Tallying Up Last Year's Jewelry Sales

One of my favorite things to do in January is tally up the previous year.

I like to see how much I spent and where. I like to see what types of pieces sell and which ones don’t. And I like to see WHERE most of my sales come from.

Here are the percentages of my sales:
0% Artfire
4% Etsy
4% Private (people buying things from me outside of any formal selling venue)
41% eBay (auctions = 4%, eBay store = 37%)
51% My website (www.BrackenDesigns.com)

And the percentages of WHAT sold:
28% of sales were earrings
36% of sales were bracelets
36% of sales were necklaces

And now it’s after 10pm and I want to crawl into my nice warm bed and read my book (The Hunger Games).

I’ll leave you with a few more recent listings from my shop. (Click on a photo for more details)

Staying Organized

Part of staying organized (which means MORE TIME FOR ME… YAY!) has to do with the word “immediately”.

Here’s an example: The other day I got in the mail a catalog of tools/supplies from what appears to be a model train company. It’s actually called something like micro-tools, though. Anyway, I decided to flip through the catalog while I was eating breakfast and I kept seeing things that I either want or at least want to look into at a later date.

I don’t want to keep the whole catalog so I just cut out each item I was interested in. At the end of my meal, I had a small pile of clippings.

If I put them in my room, do they just get added to more piles of papers that serve no purpose until I need something then go through the entire stack to find what I’m looking for? Eek! Not anymore.

So I “immediately” take a manila folder (I keep a stack in a handy place… it’s always there… I never have to look for manila folders) and slip the clippings into it, writing a note on the label tab: “Micro Tool Catalog”.

Then I place that manila folder alongside other ones in a green hanging folder in my file cabinet which is labeled: “To Order Someday”.

My file cabinet is very much like my computer. Folders and sub-folders. But it’s all organized and it makes sense to me and I can find what I need when I need WITHOUT wasting time.

If I had a penny for every minute I spent in the past 50 years LOOKING for things, I would really have an obscene amount of pennies.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in seeing some of my bead and tool organizing tips in my upcoming book.

I used to have boxes of papers. And each time I wanted something, I’d sit on the floor with a box in front of me and go through the entire stack to find what I needed. That is NO WAY to live your life, seriously.

Y’know, these were all papers I was going to file “someday”. Ugh!

Being organized is such a time saver. And truthfully, time is one of our most precious commodities these days. So I’m trying. I’m trying to put things into a place that makes sense… immediately.

Granted, there are times when my workspace looks not unlike that of Einstein’s desk…

… but I try to keep that to a minimum.

I'm a little behind in showing you any of my latest listings. I made a couple of necklaces that are pretty noticeable.

You can click on either of these photos to see details of the necklaces.

Make Your Own Inspirational Rotating Art Boards

Last week I put some “inspiration boards” on my wall.

When I look at magazines and something strikes me as visually appealing, I clip the image and add it to a folder of other cut-out images. Last week I went to Michael’s (craft store) and got some of those poster-sized school project foam boards and glued the pages onto the boards.

(I purposely blurred my photo a bit because I'm not comfortable publishing pictures of other people's images.)

The boards are so lightweight that I was able to put them up with thumbtacks.

So now, when I’m at my computer or at my work table, I’m surrounded by inspiring images of color and form. Everything from other people’s jewelry to seashells on a beach. There are clippings of animals, trees, buildings, galaxies, etc.

Also, it’s easy to swap them out with new boards at any time. I love change! Rotating the artwork in my room is a monthly habit.


“To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.” Albert Schweitzer

How to Combine Two Blogs into One

Happy New Year, everyone!

Maybe 2012 can be a year of taking care of projects that have been sitting on the back burner for awhile.

One of those, for me, is straightening up my "blog" house.

In July of 2009, I started a blog project called "Going Green Jewelry". I had decided to try to use up components I already had before buying any new ones.

I had some cool info in that blog (including how to easily make a DIY photo cube for a couple bucks) and I was thinking I'd have to copy and paste that info into my regular blog (this one) in order to share with my readers.

But this morning I discovered a tool that Blogger recently finished beta-testing.

Export/Import

If you have two blogs that you want to mesh, you can export all of your postings from one of them into a holding area to be imported into your other blog.

Let's go one step at a time and you'll see how easy, fast, and workable this is.

First, go to the blog you want to take the posts FROM.

Go to the dashboard of that blog and select SETTINGS.

Right there at the top of that page, next to BLOG TOOLS, you should now see “Import Blog” – “Export Blog” – “Delete Blog”.

Click on “Export Blog”.

Click on “Download Blog”.

Select “Save File” (the default is “Open with…”.

Now go to the dashboard of the blog you want to add these posts TO.

Select SETTINGS.

This time select “Import Blog”.

Browse until you find the file that was exported (usually in the DOWNLOADS directory… named “blog-today’s date.xml”).

Enter the characters shown in the white box and click IMPORT BLOG.

Note: Do not put a check mark on “Automatically publish all imported posts” if you think you may want to go through the posts one by one to edit or ignore any.

As soon as you click IMPORT BLOG, you will get a new screen (the process is pretty fast) that will show you a listing of all the imported posts with an option to IMPORT them all if you like. I wanted all of mine imported, so I clicked on that, but you can just keep them in the listings and go through them at your leisure, adding what you want when you want and editing as you go.

BTW, this tool is also helpful if you just want a back-up of your blog. You don't necessarily have to import any blog entries. Just keep the XML file on your computer as a back-up of your entries and comments.

I still have lots of “stuff” to go through and clean up in my blog, but at least all the info is in one place now.

Talk to you later and happy blogging!

Photos of Penryn in the Fog

"People will forget what you said; People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."

Before the big winds came, we had a couple of lovely, foggy days… very serene.




The tree in the first photo is completely nekkid now. Three days of really heavy winds have taken those leaves (along with a couple of chair cushions).

I have begun a new project… it’s slow going, but hopefully I’ll have something to show you soon. Things have to be formed then painted, then the paint has to dry. Then other parts are painted and added to the first part and the glue that holds those has to dry. Then the whole thing needs to be made waterproof. Then we’ll sink it in resin and wait for the resin to dry. Fingers crossed.

I should have opted for the miniature work back when my eyes had amazing close-up vision. Now, let’s just say my magnifying visor is becoming my best friend.