Category Archives: Hobbies Gone Wild

I’m a beekeeper, I make wire-wrapped jewelry, and I work with warm glass — among other things. When I pick up a hobby, I dive in headfirst.

Making

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Going from working with words to working with my hands.

For years, my creativity has always centered around writing. I started writing in my early teens — fiction, back then — and managed to turn my writing skills into a career starting in the early 1990s. I wrote books and articles, mostly about how to use computers. Later, I wrote about flying and, most recently, about boating. And, of course, I’ve had this blog for nearly 20 years.

Building Solutions

But it was around 2014 that I started branching out into other creative endeavors — actually making things with my hands. It started when the building that would become my home was under construction and I had a need to make things for it. I think the first thing I might have made for the inside of my shop was my workbench, a sturdy affair made of 2×4 lengths and plywood. It’s ugly, but it’s sturdy as hell, mostly because it weighs a ton.

Shelves
This is the first set of garage shelves I built. It’s 8 feet tall, 8 feet wide, and two feet deep. I put Penny the Tiny Dog on a shelf for scale. I built this on the garage floor and needed help getting it upright.

Since then, I’ve built various other solutions for needs I’ve had, including a number of other work surfaces, storage shelves for my garage and garden shed, and three chicken coops. (It was the third coop, a 4 x 8 foot building with a metal roof that’s large enough to walk into and has four perches, six nests, and a brooding area, that finally did the trick.)

I did a bunch of the work necessary to build or finish my home, too. I wired the whole place, laid down Pergo laminate flooring and tile, built stub walls and a shower stall, constructed deck rails for my outside deck and inside loft, put down the Trex decking on my 600 square foot deck, and added trim around doors and walls. More recently, I worked on a bathroom project that required me to lay out plumbing drains and vents, install insulation, and put up paneling. Although none of these activities called for much creativity, they still involved making things with my hands.

Along the way, I’ve accumulated a pretty respectable collection of power tools — certainly more than my father, stepfather, or wasband ever had. I have a chop saw and a table saw. I have an impact driver, three drills, and a pair of battery operated screwdrivers. I have a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, and a jig saw. I have an angle grinder and a Dremmel. I have two nail guns and a big compressor with enough hose to reach anywhere in my home or garage from the garage. And hand tools! I have just about everything I need. As my wasband used to say, “Any job is easy when you have the right tool.” Hell, yes!

And I’ve come to realize, after nearly 10 years of doing this kind of work, that I like it.

Making Jewelry

Elsewhere in this blog, I’ve already discussed how I got started making jewelry so I don’t want to rehash that here. Instead, I want to talk about how making jewelry makes me feel and why it has become a part of my life.

I look at jewelry making as a combination of challenges:

  • The engineering challenge is to come up with a design that physically works. For example, a pendant that includes a stone must have the features necessary to hold the stone securely in place. It must have a bail to hang it from a chain or other necklace. It must be balanced so it doesn’t hang awkwardly from its bail.
  • The aesthetic challenge is to come up with a design that looks good. What design elements can I include? Which stone will I work with? How will the overall design complement the stone?

  • Ruby In Zoisite
    This piece on includes two ruby in zoisite stones. It was entirely handmade from sterling silver sheet, bezel strip, and wire. The skills I used to make it include cutting, piercing, filling, stamping, shaping, and soldering the metal. As for tools — well, it took a lot more tools than I could take with me in my travels.

    The skills challenge is to be able to create the piece of jewelry I’ve designed using the silversmithing skills I have or am building. Those skills include cutting, filing, texturing, and soldering metal. My skills improve with every piece of jewelry I make, but they’re limited, in part, by the tools I have available. (I have a full set of jewelry making tools in my home-based studio, but I’m very limited when I travel.)

It’s these three challenges that make jewelry making a rewarding activity for me. There’s always something new to try. There’s aways a skill to build or hone. I will never be an expert, although I will get better and better at what I do just by doing it.

Making Jewelry for Sale

When my seasonal flying work was earning enough income to support me, making and selling jewelry was a “side gig” and it didn’t matter much whether I made more money than I spent on materials and equipment. But with my retirement this year, that has changed. I’m now treating my jewelry business more seriously as source of income. That means making more (and selling more) jewelry.

I’m fortunate in that I have several avenues for selling and they’re all pretty good. Some are better than others. About a month ago, one of my wholesale clients pretty much cleaned out my inventory of pendants, leaving me with slim pickings for my online shop and a lot of work to do before my next art show. That show is coming up in about 10 days, so, as you might imagine, I’m hustling to make more inventory.

The challenge now is to keep my creativity level up and not just make different versions of the same item. I do that, too — it’s quick to be able to make certain designs in “batch mode” — but it also takes a bit of the fun out of making. (See the second bullet point above.)

Lately, I’ve been very busy with garage projects, but for the next 10 days, I’ll try to spend 4 to 8 hours a day in my studio. (Fortunately, it has an air conditioner, which I’ll definitely need with temperatures getting into the 100s for the next few days.) I’ll work primarily on pendants, which I’m so short on, but will also try to get some earrings made. In the evening, while I’m relaxing with my pups upstairs, I’ve been making the beaded necklaces that coordinate with the pendants; I’ve made four in the past three days.

I have two back-to-back shows in Leavenworth, WA, including a five-day show for Labor Day weekend. Then I might do a half-day show in Twisp before taking whatever inventory is left to my wholesale customer in Winthrop and a gallery in Twisp. By then, it’ll be pretty close to the end of my stay at home and the start of my travels.

On the Road

Will I make jewelry while I’m away?

It was easy when I traveled with the cargo trailer I turned into a mobile jewelry studio. I could camp out in the desert all winter and spend as much time as I liked inside it with just about every tool I needed within reach. But I’m not traveling with the cargo trailer anymore. These days, I’m on a boat and space is very limited.

Ruby In Zoisite
Another ruby in zoisite piece, but wire-framed. I can make this kind of pendant anywhere and it still sells well, but I’m bored with it.

The main challenge will be to put together a set of tools and materials that’ll keep me producing without taking up too much space. The wire work I used to focus on is extremely portable, but I’m kind of sick of doing that. Beading is also something I can do anywhere, but even the beads take up a surprising amount of space so I’ll need to limit what I bring along.

I’d like to be able to keep fulfilling online shop orders as I travel, but that means taking all of my inventory with me. That’s not a huge deal since jewelry is relatively small and I have a good storage case to keep it all in. I’d also like to be able to set up new wholesale accounts along the way — but that means having enough inventory to sell. And that means making while I travel.

So the answer is yes, I will make jewelry as I travel. I just don’t know how much. The next 12 months should be quite a challenge.

Why I’m Leaving Etsy — and Maybe You Should, Too?

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For years, I had an online shop on Etsy to sell my jewelry. Not anymore.

I’ve made some changes in my online shop and I thought I’d take a moment to explain why and what I changed. But let me start with an explanation of how I sell my handmade jewelry.

How I Sell My Work

Most of my sales are either directly to buyers at art shows, via consignment sales at two Washington State galleries, or wholesale to a variety of gift shop owners. Each method has its own pros and cons:

  • Art shows take a lot of time and effort. I’ve got to get to the show, set up my booth, and then sit in it for the duration of the show. At the end, I have to pack it all up and get it home. Those are the cons. On the plus side, however, is that I have complete control over my inventory and sell at retail price. So I have the potential to make more money per item sold.
  • Consignment is a different ball game. I drop off inventory that the consignment place may or may not put on display immediately. When I drop it off, I lose control of it and can’t sell it. But I also have to keep track of it. If and when it sells, I get a check for 60% to 65% of the retail price. Ouch. If it doesn’t sell, I get it back, usually in serious need of cleaning before it can go back into my inventory. Those are the cons. On the plus side, it doesn’t take much effort to sell and my work eventually appears in a shop with other gallery quality items. I generally get checks every single month, year-round. Still, I’d rather not do any more consignment selling, especially for high ticket items.
  • Wholesale is pretty much the same as retail with the main benefit being that I get paid up front, don’t have to keep track of what’s sitting out there, and I never see it again. It’s the same as selling to a retail buyer, but at a deep discount. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

I’d like to do a lot more wholesale selling and a lot less art show selling. Part of that is that art show success is so dependent on the venue and the weather. I usually turn a decent profit at each art show I attend, but I did lose money at a Christmas Show in Spokane last year and that hurt.

When I sell wholesale, I know my cost of sales right up front: the amount of the discount I have to offer and the cost of getting the merchandise to the buyer. When I sell at art shows, I have a lot of costs to cover before I can start seeing profits: jury fees, entrance fees, transportation costs, lodging costs, etc. — and that doesn’t even include the cost of my booth tent, tables, table coverings, displays, etc. It’s possible to pay $400 for a booth at an outdoor show 50 miles away and have weather so miserable that no one comes out to the show. Or pay $500 for an indoor show 150 miles away and be stuck in a back room none of the shoppers walk back to. This has happened to me and it sucks.

Selling Online

Of course, selling online is probably the best of all worlds. I keep control of my inventory and sell it at retail price (or maybe a slight discount with a coupon or sale). The online shop calculates and collects the money and sends my share — more on that in a moment — right to my bank account. I package the merchandise — which is easy because I’m selling small items — and ship it out. I don’t have to set up, sit in, or tear down a show booth. I don’t have to sell at deep discounts or wait until an item out of my control is sold. When an item is sold online, it’s gone and I never have to think about it again.

Lots of folks think this is the only way to sell. They think it’s as easy as setting up an online shop and ringing in the sales. But what they don’t understand is that people not only have to want what you sell, but they have to be able to find it.

And that’s where Etsy comes in.

Etsy — Then and Now

Etsy started as a marketplace for handmade goods — items created by crafters and artists. It built a reputation as a place where you could buy unique things while supporting makers. And, for some people who don’t know any better, it probably still has that reputation.

Mastodon Toot
A response to my toot this morning about my switch from Etsy to Square for online selling. I giggle at the word “tat,” which is apparently UK English for “junk.”

But it’s a farce. Etsy is now full of manufactured junk, much of it made overseas and passed off as “handmade” by people trying to cash in on Etsy’s reputation. As a web designer on Mastodon commented to me today, “I was looking at selling on Etsy lately and was dismayed to see it now sells all the same tat as eBay/Amazon, and appears that the only way to actually sell anything is to pay them to boost listings.”

And that brings up another one of Etsy’s ploys. If you search Etsy for an item — say “silver jewelry” — it will bring up search results with Etsy sellers who paid to have their posts boosted before any other sellers. Sometimes, the search results don’t even match the search phrase. In so many cases, the results that come up are cheap crap that you know isn’t handmade.

Etsy Search Results
My search for “Silver Jewelry” brought up this collection of garbage. Are we expected to believe that someone will make you a personalized name necklace for only $16? And how much of this stuff looks like silver to you? The whole second row is paid advertising. Scrolling down (beyond this screenshot) displays more of the same. As a seller, do you think anyone will find what you make in this mess?

White Buffalo Pendant
While this might not be your taste in jewelry, it’s solid sterling silver, hand formed from sheet, strip, and wire with a genuine White Buffalo Turquoise cabochon in it that was hand polished by a lapidary friend just for me. Even the beaded necklace has sterling silver beads, although the white beads are howlite.

So I’m making quality sterling and fine silver jewelry with gemstones using a wide variety of silversmithing tools and techniques and I’m competing on Etsy with this crap?

But wait, there’s more!

Recently, Etsy decided, out of the blue, that it was going to hold back 70% of my payment as a “reserve.” No real explanation of why. It just had to wait an extra week or two to get my money.

Add that to Etsy’s fees:

  • 20¢ for each listing, including automatic re-listing of an item that didn’t sell in 60 days and automatic listing of multiple quantity items when one sells. So, in other words, you’re going to pay 20¢ per item just to be able to show it on Etsy.
  • 6.5% of the order total, including shipping and gift wrapping fees, if charged.
  • 3% + 25¢ for payment processing fees.
  • 15% of the order total for sales made through the use of Etsy’s offsite advertising. Yes, if Etsy puts an ad on Google and someone clicks that ad and it takes them to your shop and they buy something, you pay Etsy an extra 15%. This is an opt-in feature and I’m pretty sure the fee used to be 20%. I opted out when I realized what it was costing me; somehow all of my sales were being hit with this fee.

And this doesn’t even begin to cover the optional monthly fees you can pay for shop customization options or the optional marketing fees you can pay to boost listings and get them at the top of search results.

So, in all, we’re looking at roughly 10% to 25% of the listing price to sell it. And that’s if it sells the first time it lists. You’ll pay an extra 20¢ every time it’s relisted.

Yes, I know this is less than the cost of selling by consignment or wholesale and even less than the cost of selling directly to buyers at art shows given the cost of doing art shows. But I think it’s a bit outrageous when you consider that I’m not getting my money immediately and my work is pooled in with so much other crap.

Sellers Revolt

Etsy sellers are not taking this sitting down. Or at least some of them aren’t. The withholding of money has gotten Etsy sellers up in arms enough that they’re threatening to strike. And that has resulted in Etsy backpedaling to reduce the amount it withholds. I got an email telling me that they were only going to withhold 30% of my sales.

Too little, too late. For the reasons listed above, I’m outta there.

I set up my shop to be “on vacation” with a vacation notice that says my shop is permanently closed and they can find my new shop on Square. Of course I included a link. I also turned off all automatic listing renewals for everything still listed in my shop. One by one they’ll disappear. When they’re all gone, I’ll delete the shop. Unless Etsy deletes it first.

The Square Solution

I use Square for credit card processing. I have been using it since it first appeared as a credit card acceptance option, back when its target market was garage sale runners and babysitters.

Back then, I set it up for my flying business. I was tired of using a credit card acceptance system that charged me a minimum monthly fee, statement fees, and a relatively high credit card processing fee. It was costing me more than $50 a month, even when I didn’t accept any credit cards.

Square was different. It used a smartphone app, charged a reasonable processing fee, and that was it. No monthly fees, no minimum fees. The only catch (back then) was that they wouldn’t pay out more than $1,000 per week. They weren’t expecting folks like me who sold service that often started at $1,000. But I was able to get around that with them by providing documentation that proved I was legit and had other credit card processing service in the past. The upped my weekly limit to $5,000, which was fine. (There isn’t any limit anymore.)

So when I started doing art shows, it made sense to set up a Square account for my jewelry business. While people might whine and complain that the rate is too high — seriously? — or they have some other imagined gripe about it, I have no complaints about Square, at least not yet.

One of the things Square now offers is the ability to sell online. While they didn’t implement this in a user friendly way, I have enough tech knowledge that I was able to figure it out. I started building my online store more than a month ago and now have most of my inventory in it. You can find it at MLJewelryDesigns.square.site.

It’s simple, but that’s okay. I think it looks professional — certainly a lot better than Etsy ever looked. It works.

Best of all, it’s free. No listing fees, no selling fees. All I pay is the cost of credit card processing, which I would if I were selling at an art show. It even has a built in shipping calculator that lets me buy discounted postage to ship items out. Just like Etsy.

Yes, there are upgrades available for a monthly fee. One of them would let me use a custom domain name, which I’m considering. Others offer better marketing options or shop analytics — most of which I don’t need and certainly don’t want to pay for. I’m not fooling myself here: I don’t sell much online and don’t think I ever will. But I want the option. I want to be able to send folks to a place where they can buy what I make 24/7.

And that brings me to marketing.

Promoting My Online Shop

I remember the early days of the worldwide web — you do know that’s what the WWW stands for, right? Back in the day, everyone wanted an online shop. They thought that all you had to do was set up a website and people would just buy, buy, buy whatever you were selling. No one seemed to realize that people had to want what you sell and find your shop before you could maybe sell to them.

And that’s where marketing comes in.

Yes, I have an online shop. Yes, there are features built into Square’s online shops to be found by Google in searches. But I’m not dumb enough to think that I can just sit back and let those two things bring me sales.

If Facebook is your business’s website, you’re doing it wrong.

Serious business owners have real websites for their businesses, not Facebook pages.

You might think it’s enough to just put your business on Facebook and steer folks to your page, but it isn’t. First of all, it’s alienating people like me who wouldn’t open a Facebook page to follow a friend, let alone get more information about a business. Second, as discussed in this blog post by UK web designer Nick (who also authored the Mastodon toot above), you’re at the mercy of Facebook’s algorithms to determine whether what you post on Facebook will even appear for the folks who follow you.

You can do better than that without breaking the bank. Heck, even my WordPress-based sites have the ability to forward all of my posts to the folks who want to see them. No algorithm will block that.

No. I have to send people to my shop. And I do that several ways:

  • Maintain a website. I use the ML Jewelry Designs website as way to share news with visitors, including folks who actually subscribe to get that news. And yes, I get a bump in website hits and even a few online sales after every art show I attend. Also note that I used the word “maintain.” That means adding fresh content regularly. No one wants to visit an out-of-date website more than once.
  • Distribute business cards at art shows. My cards have a photo of one of my pieces of jewelry and a link to the ML Jewelry Designs website. The website is not my shop, but it does have links to my shop and links to specific pieces of jewelry. Those cards are not only available in multiple places in my booth, but I also slip them into the packaging for every single item I sell.
  • Post about new work on social media. The website does this for me. I use WordPress which posts to Mastodon for me. I’m not on Facebook or Twitter (or X, the dead bird site) anymore. I do have an Instagram account and I try (but mostly fail) to post there. Any social media post I make has a link to either my website or the actual listing in my online shop for the jewelry I’m showing off.
  • Link where appropriate. I link to the ML Jewelry Designs website wherever appropriate, including this blog and from the organizations that sponsor the shows I do.

No More Etsy for Me

While I know that several of my artist friends have had some success with Etsy and haven’t seemed too bothered with the reserve or fees, I can’t say the same. If you’re like them and Etsy is working for you, stick with it. But if, like me, you’re tired of your work being hidden away among so much manufactured crap, maybe it’s time to find another solution.

I’m done.

Starting My Watercolor Adventure

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A video from my personal YouTube channel.

Silly me! I’ve taken up a new hobby: watercolor painting! I started cheap to make sure I liked it before diving in. I do! So I purchased some better quality materials, which just arrived today in time to pack them for my upcoming boat trip.

This video tells you about my progress so far and shows some of the exercises I’ve completed. Then it gives you a tour of the new materials and equipment I’ve acquired. Enjoy!

Welcoming a Vaccine Mandate

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I share some thoughts about how Washington’s upcoming vaccine mandate may affect my participation in an art show.

Custer's Arts & Crafts
The Christmas Arts & Crafts shows are just two of the shows Jim Custer Enterprises produces.

Yesterday, I got an email from Jim Custer Enterprises, a Spokane-based company that manages arts and crafts and other shows in Washington state. I’m signed up to participate in two of their holiday art shows in November this year. The email was related to a vaccine mandate going into effect on November 15, 2021 for all indoor events to be attended by more than 1,000 people.

My History with Custer Shows

This will be the first time I’m attending any of Custer’s shows. I had originally applied to one of their shows way back in spring of 2019 but my application was late and they were already full. I applied again for the November 2019 shows and was waitlisted. Undaunted, I applied again for their two spring 2020 shows and was accepted. But then Covid came along and both shows were cancelled. The November 2020 shows were also cancelled. So were the spring 2021 shows.

But the November 2021 shows were not cancelled and my previous acceptance got me in without going through the whole reapplication process.

There are two shows — one in Pasco and one in Spokane — and both are indoors. Most of the artists I know in the area are familiar with the shows and several from Leavenworth’s Village Art in the Park, where I sell my jewelry a few times each year, are going to both of them. They say good things. I was slightly concerned when I learned that the shows had an admission fee — it seems to me that less people will attend if they have to pay a fee to get in — but I suspect that if people are willing to pay to attend, they’re also more likely to buy. I’d rather have X number of serious shoppers than X times 5 number of browsers who are coming to waste time (theirs or mine) or look for ideas for their own work.

Because both of the upcoming shows are in November, they are holiday shows full of gift buyers. I’ve been spending the past week making jewelry and, will continue to do so right up until November 3 when I have to pack for the Pasco show. It would be a crying shame if I ran short on inventory and I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that from happening. These two shows are the last two I’ve got scheduled for 2021, so I want them to be successful. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, 2021 is the year that ML Jewelry Designs will finally turn a profit — after years of investing in equipment, materials, and education and taking a big hit from Covid closures in 2020. These shows will be my last chance to make that profit big.

The Vaccine Mandate

The email message I got from Custer talked about a vaccine mandate that I was not aware of that takes effect on November 15 and how it may affect the Spokane show. It started like this:

We are sending this email today to bring you updated Covid-19 protocol information. Last Friday, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announced a new Vaccine Mandate that is going into effect on November 15, 2021. If you are an artist in both our Pasco and Spokane Shows, this mandate only applies to the Spokane Show since it will take place four days after the mandate goes into effect.

It then went on to provide exact wording from the mandate:

Everyone over the age of 12 must show proof of Covid-19 vaccination (verified by CDC record cards, photo of the card, printed certificate or screenshot from MyIRMobile.com or other immunization records from health providers) to attend the event OR show proof of a negative Covid-19 test taken within 72 hours of the event.

It then explained how the mandate affected the show and reminded artists that if they have not been vaccinated yet, their only current option is the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, since there isn’t enough time now to get both shots of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines prior to the show. If the artist did not want to get the vaccine at all, he/she would have a very narrow window to get the Covid-19 test and prove negative results prior to the show — and testing is backed up in Spokane right now.

(Honestly, I think that anyone who makes a living participating in art shows who is not vaccinated is a total idiot — how can they risk regular exposure to so many people without protection? But hey, I believe in science and I think the “personal freedom” argument is a lot of bullshit fed to gullible people incapable of their own thought by manipulative “conservatives” in their never-ending efforts to divide Americans into Us vs. Them.)

Expected Trouble

The email includes the following, which also came to my mind:

If you are wondering how this will affect attendance, we are in the same boat. There will be people who will be frustrated and upset by the mandate who will make it political. There will also be people who will feel more comfortable attending because of the mandate. At this point, we are so happy to be having any show that we will take what we can get! Truly, it’s better than last year when there was no show at all. The people that will be there, will be ready to buy! There’s no doubt about that.

First of all, I have to admit that I will feel a lot more comfortable participating in a show with this new mandate in effect. I had the less effective J&J vaccine — which was the only one available when I went to be vaccinated at the end of March — and am not sure if I’ll be able to get a booster prior to the show. I’m terrified of becoming a breakthrough case — two of my vaccinated neighbors got it from a vaccinated employee who tested negative three times before a positive test result. That tells me that I can’t put 100% of my faith in either vaccines or tests. Despite that, I feel a lot safer knowing that everyone attending will either be vaccinated or have gotten a negative test. While this does not eliminate the risk (in my mind, anyway), it does greatly reduce it.

I should also reiterate here that I’m not worried about dying of Covid-19. I’m worried about long-term effects that could possibly reduce my quality of living for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, both shows — Pasco (to be held pre-mandate) and Spokane — are in the red side of our blue state. That means many folks have bought into the “conservative freedoms” argument for not getting vaccinated. Never mind that vaccines for polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, shingles, tetanus, and flu have been either required or widely available and used with little or no side effects for decades. These people have been convinced that their personal freedoms are being threatened by Covid-19 vaccine mandates and that it’s their “God-given Constitutional right” to refuse a vaccine that has the potential to save their life or at least help them avoid a serious, contagious virus.

So I suspect there will be a lot of push back including, but not limited to arguments at the gate. Violence would not surprise me. I hope Custer hires a good security outfit.

I also suspect that folks will be using — or trying to use — fake vaccine cards. I sure hope they’re caught. I believe they should be arrested, but I suspect they’ll just be turned away. If they’re caught at all.

Will folks who, like me, are worried about Covid be more likely to attend? I sure hope so. I’d honestly prefer selling my work to like-minded folks. I’m sick and tired of listening to anti-vax whiners moaning about their freedoms while putting my health at risk.

Meanwhile, I have to admit to hoping that a few angry, idiotic artists back out of the show in some sort of protest. First of all, I don’t need two work among people like that. And second, well, less competition.

It’s Business

In the meantime, I have a lot of sympathy and respect for the folks at Jim Custer Enterprises. These people make their living producing shows and everyone I’ve spoken to about them agrees that they are good people. I can imagine how having to cancel shows for a year and a half must have affected their business. No income for that period! It’s a wonder they’ve been able to survive at all.

It’s this closing paragraph that sums up their situation to me (emphasis added):

As we wrote in our cover letter when you first applied, flexibility is the key to your successful show participation this year. We are in a global pandemic and it is not over. Yes, everyone has an opinion about it. However, as business owners of a company who brings together large numbers of people, we will continue to trust the science and comply with whatever mandates will help the shows go on.

No matter how the show turns out, it’s a real pleasure to do business with an organization that not only thinks like this, but isn’t afraid to make their thoughts on the matter public.

Please Don’t Expect Me to Teach You for Free

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Why do strangers expect me to share my time and knowledge with them for free?

I’ve been making jewelry for a bunch of years now and have expanded my skillset from the wire-framed cabochon pendants I began with to all kinds of silversmithing work. Along the way, I developed my skills by watching videos, attending hands-on classes, and practicing what I’ve learned. I’ve also invested literally thousands of dollars in equipment and materials.

This is not a “side gig,” as someone once suggested. It’s a real business with income and expenses. I was on track to be profitable (after all that training and equipment) in 2020 — until COVID hit. I’ll likely turn a profit this year.

Understand that I am self employed with several sources of income. Jewelry making is one of them. Making YouTube videos is another. Flying helicopters during the summer months is yet another. So when someone expects me to share my hard-earned skills with them without compensation, I bristle.

Getting My Skills

My jewelry making skillset began through watching a few videos about wire-wrapping stones. In hindsight, I realize that those videos did more harm than good. One of them actually recommended using hardware store pliers, which have ridges for gripping that seriously scratch metal. The finished pieces I created looked just as amateurish as the pieces in the videos. I fooled myself into being satisfied with them.

Montana Agate first Piece
The first true wire-framed pendant I made in sterling silver. Many thanks to Dorothy for sharing her knowledge with me.

But I was lucky in that I had a friend who did much nicer work and volunteered to teach me. We sat down together and I made my first piece in real silver using her technique. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. We were in Quartzsite and she was renting a far-less-than-perfect single-wide mobile home in a trailer park while working for a lapidary who was set up at Desert Gardens. We did it at the kitchen table one evening with a lamp brought over to provide the light we needed. She was very patient. That first pendant took two hours to make.

Bumble Bee Jasper
I made this Bumble Bee Jasper pendant this past weekend while sitting in my booth at the art show; it sold the same day. I can now make a pendant like this in about 30 minutes if I’m not interrupted.

I was happy with my first effort, but looking at it now reminds me of how far I’ve come. My style has changed significantly over the years. I now wrap all of my bails for a cleaner (in my opinion) look and work hard to cover the stone as little as possible. I’ve made (and sold) hundreds of these pendants over the past three and a half years and I’ve since moved on to other things.

I should make something very clear here. I never asked Dorothy to teach me how to make pendants. She offered to do it. She wouldn’t take my money, either — even though she’d provided the sterling silver for that first pendant. But I wasn’t satisfied to let it rest. I called up Rio Grande, the jewelry supply company she introduced me to, and asked them to put $50 on her account for her to use the next time she bought something. A sort of gift certificate. Months later, she found that credit and thanked me for it. But the way I see it, I still owe her.

The trouble with wire work is that it’s seen as an inferior form of jewelry making. I’m not sure why. While some wire work — like what I’d started doing on my own — can be pretty crappy, there’s other work that is far more polished and professional. Still, when you apply for a juried art show and the only thing you’ve got to show is wire work, prejudices keep you out, no matter how polished it looks. I needed to take my jewelry making to the next step.

That said, I signed up for a 3-day intensive metalworking class at the Tacoma Metal Arts Center. This was not a cheap undertaking. The class itself cost $375 and I had to get myself over to Tacoma, which is about a 4-hour drive. I also had to get lodging for myself; I lucked out there because they let me park my truck camper in their back parking area every night. I’ve since taken two other classes through TMAC, including a blacksmithing class in Eatonville.

Hammered Earrings
These silver earrings are entirely handmade, right up to the ear wire. (Only the beads are purchased.) I started with silver sheet metal and cut the earring and “washer” shapes. Next came hammering and stamping the texture. Then I applied a patina and used various tools to rub it off the high points. Finally, I created the ear wire with the quartz and silver beads.

I learned a ton there although few of the skills were polished enough to use right afterwards. I had to practice. I started producing different styles of earrings, using the metal forming skills I learned. Soldering, at first, was a stumbling block, but I (mostly) got past it. I began making tab-mounted, then prong mounted, and finally bezel set cabochon pendants.

I also decided to take the deep dive into jewelry making by investing in equipment. A flex shaft. A rolling mill. A table-top metal shear. Hammers and dapping sets. Mandrels. A vice. A grinder. Bench blocks. Finishing tools. Soldering station equipment. The list — and the related costs — go on and on. But if there’s one smart thing my wasband ever said (again and again), it’s “Every job is easy when you have the right tools.” I invested in the tools I needed to explore my design ideas and get the job done.

And I took more classes. In January/February 2020, before COVID hit hard, I signed up for 5 Vivi Magoo classes at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. That meant an investment in close to $2,000 on just skills. And $250 for a site in a campground nearby — rather than the $250/night cost of a room at the hotel where the classes were being held. I learned more advanced techniques by actually doing them. The skills I brought home enabled me to come up with new designs and take my work to the next level. I was able to get into most of the juried art shows I applied to — the ones in Palm Springs remain elusive — and to sell my work at shows and in galleries.

Still, I continue to this day to take classes — I just signed up for one in Tucson this coming February — and to hone my skills with new designs.

Sharing My Knowledge

About two years ago, before COVID hit, I did some one-on-one and classroom training. In most cases, it was project based: I’d teach people how to make something I made, including wire-framed pendants, chain bracelets and necklaces, and a variety of metal formed earrings.

Understand that I’ve always been paid to share my knowledge with others. Whether I did one-on-one training at Pybus Market when I sold pendants there or taught small groups at a booth in Quartzsite, AZ in the winter or did classroom training at Gallery One in Ellensburg, I was compensated for my time and the materials I provided to class attendees.

The only exception is when one of my neighbors wanted a copper cuff bracelet like the ones I make out of copper pipe. I invited her over to my shop and the two of us hammered out a pair of bracelets. She is my friend and she takes care of my cats and chickens when I travel. It was a pleasure to be able to teach her how to make her own bracelet and I think she values it more than if I just gave her one. There’s something special about having a hand in making something you wear.

A Stranger Emails

In an effort to generate some off-season revenue before I head south for the winter — as I normally do — I placed a few Craig’s List ads offering my services as a jewelry maker to teach people how to make some of the things I make and sell. The ads go under the heading of “Learn to Make these Earrings!” etc. They basically show a photo or two of the project item and skills they’ll learn while making it. There’s a cost with a discount if more than one person attends. I’d link to them, but chances are they will have expired by the time most people read this. Here’s a screen shot of the start of one:

Learn to Make Earrings
This is the first pair of earrings I designed and made; ironically, they remain one of my most popular styles.

I also have an ad for general jewelry making where I offer to teach anything I know using any of my equipment for $50/hour/person with a 2-hour minimum. This is for someone who has an idea of what they want to learn but doesn’t necessarily want to do one of my projects.

On Thursday, I got an email forwarded by Craigs List, referring to one of my project-based ads:

Hi:

Saw your post on CL, and I watched your YT video, nice shop.

I am semi-retired and live in [redacted] and process roughs from a local source. I would like to learn how to make jewelry, and I also interested in perhaps contracting with you for some consulting.

In my garage/shop, I have a commercial grade vibratory tumbler, and 3 large rotary tumblers, a 6-inch Hi-Tech saw, and flat lap, a Gryphon router, and the necessary tools, and most of the supplies for making jewelry. Oh yeah, and about 400 lbs of roughs, and about 200 lbs of finished stones (I’ve been tumbling since 2016).

I also had a professional website built in January of 2021 but I have not really given it the focus it needs, in part because I want to add jewelry to the product line.
[redacted]

While I am a life-long (closet) artist, my devotion has been to pencil & paper, otherwise I was a [redacted] in [redacted] for [redacted].

I want help organizing my shop, so that I can make jewelry here in [redacted]. I have also been toying with the idea of hiring a part-time employee to make jewelry from my processed stones, and would enjoy a second opinion.

Best regards,

[redacted name and phone number]

(By the way, here’s the shop video he’s referring to. It gives you some idea of my investment in equipment.)

I have redacted some identifying information because it’s not my purpose to identify and/or shame this person. It doesn’t really matter who it is, does it? I’ll just point out here that, like me, his primary career was not in any way related to art or jewelry making. This is something pretty new for him.

I looked at his website. It was very pretty. It had a lot of pictures of tumbled stones and a lot of the usual nonsense about spirituality and vibrations and the meanings of rocks. It did not seem to actually sell anything.

I re-read his message. He is basically a rock tumbler — he polishes rough stones by putting them in a barrel with different grits and letting the barrel run for weeks on end. Anyone can tumble rocks — hell, Amazon sells a kit that’ll get a 10-year-old kid started in no time for just $59. The only thing that impressed me about his equipment was that he was set up to tumble a lot of rocks.

(Maybe I should mention here that you can buy tumbled rocks by the handful or little bagful from a lot of gift shops out west for $5. Here’s 2 pounds of the stuff with a book about rocks for $20.)

I don’t use tumbled rocks in my work. The only stones I use are cabochons, which require different equipment and a lot more time and effort to make. Cabochons have flat backs and domed fronts. They’re often in regular shapes, like ovals and teardrops, but can be more randomly shaped, depending on the skills and artistic ideas of the lapidary who makes them.

I thought for a while about how I would answer this guy’s message. I even toyed with the idea of hooking him up with someone who did the kind of wire wrap work I started with. But in the end I decided to give him what he seemed to be asking for: advice.

I’m sorry it took me so long to respond. I was busy this weekend selling my work at Art in the Park in Leavenworth.

I don’t think I can help you. I don’t use tumbled stones in my work at all. I use cabochons, which are best for the kind of stone setting I do.

As for an opinion: if you hired someone to make jewelry for you, the money you pay that person would have to be added to the cost of the jewelry, along with the materials used to make the jewelry.

You have to consider how much you could sell the jewelry for. Have you visited shops selling the kind of jewelry you want to make? Have you seen the prices on that jewelry? Can you discern whether it’s actually selling at those prices?

As you may have already surmised, having a “professional website” does not mean you’ll be able to sell a lot of product. Everyone has a website these days. You’d do better attending art or craft shows or setting up wholesale or consignment accounts. All that costs money, too. And, after spending a total of 30 hours in Leavenworth this weekend, with six hours of commuting and the cost of the booth fee, my tent, and display equipment to factor in, I can assure you that shows take a lot of time, energy, and money to sell at. Wholesale accounts expect to pay 50% of retail; consignment these days wants 35% to 40% of the selling price. Selling costs are real and need to be figured into any calculation.

Is the selling price minus cost of sales and cost of creation worthwhile for you?

These are the things you need to think objectively about. I hope this has been helpful to you.

Apparently, I misunderstood what he wanted. He didn’t want “a second opinion,” which I read as advice. He replied within 24 hours:

Thank you for your response. The business part I understand, the mechanics of jewelry making is my present interest.

Like yourself, I also do shows. I’ll be at the [redacted] Farmers Market this [redacted]. I do it because it’s a great chance to interact with the community, and I am test-marketing new products, some of which I purchase from Amazon, and resell.

I do have a rock saw, a sander and dop station, and can make cabochons myself.

However to speed things up, I’m in the process of determining whether I want a Cab King or a 6-inch Covington combo unit. I realize the lead times on these are significant but I am not deterred.

So, with that said, would consider teaching me how to make jewelry?

Regards,

[redacted]

Whoa. There was a lot to unpack there.

I bristled big time when I read, “like yourself, I do shows.” (And it wasn’t the grammar that got me.) He has no fucking idea what “doing shows” is all about if he’s limited to a 4-hour local farmer’s market. Has he carted a tent, leg weights, tables, table coverings, displays, etc. all over the southwest, spending hours to set up and tear down booths at venues in three (so far) different states? Has he dealt with trying to sell inside a tent in the cold or heat or rain? Having to go to the bathroom when there’s no one around to watch your merchandise while you wait in line at a port-a-potty? Has he even dealt with the jurying process, paying a fee just to see if his work is good enough to get into a show?

Okay, fine. But then there’s the farmers’ market itself. I’d been talking to a customer about that particular farmers’ market over the weekend. The customer suggested it to me. I tried to kindly explain why I wasn’t interested, focusing on the fact that setting up my booth for a 4-hour event was just not practical. The real reason was the fact that most farmers’ markets are not juried — that means there’s no assurance that I’d be showing my work with other people selling real art. You might think that’s a good thing, but when you’re trying to sell silver and gemstone pendants for $59 each and sterling silver earrings for $39 a pair, it really isn’t good to be among people selling junk jewelry for a lot less money.

And then there was his admission that he buys stuff on Amazon and sells it at the farmers’ market. Holy shit. That is a mortal sin in the world of art shows. I guess it’s okay if you just want to turn a few bucks, but if you want to be and represent yourself as an artist? My opinion of him dropped a few levels when I read that.

And I became very glad I didn’t waste my time at that farmers’ market.

As for buying a Cab King (which I own) or Covington Combo Unit and thinking you can make great cabochons cost effectively right out of the gate, I can tell you from experience that it just isn’t going to happen. When I make my own cabochons — which I occasionally do — I spend roughly an hour or more of time on every single one of them. I have come to realize that my time is worth a lot more than I could get for it by making cabochons, so I’ve decided to simply buy most of the cabochons I use. My collection is quite extensive at this point, with over 800 stones from all over the world, and I have no trouble selling them for considerably more than their cost on the rare instances when someone wants to buy one. My art is in the jewelry I make — not the raw materials I make it with.

Anyway, I was able to answer his request with a much shorter email. After all, it seemed that he wanted me to teach him how to make jewelry. Sure, I could do that:

Yes, I have a Craig’s List ad that offers that service.
https://wenatchee.craigslist.org/art/d/malaga-learn-to-make-fine-jewelry/7383971485.html

I can basically teach how to make almost anything that I make.

Maria

The link would take him to my ad about teaching jewelry making for $50/hour with a 2-hour minimum. If he wanted me to teach him how to make jewelry, he, like almost everyone else I’d taught over the past few years, would have to open his wallet and pay me for my time, knowledge, and equipment.

That was three days ago. I’m still waiting for his response.

Isn’t It Worth Something?

This is the same crap I’ve been dealing with for years in all of my freelance work: writing books and articles, flying helicopters, editing video, making jewelry. I have skills and equipment — sometimes very costly equipment — do you know what costs to buy and maintain a helicopter? — and someone expects me to share these things for free.

These are the tools I use to make a living. Any job I do requires my skills and equipment and the most valuable thing I have to offer: my time. Why the hell should I be expected to give this stuff away? To a stranger, no less?

In hindsight, I’m sorry I spent so much time answering his original email message. I gave him information based on my experience and I used my time to share it with him. What the hell is wrong with me? Why didn’t I realize from the get-go that he was just another person trying to squeeze something of value out of me, likely for free?

Anyway, I don’t expect to hear from him again, unless he’s going to try to trade me training time for some of his rocks.

I bet you can guess how that suggestion would go with me.