Challenge 52 - week 3

Yes, I realise I should have written this last weekend, but we were doing the tiling in the kitchen! It went pretty well and now everything is back in the cupboards and finished!

Last post I mentioned the commissions I was asked to do. One I am very excited about I will save for another blog post as I'm waiting for some supplies to arrive. The other was for a Steampunk necklace. I had to buy some new epoxy as when I had carefully designed and arranged all the pieces in postition I realised I didn't have enough to stick all of them (it tends to seep through the lid no matter how tightly you screw it on, so I bought some in a syringe this time). Well, I was having a bit of a steampunk marathon and made some rings and hair pins too. These are the pendants for the necklaces drying happily - I have given the potential customer the choice and will put the rest on the website afterwards.

 I signed up to Google Merchant Centre to add my website's shop to the 'shopping' items for Google searches. I'm pretty high when searching for 'pirate jewellery' or 'steampunk jewellery' but need to go through all my meta keywords and descriptions on my website. I think when I first changed website hosts I was in such a hurry to get all the products up, I didn't add all the meta info for everything - that's another fun job to look forward to! Though Create are a really good and easy to use website provider it's not too much of a pain, just a bit time consuming.
Oh by the way, this isn't week 3 news but I had my first order via Google checkout yesterday, so I'm pleased I added it!


OK, I'll hopefully do another post on Sunday and that will bring me up to date!
~Jane

First fete of the year!

Well we got the first fete over with last Bank Holiday Monday - what a lovely day it was too! No, not really, hailstones as we started to load the car, followed by heavy showers on and off for the rest of the afternoon - and it was freezing cold too! Well that's May for you, completely unpredictable! Anyhow, it meant we (myself and daughter) got to test out the capabilities of the new gazebo. It was thankfully waterproof and didn't blow away! I weighted the corners with some weightlifting weights, (which haven't been used for muscle-building for a very long time, they are most commonly used in the process of my husband's guitar-building) and the other good tip I got from Moonbeam Angel via craftsforum was to fill milk bottles with water - I bought some little bungee cord things with hooks (there's probably a proper name for them!) for about £2 in B&Q to secure them to the gazebo legs. I didn't need my own new table or the sack barrow/trolley thing I'd just bought as I was able to unload from the car on the green before parking it and though they said there were no tables, there was one for me in the end. Never mind, they'll be used elsewhere this summer and now I know everything can fit in the car!

A banner is next on my list of things to buy!

We didn't do too badly sales-wise despite it being fairly dreadful weather. The sun came out towards the end,  but we were in a corner between the barbecue (which kept billowing smoke) and some kind of football shooting game (a bit of a concern with a table full of jewellery!) and didn't get any sunshine. My profits covered the cost of the table (the one I bought, not the one provided) and the trolley, so next time we need to make £80 to cover the cost of the gazebo and then we're in profit! Oh, except for the banner and business cards I need to buy next... still, they'll all be used again over the next however many years!

So I haven't been keeping track of the One a Day figures, I must go through my desk diary and get back on track with the numbers. The week before the fete was a rush at making more stock - better to have too much than too little!

I made a whole load of children's necklaces. Well, technically I didn't make the pendants, but cutting lengths of cotton cord and adding folding crimps and clasps takes an annoying amount of time when I only sell them for £2.50! I made Hello Kittys, Gloomy Bears, rabbits, little deer, Jack Skellingtons, skull & crossbones, pirate heads etc.

The past week I've been working on commissions I've had via my website http://www.pirate-treasures.com/ .

I still haven't put all my display stuff back in the loft and we're tripping over the gazebo in the conservatory, so I'd better get the chicken in the oven and tidy up...

~Jane