A String of Beads

Home grown Beads!

Today I have updated the site www.astringofbeads.co.uk to include a new section with beads made by my own fair hands! I have made some into jewellery and I will be selling some as they come, so that you could turn them into your own works of art. Happy Shopping!

This weekend I am off to a local craft fair. Not to exhibit, but to see how others set out their stall and check out the competition! I need to get some ideas on the best way to lay out my stall, as next weekend 9th and 10th september I am exhibiting at the Little Harrowden Craft Fair, a 2day event (nothing like stepping in at the deep end!!) I shall have to have a trial run on someones bed, as the stall size is roughly the size of a singe bed! Off to make some more beads now :)

2 weeks in

And all is going well! We've had good sales, and lots of visitors and hits on the site. All the feedback we'vehad has been positive too, so we must be doing something right! There's no rest though as I have to start thinking about how to advertise the site proper! So far we are relying on word of mouth, links and a couple of forums I post on. But where to go next is a bit of a mystery. Do we try google adwords type of thing or do we try and advertise in the local press. Going to craft fairs will help as I shall make sure there are plenty of business cards left about, but I wonder what percentage of people who attend these fairs have internet access. I discovered at some of the garden parties we have attended this summer, that most of the ladies didn't have access to the net,and didn't trust buying over the net either, so although that was an opportunity lost, they did buy my Jewellery!!

The other thing on my mind right now is business banking, quite frankly getting a business bank account has to have been the hardest thing I have done so far! We still don't have one although it's an ongoing saga, and if I have to take anymore bits of paper in there to prove who I am I think I will tell them where to stick it! I do object to having to prove my business is legitimate and not a front for some money laundering thing ( far to honest!) I also find it rather a put down to be told we don't qualify for a named business adviser, but merely a telephone business adviser as we are too small (we'll show em!) and as for the charges, well don't even go there!!!

I've updated the links page today to add some links to some very talented beadmakers, and I shall add some new products later today

happy viewing!

New stock on the site!

I have attempted my first solo stock upload to the site tonight and I have to confess to being a little nervous at being let loose on something I don't really understand, but Paula's instructions were fab, and I managed it, athough I  did have to delete a couple and start again! That's the price you pay for trying to do it at 1am I suppose! It's amazing the amount of time you end up spend working when it's your own business, but at least itmeans I  can work around everything else at home. You can see all the new products under the something special category, but i have added the images here in the photo album, but this is one ofmy favourites

Off the mark!

Yess! We have customers, and Yeeessss we have orders! What a fantastic feeling that is (note: I said orders, not order!) Suddenly it all feels worth it, all the months of planning and buying and making are finally coming to fruition. I also heard today that we are going to be at the Althorp christmas event, on the 25th and 26th november, this should be a big event, and I can't wait!

What a weekend!

What an amazing weekend, The launch party was fantastic, in that I wasn't expecting to sell anything, just show a few things to prospective customers and instead, I was mobbed as I walked through the door!! The ladies could not get hold of my jewellery fast enough, and it was a bit chaotic for a moment as I had not priced the items, let alone photographed or catalogued them. I ended up taking very little home, in fact it could have been even less as I had temporarily strung some of my hand made beads on a piece of string just to show my Mum, and someone asked me how much I wanted for it!!! Unbelievable.

The thing was though that hardly any of these ladies (all of a certain age) did not have access to the internet, so I lost opportunities to promote the site, but hey, If I can manage another garden party like that now and again, then that will do very nicely.

The website has had a couple of hiccups, nothing you'd notice, but it has been getting an staggering amount of hits. In the 3 days since it went live we have had over 12,000 hits which I am pleased with. It looks like most of the visitors added us to their favourites too. Sadly there have been no orders yet, which is a little frustrating, but I expected it would be slow to start with. Maybe Jewellery is something people do need to see rather than buy over the net, and it may well be that the bulk of sales will come from craft fairs rather than the site, but it's early days yet.

I am continuing with my bead making and hope to have a couple of sets ready to make something with this week. It's very satisfying to know you made the whole thing, but that said it's a bit time consuming at the minute.

I need to concentrate on refilling mystock cupboard theis week, so it's off to the shed with my creating head firmly stuck on!!

Open for Business!

Today's the day! Finally after months of planning, the site is live www.astringofbeads.co.uk  Paula has done a wonderful job, and it's amazing to see this germ of an idea turned into reality.

Tomorrow we are having a garden party to raise funds for Ovarian Cancer, so  now it will become our launch party as well.

I am so excited! Just hope someone likes my stuff enough to buy it!!!

Happy Birthday!

Here's a little set I made for my Mum, with a set of Isabelle's  'Giverney' beads. Mum is off to Monet's garden for real soon, so I thought it would make a nice little reminder of her trip. I know she loved them, and it was a pleasure to do them!

Nearly there!

It's so close now I can almost taste it! Another step achieved, photographing and describing everything and most of the Jewellery photo's  are now in the gallery here.  I have also applied for several more country house craft fairs. Fingers crossed we get to go!

This is one of my favourite photo's, how cute is this bracelet!

First Impressions

I am so busy with all this photographing and describing of jewelley it is untrue! It took almost 2 days to figure out the photography bit and in the end I had to sit down and read the manual!! If I had done that first I probably wouldn't have save much time because sometimes  you only learn by your mistakes! I found a great quote yesterday  which is so true ' You never get a second chance to make a first impression' and it was ringing through my head all day.

More good news, I received confirmation of our booking for  the Lamport Hall autumn craft fair (14th and 15th Oct) and I am really excited! I will post directions later for anyone who is near enough to go

I have also updated the photo album with details of some of the jewellery that is going on the website.

Off for a quick tidy up now before the kids get home!!

Playtime!

My light tent arrived this morning, and caused much laughter as it almost flew out of the packet! Can I get it to go down again? No chance!! It is lovely though and once I have the right colour backdrop set up it will look fab. I had a little trial run which was interrupted when a certain cat was desperate for a nosey look round the tent, but it is brilliant for removing the reflections on the shiny surface of the beads.

This is the tent

and it's temporary resident!

The website has moved on another step, and is now on it's server, Hooray!All I have to do now is fill it, it sounds such a simple thing to do , but I just know it will take what feels like forever!

What else do I have to tell, OOh I bought a new mobile phone, just for the business so I can have it on with me in my studio and then I won't miss calls made to the home number. It also gives me more control over calls made etc and I can turn it off at tea time!! (Yeah right!!)