Building my online business - a few thoughts

For the past 3 years I have been running my own brick and mortar store where I sold my designs. Though my online business was active as well, my store was the main focus of my business and took most of my time and effort. A few months ago, due to my relocating to another part of the country, I decided to close my store and made a strategic decision to focus on my online business.

Etsy was good place to start because there is so much helpful information going around. So I started reading the forums and finding various advise and recommendations and later on trying to implement all that good advise. I started this blog, joined twitter and facebook, did some project wonderful ads, joined a team, made treasuries etc. After a few weeks of doing that the only result was that I got exhausted!!

Even as a full time crafter I could not find enough time to do all these things and do them well. At this point someone gave me a really good advise - focus!

So I took a few days to evaluate all the activities I was doing, trying to figure out which ones I should focus on. What I decided is to stop most of my off-etsy activities for now. I've read so many forum threads saying that you can't make it on etsy without some outside promotion. I decided I wanted to test this belief. After all, I did join etsy for the added value of belonging to a place where people come to buy handmade goods. If I have to bring the buyers with me I might just as well lead them to my own site.

So I started my own personal experiment of how to turn my store into a success. In my next posts I will write about what I have done so far and what results I got from it. Anyone who is interested is welcome to follow my blog and see how it goes.

So much to do, so little time!!

I've been busy in the last couple of days working on my website and listing new items in my etsy store. This is a busy time of year and there's so much to do. Being a one person business, this means working harder than usuall to get things done. Luckily I got much of my photographing done last week so I have some material to work with. Today is rainy and grey so it's a perfect day for indoor working in front of the computer.

These are some nice items I've recently listed:

This pendant is from my lace collection. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17571503 I like the way the picture turned out.

These earrings are in my favorite color - purple. I wasn't sure I wanted to sell them because I wanted them for myself, but eventually I decided to sell them. They are one of a kind as I only made this one copy of them. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=17578310

I have listed some more items, feel free to visit my etsy store and take a look.

Some thoughts on photographing jewelry

Today I spent the day taking photographs of my jewelry. Having an online business, this is a very important matter as this is what will determine if you like my items or not. Photographing jewelry is very difficult, especially jewelry made of metals, like silver, because it is shiny and reflective.You wouldn't believe how many shots I need to take of each item untill I get one that I like and can use in my sites. Professional photographers have special equipment to help them catch the jewelry piece in the best way. As I am not really a professional photographer my only equipment is my camera. It's not a professional camera but It is a very good camera that can take real close up pictures. To get the best lighting I usually do my photographing ousdoors. I've done some experiments to find the best time of day to take pictures and I try to take as many as possible at that time. Winter time is sometimes tricky because of rain or just a cloudy day with not enough light. But we have plenty of sunshine in Israel so this is not a big problem.
I've also been experimenting with different backgrounds to find which gives me the best results. My past pictures were taken on a white neutral backgroung. In my last photo shootings I tried to make the pictures more interesting by using other backgrounds. I used branches and leaves from my garden in some pictures and today I tried with a dark grey background that I think looks rather elegant. Hope you think so too.
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Gemstones - and nothing more

Yesterday I went shopping for some supplies. I bought some beautiful Torquize stones and some fresh water pearls strands. You should be seeing this in the designs I'll be making soon. It's always fun visiting a gemstone store. All the gorgeous colors and forms. It's really hard to choose from all the great variety of stones available. This time I 'played it safe' and focused on classics that I've used in the past. Torquize and pearls always give great results because they are just soooo beautiful. Occasionally I love to buy some unknown gemstone that has caught my eye because of it's unique color or it's shape. I find that sometimes the stones are so beautiful that I really don't need to do much to create a beautiful jewelry piece with them. I just focus on the chosen gemstone and it does all the work for me. The flower carved Nephrite stone necklace in the picture is a good example. You can see more in my new gemstones jewelry collection.

If you're interested in gemstones, I will be writing some posts about different gemstones and their qualities, so be sure to follow my blog to see that.

Silver jewelry - unique and affordable

The reason I choose to work with sterling silver as my main material is that I want to achieve 3 goals:

1. To make creative and unique jewelry.

2. To make jewelry that will last.

3. To make affordable jewelry.

I feel that silver enables me to do this. It is a precious metal that will last for a long time and probably will always be in style and it is not as expensive as gold or other precious metals. Because of this I can have my artistic freedom to create really unique jewelry in different styles. I can experiment new design ideas while if I was working with a more expensive material I would probably stick to more conventional forms.

I think the same logic applies from a buyer's point of view, especially when you're buying gifts. You want to buy something that is unique but you also want it to last so you (or the gift receiver)can enjoy it for a long time, and you want it to be affordable so you can still afford to buy other stuff as well.

This is why I think silver jewelry is a really great gift to give an receive. Of course I might be a bit biased as I love jewelry so much.

You can see my various jewelry designs on my website

I love discovering new techniques!

I've been creating jewelry for more than 20 years, first as a hobby and in the past 7 years as a professional artist. What I find amazing about my business is that after so many years of creating I can still discover new techniques and learn new ways to create jewelry completly different than I had done before.

Yesterday I was in a book store and I found a craft book about a new metal working technique that I have never tried before. I was facinated, as I am always when I discover a new technique. My mind got filled with ideas of what I could do with this new technique and how I can incorporate it into my jewelry.

As you can clearly see from my work, I love experimenting with new techniques. I love discovering new forms of creating and I love finding ways to combine them all together to create something completly new. I think my best designs are born from such combinations. Like my clouds collection where I combined crocheting techniques with different wire working techniques in what turned out to be one of my most popular and loved collections.

In the next few weeks I will be exploring and experimenting with my newest discovery untill I perfect my skill enough to start using it in my designs. This is definately one of my favorite parts in the creative process , I get to invent myself in each new collection I make! I know many artists like to stick to their art form, I love to change styles and create something completly new each time. It keeps my work interesting for me and (hopefully) it keeps those of you who like my designs curious to see what I'll do next.

Why I never follow fashion trends

I have been thinking and drawing some sketches for my next jewelry collection. I plan to use a lot of colors in this line which got me thinking about trends.

Every season there are some colors that are declared as the season's colors. If you wish to be trendy you need to follow those colors and other fahion guidelines. I never do this. I prefer to make my choices based on what I like and what I think goes best with my design.

Sometimes I get lucky and the trends follow my taste and style. For example, purple which has always been my favorite color, is the hot color for the coming winter season. So all my purple jewelry will now be relevant and trendy. But does that make them more beautiful that they were last year?

When I create my jewelry designs I want them to be timeless and to reflect someone's own personal style. Trendy means you're in today and out tommorow. It also means you're letting someone else decide what you'll be wearing.

So I don't follow trends. What I do is regard all trends as recommendation only. If I like it and it goes with my style, I'll embrace the trend, and if the hottest trend is a color or style which I don't care for, I'll ignore it.

Going back to my new planned jewelry line, the colors that I'll choose will reflect my style and (hopefully) your style. I'm sure I'll have some purple items, which will be trendy this winter, but I will also have many other colors so that anyone will be able to find their own stylish item regardless of current trends.

Visit my etsy store to view my not entirely trendy but very stylish jewelry.

What will this blog be about

This is my first blog entry so I guess an introduction is in order. My name is Dvora Schleffer. I am a jewelry designer living and designing in Israel.

As a jewelry designer I work alone in my studio most of the time so this blog is my way of sharing and talking about my work, the designing process and maybe get some feedback to help me make decisions when needed. I also plan to give some tips and advise about fashion and jewelry related issues. I hope you'll find this blog interesting and choose to follow it regularly.

In the mean time, I invite you to visit my etsy store and my other website to get a view of my designs and get to know me a bit better through my work.