Thank heaven for that auto date, I didn’t know what the date was. I knew it was Sunday though so that has to account for something. One of my favorite things to do on Sundays is watch the news programs and come out here where I am at right now. I am in my corner of the garage. It is my studio and I have managed to figure out how to cram this laptop into the mix, yes, mix is the exact word I was looking for. I have completed inventory, loose beads, and a screwdriver among many other things on my desk. My husband had it built for me. He asked me what color I would like it to be since it is just ply-wood and two by fours. I said I would love to stain it Mahogany since I figured it would be the only Mahogany I would ever get. We stained it together. It lasted about a year and my husband has now improved it with the addition of some kind of pretty, fake, tile, all-one-piece kitchen flooring, so “we can keep it clean”. Every now and then when I clean it off, I can actually see the four inch border of Mahogany on the opposite side. I can’t see it today. Today is going to be productive as I write more about my preparations for the ComFest. I have my business card done, I looked at one of my older business cards and I couldn’t see a reason to use any other. I like it. I’ll have to include it in this writing sometime so you can see it. One of its features is a big, long, oval across the top which has my email address and ETSY store. I am duplicating that particular part and shrinking it. Three of these will fit in a business card-sized area and I’m going to cut them out and tag each piece of my jewelry with them. The blank side will be used for description and price. So that also means that I need to have earring cards and more safety corks that hold the earrings on them. I will add those to my list of things to do this week. I hope that writing this diary as I prepare for a craft show will jog an idea or comment from you. I hope that at the end of this series, I will have composed a timeline and list of everything that needs to get done in order to participate in a craft show. I hope to have an Excel spreadsheet available on this blog by the end of Summer. I think it would be nice to be able to print off a check list for a craft show. I hope to make a list available that anyone can come and get when they need to prepare for a craft show. That would be ideal.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
SHIPPING LESSONS AS AN ETSY SELLER
Today I’d like to tell you about shipping lessons as an Etsy Seller. I’ve had great luck getting my jewelry and supplies to my customers. But I had a particularly bad experience not long ago. A customer received an empty envelope! Agh! There honestly was a necklace in it when I deposited it into the postal bin. She will never believe it. My latest customer questioned the postage. This is a great idea when the postage doesn’t seem right. And she taught me a really valuable lesson. I weighed the box and then determined the postage as if it were going to California. The customer who purchased the supplies lived in New York. She is a lot closer to me than she would have been if she lived in California, so the postage wasn’t as much. I had two very closely related boxes of supplies – silk flowers – in my Etsy Store, so I have agreed to modify that listing with a note that explains how I calculated the postage and that they should email me before paying and I’d get them a more accurate shipping amount. I refunded the shipping money that I didn’t use. As she said, as a graduate student, that money can come in handy! She is absolutely right. Working with the customer is essential to my business. I’ve found out since I joined Etsy, that anyone can buy jewelry from any store. There actually is something out there for everyone. I want my customers to trust me. There is plenty of negativity and dishonesty out there in the world-wide-web. The lady who still believes I duped her, went straight to PayPal for a refund. No questions asked. The idea that someone doesn’t trust me is devastating. I have to make certain that I don’t ever repeat that mistake. As a business owner, lack of trust is a killer. It’ll kill your business faster than anything.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Cobalt Czech Glass Beads Make a Great Bracelet
Czech glass beads are made in the Czech Republic. I am amazed at the length of time that beads have been made in that region. I found a story on the internet that told of shop keepers hiding their formulas from the Nazis during World War II. So many things affect so many other things that you don't think of - like how a war would affect the beading industry.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
My Very First Blog about Beads!
Good Morning and Welcome! This is the first page of my new bead blog! The weather in Ohio was absolutely frightful yesterday as we witnessed, first hand, what they are calling the Blizzard of 2008. Having lived through the blizzard of 1978, this one was not so bad. The snow is beautiful today. The sun is shining. The winds are gone and the temperature is in the teens or twenties. Things are calm so it’s time to talk about beads and why I think they are worthy of a blog. I started AdornablesbyLyn when my sister decided to go get her master’s degree. Yeah, it’s her fault I got hooked on beads in the first place. We were dreaming of going into business one year. We were even looking at buying a building in the downtown area. Like I said, we were dreaming. But we were acting on our dreams, so it wasn’t like we were just using our imagination and keeping the dreams in our brains. One day, she called me and said, “What about beads?” To which I replied, “That’s it!” Just like Lucy and Charlie Brown. Well we played with beads for a while and she got bored and decided to go back to school. I was left with my hobby, all by myself, and I am still hooked on beads! I am constantly finding new information about beads. The internet continues to grow and add more businesses and information to its already vast amount. The world is connected and available for use! I thought that since I was finding all this information, I might as well share it with you. Also, as I create, I thought I’d post. I use www.etsy.com to sell my creations. I love that community! There is more knowledge in that website than one would ever guess! I get lots of good advice from Rena Klingenberg’s website. I use http://www.home-jewelry-business-success-tips.com/ as my home page. From there I just go crazy looking for beads or information about beads. I’ll be sharing my knowledge about beads using this blog. There are some really great suppliers on the internet as well. They take care of their customers. They offer a variety of beads. No two bead suppliers offer the same combination of beads. There is more information about beads that comes with the bead suppliers as well. As I discover suppliers, I’ll let you know about them here. I think this is gonna be a nice place. I hope you come back often. Thanks for being here today!
