Semantics

Now that you all know I'm a linguist, I'm going to talk about semantics. I just thought of it because it occurred to me that in at least one of my posts, I'm giving too much information.


Semantics is the meaning of a sentence, basically...and there are at least two different ones for each sentence.
There's the literal meaning: "I have to be at work at 7 tomorrow."
And then there's the implicated meaning: "Do you want to stop for a drink?" "I have to be at work at 7 tomorrow."

As you can see, the context given to the second one gives it a lot of other meanings, such as:
"No." (Or at least "Even if I want to, I can't.")
"I have a good reason for saying no."
"The reason I'm saying no is unrelated to you."
And the very fact of having said that implicates:
"I WANT YOU TO KNOW that the reason I'm saying no is unrelated to you."
Which in turn adds the implicature of:
"I am not refusing because I hate you."
"I might be open to being invited by you to do the same thing at another time."

Context matters, basically. LONG STORY SHOT.

Even without such contexts, though, there are some things that speakers just KNOW about words. I'm talking only about native English speakers in these specific examples, by the way.
For instance: "I ate some of the cookies."
That technically just means "The number of cookies I ate was greater than zero.
While that doesn't technically mean I did not eat some of the cookies and then the rest of the cookies...it doesn't technically mean I didn't eat ALL of the cookies, if all of the cookies were gone, you'd still be looking for who ate the rest of the cookies after I was done. This implicature made by some (that it means "not all") is so strong that even in my class full of linguists who had been learning about semantic logic for half a semester already, there were plenty of people who argued with the teacher and told him that "some" meant "not all" as part of its DEFINITION. It doesn't, actually, but if you think it does, you're not alone. It's just that strong of an implication.

In fact, you'd assume that not only had I not eaten all of them, I hadn't even eaten MOST of them. This is called "Scalar Implicature" and is hard to explain. Let me just say that you assume I'm telling you EXACTLY as much as you need to know. NO MORE, NO LESS.


I try not to buy gemstones from people who don't label things that have been dyed as "dyed" (or "treated" or "color-enhanced" or whatever) but everybody likes to get an edge, and there are plenty of people who will label things as "natural" "untreated" "100% natural" and so on, but then simply neglect to put those tags on the dyed things...so while the dyed things are not labeled as dyed, they are tacitly labeled as "not natural color," and they probably consider that honest. Personally I think it's not really honest, considering that someone would only have that context if they looked at the person's other shop items that WERE their natural color. But it's so often done that it gets to the point of having to assume that if it doesn't mention it being "100% natural," there's a good chance that it's dyed. Implicature, man, so crazy.

(Mostly I just stick with those sellers that put "dyed" in the description and feel like I know what I'm buying, even if it IS dyed. I just don't want to pass on anything dishonest into my work and to my buyers. It doesn't really MATTER, usually...dyed things are pretty and in some cases prettier than natural because they went through the effort of looking like that, and I have bought and used dyed stones...but it makes me feel better.)

Reading the post on something I just sold today has just made me realize that I was giving too much information. I put, "These pictures have NOT been edited for color."

Which, I mean, was true. And it seemed like a good thing to say, "Look! The colors really are this bright!" Why would I NOT want my customers to know that? BUT WAIT.

So what does that imply about ALL of my other photos?

NOOOOOOOOOOO. *falls into a pit of doom!*


Though only a very few of my pictures HAVE been edited for color. And when they were, like in the Thunderhead Earrings, I put a note in the description saying basically, "These pictures have been edited to make them more color-accurate because my camera sucks, so yes, they're edited, but it's better this way, trust me." And yet, my putting that one line of description in a post could have put all of my other pictures into question through the magic of semantics.


Luckily, I'm pretty sure nobody looked at that and thought, "Well, if they WEREN'T edited for color, she'd have put that every time!" Nobody expects me to be that organized, I hope.

Artistic Integrity

This is a commonly touched-upon topic, but though I think about it often, I've never really talked to anyone about it...

Well, today I made a sacrifice for my artistic integrity, and I'm proud of myself for it. Probably I shouldn't be...it was only decent of me...but I did give up something, so I reserve the right to my pride as a consolation prize.

I read something on the Etsy forums (fora...) recently, an artist's confession that she had accidentally stolen some other people's designs. She said that she got a custom order request, and the woman requesting claimed that she had designed the images herself, and wanted them put on the seller's wares. The customer was a dear friend of the artist, apparently, and the artist thought that her friend's images were so cute that she asked, in exchange for a discount on the custom order, for permission from the customer to reproduce the images in her shop. The customer gave her permission, got her discount, and got her items.

The seller reproduced the images on her wares, and apparently received many very angry messages that she was a plagiarist, a copyright-violator, a business-thief, etc.. She was reported to Etsy admin several times, I don't know if anyone pressed copyright violation charges or anything, but she was humiliated, abused, threatened and reprimanded, all because the customer, her FRIEND, had lied and said that she had created the images herself...and then let her friend take the fall for an unknowing but illegal action in exchange for a discount. She sold her friend out for a discount from her...talk about reprehensible. The least she could have done was said that she planned to sell the images herself and saved her face AND her friend, and not taken the discount.

Since the friend knew that she had not created the images and said that she had, clearly this is a case of knowingly defrauding other artists.
Well, today, I received a custom order request for a ring "similar to" one that I had in my shop...the only real similarity was that they both involved a heart shape. She attached a picture of the ring she wanted made. It was a real ring, and had been made by someone else.
The customer probably didn't know that the techniques involved in making my ring and the ring she wanted were completely different, and she may not even have known that my knowingly reproducing a work that someone else designed - even if it was as iconic a shape as a heart put on something as normal as a ring - is illegal and considered plagiarism. But I do.

As an artist who is just-starting-out in the slowest and most preoccupied way, EVERY sale is a big deal to me. Every custom order, especially, because those, at least in theory, make people the most happy that you exist to make them jewelry, and therefore the most likely to brag to other people about it: oh yes, I had it custom made for me by this artist on Etsy, oh yes, she's fantastic, she makes the most adorable things, I just had to get one that was just for me, more personal, you know - the more they talk you up, the better they are likely to feel about having bought from you, and so it makes everybody happy, including the people they're talking to, who may go on to order from this so-esteemed artist. Custom orders are a big deal.

But, you know. I'm not like that. And because it's an object, not just an image, I know she didn't make it or have claim to it...if she could make it, she wouldn't be asking me to do it. And I do realize that, unlike the woman who lied to her friend and claimed that she made the images herself, this customer probably didn't realize that it would be a problem for me if I were caught making what she wanted. She was probably just hoping I would make it cheaper than whoever made it first, and she didn't try to claim anything about the legality of it to me, or falsify anything. So I don't blame her. But it still rubbed a bit of salt in my wounds to know that not only did I not get the order, but I was the one who had to decline it, like saying "No, thanks, I won't take your money and buy new beads with it." I don't have the money, I didn't make the piece for her, I didn't satisfy her want, and it's MY FAULT. Though it isn't really, it just stings a bit to have had to write back to her myself that I must decline.

And what REALLY stings is, I directed her to look at other Etsy shops who make similar things, hoping she'd just break down and buy what she wanted from the original seller or get a similar one from someone who actually created a design in the same vein that she wanted...and hopefully my pointing out that that would be plagiarism and illegal will be enough to convince her not to put other people in the same position as she put me. It's very possible that she didn't intend at all to steal business from someone and just hadn't thought about it. But I have no guarantee, none whatsoever, that she won't just send the same message to someone else, and that that person will be as scrupulous. And I'll have my dignity, and my artistic integrity, and no money to buy more beads. And the unscrupulous person will have her money instead. Why is that allowed to win?


Luckily, I just bought more beads, so I'm happy for a while. Lucky stones! And in the end, I feel better for having chosen integrity over money, when the choice was offered. Someone may still get plagiarized, and I will be able to sympathize, and consider myself to have more integrity than whoever did it, and if I am ever plagiarized I will be angry, and I will not be a hypocrite for it. Thank you, mom, for raising me that way.

But seriously! New focal beads! LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY! And one of them is just for MEEEEE.

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.

Martfire and Oo.

So here's some annoying news: Artfire is phasing out their free basic accounts. I had planned on stocking my shop there more fully over the next few months, and if I got enough sales to justify it, possibly subscribing. I wish they hadn't chosen to do it this way - if anything they could limit the number of items a free seller could have, like a lot of other sites do...but instead they're phasing them out, and I'm not hardwired to spring for something like that when I haven't had any luck with it yet at all. It's probably entirely my fault that I haven't had luck with it, since I never kept up with that shop, but it WAS my plan for the summer to get that shop running. Oh, well. It's a shame. Less work for me, less exposure too. That's how it goes. I can't afford a monthly subscription right now even if I don't limit myself to the money I've made from selling jewelry. I'm pretty broke. It's a shame, Artfire no longer wants to make that better for me. *siiigh*


In better news, I'm ordering some business cards. Right now, all my advertising consists of sitting in public places making tiny paper cranes and waiting for people to ask me what I'm doing so intently with my hands surrounded by all those starburst wrappers. It's actually surprisingly effective, and I get a lot of people asking me where to find my site, but I don't have anything to give them yet to make them remember where it is. Soon I will! And a card holder to protect them.
Here's an unpaid endorsement for you: moo.com has some awesome business cards, I've gotten their free trials already and I've been poking holes in them and using them as earring holders...they say you should send a reminder of your company in your package. I was skeptical because I always throw them out, but I always keep the original earring holders...if those earring holders include a link to my website, and that link stays around in customers' houses attached to the earrings they like...well, I think this is a good strategy. But I still need things to give to people who just ask.

Hull, MA has a beautiful beach, even when it's covered with people.

This is very probably the best summer I have ever had. Life is beautiful.

Blogs

I seem to have fallen off the wagon in terms of The Year of Jewelry...moving, the beginning of summer, traveling and starting work have all thrown my jewelry under the rug, so to speak. But I've got three, count'em, THREE custom orders going right now, so expect to see some catch-up work posted soon. Okay, that's not as many as the weeks I missed, but they'll get me back on track for the rest of them. That's the plan!

And here are some lovely, lovely people who have blogged about my work! The giveaway's already over, sorry folks, but I'm posting the link anyway. Stephanie from BabesRockinMami got a lovely custom set for her review, gave me some new perspective on colors and gave me a great birthday present a month ago when she posted a glowing review. Daffy from BatCrapCrazy, the second link, was the winner of the giveaway, and just LOVED the My Fair Lady earrings...they weren't originally on the table for giving away, but she was so nice about it and liked them so much, I didn't see a reason to say no. After all, every artist wants her work going to a happy home. She even likes them enough now that she has them, and is fantastic enough, to blog about them!

The feedback both from them and from their readers and commenters is really encouraging, and if I can get my butt back in gear, I'm beginning to think maybe this dream could be viable after all. If people like my work that much, then really I just need to get the word out so that people KNOW they like it that much. And these two lovelies have just kickstarted that process. Thank you SO, so much, you guys. It really means a lot.

http://babesrockinmami.com/?p=3920

http://batcrapcrazy.blogspot.com/2011/06/flight-of-fancy.html


I'm planning to participate in some more review/giveaways soon, (and post them while they're still active,) so uhh...keep on the lookout, my friends.

A Grand Unveiling!

So, I finally did what I should have done months ago, and opened another shop...on Etsy and Artfire. They're not fully stocked yet (okay, not even my normal shop on Artfire is fully stocked, and my new one there is not stocked AT ALL...) but I finally got a jump on it on Etsy...say hello to The Winged Lion, my new shop for the selling of all things upcycled. I have new pages on my website, too.

In the coming (insert period of time, in the plural), I'm going to be transferring my upcycled pieces from Letterbox Lion to The Winged Lion. I'm also going to try and fully stock my Letterbox Lion shop on Artfire, possibly before I get to posting anything in The Winged Lion there. I know it doesn't sound like I've done much, but given that I have a final exam in 8 hours (OH SHOOT) this is really quite a lot what with finals season, packing and everything all up in the air for my research position for this summer. I've been slacking off way more than I should have and I still haven't made anything for the Year of Jewelry Project for this week! OH NO. I tell ya, man...life's crazy around this time. Maybe I'll get something made by tomorrow...but I guess you can play catch-up with impunity on that site so maybe I'll have to be lame and skip a week for the sake of tests and moving out.

A new aspect of business

I was recently approached by Bloggerdise, which is a free site where bloggers interested in doing product reviews and people who have products they'd like to have reviewed can sign up and contact each other. They simply offered me (as a small business owner) basically some free publicity. I haven't looked around on it much, but I posted up an ad with a picture of some of my crane earrings (the people on the site are very nice, by the way, and will create an ad for you if you'd rather not make one yourself...they did for me, but I made one because I wanted a specific picture in it and such). But it's really, really easy, and free, so there's no reason not to if you've got a business. What they wanted in return was for me to spread the word...so here's MY review. Five people have already contacted me, and it's been like two days. If you've got a business, it's massively worth the two seconds it will take you to sign up and make a little ad thing for free and see where it takes you...and you can make more later if you like how it turns out. Go to www.bloggerdise.com.

I've been contacted by so far, one offering me paid advertising on her blog (not up my alley at the moment, nor probably ever, I've gotta say - if I want to pay for advertising I'll pay Google or someone) but the other four wanted to do review/giveaways. That is, I send them a product and they talk about it on their blog (hopefully raving about how awesome it is) and then one of their readers can win a similar one (or in my case, I'll probably offer custom orders, since my most unique pieces are my origami ones, those are the ones people will want and they're the ones I can afford to give away anyway). The reason I'm doing this when it will be a LOT of work for me (5 minutes of folding per crane plus prep (cutting into squares) time and sealing time...I've got a full workday's worth of work to do on these already) is that in order to win the item, the readers have to do things like "like" me on facebook, or "heart" my etsy shop...anyone who enters, not just the winner, will do these things, and if they really like the prize enough, the non-winners might just buy one. Not to mention the fact that just getting my product seen by more people, even if they don't enter, and sending more of them out to more cities where people will see them on the street, will drastically increase my visibility online and in the real world. Basically, like all advertising, this is my losing money hoping to gain it in the long run...that is, hoping to gain money and a chance for jewelry to be a bigger part of my life, and a chance for my business to stand on its own legs.

Honestly, if I had a reliable way to know I could sell my silver and copper and gemstone wire-wrappings, I would want to make them more, because they're more fun, though less unique. I probably wouldn't be able to do giveaways just because my pieces would require so much more overhead...I would need to gain something tangible in return. But I don't know how often my peers enter such things, and since my angle at the moment is "eco-friendly" (emphasis on friendly) I need to be as friendly as I can. I wonder where this all will take me. It's getting very exciting (and time consuming).

Speaking of which, some future update will have to detail how awesome my summer is going to be. On a related note, next Monday is Marathon Monday here in Beantown, and I have a DAY OFF. Where I don't have to be ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING. I haven't had one of those since I got my part-time job. I am almost embarrassingly excited for the chance to do whatever I want...don't expect productivity, it will probably be spent reading.


Also, I am continually astounded by what colors people pick for custom crane orders. Yellow and purple and teal and green just don't look good to me as a combination, but I've gotten more than one order for such a pair...I guess that's why I OFFER custom orders, because I would never dream of making what those people would want. At least I'm getting to the stage where I can look at my creations and not think "gross, she's going to hate it" - to see it from the buyer's point of view, and not judge it based on my own color preference.

Year of Jewelry 3rd go, and psychology

My third week into the Year of Jewelry Project:

A lotus pendant. I like the way this one turned out...the more gems I put on it, the better it looked, so it's definitely a step up for me, since I'm used to making smaller, subtler and less gaudy (and less expensive) things. It was also quite a learning experience in "use twice as much wire as you think you'll need". This includes bright and oxidized copper, peach moonstone, pink garnet, fanta carnelian, peach aventurine, picture jasper and sunstone. It looks nice with a dark green shirt, with its dramatic contrasts and fall colors.


In psychology class we are learning about the science of motivation. It's well-known (but little practiced in the business world) that incentives for something decrease performance...the higher the incentive, the lower the performance. At least, that holds true for things that require even rudimentary cognitive work...tasks that are purely mechanical are better accomplished with incentives than without, but nowadays, not that many people have jobs that are purely mechanical work. The best work is accomplished with "autonomy, mastery and purpose" - being able to do what you want went you want, being able to become better and better at something that matters, and feeling like you are contributing to a cause bigger than yourself, whether only a little bigger or world-wide. This rule has been noted by businesses like Google, whose employees are free 20% of the time to work on whatever they feel like working on...and about half of Google's most awesome innovations...gmail, for instance...were born from employees puttering around working on their own projects that turned out insanely good.
This is also what my boyfriend is going through, and struggling with, right now...the conflict between his class demands for code and his desire to make his own game. Google says: What kind of email client would you want to use? Could you make it? Go for it. Jeff says: there is a game that I want to play that doesn't exist yet. Can I do it? The fact is...he can, if he puts enough work into it...but no amount of money is going to convince him to do so, only the doing itself can do that.


The Year of Jewelry is giving me my non-incentivized rewards. I am not doing this for the money, though of course that is my "aim" - making jewelry started being less fun when I had to go through all sorts of rigamarole to do it...*had* to being the key word. Now, I still go through rigamarole, but it's a challenge! I made two pairs of earrings on a ballroom dance floor. I put six kinds of gemstones on a pendant because it looked best that way. I ran out of wire halfway through a pendant, and started up with another kind of wire, adding a cool vine effect at the bottom. I have ALL of my pictures formatted to go up on Etsy...my least favorite part. These things are obstacles to be overcome, not to complain about and use as a reason to not do any work.

Long story short: my productivity has SHOT UP over the past few weeks.

The reason for this is that now I have a different aim - to do work when I can (autonomy), to get better at jewelry-making (mastery), to get feedback(purpose), and of course, though most other people's YOJ contributions are far superior to mine, to show off. Granted, that "purpose" is only a little bit bigger than myself...but I envision things for it that are bigger than I am. I'd love to support myself on jewelry, though I know it's unlikely to ever happen that way. I'd love to learn until I master it and then to teach. I'd love to create things I can look on with wonder and not understand with anything but rationality how something so beautiful could have come out of me. You know, just the usual.

So thank you, Year of Jewelry, for putting me back on my track.

Pet Peeves from a Bead Buyer

Dear Bead Suppliers:

After a long few hours of scouring the internet for gemstones I want, I'd like to provide a few helpful hints that will keep you from annoying the heck out of your potential customers and scaring or pissing them off.

JUST A NOTE: These are pet peeves...as in, they are things that make me mad when bead-shopping. Therefore, they are a little "peeved" sounding. I recognize that most of the people who do these things probably actually don't realize it, mean it, or have in mind how it comes across, but I wanted to write down what goes through a customer's mind in case a bead supplier found it helpful to know...you never know, you might look back at one of your posts and realize that it looks a lot like you're trying to take advantage of your customers, even when that had never crossed your mind. That is the purpose of this post...to help you figure it out so you can fix it, and help you and help me.

So:

1) Put what it is in the title. ALL OF IT. "Carnelian chips" is better than "gemstone beads" but the best is "Deep orange natural carnelian chip beads 36" strand." Even "half strand" isn't enough, because that could be anywhere from 4 to 18 inches. If someone told you that people don't want to read a long title like that, that person didn't realize that many people are looking for something specific! I was looking for a lot of tiny, deep orange carnelian chips...I didn't want to waste my time clicking on "carnelian chips" only to find out they are 10mm long and light brown and I only get 4 of them. You see?

2) PLEASE, PLEASE, at least SOMEWHERE in your post, put how many beads there are. I know it's a big hassle to - *GASP* - COUNT them all, and I could *theoretically* calculate it (most of the time; see #4) using math, but let's be honest here: I just DID that and it didn't work. I came up with something like 98 beads of some size per some inch strand, and a post I read directly after that said, for the SAME STRAND AND SIZE, "approx. 66 beads." As you can see, that method really doesn't work... however, while it *might* make me think I'm going to get more than I actually am, and thus get you business...what's more likely is that it will just annoy me so much that I don't want to go through the hassle of doing the math, when I know that I will probably receive the beads and find out I was wrong...and therefore, the hassle of buying from YOU is just too much, compared to someone who puts a succinct "approx. 66 beads" on his post. I'm much more likely to buy something when I actually know what I'm getting, and if I only get 40 beads, I can call that guy out on it, whereas if I got a long strand of very loosely packed beads and didn't get nearly as many as my math said I would, I have no recourse, I wasted my money. I know that, you know that, and I know you know that, so just put the darn number in and there wouldn't be a problem.

3) A good picture is worth as much as everyone says. Get a camera with a macro setting, they're pretty cheap now. Get some nice colors in the picture, and no blurriness and don't let the shadows make them look like they're dirty. Also, dust them off before taking close-ups. I am not going to click on something that looks that unprofessional, and even if it's just an off day or you were in a rush, it stays up there for months or more - it's worthwhile to go back and get a better picture. I'm buying beads that I haven't actually seen...I want ones that look GOOD, so make yours look GOOD.

4) Don't switch out measurement units from one post to another. 48 beads in one post, "half strand" in another, then "14 inches" in one, and 13 GRAMS in another. How on EARTH am I supposed to know how many beads I'm getting by the GRAM? And there's no way I can calculate that given the irregularity of gemstone mass. Seriously, it may SEEM to work out advantageously for you to kinda-sorta-just-barely-mislead your customers, but some of us are wise to it and find it REALLY annoying.

5) Rondelles have two dimensions worth talking about. A 4mm rondelle and an 8mm rondelle look exactly the same? No, people just don't bother to name which dimension they're talking about and only bother with one of them...news: it makes a difference. One of them I want, and the other I don't...and if I can't tell if yours is what I want, I'll go with certainty for a few cents more.

6) Microfacets are tiny. ITTY-BITTY. Kind-of-faceted-just-to-make-them-look-better is a look I really like, and it is NOT the same as microfaceted. I am not LOOKING for microfaceted. Be accurate or risk losing the business of people who want what you're selling and are accurate when searching for it. People who search for microfacets are going to find your items, which are not microfaceted, and they won't buy them...and I will search for faceted nuggets or faceted chips, and I WILL NOT FIND YOUR ITEM because you thought it was fancier to say it was microfaceted. Fancier is not what you're selling. You're selling rough faceted nuggets.

6.5) BE DESCRIPTIVE. PLEASE. We're here to buy things that are important to us, and we want to know about them. Be as helpful as you can. Kudos to the people who write "smooth" on rondelles and rounds and such that aren't faceted (and are smooth). Some rondelles and rounds that aren't faceted are also not smooth, so the extra descriptor gets important.

7) By the same token, be enthusiastic. Obviously this is not required, and not as essential as having a good name, but if you say something about the luscious color that you just can't take your eyes off, I'm willing enough to be marketed to (after all, I'm on your site as a buyer, not a cynic) that I will take a second look at the color specifically, to see what you like so much about it...if it didn't strike me the first time, you've just earned another chance for me to get hooked on your lovely beads and just HAVE to "add to cart." Compare them to a lot of things that are inspiring in themselves..."rhyolite rondelles" vs. "rainforest jasper rondelles in shades from gold to forest green" - they are the same thing, but which is more picturesque? I can't believe that some people just don't consider that.

7.5) Also, if your product description is only one little line - basically, the essentials of the product: 36" strand carnelian chips deep orange. NOT ONLY have you lost any potential chances to make me look at your product again to see if it's what I want, to see it for what is good about it...NOT ONLY THAT, but it basically sounds like you just don't have the time or patience, and you just don't CARE about your products enough, to write a decent description. Personally, I write ridiculously long descriptions for my work because every piece is IMPORTANT to me...every time I mail one off, I feel like I'm sending a baby off to college...so to me, it's really repugnant not to care. That's not artistic or inspiring, it doesn't make me want to use YOUR items to make MINE, because they are so devoid of love, I'm afraid it will rub off. If I buy them, it will probably be because I want to give them a better home than yours. You know, no offense or anything. And you might like to know that many of my customers have commented that my "overly-long" descriptions made them laugh, had a lot of personality...that makes them willing to spend time on my site. Your descriptions depress me, and that makes me not want to buy from you.

8) If it says "natural" in the name, I expect natural color, not just "natural because it's a stone and it came from the ground at one point." "Natural dyed agate" does not make sense to me...and if you say "natural blue agate," that had better be a natural BLUE, not just a "natural" agate.

9) On that note, that crazy fuchsia? That ridiculous neon blue? That is not a color of natural stone...and I know a few tricks, like the dye stuck in the cracks? Yeah, even an ameteur can tell...and people who don't know "tricks" can still figure it out just by comparison shopping from more honest merchants...it's obvious if it looks the same all over but yours is the only one that doesn't mention dye. So why doesn't your post mention that it has been dyed? Are you trying to mislead people who can't tell into thinking it IS a natural color? I think so...and when you actually SAY that it's natural, then there's a problem. I will never buy anything from you if I notice you doing that, and I spend enough on beads just by myself that I and my demographic of people-who-can-tell are probably worth your time to woo. Just put it in the post. If I think it's pretty (and I never do about the crazy fuchsia ones, but it's because they're crazy fuchsia, not because they're dyed) I will buy it, so worry more about being seen as a liar than as someone who sells dyed agates like everybody else does. After all, if I can't trust you on something as simple as that, how can I trust you with my money?


Long story short:
Accuracy, Helpfulness and Honesty. These things should be on your mind.


Love,
Leo
Just having spent too much on beads again, but expecting a couple really amazing packages.

Developments!

Well, I had my first example of a MAN asking me where I got my necklace...especially special, since he actually asked me for a link to my site. I really need to be more aggressive, to be honest, when he said he liked my necklace I just thanked him, and didn't tell him I had made it until he actually asked where I had gotten it. I feel strange tooting my own horn to people I don't know. I wonder why he asked, actually, but tomorrow is Valentine's day, so that might explain it.

I've been reading a blog by a guy named Zach Wienersmith (fantastic name), who is a successful webcomic artist. He's also pretty much the person he wants to be - spends all his time reading, thinking and making comics, because he wanted it that way. And his blog has a lot of good advice on it. Mainly, what I took away from reading the archives was "if you really want something, you have to be willing to suffer for it. If you're not willing to suffer for it, you don't want it as much as you think you do."
I'm taking this to heart. I need to be MORE willing to suffer for my craft and my business, spend more time on it, do more of the gross stuff like sealing cranes...my business will get bigger if I just work on it more, and if I want it to take off, that's what I have to do. If you asked me if I wanted it to take off, I would say yes...but if I'm not willing to suffer for it, how much do I really want it? We'll see.

I also learned lately that if you plan to do something, it's better not to tell people about it. They give you the fulfillment that you're looking for by saying "oh, that's cool" and then you don't feel like you need to do it anymore...you get the same level of fulfillment with much less work. Therefore, I'm not going to make lists of things I need to do anymore...I don't even do them until I would have done them anyway. Goodness knows what I'm going to blog about if it won't be wild predictions of how much more awesome I'm going to be in the near future, but I guess we'll find out.

And as to that, I'm struggling right now with finding a place to take good pictures. Historically, the ONLY good pictures I've been able to take have been at my boyfriend's parents house, on the back step. Obviously, I don't go there with any regularity, and I have no place around here to photograph my new (and awesome) stuff. I assure you that I HAVE been having fun with copper! But I have no photographic evidence of it. :( Anyone around Boston know where I can find some simple slate-tiled floors?

Prospects

So.......

I'm considering the prospect of opening another shop. I know, I'm already managing three-ish, considering my different sites, and opening another on Etsy would mean another on ArtFire and Zibbet, too. But I think it might be worth the time investment...I want to separate my two lines. I think that seeing jewelry made of paper right next to jewelry made of gemstones might put off potential customers, and then, pricing such things relative to each other is rather screwy - the origami pieces take me much longer but cost much less to make. I don't think I want to put them next to my newer work anymore, because they probably seem too expensive when compared. They are difficult pieces and I really can't charge less for them, but I charge relatively little for my gemstone pieces, (I should probably work on that, actually, since pricing affects perceived value) and when things like my Thunderhead earrings are only a little bit higher-priced than Starburst wrapper earrings...well, it's incongruous.

I know not many people are following me yet, but I'd appreciate opinions. And also potential names! I'd like to connect it to LetterboxLion in some way - I've considered TheGreenLion as a username but apparently it's taken on Etsy already...and for some reason, LetterboxGolden keeps popping into my head. Any thoughts?


Also,
Earth Drops - chrysocolla on oxidized copper, like water beading down a string, if the water were a tiny little earth.

Silence On My Part

Eating my words, combined with things that speak for themselves makes this a blog post full of silence.

Eating my words:

ArtFire not only has a free basic account, it has the most fantastic free basic account of anything anywhere ever, with unlimited listings and no commission fees or listing fees! It's so beyond worth it for me to post there, since all it costs me is time, and the interface rivals Etsy's even without the pro features. Once I get good at this, maybe Etsy will be even more expensive than ArtFire, who knows...I've made some friends lately who spend more like $50 on Etsy monthly, and are grateful for the $10/month pro plan on ArtFire. So anyway, it costs me less to sell on ArtFire, so I guess I'll redirect my traffic there to what extent I can. Go check out my ArtFire shop!


Things that speak for themselves:
































More later! Lots of rigamarole to go yet, getting the photos into posting shape. But the first two are up, on Etsy and ArtFire.

Some pictures, some typos, customer service

I have no good excuse for being awake right now, except that I turn nocturnal during breaks from school...it's now 7:43 am and I'm thinking of making lunch. Anyway, forgive my abysmal grammar, spelling, etc. during these tough times, I'm only half-awake. I'm one of those lovable people who, when they get very tired, start to say things as though they were drunk, so if I say anything completely whacko, forgive. I probably won't notice for a while.

Anyway, some pictures.



These are the gifts I gave to my friends for Christmas. The first two were for my best friends from back home, but I had to ask them for forgiveness for how obviously amateur I am at wire-wrapping...I didn't have heavy-enough gauge wire to do the projects I was planning, and I did them anyway because I didn't have time to get more...so they're made with the wrong materials, improvised and basically practice projects. Leo doing whatever with her last bits of wire. But that's what they get for being friends with a jewelry artist...the ones that are good I have to sell, but they can have plenty of okay ones :) At least they said they liked them. But gotta love 'em, they'd probably say that no matter what.

The last one is made of half-used soldering wire (for a soldering gun) that I scavenged from the floor of the theatre shop at school (they were going to throw it away!). I said, "Evan! What can I make you for Christmas?" (By the way, it is VERY hard to make anything for men for such occasions when all one can make is jewelry.) And he said, "I'm asking my mom for a bag for Christmas. So make me something I can hang on a bag." And so I did. It turned out to be perfect, actually...the bag was leather, so it was a perfect color, and for some reason it ended up being the perfect size and everything. Serendipity. The thing is, I wanted to make a double-helix, because they're awesome. But I couldn't make a stable double-helix, so I made a 2D projection of one...a shadow, basically. (He's a computer graphics person. It works out.) It's easiest to see it (for me) if you look at one of the points where the wires cross and imagine that one is actually farther away at that point, farther into the screen. Then if you imagine that one alternating each time, you can imagine that it's a double-helix and you're looking at it head-on. ANYWAY.

I came into a lot of supplies recently...I say that like it was a surprise, but that's only half a joke. I bought a ton of wire and beads...and chain, and ball head pins...a TON, like, I've been getting so many packages...hooray for Etsy's supplies category, which can hook me up with $.70/foot oxidized copper chain. But the thing IS. I did it with money that was no longer capital. It was with the money that had gone into my paypal account from my sales. I used money that I had MADE to buy things to make more jewelry. That's how a real business runs, and I am putting everything I bought to good use, knowing the work I put into earning the money to buy it. It's much more rewarding than the office job I had last year (though of course I wish I still had one like that...). Also, my boyfriend's sister gave me a gift card to a bead store for Christmas, so I got to go a little crazy the other day...I spent like 4 hours in the bead store. Jewelry supplies are the only thing I can shop for and buy without getting horrible buyer's remorse, I don't know why...I'm terrible at shopping for that reason, but I love shopping for beads!

And I have been going so crazy making stuff that I'm out of wire again...at least I already bought some more this time, and won't have to wait too long. I'm making my entire stock of wire copper, at least for now, because it's SO much cheaper and looks fantastic anyway. Got tons of gems, mostly green and blue. Sodalite, tree and moss agate, Chrysocolla, a little kyanite. Then there's the fire agate in green, but also in red, with carnelian to match. I am so bad at pink, I hardly ever like it, and that's been a problem because most of the custom orders I get are for pink and I rarely think it looks good, so then I feel bad about selling it no matter how much the buyer likes it. However, I did get some awesome hammer-faceted rose quartz nuggets and some itty-bitty pinkier garnets and made some fantastic earrings, those should be up soon. Takes something really awesome to make me like a pink piece of jewelry. Once I really am at a loss for what to do without wire, I should get around to taking some pictures of what I've been making and putting them up on Etsy.


By the way: buy handmade. Seriously, since I started shopping for supplies on Etsy I have only looked back at my other supply sites to confirm that Etsy is almost always cheaper. Of course they usually do charge shipping, so it's sometimes more expensive...once in a while. But everyone is so NICE. A good 50% of the people I've bought from have sent me free gifts, one person sent some random other things like silver-plated toggle clasps and a few beads...the best ones are the ones that send extra of what you actually ordered, because then you know you can use it. I got 7 lapis coin beads instead of 6, 4 extra copper earwires, and one seller sent me 8 feet of copper chain when I had ordered 6 feet! Just one of those things. No warning at all, either, if I hadn't held it up to my 6-foot measuring stick (my boyfriend) I wouldn't even have known I had gotten extra. People are just very nice. The one order I had to complain about (I hardly ever complain, I promise) the woman explained that she employed kids to pack her beads, had probably just missed the problem ones, apologized, and offered to send me some more to replace the broken, sub-par ones that I had received.

It's probably a very exploitable system. Every seller on such a scale as a handmade goods shop wants her customers to be happy, especially in a forum like Etsy where there are direct repercussions if you don't live up to people's expectations...if you don't have 100% positive feedback, immediately people trust you a lot less, and of course you know you've done it - gone through the reviews of something or someone to find the person who thinks they're terrible and find out why. Buyers have been known to just completely make things up, being totally unreasonable, and that reflects not on their credibility in this case, but on the shop owner's. Nobody wants negative feedback, so every Etsy seller asks for communication and a chance to fix a problem before you respond negatively...and I've been reading lately about customer service and how annoying customers often get free stuff. I didn't want to be a squeaky wheel anyway, so I told her right out that A) I wouldn't give her negative feedback anyway, since the problem was so minor, and B) I would give her another chance if it was a fluke (which it seemed like, since my other orders from her were both fine), but she still offered to send me new beads. Long story short, the customer service on Etsy is fantastic.

I was worried about my own practices until I remembered that I've been sending mine in handmade paper boxes with extra origami...I think it's just a thing that handmade sellers naturally do. Nobody asked me for little paper stars or flowers, but when it came time to start packing things, I just made them and put them in.


And on that note! I'll leave you (at 8:45) with the last-bits-of-wire pieces (L-BOW, ahaha! Forgive me if I use that again) for that time of wire-having that just passed.

Zibbet and Computer Troubles

My computer's AC to DC adapter cable went caput, as they say, so I'm working off of my boyfriend's computer right now...it's a bit of a problem, since I have a ton of photos and information on my computer that I need. I need it because I'm starting to sell on a couple of other platforms...and I need my stuff in order to set up shop. Very bad timing. We'll see how it goes.

See, while it's free to have an Etsy account, and free to set up your shop, it's not free to list things OR to sell them. $0.20 per listing for 4 months, and a certain percentage - 3.5% at the moment - of your sale. Sites like Zibbet and Big Cartel and Handmade Spark and ArtFire, on the other hand, have different policies. They don't charge a listing fee or a percentage, and instead they charge a monthly having-a-shop fee. At the moment, this isn't good for me. AT ALL. Etsy would be cheaper any way you look at it. Not counting the 3.5% sale fee (which has probably totalled to like 3.50 since I started selling) I'm being charged like $1.25 per month...that's like 20% of Zibbet's "best value" yearly $69.00 fee ($5.75/month)...not to mention its monthly fee...if you sign up monthly instead of yearly, they charge you like $10.00. Then there's Handmade Spark, which says it has a free account but I can't find out how to get one because no matter what signup I do, it wants my paypal account for $6.00/month. And Big Cartel, I don't even remember how much it was. But Zibbet and Big Cartel (and disappointingly, not Handmade Spark or ArtFire, that I can see) have free accounts where you can set up a little shop and have fewer items than you want and fewer features than you want and see how it goes. Big Cartel, appallingly, only lets you post 5 things for sale...REALLY not enough. Zibbet lets you do 50, which is enough for me at the moment...though there are some crazy Etsy shops with thousands of items listed. It's very strange that these sites use this method, because I can either pay nothing and have a small shop, or pay extravagantly and have a big shop, whereas on Etsy I pay a little and have as big or little a shop as I want. I'm definitely a fan of being on Etsy when I look at it like that.

And I think Etsy's way is the best way...how much you pay depends on how much you are trying to sell and how much you actually do sell...which in my case turns out to be a modest $1.25 a month and small change. It's working out pretty well for me, so far, and I've made 17 sales through that site. Not as much as I want, of course, but that would be impossible, because if I got as many sales as I wanted, I would never be able to keep up with it. It's allowing me to keep making jewelry and I'm breaking even with a little profit, too. It won't sustain me or let me live without needing another job, but it's funding itself right now, and that's my short-term goal.

Etsy also gets the most traffic, the most views, the most google hits, the most everything. Etsy is, in a word, gigantic...and for a little seller, that's the best way to be. My pictures pop up every now and then. Sure I'm not on the first or third or even fourth page when you search etsy for origami earrings...but somehow I still get sales. Probably because mine are the best :] hehe. But in all seriousness, there are so many people looking through that site, all the time, looking for their specific things or just browsing the aisles, that people I don't know actually come to look at my stuff. And not only that, but there's a massive community involved that I actually need to get more involved in soon, joining teams and adding circles and stuff. Etsy is all very interconnected, and very good at making its members feel like they are really members of the massive handmade community that they ARE members of.

But of course, it's best if I come up in as many searches as possible. I want to come up on Zibbet and Big Cartel and Handmade Spark and ArtFire - if only I could.

I guess overall, I'd love to be on Big Cartel, it seems awesome, but it's unlikely. I am going to be on Zibbet. ArtFire seems just disappointing to me. And Handmade Spark is a good community site, but I don't see much selling coming from there. I get the newsletter, that's all. So we'll see how this goes. As far as ripping me off just to let me sell my products, it still seems like Etsy is the least-bad offender...and gets the most traffic anyway. But it's still good to have other options. I wish the others would adopt a more reasonable payment system, though.


Something else: thethingsiwant.com. I don't expect people to go looking for my list to buy me presents, but since I'm now buying supplies from more than just one site, I figured a universal wish list wouldn't be out of order...it's very useful to combine the things you want instead of just having a bunch of separate wish lists. And the way it adds things is that it puts a button in your bookmarks toolbar that links to the thing that adds things to your list...so you just go to the item's page and click one of your bookmarks and then the thing is in your list. Very neat.

...so now, mom, if you want to know what I want for my birthday, and "jewelry supplies" is too vague to cut it, you can search for the wishlist of letterboxlion@gmail.com (I think it searches by email, but it might be by username, in which case it would just be letterboxlion.) It's purely a list of supplies that I want, some with notes like "for wire-wrapping" or "must get with X gauge wire" so it's pretty handy. And it lets you use priorities so while I can keep track of that butane fusing torch, I can realistically note that I should not be even close to getting it yet. :)



More news: I don't have my pictures to post up yet because of my computer problems, but I did make awesome pendants with a few of the cabochons I put up last post...I'll post them when I get my new cable. But good news is, the first person I showed my work to who is outside of the nuclear family with whom I am staying decided she wanted to buy one of my pieces for her daughter-in-law! Her husband's father was an experienced silversmith, and he told me that I have talent. I think that means that I'm off to a good start, when people who have experience with jewelry and metalwork think my work is up to par! I'll post pictures soon, I'm so excited! And hopefully soon I'll get them up on my site! Oh man, so excited. I never expected to be this involved in the crafting world, but it's happening very excellently.

And my new baby is a pair of nylon-jawed round-nose pliers. Thanks to Evan! After he gave it to me for Christmas I pretty much went crazy and made a bunch of pieces, some serious wire-wrapped ones as well as some silly little hammered pieces that were just fun to make and a good way to spend a few crystals. Itching to put them online, let me tell you. Positively fidgety. Well, that's life!

A Conundrum

I made a necklace:

Lariat-style(?...I think that's what it's called.) celestial-themed, long and silvery and neat. However.

It's designed specifically to look good on people of my body shape. Basically, it's long and it goes into your cleavage, to make it look like you actually have a little. It draws the eye downward. It is really not designed for people who ACTUALLY have cleavage, since I can easily see it getting really uncomfortable for anyone who has anything there. And while I can describe that in the etsy post, I think it's not very clear to just say "wear it if you have small breasts and want to show it off" - few people probably want to show that off, and it's difficult to make it clear that the necklace is designed to make your cleavage a little MORE impressive, not just make your lack thereof more obvious.
It's also a little long right now. I think I'll shorten it up a bit.
But meanwhile, do I take photographs of me wearing it, to show how it's supposed to look? Does anyone really want to buy something they have seen in someone else's cleavage already??
I'm afraid it would be misleading to just post the photos of it on the table because it's impossible to show the real size or scale or how it would look hanging.

It occurs to me to perhaps take the toggle stick off and thread the chain through the toggle hole. I'll have to look into that, too.

Flustered! So flustered!

Meh!

I need to keep my grades up, especially in Japanese and Computer Science...those are the two that have been suffering the most from how busy/distracted I've been. Here I thought I was doing work all day, (mostly on the business) and then I discovered that I haven't really gotten anything done. Well, that's not true. My homework isn't done, that's for sure, but I have plenty of time for most of it...I'm just paranoid enough to do work due Thursday on Monday night. But I did some research, found out more about gemstones, ordered a couple (be careful, Leo...)...And posted up some photos on my new Letterbox Lion Handmade Jewelry facebook page, which you should check out, using the handy new widgety-thing on the side of the page =========>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Though to be fair, this is probably more interesting. Hopefully.

Also, I made some price changes - I lowered my prices for things I was, in retrospect, charging way too much for considering the price of my materials...it pains me that the most effort-intensive and least rewarding things I make are the ones I can sell for the least, though, (while still managing to be the ones I can most reliably sell) and I have to control my tendency to try and make up for it on the higher-end stuff. I DID up my shipping prices though, after finally admitting to myself that charging less for shipping than shipping was costing me was really not an effective strategy. So, lower prices, higher shipping. All in the name of necessity, I assure you.

By the way, add craftywillows (or littlebitcrafting on blogspot) after Fantasian to the list of people I absolutely want to BE. Her blog is old stuff about how she's getting started wire-wrapping, trying tutorials, etc..."we'll see how it goes"...and her shop stuff is absolutely amazing, so far beyond those tutorials as a beginning, and so unique. It's really (REALLY) encouraging to know that from where I am right now, I can get to where she is ...with luck and perseverance and enthusiasm and experimentation...and, in this business, some capital.

We'll see how it goes! I'm getting a few cabachons, and I'm about to order some wire. I want to see what I can come up with if I actually try wire-wrapping, for real this time, legit, this is not a drill.

(HAHA GET IT. CAUSE THEY'RE NOT DRILLED. HA. Oh man, I just got that. *wipes tear*)

Wish me luck, anyway :)



EDIT: OH AND BY THE WAY. I've been meaning to post up more things throughout today and yesterday, but somehow I managed not to pull it off. With my crazy schedule (and my computer losing its internet connection, resulting in an IT visit today that ate up some time) it's been tough to find a chunk where I can just sit down and write descriptions with any personality...not to mention that etsy has no save function, what's with that? Anyway, I'm going to go post something right now.

Yay, photographs! And a paragraph of bragging.

It's been so long since I've managed to take good photographs. Thank goodness for vacations...they are the times I can go to buildings that are well-lit. And be back to them in time. Since I moved to New England, the weirdest part of adjusting has been how early it gets dark here...Michigan is my home town, and it's as far west as you can go in the Eastern time zone, so where in Boston it gets dark at 4:30, (FOUR-THIRTY. AHHHHH.) it waits for another few hours back home. Oh, man, I need to make a lightbox. Oh dear boyfriend sitting next to me, want to make me one for Christmas?

Juuuust kidding. I'll get around to it. Life is oh-so-scattered and OH LOOK I HAVE A FOLLOWER. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN oh never mind I know you. I love you anyway! :)


So, the advice I've been reading is basically all "you need to re-do everything you've been doing." I'm working on adjusting my shop announcement to be more google-search friendly...and I have to do the same to EVERY SINGLE POST that I have made, and every one I make from now on.

The main thing, too, is "have a product that people want"...I'm sure they want jewelry. They definitely want origami jewelry.


AND ON THAT NOTE I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO BRAG. I am, as far as I could tell either by googling OR by searching on etsy, the ONLY PERSON who will make you earrings with more than one crane on them. They're BIRDS! Did seriously nobody else think of a flock? Man, now that I've cornered the market, I wish I could patent the idea. I think that's considered cheating in the art world. But I've been making them for a few years now, without ever realizing I was making something so unique, nobody else is doing it at all.

(Of course, maybe it's because my main materials are so light - the really, really nice handmade washi chiyogami paper is thin and lightweight, but the yuzen paper (not handmade or as expensive) is normal-to-really-thick paper thickness, and it would be harder to make flocks of. I've been using starburst wrappers, which are really thin, light paper, so I've had an advantage...to easily make a flock I have to either use the really cheap materials, or the really expensive ones. Now that's odd.)


Oh and also, advice says, post photographs everywhere. Facebook. Flickr. HERE. So I'm posting photographs. HERE.

Everybody (EVERYBODY) says "don't post all your listings at once. Space them throughout the day, because you'll get a bazillion times more exposure that way." It makes sense. If you only post once, but you post a bunch of stuff, if the people who happen to be on at that time don't like your stuff, they'll pass over it for stuff more up their alley in the just-posted box. So by posting every few hours, maybe, you can get all the crowd that shops on etsy at various times of the day, even if your post is only visible for a few seconds, let's be honest...those are important seconds.
SO, here are some photographs, and they are so new not even Etsy has seen most of them yet. Let me know if you like.


A gold wire-wrapped "apples and honeybees" set I made for a custom order.











A glittery green "bamboo forest" pair accented by swarovski crystals - so much green! - on wire-wrapped silver flowers.










A sodalite and green pair I've been thinking of privately as "the whole world round" and connecting with the earth...gemstone, metal, circles, green, it all fits, right? Add to that that the sodalite ironically looks like the sky, and I'm really happy with how these work.



A palm-leaf-inspired pair that fan out. Have I been focusing on green too much?

















And a pair that I love oh, so much...I've been getting all poetic about them, it's almost embarrassing. They have a lot of dark blue, and sodalite in general looks like the sky, no matter what shade it comes in...it just always manages to look like some form of weather, or clouds...and the dark, glittery blue shines like stars, and so does the star-flower wire-wrapping in sterling silver, and the matte beads are the spaces between the stars, right? So the dark blue glittery ribbons dangle down from the silver flower, just as the night sky hangs from stars. That's the way I think of it, anyway. Poetic, am I right? But I'm not even kidding, I love them dearly. I'm tempted to keep them, but I only ever wear one earring of a kind at a time. These ones are posted on etsy already, I could not resist

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.)