On Saturday I did my first…well, what do they call it these days? Arts Fair? Swap Meet? Bazaar? At any rate I sat behind a table clad with my own jewelry and sold it. My school sponsored a holiday sale that ran all day in their basement. Typically I send my jewelry out to a boutique in Colorado where I sell on consignment. This is nice because than I don’t have to worry about it, I just send it off, take into account any special orders or make ups, and wait for a check to come through. I don’t get to keep the entire profit they way I was able to yesterday. I also don’t get a lot of feedback. Yesterday, I spoke over and over about the process I use to make my jewelry, (it’s a borrowed idea, and I’m just using my own artwork and textiles). I made some considerable holiday spending money. I also did a lot better than the people I had on either side of me (which was a little awkward). Using my past retail experience gave me a major advantage. I found that it was easy to sell and promote what I have intimate knowledge of…duh, of course that’s the key to sales, but my own work was a remarkably easy sales pitch for me. I also wore my jewelry for a full week leading up to the sale which resulted in some of my biggest sales coming from parents of my very own students.
Here is an example of some of my work. The images are my own paintings scanned in and reprinted on glossy photo paper. The glass gem is glued to the paper and than glued to the bracelet:

Sure, there is the fantasy that one day I’ll quit my day job and spend night and day hunkered over my art table. Josh has been pushing me to get into business for years. The reliability of a jewelry business is so sketchy that I hesitate to make the commitment. Still it’s nice to make a little money off my own creativity. Since I was a little kid I’ve been making stuff and trying to sell it. I printed up a bunch of business cards that read: “Making fun, creative, inventive artwork since 1980.”