Progress!

Some long-awaited progress: I have three pieces for you. I was in a rush on the way to the post office when I remembered I needed to take a picture of these, so the picture is pretty terrible. Oh, well. This was a custom piece. I like the colors but I might have actually preferred to make one in the zigzag form, because as it was I had no idea what order to put them in. I think I made a good choice, though, and hopefully she’ll like them!







This was a gift for a professor's wife (Yes, when I give gifts to men, they tend to be gifts for them to give to other people) because he helped me upgrade my computer. Clean lines, simple aesthetic, for a woman who prefers the red-brown sort of color scheme but is allergic to some metals (silver should be ok, but I can’t use copper as I normally would for that color palette) and so rarely wears earrings or any jewelry at all...reportedly she does have pierced ears, though. I considered making her something else, but a bracelet would be too much silver for me to give away, I don’t know her ring size and I’m not confident in my ability to make an adjustable one yet, and I try not to make my first insecure attempts in silver...and I’m best at earrings, anyway. I think they came out well, and I think that I managed to make silver and red go together! The lighter red is coral, the darker is brecciated jasper. Mission accomplished, now let’s hope that she likes them. I’ve never met her so I don’t have the friend advantage there.

The last one is one I’m rather proud of that spontaneously combusted out of my head in a 5-hour session of trying all new things. A double-wrap on one piece, a new spontaneously-devised caging method, structural improvising. I’d never even made a cuff bracelet before, but what I tried worked, and the “mistakes” I made ended up being the best parts. Here's another view:

These two cabs begged not to be put in earrings. Honestly I don’t really like when twin cabs are put in earrings because it looks like they’re supposed to be the same, the artist wants them to be the same, they’re trying REALLY HARD to be the same when nature never intended them to be that way. These ones are unique – one is more red and one is more green, they both like copper and they’d like to hang out together, thank you very much. At least, that’s what I think they were saying.

Anyway, I’m really happy with how this turned out because almost nothing on it is anything I’ve tried before. The method of caging is such that it requires every wire I put on it to be where it is, and because the wires brace against the stones, the stones keep the wires secure as well as the other way around. If I took out one of the stones, the other would not be secure anymore either. I think it’s poetic, for twins.

I’ll go ahead and call this a success. I think it’s the first cuff bracelet I’ve ever made. I especially like how I made up for my own insecurity – in trying out this caging method, I didn’t cut enough of the four cage wires to make a whole bracelet, just to try out the cage – so when it worked and turned out to be secure, I flared the ends (I added…flair. :] ) and added the rest of the bracelet not only for the usual old cuff structure but also for interest. Because I wasn’t sure of myself, the bracelet is more awesome. That’s my favorite thing about making jewelry, I think…don’t be sure of yourself, just do things anyway, and they’ll end up like that. If you’re too confident, you’ll fall into a rut of doing what always works, and if you’re too afraid, you won’t do anything…but be both, and your work will be unique and spontaneous. Score.

It’s also adjustable, I overlap the ends side-by-side for my tiny wrists, but for larger wrists it still stays on (even on me) when they point at each other. It’s structurally sound and comfortable. I’m really happy with how it came out.


Pricing:
Pricing is always a problem. There are lots of online “pointers” and “tutorials” and lots of advice on “how long did it take you? how much did it cost to make? how difficult was it?” These are all questions to which I don’t really have the answers. I have no idea how much wire went into that bracelet, for instance. And I spent more time sketching it out and miming wire shapes with my fingers than actually wrapping it. And then there’s the problem of, well, this took so much more effort than those silver earrings, I should charge a lot more for it, but then again the materials are less expensive and what if people won’t buy it?

A lot of advice is “test your market” - put your price where you want it, if the item doesn’t move, lower it, or move it to a better place in your shop, or raise your other prices to make it look less expensive by comparison...there are plenty of strategies and none of them are really helpful for me because “if it doesn’t move” is not really the exception to the rule, yet. Even my most popular things can go through a four-month Etsy posted cycle without “moving.” Testing my market takes more time than I know how to use, because most of my stuff still “doesn’t move” for a while. Does that mean that I need to be better at advertising, or does it mean that I need to fix my prices, my shop order, etc. for ALL of my stuff? ......*sigh* probably.

Pricing is the biggest reason I split my shop into two. Because comparing that bracelet to a pair of origami earrings is difficult when they’re “upcycled” - they take almost as long as that bracelet did, maybe even longer, but I sure can’t charge as much if they’re right next to them. Every time I’m faced with pricing another fine-jewelry item I’m reminded that I need to get my upcycled stuff out of that shop...but I’m reluctant to do it because it’s getting the most publicity and those are my most popular things. I’ll have to figure it out SOON, before review/giveaways start pointing customers at Letterbox Lion and The Winged Lion goes unnoticed, and people wonder where the cool upcycled earrings went.

Anyway, I have no idea how much ask for that bracelet. Rarr!

P.S., my Year of Jewelry posts for these pieces (okay, you've pretty much read them already but oh well) can be found here, here and here, respectively.