Of course, I had to go to the beads store again. Although it would be nice to knock it all out in one run (meaning get all the supplies in one visit and be done then), that never happens. I am going out of town tomorrow to UGA and although it might sound weird, it is pretty important that I wear some of my new jewelry and get my friends to as well. College campus are a great way to advertise. A lot of my sisters older friends at UGA wear my jewelry and it has become quite popular there. I hope to do a trunk show somewhere there in the future. Anyways, my point being that I need to make several new necklaces tonight so my friends and I can advertise tomorrow. I spent the rest of the day making these necklaces.

The website is finally coming along. I worked on it some more today for about an hour and a half. So far I am just using old pictures I had taken of my jewelry throughout the site but will definitely need more pictures. Currently I have the home page done (until I can add more recent pictures), the about me page done, and am making a template for the Shop page, the Lookbook page, and the FAQ page. The lookbook page will basically be a gallery that contains images of people wearing the jewelry and people dressed up in a complete outfit wearing the jewelry so the viewers or buyers can get an idea of how I would like my jewelry styled. I am most excited to get some pictures for the Lookbook page.

I finally collected all my supplies today when I went to the bead store, except I use the word all loosely because there has yet to be a trunk show yet where I haven't forgotten or needed more of some material the day before. After getting all the new materials I sat down and made jewelry for about an hour and a half. I do a lot of organizing the materials before I actually begin making them. For the short beaded chain necklaces, the most popular typically, I cut 16" from the spool, another 1" and a half, get a clasp and choose the pendant then put all of the pieces in a small plastic bag. I usually make around 50 of these short beaded chain necklaces so this takes some time. In this hour and a half I was messing around with some new materials I had gotten and was trying to make a replica, or look alike of a necklaces I had seen online. It may sound weird but a lot of my time is spent online shopping or looking at pinterest because I always need to know what the popular style is. I began to work on my website later that day (finally.) I found what website I thought would work best with the type of site I wanted to make, and landed with wix.com, which is convenient because I have worked on wix before. I spent about 4 hours creating a template and buying a domain name and upgrading my wix account to an eCommerce site. So far I am pleased with how the website is going.

After finishing my classes at 3:00 I went to Laura Pearce's store. I ran an errand but mainly we talked about the upcoming week. She is leaving for New York tomorrow the rest of the week and weekend meaning I can't work with her at all this week so she wants me to come in all day Monday (the 20th) and the majority of the day Tuesday (the 21st.) I will finally get to sit down with David, her jewelry designer to talk about what he does there. I spent the rest of the day doing homework so I didn't get to the bead store, which is an issue because I need to get started on more necklaces for the show.

I used the list of necklaces I needed to make (made on monday) to create a list of materials needed to make those items. It usually takes me an hour or so to figure out exactly how many feet of chain I need and how many strands of labradorite (a semi precious stone I use a lot) and how many clasp, etc. When I first started making jewelry I drew out my designs then wrote down what I needed to create each neckalce, like the picture below. Included in the picture is how the necklace actually turned out.




































Now that I have been making necklaces for a while I don't usually have to draw out my designs I can pretty much guess how much material to get.

Today after class I went to get a quick bite then went home to go over all the pieces I had left over from the trunk show in Tuscaloosa. First I had to double check to make sure that my inventory list and what I actually had checked out. A lot of times when there are several people purchasing necklaces at the same time I forget to mark off what sold on the inventory list so it isn't always accurate. In that case I have calculate the amount of money I made that day vs. what I have on the inventory list and if I made more than I listed and am missing necklaces than that means I just forgot to mark off that someone bought it. The very first trunk show I did I had my mom and sister helping me check out but they both thought it was difficult and don't offer to help in that way anymore (and I don't blame then) so from now on it is just me checking people out and I often make mistakes. Luckily no mistakes that have been a big issue, just tedious for me to check later. So after I made sure the inventory list was correct, I had to think about what necklaces I needed for the upcoming trunk show. The main difference between the Tuscaloosa trunk show and the Atlanta trunk show will be the type of people that will come. Typically the Atlanta shows have a lot of kids my age as well as parents, the type of people that the Tuscaloosa show was lacking. I created a list of the short beaded necklaces that sold at the Tuscaloosa show that I need to make more of (they are the most popular at Atlanta shows with kids my age.) Not many of the long knotted necklaces sold so I won't have to make too many of those, which is good because they take a while to make (they are semi-precious stones on silk with knots in between each bead and a pendant.) Those necklaces most likely didn't sell because they usually range $75 to $115. In addition bracelets, which I don't usually make, are easy to sell at the Atlanta shows because they aren't very expensive. Finally, I have to plan to make several pave diamond pieces. The pave diamond (meaning crushed diamonds) necklaces are big for the parents and are relatively expensive so I didn't make any for the first show.

I had class from 10:55 to 3:00 then had a quick meeting with a teach until 3:30 then met with Laura Pearce at 4:00. I ran errands for Mrs. Pearce until about 5:15. Nothing jewelry oriented but like mentioned before, busy work is still work. Basically today I just ran errands, I didn't get to the bead store like I had hoped too but I will need to do that early next week after I have planned everything I need to make for the next show.