Almost ready!

Again, no photos so sorry about that......

But things are going quite well.  Fortunately I haven't got a great deal to do.  I say fortunately because of this cat saga which is happening at the moment - this last weekend, everything jewellery related totally stopped so we could take care of this cat.  I just could not do anything jewellery rtelated for 2 days last week because of it, I had no concentration, I couldn't sleep.  It's fine now, but hopefully she won't be in the cattery for too long.  We'd gladly have her here but I am allergic.  Every time I go to see her or take her to the vets I have to take my meds.  Hopefully it will al be sorted out soon.

Anyway, back to the jewellery!  I have completed my website and I have actually published it, but with hiding pages and a big message saying "UNDER CONSTRUCTION". This is because I wanted to make sure of the web address so I could put it on my business cards - which I have ordered now.  And they will be fine because I haven't put the address on, I have put my etsy store, website and email.

This weekend I'm going to Oxford with my boyfriend from Friday - Monday and after that I will have 2 days to prepare myself to go live with selling jewellery on September 1st!  It's quite exciting and daunting at the same time.  But as I have said all along, I am not expecting loads of sales right away.  I have plans to manage my time each day so I am promoting on Facebook and Twitter (hopefully I have this "selective tweets" business sussed), whilst making 1 or 2 pieces of ne jewellery per week.  In the meantime I will be putting one new item up every 2 hours in my Etsy store, and after the first couple of days I will actually tell people about my Facebook Page, Twitter, and website.  The reason for the delay is purely because I don't like the idea of telling people about it all before I've put much up for sale, otherwise I get the feeling people will go there, see about 4 items of jewellery, and leave.  I need to have at least 10 items up before I make everything official to everybody I know :)

Also there is a possibility that I might be going back to archaeology - temporarily!! There is a site coming up (they think) which they are willing to take me on as paid staff because of my specialist skills which would be very welcome on this site.  I said yes of course...although it will mean making selling my jewellery alot more difficult, and I won't be able to make much except at weekends.  I could still market it via Twitter on my mobile, or I could get one of those little laptops...those mini ones.  I love them!  But I have never needed one.  I probably wouldn't want to bring it onto site actually, it would most likely get scratched or dirty.  Anyway, I guess that will probably be another challenge, but it will get me a bit of money coming in too.  Perhaps that could mean spending longer concentrating on selling jewellery after it's finished? :)

What I have to try and to this afternoon is to try and give my jewellery names - it's proving to be quite difficult.  How many times can I say "Step back in time", "Step into the past", and call things "Egyptian Gems", "Egyptian Sunrise", "Sumerian Sands"......I'm trying not to be repetitive but I am sure there will be some repetition at least....!

I have been trying to write stories about each item too.  Not sure if they will work, but I hope so.  I know I'll be saying pretty much the same thing about them all, such as "made with gemstones adored and worn by ancient Egyptians", but I am assuming that if someone looks at one of my necklaces, they won't look at each and every one of them.....I don't know.

Anyway, things are going well, I'm just working on titles and descriptions so when it comes to posting them onto Etsy I won't have to sit and think too hard about them :)

Next week I think I will blog on Thursday, as it will be September 1st and my shop will be live!  I hope everything works..... :)

Just a quick blog!

Yes, I know I totally missed blogging last week....and I almost missed this week too.  Well this week I have put a reminder in my mobile so it should go off every Wednesday and hopefully I'll get into regular blogging!

So, sorry but this is just a quickie, as I have plenty to do and I have a BIG distraction in the shape of a small black cat trying to get to the US from the UK...!

Anyway the jewellery is going well, I have made quite a lot and I have - for the moment - stopped making, and I have been concentrating my efforts on creating a website which is almost ready, my photos are definitely ready and I will be ordering business cards very soon.  This week I have been REALLY trying to compile some good descriptions for my jewellery for Etsy.  So far so good.  Also planning on re-doing the business plan including a cash flow forecast which I have just got to grips with and re-doing the marketing plan.  I've been quite productive today and I hope to continue being productive up until Friday afternoon, then I'll be taking a break on Saturday to visit my brother in Milton Keynes.

As I said, sorry about the quickie, but I have put a reminder in my phone to blog every Wednesday.  Something is better than nothing, right? :)

Siobhan x

More creativity!

I know its late again, but here is my weekly post! :)  I'll get used to it and post every Wednesday at some point.  I think I might have to put a reminder in my phone or something!

This week I have made quite a few more necklaces, a handful of bracelets and quite a few earrings.  Soon I will need to take proper photos of these for my ETSY store - I hope to get those done either this weekend or at the beginning of next week.  I am starting to run out of supplies too, like specific headpins for example.  I tried using longer headpins for a couple more pairs of earrings, but I discovered that the longer the headpin, the wider the wire, and they don't thread through my freshwater pearls!!  They will have to wait.  I suppose I could try and undo a couple of the other pairs and re-do them with the other headpins....I'll see about that next week!


Also, I managed to cancel my order from www.moo.com just in time - because after the Business Day class last week, we were advised not to put our postal address on business cards.  I managed to get a full refund, and they just told me I will have to start from scratch to re-order.  They are such a good company!  I know I created stuff like a mad woman for a while JUST to get the photos for the business cards, but now it's not so much of a big deal and when I take the photos again I can take a little more time.  Last time my photos on white busts came out dark, possibly because I did those at the end of the day.  Some of my photos came out really well, so I will be going through all the photos I took last time and re-taking others next time, along with the new jewellery I have created.

Another thing I have to do this weekend or next week, is sort out a website.  That's another thing I want to get sorted out before I create the business cards because I want to put either the website address or my facebook page address on the card.  I investigated using CoffeeCup to create my own website, but it turned out that for me, I think it's far too much hassle and expense - paying for a web domain AND the amount of space you can fill online.  So, I went to www.wix.com and I thought it looked pretty good - then I discovered a couple more people who I know have also used this website to create their own websites for free!

I chose a few templates and played around with them, and I have decided that I think this is the way to go for me.  I only need a portfolio website to show off my stuff, with links to my ETSY store, I don't want another shop as well as ETSY, and if people are genuinely interested, they will go to ETSY and check out my stuff.  It means sacrificing the opportunity to have a website which is www.MY STORE NAME.com but with wix.com, I can upgrade for a fee to buy the domain.  Which I might do eventually, I'll just have to see how it goes.  All I know that it's not actually worth me paying £40 - £80 a year to have my own website when I don't even know how much money I will be taking!

Anyhoo, once I have all that sorted out I think I might re-visit my marketing plan and tidy it up somewhat, and perhaps go to the Business Plan - which currently doesn't have a great deal in it at the moment.  It shouldn't take me too long to sort those out because I have the basics there and I just need to update all the complicated and boring stuff! :)

Anyway, I have written far too much already, so....I shall see you next week and in the meantime, Happy Crafting everyone! :)

Siobhan x

London Jewellery School Business Day Class

Ok, so yesterday I went to a Business Day Class at the London Jewellery School!  And the first thing I will say is that I can definately recomment it to anyone who is thinking about starting a Jewellery Business.

For me, I kind of knew half the stuff which we talked about as I have been reading up and researching this for a few months now - things like PR, Advertising and Marketing stuffm Packaging, Pricing jewellery, IT, Websites, Networking and Craft shows.  But there were also very useful nuggets of information which will definately come in use for me, as I feel there are always at least a few things which aren't ALWAYS mentioned in books and other websites which have this sort of information on.

What was also very useful for me was the first part where we focused on our strengths and weaknesses, VERY useful information about hallmarking, how to get into galleries and shops and what to expect when you do decide to try, including the legal side of things and how to draw up an order form and a document of "Terms of Trade" which can be used as a legally binding document.  I also found it VERY useful to find out abou legal requirements and insurance stuff - this bit usually fills my head with candy floss and I get very confused....I swear all this legal stuff is purposefully made to be hard to understand to prevent people from wanting to run their own business!  Seriously - some of this stuff is enough to put some people off even starting...!!

Anyway, the best things about this class was that it was small - only 8 other people were in the group, which meant that the entire days' discussions could be focused on what WE wanted to know and learn. Like me, with all the legal stuff, and others who wanted to know more about being at craft shows, selling to galleries and doing commissions.  I also felt that the entire class was quite informal, fun, and it was nice to be with other people who had the same sort of interests and ambitions, and that our ideas were so different from one anothers.  It was a really good place to share ideas, advice and knowledge, and I have to say the teacher was very approachable and experienced in running a business herself - I always find it better for someone experienced to teach something that they know a lot about, rather than having a list of stuff and a random person just talking at you all day.

Sorry there are no photos in this post, but I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the Jewellery Business Day at the London Jewellery School, I recommend it to anyone who is thinking of starting a jewellery business, and it has got me thinking of several things which I need to look at before I even start selling my jewellery...!!  Hopefully we're all going to keep in contact and share our shops and websites - I'm afraid I only have my blog to offer at the moment as my website is not ready, and neither is my shop!  I will be ready in the middle - end of August which isn't too far away, but I will be blogging when everything is up and running, I promise :)

With the website, I have to re-arrange a few things and put my photos up, and I need to wait for my business cards which - I know I took all those photos in time for the 30% discount but it turns out that there is something which I put on the cards which at the Business Day Class we were advised not to do....!!  I have contacted the company to find out if I can cancel and start over - and that's another thing: I need to amend my business card design!

So there are a few things I need to do before launching this business of mine, but I will get there in the end!

A very productive week!

I know I know...I meant to blog last Wednesday LOL!  Actually last week was pretty busy for me.  Wednesday I went to a book launch, had a vaccination booster jab and I was creating jewellery like crazy!

So here is what happaned - last weekend I checked my email and found one from www.moo.com - this is where I have ordered my stickers from to put on my jewellery boxes topersonalise them and I think moo.com are brilliant!  Anyway, this email said that they were doing a 30% of EVERYTHING they printed until Thursday midnight last week.  When I opened the email, this gave me 4 days to make enough jewellery so I could put photos of my work on the reverse of the business cards I had designed!  Yey!

So, Monday through to Wednesday I was creating goodness knows how many necklaces, and on Thursday I spent the day taking lots and lots of photos of them.  I filled my camera with 480 photos!  Wow.  Anyway, Everything turned out really well apart from a few photos of the necklaces on the busts with turned out darker than I would have liked.  Still, it was the close up photos which I was going to use to put on the business cards, and with a little tewaking of the OTHER side of the business card, I managed to put my order in and sort it all out by 9pm Thursday evening and I got 30% my order of 200 mini cards.  Phew!

So you see, it really has been a busy week but I'm glad it happened.  I had a deadline so I made jewellery like crazy.  This doesn't mean I'm not going to make much jewellery this week - last week sort of threw me into it and I feel like I have a flow going, and I'm ready to play around with more designs.  I am still planning on begining to launch everything mid - late August, but something else may come up before then which may delay it a week.  It's all got to do with a friend in the States and the issue of shipping her cat over to her by September 1st....but I won't go into that LOL!

Anyway, everything is pretty much on schedule, and this Wednesday I am going to the London Jewellery School for a "Business Day" class - I really hope it's going to be helpful and not repeat everything I've already read about!  I'm looking forward to it actually.  I just need to print out a map to find out where everything is and I'll be fine.  Also hoping there might be a Starbucks close by so I can have some lunch there :)  I shall write about it in my next post :)

Sneek Peeks on experimental jewellery making!

Well this week has been quite productive for me, I must say.  Productive in two senses - I have been discovering what I can and can't do, and I have actually made some jewellery!  I have been playing around with beads which I may or may not sell online and perhaps keep them for potential craft fairs.  I'm not sure, we'll see.

Anyway, I had lots of teeny tiny seed beads which I thought I would use to try my hand at bead sewing and weaving.  I tried a few things and actually found the process...not difficult as such but incredibly time consuming.  I know people who do this all the time can do it really fast, but the smallest thing took me 40 minutes to make and realistically, I thought perhaps this wasn't such a good idea!  I did make two charms which could be put onto a keychain though!  I decided to keep some beads and pack others into small bags.  I gave them to my boyfriend who took them to work where his colleague's 10 year old daughter apparently squealed with delight upon receiving more beads!  She's obviously better suited to this bead weaving lark than I am!

Other techniques which I tried and decided were not for me included wire crochet and wire knitting.  As great as it looks, I found these really difficult...and painful on the fingers...!  However, I continued making things and trying things out - I tried crocheting cord with the larger seed beads which looked allright, I have to admit.  I also tried macrame, which I remember doing a bit of at school and not too long ago - I just had to remember which cords went where and I was off!  Macrame doesn't take me too long - nowhere near as long as beadweaving anyway - so this might be something I could use with the remaining non-gemstones which I have in my collection.  Something which I was successful with was creating a few necklaces with some wooden beads, some of which a friend had given me before she move to the States (Thankyou Liv!), which included a HUGE pendant which I ended up making an improvised bail for.  No really, it was a case of threading the wire through the hole and thinking "Oh. What now?" - I had not thought it through but it turned out good in the end.  I thought copper worked well with the rest of the necklace.

The next thing I did was a bit of wire-wrapping.  A while ago I had won some large wooden beads in a little magazine competition (I love beads. ANY beads. A competition to win some is something I cannot ignore, regardless of what beads there are...!!!).  They were plain and black, and I had NO idea what to do with them.  Fortunately, I had kept many blog posts from other people online who make jewellery and as I was going through them wondering what on EARTH to do with these plain wooden beads, I came across a tutorial for wire-wrapping sea-glass.  I didn't look at the tutorial at all - I saw the photos.  I tried it with copper wire and the result was very pleasing!!

I have to admit that I have tried wire-wrapping before and I dont' have any luck with non-drilled beads.  I personally find it so much easier to have a drilled bead (like these wooden ones here), so I can create a bail at the top, take the wire through the drilled hole, and wrap it around the bead that way.  Yet another thing discovered. I really enjoyed creating these actually, and I honestly think the copper wire works REALLY well with the black wood.  I think silver would also have worked well but these were meant to be practice pieces which I am now keeping as is.  Trouble is....I want more of these wooden beads to wire wrap and I have NO idea where to get some from LOL!  I'm sure I will find some eventually.

Anyway, this is what I have been up to as of late, and next week I hope to have some photos of some gemstone beaded jewellery which I have been making in order to sell online.  Well, maybe it'll be another "sneek peek" as I'm not putting them up yet - I'm building up stock in preparation to "launch" my shop on Etsy! :)

Green, grey and fuzzy!

Yes, it's another scarf - as I said, I am making rather a few this year for Christmas!  This one is another simple double rib scarf like the last one, but the wool is different.  This is a sage-green wool with blue spots called "Wendy Mistral Chinky", and is a very similar wool to the grey one I knitted AGES ago.  This wool is 29% wool, 68% acrylic and 3% polyester, and I used 6.5mm needles to knit.  I am very pleased with this scarf, it's a little bobbly in texture, but the wool is quite wavy.  I added tassles as I did for the other one - actually I find tassles very therapeutic to do LOL!

Anyway, I would say who this is for but he might be reading this blog so I'll just say it's a gent's scarf....and no, it's not for the model in the photo - my boyfriend!  He's not really a scarf person, but he wanted the grey scarf I mentioned earlier.  Actually, speaking of that grey scarf - I actually knitted a hat for him to match, which was my first time using circular needles, using the same rib stitch as the scarf.  In all honesty I'm not really a huge fan of circular knitting needles, it kind of irritates me having to push the wool around constantly!  But I think I ended up with a nice hat.  I have tried crocheting hats but it doesn't really seem to happen for me!  I'll be posting a few of my crochet results at some point - the successful ones of course!

Lastly, regarding the beads - I have began to play with seed beads and bead stitching and weaving.  It's nice to do, but for me as an inexperienced person at this particular craft, it does take me quite a long time.  I kept imagining how long people take to make those huge necklaces with all that intricate bead weaving!!  Anyway, the point of doing it is part of my voyage of creative discovery, and I think I have to say that bead weaving and stitching is not really for me.  But I tried it - and this is what I'm figuring out!  I'll get on to the gemstone jewellery soon, I know I will! :)