Tuesday Tidbit - Trying to Keep the Cost Down

A colleague of mine asked me if I might make a lanyard for her using pearls, and showing me her bracelet of pearls with Bali-style silver beads, said, "in this style". She was hoping I could keep it under a certain price as well. The final constraint is the length, as she wanted it to be 32" long. I knew that with the pearls I already had I wouldn't be able to come close enough, especially with silver Bali beads.

I managed to find a great deal on freshwater pearls on sale the other day at JewelrySupply.com, so I bought several 16" strands. I already had some Bali-style beads I bought at the Rings & Things bead show that, if I wasn't too generous with them, would keep it pretty close in price. Here's what I came up with (click to enlarge):

(shown doubled to feature badge clasp)

I also had some large, irregular freshwater cultured pearls that I thought I'd string and see how they looked. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to re-do it and take out the bead caps I've used to set off some groups of three pearls (they're about mid-way up on the first picture and close to the clasp on the second one), I'm not happy with how that looks. But otherwise, I like it. Unfortunately this one prices out to $20 above what my friend wanted to spend. (Update - yet, it's the one she purchased!)

(shown doubled to feature badge clasp)

I really like making necklace lanyards with pearls, I've made several. People think they're beautiful, but the price ends up being too high for everyone who's admired them so far, though.

Here's one I made that's been at every show I've done and was on Etsy for a while. It's had a lot of admirers, but no buyer. It's a long one, 32", with gold filled beads and beautiful malachite and some very nice freshwater cultured pearls. (In case you're curious, I'm asking $85 for it).

That's all for today, thanks for stopping by!

PS - here are the necklaces posted above that are on sale at Artfire:

Dawno

Sell Handmade

Spreader of Love

Dave Over at the Rings & Things blog, honored me by passing along the “Spreader of Love” award he & the Rings & Things blog received from Swati at the The Purple Flower blog.

As this is my first blog award for this blog (I also have kept another general purpose blog for years) I'm honored and thrilled to pass along the award. As Dave mentioned in his post, some of these folk have Twitter accounts and I discovered them via Twitter.

A condition of the award is that you go on to recognize 5 more people, who brighten your own blog, so here are my choices

• Because of her supportive and informative comments: Tish from Just A Tish Designs
• Because I just love the name "SmuTopia" and her breezy writing style: Jessica from SmuTopia
• Another supportive person, with a fun sense of humor: Bev from Bev's Jewelry
• For her joy and enthusiasm on every post: Lisa at A Bead A Day
• Because it's a joy to see her beautiful work, beautifully photographed Thyme2Dream

I tried to follow links back to see where the award originated, but at about 8 links back I couldn't find a link to the previous award after going back through a few months of posts, and I have to get back to some display prep (really almost there - and quite relieved!). So I Googled "The Love Blog" and found the originator's request (you have to scroll down about half a page). This award is over a year old now, so it's been all over the web!

The Love Blog, by Vancouver Blogger Barbara Doduk, says about this award:

THE SPREADER OF LOVE AWARD
from
The Love Blog

I great way to spread love and happiness around the blog world and just maybe get a little link love in return.

So here is my Badge for my Award:
All I ask in return for presenting this award to anyone blogging out there, is that you include the following information in the blog post along with the image below:



This blog has been awarded The Spreader of Love Award created by The Love Blog (http://iamlove.blogspot.com), for an outstanding demonstration of blogging love.

Nominate as many or as few as you feel you need to !

And she provides some html code, too. Along the way, some 'rules' got appended - link to the blog that awarded it to you, nominate 5 blogs, link to them, and leave your nominees a message about the award. I'm happy to pass those along as well.

Now it's back to work - the toughest thing for me is deciding how to price my work. I haven't come up with a formula yet, but it's more than just cost of materials + labor + a markup = price, unless "labor" includes all the time spent shopping for the materials, deciding which to buy, & the time it takes to get through the whole designing process - and then, what's the value of inspiration, artistic touches, uniqueness? Ah well - I guess I'll give it my best shot and see what happens this weekend!