And That’s….the Truth

One of my kids favorite things to do is make crafts. Buy them construction paper, pens, markers, glue and crayons and they are set for life. Well over the weekend they both heard me on the phone with my neighbor and we were discussing her son’s upcoming 16th birthday. Well the two kids got so excited you would have sworn it was their own birthday. So over the weekend they got out their papers and supplies and made my neighbor’s boy a birthday card. Then today after school we delivered the card.

Any excuse to create crafts. Their father’s birthday is this Saturday so guess what their doing today??

I don’t know if you all remember, but last year I attempted to get a small home crafting business up and running. Well to say that this didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to, would be a mild understatement. So I kind of got discouraged and haven’t really done very much with it at all. I did advertise a bit and even purchased some promotional pens to see if I couldn’t drum up some business. But I really wasn’t very successful in my efforts. Even though I don’t do a whole lot of crafts right now, I do plan on getting back into it at a later date. Maybe when my motivation returns, I may have better success at getting this business up and running.

The other day I was talking to a professional jewelry maker about some of the reasons why I am not having very good luck when trying to sell my handcrafted jewelry. One area of concern seems to be that I am not taking very good pictures of all the items that I have for sale. I think the reason for this is because I have a pretty crappy camera right now. So I’m thinking about investing a little bit of money into a Canon camera. I really do think that if I could take better pictures of my jewelry, I could probably have more sales. There are a few other things I’m going to try as well, but buying a new camera is definitely on my to do list. Who knows, maybe Santa may come through for me this year.

As you all know about a year ago I starting setting up a home crafting business. I have set up a website and blog, I have done a lot of word of mouth advertising (free) and I have even tried selling my stuff on Etsy. Well I have to say that although I’m really not seeing the business that I would like to be, I have been doing a little bit of business. So to kick up my advertising efforts, I have been considering purchasing some promotional items. I have thought about purchasing some magnets, postcards and business cards. I realize that for any business to become a success you need to get the word out of your existence. And I really think that by using promotional items, I could get the word out much more quickly. And the more people that know about my business, possibly the more sales I could look forward to.

This coming weekend one of my friends is holding a yard sale at her house and has invited me to come down with some of my handcrafted jewelry and try to sell them. For a yard sale like this, I really wish I could have some marketing pens to advertise my crafting business as well as my website. But since I don’t have any of these promotional tools on hand, I guess I’ll have to let my work speak for itself. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I have a ton of sales and sell everything I have.

Over the past few months I have discovered that running a small home business is not as easy as I thought it would be. I assumed by setting up a website and blog that I would have tons of visitors coming to my site and begging for my products. This has not happened. So I have decided to try something different. I’m going to order some personalized pens and start handing them out to everyone I know. Maybe this will get the word out and hopefully generate more sales for me. I’ll let you all know how I make out in this advertising adventure.

Yesterday I decided to start creating all the jewelry that I’m going to want to have done in the next six weeks.  I got out all my supplies and spent three hours on one necklace.  Well I have to tell you all that it was a complete waste of my time.  The necklace didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to so I now have to take it all out and start over.  This really made me mad!  Oh well.  Things like that do happen.  So I’m going to take apart this necklace and try again this afternoon.  The one thing I can say about myself is that I won’t stop trying until I have it done and I think it’s perfect.  This piece wasn’t, so it’s back to the drawing board for me.  I just wish it hadn’t taken me three hours to discover that I didn’t like the creation.

For the next six weeks, I will be a busy little beaver.  I need to make as much jewelry as I can in the next six weeks.  Thankfully I have tons of beading supplies so I don’t need to make any purchases, just jewelry.  I was talking to a friend of mine that goes to a lot of craft and dog shows.  The first of August she will be going to two major shows and has offered to take all my jewelry inventory with her to try to sell for me.  So the more inventory I can have made up and give to her, the more profits I can potentially make.  So it’s going to be a busy time for me.  I’ll have the two kids home on summer break and I’ll still have to get all this jewelry made around their schedules.  But hopefully she will sell a lot of my stuff and I can make a lot of money.

So I thought I would give you all an update on how I’m doing with my homemade jewelry creations. I have quite a few pieces made and I plan to start selling them at my father in law’s upcoming garage sales. I have tried to sell them via the Internet, but haven’t seen very many sales through this method. I think part of the problem is that when your selling off the Internet, the pictures just don’t do the pieces justice. And then of course you have to add shipping charges to all your prices, so the pieces become a little more expensive. So I will try to sell them in person to people and see how I make out with this course of action. I can’t do any worse then I’m doing right now. So hopefully I will do better.

As you all know I am trying to get a home crafting business up and running. I have a couple of things in the works as far as sales go, but I needed to have more inventory on hand if these ideas of mine are going to work. So for the past five days I have been busy creating new pieces. And all you lucky folks get to see a sneak peek of what I have been up to.

These pieces are a little more complex than what I normally make and they did take me a bit more time than it usually takes, but I honestly believe the end results is so totally worth it. So take a peek at what I’ve been up to lately and please let me know what you all think.