Rose of Sharon Jewelry

As a professional business person, I would never want to compete with my customers so it seems strange that jewelry suppliers market and sell finished jewelry.  Would you run your business that way?

To keep costs low and quality high, I am always searching for trusted suppliers. This means I am always searching the Web for “wholesalers” and suppliers. So many sites advertise that they offer “wholesale to the public”. I’ve worked in several different industries as a marketing professional and I find simply false advertising. Either you are a legitimate wholesaler or you are just a company offering a progressive discount system for anyone with a credit card.

But it is the companies that sell beading supplies at “wholesale” and imported finished jewelry that offend me. As a handmade jewelry artist and managing partner of Rose of Sharon Jewelry, I spend a lot of my time establishing our brand and our perceived value. This is a critical action for anyone creating a craft/art/design that value is set by desire and what the market will bear more than commodity items.

If you’ve ever heard “I could make that for half that price”, you know that setting value can be tough. And many crafters/artists/designers tend to cave in and lower their prices. The last thing we need is to have the suppliers we do business with contributing to this obstacle.

Beads bounce! Seed beads spill. Earring backs fly! So many beads so little time to crawl around looking for strays. But I do hate losing costly Swarovski crystals in the studio carpet. And my 3-year-old grandson,  Kael just loves to use my bead soup container as a maraca! Shake – shake – shake – oh, oh!

So when I came across the Craft Vac by Darice in a craft catalog, I thought I might have found a solution to bead runaways. The $9.95 plus $5 shipping seemed okay and since I hate running around town to save a few pennies, I ordered it through their web site. That was my primary mistake – not being able to look at the product and read the package fine print.

Upon opening the plastic packaging, I immediately felt I had wasted my money. The pink Craft Vac pieces were ill-fitting and the battery cover was hard to keep in place. But the biggest issue was the extremely flimsy and torn filter. As everyone knows vacuums need filters and only the torn filter was enclosed. With the instructions clearly warning “Do not operate without filter”, I had a useless vac.

These magnificent faceted honey quartz beads were posted by a Flickr friend - Gemsbeads. They post tons of pics every week and I can never resist the feelings of lust. If only I really were a bead millionaire. . .

I love sharing the art jewelry I find online with my readers. Today I found handmade metal jewelry by Nathalie Girard, Metalsmith on Etsy. Her shop Canadian Rockies Art has some wonderful oxidized silver earrings. Her designs are modern without being too far out for those of us who love classic designs. Stop by and see her great work.

Mea culpa - I copied a photo from her Etsy store so you could drool over her work, too.

So if anyone knows of a source for silver-plated peace signs larger than charms – probably 2 inches or more, leave a comment and link here. Thanks!

Mom (Betty) and I thought we’d like to do some retro looking necklaces with peace signs. I’ve seen peace symbol jewelry in several fashion magazines and even on Michelle Obama.

But we searched for several days on the auction sites, our standard wholesalers, etc. and didn’t find any larger pendant style versions that we thought would be suitable. Weird, huh?

We are making these necklaces for an upcoming Toyota Scion promotional concert where we’ll have a booth courtesy of son, Josh, who is the Scion Guru for the local Reno dealership. Young crowd so we are really having fun making lots of bright colors and bold designs. The peace sign pendants need to be priced for impulse buying so those diamond encrusted one’s Mom found for $3,900 probably wouldn’t work.

 

Peace be with you!

Have you noticed lately that a lot of jewelry featured in magazines is faux handmade? The makers of mass-produced jewelry (and if you see it advertised it has to be made in a factory somewhere) are trying hard to capture what is unique and special about handmade jewelry. But you know it just isn't the same. No one carefully sorted through every single bead, dreamed for days about how to finish a single bracelet, took necklace apart 3 times just to get the drape perfect or redesigned a $30 pair of earrings for a special customer.

Don't you just love it? Thanks to all our customers, friends and fans who appreciate what goes into every handmade piece of jewelry created by the women of Rose of Sharon Jewelry. Want to share your appreciation? Tell others about Rose of Sharon Jewelry - don't be stingy - there's plenty of wonderful designs to go around - no matter what you like!

This evening I've been busy joining a variety of handmade communities online. This gives me an opportunity to promote Rose of Sharon Jewelry, A.F.F. Jewelry and New Life Jewelry Art to people who appreciate the creativity, uniqueness and economic power of buying handmade.

There are lots of places to promote your handmade jewelry business online and even more communities that cover anything you might hand make.

You'll find us on PlumDrop now (see the box in the right column), JewelryGeeks and Buyhand.me. I just love sharing the photos I took recently - cannot just let those little digital images go stale in my laptop!

Here is a lovely Violetta by Sandra Lee. It will be in the store next week.If you cannot wait, drop me a line to reserve.

We're finally finished with our marathon photo shoot - 3+ days and over 575 photos of our newest jewelry designs.  Mom (Betty)  and Granny (Jennie) left mid-day to return to Sandy, Oregon. We worked really hard for the two weeks they were here but it was a joy to be together.  Mom brought a ton of finished handmade jewelry and another ton of beads - the plane probably tilted a bit. Her newest releases range from wonderful crosses to delicate floral designs to elegant vintage glass pearls. Here are a few pieces to drool over until I can get them listed on Rose of Sharon Jewelry, Etsy or Artfire.

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