Things are moving forward...

I have almost sold out all my previous jewelry and I can finally see the end of the tunnel for my new project.

I have a logotype for my new webshop made by lovely Frida Eklund Edman from Modelform. She also runs a shop with the coolest clothes for children http://www.modelmini.se/. And I love my logotype and the company profile she´s created for me. I highly recommend working with her.

I have decided to sell internationally with prices in Euro too. But my main target group is Swedes, that doesn´t enjoy browsing the web for finds and to purchase from abroad. I´m sure readers of this blog are not my target group :)...

Almost all jewelry I´ve ordered have arrived at home. It´s goodies from Maya Design, Polished, Shlomit, Untamed Menagerie, Joanna Rutter and Vera Vinn. Can you imagine the effort I have to put up, not to bling myself with all of it, like a christmas tree :)!

My premiere date is set to July 15th. If you´d like a sneak preview you can look into the blog I´ve started a blog for my new shop: www.mioora.blogspot.com it´s only in Swedish so far. Haven´t figured out a good way to deal with two languages yet. Perhaps have an english version in italic at the end of each post?

I´ve started to create a bit again too. Mostly I have recycled old and broken jewelry and mixed it with new chains, charms and beads. I will post pics when I have it.

To be continued...

Huge clearance sale and it hurts...

So I´ve done it. I´ve marked down everything in my Etsy shops 50%. I´m going to move on to new adventures and will hopefully not have the time to create intricate wire pieces.

My adventure is a webshop with jewelry, launched for Swedes at first, but perhaps with the rest of Europe as target in the future.

I will sell mostly other peoples designs. I´m tired of the jewelry webshops that are around here. They are either glam-girl, low-price, crappy material shops. Or they are more arts & crafts like in a sence they are almost pornographic in their love of the material that is used. And they often praise the "Nordic light and Swedish simplicity" too much for my taste.

My shop will focus on a pure love of jewelry. I will sell jewelry in many categories: classical, fun, expensive, colorful, simple or intricate. The thing they will have in common is they are very easy to wear, they are made with a glimpse in the eye and they are feminine.

Jewelry is supposed to be fun and make you feel like the girl you once were, standing in front of a mirror, all dressed up in your mum´s finest clothes (too big of course, but it didn´t matter).

So watch our for news here until I move on to a blog related to my new webshop.

BUT WILL I STOP MAKING JEWELRY?

No, don´t think anything can stop me from doing that (except time and a huge succes with selling jewelry made by other designers than me...). I will probably focus on making jewelry, that are less time consuming to create. So no wire designs at this moment.

To be continued...

I am working...

No blogging in a long time. But I haven´t vanished. I have several commission orders and I´m working on starting a second business too.

Of course I feel blessed when having special orders. But my sketches are piling up and I feel I have a lot of creativity that needs to erupt soon.

Beware for new designs at the end of March :)

How to name your company or brand

Lately I´ve been reading a lot about how to name companies and brands.

I´m thinking about opening a jewelry store in Sweden and need a great name. I´ve browsed the web and found a bunch of things to consider when picking a name.

Here are some of the ideas I´ve found useful.

• Get an “umbrella” name. If you are going to sell jewelry, don´t have a name with jewelry in it. What if you want to start selling scarves too? (That means my current name sucks :)) The name should still work if you want to expand.


• Search the web to see if the company name is free as a domain address.


• The name doesn´t have to have a meaning. You can always fill it with meaning with an underline, that you can drop when your name is established. That means nonsense names are OK.


• Short names, and names with hard sounds are remembered more easily. Google, Kodak, Plurk are great examples.


• Make sure your company name is easy to spell.


• Brainstorm to find your name. Start with what you want your name to be associated with. Mix letters and give the words new endings like –ax, -ex, -or, -er, -ac, -oc.
  

Still can´t find a name? Try Breadline Design Naming Machine! :)

1300 hearts!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I´m so exited! Scaring my neighbours right now with my own wild celebration choreography.
I´ve reached more than 1300 hearts at Etsy. When someone save you as their favorite shop you get a "heart".
I´ve been waiting so long to take the step past 1300 hearts. And been having so many defeats. Just when it was 1299 it dropped down one or two hearts. People must have been cleaning their saved favourites after Christmas perhaps.
But now I reached my goal!

Use a wiki when creating custom orders

Custom orders where you work close with the customer to decide which material you´re going to use are fun. But the e-mail traffic following such a mission can be overwhelming. Sometimes it can be hard to keep track of all information; what has been said and not.

Now I have found a way to make this work a lot easier and I want to share it with other jewelry designers. I´ve started to use wikis to keep all information gathered in one place and reachable for both my customer and I.

This is something I started to use at my daytime job when planning for festivals and other projects together with other organisations.

Using a wiki is so easy. You set up a wiki, which is like a simple website where you can add folders and pages, upload pictures and other documents. Then you invite other users and make them only able to read the content or add information themselves. They can always write comments on everything you add. Everytime the wiki is updated you get a notification by email.

Now you don´t have to go through several e-mails for certain information. You just go to the right folder to find it. And I guess it´s a great way to avoid disputes with the customer too, you always have the same information.

Does it sound tricky and confusing? Watch Commoncrafts “Wikis in plain English” at Youtube.

I use http://www.pbwiki.com/ because there you don´t have to pay to avoid others to see the information. http://www.wikispaces.com/ has a layout I prefer, but you have to pay a fee to make it private.

Large projects have become so much more fun since I started to use wikis. Now the whole family use wikis for planning trips, parties and even business plans.

Try it!

Who links to your website?

I amused myself this morning with searching for sites who link to my Etsy shops and my blog. And I found many interesting sites and news about my business (!!!). So I thought I´d share with you on how to do this in an easy and fast way. Probably most of you know of this simple action, but I just found out.

Just go to Google.com and write "link:" and your url adress without the http thing. Example:
link: www.suzyqjewelry.etsy.com

I found several blogs and social shopping sites where people have recommended my jewelry. It even works with sites where they just wrote your adress without attaching a hyperlink.

So thank you Pandabear 18788 for recommending my SLEEPING BEAUTY and THE GIRL IN ME necklace on This Next. And thank you With this ring I thee obsess and Charming Paper blog for recommending my jewelry for future brides.

I also found out I´m now a proud member of Self-Representing Artist Jewelry Designer (SRAJD member 1797)!!!

Now someone may think you can find this out from Google Analytics or Statcounter. But to actually see sites who link to you there takes that someone clicked on the link. By using this easy Google way you´ll see sites with information about you without clicks.

So what do you make out of the information you get? Not quite sure. But approving your confidece is a result good enough.....:)

Photographing jewelry with the help of IKEA

I get a lot of questions about my photos, both on how I arrange the light and which camera I use. So I thought I share my way of taking pics here.

I use a Canon Eos 30D, but I think the quality of the photos depend more on which camera objective lens you use. I have a Canon macro lens EF 100mm 1:2.8. It allows me to get sharp photos and get real close. See pic and read more about the objective here.

When it comes to the camera - it´s very important that you can adjust the white balance to avoid yellow photos. But I think most of the digital cameras can do that today.

My studio setting is a chapter of it´s own. Must be the cheapest one ever. It´s built with and IKEA laundry bag that gives a smooth perfect light. It won´t work with larger objects than jewelry but for that it´s perfect.

Jeffery Ball has another idea on how to build an unexpensive photo tent. Read more about that at Digital Photography School. It´s great to start with an unexpensive tent and then perhaps buy a real professional when you gotten a grip of taking photos.

Of course there is a lot of tricks with the photos to. You have to find the right angles and preferably your own style too. Props or not is another question.

Table Top Studio has great tips about taking good pics of your jewelry.

Home Jewelry Business Success Tips has some good advice too.

But remember to be personal. Try to find your own style!

Good luck!

Featured in magazine

It´s a strange feeling to see yourself in a magazine. I never get used to it. But it´s fantastic to see your pieces displayed and to have someone writing about your business. This is an article about doing business on Etsy.

Etsy is something new to both sellers and buyers in Sweden. When doing a search I can only find 49 Swedish sellers at Etsy - it should be more! I hope this article will help others to take the step forward against opening their own Etsy business.

I also hope this will make me find more Swedish customers. My customers mostly comes from US, UK and France. It used to be Australia and New Zeeland but for some reason I´ve had no buyers from those countries since spring.

If you have an Etsy shop, where do your customers mostly come from?

Where to sell your crafted items

Today there are many sites to sell your homemade crafts. I only use Etsy at the moment, but have been thinking of trying my luck at other sites. But how do you know which one to choose?

Now Foundhandmade.com has done half the job for you. They´ve listed traffic and compared fees. eBay, Café Press and Etsy are top three. I have never heard of Café Press but will definitely have a look at that site.

Read the whole article at Foundhandmade.com