I'm having a challenging beading night tonight. The first design I made is good, but not my favorite. But I guess they can't all be favorites though, right? Then I started working on a silver chained choker, and the whole design morphed several times before I knew what I was looking for and what I wanted, which of course was no big deal. That part's really fun because I get to experiment. But when I have a vision, and I can't seem to get the art to where I want it, it discourages me. I think I redesigned the choker style 7 or 8 times before finally settling on what I thought was pretty dang close to what I wanted. And I think the thing that made this piece so challenging, is that all the parts are very small. As in itty bitty small. Overall, it appears that it took me 3 hours to put it all together and settle on the final design. But as I look over at it, I am really happy with it and I am definitely not changing it again! :-) I guess I can liken it to when I record my music. I will do it over and over again until I know it's exactly how I want it. Detail-oriented perfectionists rock!!
I took a lot of photos last night, of the new necklaces. I'm impressed at how well they turned out, in comparison to the last set of photos I took. I was able to get them uploaded onto the website, and am now deciding on the little things like: Do I want to have it displayed as a photo gallery or slide show? How do I want the slide show settings? Do I want one big slide show, or a slide show for each individual necklace? And the list goes on....
What I do really like about having them on the site is actually getting to see my work in one collective place. Sure, I have them all in iPhoto, but having them on a nice looking website is even better. I've been busy working on anything related to my jewelry and the website. I made 2 more necklace busts yesterday, and they turned out quite well. I was happy! The next step is to start photographing them so I can get them up on here. I looked into the merchant accounts, and decided PayPal was the best way to go, as they take credit cards, without having to sign up for anything. I don't want my customers to have to sign up for anything just to purchase something from me.. I'm a little nervous about leaving the Etsy site, as I love all the Etsy sellers, but I still want to try this out for awhile.
I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now at the number of things to do to get the site up and running, but all will come in due time. I'm an incredibly patient person, but sometimes I wish I could snap my fingers and just have it be all set! If anyone has figured out how to do that, let me know.... So I finally finished one of the necklaces I've been working on. I was planning on finishing it last night, but was distracted (in a good way). I think it's my favorite so far. It has a wire-worked pink pendant that I made using the jig, and blue and pink beads with gray and silver accents. I also did another one tonight using chain, which I haven't done before. I really liked it and am going to make a few more like that in the near future. It's so fun to discover something totally new, that just "comes together" by happenstance. I started out with one idea, which morphed into something totally different. I really enjoyed my beading time today, as always, and I listened to music and sang. I was happy.
It's almost 10 PM and I've been playing around on the site for several hours. I'm experimenting with formats, designs, fonts, sizes, and photos, etc. There's so much that goes into making a site look nice, classy, and professional. I'm getting tired now, however, and should probably finish for the day. I got a good start, and that's what matters. Needless to say, I didn't get any jewelry done tonight!
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