How to get started on selling handmade jewelry

It is about 3 years since I started making and selling handmade jewelry. For the most part it has always been a hubby first and not a main source of income. I've always been passionate about designing and being creative, and making jewelry is definitely a fun creative outlet.

When I decided to start to sell some of my jewelry designs, after learning about techniques and material needed, I decided to open an Etsy shop. Etsy is a well known popular website to buy and sell all things handmade or vintage. I was inspired by so many different things and I dived right into purchasing a lot of different materials and created and listed many different styles of jewelry.

I've learned a lot about some of the DOs and  DON'Ts of selling jewelry online in the last few years, however it's only recently that I've started looking into turning this into possibly a full-time job.

I thought I would share a few tips on how to get started on selling jewelry online and share some of the lessons I've learned along the way.

1) Research - It is very important to research the market before you open your shop. There is a lot of competition out there for selling handcrafts, specially jewelry. With enough research you'll know how to stand out and where your target customers shop. You also will learn what they look for and purchase most and this way your customers will find your work when you open your shop.

2) Have great pictures - Again, when there is a lot of competition you need to find ways to stand out from the crowd and one of the most effective ways of doing this is by having amazing pictures of your products. This is something that I noticed shortly after I listed my first few items in my shop and it took me over a year of trial and error and research to figure out how I can have pictures that make my product stand out better. I still have a lot of room for improvement but I continuously work on bettering my photography and presentation.

3) Social media - This is probably not mandatory to success but it is definitely beneficial to have a web presence and to interact with your potential customers on different social media platforms. Most companies these days have at least a facebook fan page and a twitter account. It is free to open both and you can start growing your fan base by first inviting your friends and family and asking them to invite their friends. You can also pay a small amount of money to have facebook ads for your fan page. Depending on who you choose as your target audience, you can pay as little as $2 and gain as many as 50 new fans for your page in a day.

4) Wear your creations - This is a very simple and effective way of advertisement. Wear your jewelry (or anything else you design) as frequently as possible, and also give some to your friends and family to wear as well. If you get asked about or complimented on what you are wearing you can start a conversation about your creations and your shop. If people are interested you can have business cards ready to hand them out.

There are also other options, like participating in craft shows in your town or having local stores selling your items, which is something i'm looking into trying for this year.

If you do choose Etsy as your selling platform, I also recommend adding new listings frequently, reading up on SEO as much as possible and participating in some of the teams and forums available on the site for guidance and encouragement.
You can find my shop on Etsy here. :)

Happy crafting and happy selling!

xoxo
PinkDiamondGirl

I'm back!!

After a few months of break, I've started working hard at creating many new pieces of jewelry and adding them to my shop. My goal is to reach 300 listing by the end of spring and I'm almost 1/3 there! :-D

To see all the new jewelry I've added to my shop in the past couple of months please click here.

I hope to start blogging at least once or twice a week from now on... I've really missed it!

xoxo
PinkDiamondGirl

Bracelet obsession..

Hey everyone.. As promised yesterday, I'm going to share a sample of my newest obsession.. bracelets!!

Taken with my iphone in bad lighting, please excuse the quality! :)

Even though I had experimented with making different bracelet designs in the past, I never posted any in my shop for sale. But lately after seeing tons of gorgeous stacking brackets everywhere and getting inspired by all the colors and textures, I decided to start making some of my own. It's been quite fun so far and I will probably have some of these featured in my store in the next couple of weeks.. 

Meanwhile, hoping  my new lighting equipment will get here soon so I can start practising and improving my photography skills. 

What are some of the projects you guys are currently working on? :)

xox

PinkDiamondGirl

Pinterest!!!

Hey everyone!

So I had heard about this website called Pinterest for a few months now and never really bothered to check it. However last week finally I decided to take a look and see what it's all about. Basically it's like an online pin board where you pin your favourite things to your boards for inspiration. You can find boards on food, fashion, photography or anything else you can imagine!

For now the site membership is by invitation only, however you can submit your email and they will contact you when you can join. 

I received my confirmation over the weekend and signed up right away. I'm obsessed! I think I spent 3 hours on Sunday just going through different profiles and looking up awesome pictures!

Here's a print screen of some of my current boards:

Click on the picture to go directly to my Pinterest page..

I'm sure I'll spend many hours adding new ideas and inspirations to my page in the coming weeks as it's quite addicting! Any of you have a Pinterest page? :)

xoxo

PinkDiamondGirl

Things I'm hoping to add to my creative studio (AKA Bedroom)!

Hey everyone! Hope you all had an amazing weekend! :)
Mine was quite nice. My grandma is visiting and I got to see her after 1 year! So we spent most of yesterday with her which was perfect. And today I got to get some of my other things done around the house.

Lately I've been thinking about getting a few things to improve or assist with my jewelry work. I've had so many ideas in my head over the past few weeks about my new collection and how to present them, etc. However there is one big purchase that I'm still wondering about and that would be buying something similar to these babies:

I've been struggling a lot with lighting when photographing my work and I don't really have a lot of options to do photography outside in the yard due to unpredictable weather conditions in Toronto! So I'm thinking these might help solve some of the problem, however their big price tag is delaying the splurge a little bit! O:-)

I believe photography is very important when you present your creations and I've been hoping to improve on that a bit this year. Of course playing around with my cameras and learning a few things about the different options will make a big difference as well.

If anyone has used or is currently using similar lighting to the picture above I'd love to hear how it's been working out for you and if it's worth spending the big bucks! :D

xx
PinkDiamondGirl

7 Deadly Sins Beauty Tag

So I decided to do something a bit different today on my blog. I've seen this tag going around in blogs and Youtube a lot lately so I thought why not, I'll do my very first tag blog! So here we go.... :) 

7 Deadly Sins Beauty Tag

1. GREED: What is your most inexpensive beauty item? What is your most expensive?
Inexpensive: Probably my Loreal eye make up remover (around $5)
Most expensive: My YSL foundation (too much!) 

2. WRATH: What beauty products do you have a love/hate relationship with? 
Probably body butters! I don't always feel like I want to put a lot of thick creams on my skin as it takes away the clean feeling sometimes. But sometimes I'm tempted by the delicious smells and use tons.

3. GLUTTONY: What are your most delicious beauty products?
I love my passion fruit and strawberry EOS lip balms. Also still in love with scent of my "Kimono Rose" bath products from Thymes. It's amaaazing!! :)

4. SLOTH: What beauty product do you neglect, due to laziness?
I don't know if it's due to laziness, but I tend to forget my eye cream a lot. And sometimes deep conditioning treatments for my hair!

5. PRIDE: What beauty product gives you the most self confidence?
Probably foundation. My skin has it's good and bad days..

6. LUST: What attributes do you find most attractive in the opposite sex?
Spirituality, selflessness, kindness and an attractive face! :->

7. ENVY: What items would you most like to receive as a gift?

Hmmm.. I appreciate all gifts as it's the thought that counts.. But if I had to pick maybe bath and body products (cause I can never have enough) or a nice book, or something handmade! :)

Hope this was a fun read and I tag anyone and everyone who found it interesting to do this tag! Have a great weekend!!! :D

xox

PinkDiamondGirl

New Video!

Hi Everyone!
Inspired by spring and one of my favorite songs I've made a new Youtube video showing some of my jewelry work. 

I've also been working on a few new jewelry projects that I'm very excited about! I hope I can get back to blogging more frequently now.. I've been too slow with that!

xox
PinkDiamondGirl