting up a booth.
@@camiloustau2942 tbh I hadn’t looked online.
@@camiloustau2942 she has to factor booth costs for all the shows she goes to into her pricing along with all her other overhead
@@camiloustau2942In AUD. Pricing in Australia and cost of living and such, is much different than other places.
Okay, sorry for two comments, but I am SO glad you think "if it's made with your hands, it's handmade". I see making pottery with molds as akin to making knitted garments with a hand-cranked machine (yes, even if you use a drill attachment to make it run faster). People who aren't artisans themselves are so quick to dismiss the skills needed to use these tools appropriately and get good products out of them, and it just shows a lack of understanding of the craft.
Also making plaster molds yourself is truly a full art form in itself. I know this isn’t the case for Shelby, but most potters I know who slip cast make their own molds. Really wish people understood the amount of artistry that can exist in that process!
@@jubi0622Shelby does make her own moulds for her original designs like the Australian animal pots, but the vintage mould video series is also a big part of why her business has been able to grow. And every piece is hand decorated, so it’s the equivalent of a machine-knitted sweater with hand embroidered details - there is expertise to both components, and unquestionable artistry in the latter part of the process, so reasonable people should understand that it’s going to be sold at artisan rather than industrial prices.
Same here. I knit using circular knitting machines and I get SO tired of all the “Well, it’s not handmade” comments. I still have to use my hands to turn the machine, cast on and off, and assemble the dang thing. Not to mention all the Row Math I’ve had to do to perfect my own beanie and plushie patterns. I think it’s plenty handmade, thank you.
I’m a painter who’s been doing art since I could hold a pencil. I’ve tried painting simple designs on pottery, and even with professionals guiding me, the medium and materials are so unfamiliar to me that it never turns out half as well as shelby’s stuff. I think it’s easy to look at the strawberry cup and think “oh she just took five seconds to paint a strawberry a child can do that”, but I personally find painting ceramics to be really difficult, especially if you want to make each strawberry look similar. So yeah, even if you don’t consider her stuff handmade because it isn’t thrown (which I also disagree with), I think just her designing and painting them is enough to qualify them as homemade.
Sure, except she charges more than actual professional potters who hand throw every piece.
I'm team "we need more people to make art as a hobby so that they understand why it costs so much to buy art". If you look at something and go "ugh it's expensive and I can make it myself", go ahead! The world needs more artists :)
This is how I got into resin dice making! I saw these beautiful sets of handmade dice going for $100+ AUD, and thought "nah I can make them cheaper". Now I have tons of pretty dice and would ABSOLUTELY charge over $100 to sell any of them for the trouble they're worth 😂
Idk how people can call that mug a rip off but justify a Stanely cup price. Thats a $45 factory made cup, while heres is hand painted with a way more limited supply vs demand
I don't those two are the same kind of people, never heard anyone saying Stanley cup price is logical priced.
@@anna.owo.I, unfortunately, have. I’ve heard a lot of people saying “Oh, but it’s worth the price because it does what it says!” No one wants to believe they’re being played.
Well to be fair, 45$ for a cup that has a lid and a straw, holds 40oz of drink and keeps it cold for over 24 hours has more features than a "hand painted ceramic mug" that holds 8 ounces and probably isn't dishwasher safe, since it is hand made and all. If the mug was $45 I wouldn't bat an eye. But just because someone spends a lot of time doing something doesn't automatically mean it's worth a million dollars.
Also, no I do not own a Stanley, I'm not a Stanley girl, but I do enjoy a cold beverage and I previously worked 12 hour shifts and insulated bottles are the bomb for keeping my drink cold all shift, vs a tiny little tea cup that wouldn't last me an hour for hydration.
You can drop a Stanley and it won’t shatter. This is coming from someone that doesn’t own one and is still using a Hydro Flask
If I had to guess, I don't think either of them are lying. One thing I've noticed is that people are a little bit more faceblind than they think they are. I fully believe Shelby had that interaction she described but with some other generic blonde woman that she confused for Soph.
i think since she knew who Sophie was its more likely Sophie forgot Shelby and was like ‘i swear ive never seen her’ if yu get me. plus she remembers selling the specific cup
People’s memories are not as good as they think they are (which is why eyewitness testimony in court is actually super unreliable). I think it’s completely possible they both just remember the encounter different, or like you said, they’re mixing up the other person with someone else
@@neonradius And it was probably really busy, further affecting the way they remember.
Yeah ive definitely been in a similar situation. I think one of them is just confused, but neither are lying
i think that's rather hard to be a possibility. Why would she confuse a random blonde woman with a tiktok microcelebrity that just so happened to buy her mug. If anything soph may have confused haircolour
I agree with you generally - this is mostly nobody's fault and has been blown out of proportion. One thing I would note is that most of the mugs you looked up for comparison were not hand-painted. I've watched Shelby for a while now and the designs she paints on her work take AGES. Each spot of colour takes two coats of underglaze to get full saturation, and you can see that there's a lot of detail. So I would guess that's one reason why her mugs are so much more than the plain glazed ones from other makers.
came to the comments to say this
I’m team ‘I’m totally over TikTok influencers’
Same
💯💯
Ditto.
I’m on your team!
Yes!
I think a few things are throwing (ha!) everyone for a loop. 1) This interaction happened 3 months ago! Neither of them will recall things correctly 2) Shelby has her own studio and Australia has some of the highest electricity/fuel prices in the world. The prices will be higher because it costs so much more to fire. 3) Shelby has stated that she sells out in these markets. Could that have put pressure on the buyers? Yes. Could that have made everyone's memories a blur? Also, yes.
Exactly!
It won't cost that much more to fire though, let's be honest. Even if it's $10 extra per cup, and it does not, that should push it up $10 above what's reasonable, not $50.
I like that it's a dignity cup, but why overprice an accessibility item so badly?
@@TheGrinningVikingmost handmade ceramics cost this much, it's not just the materials but the skill and time put into them. If she charged half the price she usually does then she'd have to make double just to make the same amount as before, which might literally be impossible and her bills might not get paid.
@@TheGrinningVikingmaking a single ceramic mug with a mold and premade glazes will STILL take a few days to complete. What we're not gonna do is tell artists they can't charge whatever they want. If ur in the pottery community, $60 is average for a handmade mug
Edit rant: no matter what you do in pottery in takes a lot of physical and mental effort. You still need to a scientist, artist, content creator and sales person. Most full-time potters like her also buy materials in bulk at 500-1000lbs at a time so you need some way to move it and somewhere to store it. There are a dozen other things I could mention to justify to price of pottery. But as an artist I any price is reasonable if people are willing to pay for it.
But she uses a mold. As a professional ceramist myself. No thanks that's not unique enough to be over 50 USD. Sorry people just don't understand what the process is but she's overcharging a lot. Flowers and strawberry fruits etc are design 101. Try joining a pottery class you'll see. That's the second thing we'll teach you.😊 So imo it's not over 50 USD. This exact cup . I don't know or are bothered about other things she made or personally am saying anything against her. Please get that clear because many of you take it as a personal insult if someone criticizes something they're aware of. I am an artist and this is my professional opinion . Yours can differ. Thanks.
Shelby's pieces are seen as collectors items by people who follow her channel and love her work. There's a reason why she sells out at craft markets.
The fact that the influencer didnt even look at the mug long enough to notice there were two handles shows how much respect she has for hand made art and craft.
I still don’t understand why anyone bothers with influencers. If they need someone else to tell them what to like, they should be figuring out why they don’t have a personality of their own.
u guys are so fucking annoying. influencers are ppl too what makes u think u have the right to treat them like they dont have a personality unlike ur ugly one??? @@DJFPhantomPhan
I definitely have the biased view she was there because it was trendy and wouldn't have bothered otherwise.
The thing that confused me is why Shelby chose to bring this up months after the initial video was posted. And the video didn't actually name her or her business. So it was already a nonissue before she decided to respond and make it an issue.
I wonder if she just didn’t come across Soph’s video until months later.
@@ysodora8030 That's likely! But I still don't get why she didn't realize the other person never mentioned her business by name and then just not say anything. Businesses get way harsher reviews than that all the time and if they just don't respond, it blows over. I get being defensive. It's her art, after all, but it had already faded away with not even a blip when she responded and blew it up into a huge thing.
@@PizzaPartyTime I don't know whether it was planned or not but having it blow up into a huge thing rather than just go under the radar is probably a good thing for her business. As you say, it's not like the review is saying she uses lead based paint or child workers which would put her out of business. It's basically says "It's pretty but expensive" which her target market would expect it to be. It's basically free advertising and getting her name out to people who would never have heard of her business otherwise.
Anyone familiar with Shelby's work would instantly recognize that mug. It's from her Strawberry collection. I knew it was hers the moment I saw it. "I'm not naming names" as she holds up a perfectly recogniable piece of artwork from a person with a massive following isn't as anonymous as people seem to think.
@@PalitatoExactly. Not to mention Shelby has a large following so people WOULD recognise her artwork.
I’ve been watching Shelby passively for quiet some time. Some extra information that didn’t get touched on: Shelby sells out often, that’s also contributing to her prices, she talked about that briefly last year on adjusting the prices. Also casting in molds is a learned skill, it also takes up a ton of time and she still is hand painting them.
Yeah!! Ive watched her mystery moulds seiries, and she is clearly is a master of her craft, plus this is AUD not USD ive not done the conversion but aus is gonna be significantly cheaper
Esp when 99% of the stuff she makes is "hollow", requiring the cast to dry a specific amount of time for a specific thickness and consistency. And pieces can crack and warp all the time
@@sleepwalking3345It’s roughly $80 USD
As someone who hand paints pottery, it takes HOURS to do what Shelby does. She is creating art on those mugs. The majority of the mugs you showed as comparable are wheel thrown or hand-built, but they are also mostly dip glazed or have underglaze transfers, that takes SIGNIFICANTLY less time to do than hand painting designs on every mug. The time spent on a handmade product factors into the cost. I expect to by twice as much for a hand painted mug than I would a dip glazed mug. I don't have anything to say on who is right or wrong because honestly I don't care, but I wanted to add some color to why hand-painted ceramics are often more expensive than something you might consider comparable if you don't know how long it takes to make each item.
She doesn't hand paint them
She uses screens
I think lying is the wrong word. Soph sounds like she’d waited in line for a while and Shelby was just another vendor to her. So when Shelby was excited and yammering on Soph went full peanuts teacher mode and registered nothing right down to Shelby’s appearance.
Shelby on the other hand was so hyped and gushing she didn’t realise Soph was checked out of the conversation until checkout.
Both of them are accurately detailing their subjective experiences but what is happening and how much you notice changes.
This!!! ^^^^ I feel like in memory based drama people rush too quickly into "who's lying" without thinking about how complicated and weird memory can be!
oh, I thought she was just trying to get a content quota for every item that she bought, but this makes sense too.
In the book world there is a concept that books belong to their readers, not to the authors. Most authors don't read their reviews on places like goodreads and certainly dont respond to them. I think the tiktok world would benefit from this. I get that part of the small business hustle is constantly putting yourself out there and selling yourself/products, but not everything needs to be responded to because not everything is for you. It's a hard lesson to learn but I think its important.
real
Yessss. It's not a big deal if one person doesn't like a product. That's one person. It's just their opinion. It doesn't need to be personal.
yeah! especially when the business name was never mentioned in the “review” tiktok. It wasn’t like everyone who saw that TikTok would get a negative impression of Shelby’s business because they’re unlikely to know it’s hers. Even jsut a dm
@@lieeeleeee it was bought at a localized craft market that people knew she had visited. That's like saying you didn't mention the author but you heavily quote the first page of thier book when talking about them
@@BarefootCMNo, it isn't. You can't google "fuckin mug with flowers and berries" and get hers straight up because unless you were actually there, know who was exhibiting or are a big ceramics fan no one knows who tf you are talking about. If someone read out the first page you could google that shit and find it.
She did not name her and only people in a very specific niche would know and those people might have been able to leave a comment or two on creators video and that is about it.
It is also complaining about the price of a product. If something feels worth the money you paid for it is a very standard part of review.
I hâte how the “small businesses can charge whatever they want” argument is used - YES they can but YES consumers can complain you’re still a BUSINESS
And as a business works, you're supposed to get top dollar for your product..you go out of business if no one buys your product. Being in business means getting profit, not being a philanthropy group. Philanthropy comes after your business is successful.
If you don't like the price, make your own mug.
I’m disabled and have never seen a dignity mug in my life. Love the idea but it’s pretty absurd to accuse someone of ableism for not knowing what it is.
Also ceramic for disabled people is not always the best idea, as it can chip more easily than other materials and not every disabled person has the control to be careful with a ceramic cup. Also 100+$ is absurd for a dignity cup/mug.
thats what I was thinking if someone has a mobility issue to the point of requiring one of these cups it's not a stretch to assume they struggle to find employment because ableism in the work place, how would they even afford this mug. Just cause the product is designed for disabled people doesn't mean its accessible to them@@elenacampedelli7914
And 99.99% of disabled people can’t afford a million dollar mug, and I’d personally feel exploitative if a disabled person had no choice but to buy a $125 mug from me bc they can’t find a duel handled one anywhere else. Doubt any disabled person would find this that useful, but still - making that much profit off the needs of disabled people is gross to me
@@nola1439 also while disabled people do deserve accessibility items that look cute and not medical like a lot tend to be, a mobility item being made from a material that even non disabled people tend to break a lot seems also very counter intuitive, like she claims its an accessibility item but its outside of the price range and usefulness for that market. Seems like she just wants some inclusivity points and praise from people not even in that community
Was she accusing her of ableism?
Small correction on the slipcasting process:
You pour the clay, let it set up a specific amount of time and de-mould it, trim/refine the piece, allow it to dry into "Greenware" (which can take days depending where you live/local humidity levels), fire it once into "Bisqueware", underglaze/paint it, and fire it again, then wax the bottoms, dip glaze it and fire AGAIN into a finished piece.
It's a longer process than people realize, and firing the kiln typically takes a full day for the size Shelby has, so that's three days just on firing alone.
Exactly. The refinement and finessing stage can take soooo long too, if you want a lovely professional finish. It's hard work!
If I just explain you the whole process of making a leather wallet then by your logic ill have to charge you 500$ 🤦🏻♀️
@vero9348 leather work isn't time dependent though. Clay has to be done with very specific timings or it won't work. There's a huge number of variables with it too- even commercial ceramics manufacturers have a loss rate of around 12%. 12% of the work explodes or breaks or doesn't fire properly and can't be sold.
@@vero9348if the amount of time and work, and the quality of the materials put into it is worth it, sure, go ahead. who cares if it's 500 dollars. just don't buy it if you don't want to. frustration at rising prices of essential items are understandable but if it's a luxury item then who cares. buy it or don't, make it yourself if it's easier.
@@vero9348And some people do...
Loved the reenactment with the "strawberry" post-it notes on the mug and the PHENOMENAL voiceover! 🤣🤣🤣
i hate the pricing argument and comparing different prices. Some people (on a different vid covering this story) was talking about how they got a similar mug for only $20, which means that Shelbys mug is overpriced, not realizing that the mug they bought was UNDERpriced for that amount of work. I could crochet a plushie and sell it for $50, while someone else makes the same and sells it for $10. Underpricing your work doesn't mean that my work is overpriced.
Imo, as someone who is around a lot of ceramicists and potters because I perform at ren faires, Shelby's work is somewhat overpriced, but not to a massive, disgusting degree. It's priced at a point that makes me say, "Okay, part of this cost is her name" and tbh that's fine. Artists and artisans aren't obligated to price their items as cheap as they possibly can manage
This. I saw a video where a women sold her mugs for 15$ HOW ARE THEY EVEN MAKING MONEY?!
I also sell plush toys and those ceramics being cheaper than my most simple plush….insane 💀
It just depends on how you value your time, how quickly it took, materials etc. I do believe most artists under-price their work though or it doesn’t sell. It’s an unfortunate cycle.
This is a fair comment!
Products are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. If there are people out here buying $80 mugs when you can easily find bigger mugs of the same quality for a lot cheaper then that’s on them.
I feel like if Shelby just hadn't responded to the video this wouldn't have even become that big of a deal.
The influencer didn't even mention who the mug came from to begin with so most people wouldn't of even known and the few that did probably wouldn't of thought much of it.
I LOVE Shelby's work and her channel, which is why I wish she just hadn't gotten wrapped up in this drama in the first place.
Her channel growth, business, and the things she sells all speak for themselves. There's no reason to worry about some influencer who isn't even making content in the same genre as you.
Thank you! Some people won’t like your product, or think you charge too much, but the best thing to do is to ignore it or modify your business. People don’t need to respond to every criticism, as hard as that may be.
Shelby brought this on herself though. Technically what Soph did is pretty damn benign, didn't drag her name and business through the mud. I'd stay away from Shelby's business if she's the type to feel attacked over someone expressing dislike over what she sells.
Memory is such a funny thing. As an art market shopper, vendors *have* blended together for me. As someone who has staffed craft fairs, I have forgotten a shopper wearing a different outfit the next day - none of them “famous,” though. It’s easy to conflate memories and faces.
I think people kinda underestimate the difficulties that can still come from from slip casting (molding with the plaster molds). I am a ceramicist and I have made pieces with slip casting, wheel throwing, and hand sculpting. While I personally agree that slip casting is the easiest of the three building methods, it still does take time and skill to do. You have to know how long to leave the slip in the mold before dumping the excess out (which is different every time based on how dry the plaster is). You also have to know when to finally take the piece out of the mold and then you have to go through the process of cleaning up and mold lines and patching any area that has issue. And porcelain (which is what I think Shelby uses) is super temperamental and can crack even if you do everything right and those cracks appear after firing so you could waste your time painting a mug just for it to be unsellable. I totally get that people think slip casting is so much easier than the other methods especially when you have never worked with clay but a lot of time and skill still goes into it.
I remember my mom and grandma cleaning up the seams with dental tools. Very tedious.
She also hand paints all of these items and all of that combined still doesn't mean her mug is cheap but maybe explains the pricing better.
@DieAlteistwiederda no kidding, the painting itself takes forever. Even if it is a simplistic design with multiple coats, it can take ages.
I think it’s fair to say that there’s basically an influencer merch up charge on the mug since she is a content creator, plus this mug was hand painted in detail rather than just glazed over in a wash of one color like some of the ‘comparable’ mugs. Painting the strawberries would be significantly more time consuming and merit higher price. That being said, I think it was a bizarre and emotional response that didn’t need to happen in public or possibly at all (nobody would even be criticizing her directly if she didn’t announce it was her mug).
The best things about these videos is listening to Emma's very matter of fact presentation while saying things like "taybeepboop" and "sofadofa". It's like listening to Katie Couric talk about the latest Jigglypuff beef.
"I don't need 6 $10 mugs."
Me: sweats nervously in having like 20 mugs because it's my hyperfixation.
see but that's also kinda my point. what works for me might not work for other people and vice versa. enjoy all 20 of your mugs :)
If it's your hyperfixation that means you absolutely need them. 💜
As someone in a mug phase, THRIFT
also sometimes people put mugs out on the street and you can just pop them in the dishwasher/bleach soak them in a bowl
I’ve gotten most of my silverware free from antique shop free bins and people putting boxes out on the sidewalk. Merry mugging
@@Lucifersfursona most of mine are gifted for sure haha
I also have a ton of mugs, I also collect spoons so don't worry about it.
I have a few friends who are full time ceramicists and it’s a REALLY difficult job with a lot of steps where disaster can strike and ruin hours of work. Honestly a lot of people don’t price the works what they deserve, considering the time and effort that goes into it. My friends do charge around 40-60 USD for mugs versus the 80 USD in this video BUT they really really struggle to make ends meet. It’s definitely not a case of what a mug is worth but what people are willing to pay. And if people are willing to pay an artist a price that allows them to pay their rent, I actually think that’s a good thing. The rising tide lifts all ships and underpricing your wares sets an expectation that a lower price is sustainable and properly values the artist’s time. Which isn’t a dig at people who price low so they can sell- it’s more me saying, if you can get people to pay a price where you can afford to live, I support you doing so.
In terms of an accessibility item being priced at a price point out of range of many people with disabilities, I do think there’s a middle ground. It’s becoming increasingly popular for many artists to charge on a sliding scale based on what the purchaser can afford. Something like this, especially for items created with an often low income population in mind, might be a more fair and accessible pricing structure to implement.
My two cents as an visual artist: the fact that Shelby hand paints all the mugs makes a huge difference to me. That’s a HUGE time commitment & makes the mug a little work of art in itself- it’s both a mug and an art piece. As for offering options with two handles i really don’t see any issue? Is an artist only allowed to make disability friendly items if they are affordable by the average person? Art is always a luxury and i don’t see the harm in having the option avaliable for those who are financially able. Not to mention gifting- i can totally see someone buying this for a elderly relative who loves pottery but needs to use two hands for stability. I kinda find the whole pricing thing very moot. (Tho the other girl saying ‘who would EVER want two handles’ does seem kinda insensitive)
@@emilymartinko720I was noticing that in the video! The mugs shown at lower price points were, by and large, not the ones with the hand-painted designs. The more expensive examples shown were. That takes a really long time to make and sometimes requires multiple firings.
@@emilymartinko720 People who are disabled enough to need a two-handled mug are likely not employed.
@@sharimeline3077 Have you ever been around an elderly person? I can see a lot of people benefiting from a dual handle. Also kinda weird to assume all physically disabled people are unemployed, im pretty sure there’s a large variety of jobs that can accommodate such disabilities. Even so, it could make a lovely gift. Really don’t understand this take of ‘if it’s not broadly financially accessible, don’t bother trying to accommodate disabilities’
@@emilymartinko720 the problem is they are easy to break and the price that and the fact they didn't check to make sure they grabbed her the right one as they all look the same and blend in to one another
I wouldn't pay 100+ dollars for a mug, but I also never want to be in a room with either of these people.
100 Australian Dollars is 66 US Dollars still expensive for a mug but if it's handmade then it may be worth it
I am in college for ceramics right now and once I graduate and don't have access to a huge studio with unlimited clay, unlimited glazes, and (the most expensive art supply no one thinks about) kilns, I won't be able to afford my own artistic practices without a reliable full time job. My university in Texas just spent a little under $500,000 for two new automatic kilns from the Netherlands and that doesn't include the huge energy bills they now have to pay from those kilns to reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit everyday all day long. I had no idea how expensive it was to own your own practice before college. I've been looking at small used kilns online and anything that actually works starts at $1000 lol. Clay is just clay until you fire it to at least 1065 degrees, only then is it ceramic. Getting shit that hot is expensive
definitely the kiln!! my mom got one somehow when i was a kid and we just kept it in our garage until she got divorced so i sold it to sum local art guys and sold a drum set and violins and violas to a music teacher. i didnt do no research into the proce of kilns ans was 16 so i sold it for like 150$ as soon as i saw their face ik they would've paid like 600 for it. but honestly i didn't know if it worked and i just needed to get rid of it
Yes!! I went to school for ceramics, and since I graduated I don't have the financial security to keep doing it. The ceramics to crochet pipeline has been so real for me personally
@@togikisses I literally crocheted little bags to put my ceramic bowls in for a project last semester 😂 ceramics and crochet are sisters to my brain
Doesn’t shelby have her own studio too? I used to watch her and it always seemed like she had her own studio (although I’m not confident in that) which would definitely be super expensive to run
@neonradius gods, you have no idea how expensive it can be. My industrial unit costs me £1k a month and that covers the rent plus some towards the electricity, I'm currently about £600 in arrears for electric. My landlord knows I'll get it caught up in the next month or so once my shows start again in just over 2 weeks.
It costs me £75 to glaze fire The Alchemist. It used to cost me about £30.....
Another Aussie here. Yes, it was expensive. But, it was a hand-made/painted item. As knitters we constantly say ‘don’t undercharge for your labour/materials etc’. We know how much work goes into a full-size Shetland shawl, and that you would never be paid for the hours and hours of work that went into it. I know nothing about making/painting ceramics, but I assume there is a lot of time and skill involved. So good on Shelby for charging what she does. The market will decide if it is a fair price or not. Australia is an expensive country and kilns must use a fair bit of power. So her overheads could be on the high side.
Last year, I traded one if my Yarnhoarders (huge yatnbowl with a dragon wrapped around it), the price tag was £250, because it took me 3 days to make, for a hand knitted jumper. This trade was with a freind, an indie dyer with her own business. She used her own hand dyed yarn after we worked out the colours etc.
I'm still trying to work out what else I can give her to make the trade equal even though she said she would use my jumper to work out a new pattern she's designing.
I bought some luxury tops from another indie dyer in a set of complimentary colours and am spinning those, but that's her xmas present so doesn't really count. I also have a plate in The Alchemist right now with mushrooms (she LOVES shroomies) on it in her favourite glaze, which I might give her if my hubby doesn't see it first. I know I owe her big time for this!
I’m a potter as well as a crocheter and people who just watch pottery videos have no idea how long it takes! Firing a pot alone takes at least two days. Plus molds aren’t infinite use, once you make a mold you can use it a certain amount of times before it becomes too chipped/deformed and you have to make the mold again
I’ve been watching the potter for a while, and it takes a lot of money to get the studio she has. The glazes are pricey, you have to buy clay, buy the kiln, buy the brushes, and clay is fickle and cracks and breaks at every step of the process through no fault of your own. It’s a pricey trade, so hand made things are naturally going to be more expensive than the 20$ mug at target. I’m Australian and it’s a reasonable price knowing how much effort goes into “just a sippy cup”
Well with ceramics, especially moulded ceramics, you can make more than one at a time, they all go in the kiln at once and you can do other things while they’re in there, they don’t take THAT LONG to paint, and when they’re drying you can do other things. Vastly different to yarn work.
@Eihpos97 all ceramics are batch production. Also, if you only have one mould, you can only cast one item at a time, and only so many in a day before you have to dry the mould out.
And due to the deflocculant that helps the casting slip stay in suspension, the moulds deteriorate over time, because it eats away at the plaster.
Also, a lot of casting slip is wasted in the process because once it dries, its a LOT harder to reclaim than normal clay, to the point that professionals mostly don't bother because time is money too.
We potters with our own setups, fill our kilns every time we want to switch them on.
We can't all be Grayson Perry and make one pot per year to sell at £40k or more.
As a fiber artist, it’s unfortunate but if I priced my work at it’s true quality, I’d never sell anything.
I'm team "You didn't look at what you were buying and didn't bother to ask the price?!?"
Hand "spinning" 😂 You've been in the fiber world too long
It sounds so much cuter and less violent than "wheel throwing" lol conjures up a totally different mental image when you use the right terms😂
Right? 😂 That cracked me up, but it was cute.
I also laughed at that - I do both, the ultimate hand spinner 🤣
Looking up the prices of other Finders Keepers sellers mugs on their webpages after the fact may be unrealistic. Pricing at the market would have to take into account the overhead costs of selling there. You can price lower when you’re selling from your own home.
Also, it’s the labour intensive hand painting of Shelby’s mugs that make them more expensive than your standard hand made mug.
that mug online is actually more expensive
THE DRAMATIZATION &;&,!; OMG THAT ATE. The voice overs, lipsyncing… like this is PRIME video essay content
its crazy how in-depth craft drama videos are something i get irrationally excited over now
I did a ceramics class, so I don't recall the cost of the clay or the paints (thought the professor said the paints were *very* expensive) and during our mug making assignment, I made a dignity mug (without knowing what it was) for my spouse. He has hand tremors and it doesn't impede normal mug usage, but it would make it far easier for him to hold. I can understand someone without disabilities never even thinking about two handed use.
Exactly! I don’t know these people besides the ceramist but as someone disabled myself (without issues with holding stuff), I didn’t know about dignity mugs and immediately likened it to a kid sippy cup (especially since it’s SO small). I don’t understand why people are acting as though that influencer woman was out there ridiculing the disabled community when she just… didn’t know something she had no reason to know ? This whole ordeal is very mind boggling, but I hope your husband love his special cup :)!
@@happyjellycatsquidin my opinion, a lot of the frustration comes from how little able-bodied people seem to think about us or consider us. you obviously can't be aware of every challenge someone could have from disability all at once, but still i think it's fine to get a little upset over someone saying something like that. the sippy cup is an understandable comparison to make but people with disabilities are often likened to children which makes it a bit worse to me. ableism is rooted so deeply in our societies that it's bound to happen, it's not unforgivable but it's perfectly fine to have a problem with.
@@milk-in-the-box Yeah, I definitely get what you mean and obviously I can’t police people’s feelings, but the ceramist reaction (« it’s suuuuch a special cup » in a baby voice) really rubbed me the wrong way, it almost felt as though she was weaponising the fact that she did a (mildly) nice thing for the disabled community for her own personal interests, and obviously people getting offended by the sippy cup comment even if it was in earnest is normal, but the whole thing just kinda rubs me the wring way i guess
@@happyjellycatsquidi can definitely see that too. overall a... strange situation
1) thank you for presenting this in a calm, practical, clear way. I'd never heard about either of these people but you made it so interesting! and 2) to be fair, if she didn't notice it had 2 handles (very obvious) then it tracks that she probably wouldn't notice the (more subtle) written price either 😂
this is just online bs. its totally normal to be suprised by the price of something. Thats normal. anyone who says they've never bought something they didnt want because it would be awkward to back out is a liar. I worked retail i saw this happen everyday
also emma did pretty much the same thing as soph at the end. she said she got the dragon mug for $60 (cheaper and larger than the strawberry mug btw) and that it was 'kinda alot for a mug' not saying its not WORTH that price, but it IS alot!
Ya, I think Sophie got buyers remorse. When I learned sales for photography, we learned the psychology of buying. If you don’t set expectations early, buyers are more likely to get ‘sticker shock’ and then buyers remorse after leaving- which a lot of times leads to returns/refunds etc. Not that I’m saying Shelby was totally wrong, she had all her work priced and Sophie should take more care when she’s buying things. Not just point and buy without any examination.
But also, Shelby needs thicker skin as an artist. Critiques can sound/feel like attacks, but they’re not.
It’s possible Shelby even mistook Soph as someone else, like the interaction did happen it just wasn’t with Soph. Regardless, awesome video as always!! I’ve loved every one of your videos so far
To be completely honest from an outsider looking in? They're both insufferable. Someone is allowed to be shocked at a price, and someone who pours a lot of time, materials, and skill into a craft doesn't really have to justify their prices. It was never that serious, and they should both be ashamed of their actions after the fact.
that point.
A huge issue with simply comparing market rates for handmade ceramics is that so many artists who run small businesses undercharge because they think people won't buy the item if they charge what it's actually worth.
Many of those mugs that were only $40-60 would have taken hours to make, especially if they have small, hand painted details. Artists often undercharge for their time and skill, which means when one person knows their value - it can seem outrageous.
I absolutely agree. However, adesigner maker needs to know and understand their target audience.
I'm lucky as a full time potter, I found my niche within the UK fibre and textile world. The only reason I can sell my work for near to True Value, is because of two factors.... fibre fam Know how much effort goes into making something by hand, and nearly everyone who attends the fibre and textile shows has seen at least one episode of Great Pottery Throwdown. Even still, I'm always shocked when one of my statement pieces sells for over £250. The last one was £500. Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about that
100%
The "long dark brunette hair" and "hand-ceraimed" has me cackling. Here for the silly drama!
I don't even care about the drama I'm just obsessed with how thorough and detailed your reporting is. A+
I’m Australian and my best friend is a ceramicist. This is a hot topic with my friends. The artists seem to be taking Shelby’s side out of principle. I kinda think that it’s a free country and Soph can say what she wants whether we agree or not. Your skit cracked me up. Your Aussie friend nailed the voice dubbing.
I think people really need to be ok with the idea that you don’t have to take a side lol. I didn’t like the way Soph put the blame of not asking for the price, not looking at the cup, and then not saying “actually I made a mistake” and blamed Shelby for it. But I also dislike how Shelby made it into a problem, brought it up months later and went about it in a kinda snarky way when she could have just- never made it a problem. It’s not like Soph blasted her store, and it’s not like she forced Soph to buy a $125 mug. So tbh I think no one is in the right and people just need to see that sometimes, most situations aren’t just black and white.
Thanks for the reply. I’ll have to show your video to my ceramicist friends. They will love your Aussie skit 😊 gold
I'm an artist (I have a bachelors of fine arts) but I agree with you. Honestly I know the feeling of regretting an expensive purchase and expressing it just to let off steam. This doesn't mean you necessarily think the business is bad or that they should stop or anything, more just a complaint about a personal decision. Of course, I think shelby is allowed to price her work any way she sees fit, so I really don't think there's a bad guy tbh. There may be some personalities people don't like but I don't think either did anything morally wrong
@@neff6185The funny thing is that the mug looks like any other ordinary mug that could've been made by ANYONE and we would not know it's from Shelby until she spoke up and when she spoke up, she went on an unnecessary tirade. She looks like a snowflake that got offended over an opinion. Sophie looks like your typical idiot, shelby looks like your typical snowflake.
just a note on comparing the prices via websites, shopify will often localise currency based on your IP so the $60 mug is~95AUD still.
good point!
As a freelance artist who makes money off of his own work, and is familiar with this world, I appreciated the way you approached this situation in your video. I'm relieved when I hear people remind the judging public of some of the reasons why someone might price/value something higher than what might not seem reasonable at first. It was also nice to hear you go a little bit into the details of what the process is like to make pottery and how it may differ between pieces done in a wheel and ones done in molds, even if you weren't that familiar with it.
I would like to point out some things I know about Shelby's work, however, that may make a difference in how pricing is considered that I believe may be helpful, as well as some other things that may deserve extra consideration.
Now, to preface this, I want Shelby's shorts on TH-cam a lot, so I am not guessing here. I've also watched a good bit of other TH-camrs who also do pottery in the same and even different ways than this person, as well.
The first thing to consider, and the most important in my opinion, is that this artist uses a lot of vintage molds to cast her products in. Vintage molds require more attention, maintenance, and there's often more trial and error involved with them than newer molds.
Sometimes vintage molds are too dry, and they end up sucking too much moisture out of the clay you poor inside, resulting in your cast being ruined/not turning out as expected. I'm not sure what all can be done in this case to make the mold usable again, but I saw one TH-camr have this issue and when they tried casting in the mold a second time, they were lucky and that time the mold wasn't thirsty anymore because the clay from the last cast blocked up the tiny holes in it.
Just because a mold looks easy to fill and like the cast will cure and demold well, doesn't mean it will. Getting the liquid clay into every bit of the mold isn't always as easy as it seems, and with molds that aren't filled solid, wall thickness is something surprisingly difficult to control.
Recasting is also something that can easily double, triple, or more the time it takes to get a piece you can move on to finishing.
I do wonder if the fact that this mug has two handles opposite each other contributed to the difficulty of painting it? Because you wouldn't be able to hold it like a single handled mug, having to be careful not to break two handles instead of one? That may have something to do with the price, especially since the design painted on the mug was little strawberries. Painting it would be tricker, because of these two things.
I also wonder if there was added cost for splitting it from the rest of the collection? I imagine the hope was to sell most, if not all, of the collection together. Often I've heard of artists charging more for a single item being sold by itself when separated from an intended set. This may be due to the set being less likely to sell with that item missing, or for other reasons (I've heard them, just blanking on it right now). To me, this makes sense, as the set loses more and more value as a set each time a single piece is bought separately. People also really really like having matching ceramics.
Either way, I think the other creator should have realized she brought on a lot of the hate she got by making the comments she did about the mug's size and handles right before talking about the price and how she decided to buy it still because she didn't want to be rude. By making those comments, she ended up being a lot more rude than she would have been if she just changed her mind on buying the mug. It sounds like, from how she described her interaction with who she thinks she bought the mug from, she wasn't taking the time to really consider her purchases or appreciate what she was looking at, which is extremely disheartening as an artist.
That's why I'm "siding" with Shelby, because she actually took the time to make this mug (as far as we can tell that's true), she has taken the time to learn why it has two handles and appreciate that, called attention to the infantilization of people who need to use cups with two handles, and was very sweet about how she explained things as well as started her video with a thorough thank you. This other person's story just sounds like she wasn't remembering things super clearly because she wasn't paying that much attention at the time, and her brain was just trying to come up with a quick defense without double checking the memories because she was offended/felt attacked. I understand she felt attacked, and that Shelby's video response triggered the negative attention, but at the same time, you can't completely control your audience, and Shelby wasn't at all encouraging her followers to go after this person.
(I'm gonna edit in the creator's name once I check what it is)
I really like “hand-ceramed” I’ll probably call my crochet pieces hand-croaked from now on
😂
😂😂😂😂
Mic-ro wa- vee
About the pricing: For someone who doesnt do pottery moulding probably sounds like an easy cheat but it is not. Slipcasting is fickle and time consuming on this small of a scale. Pottery is really expensive and time consuming to create in general. On top of that Shelby uses a material that is see through, and it requires her to paint the same image over and over on her pieces to make them vibrant and it takes a lot of time. Not the most efficient way to paint, but this is her art and her right and she can price the items in a way that works for her.
If i missed a whole handle on something i bought i'd probably would be really mad and embarrassed with myself too. I feel like the other person misplaced their annoyance there.
I dont really think there needed to be drama. But i think Shelby heard about the piece being misunderstood and disliked by a huge creator and let it get to her too much.
I don't think this would ever be completely resolved without security camera footage of their interaction, which likely doesn't exist. *shrug*
Ceramicist here. Charging 125 AUD/80 USD for a mug isn’t super crazy IF you have the right kind of audience. People will pay that much if they love your work. I have one artist I would kill to have a mug from and that’s exactly what he charges. People tend to charge based on size and time spent on the piece. For instance, I throw my mugs on the wheel, slip/paint multiple layers, and then carve into the clay before I let it dry, which is time consuming. That time consuming process alone gives me the right to charge more. I charge around 40-50 USD for what I do since I’m still a student and my audience isn’t very large yet but could definitely charge more in the future.
Personally, I think that’s a lot of money for something that is slip casted rather than thrown or hand built since it doesn’t really take a lot of hands on making to create. But hey, that price must be working for her if she’s charging that much and people are still buying.
I don’t mind is something is slipcast IF the artist created and designed the original piece.
I got my Dad a puss in boot cast Bronze statue by an artist I absolutely adore. Cost me $1000. And she guaranteed me that she would only ever cast that piece 5 times in total.
Because it costs her so much to do the cast. So it’s not a mould she will be churning out multiple pieces from.
Her mugs aren't thrown. So they are pretty ridiculous.
I followed a cermicist on Instagram and even paid to be part of their mug sale o let to find they were charging $700-800 PER MUG. But even then I was like, well damn if people pay for it get your coin girl (just not from me)
If Soph had mentioned Shelby’s name or business name in her initial video where she was complaining, then I could understand Shelby’s response. But she didn’t mention her, and even though Soph was clueless about why the mug is the way it is and why it’s that price, it feels very silly for Shelby to make the response video she did.
I could understand her making a video saying “Hey, this is why the mug has two handles. I hope you can enjoy it even if it wasn’t what you’d thought it was. Thanks!” But even then, that’s still inserting herself where she wasn’t mentioned.
It feels like Shelby got defensive about something that wasn’t an attack. It was a clueless influencer being a bit careless with her words. Instead of doing the reasonable thing of DMing her or even venting to her own friends about her frustration, she escalated things to make herself feel better.
In my opinion none of this is really about the price. It’s about an influencer making some careless comments about an artist without naming that artist, and then that artist getting her feelings hurt and turning it into an argument.
It doesn’t matter how nice Shelby tried to sound, what she said was confrontational and accusatory. It was a fight not worth starting and frankly put a bad taste in my mouth towards her and her work.
I think her art is lovely and while I wouldn’t pay that much for a mug, especially one that’s supposed to be “accessible”, I don’t think the price is unreasonable for a piece of art. But her response was unreasonable and in my opinion just as frivolous as Soph’s original comments.
It was not a fight worth starting, but she come in and started a fight because she knew people would have her back and it would comfort her. Unfortunately it didn’t pan out the way she thought and now things suck for both parties.
yes!!! my opinion exactly. Soph was just talking bout her experience at the market, she didn't say anything bad about shelby at all
i've seen shelby videos and she alway seems insufferable.
yes, but I'm sure people tagged her, so she can't help but respond. It's clearly her mug.
@@Paputszait had been over a month by that point though, there was no need for Shelby to respond
Thank you for pointing out how aggressive shelby was being. Just because you hide your words behind soft tones and baby talk doesn't mean you're not hounding a random person for daring to criticize your business which they supported by buying a product. Wtf no customer should get attacked by a business and their millions of viewers for having an opinion, even if it was an uninformed one.
I will never take an influencer seriously. I will always assume they’re lying because they make money off of drama.
I think that whatever their interaction was, it must have been somewhere in-between what theyre both saying. Maybe sophie was so busy trying to find a lot of products to review, she doesnt remember everyone she talked to. And vice versa, maybe shelby didnt go into as much detail as she claimed; her booth was extremely busy and maybe some things slipped through. As for the price, i think it was mentioned that shelby has over 2 million followers? Her price might be higher because of the extreme demand, and she can't physically keep up with having enough stock. I don't think the price is accessible for the target demographic of the mug, but i think taking into account the size + demand of her products it makes a bit more sense? Idk, most things aren't black and white and i think this is def a grey situation thats probably a mix of both sides
ceramic pieces take a lot of manual labor and steps in between like the time commitment of hand painting so I'm not even surprised that the pieces she makes are more expensive than mass produced mugs
Haven’t watched the entire video but the costs to vend at the Finders Keepers market can also be expensive, so the mugs could also be priced to recoup the costs of vending (like a first timer small stall Is around min $1000). I also feel like the whole issue could have been resolved if Soph originally wasn’t concerned about being embarrassed with admitting she didn’t see the price (since it can happen, people get confused, though imo it would have been better practice that before the mug was wrapped to go the price was reconfirmed)
I also find it hard to believe she didn't notice it had two handles if she had to wait in line for a 'long' time I feel like you'd notice and prob flip it over and see the price but maybe I fidget in line more than her lol
@@kilrkitty0818 they didn't hand it to her, they were in the back so she couldn't have know the price and they wrapped it right away and no way I would pull out an expensive easily broken item in the middle of looking around
I think Shelby made up the encounter for the video for clout. That being said I think they’re both idiots.
thank you sor sor much for including me in this video, it means sor sorrrr much
thank you sor sor much for lending your voice acting to this !!!
It was so good!!
🤣👏
HELPPPP HAHA your section was killing me
omg hobby drama is great because it is low-stakes enough to be relaxing while also serving a nice helping of tea. thank you for the content
See the part i dont get is why did Shelby make the video response to Sophie who did not name the store. Shelby was the one drawing attention to the fact that this piece was from her store.
Look at it from her pov, they've been told at the market that this tiktok influencer is coming so be on the lookout, she buys something, she must have been anticipating a review and when what she did get was negative and (unfairly in her opinion) she would have been hurt and felt like she needed to address/justify herself. I think no one's really in the wrong here, more of misunderstanding. I am side eyeing Sophie for saying Shelby did this for clout though....when Shelby has more followers than soph. Her attitude just rubbed me off the wrong way.
@@namayra299 look dude I follow Shelby im familiar with her work, my issue is Shelby responded 2 months after the fair and as such Sophie's video was probably not getting anymore traction as it was about an event from 2 months ago. Why respond now when a DM would have been better.
My opinion on this is Shelby doesn't take criticism well and shouldn't be looking at reviews of her products and Sophie should be more observant of what she's buying
Yeah, the fact that Shelby waited so long to respond makes it silly.
To talk about the fact that the two handles serve a very important purpose. Not just whether an influencer likes it
I have a feeling she didn’t even know about Soph’s video until someone showed it to her or sent it to her? It wouldn’t make any sense of how she’d even find it otherwise 😅 not excusing the fact she responded bc… yea
I’m disabled. I require various implements that the average person would never consider should they come across them in their daily lives. Say, a double handled sippy cup. Sof wasn’t being disrespectful when first talking about the mug. She was simply unaware. It’s asking way too much of people to be knowledgeable about everything in the world that people like myself might need or use and why. Everyone needs to calm down. Unless someone is being directly disrespectful to a specific person, it’s truly not worth the minutes off your life to get upset over it. Especially when chances are the people you are upset over aren’t upset themselves. The thing I took notice of with that cup was the cost for one. Disabled people aren’t wealthy generally and live well below the poverty line. My benefits are $900/month! Then, we pay $100 for our health insurance plus. Next, it’s ceramic. We disabled tend to break things due to the nature of our disabilities. That’s why there’s 2 handles…for grip issues… Third, it was quite small, so you’re giving that $100 ceramic cup to a disabled child? That’s actually dangerous. It’s just common sense. The cup was cute and all. I would never pay that for it, but cute.
But, you all got to leave that poor girl alone for not knowing why it had 2 handles! She just didn’t know and that’s ok. Nobody knows everything about medical devices and implements or clothing. How can we possibly? We can’t. It’s an impossible standard. You see that a lot anymore, those impossible standards. Yet, we sure don’t like being measured by them ourselves now, do we?
the size didn't help
Agreed! I am disabled as well, and I don’t need those kind of mugs but I can’t imagine it’s very accessible when it’s nearly $130!
The maker can claim that it's an accessible mug but the size says its a child's mug.
She's arrogant and self absorbed.
Ok, but if you're going to make claims about a handmade product from a small sole trader to your very large platform, you should probably do a quick internet search. . . and get the basic info that is clear on the creators page. This influencer is a privileged drama queen and she's consistently nasty to other creators. Take it from someone who sold her a handcrafted witch hat at the markets.
Sounds like a great gift if you have some two-handed friends
Saying it again, the cost in USD is probably around $80. Expensive, but also not factory made. Which i think makes a difference here.
Especially since she has to do all the glazing with as someone who did pottery in the past glazing is SO hard, especially little details like that
@AleksandarBell I did it in art class in middle school and even that throwaway project was hard. Like why is everyone acting like she's hoarding accessibility devices from those in need amd charging 100× the price? It's a normal price for a hand made ceramic and if you don't like the price there's cheaper ones literally everywhere online. Or mad that she's saying it's accessible. Like yes...hc it has an accessible design. It's not lying to call it that because it IS.
I've purchased a handmade 70 USD mug before because the price was worth it to me for a handmade piece of art, and that artist wasn't even Internet famous lol. It is a handmade piece of art, which is a luxury item and will be priced accordingly. People are so so so spoiled by mass production and don't recognize the worth of handmade items.
I could understand the price if Shelby's stuff was actually handmade from A to Z and not made using a mould she just bought from someone. The only things that are actually handmade are those simple painted decorations. And it's not like her things are super original, pretty or even detailed. That mug looks like something I would find at target for 5$ 🤷♀️
@@user-cq5gl1ri7qthe molds are vintage. By all means if you can't tell the difference between a hand painted piece from a vintage mold and a mass produced mug from target please buy the target mug lol
Mug and pottery fiend here and I have definitely spent more than $100 on a mug. One of my favorite makers is OneElevenPottery and makes some gorgeous intricate pieces. One I own has a skull, some entwining vines, and little cauldron feet. Shelby might charge a lot, but she has an entire studio, hand paints everything, and also does have a small team of staff now.
We also need to consider price conversion from AUD to USD. There's a pretty sizable difference. $120 AUD is about $77 USD, and I have easily paid that for handmade things.
The thing I find most surprising is her not noticing it had two handles. It makes me feel like she didn't even look at it or pay attention which is...really confusing.
Also the person you reference from TikTok at 21:25 is just a red rectangular error message?
Yeah, like why would you pick up something without even looking well what it is or the price of it? Like I am sorry if you thought that was too much money and anxiety made you unable to undue the purchase, but I just can't imagine how in one of those markers you don't see that something has two handles.
In the world now where we can have cheap stuff shipped to our door in a couple days people have SERIOUSLY started to undervalue the work that actually goes into making something by hand. The stuff im familiar with is hand spun wool clothing since i raise sheep and attend lots of craft faires. Its easy to look at a cute wool top and then be shocked when it's like 70 to 100 dollars but never take into account: cost to raise and feed sheep, time to care for sheep, effort to shear sheep, time to clean and card wool, time to spin wool into yarn, time to then weave the actual garment, cost to rent or buy trailers to haul your homemade stuff to faires, and time needed to simply man the stall and do the sales. If anything a lot of handmade stuff is sold for LESS than it really ought to be.
We're all really removed from the process of making things from scratch.
Call me cynical if you like, but "I accidentally bought a two-handled mug for $125" makes for way better content than "look at these cute things I bought".
Honestly the last show she was at she sold out super fast, so I can understand really high prices because her demand is so high. That's how supply and demand works isn't it?
Keep in mind that some vendors also charge more (or have to charge more) at shows to cover the cost of booths, travel, extra staff, etc.
As to the prices, most of the other "most expensive" mugs were "just" glazed with special glazes, but those strawberries were handpainted on there. And that makes quite a difference in the time invested in the piece.
Is 125AUD a lot? Yes. For a hand painted one? Not really.And also is the price justified because there's a lot of demand for Shelby Sherrit pieces? Yes!
So I am not really on board with the "let's talk about the price" section here. But I'm also absolutely not on board with the drama itself. Handmade stuff is expensive, so ask for the price if you're not sure what it is. My take on that.
10/10 for the re-enactment of both of their interactions! The got-damn leathery pants rubbing against each other TOOK ME OUT!
How did Soph miss two handles on what she considers a small mug???
That's baffling to me too. How do you not notice a whole @ss handle?
if she never actually picked it up, as she said, then she would have seen it displayed amongst a bunch of other ceramic pieces (as shown in pictures of the stall display). factoring in distance, perspective, and shadows, it wouldn't be hard to either not see the handle on the furthest side, or to see it as being attached to some other piece. especially if you have no idea that two handled ceramic mugs exist.
@@PhreakOutBigTime But she would see the handle when she was buying it, because or she pick up or the seller pick up
@@samanthaabreu782 according to her, the seller picked it up and wrapped and boxed it. We weren't there, we don't know whether it was boxed out of sight, whether the seller took extra stock from below the table, whether it was busy and her line of sight was broken, or even if she just... looked away for a moment.Trying to pick out inconsistencies from a scenario neither of us was present for is a waste of time. But I can logically assume that after she had committed to pay, not thinking there was anything odd about the mug, she was probably not staring at it intently as the seller was wrapping it, and the seller probably didn't hold it up and show it off by every angle since, again, she'd already committed to buying it.
People aren't all that observant, the mind makes up and fills in the missing pieces.
@@PhreakOutBigTime it was also among a bunch of other stuff that looked the same so an extra handle could easily blend in
I just love that the arts and crafts communities have drama about "only" minor misunderstandings, miscommunications and like sometimes shady business practices and honestly also sometimes inconsequential lies, as opposed to like other communities with NFTs, people losing their entire savings, legal allegations, threats etc etc. This community is my happy place.
I mean, there definitely have been things like sexual assault and harassment within certain communities and businesses. (I can’t think of two yarn companies…) But it is nice that most drama is not actually sad.
Didn't think i was ever gonna say "at least i don't have mug drama in my life" lmao
Haven't watched the video yet but when I saw Shelby on the thumbnail I audibly said "Nooooo" cause her content is usually so wholesome 💀
I am currently studying to become a sculpture master and let me tell you, that price is kinda fair. Its like placing a price to a hand knitted garment to be sold at minimum wage per hour, while also making at min 10% gain. When I started my sculpting career I thought well clay is cheap, recyclable and not that expensive. Of course clay might not be expensive, but we have to consider clay consistency, a lot of trial and errors in the kiln, because maybe the high temperature on the kiln afffects some of the pieces even though you used the same process and others are not affected. Even the paint and glazing you use can affect things.
The kiln is a huge oven with a certain amount of space that uses high heat to make the cups how they look at the end, many ceramist, do not own their own because they take a lot of space, and the electricity consumption on those things is rough to pay. So when someone is doing a collection, a lot of trial, error, experimenting, broken cups, electric bills, paying employees, advertisement, paying for a booth, the hours you spent making each piece, then painting them, and then market them to be sold, plus adding a small percentage of gain for yourself, it adds up and then rinse and repeat.
I am also a knitter, spinner, crocheter, and weaver, and I also understand why someone will not make a small boutique of hand knitted garments because we all know that it takes time, yarn is not cheap, and not many of the customers would be willing to pay 800 bucks for a hand knitted sweater when they can get either some from a brand for that price, and/or cheaper in a fast fashion industry.
I think the question is, how to price hand made stuff at a reasonable price, to be also able to have a living?
I appreciated that you argued both sides and showed both of their points of view. This is how disagreements occur in SO many human relationships/interactions. Each side is convinced of their perspective, but maybe both were right, because we experience and remember things differently. Same thing with the mug - like you said, one person would never spend $125 on a mug, while another person might find it absolutely worth it. Perspective is everything.
Soph's video was basically a review. So to me it’s the same thing as an author going around personally calling out reviewers. NOT EVERYONE IS GONNA LIKE WHAT YOU MADE. Yes soph was insensitive about the handles, there's no denying that, but she still has the right to feel some way about the pricing. I'd even go as far as to say, if she had said the piece is not worth the price, she's well within her rights to say so. What's even more annoying to me is that NO ONE KNEW WHO SOPH WAS TALKING ABOUT. There’s a timeline where this interaction was never made public and I’d like to go there.
I’ve seen this argument equating it to reader reviews but it is NOT the same thing. Books cannot be gauged simply by look, so reviews are there for other potential readers to determine if they want to spend the time energy and money on the book.
This is an item you can clearly determine what it is by looking at it. If it was a review based on quality (it broke easily etc) that would be different. But her critiques are on things she could very clearly see/determine upon just looking at it.
@@caidelehanty-rm2pm does it matter though? What I mean by asking is that, she is (in my opinion) giving her "review" on the art itself so does it really need to be about quality for it to be considered a review ? (I'm genuinely asking, just so you know so it doesn't come across as condescending). Because my perception is, she did a haul and after purchase realize it's not for her. Thank you for responding by the way!
I was understanding of Sophie until she said Shelby is doing this for clout
..when Shelby has way more followers than her 😂
@@namayra299 i don't think shelby did it for clout, I really think she felt slighted and she's just a sensitive person
@@IckyNikky19 that's understandable though, she works hard for her business and art. If someone puts in so much thought and effort into something and then a person goes 'I can't see anyone using it, who's this for', they're bound to feel hurt.
A mug that's created with an accessible feature yet not at an accessible price. That's where I'm like hmmm. Everything else is like eh.
right like it might be physically accessible but $125 is not financially accessible
Bougie disabled babes only 😮
Couldn’t afford that shit so I guess it’s for influencer prices? The combined things of this mug make it feel like it’s almost for like? One specific mystery person 😂
@@thewholething430!!
@@emmainthemomentcompletely understand that but that’s equivalent to about $80 USD which seems reasonable to me for a handmade ceramic item- i think anyone looking to purchase an item at that price point can prob afford it, otherwise they’d look to cheaper, mass produced items
its AUD
125 usd for a mug she made from a mould!!!? She's a scammer, it's insane.
125 Australian dollars. Around 80 USD. Between the skills for molding and hand-glazing designs, the costs and time of handmaking ceramics, and the high demand for her work because she’s an influencer, it’s high but not ridiculously so. Handmade ceramics are expensive, they’re not for everyone