Today was a good day.

Today was a good day. I made my first real sale on Artfire today.
Tecnhically I have had one already but that buyer never paid so that one doesn't count.

I'm also off done with work for the week. That's great that I have a day off but the downside is that I'm having oral surgery tomorrow so I took a sick day.

I am looking forward to the time that I will have to work on the custom order for my friend Jen. I'm hoping to also finish a few other projects that I've had lying around as well.

Love this new necklace and pair of earrings that I just listed.

So,

Last week when I went out to buy the Bead Unique mag (we all know that story) I found these stunning purple jasper beads. I got these really supurb antique copper and regular bright shiny copper findings as well. Looking at the beads I saw that they had this almost rust colored streak runnign through them. I wanted to pair them with copper so I used both the bright copper and also the antique copper.

Here's the result.

Bead Unique Ad

So, I run out to the bead shop after work to buy the current issue of Bead Unique.

One of my necklaces is in a Shop Handmade ad. The owner of the shop is like where are you in the mag. So I flip through and get to the ad. There are 8 total pieces from different people. One is mine.

GUESS WHAT THEY LEAVE OFF THE LISTING FOR MY NECKLACE????????

MY FULL STORE NAME!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the yelling but saying that the store is Jewelry by DOES NOTHING FOR PROMOTING MY JEWELRY!

I've emailed the person who contacted me about the ad in the first place voicing my displeasure.

I emailed the editor about it and here is her response:

Apologies. Profuse ones. The ad got made at the last moment, and was delivered on a weekend when we were all off work...But that's no excuse. Mistake is a mistake. I'm going to make up for this as best I can. I'll definitely get the graphic designer to correct it in the next ad that comes out. And I'll feature your products in other promotions...

Please don't be too disappointed. There will be lots more stuff.

I really feel bad, thinking how awful you must have felt when you opened the magazine and saw the glitch. I do apologize again...

Here's the page. I'm on the bottom left.

Here's the link to my flickr as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jewelrybydesiree/3215763830/

Bead Unique Update

I don't have a direct link but I WILL scan in the page and post it for all to see.

The Spring Issue of Bead Unique Magazine

On stands today! Look for the Shop Handmade adventorial with my Round Pendant Necklace featured in it! You can find it in my Artfire studio as well!

To craft fair or not to craft fair?

So, I found out yesterday that there's this craft fair happening in May of this year in a town called Griffin, GA called Hatch Market. It's right up the handmade alley, ergo, my alley. Now the big thing is that I'm wondering if I should try to apply. The booth fee is inexpensive ($85), they give you a skirted table, chair and sign with your business, hometown and website on it. Now I'd need to get a credit card merchant account. I can do that for about $40/year so that's not too bad and the fees aren't that bad. Griffin is about 70 miles away from where I'm at. Not sure if I could potentially get ready in time as I haven't ever done a fair before and I'd need to buy some display stuff and make a ton of pieces. That and I'd have to sell about $300 worth of stuff to break even.

I won free advertising!

So the website http://indiesmiles.com was having a free advertising contest. Post a comment and sign up for there newsletter and get a chance to win free advertising. Well guess what? I was picked as a winner. Hopefully this will generate more exposure for my site and also sales!

I'm totally stoked!

Look for me in the February Spotted Box!

Ok, so I decided to do a promo box. I did some research and in addition to an Artfire promo box that I'll be in I'm going to be in the February Spotted Box! Check me out in the listing for who's going to be in the box here http://www.thespottedbox.com/february2009.html

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to be a regular in the box or just do one a few times a year or not.

Look for my coupon in all of my samples!

Free Pair of Earrings with any purchase

OK people. I'm running a promo in my artfire studio. Receive a free pair of earrings with any purchase now through January 31st. I can't guarantee what pair you get but if you have any requests you can put that in the notes to the seller and I'll do my best to accommodate you.

Happy Shopping!

Desiree

Got an order, made a bracelet and found a new bead shop

Ok, so yesterday was a big day of sorts. I finished the peyote stitch bracelet that I was making. It didn't take me all that long to do, maybe 2 hours or so. I'm excited because it's the first time that I've really ever made anything with a peyote stitch. The bracelet came out ok, a little rough but not all that bad. I'm not selling it though. I'm going to wait till I get the stitch down before I try my hand at selling them. I did also start my first ever tubular peyote stitch. This one is turning out much better that my flat peyote. I'm going to make it into a bangle. It should be fun.

The bead shop that I found happens to be in the same complex that my mother in law lives in. She lives in town center. The community has retail along with town homes and detached single family homes. I came across the shop when I was dropping off cardboard at her house. Long story about why I was doing that and I'll spare all of you that. Anyway, I went into the store yesterday, it's nice, a bit different than Atlanta Bead Market that I blogged about before but nice. I bought some stuff there, some snowflake obsidian that I can't wait to make into a necklace and earrings and some glass and silver beads that I'm going to use for my promo boxes submissions.

The order I got was actually from today but my co-worker, Pat, told me that she wanted me to do something yesterday. She has this cool hematite bracelet and she wanted some earrings to match. And she's already thinking about other things that I can make to sell to her as well.

I can't wait! I just have to get through these dang tests first!

The holidays are over but....

Life isn't any less crazy right now. So for those of you who don't know my alter ego is as an architect. I have 2 more tests left to take before I'm a registered architect (RA). The first of the 2 is next Friday and the last is the Friday after that. So between studying my brains out for these obnoxious little tests, my day job, my fun job and what the heck my husband is doing next with work I'm a bit stressed. All the rest aside I thought that I'd have the hubby home for the month of January, lately he's been traveling to Charlotte, NC for work. Now I find out that he's going to be flying about helping out the account executive until his contract comes live Feb 2. And that was this morning, who knows what it will be by the time that I get home.

On the upside I just delivered a custom order bracelet to a co-worker. I have materials on order from Artbeads.com for another one for a friend. Now if I could only sell something online!