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Si*se

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Devotchka

Godflesh

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Jenny Lewis

EtsyMetal News 3.27.09

moon ring by sarawestermark

sarawestermark was featured this week on the FoundHandmade blog--see the 3.34.09 "Luna" post. Also this week, Sara hit 500 sales in her Etsy shop. Congratulations, Sara!

chrisparry had a diamond ring and some personalized key rings featured in Wedding Ideas Magazine, a UK monthly bridal magazine. Congrats, Chris.

Lisa of lpjewelry is teaching a whopping 8 workshops this summer at Water Street Studios in Batavia, IL. Wow!--you'll be busy, Lisa! Check out the schedule on the Water Street website and sign up for a workshop today.

ashleyjewelry will be at Fort Worth Arts Goggle today (Friday) from 5pm to 10pm at the Park Place Pharmacy in Fort Worth, TX. Be sure to stop by and support Ashley if you're in the area.

And a huge congratulations to Delias of deliasthompson, who just received notice that she has won a Merit Award for the Philadelphia Buyers Market of American Craft. She'll be showing her work at the summer BMAC show from August 1-3, 2009 in Philadelphia.

Large Organic Cobblestone Ring in Sterling by deliasthompson

Don't Forget New Release Thursdays!!

check out new items as members post throughout the day!

Elizabeth Rosas

1. Where do you live, and where are you from?

I live in San Francisco. I was born in Prescott, Arizona. I grew up in Fresno, California but as soon as I graduated from High school I joined the Navy reserve so I could see the world (that was a long time ago). I have lived in New York, Chicago, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. And....I would love to live in Oregon someday.

2. How did you get started working with metal?
I started working with metal in early 2002 when I moved to San Miguel de Allende and took classes from Billy King (a Canadian expatriate). I have gone back a few more times to live and study since then. I am hoping that the etsymetal team will take a trip to Penland next winter so we can all share techniques and learn from each other.

3. What are a few of your favorite pieces at the moment?
I love this piece. Layers of silver, stacked to the sky:

4. What inspires you (artists, objects, interests)?
Rainy days inspire me, for some reason I get real creative when the rain hits the window. I love anything vintage and lacy, so that inspires me too.


5. Do you have any other artistic interests?
I started my artistic education in photography, so that is my first love. I have a photographer friend who once said to me "you have a distinct style, all your photos have a blurry romantic feel to them" and I said, "well, it's not on purpose, my hands are just shaky". Since then I look at my shots differently--I look forward to the randomness of dream-like, blurry photos.

My other great love is paper mache, which I also studied in Mexico.

You can find more of Elizabeth's (aka Libby) work in her Etsy Shop , as well as on her flickr and her blog.

How to have a Sale on Etsy

photo by JustifiedSinner -- thank you for the awesome photo and your fabulous metalwork!

There are many ways that you can offer items for sale or provide discounts for your customers. I'm sure many sellers have found ways that work for them - these are things that have worked for me or others that I know.

When I have a big sale - I normally like to do a combination of things. Like have a sale section and then something like free shipping on all orders over $100 or an extra 5% off orders over $200, buy 2 items get any sale item at an extra 10% off, etc. try to make it as confusing as possible! ha ha! not that I try to make it confusing, but I usually like to do something a little extra beyond just having items on sale. Now, that is when I am having a BIG sale. sometimes I'll just have a quick little sale and offer a small section of sale items.

I find that having a sale section seems to be the easiest - no one has to wait for an invoice - they know what the price is and what it used to be (I write it in the listing like: "was $78, now only $60!") It is also a reminder to me what to change the price back to when the sale is over.

I always get the best response from my repeat customers (thank you!!!), or people that have signed up for the mailing list but haven't purchased yet. A sale sometimes just gives some one an excuse to buy something they've been looking at - that seems to be helpful for those people that particularly want an item but are having guilt about spending the money. If they get a chance to get some $$ off, they just go ahead and do it. I think this is the kind of shopper I am. Who doesn't love to buy an item on sale?

To promote, I email my list of etsy folks, my personal list of family and friends, blog, twitter, facebook, myspace, change etsy avatar, post in etsy forums and renew sale items every so often so they get moved up to the top and maybe get some more views.

I've done a week long sale and I've done a sale for just a couple days. i think it seems like 2 - 4 days is enough. I email about a week before the sale is going to happen, and then again when the sale starts as a reminder. That way you catch people that might only check their email every few days. Don't inundate you customers though, too many 'sale emails' and I just tend to ignore them all and eventually want to be removed from the mailing list.

Offering discounts is a little more difficult. It will require sending a paypal invoice or sending a refund if the customer paid already. Which is fine, but I like for things to be as easy and efficient as possible. As of right now, the only way I know of using a discount code is for the customer to write it in the 'note to seller' box, and then wait. For customers newish to etsy, it can be a little confusing. Plus, as a customer myself, I like to go ahead and pay and be done with it. I do sometimes have conditional discounts (like my, buy more than $100 and get an extra 10% off) though I rarely do those.

Weekly Review: Zam

Delias Thompson has been suggesting Zam polishing compound the her fellow Etsymetal members for a while now. I recently followed her suggestion, tried it and "Sha-ZAM!" I was thrilled with the results! When first applied to a muslin buffing wheel, it was abrasive enough to remove sandpaper scratches and as it wore off the buff, it polished to a high mirror shine. I found it to be a superb all purpose compound good for buffing and polishing.

Formulated especially for silver and turquoise jewelry, Zam is a mixture of chrome oxide, aluminum oxide, and a binder. It not only polishes metal, but it will not scratch soft stones and polishes epoxies, plastics, bone and other soft materials. Many goldsmiths prefer ZAM to rouge as a final finish.

Try it. You just may find it ZAM-tastic as well!

Charm Swap 3 Update!

I've been working very hard with Nina Gibson, the etsymetal shop manager, to get all 18 of the 20 charms listed for sale in the Etsy Metal shop. We have already sold two members charms! Congratulations to Kathryn Riechert for selling her seascape charm and to Laurie Brown from Aubergine228 for selling her one of a kind cast seahorse! If you have been following this progress, I just want to remind you that these are limited edition charms and only one is for sale in the etsymetal store--these are rare and true collectors charms. The last charms will be listed this weekend. I'm still waiting for 2 more members' charms to arrive and hopefully they will be here soon. Check out the Etsymetal Store Charm Section!

This photo shows all the charms currently for sale in the Etsy Metal shop. (Note: the doggie charm and the heart charm are being listed this weekend, so be on the look out for them!)

This weekend I'm going to begin to assemble the Etsymetal Charm Swap 3 charm bracelet. When completed it will be offered for sale in the etsymetal store. You can still purchase the charm bracelet from the very first charm swap by etsymetal. We owe all this fun of the charm swap to our member Vic from Experimetal, because this was her brilliant brainchild.

I've already begun to take names for the Etsymetal Charm Swap 4. The due date for that is August 31. Since we just juried in some new members this spring, we've managed to get some of them to sign up too!