Taking Care of Business

WOW! What a hectic week I have had! Sunday I had a 12 hour heavy metal music festival, then work monday, tuesday, tuesday night I had the System of a down concert, work wednesday then Marilyn Manson concert wednesday night and work thurdsay, friday! Needless to say, I am SHATTERED but I have actually gotten some beading done lately =)

Firstly, I finished the kumihimo necklace that I started a while ago!

As you saw earlier, I did the rope using blue and brown delica beads. The focal piece is a large blue lace agate bezelled bead. The bail is made out of red tigers eye beads. There are 2 little blue lace agate beads and one 1 large red tigers eye bead at each end of the rope to add something a little different (not only that but I accidently made is too short.. WHOOPS!)

The second is a bracelet that I made to wear to afore mentioned music festival..

This is just a simple square stitch bracelet made to resemble the keys on a piano.
It is my own design it that probably took me about 5 seconds to design, and ALOT longer to put together.. This particular bracelet was a bit of a pain in the ass to bead because, I don't know why, but the thing kept breaking on me!!!
Either the thread was the thing that kept snapping or smack bang in the middle of the bracelet, the beads would break - too far away for me to pull apart to replace the broken bead.

The clasp is a 3 loop magnetic bar clasp that fits snuggly on my wrist. I am very pleased with this piece and I'm really glad how it turned out!

I do have a few other projects 'on the way' but they aren't finished enough to blog about yet ;) lol

Emma
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A valid point

My room mate (Trent - I talk about him enough, I might as well put a name to him.. lol) was admiring one of my pieces of work last night and was telling me that when I try to sell them online, I need to really specify that the beads are coloured 'all the way through' and won't go bad a few days after wearing. He said "I would pick that up and think: its pretty.. but the colour would fade after wearing it once in the shower. And walk away" and I said to him "But obviously, you wouldn't wear that in the shower!" But that has got me thinking... Is it obvious?

As the majority of my creations are beadwoven, I would not personally wear anything I make in the shower, because it might weaken the thread or the colour MIGHT get ruined, I don't know and personally I don't want to risk it.. But is it really that obvious to everyone else? Will I need to consider putting 'Caring for your Jewellery:' tags on each of my pieces? Will these tags put people off buying the items because they think "If they need to put that there, then the piece must be prone to breaking easy!"?

This is a question I am going to be hounding the gals at BD later, but it is something I thought I would share (while bored at work..)

Food for thought my darlings...

Emma
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St Patricks Day

I was doing something the other day and someone mentioned/I read something about St Patrick's Day coming up soon (don't ask me when it is, I just follow people to the pub) and just then it was like the big flashing lightbulb went up over my head 'DING!' and I thought to myself that THAT was going to be my next project - and hopefully one that I would finish!

I got home and I went onto my beading pattern creator on my laptop and started designs for a 4 leaf clover.. trying to bead a four leaf clover using square stitch was harder than I thought.. it just ended up looking like 4 rectangles put together with a weird tail at the back. So I pushed that one aside and thought I would try my shot at a 3 leaf clover.. it took a few goes but I eventually got it and was REALLY proud of myself and went to show my room mate Trent.. His response "Oh... What is it?" - ladies, don't ask a man for advice on anything =P lol.

Then I pulled out ALL of my colour green delica beads I had, which was alot more than I initally thought, picked 2 colours that I probably wouldn't have chosen before, but I was feeling brave. I was at first going to make a pair of earrings then switched the idea to a barette. I beaded 2 clovers (and 1 dodgy one that ended up being back to front) and lay them on a barette. It looked nice but there was something missing.. I wracked my brain and finally turned to google images for advice and up pops a lucky horse shoe.

So then I retreated back to my bead pattern program and designed a horseshoe, this time using the brick stitch pattern, pulled out my gold beads and beaded a little horseshoe.. I decided after I was finished that it was too thin and without wanting to pull the whole thing apart, I ended up just beading additional beads in each row of the inside of the shoe - which actually worked out quite well because it pulled the edges in nicely.

I decided to attach the whole thing to the barette using a white peyote stitch base to attach everything to. After the base was stitched, I attached that to the base of the barette and layered the horseshoe and the 2 clovers on top and stitched them all together. A quite coat of clear nailpolish to hold its shape and VIOLA! One STUNNING hair barette (if I do say so myself!)

I must say that Ima very pleased with how it turned out.. I think I might end up making the earring too ;) Keep your fingers crossed that more random inspiration pops out of nowhere for me!

Emma
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The importance of bead stoppers

As a beadweaver, when starting any piece of work it is a good idea for the first thing you put on your thread is a stop bead. I always do - until today..

I was starting a project in square stitch that was only 19 beads long, so I thought that I would forget about the stopper bead because I didn't want to use one of the same colour beads in my project.. that and I couldn't be bothered to get up and find a stray seed bead to use as a stopper bead (I was comfortable)!
So I strung on the first row and as I was beading the second row I let go of the loose end of beads.. all over the table - smooth move Emma!
I restrung the beads back onto the thread and was about to keep going but I wanted to make sure that I had them in the right order so I lifted the project to my eye level.. and let go of the loose end of beads AGAIN!

I am so used to having a stop bead on the end that it was automatic reaction to assume the beads wouldn't go anywhere, so I lost them not only once, but twice! Luckily for me though it was only a small project so it didn't matter all that much.

When I am doing a beadweaving project, I like to get a larger bead (say a size 8 seed bead if the project is using size 11s) in an obviously different colour and put that on the end of the thread. Using the needle I pass the thread through the bead again - in the same direction, twice to reinforce it. This can then be pulled off after the profect is finished (or after the first few rows if it irritates you like it does me..)

When stringing, I put a bead stopper onto one end of my string, these look like a little spring with two circles at either end for easy grip. Once closed ont the wire they shouldn't move (see pictured). They cost about $2 from bead shops.

If you don't have one of these however, it is just as easy to find other resources. Another tip I learnt was to get a heavy duty paper clip and pop that onto the end of your wire and viola! A make-shift bead stopper ;)

So as a wise person once said.. "DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO!" - if you want to get as irritated as I do then go ahead and skip adding a stop bead to your work! Have fun!

Emma
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Valentines Day

Ah yes.. That precious time of year where society and hopelessly in love couples get raughted by florists, chocolateirs and greeting card companies..

Apologies for my bitterness (single on Valentine's Day *sigh* need I say more?) NOPE! This year, ima be my own Valentines XD Ima buy myself a box of chocolates on my way home from work, light some candles in the bathroom and have a bubblebath - coz that's how I roll! I don't need a man on Valentines day! What good are they anyways? ;) lol.


My bitterness aside, give that loved one something special this Valentine's Day. I'm giving 10% off selected necklaces and accessories! Find all you need at my online shop here:

http://www.madeit.com.au/storecatalog.asp?userid=37468

While I am here I might as well say to all HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Emma
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A girl can dream..

I was on my way back from one of my friends places this afternoon, driving through the city, bout 15 minutes from home, in no hurry and there it was looming in front of me just as I got to Tempe.. the gigantic blue building with the bright yellow sign:

 IKEA 

Having that I have never been to Ikea before I thought, I have some spare time.. Ima might go and check it out.. BAD EMMA!!! BAD IDEA!!!

Omg! It was unbelievable (and incredibly dangerous for my wallet)! I now know EXACTLY what I need to get my bead room organised!

<===== There were these drawers that are just a few centimetres deep that would be perfect for loose beads.. Just put in some little square trays to seperate my beads.

There were, I think 9 drawers and halfway down, the drawers doubles in depth

*Add this to wish list*

 This one was a giant bookcase that just consisted of =====>

open cubes (They came in different sizes *see below* - this one being 167cm x 167cm) and you can by all of these additional boxes, drawers, cupboards, racks and mix and match the different additions for your own needs.

This would be an amazing way for me to have like, my magazines, my boxes of thread, my boxes of tools!!!

*add to wish list*

These bookcases come in different colours: white, red, chocolate, green.. They are awesome!!!

<===== This is the same bookcase but in the smaller size.. and example of the different coloured additionals that you can mix and match for your own aquired taste =)

*add to wish list*

I was wandering around the showroom nearly crying because of all the fabulous things that I could have gotten, my wallet was screaming at me, the other things were screaming "BUY ME! BUY ME!"

I resisted in buying a lamp for $5.00 and a rack for my room for $10.00.. then made my way out of the showroom downstairs to the warehouse and ended up calling my mum: "MUM! I'm in Ikea!" Mum: "Oh God, Emma. Put down the wallet!" I resisted the temptation to buy things.. but I think that Ima take my room mate there tomorrow (He's gonna be mad at me when he finds out I went without him.. lol) that way I can have the whole day to look around properly ;)

WISH ME LUCK!

Emma

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Chin Stroking material

Reading up on posts and blogs and other assorted pieces of paper that are created to inform me the "Best tips and tricks for selling online" has made me start to question my own 'shop' that I have on madeit.com..

Predicament #1:
Alot of the - lets call them articles for time saving sake - have said that a successful tip is to update your store often so that you will keep appearing into the 'recently added' section of the site. At this current stage, I am not making enough items quickly enough to come under the classification of 'updating often'.. Actually, lets be quite frank, I haven't updated the stall at all (maybe twice, I think).

I have also been informed that it is important to not upload all of your items at once, but do them slowly so that when the 'recently added' page rolls over, you will still be featured amongst the other artists but won't have every single addition be yours! A good stall will start selling when you have a few pages that people can browse through ie. 100 items *gasp*

Aside from my lack of motivation, which has thankfully returned-ish, I am finding that another one of my main issues is lack of funds.. I have PLENTY of beads at home, don't get me wrong, but not enough quantities of each particular bead to create something. Which is getting incredibly frustrating as this means that my box of UFOs is forever growing because of said lack of quantities *SIGH!*

Predicament #2:
Advertising... Now I have a facebook page and when I first started my madeit.com page, I was forever posting "Hey! Check out my page! Blah blah blah" And I would get the occasional friend *like* the shared post, but whether any of them actually went online and had a look is totally another question.. And I don;t exactly have any other means of advertising.. apart from my loyal readers here of course ;)

Of all the things I have made.. I think only 3 things I have actually made for myself to wear.. I think I need to start beading myself something so that I can wear them out and people can ask "I love that! Where did you get it?" I can then gush on about how "I made it myself" and hand them a business card (now that I actually carry them in my bag now.. you never know!

Your brains are probably bleeding by now, threatening stroke, BUT IM NEARLY FINISHED MY RANT!!!

Predicament #3:
This is probably my biggest predicament and one that I have been umming and ahhing about for a few weeks now.. Who on this site has actually heard of madeit.com? And then on the other hand, who has heard of etsy.com?

Madeit.com is pretty much the Australian version of Etsy but not as well known.. The reason I chose madeit over etsy is because while it may not be as well known, not very many people make the sorts of jewelley that I make, so the compitition is not as tough.. but on the other hand, Etsy is more well known (lets face it, EVERYONE knows etsy) but the compitition is incredibly tough! This is sort of my catch 22 situation.. and I'm not sure whether I should shut down my site and give etsy a go or whether I should keep going with madeit.com and play my cards with them..

Decisions, decisions...

Well, I know one thing is for sure.. My items on madeit.com are only able to be listed for a certain number of days - those days of which have mostly been used and the majority of my items will be expiring on the site.. When they do, I am not going to upload them back on straight away.. even if my page needs to sit in silence, Ima start to buckle down and get some things made!!! Then when I have enough stock to post an impressive page, slooooowly upload them to either shop A or shop B (whenever I deceide what to do) This in turn will solve my predicaments 1 & 2..

End of rant!

Emma
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