Enlarge Your Photos Before You Publish Them!

How often are you in a hurry when you compose an ad and post your pictures on Etsy?

I know my pictures have much to be desired on my jewelry sites but this is not the angle I am going to discuss today. When I learn to take better pictures that will be another post!

This is about checking your work. I mean check your jewelry for obvious flaws in workmanship like scratches on stones, wires sticking out, mismatched colors, dirt, etc.

I got the idea when I was bringing my jewelry to work and the girls were bringing it to the bathroom. They weren't just trying it on. They were scrutinizing it really up close behind those closed doors!

This is what happens to our work on Etsy. We all publish our pictures so they will be enlarged. Etsy will let you publish a picture that is 1000 x 1000 pixels. That's pretty big! It's about 7 x 7 inches! (abouts) You can see everything! Everything! EVERYTHING!

Sometimes we all get in a hurry. That's why I am bring this up. Enlarging the pictures before and immediately after you post will save your butt from a lost customer, Regretsy, laughter, and out right humiliation or embarrassment!

You are putting yourself in the seat of the customer. You will find those deciding factors that make them buy your jewelry or not!

I clean my vintage jewelry well but I have enlarged pictures only to find that there are hairs stuck in a brooch or earrings. Or gross makeup caked on the side of a rhinestone. Ewwww!

I've made earrings using briolettes only to find a flaw in the front of the glass or the stone. This is my opportunity to remake the earring again and hide the flaw in the back behind the filigree. If I would not have enlarged the picture like the customer would have; I don't think I would have found it. (I constantly change glasses between bifocals and magnifiers.)

If you forgot to tuck in a wire in your wrap this is your chance. Tuck it in and take another picture. If your forgot that little bit of glue, well here's your chance to see it magnified 8 times! Enlarged pictures show all. ALL!!!!

Enclosed you will find another fly in the ointment so to speak. I take my pictures outside sometimes. I don't mind the occasional ant in the picture, those can be funny. I will even get a dragonfly to flirt with my dragonfly brass stampings. Take a look. What do you find?

If you love this little clown brooch he is clean and still available in my shop with several other figural type brooches!

Make Your Own Wire Guards and French Wire

I wanted to show you all an easy way to make your own attractive beading wire protectors that you can do in any type of metal. This picture here is taken with 20 gauge wire as the base wire and 24 gauge wire as the wrapped wire. You can make several wraps of your smaller gauge wire around wire that is at least 20 gauge wire. Use the 20 gauge because you can get your beading wire through the coil when it's done. Use a flat nose pair of pliers to hold the wire in place and use your fingers or another pair of pliers to do the wrapping. I recommend using the second pliers to help you because then you can pull the wraps nice and tight and close. Make the wraps nice and close. Your finished work will look like a tight little spring when you are done. The coil wrapping should be at least 14 mm for your finished piece until you get used to working with it then adjust according to your preference. Trim the excess and slide off the thicker wire. Use just like you would french wire or Accu-Guards. Slide on to your beading wire followed by a crimp and secure the crimp behind the loop you made. See my Dragonfly necklace as an example.

Tell a Story to Go with your Work



Mrs. Owl Gets Rose for Honorable Mention

 I think that by letting your work tell a story or telling a story to go with your work captivates your customer audience and keeps them in your shop just a little longer. 

In the case of this articulated Owl necklace "Mrs. Owl Gets Rose for Honorable Mention" I tell a story to go with my work.

Your visitors will enjoy going to your Etsy shop just for the sheer pleasure of the visit, even if they might not purchase anything at that moment, they will love your shop and may at the very least heart your item or shop and come back.  They might also be inclined to visit your other items to see what you wrote in your descriptions.

When customers do searches on Etsy and use the "All Items" feature they might use search terms that are more theme oriented other than just what might be used for the tags and materials. 

"Mrs. Owl", as an example, when searched for under "All Items" brings up several owls with female personalities and cute whimsical features. 

This way of searching can be more helpful than the other ways in the Etsy search pull down menu because the tags are mostly used to describe the basics and get used up really fast. Other searches that my Mrs. Owl comes up in because of the story are "honorable mention" and "pageant".  Who knows maybe she will end up being an award for someone in her exact predicament!

The description that I used not only describes the owl necklace I made but tells a story so the reader knows that this is also a two part story which draws the consumer to possibly look at my sold items to see part one. 

How to Feature an Etsy Treasury On Your Blog

I've been wanting to post an Etsy Treasury to my Blogger for quite awhile now but couldn't find the way to do it. There is this amazing Etsy Treasury HTML Code Generator I found on Red Row Studio's website.  The instructions are simple.  You just copy and paste the middle part of the Etsy Treasury that is between the two slashes into the form where it says, "Treasury Id", then pick your columns you want to show and the size you want.  Then you hit the Generate Code button!  The code is there for you to copy and paste to your post!

The Etsy artists in this treasury have such beautiful work and I couldn't wait to show you!

'A Look In and Out the Window' by bajunajewelry

Inspired by Nature - A Collection of Lovely Etsy Artist's that Look Both In and Out the Window

Jewelbox Jewels, Facete... CJRoseBoutique $36.00	Starry night photo - Am... sunshineartdes... $10.00	Autumn Leaf Necklace. S... StumblingOnSai... $22.00	autumn leaves photographybar... $35.00
Tree Locket Oval - Jewe... ThatsSoCoolStu... $12.95	Bare Trees 2 GardenOfClouds $22.00	Monet Sunflowers art pe... thependantempo... $8.95	Sunflowers and water Franceinfocus $40.00
Shades of Blue Feather ... AnnLeslie $45.00	Bird in tree bluejay pr... Raceytay $25.00	1 PC Raw Brass Birds on... mermaidsdowry $7.50	Three Crows Photo, Natu... NoMarkAtAll $20.00
IRELAND rabbit Coin nec... PartsForYou $9.95	Bunny Photograph 8x10 C... quirkybunny $20.00	4pc Antiqued 35mm Big R... kawaiisupply00... $3.10	Flower photo, purple, w... NaturalCharmPh... $28.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Let Your Creative Juices Flow!

I've been really stuck. My kitchen table slash bench looks like a tornado hit it.

I tried my usual method of touching and feeling my beads, filigrees, stampings and making little piles and moving things around on my bead board.

When you get stuck or blocked or your creative juice gets clogged, sometimes you just need to let go.

Yup, let go! Stop it! Lay it down! Drop it! I said drop it!

Did you drop it?

Now get on with the rest of your life outside your craft world. (That sounds mean.)

Your creative juices just won't flow if you are stuck and you try to force them.

I'm not telling you to give up crafts. I'm just telling you to lay it down. Let go with your vise grip, your choke hold, so you can let yourself live and enjoy yourself and get out of the slump.

Go do something. Go for a walk. Get some fresh air to that brain. Do something nice for a family member. Call your grandmother.

Refuse to even think about the artwork for a while. Don't even look at your stash.

I know this sounds silly but inspiration can come when you least expect it if you let go.

Mine came suddenly while I was in the kitchen making dinner for my family!




My refrigerator is covered with magnets and this one happened to catch my eye from a trip to California.

I got it! I'm inspired by a refrigerator magnet! Mission San Juan Capistrano!

A flood of images comes to mind and the cobwebs are gone!

Beautiful Mission San Juan Capistrano!

Cabbage sized roses, fushia bougainvillea and swallows fill my mind!

Bees buzz and the sun heats my face.

The swallows, high upon the walls, flit back and forth from their nests catching bugs in the garden.

What Divine perfume!

When I sleep, colors fill my room! I know what I'm going to do!

I have all these beautiful brass stampings of swallows and flowers and even a cross with a pretty floral design that I had bought from Jill's store Brass Bouquet.

I joined my pretty brass findings with jump rings and pretty chain Jill calls Ariel and finished it with a small lobster clasp.

I called my pretty necklace Mission San Juan Capistrano!

Make a Pendant From a Briolette

Make a Pendant From a Briolette Experiment with Hammering for Different Effects

I made this pendant with a beautiful big deep ruby red faceted glass briolette but this is just an idea. You pick your own briolette and metals and beads to use. My briolette measures 25mm long and 18mm in diameter.

A bright 5mm dimpled brass bead accents this pendant and pretty filigree bead caps. The accent bead you use will need to have a hole large enough to accommodate 20 gauge wire doubled. The bead caps can't be so big that they stick out past the edges of the briolette. When you bend the wire up they need to lay flat and fit snug. Experiment.

To Create this lovely Deep Red Faceted Glass Briolette Pendant I used 20 gauge wire because this briolette is heavy. You decide what you need. I threaded the side drilled holes with the wire and took the ends of the wire and added vintage style filigree bead caps and made sure they laid flat against the briolette. I then brought the wire ends up through a 5mm dimpled shiny brass bead. The doubled brass wire was made into a sturdy double loop with about a 3mm opening. Tip - When you wrap a double loop try to keep the wires side by side when you make the loops and wraps. Stick the point of the round pliars through the loop to shape it and align the loops. If you carefully lay your wrapped loops on a metal block you can hammer the wraps and the loops to make a faceted look or just leave it plain. Be careful to not hit your accent bead. Twisted wire would look very nice, too.

The pendant hangs from a Hammered Brass 10mm Jump Ring. I took a link from a big 10mm round chain and hammered it to make my jump ring. Hammering really changes the look of jump rings and chain links. Make sure they keep their shape when you hammer them so the ends meet properly. You might have to bend and align.

2009 Art Speaks in Lowes Hotel Miami Beach

The 2009 Art Speaks at the Lowes Hotel on Miami Beach was a fun private event. The idea was pure genius and I hope catches on.

Event planners basically held a conference for a large nationwide company and the Artists were the entertainment afterwards! There were about 400 + people. How cool!

A mixture of Sculptures in many different mediums, Painters, and Jewelry Artists captivated their audience.

Some of these artists were established and had many clientele. What was interesting was the neat mix of the less established artists from the art college and ETSY! We had OUR chance to show our talent, too!

We didn't just display our Art we did demonstrations! THAT was the entertainment appeal for the conference attendees.

Scenes sprang to life with people, plants and animals! Smiles on paintings and people graced the landscapes of the conference room.

Fingers inquisitively poked wet sculptures and the slopes of smooth and rough and pondered taking them home.

Jewelers with precious and semi precious gems and metals pounded, strung, soldered and made little twists here and there with a flick of the wrist and a pair of pliers or wire.

Eyes sparkled with surprise as creations emerged before them.

"How do you do it?" They asked. "I'll show you." We said.

PS

I got to promote ETSY. Some of the artists didn't know that ETSY is so much easier than Ebay to advertise with and is cheaper so the Artist makes a better profit. I passed out many business cards with my ETSY shop http://www.bajunajewelry.etsy.com/

Create a Beautiful Cagework Brooch

This brooch is made with Brass Bouquet's drilled Petuna Filigree, A flat brass filigree, A Big 12mm Copper flower Bead cap, A copper pronged brooch back, 20 guage brass headpin, and a brass bead cap. The cobalt bead is my last one and is over 20 years old. I was in my 20's when I found it in an old man's sewing box when he gave me various buttons and things as a gift.
I joined the main pieces together with the 20 guage headpin and wrapped it very tight in the back. I did a wire wrapped loop in the back and flattened it after I made sure the ensamble was tight. Then placed the flat filigree on the brooch back, then the Petuna filigree (which I bent a little because of the little hump on the back from the headpin loop). I bent the prongs and pinched with flat pliers. :)
Thank you Jill for your wonderful inspiring pieces of filigree!
Kathy Noda - Bajuna Jewelry and Custom Beaded Creations

Riverside Park Art Show!

My friend and fellow artist Patti Kobelin put together a really nice neighborhood block party at Riverside Park in Ft. Lauderdale. It included an art show from friends and neighbors, ponies, games and prizes and lots of barbecue from the neighbors. The neighborhood grocery stores even donated food and one even a gift basket to give away for a raffle!

I was invited to participate as one of the artists, how cool :).

I learned several things that I feel that will be very important for next time.

1. Be at the show and set up early.

2. Have all unnecessary items off the table! At one point even my lunch was on the table! That's not pretty! I should have had a little lower -of-sight place for such items.

3. Have a plan. Have a look that you want. Have a fast portable orderly way planned out to get set up fast, neatly and not have a scrambled look. (My way of setting up has the scrambled look, I got to the party late because of traffic.) I could have packed my jewelry and supplies better so I wouldn't have been scrambling. I would have looked more professional.

4. Have a plan B!!!!!

I found out about the party about one week in advance. I knew that I wouldn't have much to sell. I mostly had just my Etsy Items plus about 3 other items. I had to have a plan B. This was it. I decided to bring my tools and wire and several beads and components to let people see how to wire wrap a pair of earrings. Children especially love to watch this so be prepared to answer and teach them. Also showing everybody how fun it is to pound a link to flatten it for a different look and flatten wire and roll and make a spiral or scroll it is really interesting to all.

5. Make up your mind that even if you don't sell anything you are going to create a neat experience to all who visit you.

I was supposed to be at the party from 2pm-6pm. I got there at 3 something and it started to rain at 5. I was able to talk to some ladies about some of my items and sell a necklace and a bracelet. These two ladies want to do business again. I feel that because I was friendly and talked about the materials and how nice and relaxing it is to make jewelry that they felt comfortable enough to ask for my email and give me theirs for future projects and sales. A young girl was asking me about the whole business end. I think she may have been a future artist.

Because of the rain the event was cut a little short.

6. Another idea I had was to bring a very inexpensive bag of beads and wire so even the little girls that were there could have something custom made for about $1 - $2.

This whole event was very fun. I discovered the joy of sharing my art and meeting other artists. I also enjoyed sharing with the kids. I made money and was thrilled from my two sales but the joy of being able to share my experience and knowledge whether they bought something or not felt even greater!

Wire Wrap Your Jewelry Securely

Queen Ann's Lace

Queen Ann's Lace is a 20" necklace all hand wrapped with brass wire and each link pounded to give a nice shape.
Featured is a BIG Pink Chalcedony Quartz Drusy Pendant about 4cm x 3cm with a pretty lacy patina brass filigree. The back of the drusy pendant has very light faceting and is very pretty also.
The hand wrapped links include several 8mm Swarovski Crystals in Cantaloupe which is that neat one that changes colors in different lights ie. Sunlight, Neon, Halogen, incandescent from Peach, to Pink, Green, Blue and Clear.
The other beads are 6mm pink rose quartz, frosted green glass, and brass donuts. There are several brass filigree bead caps.
The clasp is a pounded brass swirl and loop.
All the brass is 100% brass it has patina that I buffed off in some places that will darken.
* Notice that the wire wrapping has several wraps on each link. When a piece of jewelry has this type of wrapping instead of just bending the wire closed; there is less risk of it coming open. This takes a lot of time, too. Even if a piece has one good wrap - most of mine has two or three - even one good wrap is very dependable and keeps a piece of jewelry from coming apart. Wire wrapping that has bends to fasten links or to close on stones or charms should be work hardened to make the bend more secure.

More examples of sturdy wire wrapping can be seen in these photo's on Jill's Blog. http://www.j-fiorejewelry.com/photos.html

Working With Gemstone Chips

When I took the string out of my peridot chips I thought OHHHH NOOOO! This is going to be a long night to try to string any of these to make any thing. So I got an idea. I laid them out on my bead board and turned on two lights. One was next to me and the other across the room to hold up the bead and see the hole! My bead board has inches marked of on it and I could separate everything into two rows for my double stringed Peridot and Citrine necklace. I pushed the peridot chips into the grooves of the bead board. That just made an organized mess! I found it was EASIER to work from the focal Citrine Bead out to the ends of the string. I Just picked up the big peridot chips first and took turns stringing them on the beading wire evenly on either side of the Citrine. I used a clip on the side I wasn't working on. I measured as I strung and only after they were on the string. I made sure they were tight when I measured. I believe this technique made this necklace look quiet nice.

Take Your Time

Research and take your time. You are selling a one of a kind piece of art! Not just a piece of jewelry. Do your homework. What do people like? They like class. They like to make a statement about themselves. They like to show style. They have class. Present yourself as being in the buyers' shoes. Would you buy that? For that much? Is this a good investment? Will it be timeless and be fashionable in years to come? Does it look like it was mass produced or an individual work of art?
This set is called "For the Love of Turquoise" . It won the Brass Bouquet May 08 Jewelry contest! - Thank You Brass Bouquet! http://www.brassbouquet.blogspot.com/ http://stores.brassbouquet.com