Making up for Lost Time

Well, not so much lost time...just three weeks. Oh, you know how it goes; there's the week to prepare for vacation, then the week of vacation, and finally, the week to recover from vacation. That put quite a dent in my two month timeline! Not all is lost, and I did accomplish some in those three weeks. I made my first custom necklace for a friend:


I made the fall-themed jewelry set that I'm donating for a fundraiser for a local charity called Community Cooks:

During vacation I started making purse charms, which I plan to sell whenever I get a table at a flea market. Also, I found lots of awesome wampum on the beach, which I started making into pendants last night. By the way, wire wrapping is frustrating!


So, I'm starting to get into the swing of things, and I did accomplish some of the goals I listed in my last entry! Chris FTW!

I think I've hit a bit of a wall with Etsy for the moment. It's too much to try to compete with the tens of thousands of other jewelry makers on the site. I definitely have to get customers more locally, maybe at craft fairs and flea markets. Then I can direct them to my online site so they can buy more later if they want. Everything I do now will be for the flea markets and craft fairs that I hope to be at in the fall. Lots of inventory and pretty displays are on the horizon!

Cutting the Cord and a Mea Culpa

So, Friday was my last day of real work. Yes, folks, I quit my job in a recession. It was part-time anyway, so whatever *head smack*.

My parents don't even know! Hopefully they don't read the About Me section of my Etsy shop where I have a link to this blog! I AM 30 years old, but I still don't feel like dealing with that conversation.

Anyway, I confess my weekend was not as productive as I hoped. I admit to panicking Thursday night because Friday was my last day of work (and so, the last day of pay for a bit). I also admit to panicking most of Friday and Saturday. Panic, I have found, is not conducive to creativity. It is conducive to sleeping late, which was not a goal of mine but was still nice. So, tomorrow is catch-up then.

My first real day of working for me.

I will probably get started on that organization I mentioned last time, focusing on the spreadsheet I keep to price my items. Right now I have a worksheet for each, but if I actually become very successful, this is a bad idea. I also promised a friend a necklace, and since I hope to see her this week, I better get on that! I will get nowhere by panicking. So, goals for the week: spreadsheet (infrastructure), necklace (gift/advertising), designing a jewelry set for a fundraiser (charity/advertising), posting new items (inventory), and picking a couple flea markets to eventually sell at (expanding customer base beyond my friends and mom).

Here I go.

A Banner in the Works

The first order of business on Wednesday was to spruce up my Etsy store's banner, which was:


*scream!*

And then, and couple months later:



Ok, better...there are beads featured. Still kind of gross. I downloaded Inkscape from the web, a free graphics editor. Some people had luck with that, I read on Etsy forums. It took about 5 hours and a couple spikes in blood pressure, but I got this:


Yay! Much, much better! And with a tag-line, too! The bracelet in the picture was my first sale, by the way :) I'll be happy with this for a while. The next steps to business success: writing better descriptions for my items for sale and organizing (everything).