Halloween: 2017

Thursday, December 28, 2017

What Is That Spot On The Back Of My China Pendant?

If you own a piece of my Dishfunctional Designs Broken China Jewelry, you might have noticed something on the reverse side of your china pendant.

It's not on many of my pendants (and other jewelry pieces I make such as pin brooches and bracelets), but it is on a few.

Every once in a while you will come across a small circular bump - what looks to be a dink - on the reverse side surface of the china.

Hmmm. Mysterious.

Can you guess what it is?

Give up?

It's called a stilt mark or a kiln spur, and it's a resting mark from where the plate once sat in the kiln when it was fired. You will usually find three of them on the reverse side of a plate.

Yup, these little dinks and spots are actually a pretty interesting fact about the antique piece of the past that you now wear around your neck!

I thought that was a pretty cool fact! I think that they add interest and character to something that already is pretty unique - they are like a part of each piece of china's story.

What do you think?

Have a great week!

Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

My Favorite Bluebird China Patterns (and other bird china patterns!)

Hi friends! I hope you all had a great holiday. I can hardly believe that it's the end of 2017 and that 2018 will be here in just a few days!

I am so excited for the new year and I have something special planned for my blog for the entire month of January...hopefully I will be able to pull it off, hehe... I am going to try my best and lately I have regrettably fallen out of the blogging habit, mostly because life just gets in the way and then all of a sudden the holidays are upon us and I am then in production 24/7!

That's just how things are sometimes and it can't be helped. But I have BIG plans for 2018 and lots of great blog posts coming up that I know you are going to LOVE! So stay tuned!

I want to say Thank You to all of my amazing customers - both new and returning customers - this certainly was a super-busy season for Dishfunctional Designs Broken China Jewelry, and I hope you are loving your new jewelry! And for those who purchased not for themselves but as gifts for others - I hope they loved their jewelry! Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know.

While fishing through some dishes I came across one of my boxes of bluebird china, and thought I would snap a few quick photos so that I could share some of my favorite patterns with you. Now, before you even ask, I can barely tell you any of these pattern names - most don't have names - and not even a maker's mark on the reverse side, so your guess is as good as mine for most of them.

But they are just beautiful.

Some of the patterns below I have only ever seen once - maybe twice - so they are not commonly found. Others you may recognize as a bit more popular. Enjoy!

Which is your favorite?

Have a great week!

Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving! Broken China Jewelry For Black Friday

Wow, it's Thanksgiving week! I hope you all have a great holiday no matter how you spend it. :)

Years and years ago before Etsy was created and before I had my own website, I started off selling my jewelry on Ebay. I remember gearing up for the busy holiday weekend and Black Friday and creating tons of jewelry for my Ebay shop.

Back then it was auction-style selling, which was fun and exciting, and it really was a great way to learn what items were the most popular out of everything I sold. I met so many wonderful customers, many of whom still are customers! I think I sold over 3,000 pieces of jewelry on Ebay - wow!

Then around 2009 Etsy came along, and since it touted itself as a "handmade marketplace" I knew that it would be a good venue for my work.

In between the two I also listed my jewelry on my own website, www.dishfunctionaldesigns.com, but that got to be very time consuming and hard to keep up with, so I decided to focus my efforts on Etsy.

At the same time Ebay's fees were mounting, and once they decided to take a cut of the seller's shipping costs - meaning the seller had to pay a percentage of shipping costs to Ebay - I was out of there. I guess they did that to make up for the tons of sellers who would take advantage of buyers for listing an item on Ebay for $10 but then charging $20 for shipping.

I miss selling on Ebay and on my own website and have been toying with the idea of trying one or both out again, maybe once things settle down after the holidays.

One of my best Thanksgiving weekend memories was the year my daughter Rachel was born (who just now turned 13 on Sunday!). Born the week before Thanksgiving, and there I sat at my desk on Black Friday, at my computer with a tiny little newborn baby in one arm, writing up sale after sale with the other arm, till 5am. I think I got an entire two hours of sleep that night until I had to get up in the morning for my 2 & 1/2 year old! :)

Here I am, still keeping on, very much jewelry later! I am so thankful for all of my wonderful customers that I've had over the years, and for the ability to build a career around what I love that gave me to ability to work for myself, at home.

Here are some of the brand new pieces that I just listed in my Etsy shop. Some are favorite old patterns, a few I haven't worked with before, but I think all are pretty. Hope you like them, and Happy Thanksgiving!

All items shown above are available for purchase at shopdishfunctionldesigns

Have a great week!
love,

Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase

Check out my new jewelry instruction books and DVDs!

Learn how to solder and make unique jewelry!

Friday, November 17, 2017

Why I Will Never Pay You To Promote Me On Instagram

It happens every once in a while. I see a little icon in the corner of my Instagram profile, indicating that someone wants to send me a message. I go to the page and scan the message. “Would you like to have thousands of people see your widget?“ Or “I think your widget is really great and would love to share it with my thousands of followers!“ or, “For a low fee of only $20 I will share your widget on my Instagram page and you will have massive exposure from all of my thousands of followers seeing your widget.“

Hmm. Interesting. The message piques my curiosity, so I click to visit the message sender's Instagram page. I see that they have a large amount of followers; 20,000…or 40,000… 100,000 ...or even many more. That’s a lot of followers. That’s a lot of exposure for my work.

But I‘ve been coming across articles on the web about how people buy followers and that those “followers” are just dummy accounts that actually don’t have a human behind them. They’re just numbers, empty fluff to fill a seat. Pretend quantity to be sold for a real price.

Buying “followers” should be called buying “numbers” because that’s what it really is. When you think about it, buying numbers is flat out deceptive to your customers and potential customers. Buying followers to create the illusion of an audience is sneaky and it’s wrong. It’s misleading, fraudulent, and dishonest.

Why do people do this? They do it for different reasons. One reason that people pad their following with fake followers is to make themselves look popular. They believe that people equate popularity with goodness. “Well, I see they have 50,000 followers… There must be something great about that person/product.“ Truth? Not necessarily.

Another reason people pad their numbers with fake followers– especially if they are selling a product - is to create the illusion of value. “Oh, look at how many followers they have. Their product must be really great.“ Truth? Not in every case.

Another reason people buy fake followers is to boost their own ego. Sigh.

So, back to the message that someone sent me on Instagram. First, they contacted me out of the blue. I had no idea who this person was. I had never heard of them before. They were not a fellow artist nor were they a celebrity or anything that would naturally cause them to have any type of large following.

Second, they’re soliciting me. They asked me to give them money in exchange for them exposing me and/or my product to their massive amount of followers. All I had to do was send them a picture that they would post on their own Instagram account and poof, the rest is history. I would have lots of exposure and sales. Of course, they don’t guarantee anything, but the numbers are there. Or are they?

How do I know whether the person who sent me the message actually has a responsive solid following, or whether their following is just empty numbers?

This is where we get down to business. It only takes me a few seconds to determine whether this is a valid offer, or just a scam.

I click on their name, which takes me to their Instagram profile. I scroll through their feed, looking at all the things they posted, and paying close attention to the amount of “likes“ and responses to each of their posts.

I can tell that each of their posts are photos that were submitted by different artists or crafts people, as each photo showcases an item such as a piece of jewelry, or painting, and below the photo is a link that person's Instagram profile and or website. From seeing this, I assume that they actually are selling these ads and posting them as promised. Now the important part. I look at the number of likes below each photo and look for comments below each photo. This person has well over 40,000 followers, so there should be a good amount of likes as well as at least a comment or two below each photo—especially below photos that have been up for more than two days.

On my own Instagram account I have around 800 followers. Each photo I post collects about… I’d say 20 to 50 likes on average—some more, some less— but each depends on the quality and cleverness of the image as well as the coolness factor of subject of the photo of course.

I look below each of the solicitor's posted photos. I see that they have an average of about 100 to 250 likes per photo. Again, they have over 40,000 followers. Obviously, those numbers don’t add up and are way off. If even half of those followers were truly interested in what the solicitor was posting and sharing, they would be garnering many more likes then the small amount shown.

Obviously, this tells you that their 40,000 “person” following are in actuality just empty numbers, and not actual individuals who have an interest in anything that this person posts. So in a nutshell, this person is asking me to pay them my hard-earned money so that they can share my photo with no one. Ha!

In my opinion, the people who paid to have their photos shared were naïve. And that happens. It was a little bit their own fault for not doing the background research that I just showed you before sending off their $20. Like I said, it happens. Live and learn. But the solicitor is misleading, fraudulent, and basically a scam artist.

Don’t fall for this scam!

That is my first piece of advice. My second is don’t buy followers! With the practice becoming more and more prolific, it has become so much more obvious and easier to spot accounts that have fake followers. Not only is it tacky, it’s dishonest.

How long does it take to grow a real following? This depends on a few things. It depends on how hard you work and it depends on the quality of your work. If you produce quality work, people are going to follow you, without a doubt. If you perhaps create something that goes viral, you may earn many followers in a short period of time. But still, that number is very rarely in the multiple thousands.

I think the most followers I ever gained overnight was from a pin that I posted from my blog that went viral on Pinterest when a celebrity re-pinned it, and I gained over 1,000 followers in one night. But other than that, I love that my following is completely organic. It’s the show of the quality of my work combined with my patience and perseverance, and it's also a reflection of how much I promote myself and my work.

I think my Pinterest account has about 118,000 followers, every single one organic. My Facebook page has about 13,000. Each of them followed me because they liked what they saw and they wanted to follow me. My Instagram has many less since I focus more on other means of promotion, but mostly because I won’t buy followers.

How about you? What do you think?

Has anyone ever solicited you on Instagram to promote you?

Have you ever bought followers?

What types of advertising and promotion have and have not worked for you?

Share your experiences below!

Pin this post!

Have a great week!

Laura

My broken china jewelry is always available for purchase at https://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

New China Shard Pendants in 2 Styles - Perfect Stocking Stuffers!

Brand new! These new china shard pendants make perfect stocking stuffers! A bit different from my usual broken china jewelry, these pretty shard pendants are lightweight and have hand-smoothed edges instead of the metalwork around the edges—perfect for those who prefer lightweight jewelry, for those with allergies, or those who just prefer not to wear a lot of metal. Each pendant is handmade and has a sterling silver bail and each comes with an 18" chain, ready to wear.

I have two styles - either on a linen background or without. (see below)

These are set at a great price for the holidays and once they're gone, they're gone, so shop now to get first choice! Find them here in my Etsy shop, Dishfunctional Designs.