My jewelry booth is open!

I am excited to announce that my new jewelry booth is now open! There's an article about the new store here, featuring a really nice picture of me wearing jewelry from my collection. Come see the booth in person at 12 Lion Studio - the address is 684 Broadway, at the corner of Great Jones. We will be open 11-8, Thursday through Sunday. Today was the first day, and it went really well. I am looking forward to many more days of fun and hopefully of many sales!

Jewelry Booth Set-Up, Day 2!

I just got home from another long day of setting up my jewelry booth at The Event NoHo. It looks a little messy in the picture, but it is really starting to come together and feel like a real store. A very tiny store! The only thing that is noticeably missing is, of course, my jewelry. But that will be remedied tomorrow. I can't believe we are opening in less than two days! I am starting to get very excited...

Jewelry Booth Installation, Day #1

For those of you who don't know, I am opening a brand new jewelry booth this coming Thursday! I will be one of about 20 different vendors at a brand new designers' market opening on the corner of Broadway and Great Jones St. here in NYC. There is going to be a nice range of products, from jewelry and handbags to clothes and skin care products. And more. I finally started meeting some of the other vendors today, and everybody so far is very, very nice. Thank God, because we will all be spending a lot of time together in the days and weeks ahead! I can't wait to meet everybody else as the week goes on. As you can see, I have made some progress on what was originally a plain white booth. The walls have now been painted green, which I really love. The color looks a little drab in the picture, but in person it feels very bright and natural, which is exactly what I was going for. You can also see an upside down clock off to the left, which I will be turning into a jewelry display. It's hard to get a good sense of everything that will be happening in the next two days, but I figured I should post a first picture today so we can compare my progress later this week! Truth be told, I don't even fully understand what the design will look like yet. But that is half the fun!

So much Etsy competition!

I always knew there was a lot of competition among jewelry artists on Etsy--it is, after all, the biggest and most well established venue online for handmade jewelry. But just looking at these stats really put it into perspective for me just how many fellow artisans there really are. All of us, of course, vying for the same clientele. No wonder I'm not making that many sales!

Finding a way to stand out online feels a little bit impossible sometimes, but this goes to show just how important it is. I know I have not yet hit my Etsy stride, but I do think it's possible. I really do believe there is potential for making a decent amount of sales, or at least much greater potential than what I'm currently doing. Seeing this information is certainly very helpful, if slightly depressing!

All of these stats are courtesy to Pearl Blay over at The Beading Gem's Journal, and you can find her original blog post here. And now I am off to make more jewelry--can't believe I start moving into my new jewelry booth tomorrow! Where, hopefully, I will stand out very much.

The contract is signed!

It's official--I will be opening my jewelry booth next Thursday at the brand new designers market, The Event NoHo!! It's right on the corner of Broadway and Great Jones... I can't wait to post pictures of the booth and how the whole space looks totally finished and filled with designers! I am so scared and so excited, and I also just can't wait! There are so many unknowns, because the space is brand new, but also so much possibility. A lot will be happening in the next six days! More to come very soon....

New jewelry booth update!

I can't believe I am opening my new jewelry booth on Broadway next week!!! I went by the space today to take some exact measurements and check out all the work that has been going on. You can see that the ceiling has been painted black and brand new lighting has been installed. I think it looks great! The partitions between booths are built now too--you can see me standing inside my booth-to-be below. It's only about 7' x 5', and yet there is so much to do to transform that little box into an awesome jewelry booth! I can't believe that this time next week everything will be painted and starting to be filled with my jewelry! I can't wait to see how it turns out. There are still so many decisions to make about design. I want to ensure that my jewelry and I stand out among the 20 or so other vendors who will be in the space.

Standing there today with Nick, I started to feel overwhelmed with all there is to do. It's not like I can just focus on the design of the booth all week--I still have to keep designing and making jewelry, and working on the business side of things too (creating inventory sheets and price lists, etc). It's a lot for one brain to do. Also, I have a pretty strong streak of perfectionism, which means I don't want my booth, or my jewelry, to just be good, I want it to be THE BEST! Which probably means I am putting a little too much pressure on myself. I'm not an expert, and there's nothing to be gained by stressing myself out more than I need to. No matter what, I'm sure that my booth will turn out just fine. Between me and Nick, I'm sure it will be more than fine. And I will be okay with that!

There are just so many things still to decide on! What color will I paint the walls? What fabric will I hang below the shelves? How many shelves will there be? What will my sign be? Where will I hang it? How will the displays look? How much jewelry will I put out? And so on! I will post more pictures soon as this starts to come together....next Thursday 3/15 is opening day! Yikes!

The drunk girl who stole my jewelry

I really, really hate the moment that I realize someone has stolen a piece of my jewelry. It has happened to me a couple of times, most recently TODAY. Sigh. I was filling in at Hillary Flowers' boutique, where I haven't really sold anything lately. Also, this weekend has been long and awful--I have spent just about every waking minute doing nothing but working like a madwoman, organizing tax receipts and making more jewelry. It wasn't until the end of the day that I realized something was missing from my shelf--a silver and turquoise ring, just like the one you see in the picture. Of course, I don't really know who took the ring. It could have been anyone--a lot of people came into the store today. I have a hunch, though, that it was one of the two drunk girls who came in around 3:30.

Yes, it is kind of weird that two drunk girls were out shopping in the middle of the afternoon. But it is Sunday--weekend brunch is big in New York, and there's tons of places around the area that offer all sorts of all-you-can-drink brunch specials. When Nick's Mom and stepdad came into town, we ended up at some restaurant at about 1pm that was practically force-feeding us cocktails. The music was blasting so loudly that you could barely have a conversation, and the waitress kept bringing bloody mary refills before a few sips had even been taken from the previous drink. It was pretty disorienting--feeling like you're in the middle of a crazy dance club, except the sun is out and you're eating eggs.

But anyway! So these two girls came in today--one more visibly drunk than the other. The drunker one spent her time in the store staggering around, slurring her words, and asking me for a discount for her friend. The drunk one wasn't even shopping--when she wasn't annoying me, she was mostly on her phone with everyone she knew, trying to find a club where they could go see live music. Before 4pm. For all I know they ended up dancing on tables at a cafe down the street......

In conclusion, I would not be surprised if one of the drunk girls was responsible for my missing ring. If it was the really drunk one, she probably didn't even realize what she was doing. Which would be the best case scenario, really. I would much rather think that a drunk girl absentmindedly walked out with a ring than think that a completely sober girl took the ring on purpose. I just don't understand people who think it's ok to steal, especially not from poor artists. I mean, I'm not Macy's! Not that I think anyone should steal from Macy's either, of course. But I can guarantee that I need that $25 more than Macy's does.

Maybe it's good for this to happen today--as I'm gearing up to open my booth on Broadway next week, it's probably a good reminder that I need to be vigilant about theft and try to minimize it as much as possible. It is also mildly flattering that somebody liked my jewelry enough to want to steal it. But mostly, it's just annoying.

This is Friday night!

As you can see, I am settling in for quite a Friday night! Two bags of tax receipts to enter into spreadsheets, and about forty pendants to solder and turn into necklaces.....what fun! Especially the tax receipts, of course! It actually is pretty amazing that I've escaped the fun of sorting through receipts in previous years. Not this year though! I'm also finally going to have some help with filing my return. Usually, I will spend a few hours on TurboTax every year and be done with my taxes. But between half a year of work, half a year of unemployment, and several months of starting my own business last year, everything is officially too confusing for me to deal with on my own. I'm going to go see a guy on Monday-- I really hope he knows what he's talking about. (And can also get me a refund!)

And then! There are the many, many pendants that I have left to make. Luckily, those will be much more fun than doing taxes. I am definitely going to start off with those tonight and maybe --hopefully!--not get to the tax stuff until tomorrow. There's just so many of these necklaces to make, it's a little overwhelming. The are mostly for the jewelry booth I'm opening on March 15, of course, but also for a small shop in the West Village that wants about a dozen. So I have to get to work! It feels like I will never get everything done, but I know that I will. Right?!??? Fingers crossed.....