My newly designed logo, click on it to go to my etsy store.
A lot has happened lately and I just wanted to let my followers know that I am back to selling my jewelry (I never really went away). I don’t know what exactly to post here, but I want to start blogging again, and I figured the best way to start is to just start. I re-designed my logo recently here it. I designed it myself, using the skills I learned in the design class I took. I feel that it better reflects me and what I do so let me know what you think! I am looking forward to getting back to blogging. My next post will be much longer, but I just wanted to get this one out of the way.
I have a big announcement, in case you don’t follow my facebook page I am going to be having a booth at my school, UWM’s Valentine’s Day craft fair at the student union, from Monday February 11 to Thursday the 14th. I will be there from 10am – 5pm almost everyday. Oh and members of my club, sds are going to help me sell my stuff at the table. They get to advertise for new members for the club and I get free labor, It’s a win-win situation! I am really excited in case you haven’t guessed by now, so I am working hard to prepare, I want to create a lot more pieces of jewelry for the show, take inventory, and figure out my display, all in under 3 days.
In order to prepare for the craft fair I have been making necklaces for my pendants that I made, but it was taking a lot of time to hand-make all of them, so yesterday I had a revelation, why not just buy some chain? The chain costs more, but it takes a lot less time to make each individual necklace. So went to my local bead store, Planet Bead and bought 25 ft worth of silver chain, and I managed to finish all but one necklace (I ran out of the chain) here are some of them on a display thingy I bought:
Like I said before, I am really excited for this opportunity to sell my jewelry and spread the word about my business to the masses, so if anyone reading this is in the Milwaukee area next week, come and stop by my booth and say hi, I look forward to meeting you.
My dog Coco, isn’t she so cute
My first week of classes was crazy, I ended up dropping two classes, my photography class and my portfolio class, and I added another class, an art history class, women directors. I was taking on much more than I can handle. A lot of other stuff happened, but I don’t really want to share all of it here. I have been dealing with a lot of issues and had to come to terns with some stuff. The day that would have been my dad’s 55th birthday was Saturday and that triggered a lot of issues for me.
I am going to take a short break of my business, I will start to focus more on it after I’ve got my feet on the ground and am more used to being in school.
It is six in the morning and I still haven’t gone to sleep. Today is the first day of school and I couldn’t stop thinking all night long.
I got some good news last night! let me back up. I am a member of the SDS of UWM. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to say that on here. But I decided that I wanted to stand for something. there is a saying that I can’t remember exactly, that goes something like this, if you stand for nothing you’ll fall for everything. I am a liberal and I won’t care if that offends anybody. I’m going to target my audience and that should attract people.
Anyway my club did not get any grants for this semester and so we need to fundraise. There was a meeting last night and somehow it came out that I make jewelry. The idea was made that they help me sell my jewelry and a portion of the sale goes to them. I am so excited! This should help me get sales. It will also help with charity that I believe in. Now all I have to do is figure out what portion of my sale that I want to give to them. What percentage do you think I should do?
I am really excited I have been having trouble making sales and now a really good seller is going to help me.
I wish I could have gotten some sleep last night. All I thought about was the blog entry I was going to make. I know this sounds silly, but I was up all night just thinking. I was also really excited for class tomorrow or today I guess.
here’s my school schedule
School starts tomorrow! I can’t wait. Here is my school schedule, it is a very weird schedule, Mondays and Wednesdays will be wide open, but on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays i will be really busy. I don’t think I will be able to post on my blog everyday, but I will try and post every Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. I don’t know how much attention I can pay to my business this semester, because I am going to be full time.
Yesterday I got a cold and was in bed the whole day. I was productive because I was on the internet though using social media and promoting my business all day. I hope I will be all better by tomorrow, when classes start. I’m still a little under the weather right now, but am feeling better than yesterday. I got a haircut on Friday, here’s a pic:
here’s a picture of me all made up for dinner.
I really like my new haircut what do you think?
here are the bails, they came!
My bails came in the mail yesterday! let me back up a little bit. Last summer we went to Door County, WI, and when we were there we went to the Hands on Art Studio and I made a bunch of fused glass tiles, shown here:
here are the glass tiles, my before picture
I have been wanting to make them into pendants for a long time, but I couldn’t think of the name for what you put on the back for a long time, then it came to me: A Bail! and with that I was able to order them online, on ebay. I got a 50 piece set, it took almost three weeks to come, and they finally came yesterday! So all I needed was to put the bails on the tiles, and for that I used E-6000, a great glue:
the glue
and here they are drying:
drying on my window ledge
I let them dry for one day, and here they are, all finished:
here are all of the pendants done!
I am really happy with the results, and I am going to put them on my etsy store I think I am just going to put the pendants for sale without putting them on necklaces. What do you think about my pendants? Also here’s one last picture of my “helper” Pepe:
my cat, Pepe, helping me, ignore the mess.
Well I hope you like them, please let me know what you think!
check this out in my etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/listing/116614437/handmade-bird-bead-dangle-earrings
I have made my final decision, and I have decided to keep my current name “CraftsbyKnight” there was a lot of thinking that went into this decision, and I wanted to let everyone know not to expect a name change in the future. I like my current name and it allows for growth in the future, which is the reason I chose it.
On a side note, school starts on Tuesday and I am really excited! I am going to take four classes this semester. The classes I am taking are: Intro to Jewelry making and metal-smiting, Intro to Photography, design survey, and a really neat class about profesional portfolio development, which should help me to improve my portfolio for the spring and help me to get an internship next fall.
I am also going to try and focus more on my business site, craftsbyknight.etsy.com. I am worried that I won’t have time to do everything I want to do, but it doesn’t hurt to try. I am going to set a schedule for myself for the week, that should help to keep me on track. Anyway I look forward to hearing from everyone that reads my blog, Carley.
