How I package my jewelry

Since I was packing up an Etsy order tonight, I thought I'd take some pictures of the process and show you the way I send out my jewelry. I've had a few nice compliments on it, though I imagine this is something that will change and evolve over time. There are so many great threads in the Etsy forums about packaging, the options are endless.

First, I pull out a page from this book, that I bought from a secondhand store. At first, it felt a bit sacrilegious to tear pages out of a poetry book, but I've desensitized to it by now...

Then, I fold the page into a little origami envelope:

Which I learned to do from this video: 

Then I put each piece of jewelry into its own plastic bag, unfold the envelope, and put a business card and the jewelry inside:

I then fold the envelopes back up, and seal the backs with an Art & Clasp label:

The finishing touch is a birds-egg blue ribbon, tied in a bow:

Finally, for mailing, I put them in bubble mailers, with an Art & Clasp address label (blurred out for the photo!):

That's it! Doesn't take long, now that I've mastered the envelope folding.  Fairly cost-efficient too!  How do you package your wares?

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Photographing for Etsy

I’ll admit it, photography is not my strong point, as much as I would love it to be. I use an 8MP Canon PowerShot A590IS, which is still just a point-and-shoot but probably capable of taking much better pictures than I manage to produce. I've made my own (budget) lightbox using instructions I found on the internet, and I recently bought some clip-on work lamps and daylight bulbs, which have helped somewhat. Here are some pictures of my current set-up for photographing my jewelry for Etsy…

Yep, those are indeed my running shoes that the lamps are clipped on to...

Some of the photos on Etsy are PHENOMENAL.  Check out Sea Unicorn for an example for this (ok, so she's a professional photographer as well as a jewelry maker...)  Most sellers on Etsy work really hard to take the best possible photographs of their items.  As well as trying to help potential buyers get a feel for their items through the computer screen, the prime way to get into Treasuries and onto the all-important Etsy homepage is through excellent photography.  Mine is certainly a work in progress.

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Obstacles

Little, tiny, bubbly obstacles...

Last week I showed you a glimpse of my necklace creation process.  This time I wanted to share with you one of the significant obstacles that arises when I create the pendants.

Before assembly, I have to inspect each image/cabochon for tiny air bubbles or other small imperfections on the surface of the image that are created in the gluing process.  Although the images often look fine immediately after they have been glued, and then sit under heavy weight for 24 hours, upon inspection I sometimes have to throw away up to 50% of them because of these minute flaws (I tried removing the cabochons and cleaning them, but the adhesive is extremely strong and I couldn’t get it off).  I’m working on perfecting my technique (just the right amount of adhesive plus careful application plus pressing time and weight) to reduce this wastage.

Before photographing, each pendant will be inspected again.  Unfortunately, I have found that over the first couple of days more bubbles or flaws may become visible (or perhaps I just missed them the first time).  If this happens, I extricate the image and cabochon and clean the bezel for re-use.  It’s horribly disappointing to find imperfections at this stage, but such are the trials and tribulations of the craft!

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Creating Necklaces -- Before and After

Here I’m giving you a sneak peek into the process of creating my copper necklaces.  Once the laborious process of gluing the cabochons and images has been completed, the pieces pressed under a stack of heavy books for a day, and the excess image trimmed, it is time to adhere them to the bezels (more pressing and waiting), and then they are finally ready to put on chains, add beads and charms, etc.

The first photo shows the before set-up on my work desk (oh yes, I am always this tidy…).  Here I have the pendants, chain, headpins, jump rings, clasps, glass beads, copper charms, a tape measure, rubbing alcohol and cotton tips, and tools:  flat-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, flush cutters, and chain-nose pliers.

After, the finished product!  Each piece has been assembled, cleaned, and inspected, ready for photographing and listing on Etsy.

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