Random experiment in juicy colors.

I found some great dyed shell beads in a variety of colors and shapes and immediately thought "juicy" when I saw the orange variety. I've never been a fan of orange (despite my love of it's juice and candy slices) but the green "leaf" shapes caught my eye too and decided to dance together.

They even kept wiggling when I tried to take photos!

I also found some great petite teardrop shaped freshwater pearls but I'm waiting on some finer gauge headpins before I start on that project. Won't be long though and then will have some new grapes variations that will be 100% handmade and with sterling silver!

3 Simple Customer Service Rules

Over the past decade in roles from retail to consulting in industries as varied as baking to web design, I’ve experienced a range of customer service. I’ve heard a lot about it too but mostly from executive types who loved charts and graphs. I’m sure there were nuggets of wisdom in their countless slides but the folks who deal with people every day will tell you they have a few simple rules to keep their customers happy.

1. Keep your customers informed. Whether this is an e-mail letting them know you’ve received their order or a verbal acknowledgment to someone in your shop, “I’ll be with you right away,” you can stave off so many difficult situations if you just keep the lines of communication open.
   
   Why wait until something is a problem when you can get your customers involved early and work out a solution quickly? For example, I recently ordered a custom item from an online retailer. We e-mailed back and forth over all the details and I was assured it would be shipping out the next couple of days but after that initial flurry of information, nothing. I sent them a message to find out what had happened and got a quick, “sorry for the delay, I had some difficulties getting everything together.”
   
   How simple it would have been to send that message two weeks ago instead of inspiring me to write an article about good customer service. Even at the beginning of the relationship with your customer, make sure you have enough information about your products or services that they can get the basics before coming to you for help. How you frame that information i.e. marketing and promotions is part of it...



2. Be consistent with your message. This includes your branding, your packaging, your pricing across shops – anything that is your product identity needs to face the same way. The next time you are at a cold beverage display, pay attention and if some of the bottles are facing with the label off-center; see if it makes you skip that bottle or give the impression the store is messy. It’s subtle but important.
   
   When I first created the look for Seedlings: Jewelry Because, I had so many people ask me if it was a brand I was reselling because everything was so coordinated. Everything from the little cards to hold earrings to the colors of the links on my blog were in essence facing forward in the display.
   
   In the latest A List Apart, Stephen Anderson has a great article about the importance of aesthetics in design, how it conveys confidence in your product. I feel this carries over into everything that is part of the message I’m trying to convey with my jewelry and they are easy things to do. Even if you aren’t a pro with graphics or printed materials, make some friends who are and do a trade!
   
   Beyond creating an experience for your customers, being consistent solves potential problems with your shipping policies or pricing between online shops. If you do market differently depending on the shop, see rule number one and state up front why there is a difference (i.e. these are my fashion earrings versus the ones made entirely from rubies and butterfly kisses.)
   
   As you reach out to your customers in various ways with consistency they will look forward to your updates, to your new creations, to weekly blog posts, to tutorials and contests. They will be ready to reach for a second bottle from your forward facing display and share it with others...



3. Follow-up or “make new friends but keep the old.” If you are keeping everyone informed and being consistent with your message, you will have repeat customers. These folks appreciate you and your product and are now fans. How fantastic do you feel when someone remembers your name or sends you a note thanking you, puts a little something extra in your package or even just a coupon for a friend?
   
   From a communication view, a quick e-mail a month after a sale asking if they are still happy can be an opportunity to turn them into a permanent fan with recruits. One popular feature for my recent customers has been to get Spotted in their Seedlings. I ask people to take photos with their new jewelry so I can feature them on my website and Facebook fan page. Another easy follow-up would be to give your previous customers a special discount on new items.

Customer service can mean many things to many people. To me, it’s about consistent communication on all levels of your relationship with your customers. With handmade items, you really are putting yourself into everything you do – why not make the entire experience a true representation of the best of yourself?

I challenge you all to examine one aspect of your current customer service and find an area where you want to make some changes. Use the upcoming month to create a plan to move the business side of your creations forward. I’d love to hear about your ideas and if you feel the same way (or not) about customer service!

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Rejuvenating weekend.

I was fairly focused on only accomplishing a few things this weekend but everything I was able to do I feel good about. It was a nice change of pace from either feeling very manic or just plain down. I spent a few hours on a copper wire project on Saturday night that I didn't finish but am not giving up on, it just involved a lot of bending and hammering so my wrists and hands needed a break today. I want it to be 100% handmade so I did all the jump rings etc. so it's taking a bit. Right now it's a mess...from that mess will come order! Well, enough to enjoy it.

I also joined the Etsy North Georgia Street Team and I'm excited about being more involved with crafty folks in my area.

As far as successful weekend projects go, I whipped up three pairs of earrings that turned out so well I put them up on my shop. I also made myself a pair of the Water Gears ones with smooth washers and a non-matte glass bead.

All earrings in the shop are buy two pairs, get one free!

Law of equivalent exchange.

So I'm no alchemist but as I upgrade my wire and take the plunge into making my own findings (I love that I'm starting to make pieces where I can say I made everything) I find that I have more questions sometimes than I can find answers for. At every step along the way I have found people willing to share their knowledge and not only does that make me happy it makes me want to do the same in return except I know I'm not there yet.

An extraordinarily wonderful co-worker gifted me this week through a little deceit. She had overheard me talking with my main cohort in craftiness, Katey, about the latest catalog from Fire Mountain Gems. So co-worker "J" sends me an e-mail telling me she has a cousin who is starting to get into jewelry and what online shops would I recommend. Me, getting all chatty, goes on for like 3 e-mails about my favorite places, etc. so later that day I get an e-mail letting me know despite her best efforts, those particular shops don't make gift certificates easy but here's a gift to your PayPal account!

I did a happy dance! The story about the cousin was a complete fabrication but what a nifty way to say thank you. I immediately wanted to make her something very unique but I have noticed she is nary a jewelry wearing person so I offered to make something for her mother knowing that her mom is recovering from surgery and Mother's Day is coming up. Again, co-worker "J" demured but I had something up my sleeve...peonies.

My grandmother on my father's side died last year of a sudden heart attack. She was always an inspiration to me in all things botanical. I always loved going to gardens with her because she knew all the plants, knew what made them special, what would make them grow. She was also a beekeeper at times and had a shock of white hair she always kept tucked behind her ears. Some of my favorite memories of visiting her farm (in Missouri) are of the peonies she always had.

I love those flowers, especially the double peonies. Such big flowers and bright colors and there would usually be a big black ant crawling around enjoying them just as much as I did.

So when my mom called me and asked me if I wanted some peonies of course I said yes. I had heard they were a bit difficult to get them to thrive in the south (north of Atlanta) but it was possible. Co-worker "J" is very into gardening and I knew this so I knew giving her one of the peonies would be perfect and hooray, she couldn't resist!

The other thing I did was do my research on metals and decided I wanted argentium wire. I used her gift to buy some from riogrande.com after looking around at several places on pricing. Thank you to all the crafty folks out there who have posted their knowledge online about various wires and what has worked best for them.

The flower in the photo is not a peony but is a photo I took on a recent hike through Cloudland Canyon State Park in northern Georgia. I saw so many tiny flowers and knew my grandma was there.

Stitchy McStitchelton.

So my knitting peeps who do the super tiny knitting (socks amaze me) have put the word in my ear to do some stitch markers. I did knitting way back in the day (think 4-H in high school but still, I think I had something go to the MO state fair!) and more recently crochet but I never follow patterns and just sort of do what feels/looks right so this whole counting stitches thing is akin to flip-flips to my genteel feet...just never happened.

I did some of that there webbernet research, saw about a billionty different ways to make them, got some inspiration and then spent a couple hours jamming various bits of wire into various bits of beads. In the end, I learned a few things:

1. Stitch markers are fun to make! They remind me of tiny graphics on websites that really pull you in.
2. I need some size-mo-trons as I was just guessing really. The very tiny ones have a 6mm jump ring but the wire ones I just cut even lengths to work with and sized them on a smooth pencil.
   

I'm going to take the two sets I made into work on Friday to distribute for testing. I believe these stitch markers to be snag free! We'll see eh...


Big photos on Flickr!

And I'm not even a water person!

Ever since the Paradiso family started our annual trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina, I've realized that some part of me loves a certain kind of beach. I'm not a fan of the heat-baked white sands of say Florida, but the moody tides of the Eastern coasts (and mind you, I go once a year so allow me my romanticism) are wonderful.

So I've been hoarding bits of shells for awhile now (some cowrie shells since 1995 I brought back from Ghana) not really sure what to do with them. I think with shells too it's hard to do something neat and tidy, sort of against their nature at least how they ended up. I started making the wrapped loop charms last night and came up with a first version of the hemp part but didn't care for that so took it all part tonight (not the charms, ye gads, that took me long enough).

The idea to wrap the hemp in wire was a whim (I wanted something to contain the strands mostly) but once it stretched out I realized it looked and acted like the edge of a spiral-bound notebook and that appealed to me immediately. Mind you, this thing is nice and long, just shy of 30 inches so all those shells are front and center. It could definitely be shortened though and would make a very neat choker I think as well.

So I posted photos on flickr and have posted this necklace in the Etsy shop too. Now it's time to do all the things I promised myself I would do instead of what washed up in my head...

The Grapes in green and dark blue are featured in an Etsy treasury!

This is the second pair of the Grapes earrings to be featured in an Etsy treasury in about a week. The last one featured the amber color ones, this one features the green/dark blue ones. Such a lovely treasury too, please check it out while it's up (through April 23)!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=51078