Holiday Shopping

Um, so, some slightly shameful self-promotion here today. I'm participating in Etsy's Cyber Monday promotion by offering 10 percent off everything in my store until midnight. To get the discount, just use the code CYBERMONDAY when you check out.

Also, because so many of the items in my shop are made-to-order in your size or special color requests they take awhile to make. In order to make sure your gifts arrive by Christmas, I need to have your order by  Sunday, Dec. 12.

Sadly, and happily, I suppose, my favorite earrings already sold today even though I just put them up for sale yesterday. I was kind of hoping no one would want them so I could keep them. But that's ok. I won't tell you what my other favorites are so you won't feel bad about buying them!

And, you can follow me on Twitter or Facebook if you want more updates about new items or holiday specials.

Some New Jewelry

I've had some recent success (and some failures) lately with my jewelry business, Mischief by Loki. I've been creating a wholesale line of more simple, replicable, affordable pieces, while continuing to reveal my favorite one-of-a-kind creations. Here are a few of the things I've made lately...

Have you joined me on Facebook? I do giveaways and sneak peeks and discounts and other random things there.

Sleep

I am so very tired this week. I'm really a bed at 10 p.m. kind of girl. I need at least eight hours of sleep every night or I get very, very grumpy.

But this week, not so much. I've been up 'til midnight every night trying to get things ready for this jewelry show. I've never done anything like this so I was trying to put together displays and then once I got that pulled together I realized how very sparse it looked... so, off to make more pieces.

Now I just have a few more things to create and then I have to price and tag and add descriptions to each piece. And finalize the displays. And make food. And prep change and receipts and order forms and polish the pieces and I have no idea what else.

Soooo tired...

So I'll be back next week. Happier and well-rested. I hope.

Photo of my exhausted puppies. Back when they were tiny, obviously.

First Jewelry Party

Next weekend I'm having my first jewelry party. It's at my friend's house and it's a brunch-type thing where people can come have some food and look through my pieces (and hopefully buy some Mother's Day gifts).

And I'm totally terrified. What if they hate it? What if they talk smack about the prices (which are way too low, by the way, but I'm somehow physically incapable of raising them)? What if we go to all this work and then no one buys anything? What if no one comes?

Too Many Identities

I started this blog just after I got married. I had been so blessed in the month or two prior to our wedding when I found amazing blogs by amazing women who were just getting married, or who had recently walked through the experience. I wanted to join in, even though I didn't know what I would have to add. Now I've made super amazing friends and I love sharing pieces of my life with otherwise total strangers.

Shortly after the wedding I also jumped into selling my jewelry on Etsy. (What? Take on too many things all at once? That doesn't sound like me AT ALL). I'm really trying to make a go of that because, 1) it allows me to be creative in a way that doesn't involve tearing our house apart; 2) it's fun; 3) I get to share pretty things with people; 4) wouldn't be awesome if I actually started to make money on this?

Now I have my regular life, my blog life, my jewelry business life... and they all have their own set of friends and responsibilities and rules. Twitter accounts, email accounts, facebook pages and fan pages, shop sites, flickr and picasa... there's too much!

So what's the point?

They're going to have to meld before I go crazy. I need to be one person, with one identity, in all those spots (a little hard, mind you, because I use my maiden name in everything except my jewelry business). That means I'll have to give up some anonymity on this blog and that I'll have to share some jewelry-related things here as well. I promise not to turn this into a marketing piece and I hope we can still be friends. I'll be just the same... just with the extra post here and there about stuff I'm doing to run my business, the creative process, and the occasional update about new products. I hope that's ok.

A Tale of Two Rings

I'm finally finding a little time to practice my metalwork. Today I organized my supplies, re-sanded and oiled my work bench (no more slivers--hooray!) and finished taking pictures of a couple of pieces. It felt nice to do something creative again.

This ring is a smaller version of the one I made Husband for his wedding band. Now I have one too! I'll make it custom to whatever size the customer wants, so I think I'll keep this one.

This one is just fun. My lovely friend Mindy wants it, though, so it looks like I'll be back in my studio sawing and hammering and oxidizing later this week.

For the ring people out there... what kind of ring would you like to see? Wide or narrow? Plain or decorative? Plain sterling silver or set with stones? It's hard to know which of my design ideas to start on so I'd love the advice!

 

This are our rings at the wedding.

Pictures by me.  Except the wedding photo, taken by the always-amazing Ben Blood.

My Etsy Store: Mischief by Loki

I've started up an Etsy store and I'm feeling both excited and regretful*. A couple years ago I started playing around with making jewelry. Then I took a class on metal work and ended up learning from an amazing artist who lived in town and worked at a local jewelry store.**

I've been making pieces for myself and my friends (who are all tired of receiving jewelry for their birthdays and Christmas, I think). I enjoy searching for beautiful stones in interesting shapes and colors. I like spending hours working on the perfect design, although, I've learned that I mostly like simple, delicate pieces where the beauty of the stone or metal is the showcase.*** So most of my jewelry is simple and, dare I say, plain. Though, of course, I think it's quite lovely!

My husband was actually the one to encourage me to open the shop as I was running out of room for storing more pieces and couldn't possibly wear them all. Plus, I think he'd like me to recoup the costs of my materials! I think he's also been quite excited about all the free time he has right now since my urge to renovate our entire house has diminished somewhat as I'm currently spending EVERY evening working on getting the shop up and running.

So... please go take a look. { http://www.etsy.com/mischiefbyloki }Since I'm new and you're all so smart, I'm looking for advice and suggestions. What designs do you like most (alas, my favorite isn't up yet, incidentally. I'm wearing it today as I've been tweaking it for several days now)? How are the pictures? What else would you like to see? What should I do differently? What should I keep the same?

Thank you!!

*Exited because, well, how awesome would it be if people liked my stuff? But regretful because it takes up a lot more time than I thought it would!
**He was also going to make the wedding ring Husband and I custom designed but just after he started on it he moved to Texas to get married. Bleh!
***Most of the pieces up right now are stone, pearl or bead work. There's not a lot of metalwork though that's coming. In fact, I'm wearing my favorite piece right now as I've been tweaking it for several days now and am testing it out today.