Into Jewelry Design?

I received an email the other day and although I haven’t a clue how I came to be on this fellow’s mailing list, I’m actually glad I received the email.

Preston Reuther’s Wire Sculpture site is more than just a place to purchase jewelry findings, gems, stones and wires.  This gentleman offers up a nice gift of free video tutorials that are not only well worth the visit to the site, they are well worth investing a bit of time into actually following them along.

The online store currently has many of it’s products on sale and that wasn’t the only thing that impressed me.  When I viewed some of his video’s which offer up some really nice tutorials for items that I could see being decent seller’s for any Designer’s offerings, I knew that at some point, I definitely want to take a look at some of the Instructional videos he also offers for sale.  This site isn’t just for the current designer, it’s also for someone who would like to get into the business.  Through well presented DVD offerings, one can enter into the jewelry making/designing market with very little investment thanks to Mr. Reuther’s offerings.

A definite must see if you have any interest in wire wrapping/sculpting because the video tutorials he offers for free are great.  Check it out soon and let me know what you think.

Akaiya

Artist’s Sell your Self

As an artist I’m always looking for ways to get my work out there but to be honest, I’ve been somewhat preoccupied and I haven’t really been working at it as I should.  Today, I decided to investigate a few possibilities that look promising and I thought I’d pass them along.

The first site I happened upon is called Art Break.  This site offers Artist’s the opportunity to upload images of their works and post them for sale, for free.  The commission the site does charge however, doesn’t take effect until a customer purchases and pays for your item(s).  The fee is just under 8% of the sale price.  That may appear steep but if you actually factor in the cost to get your own site up and running, advertising, time spent promoting yourself etc., this doesn’t sound like too bad a deal actually.

There are a number of categories available to list your work under and surprisingly, if you are an Artist in at least a few different areas, you have an opportunity to really make your mark as some categories aren’t even populated yet.  I’ll be investigating this site a bit more soon and am strongly considering signing up for it.  I’ll post my findings at a later date should I actually choose to become a member.  Uniquely, unlike some sites, and despite what they use to require, this site no longer demands a credit card be provided to sign up and sell your work, which is a good thing for those artist’s who don’t own credit cards.

Are you an Artist from Atlantic Canada?  Then you’ll want to check out Art Gallery Atlantic.  This site is designed with you in mind.  I haven’t checked it out thoroughly but they don’t charge an Annual or Member fee but they do charge a 25% commission fee when your work sells.  That fee however again sounds pretty good when you consider everything that they offer.  If I lived in the Atlantic provinces, I’d probably seriously look into this avenue because they do a fair bit for the artist from just the little I’ve read thus far.  Worth a check, but as always, do your research, regardless what I say or what you hear.  Always be prepared.

I’ll see what else I can hunt down, til next time!

Akaiya

Time and Energy are just flying!

While we were waiting for the flooring we installed in our home to ‘acclimatize’ to the room it would be installed in  we ended up being hit with a very unpleasant surprise that had us seriously considering returning the flooring for a refund instead.  Last year we were told that like it or not our home along with the other homes in our area, were being equipped with Smart Meters.

Now, Smart Meters are apparently all the rage and every posting I’ve come across regarding them have been touting them as marvelous, wonderful, accurate and money saving little inventions.  I had heard of people getting huge bills thanks to them however but when our billings remained stable, we assumed that we were doing a pretty decent job of conserving.  Well, I’m here to tell you that if you combine Smart Meters with stupid people, you get problems…big ones, costly ones and ones that just don’t add up except for the Hydro Company involved.  When installers put these meters in they somehow got our home and 3 others mixed up and apparently everyone was getting the wrong bills.  For almost a year!  Four months ago two neighbors started getting higher bills while two of us stayed pretty well average and didn’t alert us to any problems.  Seems the meters were indeed hooked up incorrectly and now, with the adjustments which credits some neighbors with pretty good credits for more time than the meters were even installed for, two of us have gotten bills that are going back well over a year before the meters were even in use in the homes.