New Feature! and Winners

Hello, Hello, Whoa...big day, I am choosing three winners. I had loads of comments on both posts, thanks! I appreciate hearing from you. Trust me on this one, I promise I used the random number generator, I just don't know how to post a picture of it like all those other bloggers do.

The winner of the Holiday beads is Bev. One issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Gifts goes to Crystal for her comment and the second issue goes to Hillary Frye for following my blog. Congratulations! E-mail me your mailing address and I will send your prize. jennifer (at) jangles (dot) net

Now on to my new blog feature!

I received an e-mail the other day from a long time follower of my blog. She wanted some business advice. I am always happy to help and it got me thinking. There are probably other readers out there that might be wondering the same thing. That's when I decided it might be fun to have a new feature in the blog...."Ask Me Anything"

"Ask Me Anything" will be a chance for you to do just that. It can be a business question, a personal question, a crafty question, you name it, I will answer it. I am going to kick off the first ever "Ask Me Anything" with Linda's question, actually she had two questions and I will answer them both below.

I am taking questions for next weeks and future posts. If you have a question you would like answered by me, e-mail me (jennifer (at) jangles (dot) net) with the subject line, "Ask Me Anything". Leave me a link in the message as well if you have a blog, website, or Etsy shop. If your question is chosen I will send you one of my ceramic beads or pendants as a thank you for participating. Here's this weeks questions....

Linda Asks: Long story short for me, I want to be a stay-at-home mom and really start taking my art seriously as a business.  For example, actually getting my Etsy store stocked!  I enjoy making jewelry and many other things.  I just would like some advice for someone just starting out and very much in my infant stage of my business.  

 Jennifer Answers: If you want to make jewelry making your main income this is what I would start with. First of all start designing and don't stop. You need to find your style. It doesn't mean you can't design all types of jewelry, but the more jewelry you design, the more your style will come to the surface. A design style is important for two reasons. one is you will be able to decide where and how you need to sell your work. The second is your customers will know the style they can buy from you, they have the comfort of knowing they can return to get the same style time after time.

Once you have a style, you can look at price points, etc. This will help you decide who your target market is. If you make very glitzy, big, expensive one of a kind jewelry pieces a museum show or high end graft gallery might be what to shoot for. If it's a lower price point and more everyday casual jewelry, then you could do home shows.

There are so many avenues to sell your work. Etsy is a great start. This time of year is the perfect time to sell. People are looking for gifts. Fill your shop up, e-mail people or past customers and let them know about the shop. Start a mailing list, collect those customers names so you can let them know when you have new work. I know I love to know when my favorite artists have new work.

I did a post over the the Art Bead Scene a few months ago about what I learned when setting up my gallery. I am going to post them here over the next few weeks. A lot of this information can be translated into setting up your online store.

I hope this helps. :)

Linda Asks: Can't wait to drink a peppermint mocha out of one of your mugs either! Where do you get your peppermint syrup?

Jennifer Answers: As for the peppermint syrup, I order it online through Starbucks, it's a whole pumper of syrup so you can make them at home. I became addicted last year and started spending entirely too much money and had to come up with something better than driving to Starbucks everyday. Here's the link.

Thank you Linda for the question and the inspiration to make this a feature. Linda has an Etsy shop called DayDream Designs.


Looking forward to next weeks question....send them this way!

Have a great day,
Jennifer
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