Sharma Designs - Behind the Scenes of a Handmade Jewelry Business

Catching Up

I know the silence has been deafening the last few weeks.  I was busy packing up my family to move across town.  Phew!  Glad that is over with and I hope we don't have to move again anytime soon (even though we do. ugh)! 

One positive thing that came out of packing up my bead room (which could seriously double as a retail bead store) is that I had to come up with a temporary storage solution/smaller setup. If you remember, my old setup (this picture cracks me up because what started as a small section of the room being my bead room ended up being me taking over!) consisted of storage units that were bolted to the wall.  Our new digs are temporary so I didn't want anything that was permanent.  I found a great solution and as soon as I recharge my camera batteries I will snap some shots for the blog.

I've had some great press recently.  The Etsy blog, The Storque did a post on scallops and scales and featured my vintage lucite scalloped hoops. That was a fun surprise!

26 Olive Street featured me as their Etsy crush of the week.  They have a very charming store on Etsy that sells vintage housewares.  I took photography for 3 years in high school so I especially love this GraLab timer.  It takes me back!  Love their pictures too!

Lastly, Try Handmade has a Shop Local feature and today's location was San Jose.  My shop got a feature along with a shop of a girl I used to babysit (many years ago) Poppy Joy (that doesn't make me feel old or anything!)  Try Handmade has some very cool handmade finds so check out their blog!

Because of the craziness I haven't had time to send out this month's newsletter with a contest winner so I am going to skip this month but next month I will be back on track.

Have a great week!

My 1 Year Etsyversary!

Today was my one year Etsyversary!  I know if you look at my Etsy store it looks like I have been selling since 2006 but in actuality I have just been BUYING since 2006.  Oh and how I have been buying....but anyway yay me!  Yay Etsy!

Thanks to all my wonderful customers who have helped make my Etsy store such a sucess!  If you are subscribed to my newsletter (you should be!) then you know how to get a discount.  If you aren't but want to celebrate with us just email me and I'll hook you up!

Gift Guides are Good!

I woke up this  morning to a nice surprise!  The owner of the Upstate Fancy blog had convoed me to let me know she had featured me in her Holiday Gift Guide.  What a treat!

You can find my red wood filigree earrings in the "For the Girls" section.  Lots of pretty things to look at!

An Interview with Little Ol' Me

Think you know everything there is to know about Sharma Designs?  Head on over to Charmingly Chic and read the interview I did with them and see if you learn anything new!  I really liked the questions Kristy asked because they were the same ol same ol questions that most blogs ask.

In other news, I finally finished my side project and can return to jewelry making again.  I'm very relieved.  The project was slowly sucking the life out of me!  I have some new pendants I'm going to start playing with tonight that are very different from my normal work.  We'll see if they make the cut!  Check back to find out!

Here are some new jewelry pieces I have just uploaded to Etsy:

This baby was hard to photograph!  The shell is so shiny that it makes it hard to see the design.  You can see different views of it here


This pendant is on the smaller side for those of you that like things a bit smaller!

I have one more announcement I want to make but I think I will wait until tomorrow.  Gotta spread out the blog posts since they seem to be few and far between!  Hope everyone is having a great week!

It's Official...

I have a preschooler.  Wow does the time fly!  I swear she was just born.

In rare moments this week when I wasn't staring at her wondering when she got so big I have managed to make new jewelry and fill lots of orders.  While you can see lots of the new jewelry to the left in my etsy mini (If you are not reading in a feeder) I feel compelled to comment on a few.

I actually bought this pendant for myself but I have no time to make myself jewelry.  What was I thinking?  I LOVE that flower.

More mod wood pendants.  Love them!  It seems everyone does.  A little Sharma Designs trivia for ya.  See those blue beads in the second picture?  Those are almost exactly like the beads I had in my very first necklaces that caused a ruckus in an office in SoCal and got me lots of orders and a taste of selling my jewelry!

Now I'm just going to casually post two front page treasuries I've been on lately...we won't talk about it but you can look if you want ;)

AGAIN!

This front page must have happened when I was sleeping last night but I woke up to lots more hearts and went to figure out why.  The treasury I was in was on the front page.  That's 2 in one week!

Now, there are people who make the front page all the time.  I'm sure they don't blog about it every second and I promise not to make an annoying habit of it but it is still new and exciting to me so I just had to share again.  Woohoo!

Front Page of Etsy!

This is what I woke up to this morning. My earrings (top right) on the front page of Etsy. This is a big deal to most of us in Etsyland. I have never been on the front page before so I was extra excited. I think I may have screamed. It's great exposure for your shop.

The thing is that getting on the front page is pretty much random luck. Someone has to feature one of your items in a treasury and then out of 500 or so treasuries that treasury has to be chosen by admin for the front page.

Here is a shot of the whole treasury:

I hope your day is full of wonderful surprises too!

New Business Cards!

 

I am in LOVE!  Look at these AMAZING business cards I had printed at Moo.  I just ran out of business cards and was trying to decide what to do with the new cards.  My old cards had my Sharma Girl logo which I adore but I don't have her on my Etsy store so I felt like people might be confused.

These are just perfect.  The pictures don't do them justice.  They GLOW.  I uploaded a few pictures for designs so I would have a variety of cards.  The backs have my name and all my contact info.

My only warning is to be careful of yellows.  My yellow earrings look fluorescent.  I was so excited I probably forgot to check what color mode I was in.  They are still cool just a little bright on paper.

I didn't take a picture of the packaging but it's very cute.  The people at MOO definitely have a sense of humor.

I really couldn't be happier.  I can't wait to give these out!  If you are one of the people that have a stash of my cards to give out let me know if you want some of these pretties.  I'll gladly send you some!

Friday Features

Sharma Designs was reviewed by Wickedly Chic!  Read their glowing review here

Shop indie for the Holidays!  Sharma Designs is proud to be part of the Indie Collective Holiday Gift Guide.  It's a really nice looking gift guide and you can even print out a pocket version!  Too cute!

New Jewelry is Live!

The new jewelry is up and ready to buy! 

My favorite piece is this coffee jasper teardrop necklace

The pendant is just so yummy and edible looking.  And I was told it is called coffee jasper so what's not to like about that right?

If you haven't checked out the new jewelry then head on over there.  I am offering free USPS Priority shipping from now until December 15th (The cutoff for Christmas delivery).

In other news, I just found out that I was featured on Craft Revolution's 31 Days of Deals yesterday.  I was day 30.  Whew!  Just barely made it!  Anyway, you can check it out here.