I’ve been making handmade jewelry since 1999. Before then, I would often modify jewelry that I bought – changing hooks on earrings, adding beads, etc. So when a bead catalog somehow ended up in my mailbox, I bought myself a beginner’s kit. A month after it arrived I was selling my jewelry at outdoor festivals.
When I think back on those first pieces – ugh. Pretty cruddy. But they sold because they were different, and my technique got better. Soon I was confident enough to work with gold-filled, sterling silver, and other nicer materials.
But I was still stuck in the lower-quality events. I have yet to find time or money to get real slides or a brochure made so I can submit them to juried shows. Ditto on putting together a Web site (but I did register my domain name and set up an e-mail account with my biz name). I wanted to get into some shops, but again, you need to put on a whole presentation, and I’m just not good at the “selling myself” thing. So I’ve remained in the music festivals – which we enjoy going to, but often you end up among the flea-market-reseller-type stuff. Also, those events are only a few days a year, and the rest of the time my fun jewelry sits in boxes in my house. Not good for selling.
Well, last month, a bead store about an hour away from me moved into a new building. We went there on Sunday for the first time and found out that they had consignment space available – nice, lighted, locked display cases. I immediately snagged one for myself, and yesterday we went and set up my display and signed the consignment contract. I’d been leery of consignment based on reading I’d done, but this contract looked pretty good and covered all the bases. And the shop owner and another consignee who was there both admired my pieces and my display.
The owner told me to “give us time” for pieces to start selling because of the new location. I told her I was already one step up from having my stuff hidden away at home. Now it’s on display whenever that very nice, well-known shop is open.
Yay! I am in a shop!!
