June Giveaway, Vintaj! and a much deserved Vacation

Congratulations Liz of Mad Bush Farm ! You will have these lovely pink earrings in the mail to you shortly. Although, not sure how long it will take to get to you in New Zealand! Enjoy them.

My eSMArt friend and teammate, Teri, is a Vintaj representative. These lovely brass pieces mixed with raw copper look fantastic together.

Teri is a great friend and designer. Besides her jewelry on Etsy she authors a blog, Hubpage, and is on Twitter- follow her!

A bit more about Teri: She has a jewelry design business with her best friend and business partner Saundra. They incorporated as a business in 2003 and have been slowly growing their inventory AND their skill sets ever since. In 2008 they began their online webpage and Etsy storefront, and are working on promotions with the eSMarts Etsy Team and a local Louisville group. They have in home shows, hostess jewelry parties, have a booth at fairs and festivals, and offer jewelry trunk shows.

Don’t forget if you see something on Vintaj – Teri is the person to contact to get a great deal for you!

I am on vacation this week! Yaaa! My last week off was a year ago… we usually take a winter holiday but because of Fred’s health issues we skipped Florida this year. Boy, has that caught up to me. We are doing absolutely nothing this week…. it is great to have no plans. Here is what I managed to do with some of my time so far:

Clear faceted quartz, chalcedony, garnet and opalite in silver

Amethyst rounds with opalite and silver

Fluorite, pink candy jade, amethyst done in silver

My First Bulk Buy- Esmarts Team

Thank you Dani!!

Danis Garcia runs the Yahoo Group JSBulk Buy . This group was brought together to bring the best quality stones and findings at the lowest prices to designers and retailers. Take a look at what my first buy landed me!

I am so excited that I gave this a try...all the lovely creations that are begging to be made from these lovely gems. Garnets, Flourite, Amethyst, Black Onyx, Smokey Quartz, Tiger Eye, Carnelian, Tourmalinated Quartz, Silver Leaf, Botswana Agate, Moss Agate, Candy Jade, African Jade, Amazonite, Dumortierite, and Lapis.

Besides running this group Dani is also a member of eSMArts Team on Etsy. The Etsy Social Marketing Arts Guild (eSMArts Guild) is a global collaborative of mixed media artisans intent on further understanding and applying eCommerce advertising and promotion techniques. If you are an Estian and interested in joining an active team feel free to visit.

Here are more items from that purchase- Sea glass beads in various colors and lovely Bali style silver beads and spacers.
Here is how to contact Dani:
DG Designs, Custom jewelry
Gems, Stones, Jewelry Supply
Danis Garcia - Blog
DGDesignsTx - Etsy Store
Texas Artisans Promotions

Getting ready for Fall Craft Fair...New to Etsy....destash...and Marketing tip~

Amber and Copper Necklace

This lovely necklace is made from amber beads in various shades paired with purple crackle quartz all wrapped up in warm copper. The focal amber piece is over 50mm wide by 30mm tall with copper and silver findings. The necklace is over 22" in length and is adjustable. The earrings are my gift to you and measure over 2 1/2" in length with 2 amber beads and a divine piece of purple crackle quartz. Earrings have a copper French hook.

I have taken AnnaLee's lead (my fellow eSMARts team leader) and considered adding a "Destash" category to my Etsy shop... began listing items tonight. Fellow jewelry artisans...feel free to check it out!!

MyGemStoneBox by Diane will be at the Fall Craft Fair and French Canadian Festival on October 25th (rain date 26th) in Rotary Park, Kennedy Drive Putnam. The festival begins at 10am and ends with River Fire at 5:30pm on the Quinebaug River. Here is the link to mapquest.

Come out and join us!

This just in.... I just sold my Peaceful Pendant tonight on Etsy!! Yah!!

Marketing tips:

Make customer service your top priority. This should be really obvious but sometimes it isn't. There's simply no substitute for the brand experience. If you can't win battles like delivering on time and soothing customers' ruffled feathers, you'll lose the war. Remember, the path to profitability is paved with repeat customers. There are many ways to build repeat business, but you need to lay the groundwork from the minute you start writing your business plan. The goal is to sketch out a scheme that'll create customers for life. If you can do that, you're at least halfway to ensuring your business will be around for the long haul.

Henanite

A co-worker (~with the same passion for gemstones as I have~) turned me on to these beauties! I will be setting them or wire wrapping them...yet to be determined. It thought I would share this find as they are relatively inexpensive in the scheme of things! If you are interested in having one or more of these for yourself.... don't hesitate to contact me! mailto:mygemstonebox@yahoo.com

Enjoy~

"A new stone that has hit the Market, HENANITE has been discovered to have a very iteresting past to it. Henanite is from the Hunan Providence of China. It has been mined for over a 1000 years, but has just now come to the attention of the Western Gemstone World. Actually it is an identical QUARTZ Family stone to Pietersite which come from Namibia found by Sid Pieters in 1962. The China form of pietersite is said to have been discovered in 1993 but did not come to market until 1997.

This China pietersite exhibits slightly different color variations from Mr. Pieter's original mineral, but both are beautiful and are now universally recognized as pietersite. However, since the Chinese version of Pietersite has been now identified as being mined for a much longer period of time than the Namibian Pietersite, they decided to honor the Hunan Province by calling it Henanite, and of course the price for Henanite is about twice that for Pietersite. The Chinese Pietersite has been called Eagle Eye for centuries by the Chinese peasants in the Hunan Providence. No connection was made with Pietersite until 1997 when it finally made its way to the Hong Kong Gem Show." Boy oh boy, marketing. But whichever, have always like Pietersite for its beauty, so now have several color variations of it thanks to Henanite