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The benefits of buying handmade and particularly buying directly from the artist are many.

Buying directly from the artist, you can have all your questions answered by the exact person who made or is making your jewelry. The person with the knowledge of the materials and techniques used, the proper wear and care for this piece, and the person to turn to for special requests or if problems arise.

Customer service and support is unparalleled when the only two people involved are the customer and the creator of the jewelry.

Sometimes it can feel like an uphill battle when you go to a show and every other booth is selling mass-produced imports that to the untrained eye may LOOK like a good deal, but we all know the difference between value and bargain, right?

So what can you do?

Keep moving, forward if possible.

Ask yourself, "What can I do that they can’t?" 

If someone's already making something that you'd like to make, but they're making it faster and cheaper than you ever could, think about letting it go and moving on to the next idea.

This is a revision of an old blog post that used to be called “Preparing for a Better Me”, but I think I’m changing it to “Preparing for a Happier Me”.

I posted something on Facebook once for people who tend to over commit. 

The Collective Consciousness of Jewelry Making

You know what’s worse than discovering someone out there is selling jewelry almost identical to yours? Finding out they’ve been doing it longer than you. 

Just goes to show that more than one person can come up with the same idea. 

Sometimes people think in similar ways.  It just happens.

With social media marketing being both important and time-consuming, I wanted to share with you a tip that you may or may not feel like enlisting. 

I don’t always have time to hit up each social media site on a daily basis so I do cross-post a lot and I use whatever technology I can for that. 

There is a feature on Pinterest so that each time you pin something to a board, the post will also become a post on your Facebook timeline. 

The good thing is that this can save you time. 

The following is a debatable thought and personally, I see both sides of the issue.  While I tend to lean more toward the "encouraging rather than discouraging" side of the fence, I enjoy things that make me think so I’m sharing it with you all.

A Week Of Activities To Break Creative Block

If you don’t feel creative today, sort your beads, clean your workshop, or rearrange your books. 

Can you imagine going up to a jewelry booth at a show and saying to the artist, “You work really sucks.  These people around you are so much better than you.  You shouldn’t even be here.”

Pretty shocking, right?  I mean, even if you THINK it, you’d never SAY it.

But some people do say it… to themselves… on a daily basis.

It breaks my heart.

Pinterest and Your Website

Want to see what people are pinning from your website to Pinterest?  Put this URL into your internet address bar (but substitute the name of your website where it says “yourdomain”) and remove the space after the “h” at the start… I have those there so this won’t become a hyperlink.

h ttp://pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com