The Challenge-Process

Back at the beginning of January, a friend showed me a beautiful Snow White Druzy. As soon as I saw it, I KNEW I had to have it! (So I STOLE it!! Bought it right out from under her!! I didn't really even mind the fact that she had licked it....much!) I had absolutely NO clue what I would do with it, but it was so unbelievably beautiful; I bought it!
When it arrives I am shocked by how large it is. It measures 2 inches tall by 1 and a half inches wide....by far and away the largest stone I will have worked with.
Now its design time and the ONLY thing I can do to stabilize it is a prong mount. All I can think is, "How ordinary!". I have an aversion to "ordinary".


I go to work by making my prong mounting; which, at this point, is very rudimentary. Once I have completed that I start looking at how best to accentuate this stone. Now something happens to me that hasn't happened before....I become paralyzed with fear! I'm not sure why. I have messed up PLENTY of metal before! I head to my forum. "Go for it", is the response I get!

That's when it happened.....I became very Zen with this project and it flowed! I cut out a sheet of silver to act as a collar and stamped the words, live, laugh. and love on it. I then soldered it closed and....the stone still fit!!! (I had anticipated a failure here!) Now comes the tricky part....I have to mount this collar into my prong setting, allowing enough space below the stone for the stone to be held securely in the prong mount. Okay so here....I improvised. I placed the stone into the collar and set the whole thing into the prong mount and marked the placement with a sharpie. (HEY! whatever works! Right?)

I did the BEST pic soldering I have EVER done and Wa-La the mount is done!! Now to add a bail!

I had one filigree bead left and I was determined to use it on this project! Problem was....it was small. I know...add tubing!!! (At this point I MUST thank whoever suggested the hobby tube cutter to me! It was the best seven bucks Ive spent!!) Again I pic solder; first to attach the tubing to the bead, then to attach the bail to the pendant.

I wont go into detail here as this is the dull point where I clean up the setting and mount the stone.

At the end of the day I cant explain how I felt! I had ventured out of my comfort zone, put all the lessons I had learned in Metalsmithing to use, and completed an exceptional piece!

A learning experience

So Ive been joining in on a Metalsmithing Forum since September. It is, without a doubt, one of the best things Ive ever done for myself! I belong to a number of groups that have information on jewelry making. None, other than this one, allows me to ask a question and get an answer within minutes.

There are Metalsmiths of all levels in this group. From the novice (like myself) to seriously seasoned pro's! We like to think of ourselves as the "un-team Team and we welcome anyone....provided you give us your first name and DO NOT spam us! :D

Back around November we decided that we loved each others work so much that we wanted to share! At first it was suggested that we have a pendant swap! Well, I was all for this! This was an opportunity to really shine! It was going to be a masterpiece! Before I could finish dreaming, it had changed and now, we were doing a charm swap. Ok, still alright.....I think.

I immediately started sketching. I wanted to play on my strengths. *What were my strengths again?* Oh yeah, I have none. Well, maybe one; I am not afraid to REALLY screw up some metal! I mean I will try ANYTHING!! Usually with disastrous results, but hey that's how you learn, right? **Not to mention all the incredible scrap metal you produce!**

So I started with a triangle. My thinking being that 1) not everyone would be doing it and 2) it took less metal. (At this writing, silver prices are $18.44 a ounce!!!!) So I mark them and start cutting. NO GOOD! I wont be able to anything on them once I'm finished. Back to the drawing board.

November turns to December and all I have are sketches. Now I'm busy preparing for Christmas. Still no progress. That's when it hit me....wait to see what you get for Christmas, then you will know what to do.

Well I got a disc cutter, drill bits, a caliper and gift certificates to the supply house!

"The disc cutter will help", I think. "They are going to be round"!

STEP ONE: Determine a shape. Check!

So I order metal. Not much, but enough to make the charms. I have TONS of copper, but I haven't soldered it much before and I really want them to be silver!

STEP TWO: Order metal. Check.

The Sterling silver arrives and I cant wait to try out my new disc cutter. Okay, so lets just say, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. **Operator problems** I was still able to get 10 usable discs from it. **And 3 unusable ones but we will refer to those as "future opportunities"!**

STEP THREE: Cut the metal. Check.

Now I have to ask myself, "Where do we go from here"? I look at my sketches again....nothing there that speaks to me.

WAIT! I HAVE IT! I have been doing a series of pieces about water. I don't know why. I am not particularly fond of water except as my drink of choice but at least this is a direction. Ok. water, water, water....."the flow"! Why "the flow"? I guess because I have a hard time going with it; this will serve as a reminder!

STEP FOUR: Choose a design and make these bad boys! Check.

Now I'm on a roll! So I stamp "flow" onto them! "The" is irrelevant. That worked.

Now what? Okay, I have a huge amount of inexpensive aquamarines, so I add a setting! **YOU GO GIRL!!!** So far, so good!

I then add my "water" (Silver wire that I have hammered flat and curved around my settings). Still, all good!

Time to cut the settings. (This is where the problems started!) You see, I had this tank of fuel that was running out, but I INSISTED on using it until the bitter end. So I solder away, pickle, rinse, and start to cut the settings......RIP! Off comes the setting. Rocketing across the room and now a two hour search is underway! Okay, I recovered it. Not sure what happened but I will fix that later. Lets try another...RIP!!! What is going on?!?!

I RUN to the computer and ask the forum. Bad soldering or too long in the pickle is the response I get. I know it wasn't in the pickle too long, so bad soldering it is! Now I remember that I have soldered 5 settings before I changed that tank, and 5 it is! Five settings rip off!

Its okay, I'm cool. Ill fix them later. Work with what you have.

The biggest problem is, these suckers are little! It hard to hold onto them while you cut them! I mention this to my husband and he says, "Use your shelf paper". (Like he'd been doing this his entire life and this was the OBVIOUS answer!!!) But it worked!!!
I repair one of the broken settings **just to see if I can**! Okay, Its holding up, but I'm getting anxious! What if they look like crap?

So I work on the six I have cut. I set the stones, polish and tumble. BEAUTIFUL (if I do say so myself!!!)!

I still have to finish four more, but I am feeling a bit better about it all. Will I ever do another charm swap? Probably not. I HATE the repetition! But did it help me learn new things and practice the skills I have? ABSOLUTELY!

Now, I'm off to see a man about a bunch of scrap metal!

Time Management

I have had the hardest time managing my 'time' lately! I have gotten a tremendous amount accomplished but it seems the more I do, the more I need to do.

Since my last posting, I have; removed my pieces from the boutique I was selling out of, opened an etsy store, started a facebook fan page, run a two week advertising campaign, taken approximately 100 photos of my pieces, sold and shipped 2 pieces(!), and created some 30 new pieces!

So lets break these down: Removing my pieces from the boutique. Why would you do that is the question I get the most on this one. Most jewelers are trying to get into a boutique. There were really more reasons to leave than to stay and I had been riding it out for some time hoping the situation would improve but, unfortunately it never did.

If I could give you any advice on this I would say; be sure of who you are working with from the beginning. The boutique owner that I dealt with was questionable from the start. Initially he said that when I brought my line in he would, examine it, decide if it was in keeping with the theme of his store and then buy my entire line at wholesale. I thought this was wonderful! Then, REALITY CHECK! It turns out that he has just returned from a buying trip to China where he had purchased ten thousand dollars worth of high end, mass produced jewelry! Now he wants to enter into a consignment agreement. Okay, no problem, I can still do this. When all is said and done, I am only getting 50% of the sale price, I have to provide my own displays, I have to drive an hour, each way, twice a month to inventory, clean, and add to my collection and I have to "recruit" clients for his store. Then I start noticing the way he deals with his employees and vendors. It is not uncommon for me to go to the store and listen to him screaming at these people the entire time I am there! While I was making money, the situation was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

The last trip I made to the store, before removing my items, was especially bad. He started complaining to me that my system of inventory was too complicated and that I needed to come up with something else. This is when the idea of an etsy store started to appeal to me. I could receive the majority of my own profits, which would, in turn, allow me to lower my prices. I would save myself a four hour commute each month. I could store my items in a controlled environment where they would require less cleaning. I wouldn't have to listen to someone screaming at other people. This was a win, win, win situation! Then the phone call came. I was supposed to go in to do my bi-weekly inventory and the store owner called to say that I needed to come pick-up my items. The employee that he had charged with dealing with my line was leaving for college and, since he didn't like my inventory system, he was discontinuing my line. The ironic part is; earlier that week I had started setting up my etsy store!

The etsy store: http://AlexSharDesigns.etsy.com

This is a constant undertaking. Initially I intended to add to my shop every other day.....well, you know what they say, "We plan and GOD laughs". I am still managing to add about three items, once a week. The problem was photography.

Taking approximately 100 photos: I have bemoaned my photography issues before.
I started out trying to take my own photos but was so disappointed in the quality that I wouldn't list any items on etsy. Then I decided to call a friend who is a portrait photographer. Yes, the photos improved, but there was so much editting to do that I might as well have taken them myself. That's when those wonderful folks at etsy put out an article on photographing jewelry! I tried their techniques and they worked!!! Unless my camera battery was almost dead...as happens so often when you have teenagers in the home! I can not tell you the number of times I have done all the shots for my latest listing, only to open them on my computer and find that every one of them is blurry! Can you say, "re-shoot"?

I guess the greatest benefit of taking my own photos is that I have very little editing to do now.

Selling 2 pieces: One was sold from my personal facebook page and another from my etsy. One went to Canada, the other the U.S. Let me just say, I got a quick lesson in packaging and shipping, both domestic and internationally.

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alexandra-Shariff-Designs/139148430664

This was an idea I came up with to increase my shop name recognition. As of today I am at 41 fans and growing!

Running an ad: I did this in conjunction with my fan page on facebook. This was one of my better ideas. I will have run the add for a total of two weeks, at a cost of $14.00. I wasn't trying to get people to come to my site yet. I was trying to get people to see my name. Next campaign I will work on getting them to my page. As of this morning, almost 55,000 people has seen my add, and as an added bonus, 35 people have visited my site!

And finally, Making 30 new pieces: I am completely self taught. People ask how I am able to make some of the things that I do and all I can say is, I guess I am a good reader! I am in a new learning phase right now. I am trying desperately to improve my soldering skills. I don't mind admitting that some days are totally frustrating! I have had to start over more times than I can count, but when a piece comes together right.....well, that feeling is hard to describe!

Now, any of you who are there just getting started are going to begin to feel like I have lately...overwhelmed! I need a computer expert who would deal with all of the internet issues; ads, forums, listings, etc. A photographer to handle the pictures and editing. Someone to blog for me! Someone to twitter for me! Someone to clean my house and take care of my family! Someone to package and ship for me! Then I would need a few people to handle all the other obligations in my life and then I could spend all my time at my bench!!!

Jewelry Photography; working out the bugs.........

Today I have been working on one of my old hobbies; Photography.

To say that it has not been going well is a bit of an understatement. Taking pictures of jewelry can be quite complicated! I have looked up every tutorial I could find on the subject. The majority agree on two points; use a tripod and a digital imaging program. If I were going to add anything to that I might say; experiment.

I have tried setting up a light box. This was terrible. All of my silver looked tarnished or blurry. I ultimately used natural light because the silver stayed truer to color. Next I tried different colored backgrounds. I started with white but found that there wasn't enough contrast between the background and some of the pieces. Black worked better for lighter colored pieces.

I really believe that the only benefit to using a digital slr is the ability to be able to dispose of the bad shots. If you have a digital 35mm you probably have more control over your contrast, which seemed to be the item I had to fiddle with most in editing.

Once I got to editing there were basically only two things that needed correcting; sharpness and contrast.

My photos were already sharp. I increased the sharpness as a way of bringing up additional highlights. Normally this would be a bad thing, causing specks to appear on the photo, and this may happen to yours. I just found that it worked beautifully for me.

I can not harp enough about contrast. I sometimes find that the stones don't look anything like they do in "real life" (as opposed to "photographic life"). If I adjust the contrast of the image I can correct this. It also helps your silver to shine.

I don't claim to be any kind of expert in this area, just someone in need of digital images. I have said it before, but it bears repeating: EXPERIMENT!

I have added a few of the shots to my blog and you can judge my results for yourselves.

Good luck with your own project.

Just the begining

While I have been a jewelry designer for quite some time; blogging is completely new to me. I feel very vulnerable putting down this type of information about myself. This is what my children do; not full grown women.

Currently we find our economy in the crapper. Now, if you have ever tried to sustain a small business, you know that these are, "the best of times" and the "worst of times". ("HOW CAN SHE SAY THAT?" you ask.) They are the worst, because as a small business owner, you can never count on a specific income. You buy your materials, produce your item and get it to the public. With jewelry this is a hit or miss proposition. One week you are everyone's darling and the next, you cant sell a thing! If, during a recession, you are able to sell anything; well "BONUS", you can buy more supplies and start the whole process over! But, a recession can also be the "best of times"!

I am using this time to learn new techniques and venture into a completely new areas. I also intend to get my business plan together and this "blog" is a part of that. I don't want to spend the rest of my life, selling jewelry to my tiny corner of the world. This blog will allow me to go WORLDWIDE!