2012 in a Nutshell

It's been a while between posts - and I'm sure you've all missed my witty ramblings (or missed laughing at me bumping my head) in the interim.  This blog was going to be a cleverly drafted  sales pitch for Christmas, rich in Google loving keywords and search engine friendly tags.

But I missed the boat.

Why did I miss the boat you might ask (I just know you wanted to ask that)?  Well, I'll tell you.  It was because I was actually too busy selling jewellery and other pretty beaded things that I had no time to spare for a blog. Consequently, you will be pleased to hear that this blog is now not going to try to sell you a single thing (unless you're interested, in which case click the link somewhere on this page to go to the website...).  Instead, a brief summary of the year that was 2012 - the first full year of business for MinzBeadz - from the MinzBeadz viewpoint.

(I actually started this as a month by month thing, which quickly fell into disarray - you'll just have to pretend the months are in there somewhere. There's only 12 of them, you can manage!).

I've taken at least 10,000 photographs of various beads, charms and jewellery - as only 525 are currently available on the website (and you'll have to take into account a random 100 items that have sold out and can't be seen anymore), you'd think I'd have it down pat by now. I'd love to say I do, but certain things continue to defeat me.  I'm sure a photographer would know exactly what to do to make pale pink and pale purple show up as something resembling the real colour, but I still don't.  And there are a few where if you look closely you can almost see my reflection - but hey - up until now you probably haven't looked that closely.  I'm hoping for defective memories in you all too, so next time you visit my humble store you will have forgotten to look for me in the pictures.  (But if you remember - I'm waving at you, so wave back).

I've sworn at Facebook approximately three and a half million times and invented a few new strings of swear words that make no sense, but feel very satisfying to say to my computer screen.

I've most recently lost my blog posts 'behind the scenes' and Mr Google decided that I no longer existed, despite the fact I'm fairly sure I do - although first thing in the morning there's this weird old lady looking out of the mirror at me which is kind of freaky.  (For those of you who read my Facebook posts, you might recall that a certain government department also decided my name wasn't really my name, despite the fact it is - conspiracy? I think so).  As you might have guessed - the blog issue is now sorted, or I would be yelling this instead of typing.  I wonder if I typed everything in capital letters whether I wouldn't need to publish the blog...

I've seen my sales grow from a single one in the first month of business, a single one in the second month of business, to, well, LOTS pre Christmas 2012.  Despite the fact that a business should actually make a profit at some stage, I can't tell you how exciting it is to open your emails and have orders fill the inbox instead of requests to help out some poor African woman whose husband has died and left her so many millions she just doesn't know how to keep them. (I think this woman might have won an email lottery or two to get the millions - how lucky can you get really!)

It is also quite exciting to not stare at a computer for 2 months with nothing much happening except the occasional swear word with "facebook" thrown in the middle of the sentence.

I've had a few tussles with the business end of the website, with the result that having international shipping options readily available, or even the facility for direct deposit, enables you to bypass clicking an option for postage!  Now that's clever - if I had knitted my website from the beginning like I wanted to, my pattern would have included a row for postage charges and another for direct deposit.  These tech people aren't as smart as they think they are when a simple K1 P2 and a couple of cable stitches would have done the trick.

Facebook, while aggravating at times, is a great way for small businesses like mine to market themselves and their goods.  Like any microcosm of society, people are people and you get all sorts.  I've come across some really horrible human beings, who think they're clever but if they were, well they'd be doing their own thing instead of copying other people's and trying to get any type of information you have worked hard for, for their own uses.  It can be fun though, to give just a hint of misinformation and watch them use it! Not that I would do that of course, but I've heard of it happening (picture angelic look - and I thought the weird lady in the morning mirror was freaky...)

At the other end of the spectrum are the wonderful people who give freely of their time and expertise, occasionally products, and operate at all times in a very helpful way to someone like me just starting out.  A really big thumbs up in particular to Kim from Fairy-Licious & Goblin-grunge, Linda from OzFeathers, various members of Flying Solo, Susan from Bookmark Corner, Robyn from The Horse Stall and Jacqui from Mark My Words Trademark Services, who have gone above and beyond. If the generosity shown by these businesses to someone who isn't spending any money with them is this great, I can only imagine the type of service you might receive if you were a client or customer of theirs.

Earlier this year I expanded into making some basic jewellery.  I've now dropped and picked up (or lost forever in some cases), beads and crimps and bits of chain and god knows what else nearly every day for a number of months now.  You'd think finding a bright pink bead on a limewashed colour floor would be relatively simple - think again. They apparently all carry a cloak of invisibility which they throw over themselves on the way to the floor - and they think it's funny, because occasionally I hear them snickering from their little invisible mouths.

Hopefully 2013 will see my skills start to catch up to my ideas, and some fabulous bling will result!

Hopefully 2013 will also my ability to hang on to a bead and not drop it improve too.

During 2012 I managed to work out how to do one thing in PhotoShop (yes, one - not a typo).  I'm reasonably cluey (not brilliant, just reasonably cluey) when it comes to using computers and different programmes.  Except PhotoShop. It's like they've got this great programme and they don't trust us mere mortals with it. What do they think we're going to do with it - run naked down the street shouting "I get PhotoShop!"?  Oh... yes, hmmm I see where they're coming from now.  But it was only that one time, and it was a very short street really.

And so much reading this year.  Sometimes I think if I read another marketing article, or how to improve your SEO or SEM rank I might scream.  (Oooh, look at that - how to make page one of Google by tomorrow morning.  And why are these people spouting this stuff never on page one?).

And the title of this blog relates to the fact I've munched my way through a tonne of pistachios this year. They make a great late night snack (full of vitamin E, anti-oxidants, ... who am I kidding? They're so yummy I can't stop!) to keep up your strength for swearing about Facebook, or good comfort food when the beads snicker behind your back or the freaky lady is watching me.

So that's my year in a pistachio nutshell.  My very best wishes to you all for a happy and safe Christmas season, and hope to see you back here in 2013.

Twisted Links

So I was feeling the creative juices flowing (sort of like dribbling, but far better) when I had this brilliant idea of a beaded bracelet using a twist link chain as the base.  You see lots of ordinary link chains with beads, but I quite like the softness of twist link chain - it's really lovely to wear.

10 out 10 more experienced jewellery artists will be going "oh oh" at this point, and 10 out of 10 of them would be right!

I will now give you a rundown of what turned into a huge and monumental amount of time spent on a beaded bracelet.

It was around 9pm when I started on the selection of beads.  This is almost as good as seeing the finished piece - you get to drag everything out and look at it all for a while in a little trance.  If anyone interrupts you in the midst of this bit, you vaguely wave a hand to go away and mumble things like "creating", "thinking", "nearly got the perfect image in my mind". It works a treat when you want to be left alone - it also (at my house) nearly always guarantees a steady supply of hot coffee appearing without me asking for it!

I'd recently bought some flat oval crystals in a particularly nice shade of purple which, when the pin or thread runs through, gives the appearance of a leaf with a central vein.  As I was dying to use them for something, this seemed like a good time.

So I put away everything non-purple (or that wouldn't really go with purple), stared and muttered some more, drank the next coffee, then had a Eureka! moment (there are only so many coffees you can consume before you get a little high and shout Eureka! slightly louder than intended - just a word of caution).

Add lots of varying shapes and tones for textural interest, and we're off and racing.  Or... we're off and crawling, as it turned out.  This is an hour into the bracelet.

One hour and counting

Yes, that tiny little beaded bit in front of the pliers is after an hour!  At first I thought I was doing something, well, wrong.  I know, it's a bit hard to believe that would happen, so I discarded that idea.  At this stage, I just put it down to not knowing the tricks - it would obviously get quicker and easier now that I knew what I was doing.

Two hours of solid work (with no coffee! - Where is the coffee boy?)

Guess what - it didn't get quicker, it didn't get easier, and I didn't learn any tricks of any value except for one - don't use twist link chain to attach oodles of beads.  Those teeny tiny little spaces between the twists are even teenier and tinier when you're trying, with tired eyes, to insert what seems like a mere wisp of metal ring or pin through them.  

Insert multiple swear words at this stage, because whatever you say I can assure you won't be as awful as what came out of my mouth after 3 hours of really really hard work.

After three hours, new swear words aimed at twist link chain have been invented by moi

To cut what turned into a saga much shorter, it was 2am before the bracelet was finally finished!  Yes, I was silly enough to stay up until it was done, mostly because I couldn't face the thought of getting up the next day and starting on it again.  I was quite worried that if I collapsed into bed before completion then it would sit there, unfinished, forever - particularly as I'm fairly sure that it would have been just as time consuming undoing all the hard work as it had been to do it in the first place.

Dancing naked around the bonfire crying Hallelujah! It's finished!

Once upon a time I had a website review done from a bunch of random people, whereby one of these "learned" people compared the MinzBeadz website with a blog from an unknown artist (fairly sure said artist must have been a friend of his).  In the comparison he felt that Unknown Artist 'showed their DNA' in their blog and "studio" photos, and I could do well to follow that example.  

For the record, Unknown Artist's photos were actually blurry (might have been a bit too much of that messy DNA on the pieces, who knows), and the "studio" looked pretty much like my workbench with a towel on it.  However, I digress... this learned reviewer would be pleased to know that this particular bracelet is now reeking with all the DNA it can handle with my blood, sweat and tears.  And I tried doing a blurry photo or two in an attempt to reach the standard set by Unknown Artist, but unfortunately couldn't manage it.  Sorry everyone, you'll have to be patient and try not to cringe as you view my clear photos with no towel under them. Oh, I just twigged - the towel must have been to wipe up the excess DNA - duh!

So whenever you're tempted to wonder why hand made jewellery can be expensive - think of my bracelet and you'll appreciate that some pieces are way under priced for the amount of work that may have gone into it, - you're actually getting a bargain.

Take a Key Ring... Please!

For the first time in my life I have a new car.  Not just new to me, but brand spanking, 15kms on the clock new.

Along with my new car came some wonderful new car things - new car smell, new car dashboard (with 3000 buttons and dials of which I will probably figure out 3 before the car and I part ways), new car floor (clean!), new car mirrors (no spider webs) and new car key.

As with all new cars, the opening jigger is now a push button (not included in the count of 3000 above) that locks and unlocks.  Another first for me.  Formerly I've just had your everyday old fashioned key.

I'm not sure what your key ring looks like, but mine looks like I have a key to open every lock in the world - and it comes with the weight of the world included.

There are 3 car keys (not including my new opener jigger), 3 front door keys (all for different locks on 2 different houses), 1 back door key, 1 back shed key, 1 garage padlock key, 1 gate key, 1 large farm shed key, 1 post office box key, 3 keys for work (2 door, 1 post office box), and 4 or 5 small keys that I'm too frightened to get rid of because as soon as I do I'll work out what they open.

Ever pick up your handbag and wonder why it's so heavy?  It's the keys!

I thought it would be nice to put just the car opening jigger and the front door key together on one key ring and ditch the others.  Of course I can't actually ditch the others I've realised, just in case I lose something and need one, so I'm still lugging them around - but I don't actually have to heft them in and out of my bag now, which is a definite bonus.

Being a jewellery artiste these days, I decided to make myself a snazzy little beaded key ring.  Kill two birds with one stone sort of thing - have a lightweight easy to find keyring, and show off some merchandise at the same time, hopefully having someone ask where I got the keyring from.  (Note: if someone asks where you got your jewellery from, it pays to be humble and modest about the fact that you've made it yourself.  Screaming "Oh my God - do you love it? I made it myself! How many do you want to buy???" whilst grabbing them by the lapels, is not a great sales strategy).

Blue is my favourite colour, so here's how I went about designing my new beaded keyring.

My beautiful new beaded key ring

1/  Choose colour
2/  Get all beads of that colour out
3/  Get some contrasting beads out
3/  Get more contrasting beads out (just in case the first 15 sorts aren't enough)
4/  Get another work bench set up, because the workspace is now taken over by blue and contrasting beads
5/  Work out a pleasing combination of blue and silver (my contrast colour) beads.  This involves laying out patterns of beads to find the pattern you like the most.  The good thing is there isn't a wrong pattern.  The bad thing is, there isn't a wrong pattern, which would narrow down the choice a little.
6/  Pick beads up off the floor, where they rolled trying to move pattern 3 and pattern 7 around.  Pattern 3 & 7 still perfectly okay.  Patterns 1 & 2, and 4 to 6 now rolling.
7/  Pick beads up off the floor from patterns 3 & 7 (bumped my head on the table picking up the others - all of them now on the floor)
8/  Try and remember the good patterns
9/  Give up, start again on new patterns
10  Find the PERFECT pattern of beads, carefully put others away, shoot fist in the air in a hallelujah moment, pick up beads again after knocking the table.

And that was the easy part!  Now I have to do is join them all together.

And - no disasters.  No funny story to tell about "the joining of the beads".  IT JUST WORKED.  A definite capital letter sentence moment if ever there was one.

The connector pins connected, my lovely pointy nose pliers made beautiful little round loop ends on the connector pins, all of the jump rings opened and closed in time to the music, and the beads all looked great together.

This was fun - not just kinda nice fun, but huge enormous satisfying fun.  So I made some more - purple, pink, blue, red and yellow.  No two keyrings are alike, so there was no boredom factor (not for me making them, and hopefully not for someone looking to buy), and they look great slung together on a rod (important for the look of a market stall).

The growing stash of beaded key rings, key clips & bag clips

My only real problem is that I'm finding it difficult to stop with the key rings.  Having found something that I can do with nothing more disastrous occurring than my standard "pick the beads off the floor 50 times" and a bumped head, I'm reluctant to move on.  I mean, there are endless combinations to make.  All I need to do is find endless people to purchase them and I'll be right.

Either that or every key in my possession, including the I-forget-what-they-open ones, will have it's very own keyring.  However, should you wish to purchase a really whizz bang gorgeous beaded key ring or key clip, just look for the woman pushing a wheelbarrow - I'll be shouting "Cockles and Mussels" as a ruse.  And if you hear of a local Key Rings Anonymous please let me know.

Lucy Lastic

After the traumatic experience of the amnesiac memory wire in my last blog, I thought that maybe I had been a little ambitious about my creative skills, so decided that perhaps beading and bracelet making with elastic might be a better way to go.

Elastic is simple because it's familiar.  Most of us have known it from early in life and love the way it does helpful things like hold our knickers up.  Whilst I'm not silly enough to think a bracelet might be constructed with knicker elastic, elastic is elastic - right?

Hah! So wrong!

You have flat and you have round.  You have different diameters, most of which are less than 1mm.  Obviously these will fit any beads you buy - or not, as it turned out.  Then you have strong and stretchy, stretchy, crystal, elastic thread (what the? Is it elastic or is it thread?), and variations that include more than one of these types.  The list was a little longer than first expected.

Some of these elastics apparently aren't good for some types of beads either.  Imagine, the humble elastic killing a bead!  Still not sure which elastic and which beads, but so far so good - nothing has shattered and I've done some quality control checks on the elastic bracelets I've made.

Quality control involves the bracelet being stretched and stretched and then stretched some more - hoping all the while they don't actually break and take out my eye.  Just in case, I got the 'significant other' to hold the end - he has a sort of bung eye anyway, so he probably wouldn't mind too much if he lost it. Luckily we didn't have to find out how much he minded being called "One Eye", as the elastic didn't even look like it was going to snap.

In the end I opted for 'strong and stretchy'.  Why stop at just plain stretchy was my thinking.  If it was strong, they would say so wouldn't they?  So why would I buy 'not strong and just ordinary old stretchy' for my artistic endeavours?

Ladder standing to thread beads is great for the calf muscles!

Of course they didn't mention just how stretchy the 'strong and stretchy' actually was.  Imagine the gloopy stuff the kid's have that, when they have it in their hands, it starts heading towards your good lounge room carpet in one enormous stretchy slimy string.  That's 'strong and stretchy' with a heavy bead on it.  It's pretty impressive, although having to stand on a ladder to thread the beads on a, by now, 20 metre piece of elastic can get quite tiring on the calf muscles after a while.  But every cloud has a silver lining - my calves are looking really toned.

Once I finally got enough beads to fit the less than 1mm elastic (how was I to know that beads came with teenier holes than that?) I was off in my artistic world designing and creating.  And as luck would have it, I had to go shopping again for more beads (more silver linings!).

Tying off the end was simple - being a scout years ago, I remembered the good old reef knot - never slips once it's been tightened.  It was rather satisfying to not feel like a complete dunce at at least one part of the process.



If I were a judge, then overall I would give my elastic skills a 9 out of 10.  After all, my knickers are still staying up.

My Memory Wire Has Amnesia

After the traumatic experience of losing all except one of my precious jump rings on the floor (which a lovely reader referred to, very aptly, as "the black hole"), I thought I'd try my hand at a memory wire bracelet.

How I imagined my new bracelet would look

Memory wire is so called because it remembers its original shape, and will always revert to that shape.  You can purchase memory wire for rings, bracelets and necklaces, generally in coils but sometimes as a complete piece with a clasp already attached. 

You can imagine, to a novice artist, that this has a lot of appeal - hell, most of it's done and I only have to get a really lovely combination of beads and bits on the wire to end up with a beautiful piece of jewellery.  So I bought my memory wire bracelets (multicoloured wire, just because I could, and it seemed more artistic somehow than plain old grey), and a pleasing variety of beads.

So not only did a memory wire bracelet sound like a relatively simple project, it also seemed like one of the smarter pieces of jewellery that you can buy. Best of all though, I felt like the possibility of it following the jump rings into who-knows-where was fairly remote.

I started off full of enthusiasm.  It didn't last long.

These lovely little bracelets have a connector (trust me when I tell you that connectors will be featuring in a future blog!) that screws one side of the bracelet to the other - obviously so you can get the bracelet on and off without dislocating your thumb.  Suppliers think of everything really.  Under the side of the screw connector, with the hole for the screw, is a crimp bead (fairly self explanatory - it gets crimped onto the end of the wire to prevent everything sliding off when the bracelet is undone), and the other has the screw piece sticking out.  "Screw piece" would be one of those technical jewellery terms I use now I'm an artist.

So I uncrimped the bead (that only took an hour or so - I think Hercules had crimped it) and prepared to thread my gorgeous beads on, in an artistically pleasing way.

Hmmm, forgot to suss out the hole size in the beads versus the diameter of the memory wire - they're both the same.  Rookie mistake, it could happen to anyone!  Luckily enough of the beads had a minutely larger hole and I managed to slide them on (i.e. push, shove, beg and plead until they moved).  As luck would have it, because I completely forgot to set it out and measure it first, the pattern of beads I'd chosen fitted exactly (I can only think that whoever watches over us must have taken pity on me).

As you might imagine, by this stage I was feeling fairly pleased with myself, even if I had sore arm muscles from the pushing and shoving - and the bracelet was looking great too.  Just had to pop the crimp bead and connector end back on and a new bracelet would be looking for a loving new home.

These things should have come with instructions!  No one mentioned that the connector should be on before the crimp bead.  And no, it didn't occur to me to look how the stupid thing went together as I pulled it apart - it was a simple connector with a simple crimp bead.  Why is it called memory wire if it can't remember how it goes together?

By the time I'd managed to pull the whole thing apart again and start over the end of the wire was sort of daggy and needed to be chopped off. And no, it didn't enter my head that if I chopped off a couple of millimetres of daggy end that my lovely pattern of beads wouldn't fit anymore and would be completely lopsided and wrong.

How my new bracelet really looks!

And no, I didn't think about how hard that crimp bead would be to get off a second time, when I put it on anyway, because I thought it wouldn't be noticeable that the pattern was lopsided and wrong.

The positive side to all of this was that I discovered my artistic temperament and invented a new swear word. I tried the new word out on the memory wire, while I was trying to work out what to do, but it didn't seem all that impressed (there's a distinct possibility it had heard it before).  I guess I just chalk it up to experience and start with a new bracelet.

And that's as far as I've made it.  The new bracelet is apparently a smidge thicker and I can't get the beads on it!  Lucky I like shopping - I need to buy new beads.

But as I write this, I can feel the lopsided and wrong bracelet looking at me from the bench - sort of like it remembers something unpleasant and might just get it into its little memory wire head to come alive, find an axe and visit me in the middle of the night.

I'm thinking elastic may be the perfect medium for me next.

Jump Ring Circus

In my newly found artistic bone (located somewhat near the funny bone) I've had to learn what all the little bits and pieces of jewellery making, known as findings, (this much I sussed out quickly...after I looked in a dictionary) are called.  Here's a few of the ones I've come across so far, and what they're used for.

First, we have chain.  Now chain isn't just chain much to my surprise!  It can be twisted, linked, belcher, double linked and so on. (Thank goodness for the dictionary and Google!), which you can buy in lengths such as a metre, or already prettied up into a necklace or bracelet length complete with the doing up bit known as a clasp.  Oh, in case you're wondering, the belcher chain doesn't actually burp the national anthem, I listened.

You can also purchase various types and hardnesses of metal with which to make your own chain, however being in the affordable category of jewellery, I've given that one a miss.  I'm also getting on in years and believe I might not finish constructing a single necklace chain from scratch before I move on to the great jewellery store in the sky.

Clasps seem to have an infinite variety of styles - toggles, lobsters, parrots (which I think might be the same as a lobster, but that could be entirely wrong so don't quote me in case the parrots or lobsters get miffed and attack me), magnetic, screw and so on and so on and so on.

Then you have connectors.  This one I worked out all by myself - they connect things (oh, go me!).  But that's the end of the simple bit, there are oodles of types of connectors as well.  I think it would be safe to say that if you imagined something you wanted to connect one bit of jewellery to another, there would already be a connector made exactly that way.

And then there are jump rings.

Jump rings are those tiny little circles of metal joining beads and charms, connectors and clasps, onto things.  They come open or closed which is exactly as it sounds - open ones have a break in the ring, closed ones don't, and they come in all different sizes.

I bought 3mm open jump rings (not knowing any better at the time and having to start somewhere).  3mm looks quite largish on the ruler, but the reality is that 3mm is TINY!  And jump rings, well,  jump!

Me on a good jump ring day

An open jump ring needs to be held between two pairs of pliers and twisted sideways to open them far enough to slip the whatever into the opening, then moved sideways back until it's closed neatly again.  Certainly sounds simple.  Until you put two pairs of plier ends onto a 3mm wide piece of metal that's about a poomteenth of a millimetre thick.  Then trust me you need to be an octopus, and a particularly dextrous octopus at that, to open, hold, slip something on and close again smoothly.

Here's a riddle for you.  If you have two hands (which I do) and each is holding a pair of pliers (which they are) which are in turn holding a 3mm jump ring, where is the spare hand that slips the pieces over the jump ring?

Not being an octopus, I've had to resort to other measures.  I've found that teeth don't work to hold any of this stuff, and neither does the man of the house who has sausage fingers (now that was a mistake - live and learn!). Throwing the piece in the air and hoping it lands in the right spot over the jump ring didn't work all that well either.

In the meantime, the second your attention wavers on the pliers in one of your hands the damn jump ring thinks it's the main event in a circus and jumps right out of them.  And bounces...and bounces...and bounces around the room.  Being only 3mm wide and a poomteenth thick they are nearly impossible to find if you don't locate them by sound before the bouncing ceases.  (If anyone knows an out of work lion tamer with chair and whip, please get in touch - I have a job for them).

As I wasn't fast enough for sound location, I tried various measures to recover the escapees.  Firstly, the 'find the lego block in the middle of the night' method i.e walk around in bare feet and you're sure to stand on one.  Didn't work.

Then I tried the 'crawl around on your hands and knees peering myopically at the dark corners' method.  I got sore knees and squinty eyes, but didn't find any jump rings.

Then I even resorted to sweeping the floor.  Hallelujah!  Found one.  Yes - one. 

So the jewellery making's on hold for a bit while I bring in the search and rescue dogs to find the remaining 299 jump rings that have to be on the floor somewhere.  Unfortunately for you all, hearing about my dexterity in making a little loop in the end of a connector pin is going to have to wait.  Sorry, but learning to live with a little disappointment every now and then is a good character building exercise.

Creative Is My Middle Name

After you look at jewellery long enough, you get bitten by the creative bug. A little of the old "I can do that - but way better" strikes you. Believe it or not, it's actually a bit more difficult than you'd first think.

Charm bracelet - pretty, but not technically challenging

First, you have to figure out what you're going to make - necklace, brooch or bracelet? I'm not including the charm bracelets I currently make in the artistic category - it's not that technically difficult to thread beads on a bracelet (I know, shocking to learn isn't it?), even though some days the beads are little escape artists. The creative part is making the whole bracelet look pretty and not like a bunch of beads bunged on any old how.  I'm fairly good at that part, but it rates close to a zero in the technical challenge department.

So, what do us artists do when we want to create our art? We go shopping! An artist must have pretty much any type of material to hand, in order to design and create said artwork - in this case, hand made jewellery. Once all the materials are in the "studio", then it stands to reason that the artistic juices flow and beautiful jewellery is the result.

The shopping part (which I flew off to do quickly) was completely daunting. Do you know how much jewellery stuff is out there? Three hours later I came home with the most pathetic little bag of goodies imaginable and then had to put it out of sight because I was so traumatised by the whole experience.

I found this very similar to shopping for fabric - I'm female therefore I must know about fabric, right?  Wrong - I don't sew, I know nothing about fabric, and find all the women making a beeline for the exact thing they're after quite scary.  How do they know what to get? And an even bigger question - how do they know what to do with it all, once they have it? Were they born with a fabric gene, whilst I got the tree climbing one?

And so it was with me and jewellery bits and pieces...er, jewellery findings. I do apologise for using technical terms, but us artists struggle with speaking the language of the ordinary mortal world.

Eventually, after about a month (I did mention I was traumatised didn't I?), I sneaked a peek in the bag of beads and findings.  Yep, they were still there.  Just checking.

The very first item of jewellery I created

Not too many days later, I just bit the bullet, tipped the whole lot across the work bench in my studio (i.e. kitchen table) and took a good look at what I'd carefully selected.  Wow, grabbed a few really nice things in my panic. And so, feeling inspired, I set to work. 

Half an hour later I had created my first piece and I WAS STRUTTING! Doing the finger point happy dance around the kitchen for my admiring fans.  Strut strut, finger point, "who's gooood!", strut strut, "oh yeah, artist at work babeeee", finger point finger point...

My fans were just so adoring that it was truly humbling. The dust bunnies came out for a closer look, and the fly on the window sill (that I really thought was, well...dead) waved a leg at me. Swear to god, it waved it's little leg and saluted me in admiration before it waved no more.


Now there's no stopping me. Creative is my middle name, and truly - an artist is born.

P.S. If anyone has an almost dead fly they don't need anymore, could you please let me know - my audience is a little thin this week.

And the Winner Is...The Duck

Well, it's been quite some time between blogs. What with one thing and another - winding up the first MinzBeadz end of financial year, still trying to master Facebook, going to markets, re-jigging the website, and generally running around like a lunatic with no time to scratch -  let's just say I've been busy!

So what have a learned during my first year (or part thereof) in business for myself, you might ask? (And even if you didn't - bad luck, because I'm going to share some of my fascinating insights).

Like me back or else!

• I've learned that Facebook is neither a book nor do you see people face to face. And just today I learned that there are some really peculiar people (and I use the term 'people' loosely) who want you to like their page - apparently an extremely clever dog has now liked mine and wants a return like. Dream on dog, dream on.  

• I've learned - a little anyway - how to talk about my business without feeling like I'm that excruciatingly boring person that everyone avoids at all costs. I count myself lucky that most people don't feel that way, or are way more polite than I give them credit for and don't show it. (Thank you to those polite and well brought up people).                                                                 
• I've gained a better understanding of what my "unique selling point" is, and might become, in having found a little niche area for MinzBeadz - sourcing jewellery for people, which has enabled me to help, and get to know a little, some really lovely people in the past months.

• I've learned that getting people to take 30 seconds to look at your website can be likened to  pushing the proverbial "stuff" uphill - and I can't think of any reason other than laziness! (Oh, just thought of one - they might be the polite people who I've bored, so I take back the lazy comment for those people).

Freebie 0 VS Duck 95

• I've learned that, despite the number of articles I've read on what makes a Facebook page engaging, following the formula can work really well one day and not at all the next!  And that it can be excruciatingly difficult some days to even give away something for nothing, to the point you think you're the only person left in the world (or the world of Facebook, which some may think is the whole world, but us older and wiser folk know there's more out there), and 3 seconds later 95 people hit the like button for a photo of a duck. Isn't it great that we're not alone and the duck likers are still watching us... I really feel comforted knowing that.

A lot of what I've learned in the last few months relates to people - myself and others - and how they behave.  Of course I always behave wonderfully, but there's some really, um... (trying to think of a word that isn't a swear word), um....well shit, there's some real bitches out there!  And we won't dwell on them because in the end, karma will take care of them. It always does.

Another really important thing I've learned is that Zen Cart (the shopping cart software on my website) does not induce a zen like state and would be more aptly named Wonky Wheel.  Wonky Wheel was written by someone cleverish, and then tested by someone cleverish, then they patted themselves on their mutual cleverish backs and gave it out to innocent bystanders for free. Just to laugh their cleverish laughs at our attempts to understand what they mean with their software.

It is impossible to believe that they gave Wonky Wheel to the average person, asked them to use their help file, then paid attention to any feedback. 

Yesterday I discovered that there does not appear to be a way to have a screaming red sign jump out at you if you haven't chosen a shipping option! I mean really...are you joking??  The default "choose your shipping area" option, which I can't seem to shift from being the default, just bypasses charging any postage costs if you don't go in and select your country. What's with that?

Consequently, we now have one very happy customer who was charged no postage, and international customers will have to email and request a postage fee and be invoiced separately. So much for fully automated and saving me time and energy.  So if anyone is a Wonky Wheel expert, it would be wonderful to hear if it's actually possible to have a loud red sign that waves a flag, saying something along the lines of 'YOU HAVEN'T CHOSEN A SHIPPING METHOD YOU DODO, WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT ENTIRE PAGE WAS ABOUT".

And having just passed the end of the financial year, I've remembered how horrible finalising all the accounts is. Stupidly enough, I'm struggling more with the formula for my stock spreadsheet for the new year. Every night, right before I slip into sleep, I have the formula worked out, then in the morning it's totally vanished and I sit staring stupidly at an Excel page. What's worse is that I know it's just a simple formula. I'm taking the position that once the books are finalised and I have time to stop running around like the aforementioned itchy lunatic, that it will just come to me in daylight.

I know, I live in dreamland...but it's my dreamland and I like it here. The natives are friendly and I'm the Queen. 

Stolen: Floor - REWARD offered for information

Attention everyone, my office floor has been stolen!  It was last seen 2 weeks ago under my desk, filing cabinet and feet.  A reward is being offered for information as to its whereabouts.

Let me take you back to the last time I saw my floor, and the circumstances leading to its disappearance.

*Six months to two weeks ago:

Starting and growing a service based business is somewhat different in space requirements to that of a product based business.

You need a desk, a computer and printer, and a file cabinet (until the business grows and woo hoo a second one is required). Then the stuff that goes on the desk - noddy head toy, stress balls, large doodle pad (lots of doodling time in the early days) - and of course pens in all the colours of the rainbow (if one is going to doodle, then one's doodles should be attractive) along with paper clips (for chain making) and so on.

A paperclip chain is a must have in any decent office environment

You might also require a car - however I don't park mine in my office so I'm not including that.

When you have products to sell, you need all of the above - and then you need the storage space for for your lovely products.  Day one of the whole new life is easy - there's no stock at that point, so the office (which like many home based businesses starts on the kitchen table) is quite spacious.  You look around at your new work environment, nod a little in time to the noddy toy whilst thinking "damn fine office...and so neat - and hey, I've got a floor".

By the time 6 months has rolled around it's a whole different story.  You can no longer work from the table because the rest of the inconsiderate people in the house actually want to eat their meals there without balancing plates and cups on piles of beads.  I think it makes meal times a little bit more fun playing 'catch the crockery' as it rolls along.  Apparently though, I am the only one who has a sense of humour here.

And so us home based people are banished to the back bedroom.

But in the meantime, while we were having fun at the dinner table/office, the gremlins have been destroying our workspace. Where's all my space gone?  And while we're looking for things, where the hell's my desk?  Who dumped all that stuff on it?  If I only had a dog these days I could turn around and glare at him or her in an accusing fashion.  But I haven't, so I had to glare at the Other Half instead (it was almost as good, except I don't remember my dog ever talking back like that...).

Clearly a storage system was required for all the different types of beads and charms, then a separate area for the made up jewellery.  So far so good.  Then I packed everything to go to a market - still following a sort of system, still good.  Then when the market finished the people who were running it wanted to get to the pub for lunch, and literally threw everyone and their goodies out of the door to lock up.  Not good at all, and my system started to get a few cracks around the edges.

Meanwhile, MinzBeadz was growing slowly but surely, and the amount of stock, logically, was increasing too.  So more storage, more sorting, more stacking, more labeling - ahh, nicely under control again.

And then The Son came home.

*Present day

So, his former bedroom, which housed the mess of my Other Half (his is mess, mine is work - let's make that clear), had to be relocated in MY office!  Crowded you ask? Apparently only on my side of the room (I have to take his word for it as I can't actually see over the top of the piles of his mess).  Periodically a paper plane flies across to me with a note that tells me how he's stretched out and comfortable over there and doesn't understand how I can be so disorganised.

My other half also puts earphones in and listens to his really bad music.  At first glance this is a considerate thing to do, however random extremely loud taps of the workboots (presumably to the music), coupled with earphone deafness shouts, of a word here and a word there, do not make for a great experience.  More like losing a few years off your life with fright every time one or the other occurs.

And the son seems quite comfortable in his old room, which magically has more space than when he lived in caveman fashion there before (primarily because we had the bulldozer through after he moved out).

NB: To be fair to said son, the move home is a temporary after an operation whilst needing some TLC, so not entirely his fault.  Alright - not his fault at all (why must you be so pendantic?).  I just don't see why he can't play at being the princess and the pea and have a few beads under the mattress - didn't he sleep enough during his operation?  And from ages 13 to 18?

Anyhow, back to the story - in order to actually do some work in the day, access to the computer and desk is required. So I did a major tidy up (no mean feat given the three square centimetres I now have to move around in).  I also thought that perhaps I might like to join a circus - I seem to have accomplished a fairly impressive balancing act of things on top of things... on top of things.

The good news is, I found my desk, diary, computer and pretty coloured pens and paper clip chain (I was a tad worried about the chain, it took quite some time to get it to that length).  But the bad news - when I stopped being impressed by finding my desk I discovered that my floor was missing.

Theft is the only logical answer and, to whoever took it, I'd like it back NOW please.

Misfits and Marvels at the Markets

Many of us with small businesses that have a product to sell have begun our new lives at local markets.  If you've been a stall holder you may recognise some of the people I've come across.  If you're a market goer, you may recognise yourself!

Ms Upherself

Ms Upherself is fond of telling you from 3 metres away, on her approach, how she can only wear sterling silver, because anything else touching her delicate skin will turn it black - or the jewellery black - I never really figured out which.

If you point out glass beads with a sterling silver core in them, she will launch into her story again..and again...and again.  Ms Upherself has decided before she's even looked at any jewellery that none of it will be sterling silver enough for her.  Obviously she is a woman of extremely refined tastes, which is why she moves on to the second hand clothes stall - probably to let them know she can't wear anything except Dior.

Ms Repetetive

Ms Repetetive asks the question "how much?" of each and every bead and charm on the table.  By the 100th ask, you could cheerfully stuff a handful down her throat.  Here's my advice (just in case you are Ms Repetetive):
1/ listen to the answer the first time
2/ the big sign with the prices on it that's about to bite you on the nose may help
3/ if all else fails, see clue #1 or clue #2

There appears to be no way to move Ms Repetetive along to the next stall, unless every item has had a price check (although I admit to not having tried a fork lift).  Occasionally though, Ms Repetetive actually finds a price she likes (even though it's the same as the previous 50 she's asked about) and will buy something.  If not, you can have a little satisfaction in half and hour or so - when she moves to the next stall holder who's been snickering at your plight. (Who's snickering now eh?)

                                                   



Ms Tactile

Ms Tactile was clearly not told by her mother to "look with your eyes" when she was a child.  As a consequence, touching and rubbing a single bead will not suffice - all of them must go through the process.  Ms Touch and Rub never ever buys anything, however I have found she is useful if you put a polishing cloth in her hands.

Ms Feralmum

Ms Feralmum is the one with the totally feral child (and occasionally *shudder* more than one) who is obviously the case "for" when the debate about compulsory sterilisation comes up.  In her eyes, her child is an angel, and obviously we stall holders have the problem when we gently ask said angel to move their dripping ice cream or greasy sausage sauce away from our goods, where a pool of sticky goo is forming over them.  The resultant glare from Ms Feralmum is enough to wither the hardiest soul.

Ms Feralmum can be stopped with a simple "You'll be taking that then? That will be x dollars", whereby she will hastily usher the mini feral/s away - to the snickering stall holder next to you.

                                               

Ms Text

Ms Text is a mystery to me. She is the one walking through the market constantly texting on her phone - doesn't look right, doesn't look left, doesn't look up.  People move out of her way as she enters at one end and exits at the other.  I am a little in awe of her power to move people like that - it would have been handy when the kids were teenagers and I wanted them to clean their rooms.  All I can think is that her mum and dad made her come when she really wanted to stay home on the couch and text. Consequently, I have some sympathy for her - who wants to be dragged along to the market where you might be seen with The Parents.  All her other 30 year old friends might make fun of her.

Miss Cute

Miss Cute is adorable. Each bead receives its own little exclamation of "Ohh, so cute" as she moves along.  The ego boost of hearing this over all your jewellery is enough to make me want to hire her for low ego days.

Master Lookacrocodile

Hard to believe amongst all the bling on the stall that Master Lookacrocodile can zero in on one bead so quickly. I'll let you figure out which one.

                                                 



Ms Happy

Ms Happy is a complete joy to talk to, often buys my jewellery, loves to look without touching everything, and is having fun just being out at the market.  She also remembers me from the last market - and what we were talking about!





I'm considering having another side business - making badges - to be handed out at the market entrance after the completion of quick paperless, wordless survey (just put a table full of anything at the entrance, you'll know immediately which category the person falls into).  Another one of my brilliant business ideas, if I do say so myself.

Ms Upherself would obviously get a silver badge (.925 stamped sterling of course), Ms Repetetive could have one that said PTO (on both sides), Ms Tactile's would be etched, Ms Feralmum's would have a spray on grease coating that gets stickier as the day goes on, Ms Text's could be something like "wtf", the young and enthusiastic children get gold stars, and Ms Happy gets a smiley face.

The other stall holders would, I'm sure, welcome an innovative business like this, as it would only enhance their selling experiences at that market.  Think of the advantages of being able to say to the next stall holder 'be back in 5 minutes, can you watch my stall? got to go to the loo" and beat a hasty exit as Ms Repetetive approached.  You'd just have to be careful and watch the approach from both sides - you wouldn't want to be stuck watching someone else's stall for the same reason!

But between MinzBeadz and my fledgling business of knitting websites, I really don't have the time. And besides, Ms Tactile might not get past the my stall at the gate and, well, I don't really want to clean my own beads.

Don't You Love Our New Yak?

Step 3 of my master plan was word of mouth marketing.

Talking about yourself, being passionate about your new business, raving in glowing terms about your jewellery - easy as pie. Having everyone you come across jump on the bandwagon and then watch the sales 'ka-ching ka-ching' through the cash register - logically that follows.

However, tooting your own horn can be difficult - what if the audience likes the cello?

At my "day job" (that I was still working 5 days a week at while MinzBeadz was in the initial stages) it was easy to talk it up.  Our customer service record was terrific, the value to someone's business was indisputable, and we cared about what we were doing and did it well. Consequently, we had a lot of "word of mouth" referrals.

Talking about yourself, promoting yourself, is a whole other ball game. (Okay, I'll stop with the cliches now).

There's nothing "wrong" in having a jewellery business. It doesn't hurt people, it's not offensive - in fact most of the time it's quite a lot of fun.  MinzBeadz all started as an affordable alternative to those who wanted a bead and charm bracelet (me) but couldn't afford a big name one like Pandora - so it's not even expensive fun.

So what was wrong with me that I couldn't talk about my business in a glowing light?  Whilst it has become easier with time, but there are still moments when I feel like "shut your mouth already, nobody is interested". Which is quite ridiculous, as anyone with any common sense can tell when someone isn't actually interested in a conversation.

(NB: For those who have no common sense, this would be when a person's eyeballs roll back into their head and you think they may be possessed by the devil. It's more likely to be boredom with the conversation. They haven't left because you're standing on their foot, which happened when you stood 3cm away in your enthusiasm to spit in their face whilst you talked.)

People who have embarked on a new adventure, be it a business or buying a new yak, are engaging  people - they have new yak passion and talk about their yak excitedly.  And one thing about enthusiastic people, whether their new yak is your idea of adventure or not, their enthusiasm is contagious.  You walk away feeling better for having spoken to such happy yak people and your whole day is brighter for it.

Mind you, when you've had to kiss the new yak and goo and ga at it like a baby, well ...I'm working on getting my timing right to walk away first.  (I've been busy watching in case I got hit by a rolling eyeball).

Cootchie cootchie coo

So why is it so difficult to translate that to me being the one who is enthusiastic, and someone else feeling better for having spoken to me?  Well, here's the short answer - I have no idea.  Which of course has set off an entire train of thought along the lines of, am I really so insecure?  (Refer to my last blog where I need the affirmation of faceless people on Facebook to like me!).  Conclusion:  apparently I am.

What I have worked out though, is that I don't actually need to talk about my business - it's fairly apparent what that is anyway, except if you're already doing an eyeball rolling devil impersonation. If you're at that stage before I even say hi, then really, why did you leave the house today?

I just have to be my naturally charming self (it's true, I am. I'm also modest, which is a very becoming quality...) and simply talk to people.  It's the pleasure of the conversation that is remembered afterwards, not whether or not is was a description of my business in 9725 words or less.

So has word of mouth marketing worked? Who knows. But I have met some particularly nice yaks in the process.

Where's a Teenager When You Need One?

You might recall from my previous post that my brilliant marketing plan was now in progress, with stage 2 about to take place.

Step 2 - Facebook.  There are so many words I could use to describe my descent into insanity (commonly called creating a Facebook account), however this is a clean blog and words that aren't really rude completely escape me at the moment.

It may surprise you to learn that prior to starting a business I had never had a Facebook account, and  I thought I might just end up being the last person on the planet not to have one.  I've mentioned that so you can appreciated what a monumental moment this actually was! At the least, it deserves either a drum roll or a fanfare of trumpets.

In a technical, how-the-hell-does-this-work sense, Facebook has been by far the biggest challenge. The help file is like most help files - of no use whatsoever if you are clueless (frightening that someone who can knit a website can be completely clueless when it comes to sharing, tagging, poking, shouting, and any other "ing" you can think of).

And what's with the extremely annoying survey question at the end of each paragraph in the help file "Was this helpful" and "Why not?" - hey, too confusing Facebook people, way too confusing.  Really, how many times do I need to answer you before you get the message!

And why do they call it "social" media?  We all sit by ourselves on a computer, or with a mobile phone in our hands typing or texting to a machine - I may be wrong (hard to believe, but it has happened once before) but doesn't that make it anti-social media?

And why do all these different 'things' insist on having their own private terminology? What's wrong with the language we already have (in my case that's English)? To be honest, every time I think I have a handle on something to do with Facebook, it seems to be the very thing that they change the next day. I've spent hours trying to find something again, only to discover quite by accident that they've moved or changed the damn thing.

So many questions, and so very few answers (check the box that says too confusing again).

So, you may recall the plan was to convert my thousands of, as yet unknown, Facebook fans into online buyers.  Here's the bit I didn't plan - it's actually sort of difficult to know how to get people to like you when no one knows who you are.  Also difficult for them to tell their friends how fantastic MinzBeadz might be too - as no fans equals no friends of fans.  I realise now how ridiculous that sounds, but colour me social media ignorant (which is an attractive shade of blush), it truly didn't occur to me.

I'll give you an example of how daft Facebook has sent me - I actually wished for one of my children to be 14 years old again! OMG - see??? But if they were, they would wake up just knowing how it all worked and I could get them to explain it in easy to understand "talk to the silly mum" language and, abracadabra, I would know it too.

For those who don't yet have a teenager, "talk to the silly mum" means in words of one syllable or less - less being a sort of grunting noise which can be deciphered depending on the facial expression accompanying the grunt i.e eyebrows raised, the grunt is a question, usually something like "Can I have a lift or money?". If the eyebrows frown into a point above the nose, then the grunt means either "Don't talk to me in public, my friends think I was grown in a test tube" or "What do you mean you won't get me those thousand dollar plastic shoes that everyone else is wearing and will think I'm a complete no-hoper for not having, and looking just like them. You're stifling my individuality!".

And while we're on the subject, how do teenagers just know all this stuff as it comes along?  None of them seem to actually learn it and pass the knowledge along to others, it's more like they breathe technology air (see, I thought it was stale socks and held my breath) and it's just there - part of their DNA.

The aroma of technology...or is it socks?

However, despite many sniffs (just in case some technology air lingered in our home long after my teenagers have departed) I've had to learn it the old fashioned way - yup, had to read things.  And no, I don't have thousands of fans - at the time of writing this, I have less than 100, but they are (nearly) all people who wish to engage with MinzBeadz in some manner, so my less than 100 terrific followers trump those pages with 2000 "likes" that were bought through some dodgy "get liked quick" scheme.

Part of the learning has been to figure out what makes a page engaging. To that end, I have skimmed through thousands of pages belonging to others to see what makes a page enjoyable (somewhere along the way, I did figure out that it's the percentage of people 'talking about' you that determines engagement, not the number of likes).  I am steadily trying to apply these same principals of engagement and enjoyment for MinzBeadz. Hopefully I succeed on some occasions, and people will be patient until the enjoyment factor outweighs the boredom factor on my page.

The good thing about all the skimming and reading was that I found lots to linger over and enjoy - none of which I would ever have known about without Facebook (and that's the only "thumbs up" they will get from me!).

Something I found very difficult to start with, was to randomly like a page and wonder if someone would like me back!  Who would have thought an unknown entity would have so much power over whether I feel accepted or rejected?  Luckily those feelings have passed. Now it's lovely if someone likes MinzBeadz back, but because I'm genuine about who I've liked in the first place, I'm already enjoying their posts and not particularly caring about whether they return the love or not.

That's just a blatant lie - underneath it all, I still care - please...like me.

So, has Facebook been successful as a marketing venture?  Yes, a number of people who came across MinzBeadz on Facebook have gone on to become customers, and hopefully as I become more engaging with my content that number will grow.

Step 2 - complete but ongoing (if that makes sense).  Now to word of mouth conversions...but that's a story for next time.

To Market to Market

So now MinzBeadz was ready to be seen by the whole world and my marketing plan went into action.  On paper, the initial stages went:

• take a stall at various markets, sell my beads and charms, promote my website, convert market customers to online customers
• get a Facebook account, promote my beads and charms, convert Facebook fans to online customers
• word of mouth, talk about my beads and charms, convert people I talk with to online customers

Are you seeing a common theme here? Yes, not much point having a spanking new website that many hours (and dollars) have been spent on if you have no online customers. Besides which, whilst I love meeting and talking to people at markets, I don't particularly wish to get out of bed at 5am for the rest of my life.

Ask anyone who knows me - I'm not a morning person. I will even argue that 5 o'clock is still the middle of the night and not technically morning at all, particularly in winter when it's dark (and cold). Dark and cold = night in my book.  The first market organisers that absolutely forbid any stall holders to enter & set up a stall prior to 8am will have a fan in me for life!

My very first market stall as MinzBeadz

Step 1 - to market to market.  My very first market adventure with MinzBeadz was in Yarram, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. And it went really well.  Oh, damn modesty!  It went freaking brilliantly!  From 8:30 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon I sold beads, charms and bracelets and talked myself hoarse to the lovely people of Yarram. Yarram appeared to love MinzBeadz (either that or they were faking it quite well!), and the feeling was mutual. 

Country people are lovely.  They enjoy a good chat and they're down to earth .  Going to the market once a month is an occasion to look forward to, and everyone seemed excited to have a new stall at their market and wanted to know if I would be there every month (really, what a boost for the self esteem!).

Luckily for me, despite the fact I am no longer a newbie, the locals still roll up on the first Sunday of each month - sometimes to buy and chat, and sometimes just to chat. And it's still excellent fun, despite the 5am start! Yarram is a big area for tourists from early November until Easter, so the local markets can be quite busy places.  Funnily enough, I've met people who live around the corner from me, who I would never have met without Yarram market.

Obviously, since this first big step into the real world, MinzBeadz has made appearances at other markets around the state (with varying degrees of success), but I still have a soft spot for Yarram.

I'm an avid people watcher, and observing others promoting themselves and their goods at markets has been interesting, to say the least.  One whole section of business owners seem to struggle with the truth.  Their motto must be "tell anyone anything as long as they buy the stuff".  And some of what they tell them - wow!  Pinocchio's nose is growing at a rapid pace, and there are a lot of pants on fire.

On one occasion, the stall next to me (not one of "us" regulars - a blow in, in fact) was selling a very similar style of jewellery to MinzBeadz.  The potential customer asked me if a particular item was sterling silver (no). Disappointed, she moved along, asked the same question at the next stall and was told yes (it most definitely wasn't).  She bought something for $25 on an outright lie, and I got a smirk from the stall holder.

Well, I'm nothing if not a quick study - the next person who asked me that (same day), got told no with an explanation of what others (without naming any names) might try to tell you, and what the actual truth is.  Funnily enough they didn't spend the outrageous amount at the next stall. 

And I know what you're thinking - I'm a bigger person than that.  I did not smirk.  Well...not until I got home.  I might be a bigger person in public, but I'm only a small minded human in the privacy of my own home, so it seems.  Having my own business has shown me personality traits I didn't realise I had - private smirking being one of them.

Having a stall at various markets had advantages other than bringing in some much needed income.  It also enabled me to learn who my demographic was, and learn what my potential customers were looking for.

Here's what I discovered about my demographic - females (and lots of males) between the ages of 2 and 90 like beads and charms.  The least interested are teenagers around the ages of 15 and 16.  My potential customers seemed to either:

•  like what I have 
• want sterling silver or solid gold beads and charms
• not even look (in which case you can't find out what they're after).

 Here's how I handled the above:

• expanded the range to include some funky necklaces that teenagers might like (and lots of adults and children).  Degree of success - excellent!
• tell potential buyers of sterling silver and gold charms that I would be happy to get in anything particular for them, but of course the price would be much steeper.  Seems that this breed of buyer are happy for me to put my money on the line to buy things they might like, but not happy to commit to any type of purchase.  They particularly don't want to pay a reasonable price for said items either. They want "the real deal" for the same price as the affordable version!  Degree of success - nil. 
• to drag in the non-lookers and make them look I purchased a large butterfly net and snagged them as they tried to bypass my stall.  They then had to beg for release, which I wouldn't grant until they had oohed and aahed over at least 10 items and purchased one.  Degree of success - 100%

Come back you Non-Looker! You will look & you will buy!

However, when all was said and done, the original plan of converting market buyers into online purchasers has not succeeded. Yep, zero, nada, no one.  The conclusion I've finally reached, is that people who buy from markets and people who buy online are two different groups of people.  And so these days, whilst info about the online store, business cards and so on are available at markets, I save myself a lot of aggravation by not worrying about whether John Q Public even looks.

Given the lack of conversion going on with market customers, I'd better get cracking on Facebook.  But that's a story for next time...

Knitting a Website

Wouldn't it be great if you could knit a website? There'd be so many advantages - just pick the pattern you want "I'll have the jewellery store one please", select your wool "Hmmm, I think the rainbow with silver streaks would look nice", then go home and relax in your favourite chair and knit while you watch tv.

Of course the techie geek people have made it too difficult to follow their pattern, even though they make out it's quite simple. And it is - if you only have a single product to upload, with a single description and a single photo. And you already know the best way to photograph your one and only product, use imaging software and describe your fabulous product in such an emotive way that people can't resist purchasing it.

Then there is the tiny matter of understanding how the website and shopping cart work together, where everything is kept in each - and actually finding these things, in the construction end of your website, for a second (and third) time. A complicated fair isle is much easier.

You may have guessed by now that MinzBeadz was not actually knitted or constructed overnight. In fact it took a whole lot of overnights to get it to the point it could safely show it's pretty little face in public.

Figuring out how to insert products into my new website was relatively simple, but I have to admit that I've never really gotten the hang of Photoshop and prefer an old freeware program called PhotoFiltre - it's sort of like Photoshop for complete and utter dummies (as opposed to your regular dummies). Which means fewer bells and whistles and more of your basic 'must have' items, like the little lasso thing that cuts around your image.

Somewhere around 2am on a night where I was going cross eyed and thought I was never going to finish getting everything ready, I did question the wisdom of starting a business with multiple teensy tiny products, said a small thank you to whoever invented the digital camera, and cursed whoever invented imaging software. The cutting out part (which I'm sure some lovely photographer type people will have a proper technical term for) is really really (and one more just to emphasise it) really time consuming. It was at this point that the brilliant idea of knitting my website occurred.

Knitting a website is quite easy

There are a lot of pros to doing this:

• I enjoy knitting
• Intricate patterns are easy with needles and wool, limited only by my imagination instead of handicapped by my lack of knowledge
• There are only two stitches to learn and remember, rather than three and a half million things, most of which I don't know the terminology for
• The wool industry in Australia would sing my praises

 Just imagine it, I could be the first non-designer person to be completely relaxed doing my own website.

Even after all the practice I've now had, achieving a pure white background in a photo has defeated me. No matter what type of lighting (front, back, sideways, and sticking my tongue out left then right whilst hopping on one foot) the background always ends up greyish. Like Grandpa's old white underwear that's been washed too many times without a good bleach.

Exactly, totally unattractive. Unattractive Grandpa underwear background thus equals cutting out of images with the miniature lasso.

At this point I was thinking how I might convert my new jewellery business to being a service business with no products at all (i.e. a website knitting business). In my sleep deprived state it seemed quite possible, however with each new day the fantastic and inventive ideas of how to do this taunted me, just out of reach of my almost conscious brain. Most frustrating.

Given that I had rather a lot of products at this point, I finally gave up trying to retrieve the ideas, tucked away behind what was needed at the supermarket, and how to whiten grey underwear, and stick to selling the jewels.

Welcome to my nightmare

And besides, I was beginning to have disturbing dreams of strange little baby lassos cutting out every dream image... chasing me... chasing me.... 

Needless to say (have you noticed how people say "needless to say" right before they say the very thing that is needless?), eventually the virtual shelves filled in my store, I was happy with the descriptions of each item and I could at least, at this point, tell a potential customer that of course I had a website. (Duh, just knitted one didn't I?)

Except that my terms and conditions, my return policy, my shipping policy, my information telling all about "us", and hey, Welcome You Managed to Find My Website! needed to be tweaked. So tweak I did, and twiddled and I think I may have twitched a bit too, if the truth be told. And now I could, at long last, begin my marketing campaign in earnest.

As to how the marketing plan has gone in real life, well... that's a story for next time.

No Hidden Costs - Arghhh

Many of you will have had a momentary shiver of apprehension at the title of this post, and some of you will run and hide. Personally, I get a little shaky when I see those words and feel like going as far away as possible, as fast as possible.

Whilst all the prelim stuff ("stuff" being a technical term for legal things) was being organised, I was doing research into building my own website (i.e. playing at being a web designer), who I might get to host it, and all the things that seemed to go along with that.

There are a lot of places where you can have fun building a website for free, so the 'research' was taking a while. What I discovered during that time was, when you see the words "no hidden costs", step away from your computer. Trust me, they're there. I saw this phrase so often that I began to look for it, just so I could begin the hunt for the 'no hidden costs'! Hmm, I might have spent more time on that than I possibly needed to, now that I think about it. But it seemed like a bit of a game at the time - "come out come out wherever you are".

Finally I came across a large, well known hosting company who, despite telling me they had no hidden costs, actually didn't seem to have any. I thought I must have missed them - so I looked again (not much of a fun game this time. I nearly went blind reading the terms and conditions twice, and dying of boredom seemed a distinct possibility).

All looks good - I can load my own website, register my domain name and it will be all systems go. So there I am, filling in yet another round of details (except this time I get to include my wonderful name where required). Excellent - two domain names now registered.

New form, select the hosting package I want - next screen, fill in payment details - next screen. Great, I'm at the confirm payment screen, and this has been sooo easy.


Hang on! What the hell's that? It looks like No Hidden Costs - on the last page, in tiny weeny font at the bottom, and not next to the confirm button where my eyes are naturally looking. Technically, I suppose it's not actually hidden, but...  

To say I wasn't thrilled with this would be an understatement. (I believe a rude word or two may have passed my lips!). To have a website hosted can be quite economical, until you want a shopping cart included - and then it just isn't. Every piece of information on this site up to this point had said that a shopping cart was included in the price. This final, last moment, sneaky sentence altered the hosting from "shopping cart included" and mere pocket money, to "shopping cart not included" get a second mortgage.

I have wondered since how many people got a very nasty surprise on their next credit card statement because they didn't actually see this "completely out in the open, totally transparent" No Hidden Cost.

So, back to the drawing board in the search for someone to play host to my fantastic, but as yet not built, site (I have a good imagination, that's how I know it was fantastic at this stage). And now I have the added pleasure of having to move my domain name away from the sneaky people to wherever I end up. Another thing to put on the to-do list. (The actual entry was: DNS thingies! Thingies is another technical term, like 'stuff' - you have to learn the lingo if you want to be in business).

Just as an aside, have you noticed when you start a business how the to-do list grows faster than the items being crossed off? That's when "make lunch" seems vitally important to put on the list, just for the sheer pleasure of being able to say "whew, one thing less to do now" as you put a lovely thick line through it.

Anyway, just about the time I decided that more big dollars were going to have to be spent (that cute little shopping cart was looking more like one with a wonky wheel), I found it. A hosting company that didn't mention the dreaded words, was reasonably priced, answered my emails quickly and - bonus - included a website in the price too. Call me suspicious, but until it was all done I was still waiting for the hidden costs to make an ugly appearance. I am pleased to report there weren't any, and my wonderful hosting company is Avant Marketing.

There has been only one annoying thing about finally unearthing Avant Marketing (although I suspect they didn't know they were buried anywhere), and that was discovering the price also included a free domain name, which of course I had already paid sneaky company to register. Rats!

Things moved rather quickly from this point onwards. As I had played at being a designer so much beforehand, I knew the basic "feel" I wanted for my website. Two weeks later, I was a business owner, with a Real Certificate and now a Real Website!

Point the dot com at the dot com dot au site, set up emails, photograph beads and charms and bracelets, cut out said photos with imaging software (right after learning how to actually do that), figure out how to get an actual product on the website, think up enticing descriptions for each product ...

But that's a story for next time.

Min

Owner
MinzBeadz
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