New clasp

Well, Christmas time has come and gone.

Now that I'm done with the presents, I can go back to working on shop inventory. I made everyone one of those rosary-style necklace and earring sets but with a new clasp.

I'm not sure whether I'll offer this instead of or in addition to the current clasp. It's easier to make, and I think it looks a little better, but that's just my preference. I don't want to make the made to order listings too complicated. Once I get started on building inventory, I may just do away with them altogether and list what I've made as I make it. But I like having them there as a visual reminder that you can ask for what you want and I'll make it.

I made a pair of silver and pearl earrings for my brother's wife which will be featured in the shop perhaps next week. I've got enough silver to do that and I'd like some more real silver things in the shop. I'll be ordering my silver metal in a week or so, so I'll have more variety soon, but it still won't be real silver.

Happy holidays to all, and I'm looking forward to 2012.

Howlite in Byzantine

The bracelet has been listed!

I made this bracelet a couple of years ago, back when silver was way more affordable. I'm not sure when I'll be able to get back to working in silver. I do have a good amount of 24 gauge wire left, so there'll be earrings and such, but not a lot of my 18 gauge. I have enough for a project or two if I don't have to use a lot. Certainly not enough for chainmaille.

Howlite is a nice stone to use. It's an inexpensive borate mineral - calcium borosilicate hydroxide. It's naturally white, and very pretty. A nice bang for the buck, you might say. Howlite can be dyed very easily, so it is used most often as a turquoise substitute. As you can see, though, it's dyed in a variety of colors. I like the red.

A silver preview

This is an older piece I did that I'll be relisting:

The chain is byzantine and the stone is red howlite. I really like it and it looks great on my wrist, but I'm not a bracelet guy. So someone else can have the pleasure of wearing it.

There will be more silver up on the shop, but for the most part it's too expensive for me to purchase right now. I do have a lot of 24 gauge silver that I'll be making some earrings with. I'll be purchasing a silver metal very soon, but it'll either be silver-plated copper or niobium. Not nickel silver. I think nickel silver is too dull and not white enough.

Anyway, once I change out the clasp to a lobster clasp (which I think is better for bracelets) and get new pictures, the listing will go back up.

Another preview coming later next week.

I'm not great with the blogging, but I thought a status update might be in order.

As you can see from my little Etsy doodad on the right, I've got stuff up on the site now.

The idea here is to have a core of made-to-order stuff while supplementing it with one of a kind or special items that don't get listed until they're made. The whole removable clasp thing is supposed to work in that direction. I've got the chains up there mainly because my focal pendant pieces will be clasps with removable bails. So they can work as focal clasps for my basic chains, or you can put the bail on and use it with any other chain that has a clasp already attached. That's the idea, anyway.

I'm working on Christmas presents at the moment. Can't say what they are, though. Once those are done, I'm going to get back to the big plan.

I need to finish some 20 and 18 gauge chain segments for all the size comparison pictures, as well as the brass segments for the color comparison pictures. After that I'll be adding in more metal colors one at a time. I've also got two more basic chains on my list to learn. And once I get a contrasting metal color (silver is next up, although I'm not sure if it'll be silver-plated or niobium) I've got another neat specialty made-to-order chain to put up. The rosary chain will also be available in all sorts of bead colors. I'll be adding glass beads to the mix and rotating things out as my inventory is used.

I'm also figuring out how to use social media like Facebook and Google Plus pages. So far they seem to be marginally effective, but I'm sure they'll become a valuable networking/marketing tool. Likewise, I want to try out some advertising. Etsy has a program that I might use in conjunction with Project Wonderful.

I haven't seriously thought about craft/vendor shows yet, but once I get the shop in order I think that's a direction I need to explore, if only to give exposure to the Etsy shop.

And then there's the lampworking... I really should get some pictures to put up here. Lampworking is fun.