Happy New Year!

I was going to wait to post until I had my reveal post for Diana's (Suburban Girl Studios) snowflake written up but realized it's New Years eve and this would be my last post of the year.

Thank you for being a part of my year in 2014 for listening to me ramble and looking at my pretties. Thank you for coming along on this ride with me and I do hope you'll join me again in  2015. Diana's Snowflake will be a beautiful way to start the New Year so be sure to pop back in just a couple days to see that.

Did I mention after several years of just missing the boat I finally made it into the Year of Jewelry?
A piece a week! It's going to be a busy year! That's good, I like busy! It's going to be a wonderful year!



Happy New Year! Here's to 2015 being as good as I think it will be....... or better!

December's Birthstone = Turquoise

It's hard to believe an entire year has passed sine I started posting these wonderful old marketing Poems. I have enjoyed it and it makes me a little sad that this is the last of the series.

They've given me a post every month that was already planned, helping my continuity and has made me look a little closer at my own "marketing" (as passive as it is it's still marketing lol) I've enjoyed the themes and sharing so I'll be planning more posts over the next year.

I've discovered a little more about the ways I'm comfortable marketing and not. I've even discovered how wounded I feel when I'm criticized on how I'm marketing others, and now I know how long it takes to recover from that. Apparently I still wear my heart on my sleeve, thought I had tucked that away a long time ago.

While I sit down to work on my marketing plan for the coming year (including some of those blog posts) I do hope you will enjoy our final poem and know that I have enjoyed bringing them to you.

Turquoise and Turquoise colored Jewelry fromMy Shop

Decembers stone as we all know is Turquoise, but it also shares the month with Zircon and Tanzanite.

If cold December gave you birth,
The month of snow and ice and mirth,
Place on your hand a turquoise blue;
Success will bless whate'er you do.

Kind of a nice way to end the year though isn't it? A promise of success, very nice indeed.

We have once again moved the stones around throughout the ages. The original stones of the month were Ruby and Heliotrope (boy that stone gets around lol)  In 1912 they were replaced with Turquoise and Lapis Lazuli. Lapis is a pretty stone and I can imagine how pretty when paired with Turquoise. But the stone was dropped in 2013 in favor of Tanzanite and Zircon. Both beautiful stones in their own right.

Turquoise colored gifts from team LACWE on Etsy

January = Garnet

February = Amethyst

March = Aquamarine

April = Diamond

May = Emerald

June = Pearl

July = Ruby

August = Peridot

September = Sapphire

October = Opal

November = Topaz

Nose back to the grindstone...marketing, housework, blog hop pieces, and one of these days I've got to do some Christmas shopping or work on some gifts.......

Thanks for stoppin by!

We'll see ya next time!

In the Oven and What I'm working on ...

With the swap items finished up I can turn my attention to the color challenge proffered by Dry Gulch and the Art Jewelry Elements Snowflake ( I won one from Diana @ Suburban Girl Studios!!) I have ideas, oh have I ideas! annnddd..... I got a box of goodies fro Rio Grande. Silver prices dipped and I took advantage of it while I could. Yup I am going to try my hand at bezeling and flush setting itty bitty czs, yes I am I am. If you could see the grin on my face. This is the best end to the year/beginning, I'm a happy camper.

So since my nose is to the grindstone so to speak for the next couple weeks and and festivities Merry Merry to you and yours! I though I had better get a cookie recipe up here for you!

Yum!

These are MY all time favorites they never hang around my house very long.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Ingredients 

• 48 HERSHEY'S KISSES Brand Milk Chocolates
• 1/2 cup shortening or butter (shortening keeps them fluffy but butter tastes better)
• 3/4 cup  Peanut Butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• A couple Tbs of granulated sugar for rolling the balls in

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F. 

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. 

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet. 

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. (my oven likes the 8 minute mark)

5. While cookies are baking remove wrappers from kisses. 

6. With about a minute or two to go press kisses into the center of cookies and return to oven; cookie will crack around edges. 

7. When done remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Makes about 48 cookies of yummy goodness.

We're thinking of making some sugar cookies this year so maybe we'll post the recipe next week.

Thanks for stoppin by!

Merry Merry!

Dana

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Singing it with me?

I absolutely adore the passion in artists, we feel strongly about almost everything. It shows in what we do, in what we make, and how we express ourselves. As such there is a tendency in the Etsy/Art world to panic loudly and leave en masse any time a change happens that isn’t immediately understood. Take for instance the newest FB revelation that spammy posts will no longer be allowed. OMG the sky is falling, they’re trying to destroy MY small business, why oh why!!! <<<  exaggerated to make my point, but it is the same reaction every time a change is made. People as a whole dislike change, artists as it turns out are no exception. 

For the last several years I’ve tried to advise my fellow artists to NOT do the copy/paste/run thing. It’s spammy, it shows in the newsfeed several times over, buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff!!!! People DON’T like that. They want kittens and funny stories and updates of what’s going on. Yes, they want to see what you’re working on but they don’t want you screaming BUY MY STUFF all over their feeds. 

 FB has been running surveys for the past several months, Guess what they discovered……. read the above. That’s right. So the spammy content is being filtered.

But you know what? “I" don’t want to see ads in my newsfeed either. I want stories from my favorite pages, the pages I clicked "Receive Notifications" from. The stories I’m NOT getting now because of the spammy ads. This filter is “supposed” to keep spammy ads out so you CAN get the stories you want. Time will tell if that’s the way it actually works. We’ve all seen the decline in organic reach right?

So what’s an artist supposed to do? Ever hear the old adage Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket? Don’t put all your marketing effort into FB. And don’t use a singular campaign of BUY MY STUFF. I’ve been saying this for several years now, if you’re on Social Media BE SOCIAL, be yourself. I read an analogy once and I really wish I could remember where to give proper attribution but it went something like this: 

Social media marketing is like being at a party.  

 Would you walk in, head straight to the middle of the room and yell BUY MY STUFF and leave? 

 No, at least I hope you wouldn’t. 

 You’d walk in, mingle, talk to people, share stories, laugh, listen. 

 You’d be wearing your jewelry, you’d respond to compliments with Thank You I made this to wear tonight, or I sell on Etsy or however it is that YOU TALK to people when at a SOCIAL event.

Now even if you aren’t the Party Girl type you have been to more than one person’s party. You go to your Parent's for one holiday, your Relatives for another and your In-Laws for yet another. You go to Birthday Parties, Retirement parties, Moving parties, Paint parties. Think of them as FB, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Wanelo, Polyvore, Blogs, Tumblr, Google +, Flickr, you get the idea. You don’t have to go to every one just as you don’t have to hit every social media site. Choose the ones you like best, the ones that fit you. Don’t forget to Mingle, SMILE, laugh, and share stories, don’t just run in and yell BUY MY STUFF.

And don’t forget the power of an old fashioned piece of paper called a business card. Make it a point to eat out at a restaurant or diner that encourages pinning your card to their wall or placing under the glass at check out. Check in on it every once in awhile to see if someone has taken it and replace it if they have. Most of all Don’t forget the most important accessory you own - a SMILE. That smile makes people want to get to know you, and then you can say Buy my Stuff. Or you can be social and tell them with the passion I know you have about this wonderful thing you do.

Til next time when I hopefully actually share the cookie recipe I promised!

Dana