A New Obsession

I have fallen victim to the plague that besets (suddenly and violently) pretty much anyone who ever even thinks of learning to wire-wrap jewelry. That is, I can't stop looking up gemstones. To buy them, maybe. To scout them out, to find places that sell them for the cheapest prices at the best quality, yadda yadda. Mostly just to stare at them. Soooooo prettyyyyyy.
Old favorite: labradorite, still high up there. New favorite, seraphinite. It looks like feathers! Me and my fascination with anything related to flight. I've gathered from reading, though, that I can expect to have a new favorite at least weekly from now on.

I'm in kind of a strange position, I think. There are a lot of blogs written by Etsy sellers of things similar to those that I either make or want to make. However, I think most of them were, at my age and level of experience, not yet selling, probably at least not selling online, or at least not yet blogging. I'm starting out with a good deal more resources and practical advice from people who have already done it at my fingertips. I have contrariwise, a lovely and so-useful blog about selling jewelry online, telling me that my pictures have to have better backgrounds, and I have various other blogs bookmarked (from back when I didn't have a blog to use to "follow" them) telling me how to drill holes in shells without breaking them, posting up wire-wrapping tutorials, recommending this and that and you should get business cards if you're serious about this, Leo, and I know you are.

Long story short: I'm finding fewer things out the hard way, I think. I'm lucky that way. But I'll look back on these posts and cringe at what I didn't know. Ought I to get business cards when I'm barely selling enough to call it a source of income, let alone a business? I'm pretty sure I can't afford business cards at the moment. I think I'll make some stuff to take to that gallery - what's it called? That's near here. But for now, focusing on Christmas/Chanukah gifts =)

A side-effect of being in this strange position is that if people who have already done this stumble upon my blog, it will probably look rather familiar to them, just in a more electronic format - I'm having the same struggles that they were, once upon a time. I can't afford a cabachon or wire to learn to wire-wrap that cabachon and sell it for money to buy more cabachons and get better at wire-wrapping and oh, capital, capital. If only everything were free, I could just make art all the time. Silly reality, getting in the way. Mostly, the problem is that I can't count on selling things (or even being successful at them the first time around) - I expect a few catastrophic wire-wrapping failures, wire-tangled-like-a-bird's-nest-start-over type of failures, and when that happens I need to have the wire to pick up and try again. If that wire is all I have (and the money I put into it is money I need to get back), that puts some limits on my ability to experiment. How strange to think that I am not at all unique in being here, having to think about these things...I'm just here NOW, able to blog about it, while my predecessors look back on it semi-fondly in THEIR new blogs.


I did read some good advice, though, put here for action later (2:13?! How is it late so early?):


Get a flickr account, and start posting up photos! ....Aaaas soon as I take some.
Put a little personality into my blog? Don't just post new stuff I've made? Well hopefully I've got that down.
Get my "business" a facebook page - sorry, contrariwise, but I'm going to forget myspace for now. I don't know anyone who uses it anymore. I'm tempted to get a Diaspora account for it, actually :D
Make blogger friends, etsy seller friends, and absolutely STALK the etsy forums for advice. Talk to people, get involved.
Umm, POST MORE. Roughly translated as MAKE MORE STUFF. If I were less lazy/gemstone-research-obsessed with my time, I could make plenty of jewelry, and take lots of pictures. Okay, true, it gets dark really early here. Which leads me to:
Make a lightbox, and take some better pictures
Business cards??!?



By the way, if anyone's reading this, fantasian's etsy shop really doesn't have enough sales. She's got awesome skill, amazing talent, her works are unique and beautiful and so inspiring.
(And much cheaper than the guy who makes the Twisted Crystal jewelry, bless him, his stuff is so unique...birch bark? (Larimar?) Oh, yes, I would love a wire-wrapped birch bark necklace...but I could never afford his. Far out of my range. Still, though, those are my two sources of wire-wrapping inspiration at the moment.)