On Facebook

These FB changes are definitely a bummer, and they have a huge impact on who gets seen where, and how often.  I read an article the other day that only something like 14% of the people who've liked our business pages see anything we post.  14 percent.  Seriously.  That means that if you have 100 likes on your page, 14 people will see your post.  To get 100 people to see your post, you would need over 700 likes.

So, we can still use FB for free, but we have to work exponentially harder for the same returns.  That's not always possible, I mean, we're small businesses, and we have lives offline.  But there are a few things you can do to get back some of your reach on Facebook.

1) Post relevant content often. 

• That doesn't mean fill people's news feeds with spamy pointless posts, it just means posting a few times a day.  Each time you post, a different percentage of your followers has a chance to see you pop up in their news feed.  Pictures are eye catching, questions are engaging, and status updates are informative.  This kind of posting engages your fan base, and keeps your name in their mind, which can translate to sales.

2) Be sure to link to your Etsy shop often to drive traffic that way. 

• Announce new listings each time you post one (unless your listing more than 3 things at a time, then announce sparingly).  Consider including a link to an item in the photo caption.  Promote sales and coupon codes.  Even if you just include a link to your shop in an occasional regular status update, that could potentially translate to traffic for your shop.

3) Consider running "referral" contests. 

• Encourage followers to share you photos and updates.  Be active daily on FB.  And the same rules apply--the more people who like your page, the more people see you.  It's totally worth it to work for those likes.  If you haven't yet, consider taking advantage of FB Ads that are free for first time users (up to $50 I think).  That will boost your page likes quickly, and help you reach more people.

It may be a lot more work to get seen on FB these days, but social media is still one of the best ways to connect to customers, and potential customers.  The changes they've made definitely make things harder on us, but not impossible.  It's not like they're charging us to even sign up for Facebook.  At least not yet...

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Necklace: Shades of Blue

Yesterday i posted an undergoing project I was working on since yesterday, which I planned on making  a Christmas present for someone.

Well.. It's all done now and I managed to get a nice photo of it earlier today as well :)

The process I went through to create this piece is that I made the pendant first. I simply added a stop bead just before the first 8/0, before the Swarovski bicone, and then I added the following after the bicone: 8/0, lampwork bead, 8/0, 10mm bicone and another 8/0 seed bead. From there I began to play out a coral fringe in a lighter blue and a darker teal blue in 15/0's. For where I turn back the fringe, I used 1.8mm Miyuki cube beads and 15/0 galvanized silver seed beads in a permanent finish by Toho.

When the pendant was done, I used a Beadalon beadingwire to attach the core beads of what was going to be a spiral rope. Measured out an even number on each side (added the pendant in-between, in the very center). Then I began to work my way on my speedy spiral rope technique :3

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BTW - 24th of October 2012

It's been quite some time since I posted a bead table, and I thought it would be time to do so once again.
As you probably know by now, I'm working on a Marie Antoinette inspired necklace since a while now. The first part of the necklace is done, and the last bit I still have to start with ( I know how I want it already).

I decided to pop on a little break and start something smaller and I've been having in mind to create a blue necklace for someone for Christmas. Not gonna say whom, since the person reads my blog once in a while, heh :P

Anyway, on the picture you can see what I've done so far. I've started on the pendant, which consists of two 10mm Swarovski bicones and a lampwork bead. I'm currently adding a coral fringe for this (15/0's and 1.8mm Miyuki cubes).
When that is done I've planned on attaching it to a spiral chain to give it a little bit of "puffy-ness". I might add the magatamas you can see a little bit of in the upper left corner in the photo, but we'll see. It all depends on how it will look with them, and without them.

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Marie Antoinette Update IV

Another update on my work in progress :)

The first part is pretty much done. It's done before I'm gonna add a fringe, anyway. The fringe will be added later when I can connect both parts together.
I'm gonna start on the final part of the necklace as soon as I'm done with a Christmas present I'm creating for someone.

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Marie Antoinette Update III

Another update just before I finish up the last area of this piece and give it backing and edging :)

What I did is that I decided to include more darker colors to go with the pink/peach, to give the piece a lot of contrast. I'm especially in-love with the dark green iris seed beads which I used to fill up a lot of the empty spaces.

I'll probably post an update when I've given the piece an edging. After that I'm gonna immediately begin on the collar part. What I've planned so far with that is that I want to incorporate a couple of Swarovski rivolis as focal, but keep the colors settled. I'll see if I break my planning of colors in this piece, everything depends on how it looks in front of me when I'm working it :)

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A raw man-made memorial diamond

We are always being asked what our Memorial Diamonds look like before the raw diamond crystal is cut and polished, so I thought I should show you just one.  Well - its almost like a dodecahedron or perhaps as an illustration - like 2 square pyramids with the bases glued togther but with more facets.  This is a NATURAL growth shape and colour of a memorial diamond crystal.

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Wire-Wrapped Pendants

Yesterday I played around with wire again and I created two pendants, using wire-wrapping. I did some research before I went out to try to create a bezel for a cabochon from wire, just to make sure exactly how I could execute it.

My first pendant is created after a project from the book "Wire Jewelry Masterclass" by Abby Hook, and it features a spiral-like bezel. I used a gemstone cabochon from my collection, but I have no idea what sort of gemstone it is, lol.

For my second pendant I looked up some basic techniques on the internet to see how to make a basic wire-wrapped bezel, and I found one that was really handy, which I decided to use for references. I only have round wire in my stash, and the tutorial recommended half-round, which I understand would make the whole wrapping a lot easier for something like this. The round wire really made me work, as it didn't want to stay in place too often, lol, ah well, at least it's completed :P
Also, the cabochon is a Rock Crystal and the gemstone chip beads are Labradorites.

Last week I also invested in some "Gel Patina liver of sulfer", since I've been wanting to do some patina on my wire projects. And on this second pendant I had a bit of fun and made the copper go completely black, heh. Then I polished and buffed it on various places to give it more contrast.
I need to add a "fun" factor about the Gel Patina; it smells like rotten eggs, lol.

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Large Stones in Settings

Clear MC crystals, silver or gold plating

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Hand-Mirror: Ella

Last week I made a smaller purchase of beads and some order supplies, and I decided to add an embellish-able hand-mirror since I got the idea when I saw it, to create something with Bead Embroidery for it (I confess, I ordered another one which hasn't arrived yet :d).

This is also the very first time I try to use Ultrasuede as foundation. The color I had laying around is a thinner one, and I don't think I'll ever use it for foundation again, as for me, it was very hard to work with. I still prefer Lacy's, heh.
The focal cabochon that I decided to use for this project is a handmade glass cab (not by me :) ), there after I used a Czech glass leaf bead, 6/0 seed beads by Preciosa and 15/0 seed beads in two different colors.

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Marie Antoinette Update II

So, yeah, I've been having a moment when it comes to this piece I've posted one or two months ago. I was suddenly so uninspired I decided to put it away for a little while until I would feel the inspiration for it build up. And yeh, a lot have happened now since I posted the last photo of it.

Sorry for the bad flash, it's been raining whole week and I don't get much proper photo daylight at the moment.

So far I'm just focusing on this first piece of the necklace I planned back then, and I haven't done anything on the collar part yet.
Also, I broke with my own plan on only incorporating red/pink/peach shades into the necklace and I decided to add other colors which I just love together with the previous shades I had.

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Cubic Right Angle Weave Rope

I've been having in mind for quite some time to try to create a cubic right angle weave rope following the instructions Nancy Dale provides in a free tutorial she wrote on her blog. The specific post can be located here. I highly recommend anyone, who haven't already, to read it :)

This project was actually really fun to play with. Especially creating the bead-soup! I chose a couple of colors that I really thought looked well together, then I added some more in different sizes and shapes of beads. I basically used 15/0's, 11/0's, 8/0's, 6/0's, triangles, hex cut beads, 3mm firepolished Czech glass beads, 8mm firepolished Czech glass beads, 4mm Swarovski bicones, tear drop beads, blue goldstone chips and dyed freshwater pearls.

The rope I created is about 80cm (31.5") and only goes one time around the head, but can be knotted etc. as I discovered when I was playing around with it :P

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Diamante Waist Buckles

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Diamond Colours, Rarity and Price

Natural (mined) Coloured diamonds (Fancies) come in almost all the colours of the rainbow. Indeed, some colours are more attractive than others, and in particular the colours whose names evoke a strong image - red, pink, blue, green, orange, etc. In such cases, the price depends not only on the rarity of the colour, but also on the demand for it: the greater the demand, the higher the price. Conversely, beautiful grey diamonds are rarer than many other colours, but cost a lot less as the demand for them is currently much weaker. In the same way, colours that laboratories have defined with composite names (orange brown, gray or grayish-blue, yellow orange, orange pink…) are less sought and relatively less expensive, in spite of their rarity.  Comments from Langerman Diamonds

That's why we only manufacture Canary and Free-Range Blue 'Memorial Diamonds'

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Bead Embroidered Hair Clips

I got the inspiration to create these pieces when I was browsing through some beading blog on the internet (Sorry to say, but I can't recall which ones :\ ).
Basically the idea was to incorporate Tila beads, and use them as the focal point of the design.

As I have only a few different colors of Tilas laying around, I started to doodle a design, which would look structured, yet not too complicated. The hair clips I chose are the smaller size (I don't know the measurements out of my head :d ).

To begin, I picked out the tila color I wanted to work with and then chose some complementing colors in other beads and bead sizes. First thing I did was to stitch on the exact amount of tilas that I measured would be needed for what I was going to make, and then after I lined them up I added a row of Miyuki 1.8mm cube beads, which filled up the line nicely. Then I added a new row of 3mm bugles and 15/0, and then the final last row of 15/0's as well. After I cut out the completed piece I attached it directly onto the ultrasuede backing, THEN I (after the glue had dried) glued on the hair clip. After the hair clip had settled with the glue, I began to overlap the pieces of the hair clip with some smaller scraps of ultrasuede to give it a finishing touch.

So, why didn't I glue on the hair clip before attaching the backing?
Believe me, I really wanted to and tried. The problem I had was to measure out exactly where I would have to cut out holes and how big they had to be... It was just too much unnecessary headache which I wanted to go around.

All in all, I'm actually really happy with the result, and I was so happy with the first hair clip (the green with gold) that I decided to create another one, but with different colors.

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