Skybye’s JewelCraft

So I got to the point where I felt like my head was going to explode and I just had to get away from HTML code and working on the WebPages which means me opening the virtual doors has been postponed again and I don’t have a date in mind yet. Instead of working on the website I’ve been working on a project for myself and figured I’d give everyone a teaser.

This is hopefully going to be a business card holder to be kept in a purse or pocket that can hold a supply of my business cards so I always have some with me to hand out. I also think people seeing my unique card holder can help me get a little more shameless self promotion. It’s nowhere near done yet and I’ve already spent 3 days working on it. It is 74 rows wide even count peyote stitch with Delica size 11 seed beads. The main portion of it is silver seed beads with Purple accents. Here’s a few pictures of what I have so far this is only about half of the smaller side.

So I got the new theme onto the blog the other day and realized it wasn’t widget ready. What is a widget? Well the stuff on the right hand side of my blog are widgets. The about the artist write up, Coming soon to my etsy store pictures, my Etsy store ect are all widgets and none of them were showing. So off I went to the World Wide Web to figure out if I could modify that theme so it would work with my widgets. After a couple hours of reading what might as well have been Latin I decided to find a new theme that was Widget ready. Well I couldn’t find anything I liked as a whole but I did find a few themes I liked pieces of so I downloaded them and Frankenstein’ed them together now I have this. I’m pretty happy with it. It may not be all of my own work but I did put a fair amount of work into it and I expect I’ll be tweaking it more later. For now I need to get back to my Website and get it finished up so I can show everyone who’s been reading and getting excited about it how it looks.

So I’ve been working a lot on my website the past couple of weeks I know no one can really see it yet it’s still hidden but I’m hoping to unveil it maybe by the end of this week. In the meantime Devin helped me give my Blog a new face lift. It now looks a little more like the website but it still has a unique feel to it as well. I hope you all like it as much as I do.

So I submitted one of my necklaces for the Bead Star contest back in March. They just released the top 20 contestants from each category and I wasn’t one of the top 20. That ok though my necklace was good I like it my pictures I sent them were defiantly not the best though I have learned so much just in the past couple months about how to make my pictures better.  I do wonder if my pictures had been better if I would have had a better chance in the contest. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t down about not winning but more importantly I’ve decide to take this as a learning experience and I figure I can’t expect to win the very first contest I enter. So I will be looking for more beading contests and improving my techniques and pictures and maybe next time I’ll be able to make a bigger better impression on the judges. For Now I’ll just let you all see what I entered in this contest.

Lisa at Blossoming Tree Did an interview with me and Posted it on her blog. If you’d like to read more about it here’s the link http://blossomingtree.blogspot.com/ . I met Lisa through Indie public She’s also a Fellow Etsy’er. We all seem to stick together and run in some of the same circles which is great. It makes all of us crafters a nice close knit community.

So the past 2 weeks have just flown by and I’m not sure what happened to them. I worked on my WebPages last week nothing I’m ready to open to the public yet though but it is getting closer. I really was not made for HTML though and it’s been brutal for me trying to work with it.

So after last week I decided this week I was going to take a break from the computer side of my work and get back to the Creative side. I made my First Hand flower (Slave Bracelet) this week. I love this bracelet it’s so unique and not like anything else I’ve done before. I do plan on making more Hand Flowers though I have always been fascinated with this type of Jewelry. So here are a few pictures.

So in my efforts to get Skybye’s JewelCraft name out there I joined Flickr and have started uploading some of my Jewelry Photo’s there.  We’ll see if this brings me any traffic and more importantly sales. Here it is

I was looking at my tracking tools for my website and Stumble Upon has brought 237 visitors to my website since May 13^th when we installed the tracking system on the server. I figure that’s not bad. The more people who see my stuff the more likely a prospective buyer will stumble in.

I never realized how much work the Online selling was going to be! I’m constantly looking for new ways to improve my descriptions on my items and photo’s of my Jewelry.  Then there is the time I spend trying to get my name out there. I frequently wonder if all of this would be easier if I was in the United states and trying to market my stuff at Craft fairs and Brick and Mortar stores. I guess I’ll find the answer to that once We get back to the States!

Meanwhile Please check out my Support Your Troops Promotion.

I wanted to do a promotion with our troops overseas in mind. So for the month of June, I will be selling a few items tagged, “Support your troops.” For each one of these items that sells, I will make a two dollar donation towards a “Care package.” Depending on how well this is received, I hope to be able to do packages to all three locations; but, that depends on the buyers as much as me. I will send the care packages to troops in Afghanistan, Iraq or Kuwait. I do not want to short change any of the troops though so I would rather send one good package to one location rather than three small cheap packages to all three locations. Now, who’s better to know what troops in these places need than someone who has been there, namely ME! I’ve been to at least two out of three and have quite a few friends who have been to or are in Iraq. I will be running this promotion until July 1st at which time I’ll count up what I have and put it towards items for the “Care packages.” This way the customers should be able to receive their “Support the Troops” flag Jewelry in time for the Fourth of July and the troops should receive their care packages shortly after the fourth. So come on over and help me Support our Troops.

So I’ve been thinking. How Can I call myself a chain mailler and not know the Euro 4 in 1 weave. Well I decided I couldn’t and I am a chain mailer so I went and found a tutorial on the web and taught myself the weave. Now of course when I learn a new weave I do it once plain and simple then I start to play with it as I get more comfortable with it. So with this weave I went and made a bracelet out of Bright aluminum and I made a custom clasp for it. After I finished the first bracelet I decided to make another one with more color so I made a gold Anodized aluminum and bright aluminum bracelet. The gold and silver looked great together but as I was making that bracelet my box of anodized aluminum rings was open and the Hot Pink ones were just screaming my name! So after the gold Bracelet I did one with hot pink and silver aluminum. I made custom clasps for all 3 bracelets and I love them all. I figured I’d share so here’s a picture of my first 3 Euro 4 in 1 bracelets.