Happy New Year everyone!!! I have been busy with custom orders lately, and wanted to share my thoughts....
It must be said that custom orders are both the most fun and the most stressful part of my jewelry business. They are the most fun, of course, because of the satisfaction that comes from making something special and unique, designed for one person in particular, directly to their specific taste and aesthetic. Of course, that same sentence is the reason they are so stressful. No matter how confident I feel in my design and how excited about it I am, I always worry that someone will look at what I've designed for them and either directly not like it, or just be vaguely disappointed.
Which has not happened yet (to my knowledge!), and I hope it doesn't ever! Although as I'm learning with this business--as with every business, I suspect--the unexpected will happen, the thing you don't want to happen will happen, and you just have to keep rolling with the punches!
For instance, I never thought I would turn down a custom order. I had to do that recently, and while I know it was the right decision, it was still a difficult a decision to make. The guy wanted earrings for his girlfriend, but not just earrings in a general style and colors--he wanted to plan out that earring design to the most minute detail. AND he wanted them the following week! Just not going to happen. I knew it as soon as we first got off the phone for the first time, but I didn't want to admit defeat so easily. We actually met for coffee, decided on a design we both liked, and I thought,
Hey, this is going to work! But then I went shopping for supplies and realized, after two frustrating hours, that it wouldn't. Why not? Because I'm a designer, and you can't tell me what to do! Not down to the most specific detail, or where's the fun in that? How inspiring is it to just follow the instructions that someone else has laid out? And, in the case that you agree to do such a thing, someone needs to supply the money that it takes to quickly order the specific necessary components, or give you lots of time to source those components. With neither extra money or extra time, it makes the already impossible even moreso.
So in the end, I pulled the plug on the order, and I think he understood. I could just tell that I was going to end up putting lots of hours into a project that he may have not even liked in the end, and not wanted to buy, because it just wasn't "right." And then, nobody wins. I like it when everybody wins! When someone gets a piece of jewelry they love, and I get the satisfaction of having given it to them! Of course, as I write all of this, check out the necklace and earrings that are currently on their way down to Miami:
This set was created for my boyfriend's stepmom (at his dad's request!) for their 19th wedding anniversary....no pressure there! Her husband assured me that he loved it and thought she would too, but now comes the hardest part for paranoid folk like me: waiting!
The first and most immediate concern, of course, is that it could get lost in the mail. I feel like I'm jinxing myself just by writing that! But it must be said that I will be feeling a little paranoid until I hear confirmation that the package was received, especially because it is going to commemorate such an important day (their anniversary is next Tuesday!). Secondly, I hope she loves it. I will also feel a second wave of paranoia until I hear, for sure, that she loves it. Of course, the true test will be how often she wears the pieces, but I can never really know that for sure!
Will let you know what she thinks.....keep your fingers crossed for me :)
