It’s over. I have lots to say but too many places to say it. I have another blog where I’ve been doing much more writing and I’ve decided to continue with it. Part of my decision is that recently WordPress has been going through a lot of changes and I admit to not being able to keep up with those changes. Instead of getting easier it feels like this blogging is getting harder.

It’s been a good run and I thank all of you for your participation.

FINIS

Meet Meagan, a person I met on SwapSity.  Meagan knows how to say just enough and leaves you wanting more. Without giving anything away I can tell you I benefited when Meagan recently reduced her glass beads  ’stash’. As soon as I can I’ll be making some glass bead artisan jewellery.

H: Who are you in your ‘real’ life?

M: Good question! My real life is a work in progress. All I can say is that I am interested in tons of different things.

H: What is the first thing you can remember making by hand? How and why did you make it? Do you still have it?

M: I remember making cloud nametag pins with my mom when I was a kid. She’s a big crafter of all sorts of things. I think she still has the pins in her house womewhere.

H: Describe your work area: what is the best thing and the worst thing about your space?

M: I work at my desk. I like to be able to look at my computer because  I’m still learning some of the finer aspects of making prayer beads and I use lots of tutorials and pictures for inspiration. I have one of those slide out keyboard trays and my bead cloth is on that. It’s a good use of the space, although I wish the lighting were a little better.

H: What is your medium of choice?

M: I’m a beader. I used to make fashion jewellery and I’m starting to make prayer beads now.

H: What are your favourite materials?

M: I love natural materials. I’ve always been drawn to simple, functional things that are close to nature. The less polished the better! It is my dream to learn to whittle my own wooden beads.

H: What inspires you? Where do your ideas come from? Do your other interests play a part in your designs?

M: I often get ideas just from seeing interesting shapes and colours in my daily travels. I am a very spiritual person.

H:  For whom do you do your designs?

M: I think I mostly design for myself.  I give a lot of my work away as gifts.

There you go! Didn’t I say she is interesting! Meagan and I ’swapped’ her beads for my money. I’d be lying to say these beads are nice: they’re great! 

Thanks, Meagan, for this interview. While your answers got me to a-thinking so I hope you found yourself happily reminiscing.

Helen

I am so happy that Meagan sent her answer to a follow up question I had.

H: What influenced your change of focus?

M: I guess I decided to start with prayer beads because spirituality is becoming more and more important to me. To be honest I liked making jewellery but not so much wearing it, so this is something I can also use myself.

Good or bad, Life is Growth. When we stop growing is the day we die. Some change is easy but it is the hard to accept change that builds our character.

We all have them: pet peeves. Sometimes it’s really puny stuff that we should learn to ignore:  like being upset when somebody borrows something and doesn’t return it from where they got it ~ or sits at your desk and moves stuff but doesn’t put it back as they found it.

Today I have 2 pet peeves: and combined make a great reward of failure. 1 + 2 = 3.

1. People who won’t reveal their sources. I spent a thoroughly wonderful time wandering through the Toronto spring One Of A Kind (OOAK) show, got a lot of business cards, and chatted with some wonderful artisans. I found some really interesting wires being used by some of the jewellery makers. I asked several where they found their wire and the stock answer was ,’oh, I get it from so many places.’ Yeah, right!! Who are you trying to protect: the manufacturer of the wire ~ Not. Your business? That backfires when you give me that answer: I put down what I was looking at and admiring and considering buying, turn and walk away. I enjoy buying other people’s jewellery~~ we all have such different styles. Even if we all make artisan jewellery, we aren’t necessarily in competition with each other. I love beads.  Lotsa beads. You prefer wirework. Or you use precious metals. Or you do bead making, lampwork, and such. All the same stuff but different from one another. Share information with those who ask and build a stronger artisan jewellery makers’ community. Now I won’t be sharing information I found that may helpful to those 2 people. Share and grow.   PLUS
2. I hate getting a helpful information and there is no website or name or anything to remind me where, at which booth , I got it. Case in point: yesterday I got a business card size recipe for sparkling up copper. I didn’t take the time to write down the name or booth number of the artist and now I have a wonderful recipe and no way of contacting the individual. Her work was wonderful. Too bad. Put your name on everything. I have a helpful table of necklace lengths and bead numberson the back of my business cards. The information is helpful and everytime it is viewed there is the place she got it from.  I wrap my packages in cardstock that has my name on it and I add a business card: the package is kept closed with return address labels I printed with my website and email listed on it. Put your name on everything!   EQUALS
3. 1 + 2 = 3.   This year’s OOAK had something revolutionary: a big plot of real estate for winners of a juried show sponsored by the Eastern Ontario Community Futures Development Corp. There was a First Nations booth showing the work of an Ojibway ~ Todd Jamieson ~ and a Salish ~ Alfie Fishgap. When I got home I emailed another contact who was not at the show, RonaldEverettDesign.com, to ask him to research the CFDC for his work ~ he does some remarkable West Coast designs in his clothing. I had his card, he was interesting and intelligent; I remembered him favourably, and I have followed up with him after more than a year with no contact. He put his ‘brand’ on his work and he wasn’t afraid to talk to me about his work.

OKAY! OKAY!!

Just think about what I said. Generosity and Planned Opportunity can make the difference.

Helen – off her soapbox.                      ……………For Now.

How exciting! Everybody’s busy and focused on THE wedding. Emotions run high. You learn all over again how wonderful your friends are.

People are watching their spending closely. It’s no different for artisan jewellery being worn by this year’s brides. Try DIY ~Do It Yourself~ kits.  You’ll learn a new technique that may send you down a path you thought you’d never follow. A new hobby is in the offing, perhaps. The DIY kits I write give you the instruction cards and some inexpensive beads to make the kit. If you already have the beads you want to use and really need only the instructions, the price would be less: it makes sense. It is hoped that the experience for the beader will be good enough that she will carry on with her own variations on the technique.

If you are like me, you work well under pressure and everything needs doing NOW.

Well!  I’ve been commissioned to work on the jewellery of 2 weddings. And for the person who wants to do it herself, I am working on a tutorial for an illusion-floating necklace. But I don’t have the exact illusion necklace made in 3D; just some rough sketches. However, as I write the tutorial I’ll be doing the steps myself to ensure nothing important is left out. When the tutorial is finished, so will be my illusion necklace.

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I am back from the Show and beginning to scribble down my thoughts. Top of the list is to thank all of you who visited our booth ~Glass0Beads~ and shared their jewellery and their lives with us.

And for those who have taken the time to visit me here and leave their comments ~ thank you.

I have a new interview lined up and that means you need to check back to read it. The person? Meagan Shaughnessy. The reason? She is in the midst of a major shift in her approach to life and her artistic direction. A delightful young lady, I met her at the Show. Thanks, Meagan, for meeting me there: I appreciate it.

And I have a new bridal commission. Thanks Sarah. It’s her mother’s fault that Sarah came to me: thanks Jessie.

To the other artisan jewellers and bead makers who shared their experiences and information with me: THANK YOU. That’s a biggie because the education was free and with no strings attached. I was looked after, watched out for, shared and cared for.

We had a wee elf in our booth going by the name of Vanessa. A young whipper-snapper with all the exuberance and capabilities of the young. She brought me down to reality: I really am not as young as I think. But that’s not her fault, you understand: it’s mine for thinking I was still young. She taught me some functions of my camera that I didn’t know it has. And she took some of my pictures. Pretty good, don’t you think!? She was a delightful booth mate and a house guest that wasn’t noisy. Thanks Vanessa for everything.

The kits by Joannlx at BeadKitsByMail.com were offered at our booth. Thanks Joann for trusting me.

Will I do it again? You bet. In a heartbeat. My next show is in May and I’ll be volunteering there. Learning should never stop: if it does, you’re dead. And volunteering will give me the lessons at no charge.

That show? Toronto Bead Society’s Spring Bead Fair on Saturday, May 2, 2009 at Toronto’s YMCA, 20 Grosvenor Street (west of Yonge). It runs 10am to 5pm. This show is just like  the Bead Oasis Show but on a much smaller scale. You won’t regret your visit.

So! Let’s go. This is one artisan jeweller who is making an enormous effort to focus on business.  Why do artisans seem so scatterbrained? Our minds are whirling around like a Whirling  Dervish, with wonderful and beautiful ~ beautiful to this artisan ~ ideas for things to make.

When you look at a tree, do you ask yourself how you could render the tree in your favourite techniques? If I use this bead colour for the leaves and these triangle beads for the trunk of the tree and something pretty in pink around the trunk for those pretty pink flowers, I can do it all as a Dorset Button!

That takes brain space so business stuff ~ the left side of your brain is the logical side ~ gets pushed around to allow more space for all the artsy stuff.  The artsy stuff on the left side of the brain is manipulating my great ideas within a defined space: that is the logical part of the artsy stuff.

With all that going on, is it any wonder that the business acumen suffers so much in the brain of the artisan jewellery designer and manufacturer!?

But today I’ve promised myself I’ll focus on business. Today I am filling out my LinkedIn profile. And, if there is time, I’m moving on to do the same stuff, I mean business, on my StumbleUpon profile.

If there is still time, I’ll be investigating ‘ning’ accounts vs. Blogger vs WordPress for my brand new www.JewelryGeeks.com group, Love Beads. That’s all about beads. I really want to keep this group, still in its infancy, vibrant and a place to go for bead works.

I think I have my work cut out for me. I may be logical and have business skills ~ some skills but not a lot of them. I may be able to reason out a problem put before me.  I may be able to identify what needs doing next. But all that is shoved back to make room for  designing, creating, making and embellishing with glass beads.

Even this post has a better reason than just listening to my thoughts: it is the way I can link with LinkedIn. This is an experiment and I hope it works.

Go to http://www.linkedIn.com/artisanjewellery and see if there’s a link to BaubleBabble’s WordPress account.

PS  IT WORKED!! My WordPress post shows up in my LinkedIn profile.  YIPPEE!!

“How to Stop Social Media Taking Over Your Day

• ONLY SHARE WHAT IS SAFE TO SHARE – Once you connect to people outside your close friends and family you need to restrict the information you place in these networks. If in doubt, keep it to yourself.
• Observe before following.
• If people are taking too much of your time, drop them, and do not feel any guilt about it. There are no rules that say you have to follow everyone who follows you!
• Pick your venues and do not try to be active in all of them.
• Do not take part in time-wasting activities, such as quizzes and zombie games.
• Set Social Media time and log off when that time is over.
• Grow your network selectively and steadily – Learn how much activity you can manage.
• Use tools where appropriate.

Turn off beeps and popup message alerts, they just take you away from work. In my case using TweetDeck has helped me a great deal (when the thing doesn’t freeze on me) because it puts front and center the most important stuff while keeping less priority stuff accessible.”    ~excerpt from http://www.chrisg.com/

There’s more where that came from but I’ll let you go through it yourself.

There are a bazzzillion companies out there, at least it feels like a bazzzillion, selling you stuff you can do for FREE.  I agree that, if you can afford it, they will bring the job back on time and within budget. But you need to know so much just to pick the successful candidate company. And you run the risk of being taken for a ride you can’t afford.

That has been my bete noire: I trusted the wrong people and I’m in the hole now. It’s a deep hole, too.

I subscribe to the philosophy of  the Renaissance Wo/Man:  be the expert of only one thing:   knowing where you can get the answers to your questions. That will make you an expert of everything.

The answer? Here are my do’s and don’ts:

Do the research yourself.  Hunt up as many forums on the subject and ask questions. Check out Google Asks and Yahoo Asks.

Do ask questions.

Do as much as you can yourself.

My Biggest DO? DO use the common sense you were given at birth.

Don’t  hire the first company that reaches you.

Don’t believe that only they can do things you are perfectly capable of doing yourself.

There is so much to know that it is easy to become frozen, not knowing where you should take your first step.  It can be overwhelming. Each evening, before closing down for the day, decide what your goal for tomorrow will be.  Scribble a quick reminder on your computer so you can get to work on that goal even before you finish your first coffee.  

Now, focus on that one thing.  There will be lots of things to distract you but always come back to that one goal. If achieving that goal will take several days, then stick with that goal until it is completed.

Send yourself a ’status report’ at the end of each business day. Read it the next morning while wearing your ‘CEO Hat.’ 

Stay Focussed.

I spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening last night. On our Bravo channel was 2 hours of song and dance by the Soweto Gospel Choir. I loved it! The performance celebrated the 10th anniversary of democracy, the downfall of apartheid, in South Africa.

The harmonies and dissonances sound different to our western ears and yet it was not jarring in any way.

The choir’s costumes were as rich in colour and shape and BEADS as the music was. The dancers left me feeling breathless, yet they were able to sing without breathlessness. Now, that’s what I call conditionning. These ladies and gentlemen were physically fit.

The audience, made up of all races, ages and, I assume, of many religions, sitting all together, was appreciative of the performers from South Africa.

At the end of the performance the entire hall rose and sang, hand on heart, the South African national anthem.

‘Music hath power to soothe the savage beast.’  In China, I believe, the word for ‘music’ and ‘friend’  rise from the same root.  In music, it is very hard to stay angry with others.

It’s important for you to know about a charity, Playing for Change, that is building schools in many poor nations to teach children their ABC’s and their Do Re Mi’s. The school is fully equipped with instruments and recording equipment and teachers and enthusiastic students.

As with all charities, it seems never to have enough: not enough labourers to build the schools, not enough teachers, not enough money, not enough of everything to spread the word.

I offer some items of wearable art artisan jewellery for sale; the funds are sent to Playing for Change. And I can lift up my voice ~ not in song, I wouldn’t inflict anybody with my ’song.’ But in writing posts on my blogs to get the word out is a way to spread the work.

Go to http://www.PlayingforChange.com.  Support them in any way you can. As you give, so will it be given unto you. There is always somebody worse off.

Well, that’s my opinion

Helene, Glass0Beads ~Glass #0 Beads~

‘Knowledge is Power.’ Important for artisan jewellery designers, or people who make glass jewellery as a hobby, the more you know the better you’ll do.  The more experience you have the better you’ll do.

Focus for the Day:  Well, today’s focus is on social marketing. I am researching organic marketing (that, by any other name is social marketing) online. I found an article about getting noticed. 

I found it on  a site offering jewellery lessons and articles. Sign up on this site is FREE. I love things that are FREE.

Well, anyway, on this free site I found an article by BobbiWired about getting all your hard work noticed. She has a great long list of sites on which to post, some better than others, and she makes the point that you don’t just set up a tiny account: you link every single site you have to each and every one of the viral marketing (ANOTHER name for Social Marketing) sites. It grows, like a virus only much nicer, ergo Viral Marketing.

The article is organic marketing because it is geared to us, the everyday garden variety people, by everyday garden variety people.

And the comments! Worth reading by the way, because questions are asked and answered and new leads are offered at no cost. That’s people being sociable.

Read, learn, monitor, and you can be more successful with your artisan jewellery sales.

Waterfall in Pink

Please, dear readers, settle in with a cup of tea: you are about to meet a BeadBug. Her name is Virginia Steinmetz, and her friends call her Jenny.

In her past, Jenny travelled the world first with her USNavy parents and then as a USNavy wife. Now, Jenny lives on 8 acres of land in Vancouver, WA: she lives with a herd of horses, a pride of cats, a pack of dogs. And a Little Red Hen. And a husband. Her 4 grown daughters have made her a Grandmama 5 times over. Needless to say, she is a very busy person.

H:      Tell us about your business. What do you do?

J:       Well, I’ve been in business for almost 18 months: I have a shop on Etsy and a website. As if that isn’t enough, I also give beading lessons and private parties. I have taken the Etsy Pledge to sell only custom handmade artisan items.

H:      Who inspires you in life?

J:       I would say my mother was my inspiration in life, as she too was a Navy Wife! The don’t call it the toughest job in the Nave for giggles. Because a family was restricted by a weight limit every time it moves, and we did move ~ every 18 months ~ it was hard to collect anything. But she collected Swarovski Christmas pins for about 30 years: she was heartbroken when they were stolen.:      And in art who and what inspires you?

J:       Now that’s a tough one. I have followed one craft or another for a very long time. There was a part of my life, 15 years of it, when I was a florist. I take a lot of my inspiration from fellow beaders. I have taken some classes with nationally recognized artists, but I would have to say my inspiration comes from deep within myself. You could call it a willingness to learn, the love of working with color, the desire to share my knowledge, and the enjoyment ofmeeting new people and stretching myself. Also, beading is something I can do because it doesn’t require a lot of energy or physical strength.

H:      How long have you been beading, Jenny?

J:       It seems like in some ways I have just started beading yesterday, but I’ve been beading in one form or another for a long time but it’s been in the past 5 years really that I have taken my ‘hobby’ into another dimension: that of selling my work. I can usually be found at the major shops in my area and have been up and down the US West Coast, buying beads at the major shows? My goal is to work with hot glass, mandrils and a torch: make my own beads.

H:      What drew you to beading instead of any other art form?

J:       Hum… Well I think it has to do with the fact that it’s a tactile art form. I didn’t like oil painting because of the smell of the paints. I tried sewing, but didn’t really enjoy it. I can cook and bake up a storm and did wedding cakes in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as arranging the flowers. But beading! I can do it in front of the TV if I want and I get to wear what I make!

H:      Have you a mentor or someone you’d like to blame for getting you hooked?

J:       Oh, my, yes I do! Her name is Luarae (pronounced Laurie) and she works for the Craft Warehouse in Vancouver, WA. She is a wonderful person and has mentored me every step of the way. Luarae was almost wiped out in a flood near the coast a few years ago. But she kept at it; she drives 60 miles just to get to work. I hope Craft Warehouse knows how special she is!

H:      What has been the hardest thing for you to overcome? How did I overcome it?

J:       Hmmmmmmm! Well, I think the hardest thing was being toldby my doctor that I had Congestive Heart Failure and told me to get rid of my horses. There was NO way that was going to happen. I was close to dying when I was hospitalized and when I was released, I was so weak I could barely walk. In less than a year I was almost good as new. I showed a yearling colt at the Oregon State Fair and won the Grand Champion Halter Class AND the Regional Classes for both Pinto horses and National Show horses. When my doctor retired several years later, I gave him four Grand Champion Ribbons, one for each of the years I showed?

[ed. note: Jenny has 4 horses]

H:      Have you a favourite colour? Shape? Line?

J:       Yes to all of it. My color is Green ~ in all its shades and tints. I love round and triangle ~ round beads and bicones: they are so easy to work with. They are wonderfully versatile. You can make just about anything with those shapes.

         My favorite line must be Swarovski; both their crystals, which I think are the best in the world, and their pearls. I use them in almost all of my work, excepting my contemporary SouthWestern work and my primitive works. I also love Toho and work mostly with Japanese seed beads. The new dichroic seed beads, I think, have much more sparkle than the Charlottes.

H:      Tell me, Jenny, what you think is your most important work.

J:       I think to date the most important work is the set featured on the home page of my website: it’s my first seed beaded piece. I invested more than 89 hours to make all 3 pieces and features 3 different freshwater pearls, moonstone, sunstone, angelskin coral, Swarovski crystals, and a tone of seed beads. I’ve written instructions for that piece and that you can find at eHow.

H:      Describe, Jenny, something you’ve experimented with that you wouldn’t do again.

J:       That would be polymer clay!  I just did not enjoy that experiment.

H:      What advice would you give a novice beader?

J:       Don’t get discouraged. I have a Masters Degree in the Frog Stitch (Rip It Rip It). I have worked on projects that I have completed and didn’t like so I took those apart and reworked them several times?

         Don’t be afraid to push yourself? I took a class in seed beading using peyote and brick stitch, that took me 3 hours just to keep repeating my first 3 rows of peyote. I had never worked the sititches before. The instructor wasn’t happy with me, but, by stretching myself and challenging myself, not only did I finish my piece but I learned more than I had expected.

H:      That’s the nice thing about doing the Frog Stitch in beads. You lose the beading thread or wire but the beads themselves suffer no damage. Being able to reuse them over and over makes beading a great choice for a craft artisan.

J:       I couldn’t agree more. Just hang in there: keep going until you get it right and then start enjoying what you’re doing.

Thanks, Jenny, for participating: this interview has been fun. Okay! Fun once you got the questions. You continue to inspire me: both your lively personality and your gorgeous glass bead artisan jewellery.

Find Jenny at http://www.eHow.com/Beadbug where she writes what she knows about: wonderful recipes in her kitchen and beautiful artisan jewellery in her workroom. Her work is for sale at: http://JustOffTheBeadNPath.com and http://JustOffTheBeadNPath.Etsy.com. And if you have questions or would just like to sit and chat, she has added her email: vrgnstnm@q.com

Waterfall Kissed with Pink