It's Been A Few Days....

Since my last post. Jeez, I almost sound like I'm in a confessional LOL!

Things have been crazy with the Valentine's rush, I've even received sales on Artfire and ShopHandmade. Very cool if you ask me! The Love Me Knot ring is my biggest seller right now.

I've encountered a few major snafu's though. This last weekend I had 9 rings to make, get packaged and ready to be shipped out on Monday. Well my torch had been acting a bit funny, leaking as if the trigger was stuck in the "on" position. Then the flame was all wacky, it'd be bushy one second, huge, small and everything in between other than the flame that I needed it to be. I ended up destroying a lot of rings because it'd get a major flame on as the silver started to flow and just melt the crap out of everything....uuuugggghhhh! Then I kept having hot flashes, which for those of you who have experienced them know that you go from calm to raging in nothing flat! Ruining perfectly good rings during a hot flash did not make for a pretty site. All in all what should've taken me 5 minutes took nearly 6 hours, but I got it done!

Now I've got a new torch, it's Benzomatic propane torch...I believe it's a plumbers torch, I had a friend of mine who's an electrician pick it up for me. It was a bit scary to work with at first especially compared to my Ronson mini torch, but it works pretty darned good! I used it for the first time today, made a couple of fine silver bangle bracelets and filled some more ring orders.

I've now made myself both a round and an oval bangle bracelet and I have to say that I really like the ovals much better. I'm not sure if it's because of the fit or what...but I think I'll be making myself some more of these :) I'll take pics of them tomorrow or the day after to share!

Sleeping in...what's that??

I was so looking forward to sleeping in today and like clockwork I was up after 6 hours of sleep...uuuggghhh! What happened to the days when I could sleep for 12 hours, oh how I wish I could do that again.

I don't have a lot planned for the day. My boys are clam digging with some friends and I'm still in my pajamas sipping on a much needed cup of coffee. Oh, I received the check today to get my roof done..woohoo! If you don't remember, the roof over the deck collapsed from the heavy snowfall. It ruined the BBQ, my deck furniture and the air conditioner, so I'll be replacing those items too. I loved my deck furniture and am hoping that I can replace it easily.

I've added more stock to my Shophandmade store at http://shijewels.shophandmade.com/ I've only listed my custom made items there...these are things that I constantly make so yes I have them in my Etsy store as well. I do really love Shophandmade but the traffic there is slow. I checked out http://artfire.com but they are almost as over filled with jewelry as Etsy is, but it's still a venue that I may consider.

So here's a question to my readers...where do you sell your wares and what are your experiences with them?

Well I'm off to get ready for the day and to get out of the pajamas....have a good one!

Holiday Rush

I will probably only be posting a couple of times a week until after the Holiday Season. It's been crazy busy around here between my day job, Etsy, Christmas parties, shopping, making gifts and cooking a lot of goodies. I haven't even had time to post anything new on Shophandmade.com, but hopefully after Christmas I'll be able to focus a bit more on my shop there.

EAST, the Etsy Street team that I'm a member of, all signed up on Elfster to do a Secret Santa Gift Exchange. I had never heard of this site, but it's the bomb! Once you've signed up, send the link to a group of friends, family or coworkers so they can sign up. Fill in your wishlist and all the other requirements like spending limit etc. Then it automatically matches people up. Everything is anonymous, so you can ask all the questions you want of the person that you drew and they don't have a clue who their Secret Santa is. We're doing all handmade items, and set a date where all of us will join in a chatroom and open our presents. Of course there may be some of us that might peek a little early....oohhh nooo...not me :) No really any packages that I get that I'm not expecting my son is going to hide from me until it's time to open them! Yes, I was one of those kids that shook the package with my name on it, and sometimes even tried to unwrap the gift to get a peek. I was such a bad girl! It should be fun, and it's definitely a site I'm going to recommend to others including my day job.

Well I'm off to get the last of my weekend purchases packaged and ready to be shipped out tomorrow. This last month on Etsy has been phenomenal for me! Love...love....love it!

Easy Schmeasy

As promised I said that I would let you know how the transaction went with my sales on ShopHandmade. The title above describes it perfectly. It was simple and easy to say the least. You can view your invoice and it posts the sellers address plus the address they want the item shipped to. I do like that portion particularly because I can't tell you how often (on Etsy) the buyers address differs from their address on PayPal. At first I didn't think that I would be able to relist a sold item but I found that it's also quite simple.

1. Go to My Account
2. Click on Inventory (on the left sidebar)
3. Edit the item you want to relist
4. Change the quantity from 0 to 1 (or however many)
5. Save and Continue

Voila...you're done!

I actually relisted a pair of earrings at the same time as posting this.

I still have the majority of my inventory on Etsy and will probably keep it that way, but I'm slowly building my inventory on ShopHandmade as well.

If anyone has any questions about this site just shoot me a message. I'll be happy to answer what I can. Just remember that I'm still new to ShopHandmade so if it's a more technical question you can always contact them...they're very friendly and extremely quick to reply.

If you get a chance check out my shop there at http://shijewels.shophandmade.com . From there you can browse all that's listed within the site itself!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sales on ShopHandmade.com

I received my first 2 sales on ShopHandmade.com! I just wanted to post this really quick for those of you who have been inquiring about the site. I will post more later on how the process works!

Have a wonderful day!

Another Autumn Necklace

Here's my newest listing I've named it MABON . The focal piece is the large Amber in a Sterling Silver leaf motif setting. Then I accented it with large Carnelian rondelles. I just love the Amber pendant!

I'm getting ready to make some more Goddess Adornment pendants and will list a few on both Etsy and ShopHandmade.com . Unfortunately I still haven't had the chance to list more items on ShopHandmade, but hopefully this weekend I'll have more items over there.

ShopHandmade.com

Well....after much thought I've made the leap to list on ShopHandmade.com . I've only listed one pendant there so far but should be listing more as I get more familiar with the site and more products made. The pendant that I have listed there is a pendant that I also sell on Etsy, but I have 5 of them already made, so all is okay if I sell either one of them. It's a pretty cool site, and not to take away from Etsy but I really like that it focuses on an Eco-friendly environment. So check it out and stop by My Store there too!

I did a screen shot of the front page and my pendant was featured on it (though I think they do that for all new listings), I thought it was pretty cool that it was on the front page, unlike Etsy. Really in order to get on the front page on Etsy you have to be featured in a treasury that catches the eye one of the Etsy admins.

I'll keep you posted on how it works out.....Ohh I forgot to mention that it costs .25 cents to list or you can get a sponsor and it's free, 5 free photos and...this is the big one....you can decide how much you want to pay ShopHandmade when your item sells...and that fee is anywhere from 0-100% of your sale cost. All I can say for that is WOW! No, I didn't choose 0% I chose 1%. You're probably asking why give them anything if you don't have to?? Well, because they are donation based, so to keep running they need donations so there's my answer plus I really like what they stand for and how they advertise...1% is nothing!