Facebook Page

It took me all morning but I finally did it. I keep hearing everyone go on about their Facebook pages for their shops on etsy, so I finally went and made my own. Most of the time spend was trying to figure out where to go on the website to create the page. it's not exactly right out in the open. You have to go to some small "advertise" thing in the top corner somewhere. very misleading. Then I had to upload all my pictures, which was fun. hoping the page goes well and I get some fans :)

Serenity Earring - in many flavors

My newest creation, the "serenity" earrings. I really love this simple design, because it's girly and pretty, without being gaudy.

I came up with these after making my "halo" earrings (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25415922) and wanting to elaborate on the design.

Why I'm so excited about these earrings is that they are my first 'line' of earrings. Like many early jewelry artisans I made all of my jewelry up to this point one piece at a time. The thing is though that people sometimes enjoy the style, but they're not always going to want it in a certain color, so making every design in a variety of colors is a great way to not only get more items in your shop, but increase the chances that people will like the items you do have because it comes in more than one color.

Custom Orders

Sales have been way down on Etsy for a lot of people right now. I don't know if no one has any money because of the recession, or if everyone's on holidays, but I've heard from a lot of people - myself included - that etsy is at a stand still. It's been driving me nuts, because I've been spending so much money on supplies, and re-listing my items, and getting nothing back. not even very many views or hearts.

I was beginning to just become totally discouraged about my jewelry as a whole, and almost decided to end the whole thing, when a friend of mine asked if she could take my jewelry to her work. apparently they liked the necklace I gave her and wanted to see the rest of my stuff.

I made almost 150.00!! I guess that's not that much for some people, but having just started on etsy, that's a major acomplishment for me, and it made it possible for me to get something I've been putting off for a year. A guitar amp. I bought an electric guitar a little over a year ago now, with the intention of getting an amp "soon" and just kept putting it off. Working part time, and paying for your own school doesn't leave too much extra spending money for things like guitar amps. I'm so excited. I got it yesterday and read all the instruction manual thing, so today I finally get to try it. very excited. it's a peavey viper 15 for anyone who plays.

There's Got to Be a Better Way

Yesterday I decided to 'make my own luck' (it's all in the last post) and - instead of getting a $7.00 reserved listing in necklace on etsy - because there aren't any available until the second week of July, I decided to take the one item I would've put on a reserved listing, and renew that item every half hour from 10:00 am - midnight. it would cost me a dollar less, and keep me on the first page of the section.

It was the most tedious thing I've ever done. I had to stay near the computer, and couldn't start doing anything that would take any lenght of time, unless I'd just renewed to make sure I wouldn't miss my next deadline. renewing every half hour didn't even always keep me on the first page, however the farthest page I did end up on was page 11, which is pretty good considering after 11 hours I was on page 87.

I wouldn't suggest others use this system. I thought it was a good idea, but I won't be doing it again. It's so tedious and a little annoying, and it only got me 18 views for the day. I probably wouldn't have gotten that many views otherwise, but I didn't get any hearts - so it's hard to know if they were productive potential customer views, or just people looking at the recently listed items.

What I would suggest - if you have money you want to spend on renewing, is to renew a few things every day. That way nothing gets totally lost, but you don't have to sit at your computer all day renewing the same thing over and over again and feeling like you're throwing your time and money away - 'cause you kind of are.

Make Your Own Luck

I listed this necklace on etsy.com last night at around 8:00. at 9:30 this morning I went through the necklace pages to see how far through the pages my poor necklace had ended up, as the pages are listed chronologically. I figured it'd be on around page 5, because it had been not even 12 hours since I listed it. Not even half a day went by, and my necklace was on page 87! That's not 87 necklaces, but 87 PAGES of necklaces in the last 11 hours. I'm curiouse to see what page it would be on in general jewelry, but I don't have the time or patience to go through hundreds of pages.
I thought maybe I should get a reserved listing. For $7.00 etsy will put your item in a section above the rest for 24 - which I thought was a bad deal before, but now seeing that my necklace was completely lost in 11 hours, I'm considering it. So I checked it out - every listing, for every day is booked until the 5th of next month. I don't really want to wait that long, so I've decided to spend my money another way. It costs $0.20 to list an item on etsy. every time you list an item, it goes to the front page of that catagory, until so many other items in that catagory get listed, pushing it to the second page and so on. with 7.00 I could list 35 items. I'm going to do an experament - I'm going to re-list this necklace every half hour (providing it's not still on the first page, and with over 1 million pages of jewelry, I'm sure it won't) from 10:00 am until midnight, and it'll only cost me $6.00 instead of my $7.00 to give it a reserved listing. lets see how many views it gets!

You Know You Should Be In Bed When...

My very first post and it's going to be about myself.
As I got home from hanging out with my sister and our boyfriends I realized I had a custom order ring to make that I said I would deliver tomorrow, so instead of going to bed I grabbed my ring mandrel and set to work.

I wrapped the wire around the mandrel - right size and everything, and cut it off. then I realized I had only made a single loop when my rings are made with a double loop band. cursing myself for wasting silver wire I wrapped it around the mandrel again - this time twice around for the double band. I cut it off in the wrong spot however, so it was a single hoop again.

Now getting a little mad at myself for not being entirely together I wrapped the wire twice around the mandrel, made my double band that I've made a hundred times before and measured out my 26 gauge wire to wrap the beads on.

only when I started wrapping the beads on did I realize it was supposed to be a copper ring - not silver. Cutting my losses and going to bed. I'll make something of all this waste and finish my ring in the morning.