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.