The best is yet to come

Arghh, so I've been sick the past couple of days - sore throat, runny nose. Ick. So I've had a lot of time to hang around at home. Which is nice, except I don't feel like doing much.

Somehow I got it into my head to start thinking about opening up an etsy shop for my jewelry again. I discarded the idea a few months ago because I thought my work wasn't good enough.

But I've seen a lot of what people sell, both on etsy and custom-designed websites that they pay for, and some of it just really isn't that good. Of course, some of it is true art, and light-years away from what I can do. So that makes me completely average, and I can live with that. If someone wants to pay me, so I can buy more beads, and with it, let off some stress, why shouldn't I try it?

So I asked a good friend with artistic inclinations if she could design me a banner and a small graphic for my soon-to-be-born etsy shop. Today I spent some time making a few pieces for the shop. I'd like to "go live" with about 10 pieces for sale.

This weekend I plan to mess around with lighting and my camera to try to get the best pictures I possibly can, and figure out how to make that consistent. Lisa was right on in telling me to use a piece of white foam core board as a backdrop. Now I just need to get the lighting squared away, as well as my camera settings, to get those nice, detailed up-close-and-personal pictures.

One of the other things I need to do is figure out pricing for my pieces. Honestly what I'd like to do is recoup the money for materials, shipping, etc, and make just a little tiny bit so I can feed my bead addiction. Because I have a Caltech degree I can figure out the math for materials and various fees (etsy and Paypal both take a percentage of the sale), but it's the 'markup' I have trouble with. How much extra should I really charge? I guess I'll start with a percentage and see how it goes.

I am in the middle of bidding on multiple EBay auctions for a huge number of semiprecious gemstone beads. I found a seller with gorgeous pieces, so I couldn't resist. Today *was* payday after all! I also found Monsterslayer, an oddly-named, but excellent site for sterling silver beads, wire and chain. Their prices are pretty incredible compared to some of the other places I've looked.

Perhaps being sick and hanging out in bed is dangerous for my wallet! Any thoughts about selling jewelry online?