Jewellery, Clothes and Fashion Shows

Another way to make money is to combine your jewellery craft with sewing craft. If you are not a seamstress, try to find someone suitable to team up with. There are many possibilities when combining beads with clothing. Here are a few ideas other than making matching jewellery for the clothing: 1. I love large pockets but the clothes I buy seldom have large pockets. I have made pockets for my clothes and embroidered it with matching beads with great success. You might even find you could buy a simple cheap piece of clothing and jazz it up with some beaded pockets. 2. It is very easy to make a lovely broach with a safety pin. Simply bend the safety pin right open, slip your beads on and close it again by bending it back around the way it was before. Note the holes of the beads must be fairly big to fit over the wire of the safety pin. These can be used to pin scarves up or simply to decorate a garment. 3. You could embroider directly on a garment by ironing stiffening onto the back of the garment. Make sure you use beads that will last with frequent washes. Glass beads will be fine. The embroidery could either be used to enhance the pattern in the fabric or you could draw your own pattern to embroider. 4. What also works well is adding a beaded edge to either clothing or scarves. Most women love fashion shows but seldom seem to get the opportunity to attend them. Most people seemed to think you have to have super models to have a fashion show who charge a fortune for their service. But that is not necessary at all. These models usually look anorexic which immediately disqualify their clothing as a consideration for me. I know for myself that I seldom see suitable clothing for myself at fashion shows. The shows are usually either for a shop who try to market their products, which I have already seen and find boring, or from a fashion house that are so way out that I would not be seen dead in it. I have also noticed that there are usually very little jewellery in these shows. I believe there is a great gap in the fashion market for fashion shows with hand crafted artistic clothes and jewellery. Shows that have artistic flair without going overboard and will appeal to the majority of citizens. Your models also need not be anorexic super models or need not even be that young. Anybody who has personality and confidence, can model. If you see with what success school concerts are presented by ordinary learners, one realise how easy it should be model. You might even want to combine a bit of acting or other talents with your show. There are many ways in which you could make money out of a fashion show. 1. You could charge an entrance fee. 2. You can sell your products. 3. You could sell refreshments. 4. You could have stalls for other hand crafted products and charge for the stalls or take a percentage of the sales. 5. You could make it into a package that could be part of a special occasion like a kitchen tea, stork party or just birthday party. The shows can be held at private homes or more public venues like school halls. You could combine it with a charitable occasion or a function to collect money for an institution like a school. This could be great fun. The possibilities are endless. Just think how many friends and clients you could get.

Wire work and Innocence

I met Innocence a couple of years ago at our local craft market where he was exibiting his wired craft. He is a Zimbabwean man who has mastered the craft of wire work very well. Initially he made me some things on commission and later became my mentor. Compared to Innocence, I am still a newbie and rather inexperienced. However. he is a good tutor and I am hoping to be able make some more professionally looking products and writing their patterns down soon. In this blog, I am posting some of Innocence's work. (This is with his permission.) I cannot provide you with patterns or instructions for these products, but my intention is to show you what can be done with wire and too inspire you to make your own designs. When I did some research on the internet on the techniques that he uses to add beads to his wired frame, I could not find much. The closest technique that I found, was French beading. The first image of the lizard with hooks, I had made to hang bags, keys and belts on. It is strong and durable. The second image is a lampshade with the South African big five wild animals. The third image is a rhino with hooks for my mugs. This one is my Christmas present this year.

Beading Classes or Parties

Although I do not get much chance to give beading classes myself, friends of mine have made some good money out of it. 1. It is crucial that you have the right personality to do this. You need to have a lot of patience. 2. There is so much information on the internet, that with hard work and research, you could become well enough skilled to be able to teach projects in a relatively short period . You need to have made at least one well made sample of each of the products you want to teach in. This is important both for the experience in the technique and as a sample to show your customers what they will be making. You also need to measure how long it takes to make the project to know how long the class will take. 3. If you do not have space to turn into a classroom, why not become a “Travelling Beading School” where you present your classes at the clients home. Arrange beading parties. I do that from time to time. They are great fun and very relaxing. You could suggest to clients that they have “beading” birthday parties instead of going to the movies or eat out (it might even work out cheaper). You could also have beading parties for children over the age of about 6. I recommend that you visit the venue before hand to make sure the lighting is good enough and that there is a suitable table to work on. If the weather allows, then outdoors work well during the day since the light is very good for beading outdoors. You could even have the function in a park. 4. To ensure that you have returning clients, you should preferably present classes in a broad range of techniques and at different levels of difficulty. With the internet, it is quite easy to to become skilled in a large variety of techniques. It is a good idea to team up with a beading buddy who specialises in other types of skills. You might like to recommend to first-time-clients, that they attend classes where they can finish the project they pick, during the class (they might not have the time to finish it at home which will discourage them). For beading parties you should choose easy projects like bead stringing and a matching set of earrings. 5. Your main problem will be to get a viable client base. Working people who are looking for a relaxing hobby, will make good clients. They will have the money to pay for classes. To accommodate them, your teaching times might have to be after business hours. It is a healthy way to preoccupy children during school holidays. Pensioners love these sort of activities if they have the money to pay for it. Make sure you remind the oldies to bring their reading glasses. Beading is also known for it therapeutic benefits. People with stress related problems will greatly benefit from these classes. I know that occupational therapists use beading in their treatment of mental patients. 6. You could try to start your business without spending money on advertisement by marketing it amongst your friends, family, on facebook, on a free internet page for local businesses etc. If this does not work, go to a craft market and market your classes in your display of the goods you intend giving classes in. You might have to go a couple of times. If you practise your craft while you are sitting at the market, you will most likely attract some interest. You could even set up a workshop there at the market. Just make sure it is within the rules of the market and get permission before hand to do so. If the managers of the market are reluctant, tell them it will attract clients for the market and could produce future stall owners. I find there is nothing as effective as the personal contact you make with your clients. Make sure you have plenty of business cards with you. Your last resort would be to advertise in printed matter. It is expensive and not always effective. If you do wish to go this route, advertise in a local paper or booklet where other professional people advertise classes. Make sure your wording will attract the right kind of people and stands out from the other advertisements by adding some unique features like “beading parties”. The advertisement must not be too small but need not be very big. I find a 5cmx5cm (2x2 inch) advertisement works fine for my maths classes. 7. This would be a relatively cheap business to start up. You might have some travelling costs and a bit of materials to buy. Make a list of the materials you will need for the project. This will consist of materials that will be in the clients package that they will take home like beads, thread and a needle. Make these into packages and have a few spare packages in different colours to choose from. If possible, ask the client what colour they would like for their project. Other materials will be yours that can be borrowed by the client, like scissors, glue, beading boards etc. Ask a deposit to pay for the materials you will be using in the class. That way you can ensure that you do not have excessive expenditure. You might want to start by giving a free “party” or class to a friend to see what you need. Expect to make one or two mistakes in the beginning. 8. Finally make sure you have the rights to teach for the materials you use. Teaching with bought patterns could infringe on the copy right laws with regards to those patterns. Some designers do not allow you to use their patterns to teach with at all. I do allow tutors to use my patterns for classes, if they buy a copy of the pattern from me for each client that attends the class. You do have to ask me for permission to do so. My friends are doing it and are still making a good profit. The pattern makes up about ¼ of the fees they charge which is little enough if you think of what you are making. Enjoy your beading. Cecilia Rooke

How to Succeed in the Jewellery Business

Since many of you are in the jewellery business, thought I would share some ideas on how to make money out of the jewellery business. The jewellery business in South Africa, and I suspect worldwide, is poor at the moment. The wholesale shop near me where I took my first couple of classes in beading, closed down last month because the market is so poor. On the brighter side, most businesses are battling at the moment. This just means you have to be smarter. Let me start with some pointers: 1. Try to do something a bit different from the other jewellery makers. This is how I started with bead weaving. The black people in SA did a lot of bead weaving, but most of their jewellery had the same style. The white people considered it a black art form and didn't really take an interest in it. This gave me a gap to experiment. When I did research on bead weaving on the internet, I found most bead weavers use tiny beads which are extremely time consuming to work with. Instead of using these small beads, I started to design with larger less time consuming beads. 2. Find a suitable market for the style of jewellery you are producing. If your style is for young people, try to market where young people are. I found my bead weaving style best suited to middle-aged middle class arty people. The very rich, seems to prefer diamonds, gold and silver. The youngsters are conformist and like to wear what the fashion houses sell. 3. Test your market to see which style, colour and price-range works best for you. Do this by making a range of jewellery and show it first to your family and friends that support you, then to your broader client base. Ask for sincere comments and listen to advice from trustworthy friends. 4. Evaluate your time that it takes you to make the jewellery. Bead stringing is much less time consuming than bead-weaving. For bead stringing, I found you could spend a bit more money on good quality beads (especially if you buy in bulk) and still make a profit. For bead weaving, your cost are mostly your labour. So your price will depend on what you are prepared to work for. I do most of my bead work in my spare time and find I simply cannot charge people proportionally what I charge for my maths classes. It would be too expensive. 5. The only advantage you have over the majority of shops that sells jewellery, is that you can custom make your jewellery. Make sure when you market your jewellery that you emphasize that the customer may choose the colour and style beads that suits them best. Provide your customers with a variety of choices and listen to what they have to say. 6. Advertising can be very expensive and could become a bottomless pit where your money simply disappear. Use cheap means of advertising and be prepared to make a concerted effort to market your goods. Carry a photo-album of your jewellery and business-cards permanently with you. You never know when the opportunity will arise to make a sale. You need business-cards. This is essential and relatively inexpensive to have made. Shops often want such a big cut on the price of your goods that it either becomes too expensive to sell or you make no profit. Crafts markets are a good place to market your goods. Pick a market where there will be a lot of feet of potential clients. Make sure your display is attractive. This need not be expensive. You need a simple table cloth that is properly seamed. I use a grey colour which display my bead-weaved jewellery best. What also works well is to have one or two overlays in contrasting colours. Drift wood or just any wooden stumps works wonderful for displaying your jewellery. I picked some nice stumps from our fire wood last winter which I use for my display. Tourist spots are also good places to market your goods. Tourist often want to buy memorabilia and have money to spend. 7. The quality of your beads is not as crucial as the quality of your work. If a necklace came undone while a client was wearing it, the client will be very disappointed. If you use cheap beads make sure the colour do not fade of come off on your clothes. Most of the cheap seed beads are made with glass and are fine to use, but I have had bad experiences with metal coated beads where the coating wear off. I have also had bad experiences with plastic beads that stained my clothes. Another problem with cheap Chinese beads are that they are not evenly sized. It can become time-consuming and costly to sort the beads into acceptable sizes and you have a lot of wastage (unless you do bead-embroidery where these come in handy). Test the strength of your jewellery and beads before selling it to ensure the quality is good and avoid disappointment. It is difficult making a living out of solely selling handmade jewellery. I strongly recommend that you look into other options as well. I will share some alternative products and sources of income in the next few blogs. Cecilia Rooke

Internet businesses for small craft businesses

Some businesses seems to do very well on the internet but it is not always the case. I have been reasonably successful in selling my bead weaving pattern in the internet but totally unsuccessful at selling physical jewellery and other goods. Here are a few advantages of an internet business: 1. It is great for people who are shy and battle to market directly. 2. It is ideally suited for e-ware such as downloadable patterns. 3. You could have a very broad client base. Some disadvantages of an internet business: 1. You are competing with the whole world. If you key in jewellery on e-bay for example, there are almost 4, 000, 000 items. If you look at the best selling jewellery on Amazon, you will notice everything are factory produced jewellery. There are no handcrafted jewellery. 2. Your clients could live very far away which make delivery of goods difficult. Delivery could be time consuming and expensive. 3. You need to know a bit about internet marketing to get a search engine like Google to prioritise your web page. My own web pages have been unsuccessful in generating money. One of them cost me quite a bit of money without generating a cent. 4. If you are not careful you could become the victim of fraudsters. My conclusion: If you are starting up a business selling beaded objects like jewellery or crafts, the internet is not a good place to start. If you want to sell jewellery, rather sell at crafts markets. If the market is a bit expensive, try to team up with someone else and share a table. Where I have also been very successful, has been to make photo-albums of my jewellery and give it to family and friends to take to work. I made quite a few sales that way. Some of these clients buy regularly from me. The internet do lend itself quite well to selling patterns but then I recommend that you sell via an established company like www.bead-patterns.com . They take their cut but it is still worthwhile.

Support for Craft-Entrepreneurs

With the world and especially my country, South Africa, facing so much poverty and, having struggled myself when starting out as an entrepreneur, I have thought a lot about how to become a successful entrepreneur. It seems as though it is not so much what you do, but how you do it and whether you learn from your mistakes or just keep on making them over and over. The next couple of blogs I am going to share my own experiences as an entrepreneur as well as some ideas that I have seen that works and which I think might work. Do you need a business plan? Although I found it useful to write my ideas down in the process of developing my business, I found my more elaborate attempts of writing a formal business plan, a waste of time and effort. These are only good if you intend borrowing money, which I do not recommend. If you need money to start your business, try to find someone who will invest in you or raise the money by donations etc. Preferably start with what you have. It is possible to start a business with what you have. I will share some business ideas where you can start with virtually nothing but a cellphone. Your client base For all businesses, you need a client base. To start with, your client base could consist of your family, friends, neighbours, the church, clubs or societies. When I started my maths tutoring business, I printed my own pamphlets and handed them to the parents at the gate when the school closed. Someone once said to me, if you want to make money, sell to people who have money. This is piece of advice has come in handy through the years, especially when it comes to crafts. Integrity In the business world you seldom get a second chance if you have been dishonest in any way. Repeat sales and service is crucial for any business. You will lose these if you are dishonest. If a shop tries to cheat me out of my money, I refuse to go back there and that shop usually do not last long. The same goes for service businesses. A plumber once quoted me R1000 for a job. He then broke an appliance and then tried to charge me double for the job. I will never make use of his service again. Don't try to "screw" your client but don't be shy to charge for good service. Most people are happy to pay for good quality products or service. This will give you referrals as well, which is at this stage 70% of my business. Having your own business is stressful enough. Don't make it more stressful by being dishonest and having to look over your shoulder the whole time in fear of being caught out. First Idea for a Start-Up No-Cost Business Most beaders and craftsmen/woman are looking for someone to sell their goods. If you know someone (more than one person will even be better) who are good, ask them if they will allow you to sell their goods for a small commission. If you don't know someone, go to a craft market and see if you can spot someone with talent. Ask them if you may market their products. Ask the person to provide you with a photo album of their products, and then try to sell it to "your client base" using the photo album. Please let me know if you found this useful. Cecilia Rooke