Holiday Shopping

Today's Silver Price: $19.55/t.oz.

My Cyber Monday sale seemed to generate a ton of traffic in my Etsy shop. I didn't actually get any sales that day though. What's interesting is that I had an order placed right before the sale started, two orders placed the day after, and another order today. So in summary, my 20% OFF sale increased shop views, but did not get me any orders on Cyber Monday!

I've been trying to stay on top of my social media marketing lately. I read recently that Facebook is one of the best ways to promote an Etsy site, and that you should include a photo in every post. 

In an effort to create interesting posts with interesting photos, I've been playing with some photo collage apps on my iPhone. The picture below was my first attempt. I used an app called *Collage*. I wanted to show the creative process of making wire hearts for a necklace, and wanted to include all the steps in one photo. I posted this pic on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram:

Then I found a better app called 'Instapicframe'. It has more options. This was the updated pic:

I used 'Instapicframe' again this morning. I wanted to show several images of my yoga jewelry in one picture:

So far I am enjoying making these collages! Hopefully they will help to increase traffic in my Etsy shop! 

Cyber Monday Sale!

Today's Silver Price: $19.93/t.oz.

I'm currently running a Cyber Monday sale in my Etsy shop. 20% off all items with coupon code CYBER2013. Sale ends at midnight tonight. The coupon code must be entered at checkout. 

This is the first time I've had a sale in my shop! Lets see how it goes! 

Vacation is over...

Today's Silver Price: $19.42/t.oz.


Time to get back to work after an awesome vacation in the Florida Keys last week! It was heavenly... we stayed on Long Key, did some snorkeling, standup paddleboarding, kayaking, and of course relaxing!

Anyway... I'm looking for some new bracelet designs. I was Googling this morning to find some inspiration, but I didn't come across anything. I have some ideas brewing in my head so I may just work on developing them. I want to create some big bold bracelets. The bracelets I currently have in my Etsy shop are mostly simple, thin, one strand bead bracelets. I may experiment today with wire links and see what I can come up with. They need to be BOLD!

I also have yet to use the knot component that I learned to make a long time ago. It's super cool, I just haven't figured out how I want to use them. I think they are too bulky for bracelet components so they'll probably end up in a long necklace.

I won't work too hard today... I made a promise to myself that I would get outside as much as possible this summer! Maybe I'll play some tennis with The Hubbie. Ciao!

Etsy Postings for 6.2.13

Today's Silver Price: $22.26/t.oz. (WOW!)

I've had a tough time getting back into blogging. I'll do an easy one tonight... below are the latest additions to my Etsy shop. A lot of the silver-plated components used in these designs I purchased from Etsy sellers, so that's pretty neat. Also, I'm liking the solid black background in the newer pictures. I think the older pictures are using backgrounds that are too busy and they take away from the jewelry. I think I'm going to continue using solid black backgrounds, or white backgrounds with a very subtle design on them. I'd like to re-shoot the older listings eventually to create a uniform look in the shop, but who knows when I'll get to that!

Just posted these on Etsy tonight:

Silver Leaves Necklace

Silver Leaves Earrings

Diamond Shaped Earrings 

Hematite & Silver Earrings

Stocking Up On Supplies

Today's Silver Price: $32.30/t/oz.

Yesterday's price of silver was $31.20. Perfect for buying!!! I went online to Rio Grande and I bought some sterling silver earwires, some sterling silver pear shaped components in two sizes and sterling silver jump rings. I also got some 10mm Murano glass beads. All of this is for making earrings. I've made these earrings before, they are long dangle earrings with one colored bead in the middle and they sold like HOTCAKES when I set up a table in my sister-in-law's teacher's lounge one day in 2010. Teachers love jewelry! It of course helped that it was a week before Mother's Day.

I also purchased some 16 gauge copper wire to make wrapped wire rings, and I bought a pound of copper stripping with which I hope to make cuff bracelets. I'll be giving the baseball bat a try for those.

From Fire Mountain Gems I ordered 18 different colors of 6mm glass beads. The beads come in 16" strands so I am going to have a whole lot of beads! I'm looking forward to making multicolored glass bead bracelets in both sterling silver and copper. I also bought some 10mm Greek evil eye beads- one package of 100 in traditional blue and white and another package of 100 which is multicolored. I have a friend that requested a bracelet with green evil eye beads so I thought I'd make a whole bunch, I think they would be popular. 

I spent a little over $200 on these orders combined. Hopefully it will be worth it! My supplies should be arriving early next week. Can't wait to get to work on it!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Today's Silver Price: $32.52/t.oz.

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I woke up this morning to an email informing me that someone had purchased an item on my Etsy page. Today was a good day! One sterling silver and amethyst beaded bracelet SOLD!

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Stores everywhere are preparing for Black Friday. People everywhere are preparing for Black Friday- making lists of stores they are going to hit, alphabetizing the items they will buy, taking out a third mortgage, raiding their 401Ks...  My first couple of jobs were in retail and the phrase Black Friday brings to mind chaos, bedlam, mayhem and hysteria. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving when an enormous amount of shopping occurs. It has been dubbed Black Friday because this is the day that will often take businesses out of the red (negative profits) and into the black (positive profits). Thus hoping to spur even more frenzied shopping, most stores have implemented massive sales on this particular day to draw customers in... and it works. There probably are some amazing deals out there on Black Friday, but I don't think I have ever been out shopping on this infamous day. I prefer to stay home in my pajamas and eat turkey sandwiches.

The Monday following Thanksgiving and Black Friday has become known as "Cyber Monday" because of the tremendous amount of online shopping that now takes place on this day. Why do people shop online so much on Cyber Monday? I have no idea. Maybe it's because they are starting to emerge from their turkey-induced coma and want to shop, but don't have the strength to leave the house? Maybe they are too embarrassed to go out to stores because they have wicked turkey farts?

After reading so much lately about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I've been thinking that I may just put all of my jewelry on my Etsy page for these big shopping days. As I have mentioned previously I usually separate my stock between items listed on Etsy and items that I bring to craft shows. It is always a dilemma as to whether or not I post something on my site. Also that means a large portion of my jewelry stock would be sitting unseen in a box until my next show.

My plan for this weekend is to get every piece of jewelry that I can up on my Etsy page. Just throw it all up there and see what happens. As my aunt says, if you throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick. Guess what? This morning some of it stuck.

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!

Silver Market takes a dip... Buy! Buy! Buy!

When I first started buying sterling silver materials from Rio Grande in 2009, the price of silver was around $18 per troy ounce. This was very cheap pricing for sterling silver. Some people even commented on how great my prices were when I was selling jewelry. Over the last few years, silver prices have been steadily increasing, making it more and more expensive for me to make jewelry. In May of this year, silver prices reached almost $50 per troy ounce. The big three metal markets (gold, silver and platinum) have been on the climb during the economy's downward spiral. How is the price of silver determined? I have no idea. I guess I should do some research on the subject. Rio Grande posts the price of silver daily on their website. Every day I check to see where it's at!

   

In the last few days silver prices have dropped dramatically. On September 21 silver was about $40, on September 26 it was about $29. Today's silver price is $30.91 per troy ounce. Nowhere near what I was paying a couple of years ago, but a hell of a lot better than $48/t.oz. (as it was in April of this year)!!

I placed an order last night (silver was at $30.92) through Rio Grande. Jump rings, wire guards, crimp beads and lobster clasps for making bracelets. 16 gauge sterling wire and half round patterned wire for making rings. Learning to make rings was one of the most exciting things ever! Most of the techniques I've learned I've found on the Internet, there are even videos on YouTube showing you how to make things!. There is a plethora of information out there in cyberspace! Anyway, I bought a lot of material so I will be making a lot of jewelry, although I'll probably end up making another purchase before the holiday season is over. I only bought silver items because I wanted to take advantage of the low prices. I'll buy other supplies at a later date. Rio Grande has a huge bead selection and also sells jewelry components made of other metals such as brass, copper and pewter. Of course they sell gold as well, but I've never liked gold. I suppose it would be in my best interest to make gold jewelry in order to have a wide variety of merchandise and appeal to a wider audience, but I'm so damn stubborn. And gold is currently $1,613 per troy ounce. Slightly more expensive than silver, lol. I can't say why I don't like gold. It might be because gold is a warm color and silver is a cool color. I've always gravitated toward cool colors- blues and greens and purples.

Over the summer I started experimenting with copper when silver prices got too high. Copper is very cheap and I can buy it in large quantities from a local craft store like Michaels. I can produce a large amount of jewelry, but I have to sell it cheaper than the silver items. 'Costume Jewelry' has always turned me off, I never liked the idea of cheap or 'fake' jewelry. However copper has been a big surprise. It is easy to work with and creates a really unique look. And the best thing? Wearing copper is GOOD FOR YOU! Copper is a natural mineral found in the human body and a copper deficiency can be detrimental to your health. Copper is very soft and wearing copper jewelry allows your skin to absorb some of the mineral and utilize it in your body. While it still feels cheap and not as classy as silver, I have grown to love copper and will continue to work with it.

So I should have a nice package of goodies arriving sometime next week. It's very exciting to get a box full of silver wire and components...it's a box bursting with potential! I'll be trying a new ring design with the patterned half-round wire. I'm planning to cut 3 or 4 inch sections and wrap them around the ring mandrel once with the ends laid parallel to each other on the top of the ring- sort of on a diagonal. It may or may not work! I don't know if the wire will be strong enough to hold the shape, I've never worked with it before. I honestly am not even sure what I'm getting with this patterned wire- I'm expecting it to be a chunky piece of wire but I could be very wrong. Either way, I'll figure out something to do with it! I can't wait for the delivery...there's nothing like diving into a box of fresh silver... :)