Adventures in Handmade Jewelry

Jeez the days get away from me now that I don't have an 8-5 job with a 2 hour commute! I caught up on blog stuff, follwed some Twitter-people, packaged up two orders, took some photos, posted some new items in my shop and taught myself the Egyptian coil link. After some pratice with copper wire, I did some in sterling and have some earrings that should be done tomorrow.

Marble arc earrings Originally uploaded by TheWireSmith Just made these today. I like 'em and have posted them to my Etsy shop. Hopefully someone else does, too. Now am off to put together an intricate wire-wrapped bracelet I have in mind. Tiny chips of garnet, clear quartz, hematite and maybe some other things mixed it. It will be built on a 14g wire base.

So that's my next step. Promoting my Etsy shop. One of my customers has done some of this for me, but that can't be the only thing. So I need to come up with a plan. Clearly this could be a full time job (and when would I make new things??), but I'm not sure I want it to be. I think I'd like this to be part time, which means I need a part time 'day job', but that's another post. My first step was to add Google Analytics to my shop. That way I can track comings & goings and spot trends etc. Second I've uploaded a feed to Google Base...so I will theoretically come up in shopping searches on Google. This has yet to prove useful, but I'll give it time. I've also submitted an application to an Etsy team and I hope that I can learn quite a bit from the more experienced folks there. One thing I still need to decide on with my graphics package is a web graphic. My dilemma is how big or small it should be. I have a very small ad banner alread...

These turned out rather well. After spending most of the day trying to teach myself a new technique and getting frustrated, I decided to do something else to destress and here's what I came up with. I think it's fun and strangely elegant. I'm still toying with the idea of wrapping some tiny beads inside the fishies, but I think I'll leave it for now. Beads might be too cluttery. After my tumbler is set up I'll take this apart and tumble the links and jumprings for added strength.

Antique glass bead spiral choker Originally uploaded by TheWireSmith This is one of my favorite pieces. It's made with cut glass beads from about 1920. They belonged to my grandmother and since the original necklace disintegrated, my mother's been hanging onto these for 50 years give or take. She gave them to me and I've been able to make them live again. The links are spirals made of 18 gauge sterling silver wire, each one graduated in size to fit the bead and connected by handmade sterling jumprings. It's a serious piece of work that I am immensely proud of.

So exciting that some folks have purchased from me already. Granted, they're semi-strangers, people who frequent a message board I occasionally post to. The support is hugely appreciated and I can't wait for them to receive their jewelry. I hope they love it. Next comes promotion though. Gotta get word out and start to get some traffic. Need to formulate a plan.

Took these in the last couple of days. I think they came out rather well. click to supersize!

And I was torn about what to do about it. That is until my husband mentioned something to me about how to recycle a common household item to make for more damage-proof packages. I'm so excited about it. It's cute and customizable and I've never seen anyone else doing it. Best of all I can get rid of some of the accumulated objects and turn them to another use. Yay! So I'm working on customizing household object to suit my purposes. Good thing I have so much nifty artwork coming along. Woo hoo!

As part of a design package I recently ordered from fellow Etsian, Helen , I finally have a proper banner. It was a heck of a process for me to settle on a design since everything she came up with was beautiful. But here it is and so now we have just a few more things to knock out and we'll be good to go.

So I've engaged a graphic designer to help me with logos and banners and such. So far the work is moving along well. Once I get everything done and in place, I'll announce with fanfare and trumpet her work directly. She's been great so far, taking my tenative suggestions and working with me. And she's fast, too! I got a bit overwhelmed with the process of getting my Etsy business underway, but have figured out that if I stay focused on the Etsy site itself first I won't get overwhelmed. The ways and methods to promote & advertise on other mediums like Twitter and Blogger is huge and I want to take those steps, but not until I have an actual site to promote. Then I have to find the time to actually make more jewelry. Oh yeah, that's a problem I'd like to have...so many sales that I run out of inventory! An inventory list was started yesterday. I pulled everything I'm willing to sell together and have started an excel spreadsheet with pertinent ...

Tourquoise & red coral necklace Originally uploaded by TheWireSmith While I'm not really a stringer, this is one of the first pieces I made that I'm really proud of. I love the combination of the touquoise & red coral. The sterling beads and cones just give it an added richness. I may never sell it, but who knows.

So with my recent layoff, I've decided to focus on trying to make my recently acquired hobby into a business. I have an Etsy site now and am going to engage another Etsy shop owner to do my graphics package. I figure I should start off looking like I know what I'm doing. First impressions are vital and there are no do-overs. Basically I need a logo and a banner with some additional graphics for sold items, etc. I think I'll also have a business card and shipping card done. I think I can take the logo and use it on address labels, etc. It will cost a bit at first, but I think it will be worth it. There are a grillion other jewelry shops already out there so I have to carve out an identity that is serious and eyecatching, but also fun and indicative of the quality of my work. I also got a Flickr page to upload photos to. Now that I have my lightbox I feel like I can do some decent work. So far my experimenting has resulted in some decent pics. Yeah...not bad. It will be inte...