Fortune

After a somewhat ill-advised trip to a Chinese buffet for lunch today (my stomach hates me now!) with my husband and a couple of friends, I got this fortune in my fortune cookie:


I'm normally not much of a risk taker, either in business or my personal life. Once in awhile I venture out of my comfort zone, like the time I chose to go to a college where I didn't know ANY of the other students. I came away from that experience with lots of wonderful friends who I probably wouldn't have bothered to meet if I'd gone somewhere with people I already knew. But too often, I find myself sticking with what's safe, not really taking any chances because I feel comfortable where I am, and I'm worried that if I fail the risk won't seem worth it.

So for once I decided to hold on to my fortune to remind me to get out of the proverbial harbor once in awhile, whether it's with my business or in my personal life.

See? I said I'd have this one posted within the week! I still can't promise I won't make one for myself though!

By the way, I'm participating in Etsy's Christmas in July sale. Everything in my shop is buy one, get one half off, plus I'm offering free shipping on any order of $20 or more! I've added and handful of new items and am hoping to add a few more during the course of the week! :-)

Identity Crisis

Lately I've felt like my little company has had a bit of an identity crisis.

I think I took a step in the right direction in terms of the product, with my idea of utilizing more recycled jewelry parts. (Speaking of which, a lot of my recycled jewelry sold last week, so I may have an excuse to start scavenging antique and thrift stores for old jewelry soon!)

The other bit of my identity crisis doesn't deal with the product itself, but with the packaging.

The original bags I had for craft shows and jewelry parties were actually party favor bags from Party City that I ran through my printer. They're essentially purple, glossy versions of a brown lunch bag.

This weekend I found white kraft paper bags with handles at Michaels, and with a coupon they were about 30 cents each. Then I took 2" x 4" mailing labels, printed my logo on them in purple and stuck them on the bags. Much nicer, I think!

I also decided I needed to do something about the packaging I use when I mail orders. Originally I used these shiny, textured, silver boxes. Those work fine for craft shows and parties, where I need to have my jewelry out and able to be handled by customers.

But using a jewelry box inside a bubble mailer really isn't ideal for my online sales. First of all, it adds unnecessary weight. I really don't want to charge too much for shipping, and as of right now adding delivery confirmation would force me to increase my shipping charges by 50%. I'm hoping that by lowering the weight (and therefore, postage) of each package, I can regularly use delivery confirmation without increasing my shipping costs.

After agonizing over whether to order pre-made retail packaging, which just didn't fit in with my idea of my brand identity, I went with my own solution: I went to Michaels again, bought a bunch of card stock in purple and textured silver, and started experimenting.

Ok, first of all, I kind of want to keep this necklace for myself. But more realistically I'll have it listed on Etsy within the week.

These earrings match the packaging! They're actually a custom order from the party this past Tuesday, so I'm going to test run the new packaging with them. It's just a first effort, so hopefully once I get the hang of it they'll start to look more polished and professional.

All in all, I think I'm on my way to establishing a stronger brand identity, but any thoughts/feedback on the new packaging is much appreciated!

Storage Problem Solved! (Sort of)

Remember when I said I was hesitant to make more jewelry until I got rid of some of my inventory and/or found a better storage method?

Well, a better storage method is still a goal to be achieved, but my wonderful mother who I love dearly decided to host a jewelry party for some friends and family. We figured there'd be maybe 10 people, tops. It was definitely more than that (not sure exactly how much more though, I was so busy I didn't have a chance to count!), and now 1/3 of my inventory is gone!

I've only done a handful of jewelry parties so far, and usually there weren't more than 5 or 6 guests. With those, it was a lot easier to take my time and chat with everyone. It was easy to make adjustments to existing pieces, or even whip up entirely new pieces, right there on the spot. I was able to do a bit of that tonight, but it definitely hampered my ability to spend time talking to folks, not to mention it left me feeling more than a little flustered. Lesson learned for next time: handle regular sales first, take custom orders or requests for modifications, but don't feel obligated to do them on the spot if I'm too busy.

Also, a TV table is not nearly big enough to handle a cash box AND a bead board.

Now I have no excuse not to make more jewelry. And take pictures for Etsy listings, since 14 of my 34 listings sold tonight. ;-)

I'd hoped to take a few pictures at the party tonight to share here, but needless to say that didn't happen. My husband suggested I take a picture of Elvis wearing jewelry. We have these red, white and blue beads that are very much in the spirit of this past weekend's festivities, and for some inexplicable reason, Elvis loves wearing them. He'll prance around in them with a swagger in his step, then look pathetically sad when we take them off.

However, in this picture he looks about as tired as I feel. It is time for both my puppy and me to go to sleep!

Organization Woes

I feel like lately I've been way less focused on my jewelry business than I should be. Not even than I should be, since really I don't have to answer to anyone but me... but than I want to be.

And oddly enough, the way I can tell this is that my office is... not too organized, because anyone who knows me knows how much I love organization. But the problem isn't organization (too much or too little) so much as the fact that I just sort of shoved all my jewelry-making supplies in a closet and haven't looked at them in a couple of weeks.

Part of the problem is that I need to find a better way to store my finished products. When I didn't have as much, it was easy to store each piece in its own plastic bag, and group the little plastic bags in bigger plastic bags by type of jewelry and type of metal. Now that method is getting cumbersome. And I'm hesitant to make more finished products before I have a better way of storing them.

Hopefully I can dedicate part of my upcoming 4-day weekend to finding a better storage method.

But for now I'm just going to enjoy my homemade Orange Julius.

Busy Bee

This week is absolutely, positively insane.

Today I worked 8 hours at the courthouse and another 3 at the library.

I'm working a yet-to-be-seen number of hours at the courthouse tomorrow. Going in around 9:30 and staying til whenever they need me to stay, hopefully not past 8 though...

Wednesday - 8 hours at the courthouse (possibly less depending on whether I stay late enough to earn a little comp time tomorrow), 3 more at the library.

Thursday - 8 hours at the courthouse (definitely 8), 4 hours at the library.

Taking Friday off, but Glen and I need to pick up our new recliners for the den that day (yay!!!). Slowly, but surely, our den is turning into a real room.

We got two of them to set up on the other side of the room from the piano. It was difficult finding a good color, the den is already so brown that I didn't want anything brown or tan. Which was difficult because I still wanted something sort of neutral. There's a bunch of green in our dining room, so sage green seemed like the perfect solution.

We'll also be moving our record player from the living room to the den.

Can't wait to sit in the den reading a book and listening to some music. :-)

Now it's time to watch some Doctor Who with the husband before bed. Hope you all have a wonderful week!