Simply Shiny Life

I like reading other artist’s blogs. This week, I thought I’d share a few that I visit regularly. If you don’t have them saved as favorites in your Google Reader, you may want to add them. (I just discovered I’m subscribed to 21 artist blogs. Guess I like to read. LOL)

Etsy Metal – this Etsy team’s blog has tips, member creation photos and is eye candy extraordinaire

So, Sherry  – Sherry Truitt, she of the very cool map and bicycle inspired art.  An entertaining mix of personal and business posts.

Orion Designs – One of the wild women of the north. Another good mix of personal and business posts. Plus the occasional photo of a bear.

Goat Mountain Arts -  Funny posts, good smelling soap, loves big dogs. Who could ask for anything more?

What are some of your favorite artist blogs?

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UPDATED: 11/2010

I’ve compiled a list of handmade jewelry suppliers, as recommended by the handmade jewelry makers themselves. These are tried and true vendors that provide beads, gemstones, metal and findings, along with some favorite mailing supply and packaging vendors. Happy shopping!

Note: I’ve had personal experience and can recommend the ones that are italicized.

Beads and Gemstones

abetterbead.com
anybeads.com – great variety & prices
AprishaSparkles
artbeads.com - free shipping on all sales, regardless of size
beadaholique.com – they have some items no one else does
BeadAllAboutIt
beadbead.etsy.com/ – (used to be bluewater studio)
Beading Hearts Co
beads2String
beadsupplies.artfire.com -  for metal bead caps, toggle clasps, metal beads up to 45 mm
beadwright.etsy.com – seed beady supplies and tutorials
beadznmore.etsy.com
Bellbohemian.Etsy.com
Blue Mud
BubbasGemstones
CJDestashForCash
CrysallisGEMS– really super quality and great service.
CrystalVitality
DerondaDesign – fabulous lampwork goodness. Great customer service.
DestashNotTrash
Eavesdrop.etsy.com
FindingLand
firemountaingems.com - well, really, what can’t you get at FMG?
FreshStringBeads
fusionbeads.com – very much like Artbeads, a little different selection, with free shipping
gahooletreesupplies.etsy.com
gemshow-online.com/ – sign up for sales newsletters, free ship over $25.
GreatSupplies
halsteadbead.com - great prices, $100 minimum order
inmcrystal.com/ - GREAT prices on Swarovskis, plus Bali
jewelweaver.com – gemstones, Bali silver
JuliesTreasureChest
JustWire
lampwork.net/ – Gorgeous Lampworks by Kandice Seeber
lillysbeadbox.etsy.com
luxbeads – ( lux gems in small numbers 2-6 pieces)
MadeOfMetal
Magpiegemstones.com
MegaBeadStore
MyFathersGifts
nilecorp.com – packaging, displays, jewelry trays
Pure Beads – great variety of mostly Czech glass beads, fire-polished and pressed glass.
ratnasagarjewels.com/ – GORGEOUS gemstones. $300 minimum purchase
Rio Grande – equipment and metal, lots of cool cabs too
Rings N things
rockinbeads.com
RoyalMetals
rtsy.etsy.com
serenasbeadery.com/
ShipWreck Beads
Somerset Silver – Great Hill Tribe Silver
Stoned.Etsy.com
Stones In Motion – Gorgeous cabochons and a great reputation for service and quality
StudioMarcy.etsy.com – SRA lampwork artist with fabulous and cute works of lampwork art
studiorent.etsy.com
tammystreasures.etsy.com
the earthbazaar.com – great gemstones
TheSupplyFactor.etsy.com
Unkamen Gifts
whimbeads.com – flip tops in different sizes, plus seed beads and czech glass
znetshows.com/ – Wholesale beads and gemstones tins

Findings, Wire, Chain
azur1.com/ – Finished snake chain
finedings.com- findings, Swarovskis, some Bali, all at competitive prices
mermaidsdowry.etsy.com – cool brass findings
monsterslayer.com – lots of cool metal, fine silver, etc, also some stones and other odds and ends
ninadesigns.com – wonderful silver charms
shiana.com/ – gorgeous Thai Karen Hill Tribes & Fair Trade silver
stores.channeladvisor.com/accessoriessusan/ – brass and silver beads, wraps, finding, and other vintage style and free shipping
The Ring Lord - Chainmail supplies, including jump rings in aluminum too
thunderbirdsupply.com – mostly metal
tierracast.com – lots of really cool jewelry findings and charms

Shipping and Packing Supplies
Royalmailers – Bubble Mailers *Free Shipping* Great service!!
Store Supply – kraft boxes, lots of other jewelry packaging supplies. Great prices.
Fetpak - great bulk rates for gift packaging & free shipping
Papermart
Specialtybottle – Supplier of bottles, jars and tin containers.
Nashvillewraps – I can no longer recommend NashvilleWraps following a REALLY poor customer service experience with them. Buyer beware.

If you are a jewelry artist, I’d love to add your favorite suppliers to my list. What others can you recommend?

If you are a supplier, don’t ask. I won’t add you unless your venue has been recommended to me by a jewelry designer.

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This is a repost
International shipping can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few tips to remember to simplify your international shipping task. It’s really very easy to ship internationally. I understand completely the hesitation, but I have to say that it was the smartest thing I’ve done. Without offering international shipping, I would have cut my sales in half.

* Invest in a postal scale. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive, or even a digital one. I went to Office Depot and bought an old-style, non-digital 2 lb postal scale for $15.00. It’s been dead-on every time. You can also find good deals on digital postal scales on ebay.

* Weigh your items INSIDE the packaging you intend to use. This includes the bubble wrap, thank you note cards, address labels, everything. This will give you a better idea of how much each package weighs, and what the range in weight is. This should help in setting your international shipping charges.

* Research shipping costs. The cheapest way to send anything is to use USPS, assuming that your items aren’t huge, super-heavy, or weird-shaped. Go online to www.usps.com, plug in different weights, choose a couple different destinations, and see what the costs are. I ship everything First Class and First Class international. Don’t let the postal worker try to talk you into doing Global Priority or Express – it’s their job to up-sell; First Class International is generally the least expensive option. It is about $0.92 cents per ounce to international destinations (that price does vary), but that equals about $3.00 for a 3 ounce package. If your items are heavier and cannot go First Class International, quote the actual shipping cost and let the buyer decide. You may be surprised and ship the item regardless of the higher cost. Note that insurance or tracking is NOT available with First class International. You can find shipping calculations by international zone here http://www.usps.com/prices/first-class-mail-international-prices.htm#cz

* Get a stack of First Class Customs forms from the post office or you can find downloadable customs forms here https://webapps.usps.com/customsforms/  You need to use PS Form 2976. I think the idea of a customs form throws a lot of people off, but it shouldn’t. The form asks for basic information, like your name and address, the ship to name and address, the weight of the package, the cost of what’s in it (Use the price you’ve charged for your item, not YOUR cost), and what is in it. That’s all. So, get a stack of them, and keep them next to your shipping supplies; this way you can fill out the form at home and save time at the post office. Do NOT falsify the customs form, such as stating ‘gift’ when it is a purchase. CUSTOMS DOES NOT PROVIDE TRACKING. Unless your package is shipped in one of the priority groups it can not be tracked if lost. Shipping priority does however, give you insurance at no extra cost. Flat rate priority is excluded. See details here. http://www.usps.com/international/intlspecialservices.htm.

* International packages have to be taken to the post office if they weigh more than 13 oz and have postage stamps on them . (From the USPS web site “Domestic and international mailpieces that weigh 13 ounces or less, with postage stamps affixed, can be dropped in a blue collection box, or handed to your letter carrier.  Mailpieces that weigh more than 13 ounces, with postage stamps affixed, must be handed to a Retail associate at your local Post Office.” )

There are online, print-at-home mail services that include the customs form in their postage label (PayPal Shipping is NOT one of those services), but those are monthly subscriptions and you have to pay a fee to use them. If you ship a large amount of items, it might be worth it to use a third party postage service (like stamps.com or endicia.com) These sites charge a small membership fee, but you can insure 1st class US postal service package for a small amount, like $1 or so. Both services allow you to print First Class international postage from home. Print the mailing address and your return address in all CAPITAL LETTERS especially when shipping to Canada.(Note: Fedex, UPS, etc. need a broker to clear customs. The broker costs are passed on to the package recipient. If possible, always ship USPS, as it does not require a broker. )

*  When you send any International package, I would highly recommend that you invest a bit more time in the wrapping and cushioning your items. Don’t use recycled food boxes. Some countries disallow entry due to food bourne disease fears. Keep in mind the distance that it’ll be traveling…

* Make sure you communicate with your international buyer about their local custom restrictions. You can find more information about that here http://pe.usps.com/text/imm/immctry.htm . I’d recommend adding some details around your international mailing policies in your shop policy statement. I have something to the effect that local customs are the buyer’s responsibility, etc. You should send an email note to your buyer once the item has been mailed.

Can you think of any other tips?

(Special thanks to Brandi of CatiesBlue, Nicole of Beadwright and Deb of Crysalliscreations for their suggestions and content in this post. You guys ROCK!)

Artfire has launched some really great seller functionality of late including:

Artfire ROCKS! If you haven’t opened your Studio at the site yet, you should REALLY check it out – and tell them ShinyAdornments sent you

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Artfire’s Big Big Announcement: Holiday Free For All!! No fees, unlimited listings.
For Real!!

Unlimited listings for basic accounts to sell your handmade art, craft supplies and vintage items.

• No listing fees
• No final value fees when your handmade item sells
• Unlimited listings

I’m a Verified Seller on Artfire. So why do I care? Well, the bet is that adding a bunch of new sellers to the site will generate more Google and other traffic.

If you do the math, every 2 listings on AF generate more than one google visit per month from a buyer. So if Artfire adds 100,000 items (conservatively) during this experiment, it can expect more than 50,000 Google visitors. And according to AF metrics, these peeps go multiple pages deep, and spend time surfing the site. This benefits me, a Verified seller, because of the way Verified sellers are optimized in search and on the Basic seller pages, Sweet.

So, mostly, I don’t have to do a danged thing, and more traffic is bound to surf to the site.

If you’d like to read the latest about this experiment in the Artfire Forums, you can click this link

If you’d like to join the experiment and open your FREE Artfire Studio, visit the
Artfire Holiday Free for All sign up page.

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Shiny Spotlight Thursday
There are some really talented artists, designers and creators that sell their handmade items on Artfire and etsy. I thought it might be nice to highlight some of the things that caught my eye this week while browsing.

Clicking on each image will link you to the seller of each item, if you decide you simply must purchase it.

If you haven’t opened an account on etsy to purchase handmade items, you really should. Also, if you haven’t checked out Artfire in a while, you can find some really unique gifts on the site.  Artfire doesn’t require you to open an account to purchase handmade goods. Easy peasy.

This week’s selections are handmade and inspired by Fall.

Enjoy!

Retro Falling by Jellybeans

Autumn Oak Leaf Puzzle by Huth William

Golden Autumn Violets Velvet and Silk Scarf by Melissa Melange

Autumn Sunrise Soap from the Soap Seduction

Ohiopyle Autumn Print by Prints n At

 Pumpkin Pie Lip Lube from Soap

Happy Shopping everyone!

Look for the Shiny Spotlight every Thursday.

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Yesterday, I wrote a post about Amazon payments on Artfire.  Today, I’ve managed to install it in my Artfire Studio. And if I can do it, well then, so can you.

It really was very easy. I’ve been an Amazon customer for years, but had never created a seller’s account. If you have an existing account, it is pretty easy to enable the ability to accept Amazon payments. In fact, Artfire has a GREAT Amazon Payments tutorial for your use.

I logged into my new seller’s account and created a profile with my business details, including email and phone number.  One thing to note, Amazon won’t accept a PO Box as the seller’s primary address. You have to enter a street address in that field.

After entering all the seller details, and confirming my email address, I added a bank account too so that I could accept deposits from Amazon payments for any payments that were made to me. Paypal operates similarly. Amazon Payments makes two small deposits (randomly generated, ranging from $0.01 to $1.00) into my bank account. This generally takes 5 to 7 days, but in my case, it only took 2.

I verified the deposits had occured in my bank account, and then logged back into into my Amazon Payments account to verify the amounts.

Finally, I logged back into my Artfire Studio, and clicked into EDIT MY PROFILE. I checked the box located next to Amazon Payments under My Accepted Payment options, entered the email address I’d used in my Amazon Payments account and clicked save. That’s it.

Now, every one of my Artfire listings has the Amazon Payments icon located next to the Paypal icon in the Accepted Payments section.

I’ll update everyone if I run into snags with the set up and actual usage.

One additional thought…I added a widget to my Artfire Studio Home Page that states I accept both PayPal and Amazon Payments. It looks like this and is located in the right hand navigation of the ShinyAdornments Artfire Studio Home page:

I accept payment via

and

What has your experience with Amazon Payments so far? Good, bad, neutral?

If you haven’t heard, Artfire buyers can pay for their purchases with Amazon payments. According the the Artfire admin team:

“More than 88 million Amazon shoppers can now use the Amazon payment system to purchase from Artfire.com sellers. Artfire has integrated the payment process in the same fashion as paypal so that the payment system will fully mesh with payments and invoicing on Artfire.

Amazon’s A to Z guarantee and extensive fraud protection systems serve to add another layer of trust and credibility for Artfire.com sellers.”

However, Amazon only accepts US payments, meaning that all my international customers are exempt. Bummer. Another potential road block for some is the fact that Amazon doesn’t have a mechanism in place like Paypal to collect state sales taxes. Sellers will most likely have to absorb the sales tax within their pricing as there isn’t any automated way to integrate it into the Amazon invoice. (As I sell virtually nothing within the state of Kansas, I’m willing to absorb the tax spend on any items I may sell via Amazon payments. But you should consider the implications for your own business. )

Using Amazon payments isn’t free for sellers, and the fee structure is slightly different than the Paypal fee structure as Amazon charges less for bank transactions than it does for credit card transactions. Sellers should keep this in mind when determining their product pricing structure to ensure the increased fees will be covered in their product price.

Less than $10 for a U.S. credit purchase = 5% + $0.05
Greater than $10 for a U.S. credit purchase = 2.9% + $0.30

So for every $10 buyer purchase, the seller pays Amazon $.29 plus an additional $.30.
A $75 purchase would net Amazon $2.48 (75 x .029 = $2.175 + .30)

Ok. I understand the pricing structure, and think there may be benefit to utilizing it in order to simplify the buyer’s experience.  So, how do I install it?

Stay tuned to Part Two: The installation

REDUX:

I’ve posted this previously, and thought I’d share again. It is SUPER easy to make your own handmade earwires.

I’ve got two tutorials courtesy of Vicki from Orion Designs.

Enjoy!

Make your own earwires: Tutorial 1

Make your own earwires: Tutorial 2

Artfire has launched some really great seller functionality of late including:

Artfire ROCKS! If you haven’t opened your Studio at the site yet, you should REALLY check it out – and tell them ShinyAdornments sent you

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Follow this blog: Click here
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