Jewelry Making

Just a quick note that if you want to get involved in the Happily Handmade Giveaway as a sponsor, you only have two more days to apply. And then after that you’ve got until Feb 7 to get your sponsor donations in.

What is HHG? It’s a promotional event for indie craft, jewelry, and clothes designers to help get the word out about their wares. The promos, which come from the indieshops in question, are boxed up into prize packages that go to the winners of the drawings. These drawings can only be entered through special pages created by each indie shop. This helps encourage traffic and awareness of the indie businesses.

So their Winter 2007 event is coming up pretty soon like I said. After the sponsor deadlines, people can enter the drawings from February 12 through March 31, and then the winners are announced on April 2.

I know there are several other giveaways like this, but if you’re looking for further exposure for the jewelry you make, then this might be a good and cost-effective way to get some eyes to your website.

Visit: Happily Handmade Giveaway for more info.

I found about this grant from Halstead through Tammy’s About.com Jewelry Making site. I had to admit I was a bit skeptical at first. Can you really get a grant like this to make jewelry? It turns out you can, and the prize they’re offering for the winner of the contest is quite substantial: $5000 cash business grant, a $1000 gift cert for Halstead, and a profile in their upcoming 2007 Metals Catalog.

The deadline is actually coming up pretty soon: June 15, with winners to be announced some time in July. They have full information about how to submit your pieces and other information on their site.

The purpose of the contest is to highlight the growing difficulty of so called “Bridge Jewelry design” in the United States due to competition from both designers overseas and mass-produced stuff. (I had no idea what this term “Bridge Jewelry” meant, but apparently is the catch-all designation for jewelry that “bridges the gap” between precious metal jewelry and plain old costume jewelry. In other words, this is probably most of the stuff that any serious home jewelry designer is making!)

For full information and the mailing address to send submissions, please visit the Halstead Bead site.

Just a quick note that the new prizes for SeekIndie just went up on site. This one is called “April Showers Bring May Flowers”. You may remember us writing about this contest held by crafters earlier. The basic idea is a sort of scavenger hunt where you look at the pages of participating sites for special banners… you need to find five of them before you can submit your entry to win on of 13 gift boxes.

More info at: Seek Indie website

I got a note from Jeaneen Benson regarding an interesting online contest being held by independent crafters. The site is called “Seek Indie” and was created by bunch of the Switchboards community members as a way to promote the sites of independent craft peeps.

The idea is sorta neat… this is similar to a scavenger hunt online where you search the pages of participating sites in order to find special “heart banners”. Next to each of the banners is a specific number that you need to write down. Once you find five of these numbers, you can submit your entry for a chance to win prizes that are submitted by the indie crafters. (They select a set number out of all the correct entries who will receive the gifts.)

It’s a pretty simple concept, and we dig it because it helps these indie sites out. Seek Indie’s first contest was held earlier in the year and though it is now finished, they are going to keep having them periodically. Although, there weren’t too many jewelry designers featured in this earlier crop of indie businesses (14 in total participated), I’ve heard they are getting a ton more for the next one.

So if you’re a jewelry designer and are interested in getting some much needed PR, you might want to contact them to volunteer a prize for the next contest.

For more information, check out the Seek Indie website.

Hey jewelry makers: I was tipped off to the upcoming “Your Design Here” 2006 contest over at Rings ‘n Things the other day. This might be worth a look if you make jewelry and are looking to get some possible exposure for your designs.

So what is the “Your Design Here” contest? They basically created this contest as a way to encourage their customers to come up with unique and beautiful jewelry designs. You can enter your work in one of seven categories: Glass, Gemstones, Nature, Mostly Metal, Polymer Clay, Metal Clay and Alternative Materials.. The judges select the best entries (the deciding factors are: Originality, Craftsmanship and Aesthetics) and the winning designs will potentially be featured in their enormous print catalog as well as other promotions worldwide.

If you haven’t heard of the Rings ‘n Things company yet, they are one of the best places to find jewelry making supplies on the web. Sorry, this may sound like a commercial but we’ve ordered from them many times and have always been impressed with the speed of service and professionalism. Not to mention the selection of findings, precious stones, crystals and just about everything else related to jewelry.

Continue reading “Rings and Things Contest” …

We’re starting up a new section of the site that will focus on interviews with jewelry professionals and other people connected to the business of making jewelry. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, since Jewelry at Bloglander focuses on the beginning jewelry maker who will definitely benefit from the opinions and knowledge of the more experienced members of the craft.

For our inaugural feature, I got a chance to interview Dr. David Weiman, who is the Marketing Director for the well known magazine Lapidary Journal. Being a licensed psychologist, he knows a thing or two about the psychology of selling jewelry! He also contributes articles and commentary for Colored Stone, Step by Step Beads, and Step by Step Wire Jewelry. Check out the interview for an in depth look at how to market and sell your jewelry:

Interview with David Weiman of Lapidary Journal

If you’re running a small jewelry or craft business and are looking for a really fun way to promote your products, you should take a look at The Sampler. Marie from The Sampler started up this service in August of 2004. Basically, every month people sign up for a nominal fee to receive a really fun variety package containing tons of indie craft samples including things like jewelry, handsewn pouches, soap, buttons, stickers, zines, candles, bookmarks, magazines, CDs and more! DIY Craft businesses are the ones that provide the actual samples, which acts as a promotional tool for them to get their name out there. There are different tiers of sample contribution, ranging from people who contribute only a few one-of-a-kind special items, to magazines who contribute 200+ copies.

Continue reading “Promotions - The Sampler” …