58 days until Bead and Button

The Bead and Button show is only 58 days away.  It's coming up quickly.  Below is the line-up of classes that Cristina Leonard and I will be teaching

The first class, on Monday, June 1st, is our Shadow Box Pendant in PMC 960.  It is a two layer pendant with a built in shadow box and tube bail. It's a fun class and you get with work with PMC 960 which is a combination of fine and sterling silver.

The second class, on Tuesday June 2nd, is our Forged and Twisted Bronze Bracelets, Earrings, and Rings class.  This is great class because you get to use a hammer and FIRE...something every girl should know how to handle.  

The third class is on Wednesday, June 3rd.  The Forged and Twisted Bronze Bracelet class is a shorter version of Tuesday's class with a focus totally on bracelets.  And did I say that you get to work with FIRE.

The fourth class, on Thursday June 4th, is our Forged and Stamped Pendant and Earrings.  It's a great class to learn fabrication techniques.  You will learn to use metal shears, forge, stamp, texture, and rivet. Valuable techniques that you will use over and over. 

Bead and Button is always a great show.  If you like to make jewelry and have never attended this show you owe it to yourself to go.  

Great Books

I picked up a couple of books in the last few weeks.  The first is "Senufo: Unbound".  This book is the show catalog to the exhibition, "Senufo: Art and Identity in Western Africa" at the Cleveland Museum of Art.  It is a large book and has 287 pages filled with photos from the exhibition.  It provides amazing inspiration.  You can get it now at the CMA book store or pre-order on Amazon.  If you can't make it to the exhibition, the book is the next best thing.

The other book has been around for a long time but I finally picked it up.  "The History of Beads" is also a large book with 396 pages. I've been wanting this for a while.  I am going to enjoy reading about the beads I have been collecting for so long.

My Marketing Plan

Last year at Bead and Button my friends did an intervention.  I think it went something like this ...."We want to talk to you about your marketing plan".  I started laughing because I haven't had anything up on Etsy for a couple years. Since December I've been putting items up on Etsy and I now have 22 pieces.  That is big for me.

I am constantly working on improving the photography.  For right now I have a rhythm going. I stopped taking pictures at night using lights.  Instead I am taking them during the day taking advantage of our corner windows in the dining area.  Because I work this limits the days I can take pictures to Saturday and Sunday.  And the timing is critical.  I shoot in the morning before the sun comes streaming through the windows.

One of these days I need to switch from my little point and shoot to Lou's DSLR.  But...one step at a time.

Here are a few of things that I have on my Etsy site.