Climbing the bead world mountain....

What is holding me back???

2011-02-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

The other day I realized I haven't been doing anything lately for my business, why? what is holding me back??? Its because I just feel like its too overwhelming, too much to do, and too much to keep track of, and like I will never get caught up. I haven't wanted to make more jewelry for the same reason, I'm feeling like I'm already so far behind on everything that making new pieces would just add to overflowing cup (yeah, you know one of those 64oz super big gulp cups? lol) of things to do.
So I sat down and started thinking to myself, and organized my thoughts into exactly what is my problem, what is the most frustrating thing, or biggest task that is holding me back?
So I thought, OK how many websites do you have? Answer = 2. Not bad. Just my Art fire store and My Website- Kimberlylynndesigns.com. OK.
Next, I need to go to each site and get out all my pieces, and see which pieces I have on each site. OK.
I did that today, and I shocked myself! I have 15 Pieces that are not even listed on either of those two sites, and an additional 14 Pieces That are not listed in my Art fire studio! What is wrong with me???
Then I remembered. Ahhhhh yes, that's right- MY LOVELY HUSBAND ACCIDENTALLY DROPPED MY ONLY GOOD CAMERA IN KERN RIVER BEFORE I HAD TAKEN PICTURES OF THE REST OF MY PIECES!!
So upon returning home, I still had pictures to take and no way of taking them, and money was tight, so I had to just deal with it. Well, I now have a new camera, and I now know which pieces I need to get pictures of. I think that was a big roadblock for me, I felt overwhelmed for some reason with knowing that I had to figure that out. Now that is done! What a relief!
So I also googled how to make my own light box (which I have done before, but couldn't remember what it was I was missing to make it correctly the first time) So I went to the store and home depot and bought the stuff I need and now have it set up, you can see here:

I have black cloth and white cloth as well as some other tiles I can use for backgrounds or whatever I need. This picture is just the basic idea, When I set it up it has more detail to it. Things like the tripod come into play and other little details.
Here a a few pix of my studio:

I have an extra monitor hooked up to my laptop, because its much faster to get stuff done with being able to see two screens at once, then there's no flipping back and forth from screen to screen.

Soon, I will be placing my supply order, and will have tons more beads to play with! then I will post those pics for you all to see too!
So continuing on, after I finish this post, I will take the pictures of my pieces and post them to my two sites. Then I won't feel like I am so far behind. Then all during this week, I will get back into my Link Love stuff on Face book. Well, wish me luck, I will blog more often and update more frequently from now on.
Thanks for stopping by to read my blog and best wishes to you and all your paths traveled!

Getting closer....one bead at a time

2011-01-23T21:32:00.000-08:00

Long time no blog!
Well, I am about 90% finished with entering all my beads into JDM (Jewelry Designer Manager). What a relief! Then I can enter the new jewelry I have made, then get back to making new pieces! Whoo hoo! It is so much easier when you can enter one piece at a time instead of having several pieces to enter. I love beads, but I hate counting each one (and no, I do not count the seedbeads!) Once it is all finished it will go much faster. My goal was to have everything ready to go and have my very first sale for valentines day, but the closer it gets, the more I realize it just is not going to happen. I have so much to do to get all caught up with everything, and it takes so much time. I have a full time job, so I am away from home for 10 - 12 hours a day, and when i get home, some nights, I just want to watch some television and relax. Its funny that when I am at work, I keep thinking of all the stuff I plan on doing for my business when I get home that day, and then when I get home, I end up not doing any of it! I just get so tired. Im almost there though, one day very soon, I will be able to just come home and make jewelry. I got smart with my inventory entering, I now have an extra monitor hooked up to my laptop so I can run two screens at once, so instead of having to minimize windows, and go back and forth, I can keep both windows open, and with a glance I know which beads I have entered and which ones I have not. I got so many done tonight now that I have the two screens going. It takes half the time too! Well, hopefully I can get everything entered in the next week, and then take my next steps from there. Oh yea, and I finally bought a new camera too! I also bought some stuff to build myself another lightbox too! That only takes a few minutes, not much of a project there. I will get some pictures of my "bead room" up soon for all to see my studio space, so I call it. Its great to have a whole room just for me. I share it for the kids to use the other computer in here, but thats as far as they go, they never mess with my stuff. Well til next time, hope everyone has a great week!

Here is to the new year in my beady world!

2011-01-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

Well Happy New Year to anyone reading my blog! I had a great New Year celebration with wonderful friends. I had a resolution or two I wanted to follow, but I realize if I call it a "resolution" and I feel as though I have to stick to it, and then Im not able to stick to it, (which many of us are not! lol) I figure thats just setting myself up to be dissapointed. So I decided to make myslef just a little promise to "try my best" to change the things I can in my life for the better. I figure I need to start somewhere, so I started by not telling anyone really what those changes would be, because then I wouldn't have to worry about what someone might think when I stray away from those changes. Ok, Ill tell one of them to whoever is reading this....
One of my "New years self improvements" is to keep my car cleaner. I know that sounds silly, but it is something I need to do that I think would make me feel less cluttered at times. Not that my car is horribly dirty, but it definately needs to be washed like once a week instead of once every 6 weeks or so!
And the rest have to do with my jewelry business and keeping motivated.
Anyways, I hope everyone had a great New Year, and have the ability to start fresh with a positive attitude and plenty of support. I bought some things today to help me in my journey of keeping motivated. I am going to work on building another Lightbox for better pictures of my jewelry. I have done this before and it actually worked out great until I needed some of the components for other stuff! Well, here is to new beginnings, and best wishes for all the crafters out there for the year 2011!

Holiday distraction....

2010-12-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

So here it is Monday, I totally forgot about my own "promise" to myself to blog every Saturday, but I blame it on the christmas being around the corner....though I seem to have absolutely no motivation to do ANYTHING. I have not been keeping up very well with any of my sites, I have not been in the mood to make jewelry, I just don't feel like doing anything I guess. It's crazy how the weekend came and went, and I really don't know where my time went, I didnt do anything that I can remember that took up my whole weekend....I just feel completely unmotivated. I like the whole facebook thing, but at the same time, I knew it would overwhelm me, because I just want to be able to keep up. I think what I need to do, is do my best to hit that 5000 mark so I can't do anymore, and I don't have to worry about it. Then I can focus on my other pages and websites. I also ran out of certain supplies I need for making jewelry, AND I don't have a camera that will take good or even decent pictures. So I guess that doesn't help my motivation any. If I had a way to post pics up of new stuff I make, that would be great. And if I had all the supplies I needed to make new stuff that would be nice too. Not that I don't make good money, but I just can't afford to go spend a few hundred bucks on myself like that. I have not made any sales just yet, which is my own fault for not promoting and such. I just don't know what is wrong with me really. I think i just feel overwhelmed. I need a daily planner or one of those desktop calendars to write my daily goals for my jewelry business down or something. I guess I could just use a piece of paper huh? I don't know. How do I get motivated??? Hmmmmmm. I need to break it all down into baby steps.....hmmmmmm. Well til next time, I hope to have a much better blog and good news or something!

Slowly but surely....I'm getting there!

2010-12-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

So it seems like I am always a day late with this blogging stuff! I said I would do this every Saturday, but I always end up super busy on Saturdays. Either I have company, or have to be somewhere...and next weekend I will be working for time and a half pay! whoo hoo! Beads? Beads? I think I will deserve some beads for working the weekend. Today, I was able to progress with my website a bit, I added a visit counter, changed the home page wording a bit, and I also customized a welcome tab for my facebook page which I am very pleased with! I feel like I accomplished a little something today. Usually, I spend hours on end just doing the #LINKLOVE stuff and liking all these wonderfully talented artists pages. I honestly love seeing other peoples work, it is very inspiring to see such beautiful creations that were not just another "made in china" item. It is unique, and hard work and patience was put into it, and I can appreicate that as an artist myself. I know sometimes you can feel like your work is under appreciated or goes un noticed, but just know that I at least appreciate it and absolutely love it all! If I was rich, I would have nothing but handmade everything in my home, like the pictures on my walls, my furniture, my clothes...nothing would come from some production line in china or some other country. Dont get me wrong, I do not have anything against all that, except knowing it is made by the millions at a time, therefore is is anything but original or unique, as well as the fact that the people who make this stuff get paid cents! I have seen some beautiful jewelry in like Wal-mart, and other large chain stores, but unfortunately, it is all made in china and is not at all original. It is simply a "product" to be sold just for the money, not for the love of making the pieces, and most likely not hand made.
I have a dilemma on my hands. I need to get my hands on a good camera. I just hate not being able to show my pieces that I have been working on, and there are even times when I would love to snap pictures of the steps as I go along, so other can see my pieces being "born" so to speak. I will post some pictures of my pieces in my blog here too, I also am going to try and find a way to make my blog more noticeable and attractive by figuring out how to customize it. I think adding pictures is going to help, and looking at how others have designed their blogs to understand the layout possibilties. I have seen some really beautiful blog pages on here, and I am so impressed! I need to do that with mine here too. I need to figure out how to offer coupons, and have sales in my website and my artfire studio too. I need to get to a point that I am happy with on each of my pages, so that I can do all this. I need a lightbox. ugh, my mind is wandering now. Ok, well, I have enjoyed blogging, and need to get back to working on spicing up my pages as much as I can. Bye for now, and Thank You so very much for following my blog! Feel free to leave me comments or send me a personal message.

The need for more beads

2010-12-06T21:16:00.000-08:00

So....I am a couple days late here, I swore I was going to blog every saturday. I don't know about you but with the holidays around the corner, I have tons to do that I still have yet to finish. I have a bad back, meaning, I have bad scholiosis, bulging discs and sciatica nerve problems. I can't do hardly anything anymore, thank god my favorite hobby is not stressful!
Anyways, I made some more jewelry pieces and last week, I got this really cool idea for this beautiful triple strand necklace. Well I got all the beads out I could possibly use, and had to get creative with my ideas because everything I thought of I couldn't do because I did not have enough of a certain bead, or something.
I got the beads that I could use for it, and began with building the part that the pendant was going to hang from. Let me tell you, it took me a long time to figure something out to hang that darn pendant because I didn't want it to just hang from jumprings or something simple.
So I used three looped sterling silver earring findings, and did the same in the back by the clasp. so there I was with that part finally built with all the strands of wire put on, and then could not figure out a pattern with the beads I had. I had to get clever because I only had so many of each bead to work with, so I had to divide them equally so both sides of the necklace could be the same. To make a long story short, I let it sit for a week, to keep coming back to it and see if I could come up with something. I finally did, and put it all together and somehow after several hours of thinking, and stringing and re stringing, I managed to make it way too long. I don't know how I did it, and yes, I pay attention to the beadboard, but I did not realize it was going to end up 25" long when it should rest right below the collarbone if that. What a waste of wire, crimp beads, and crimp covers all in sterling silver. Now I have to take it all apart again and shorten it. So that is that, and I will do that maybe next weekend or somehthing, but I have put so much effort and thought into this necklace, that I seriously do not want to even look at it, and it frustrates the hell out of me to think all that time material and effort wasted!
Ok, here is my other dilemma. Right after I finished that triple strand necklace and realized it was too long, I decided I wanted to make something I would be successful at making and something I would be proud of when done instead of frustrated. I made this beautiful necklace, and was so proud of it. I packaged it up with some antitarnish strips and set it on the table with the other stuff I made that is new and needs to get pictures taken.
Back at my desk now, and I found some beads that I did not think should have been left over, so I second guessed my necklace work, and went back to the table, picked up the necklace, it slid out of the package and hit my tile floor and shattered the glass pendant! I was soooooo frustrated by then! I went in the other room, got the bigger desk, brought it into my bead room because I feel if I would have had more room on my bead desk, I would never have place the necklace on the table behind me, and never would have dropped it! So now I have two desks in there, and I am going to rearrange it this week, and I need to go somewhere and get some rugs to put on the floor, so if something breakable drops, it wont break.
Of course this all happened on sunday night, making me not want to go to work on Monday! I just wanted to stay home, rearrange my beadroom, and fix everything. Unfortunately I have no choice but to buy a new pendant, but I'm thinking of something a little prettier.
The reason I say the need for more beads, is because I really do need more, I am constantly limited to designs, I always find myself not being able to pull through on an idea for a necklace or set because I don't have the right amount of a certain bead. Im so tired of being told I have "tons" of beads, and I dont need any more because yes I do, I am the one that uses them, and I am the one that knows what I need or don't need. I just need to stop talking to people about it I guess. Fine, I'll just blog about it! LOL but really, it gets frustrating when I get this really awesome idea and I can't go forward with it because I only have half the amount I would need in the beads I want to use. Any beader knows, beads can get super pricey, or I would just go right out and buy what I need. I need to start buying like 3 or 4 (or more) strands of each bead, instead of 1 strand. But you know, that is a learning curve for me, I now know that I need to change my ordering methods. You would think after all these years, I would have figured it out, but I have not run into this problem as much as I do now.
I am very tired, it is only 9:10pm and I was going to get on facebook and do #LINLOVE stuff for a few hours, but Im so tired, I had to take a benadryl to calm the allergies that I just figured out I had. My eyes have been soooo bloodshot for a week now, and today they were really really bad. So I decided to stop at the store on the way home and get visine allergy drops, and some benadryl. Thank God the visine seems to have cleared it up better than the other stuff I have been trying. But the benadryl is making me very sleepy....We'll see, I might just see what is going on in facebook.

All beaded up and no where to go!

2010-11-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I have been trying to make as much stuff as possible this weekend, I got my Jewelry pricing program back up and working, just not looking forward to recounting all my beads to put them into inventory in the program! So far I have made two beaded eyeglass chains, a pair of earrings, and one set with matching necklace, bracelet, and earrings. I just need to find a way to get pictures up. I have my old camera, that seems like the pictures are going to be fine, but then when I get them into the computer, they have flourescent green lines through them, and the bottom half of the picture is not lined up with the rest of the picture! My new camera I bought a couple years ago, accidentally got dropped into the river on our family camping trip, so goodbye to that. So tonight, I got the idea to scan my new pieces I just made so I could upload them that way. No such luck. They scan, but the pictures come out blurry, and the colors are all wrong. so I give up. Im gonna try changing some settings on my old camera, and clean it out real good, and see if I can't get the pictures up that way. So... that is why I say all beaded up and no where to go! Because I made all this pretty stuff and have no way to show it! Then I remembered today is Saturday, and I chose Saturdays for my blogging updates, so here I am....blogging about my adventures thus far! I never realized, and never thought this would happen, but since I have not made anything in such a long time, when I got started back up last night, it actually took me a while to get creative! I also realize that no matter what anyone says, I NEED MORE BEADS!!! I will just buy more when ever possible. I caught myself today online at fire mountain gems, I got their email for their sale that they have going, and I started browsing, and almost started putting stuff into my "cart" and then I stopped myself because I know right now I have too many bills to pay, and should not be buying beads! I know I could easily run my bead shopping spree up over 100 bucks in no time! So I was a good girl and I stopped browsing after about 10 minutes, and closed the window and deleted the email for no further temptation.
When I started makeing things last night, I started with the pair of earrings, then I got frustrated because I have been out of it for so long, I could not get my wrapped loops to come out right, so I stepped away from the earrings, and said to myself- "lets do something you will enjoy for your first creation, that way it's fun instead of frustrating".
So I thought of stuff I needed to make that I do not have alot of in my inventory, so thats what got me going with the eyeglass leashes and the set. Well for now, that is all I have made, and hope tomorrow I can get going some more, and hope by then I will be able to get some pictures of it. I will post them tomorrow if I can. One last thought...I NEED MORE BEADS!!!

Feeling overwhelmed!

2010-11-20T12:34:00.000-08:00

Well here it is a Saturday that I don't have a million things to do besides promote my websites, and such, and well....I guess I do have alot to do! I just don't know where to start, so I decided that maybe I could organize my thoughts if I blogged for a while.

So I now understand the #LINKLOVE mission, and have joined that, and its doing well for me so far, I think eventually though I will get too many to keep up with and It will become very time consuming. Now I start thinking too far ahead and feeling like Im never going to be caught up when I start getting so many links to return. But you know what, I will just keep working them and keep it going, and as the rule is, when you hit 5000, thats it, you're done. I can do it, I WILL do it. Not that 5000 is my goal, but keeping up with all the link exchanging is my goal. The 5000 will come naturally within that. Anyways, I was going to make a schedule, of a daily task list, but then realized my life is not going to be predictable like that! We'll see. Once Im all caught up (if that ever happens) and I get down to just being able to create jewelry and post it on my different sites, I'll be able to better obide by a schedule a bit easier. Im thinking maybe I should update my blog every Saturday, or should it be whenever I feel like it? I think every Saturday should be easy to go with. Let's start there. That way I can give an update on all I've worked on through the week and how things are going and be able to see my own progress too.

I keep seeing people that are getting blocked on facebook too for "liking" too many pages too fast, so I read the "handbook" on #LINKLOVE and I think I understand how to avoid that from happening to me. Well, I know for today, I have some housework to do, and I have already returned the links that have been dropped in my discussion tab on my facebook page, I need to go through now and follow their blogs, and possible do some link exchanges directly on thier official websites too, as well as work some pages of links. I love seeing all the other artists talents, it is crazy what people can do and how many talents there are out there! It also helps with getting ideas for christmas presents, I would much rather support another artisan and buy from them for christmas, instead of the mall or wal mart or gift cards to those places. Well, I never know what the future will bring, so we will see where I'm at around Christmas time with all my hard work.

Hope you enjoy reading my blog and thanks for stopping by!

Kimberly Lynn Designs ~ Elegant one-of-a-kind handmade gemstone beaded Jewelry
Facebook ~http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kimberly-Lynn-Designs/141969352521411
Website~ http://www.kimberlylynndesigns.com/
Artfire ~ http://www.KLdesigns.artfire.com/
Blog ~ http://kimberlylynndesigns.blogspot.com/

Please come “like” my page and drop your link in my discussions tab too! I will return the favor if I have not already! Thank You for your support!

A little bit about me and my rocky road in following my dream.

2010-11-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

Well to get started on this blog has been a mission in itself, I was not wanting to start another blog since I already have I think two going at other sites, but was in school through 99% of them so I didn't have much time to do anything besides blog about my wants to get back into creating jewelry. I found a wonderful website called Bead-space.com which I am a member of, as well as BeadersShowcase.com.  It was through those two websites that I have been able to not give up my dreams of just finishing school, and being able to dedicate myself back to making jewelry. Most people that do not have the love or passion for making things and then trying to market those things, just don't understand how much work it is. I am not about to hire someone to build my website, I'll do it myself. Same with marketing all my stuff, I'll do that myself too. I have always been very independant in alot of ways, and anything I can do on my own is best done on my own. No one knows what I want better than me, right? So anyways, I finished school just recently, and I am so relieved to not have homework anymore! This is going to be my second try with a website and all the stuff that goes with it for my Jewelry.
My first attempt was rocky due to school, (this was like 3 years ago now) and I of course put my jewelry and website upkeep on the back burner. Then I would do a little updating here and there but I kept losing entire pages when I did try to update my pages with just a few new pieces, I talked to the hosting company and they claimed those pages never existed according to their records, well thats strange, because I have had people buy stuff off those pages! So to make a long story short, I had so many problems with the website, and then in the end I lost it due to the company not telling me in any way that my domain name or membership with them was about to expire. When that happened, I just gave up completely. I decided to just forget about it until I was graduated. I still couldn't stay away from it completely though, that is when I found the two websites bead-space and beadersshowcase. It was like an easy way for me to stay connected and more inportantly really kept me inspired. I am very excited to be getting back into the groove of things again, this time for good! I have found a different host to go through for my website, I lost all trust in the company I was going with before. I won't mention the name because maybe others like that company and have had no problems, but I am disgusted with them.  Link exchanging, blog posting, and most of all making my jewelry and posting pictures is all stuff I love doing. So far I have built my website http://www.kimberlylynndesigns.com/
I also have an artfire storefront at http://www.kldesigns.artfire.com/
and you will find me on facebook as well,  I am just learning about the whole "Link Love" thing going on over there so please stop by my page and we can exchange links! Im just getting started again and I don't want to overwhelm myself with creating too many sites on the internet to keep up with, just yet, so I think I will just stick with these four for now. The three above and this blog you are reading! So anyways, I know this is going to be a journey I will never forget and I look forward to meeting new people and reading others blogs too.