Debriefing

Today's Silver Price: $32.00/t.oz.

Level of success? My success was moderate this weekend. I did sell a lot of items, but unfortunately I won't be quitting my day job... yet.

This past Saturday's event was a craft fair at a local high school. Quote of the day: "Oh, I knew a girl that made jewelry but it was crap. Yours is really nice!" LOL. I was also asked twice if I go to school there. Mmmmm no, but thanks. I guess I should be happy that I can pass for 15 years younger than my real age!

Anyway, this craft fair was not so great. The vendor next to me said that the fair the school holds in November is better attended. Dammit. I made a little more than my table fee, which is to say I didn't make much profit. AT LEAST I made that table fee. It's a sad day when you lose money doing a craft fair (which I have).

Sunday's event was much more successful. A friend of mine held a vendor party in her backyard. It always helps when the customers are a bit liquored up... haha! The best thing about this event was there was no vendor fee, so everything I made was profit. I sold several bracelets, several rings and a few pairs of earrings. I found it very interesting to learn that what sells at one event will not necessarily sell at another event. Remember those dangle earrings I told you about? Didn't sell one pair this weekend. I was quite surprised.

Last night and tonight I've been posting my leftovers on my Etsy site. I've given my card out to a few ladies at work so I'm hoping I'll start getting more activity on the site.

That's all for now. I'm quite tired after not really having a weekend, so I'm off to bed early tonight!

Holiday Prep!

Today's Silver Price: $34.11/t.oz.

I've got one month to go before I do a craft fair and a holiday boutique party in one weekend (Dec 3 and 4)! I'm hoping that these two events will be my most successful yet! I'm also hoping that silver prices stay relatively low this month because I need to stock up on materials. The price of silver has been creeping up in the last couple of weeks. The patterned sterling silver wire that I bought recently worked out REALLY well, so I am hoping to purchase more of it. And.... it comes in copper!  I'm going big on rings this time around. I made a great ring out of the patterned wire but I gave it to my mother and forgot to take pics. I'll have to make another ASAP so I can post images. I also learned to use a Dremel to grind down rough edges on the wire. I'm on my way to being a real metalworker, haha!

The patterned wire also lends itself to making cuff bracelets, however it requires a bracelet mandrel- which I don't have! From what I've seen they cost about $30 to $40. I may just have to spring for one! The wire is bent or hammered around the mandrel to form a bracelet shape. Pretty simple process and could produce some very popular pieces (no alliteration intended).

I have a new necklace idea that I want to try. I saw it at a jewelry party- it's a 2-in-1 necklace. Basically it's a 32" necklace that can be doubled to become a 16" necklace. I think it would be pretty expensive to make in silver so it may have to be only in copper. Maybe I'll try out some silver-plated material, but that makes me nervous. I worry that the silver plating will chip or peel. Also I think any cuts made would not be clean. I guess I'll never know until I try it.

So I've been re-thinking my display as I seem to do before almost every show, lol. For my first show I displayed my earrings on homemade black earring cards. Then for a couple of events I used window screens to hang my earrings from. The window screens were great because they allowed light to pass through the earrings and a lot of my pieces have glass beads that reflect light. However when a pair of earrings was purchased it was a little tedious to take them off the screen and put them back on a card. I'm debating whether or not I should go back to the card display... which now that I think about it may pose a problem as I believe I threw out the display box I built... hmmmm. I might also need more boxes for ring display, since I plan on having a ton of rings available. If I have necklaces to display (which I haven't in the past) I will have to come up with some new display ideas. Better start planning for it now...

I'm very excited about these two events coming up and I am anxious to see what the public will think of my new items. There's lots of work to be done so I will be a busy bee for the next month! Time to get the production line (me) cranking!