Monday, January 17, 2011

Change of location

We've moved into our new house! it is smaller than the place we were renting from my mom, but it is better laid out, holds the temperature better, and it belongs to us. The cats are getting used to having less space, they are used to having a sun room, a dining room, a living room, an office, and a full basement with extra crawl spaces to explore. Because we want to use the office/craft room for a tax ride off, we are locking the door and not letting them in there so they only have the kitchen and living room to hang out in. Poor fuzzies.

This move has put a small damper on my crafting, I don't have an outlet for the kiln. I might start working on some more beads, though. I have some that need to be annealed but I don't have as many as I would like and I want to have a variety of beads to chose form.

I'm doing a Valentines Boutique to support victims of violent crime. I'm excited because I learned about Square and how I can use it to take credit cards at the shows. They take 2.75% pluse $0.15 as a fee, but it is less than buying a credit card machine and paying the monthly fee. We ran the numbers and I'd have to sell a lot of pendants to cover the cost of a traditional card reader and I really think this is the way things are going.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Trial and error

Well I learned something today. I've been trying out my Dicro Slide and I've figured out while it looks cute, but pale on the light colors, it looks beautiful and striking on dark colors. I tried it on a purple I bought the other day and it came out a wonderful chameleon color. From one angle it is a brilliant blue color and from another it is a golden green. I could have done better with the hole punches, but still, I like the results. I'm going to try it out on my dark red next, and maybe my clear green.

I'll post pictures of it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts website when I get the chance to take pictures, I'm in the process of moving so I don't know if I'll have a chance anytime soon. I guess I could do it while I'm not able to sleep.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Trying new things

So I've been trying to branch out with my marketing. I'm planning to start tweeting again, I'm going to be focusing on my Facebook page, not my personal page but the Damik's Design page. I also started a Meylah page, I don't know much about Meylah, but it's free and I figure more exposure can't hurt, right?

I went to the glass store today and picked up a bunch of new glass. I'm excited to see how they turn out. One of the pieces I got is a deep purple that is supposed to turn a purpley-gold. I still need to get a blade for my saw, but I'm I'm learning how to better use my grinder. I'm also excited to see the kinds of effect I can get from my new dicro slide. I got dark and clear colors to try it on.

I'll be posting more pictures on Handmade Pendants and Crafts when I have more to show.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Big Oops?

I realize now that I might have made a mistake on my showcase blog. "Handmade Pendants" is a widely searched phrase. That was all I looked at. I went to see how many pages I'm competing with to get a spot on the front page. Guess how many.

If you guessed millions, you are right.

How can I hope to compete?

I really don't want to start over, even though I have no followers and only a few posts, so I should really be married to the site, but I've put the links out there and I would have to change them. I'm not sure how that will affect the crawling Google spiders. (The only spiders I like BTW.)

I know just starting out you will make a lot of mistakes, but I'm not sure how/if I should fix it. Maybe I can get my Handmade Pendants and Crafts blog to the front of the search. Millions isn't that large of a number, right?

Monday, January 3, 2011

Am I wasting my time?

I'm not feeling good about my work right now. That's not true, I'm feeling great about my work, I'm not feeling good about selling it. Every time I post a new one I think I'm not going to sell it anyway. I feel like I'm lost in the internet. I know that I have to do something to get myself found. I'm not doing the SEO like I should and I'm not even sure that will be enough to get me noticed. My plan is to post a new pendant everyday, but I'm not being as consistent as I should.

I did post a new one today and you can see it on my Handmade Pendants and Crafts blog. I'm highlighting a fun butterfly pendent. I need to post more for sale, but I don't enjoy taking the pictures, editing the pictures, labeling the pictures, organizing the pictures, and anything else to do with the pictures. My camera isn't the best. I need to buy a new one, but I'm not sure which one does the best Macro pictures.