Jewelry By Mignon

I have an invite to display my jewelry in late winter in a shop in FWB. How cool is that???? I have someone from Arkansas interested in seeing my work in person and wants me to sell in Arkansas!! What am I saying, I want to sell in my beloved Arkansas! People like my jewelry! Yes!! It is one thing for family and friends to want it, love it, and wear it and even another thing for strangers to stop me on the street to ask where I obtained whatever designed and hand-crafted piece I am wearing on that day, but it is another when folks from different states want my jewelry. My first sale online went to California. This is pretty awesome. It will be interesting to see where this leads in the future. Once I obtain jewelry cases, I have a place I can sell in Mississippi already, pending an artisan opening at the time I am ready. I was just told today where I could set up to sell locally for a very reasonable booth fee, but of course I haven't invested in a tarp etc. yet, and tarps are useful if it rains..............must get a tarp and frame!!!! I would also love to do the Canton Flea Market, but then I love to go to the Canton Flea Market, so would have to get someone to man the booth while I went shopping...............I'm really interested in seeing where this leads once I post torched designs - I really must get back into silversmithing this year. I have some wirewrapped designs that I plan to do this year too and I'm ready to wear them, so the first ones will be mine. :) I can get gold, but with the economy in the slammer, I'm not in a hurry to invest in gold unless I have a custom request. Gold is running between 800 and 900 per ounce and even at wholesale, that is expensive!!!! I do at least have accounts with the same wholesalers as jewelry stores. I can even get diamonds when I am ready, just not the multi-thousand dollar ones, which I wouldn't want anyway!!! I do have a design hubby wants to see me do in diamonds and he is right, it will be beautiful, but of course I'm going to be tempted to keep the first set I do..........must fight temptation................I just gave a friend her jewelry for her belated Christmas present and she was beside herself and it was a very simple design. Now she's taking my business card to work and sharing with her co-workers who are apparently all women who love jewelry. Yey!!!Almost everyone in the family/dear friends have gotten their Christmas presents, aka jewelry made by me, by now, and they all loved everything. I have I think 3 folks left to give presents to who I haven't seen yet. It is truly harder designing for family than it is for the web store, as I think so hard about their hair color and cut, and eye color, and favorite color, and predominant clothing style, and and and.............it just is very hard to settle on a design for a family member. Hubby wasn't sure about a very pricey turquoise strand I did for his mom, but little did he know the time I put in thinking about her personality and etc., she loved the set!!!!!! The center piece was petrified wood and it just really made the set beautiful. I definitely want a set like that for me one day.............lol. That is the benefit of being the designer, I can make me something when I want to, which limits hubby on what he can buy me that I can't already make and don't already have loose in a drawer. I did give my sis the set she really wanted from the web shop and it looked like her, so I had to make a new Obsidian set for the shop. The great thing about Obsidian is that it is natural and not dyed, and looks very close to onyx, but has some chatoyancy that onyx does not have. Onyx, however is white, it is dyed black, and when it is chipped, then the white shows through. I just got my advertising cards in so I can mail them out to boutiques I am interested in, whenever I am ready. I have to get more stock made up though and I need a good 100+ pieces for the website shop, so I have things to do, besides shooting wild dogs, and maintaining our home.I must create my blog site too. Busy Busy Busy. Well, considering idle hands are the devil's workshop, he has no workshop here!!!!! Oh, I also have to get my portfolio in order. Kind of hard to do appointments with boutique shops without a portfolio.It is one thing to have a dream and it is another to see that it may actually happen and is starting to happen. How awesome is that??? I have my first custom order that I am currently working on and should have finished soon. It would already be finished this weekend if it wasn't for the wild dogs and putting up the fence and staying up half the night waiting on the dogs to show up.I just finished my first repair request and earring replacement request last week. I am about to be receiving my second earring replacement order. It is fun to be able to make someone smile who has lost one of their favorite earrings thinking they wouldn't ever be able to find a replacement.............Honestly, the best part of this whole thing, well two best parts are: one, designing jewelry makes me smile and I've needed smiles this year, and two, the jewelry makes other people smile, even people who just admire it and give compliments. Being an artisan and creating smiles is truly awesome!!!!It is truly amazing to see what God can do with a dream that no one even knew you even had. I'm not in a hurry to rush through the chapters in my life, but I do wonder where this little dream will be in 20 years.