GIVEAWAY TIME

Interested in a little giveaway? Want to win a pair of super cute Christmas Light Earrings? Well, you can if you enter my giveaway through my Facebook page! You are not required to "like" my page, but if you do, you'll get updates on what is going on with Eternal Stardust Jewelry, as well as the option for special coupons that are Facebook fans only!

When you go to my page, just click on the giveaway link on the left hand side, click the Enter Giveaway button, and you're done!

You get your choice of one (1) of the following pairs of earrings:

1. Blue Christmas Lights w/ Aquamarine crystals
2. Green Christmas Lights w/ Emerald crystals (only 1 pair available)
3. Green Christmas Lights w/ Opan crystals
4. Purple Christmas Lights w/ purple confetti bead
5. Red Christmas Lights w/ Garnet crystals
6. Yellow Christmas Lights w/ Crystal crystals (only 1 pair available)
7. Yellow Christmas Lights w/ Fire Opal crystals (only 1 pair available)

The Christmas lights are plastic charms. Earrings are on nickel-based fish hook ear wires. If you enter the contest and share it with someone who enters through the link you shared (use the share links provided on the giveaway page), both you and your friend win a pair of the earrings! Please note that some pairs only have 1 available, so they are first-come-first-serve!

Good luck!! :)

Just A Bit of Fun

I thought I'd check out Stylish Home and have a bit of fun with their idea files. I liked the look of a particular room, then I found a color scheme I preferred, and then I picked a few products I liked as well. If you want you can look at it below:


Removed due to it breaking my blog layout, sorry!

Custom Order for a Friend

A friend of mine asked me to make a necklace, bracelet, and earring set for her a few months ago. I didn't start it until the other day because I wanted to make sure she knew what type of necklace and bracelet she was going to be getting. When I showed her the set that I was going to use as the "pattern" for the set, she liked it a lot, with the exception of asking that the necklace be made longer, which I obliged her with.

She also requested that I shorten a bracelet that she liked & switch the  matching earrings from pierced to clip-on as she doesn't have pierced ears. I used an old pair of really neat clip-on earrings that had a little hold at the bottoms to make the earrings for that bracelet and they turned out really cool - and one of a kind. :)

These are the earrings that I made to match the bracelet. I think they came out really well.

This is the bracelet that I shortened for my friend. I just took two of the turquoise/quartz blend beads off and two of the obsidian beads off.

This is the bookmark that my friend requested. She wanted the December birthstone crystals with a butterfly on the end.

These are the earrings to the set I made for her. Tiger Eye on the bottom, Turquoise dyed Jasper in the middle, and Lt. Colorado Brilliance crystals on clip-on earrings.

Same beads as above, only for the bracelet.

The necklace - same beads as the bracelet and earrings. I had to loop the necklace around the stand twice because it was too long otherwise! :)

So that is my custom order that I will be delivering to my friend tomorrow at lunch.
Any custom orders come your way recently?

Autumn & Winter Wear

So Autumn is here and Winter approaches. Time to start thinking of cool items for keeping warm. When I think of cool items to keep warm I think of cool scarves & awesome looking hats. Any hat that is stylish and can keep your head warm at the same time is a great idea in my book.

For instance this newsboy cap I made:

This cap can keep your head warm while allowing you to stay stylish at the same time. I think it's a really cute hat anyways. :)

Scarves can be cool as well. You can have pockets on them to allow you to warm your hands or stash stuff if you want, or they can be plain. You can have them in stripes or solids. I love a good scarf in Winter. I don't have any pictures of cool scarves right now, but I plan to make some soon! :)

The above pictured cap comes in 3 sizes - 22" head circumference, 24" head circumference, or 26" head circumference. If you happen to be larger than that, I can make it bigger as well. You can have your choice of colors too - the hat is only $15.00 - it is not currently available in any of my shops, but you can convo me to order one if you like! :) Just let me know your head size & what color you want! :)

Just Give Up Already

This is what my brain has been telling me for the last three or four days. Ever since I posted the clearance section of my jewelry shop, hoping that what is there would finally sell. It hasn't, and even though I just created the section on the 20th or 21st of September, my mind is telling me that no one wants this jewelry, it is junk, and just get rid of the shop and be done with it.

Unfortunately, since this particular nagging does not want to leave, I am wondering if it isn't time to just pack it in and forget trying to have my own business. I know, I know, I shouldn't give up or quit. But...it's been almost 3 years. It will be 3 years in December that I've been trying to make a go of this.

Of course, I get the same advice from everyone I ask about it on Etsy - keep digging, work on my photos, advertise more. Buy more slots in showcases, buy the new search ads, buy Google AdWords ads, become an advertiser on Facebook. Use Project Wonderful. Buy ad space on BlogAds. Try purchasing ad space on other blogs. Been there, done that, no sales. I'm tired of getting the same old advice that does *not* work. I'm tired of being told my pictures aren't good enough when I see shops with *worse* pictures that are selling items like mad. I'm tired of spending money I *do not* have to advertise my shop.

I'm just...tired. The entire time I was in Colorado at the beginning of the year my shops were on vacation mode.   The sad thing? I didn't think about them once until I got home. I didn't care that I didn't have sales, I didn't care that no one could see or buy my products, I just didn't care. Now that I'm home? I worry constantly - am I going to get a sale today? Am I going to have to relist items that I can't afford to relist? Am I going to have to spend more money on advertisement that gets me absolutely nothing?

So now I am wondering - should I give in to my mind and just give up already? Or should I keep plugging away at it, go through the Etsy Holiday Boot Camp and see if sales increase? If they don't increase should I pack it in then? Or should I keep going even beyond the holiday rush and see what happens?

I have no idea what I want to do - but I do know this - my best friend, who owns Baby Bratz Designs, seems to have a better grip on this business thing than I do - and she's not willing to give up yet. Maybe I shouldn't be either.

Owning A Business Isn't All Roses

I've had more than one person tell me they wish they could own their own business. Well, I have to say this - no they don't. Believe me, they don't. Not unless they know that the business they are opening is going to be a surefire hit with consumers, they don't.

Why do I say this? Well, for starters, my business has been open for almost three years. Yes, you read that correctly, almost three years. In that three years I have sold: 3 baby blankets ($80 total), 6 bracelets ($97 total), 6 pair of earrings ($6 total), 2 bookmarks ($13 total), 3 hats ($20 total), and 2 washcloths ($10 total). So in three years I have made exactly $226. I have paid out far more than that for materials, listing fees (eBay and Etsy), and monthly subscription fees (ArtFire).

I have purchased items for display purposes for craft shows. I have spent more money than I've made. In fact, I pay taxes for being "self-employed" even when I don't make enough to be taxed for regular income taxes. In short, I pay more than I bring in.

Owning your own business isn't all roses. If you don't have the time or the money to put into it, you might as well forget it. I learned the hard way - you can't just open a shop on Etsy, ArtFire, eCrater, or whoever, and expect it to just sell without having to work at it. You have to promote your shop(s). You have to get your name out there and make sure people see you and know you are there.

You  have to network. Twitter, Facebook, even MySpace. Possibly LinkedIn as well. Blogs and websites are good as well. Email and instant messengers if you can manage them as well are good.

Lately I've been trying to promote my Etsy shop as much as I can for as little money as I can. Why? Because I don't have a day job to back me up. I do freelance writing, which garners me some money to use to pay Etsy fees and the like, but I don't have much.

Am I trying to scare people away from opening their own shops? Not at all. I'm just hoping they'll read this and be prepared for some tough times ahead.

Finding Craft Shows

While I admit that Art in the Park has been more or less of a bust the past couple of years, I have been wanting to try other craft shows. To be honest, Art in the Park's very name brings to mind paintings and sculptures that are being displayed in the park, not a craft show, which is what, for the most part, Art in the Park really is. This year we had several jewelry artists, several pottery artists, quilters, crocheters, and there were even some painters and sculptors there as well.

But I would like to be able to get into the bigger craft show scene. My problem is, when I use Google to search for shows, I find that all of the websites giving out information on craft shows in my area are either outdated - some haven't updated the pages since 2006 - or require me to pay them to give me the information on who to contact to reserve a space.

Now perhaps I'm just being cheap, but to me, if I have to pay upwards of $100 just to enter one of these craft shows, I shouldn't have to pay some random website a fee to tell me who to contact to obtain my spot. So of course, I turned to the lovely people in my Etsy teams that I am a part of. Of course, I just posted the discussion threads so I haven't heard back from anyone, but I am confident that someone will be able to tell me how to go about finding the appropriate information.

I don't plan to do any shows until at least next year, so I have time to have enough merchandise, but I do wish to do some shows next year besides Art in the Park. Now - to find those shows and get the information I need to get signed up!