Refocusing

On Friday, I met with two business advisors from SCORE. SCORE is an organization of volunteer business experts who help people like me who want to be entrepreneurs by providing business advice.

My advisors are great! We talked about my business, the reasons I want to design jewelry and helped me see that I need to solidify what Beadnicity is about before I can really start to produce a line or market. If I don't know what design focus is and my target market, then I will keep changing my path as the wind or trends blow.

Inspired by their advice, I wrote down what I envision Beadnicity to be and what niche I am hoping to fulfill The statement needs to some work, but it helped me see that:

Beadnicity makes hand-crafted artisan jewelry using beads from ancient civilizations like Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Far East bringing them into contemporary styles that appeal to the women who like to stand out from the crowd and appreciate the uniqueness that only hand-crafted jewelry brings.

This opens up a whole world of possibilities and focuses me on the jewelry line that captures my passion, inspires me and will appeal to women (and men) who like bold, statement designs.

Woot! First Sale

Woot! Woot! Hands up in the air. Sold my first two pieces of jewelry -- a necklace and pair of earrings--tonight to a friend of mine from college.  He was looking for a unique gift for his wife for Mother's Day.  
These pieces are my favorites.  I love the jasper and the primitiveness of the ceramic beads.  

I was getting frustrated because people were very complimentary of my designs, but no one was buying.  This sale definitely makes the wait all worthwhile.  So excited.  Beadnicity is FINALLY on the map!

Now to really push to make designs that people will admire but also want to buy and wear.

My Favorite Jewelry Suppliers...

I wanted to give a shout out to the following vendors who carry wonderful, unique, and reasonably priced jewelry materials. They are (in no specific order)

Chelsea's Beads: http://www.chelseasbeads.com/
They carry unusual beads, chain, and pendants from other countries.

Fire Mountain Gems http://www.firemountaingems.com/

Very affordable general jewelry supplier

Happy Mango Beads http://www.happymangobeads.com/

Great selection of unique, exotic, and hard to find materials from around the world.

EE Beads http://www.eebeads.com/
I like this supplier because they do small quantities if you don't want to buy a full strand. Another affordable supplier.

Lastly, Jet Beads is a intermediary for Fire Mountain. You can get significant savings by placing your Firemountain orders through them. You can find them at http://www.jetbeads.com/xcart/

Check them all out.

All for now

This is a first

This afternoon, I tried to design and string a necklace on my commute home. I take commuter train from my job to home. It's about 2 hours on the train - perfect to do something constructive and fun. I recently bought one of those 'travel' bead trays.

Eager to see if I can successfully bead without spilling the beads onto the floor, I started to design. I kept imagining my fellow commuters hitting a loose bead on the floor and going flying while cursing me and giving me dirty looks. Luckily, all of the beads stayed on the tray, but at times I felt like an acrobat balancing the tray, keeping the beads from sliding as the train hit ruts in the track. It is definitely not a smooth ride!

Needless to say the piece is done and all I have to do is finish which I will do at home. Not bad for my first try. I'll post a picture of my commuter-proven necklace this weekend.

I'd rather be beading....

It's a gloomy, rainy day today so it's a good day to finish my taxes. I know last minute - but I just don't like doing them anymore. I think next year I am going to have someone else prepare them.

Now that the taxes are done and the veggie garden is moving along, it's time to start beading again. I made have a few new pieces in different stages of completion. I also want to learn to work with polymer clay so I am going to order some and give it a try on my own before I take a class.

Well, be on the look out for new photos and postings in the next week or two.

Wine Stoppers/Charms - A New Addition to the Line

As I mentioned, I am now making stainless steel wine stoppers and wine charms. These make great hostess gifts. It took me a while to find the right kind of wine stoppers. I wanted stainless steel because they are better quality and there is less of a chance for them to become pitted by the acid in the wine. They can be used for longer storage, but I would not recommend more than a week or two.

They will make any wine bottle or any other kind of bottle more festive. They are great for collecting and displaying. I will soon starting selling the holders so customers can display them. I have a few wine stoppers in my personal collection that I use for display which I bought when I was in Italy. They are always a conversation piece.

The wine charms I am selling have a practical purpose. Don't you hate it when you are at a party and lay your glass down only to find that you (and the other guests) can't tell which glass belongs to whom? Well, the wine charms solve that problem. They are distinctive and you just have to remember which charm you were given.

Here are some photos.

Second Time Around

Today, I relaunched my jewelry website - www.beadnicity.com. This is grand opening even if it is the second time around. I have added some new pieces and expanded to include stainless steel wine stoppers. I have to admit when I first launched the site I only had a few pieces which was not enough to make to say 'hey, check me out'. My goal is to push a couple new pieces a week to the site. Now folks keep me honest. I think I keep hesitating to push hard on this is my own fear of failure. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I want people to be blown away by my designs. I have to get over the fear of rejection and that not everyone is going to like it. I've compared my designs to others and my abilities are as good as anyone elses. I use quality materials and ensure that my work will stand the test of time. So far, Google is crawling the site. I have to get a better handle on social media tools like Facebook, blogging, and twittering to bring traffic to the my web site and get customers. So, here's the big leap....now that wasn't so bad! Check out www.beadnicity.com.