I knew a Russian girl once. Her name was Katia. She had a runny accent. This was waaaaaay back when I worked at the Hanover Inn, back in the glory days.
Anyway, what's happening in the jewelry business? Well, I will update you on my nosey outbreak from last week. As it turns out this vendor for my eyeglass holders pieces was appreciative that I (so to speak) told her that her fly was down. However, SHE DOES NOT CARE. And to further my frustration, she won't change it and her emails to me are overly stocked with spelling errors, like she intends to do it to annoy me.
She is very nice and she is phasing out of the jewelry making business into the jewelry supply business. We have been conversing and she has given me many many interesting ideas to pursue in order to get some traffic on my site. Traffic first, sales follow. That's the way it's supposed to go. I need people poking around, checking me out before I can capture a sale. They need to know they can trust me, like me, respect my work and admire it. Then someone will make a purchase. I am going to make this work even if it KILLS ME!.
One of the things she suggested is to talk to others who are NOT in the business of making jewelry. To do this by forming what Etsy calls "Treasury's" from my site, "Nicholas Designs". So today I spent the entire day making treasury's. I made up 3 of them. 1 is called, "Anti-Valentine, How to kill, murder, off, lose your lover..." another is called "Absurd Valentines Day Gifts" and the last I put together was for all of the people whom I have purchased supplies from entitled, "My Favorite Suppliers, the best jewelry vendors".
From these Treasuries I have reached out and touched many people by including their products in my treasuries. The first one was hard to come by. The treasury's allow for up to 16 photo's to make your point. That's all they are, photo's of other's products with a title, that's a treasury. They can be quite powerful when you make your statement.
The "murder, killing" one was hard to come by. I started to collect hammers, then mallets, then I came across an old photo of a murder taking place and grabbed that. I stumbled around for a while and kept coming across differing kinds of "weapons" and different ways of "offing" another and finally, suicide. It came out great, very macabre, strange, scary, violent and just plain weird! Any one can see it, you just have to go to Etsy and look up the treasuries. Use the key words "anti valentines" and "how to kill". You'll see it, my picture is right there with the Shop name. My user name of PC and J is also there (I can't change that, I wish I could but Etsy won't let me, so I am stuck being known as PC and J which was my old shop name.) Sucks.
I've gotten many "cool!", "thanks for including my product..." and "really strange!" comments. I replied to as many as I could today remarking on their shops or products trying to stimulate a relational interest where they might be curious about me and see what it is that I do and visit my shop...hence, TRAFFIC! See how that works?
The other one was a lot of fun. I went through many shops and found the most absurd oddities I could find to present as possible "gifts" to a Valentine who "has everything...but I'll bet (s)he doesn't have these!" products! Many responses to that as well. The next couple of days will show whether or not the treasury idea worked. I am tracking my statistics through Etsy's "Search Ads" for a whopping 25 bucks a week! That's a lot for me. I am on my second week. I won't be able to do this for that amount of money again. They have lesser options 5, 10 or 25 a week. I can probably swing 10 and then 5. But that's got to stop after that.
The last I put together as a tribute to those vendors who have kept me happy with my choices of product that I have bought. Although the majority of my inventory comes from a local mineralogist and from "JoAnne's", I am quickly fading from JoAnne's view and getting more cozy with the local guy. I like to "touch and feel" before I buy.
Speaking of buying products, I am making my m-in-law a pendant of birth stones of her 4 kids as we are visiting her over the Valentine's Day week. Her birthday is on the 14th. The birthstones I need to merge together are 2 light blue, 1 pink and 1 red. I bought the pink and the red at JoAnne's without incident but JoAnne's was out of light blue. Therefore I had to order the light blue and make sure they are the same style as the pink and red ones. I chose Swarovski 10mm Heart Crystals, not mounted. I am mounting them myself with a wire technique.
I successfully wired the pink and the red one and they look terrific. See?
I bought a pair of blues from a vendor and when they arrived I noticed the drill hole in the upper center was terribly close to the indent of the heart. I tried to "wire" them and they shattered. Here is a picture. Well, I wasn't happy and I wasn't happy with the color either. (would you believe I am playing "fetch" with the cat and his green ball? he's really returning it for me to throw again...this is the 8th time!, cool cat!)
So, I reordered and mentioned that the product shattered and I think it is because the hole is too close to the top of the heart. I received my order today and the color is good but it looks like they re-drilled the hole. It's not a tiny hole any more it's a pretty large hole, like they were trying to bring the hole lower into the heart but the product arrives already drilled and to make the hole bigger just makes the stone less stable. I plan to ask the vendor about this.
If I break them again, I don't know what I am going to do. Obviously go to another vendor but I may be running out of time. I want to get them completed and mounted on the silver pendant I bought before I fly to Florida on the 11th. I think I still have plenty of time. It's just odd, because it is so obvious that the holes are bigger and why would they think a larger hole would be more stable? It is still in the same spot only larger. Maybe I'm dealing with dummies. Who knows? we'll find out though.
Well, it's 4am and I should start doing some listing for my other shop, especially since that one is the only one that's making any money! I would say anything from Grampa's Attic that sells at this point is pure profit. It's all junk anyway! But a lot of people like it. One man's junk is an other's treasure!
Bye for now, my Russian friends! Any one else out there?
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