Thousand Up!!

   After many years selling the majority of my beads from my Ebay shop, it was only last year that I decided to concentrate on building my shop on Etsy into my main source of income, it was going to mean hard work and many long hours at my torch but was surely going to be worth all the effort.
   At this time I had been seriously thinking of giving up my Ebay shop, their selling charges had gradually risen and the shop rent was not cheap, ok on a good month it was fine but if you had a bad month of sales then it really could hit your profits. So after a few evenings research and checking numbers and pricing I felt it was time for a change. The first job was to clear out my Etsy shop of old stock and start to list nice fresh new sets and focal beads, which was quite enjoyable, to be honest. Next move was to jump in at the deep end and close my bead shop on Ebay, this was a big decision and one I thought long and hard about, but money wise I knew I had to do. I could and will still sell odd sets on Ebay but I wasn't making enough money to warrant having a shop, there was the worry of maybe losing customers who would think I had given up making beads but with nice new business cards I was sure that problem was solved and they would find the Etsy shop.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/pebbledreams
   So within a few days, the Ebay shop was no more and the Etsy shop was going to get most of my attention, it was a fresh start yet a move with big risks.
   I often set myself targets in life and this was another such time, but this time the targets were set rather high and there was no expectation of seeing them reached in the new future. Firstly my aim was to reach a target of 500 items listed in the shop, these would include bead sets, focal beads and spacer bead sets. From past experience, I know that the bigger the selection of beads on sale the better, customers love a wide choice giving them more chance of finding the beads they need to work with. Secondly, I wanted to reach a thousand sale orders, not a thousand items sold but orders received, this was really a bit silly as I had up until then only had a couple of hundred orders and I was guessing this target would be a long time coming.
   Well now after a hell of a lot of hard work there are well over 600 items listed in the shop and yesterday saw my one-thousandth order, to say I'm over the moon is an understatement, I'm really proud of myself, as we Ashwell lads would say, "it took balls" but the boy did it. This just goes to show how hard work, dedication and belief can produce the goods and this now means I have a good solid base on which to build on, with the use of social media and working to a good solid standard I hope I can move forward. Now I see my beads used by some very special and talented jewellery designers, designers from all around the world and that really does make this old bead maker happy, it's all I've ever wanted and if I can continue to form beautiful interesting beads from molten glass then I'll be happy spending the rest of my days in my little bead world.

   On the bead side of things again I've been mixing glass to produce some unique one-off spacer sets, the "Toffee Cream" spacers as seen above being my favourite. I think most bead makers should spend a few hours each week mixing glass it's relaxing, interesting and throws up some great results.

Perfect British Bank Holiday Weather

   Spring Bank Holiday and still the rain is falling here in the fens with some parts of the country even getting snow, only our British weather some would say.
   So for this old bead maker, it is a day in the dry sorting through beads, making up more sets and packing orders ready to post in the morning, the hopes of spending hours in the veg garden are now on hold and will hopefully transpire next weekend.
   A few customers have asked if I'll start a video blog with clips posted here, well I will look into it but like a lot of people I'm really not that comfortable in front of a camera, but I promise to think about it and looking into how easy it is. I guess I could start with a short video of one of my cycle rides but we'll see how it goes. But for now, I hope everybody enjoys their day off and stays dry.

And Still We Wait

   I think I can safely say it's been a very long winter this year and after the storms of December and January followed by the "beast from the east" how much longer do we need to wait for the warmer brighter days of spring and summer? I like a lot of people find even the hint of sunshine makes me feel better, more inspired and lifts my enthusiasm and eagerness in both work and life in general, so let's hope the warmer weather soon makes an appearance.
   I guess there is one silver lining in having so much crap weather, it means I've been putting in far longer hours at my flame which in turn equals more beads being listed in my Etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/pebbledreams  The spacer selection is really becoming large now with well over 250 sets now listed and even more being added each day, I was really pleased to receive a number of comments on how good the selection of spacers is and one new customer mentioned how nice it was to find such a vast number of colours to pick from and at sensible prices too. It's comments like these from new and existing customers that make the long hours worth it, most who know me and how I work, now very well that charging realistic prices and giving the best range of beads I can is all I really care about, it will never make me rich I know but I sure makes me happy.

   On the cycling side of things it's great now the clocks have changed and the evenings are lighter longer because it will now mean I can cycle morning and evening, just need the rain to ease off. I have a long list of fen villages that I'm hoping to visit and of course, I'll be posting what I discover here on my blog. It's funny but apart from enjoying exploring some of these small gems of the fenland countryside, it makes exercising a lot easier, I never really think of my rides as being an effort these days, to me they are more of an adventure, a learning curve where you never know whats around the next corner and that can only be a good thing in my eyes.
  Finally, I would just like to wish everybody a very happy Easter and I hope you enjoy a little time off from this busy world we live in.