Welcome back to Wednesday’s Behind the Twinkle post, featuring my latest Etsy shop listing – Brown Rosery with White Cloisonné Cross Necklace

Brown Rosery with White Cloisonné Cross - by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry

I love rosaries.  I love the Y-style design, the pretty crystals, the ornate crosses, everything about them.  However, I’m not Catholic, and I do feel a little bit guilty calling my latest listings “rosaries”.  (Huh, guilt = Catholic, sorry I couldn’t resist) So I’ve called them Rosery – the Rosery That Isn’t a Rosary.  As a listing title that is quite a mouthful – and somewhat unnecessary.  I’ve tossed and turned over the description for these pieces, and I have around 6 or 7 of them sitting in their sealed plastic baggies waiting for a good home – or neck, as the case may be.  But these Rosery’s look so pretty and are a good seller at the craft shows I’ve attended. Just think of the fantastic little story you can tell your friends when you buy this pretty little trinket.  But don’t show your children the unintentionally topless mannequin shot.  It was the only way to show you the length of the necklace. I gotta do what I gotta do.

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I'm Going to Miss Picnik

My, how we’ve changed.  I used to devour actual magazines with gusto.  Not so much now I’m afraid.  Well, apart from tattoo magazines but that’s not what this blog is about. No, I’ve been working on my marketing e-course and purchasing the first mags I’ve got in, I don’t remember how long.  Sadly, I’ve changed.

To market a product one must know their audience.  One should also know a little something about possible promotional options.  Thusly, magazines were purchased to that effect.  Little hint, I’m not sure what my market is so I decided to purchase only NZ and Australian magazines.  I figure if and when I have to send samples out the postage won’t cost the earth.  So I went out and purchased:

Simply You

NOT the magazine for me.  Full of very expensive glossy clothes and high-end hair styling products.  Weird, I thought it was a fashion mag.  Purchased because it’s cover told me it held a “what to wear guide”. Didn’t really gel with this little reader.

Fashion Quarterly

The cover of this tome told me it had “summer’s hit list” and it also had a couple of articles on stylists which I’ll probably read later.  Much later.  Sorry, another no go from me.

(embarrassingly) Cosmopolitan

Cry, sniff, I used to love this magazine. The cover told me it had “fierce fashion, super glam looks….” ‘fraid not.  I knew it was full of relationship BS but it used to have great editorials and fashion spreads.  I used to find great pics that I would cut out and keep in little scrap books.  And I’ve got plenty of these little style books - that’s what I call them.  Sadly, this mag had nothing to write home about.  Ciao.

Cleo

See above.  Cover had “look lush for less”.  Very unlush to me.

My point is that I couldn’t see myself pitching an editorial storyline for any of these magazines to feature my jewelry – well, I mean for them to just look at my jewelry – and I was beginning to despair until I remembered one last magazine that I had forked out for:

REMIX

At last. Exclamation points abound!  Love this magazine. I’ve folded the corners on so may pages and articles that I may even be back next month for my magazine fill.  Hurrah!

White Skull - Voodoo Earrings by Glamour Twinkles - available soon

I’m now back at my Girl Friday job in the big city and this past week has been rather distracting with new Twitter followers beeping my phone, blogs to read and pesky office work interrupting my dreams of featuring in print.  But then, my job keeps me in the lifestyle I am accustomed to so I’m getting my head back in the work game.  And as such I’ll really need to come up with a work plan if I want to keep up with all the Glamour Twinkly things I need to do to get my “bling” out there.  Quite unlikely if I ever again refer to my jewelry line as “bling” argh!

This weekend has seen me in full photo shoot mode with the new items I’ve made these last two weeks (too many sunny days do not a good photo shoot make).  Oh, and last night I got the shocking email from Picnik telling me they were closing.  You know that moment when you read something so unbelievable that you must read it a couple of time before it sinks in?  That was me last night as I prepped my dindins.  I read the email and (being the habitual paranormal/hoax footage skeptic I am) I was waiting for the punch line.  No, Picnik will be gone and Google+ will “take over many of their awesome features”.  It all happens on 19 April 2012.  As you can probably tell I really love using Picnik.  It is an awesome photo editing system.  But the show must go on.  Thank goodness I always saved my edits to my PC and not on their servers.  There must be some frantic saving going on in cyber space right now.  So that’s been my past week.

Orange Bear French Fries - Cutie Pie Milkshake bracelet - photoshoot results

Latest Listing – Behind the Twinkle

Light Blue Gothic Pagoda Earrings - available now on my Etsy shop

Light Blue Lampwork Gothic Pagoda Earrings

Remember when Jim Carrey did a serious movie and no one liked it? That’s how I’m feeling about the serious nature of this listing description. Where’s my trade mark hilarity? I just really wanted to add them to my shop, something to show for all the behind the scenes work that goes into listings. The mannequin photo shows the earrings at their realistic best but I’ve got plenty of other photos to fill up the rest of the picture boxes – Price US$22.

Light Blue Gothic Pagoda Earrings - mannequin

Red Gothic Pagoda Earrings - now available from my Etsy shop

Red Rosebud Gothic Pagoda Earrings

Ten points if you noticed that this description is virtually the same as the Light Blue Gothic Pagoda Earrings – sans Jim Carrey-like humour. I’m sure Jim C shops at Etsy – Price US$22.

Red Gothic Pagoda Earrings - mannequin

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Cutie Pie Milkshake Bracelets by Glamour Twinkles - orange, pink and green colours

Oh silly girl, you shouldn’t have done that. I went and checked the lists I was listed on in Twitter. And aghast, I see @glamourtwinkles on a “They Follow” list. I do not think so! Okay, so it might seem like I just follow people randomly if they follow me.  It reflected how I’d been using Twitter in the past.

Armed with these two websites below I am now all the more Twittier:

• Tweepi
• Twitlistmanager

Now instead of automatically following everyone who follows me I have a 2-step process.

Firstly, I logon to Tweepi and check out my new followers.  From here I can view their profile, and when they last tweeted – which is very handy for sorting the quality from the spam (or porn).  If I don’t see them fitting into my Lists I don’t follow them. And, yes, I’ve gone through virtually ALL of my followers to check for any bad company, so to speak.  I’ve cleaned up my own “following” tweeters.  i no longer follow anyone who randomly tweets words of wisdom EVERY MINUTE. Come on, no actual human being can realistically do that!  I don’t follow anyone who only tweets listings of whatever they are selling. I appreciate they have a business to run and I don’t mind the occasional listing tweet. I do this myself. But here’s the thing – I actually like reading tweets. I get inspired to work after reading someone’s tweets.  An endless procession of Etsy listings does not make for very good reading.

And lastly, armed with Twitlistmanager  I’ve got most of my followers sorted into lists.  I’ve made my lists private, mainly because of the quirky names I’ve used, along the lines of: “actual humans”, “makes my business look good to follow”, “blogging bloggers”; “Supposedly Famous”, etc. BTW, none of those are the actual names I use.

So, if you see my name on a “They Follow” list and automatically assume I will follow you, just remember I will check you out.

Cutie Pie Milkshake Bracelets by Glamour Twinkles - orange, pink, blue

I put together the cutest bracelets ever.  My sis gave me these brilliant little cuties for Xmas.  I finished putting a bunch of bracelets together over the weekend. Unfortuateky it’s been too sunny to shoot any photos for my Etsy shop but they’ll be appearing there post haste.   It’s my homage to the glam-fabulous @beibadgirl (discovered many moons ago on Twitter).  Check her eyeliner-riffic gals on her blog BeiBadGirl.com.

Product Marketing Breakthrough

Why I clicked I’ll never know but I’m not ashamed to tell you that the things Andreea Ayers said resonated with me. Chortles, “resonated”. I’ll talk normally from now on. This gal had some faboo tips and tricks and they were… FREE! They are simple tweaks I can make to the various online ventures I have out there right now. She didn’t speak in that oh so annoying Motivational Speaker style: drilling down, brightening my core and believing in the positivity of my inspirational vision. Blah! Anyway, I’m watching the vids thinking “oh great, to get ALL the tips and tricks that work I’ll have to buy something”. Then Andreea says:

You must invest in your own business

Ding, lightbulb moment!

Funnily enough, I’ve got no problem forking out for materials and online listings but I’m hesitating to pay for tried and true methods that will make me money and get me customers? Just Do It Twinkle. So I did. I paid $900 for a course.

KIDDING!!! I don’t have that much money.

It wasn’t that expensive. But it was an investment in my business – that wasn’t a frivolous laptop. But just think, if the $200 I spent gets me new orders, I could buy 50 MacBooks.

Now that’s catch your dream money.

You guys can now look forward to me activating my lifeline by re-dreaming my life goals. Nah, I’m just gonna do new stuff online to grab my moment in the online sunshine money train! I kind of feel like I’ve joined a cult…

Red, Blue and Green Charmed Ring - available on Etsy,and serves as my new Twitter background image.

After I signed up for the 500 videos (kidding, you guys, come on!), I went through a deleted a lot of the clutter from my Twitter feed. Don’t worry, I’m sure I didn’t delete any of my precious readers. I mainly deleted robots that automatically relist products. I actually like reading Tweets from humans, you know the kind of things I’m talking about:

“had a ham sandwich for lunch”; “I got new shoes”; “the teller a the bank wouldn’t hand over all the money”; “on the run from the cops”, no wait, that last one is from Facebook.

Well, you didn’t think I’d really joined a cult did you?

Free gift available with every order from Glamour Twinkles on Etsy

For my next post, my leader Andreea has asked me to give up all worldly possessions and follow her into the jungle. I’m packing my sandshoes as we speak.

Annoying glare, shot using an old Pop Art handbag for background

The humble photograph, probably the internet’s best friend. Online we see fabulous photos, scandalous photos and incredible photos. We know that these photographs have been carefully chosen from many other rejected shots. But what about the ones we never see.  We seldom lay eyes on the failure fotos, allowing us to imagine that the viage before us was simply snapped and then magically appeared on a blog or website or online shop. How wrong we are.
I spent literally hours reshooting Swarovski Potion Necklaces for my Etsy shop. I’ve never been happy with the necklaces photos I had in my shop.  They failed to capture the sparkling crystals, the subtle colours and the sparkliness within.  And its all because of my enemy – GLARE. I found myself bending into yoga-like contortions to get one shot that didn’t have a big white band of glare reflecting on the little potion bottles.  I read every hint on Etsy’s tips to take great photos.  I changed setting on my Pentax I-10 camera, I had paper tacked to the window, I held my camera in one hand whilst holding a DIY glare guard in a futile attempt to rid the potion bottles of that infernal glare.  Nothing seemed to be working.  I put the camera away and realising that I’d wasted a good three hours on futile photography attempts, I decided to tweet my anger with visual proof.  I leave the necklace where it is, snap a shot with my iPhone and . . . it was the best photo I had taken all day.

Glare, shadows, frusration building

Through tears of joy, I reshot the rest of the necklaces in less that 2 hours. What a relief.  Although it did feel a little strange taking somewhat important photographs with a cell phone but if you could’ve seen what I went through over the past two fruitless days you would understand.  And then, brilliant idea – BLOG IT.  Above I show you the rejected photos.  They stand as a testament to the glaring lack of focus I’ve had.  I think that line ties in rather nicely.  Below are the final iphone-a-riffic photos:

Fire Red Swarovski Potion Necklace by Glamour Twinkles - Etsy-worthy photo

Blue Swarovski Potion Necklace by Glamour Twinkles - an Etsy worthy shot

Feather Stars Eighties Earrings - Out with the Old

Oh what a freaken surprise, another New Years Resolution List.  Yadda yadda yadda, am I right? But this list will be the most magical, incredible list I have ever listed because this list I will actually be completing throughout the month.  And I hate making New Year’s resolutions.  In fact I slept through the wonderment of the midnight bells a tolling the death of the old raggedy year’s final minutes.  Now, I haven’t made a resolution in absolute years but I’ve had these little gems on my mind since November.  Thusly, I present to you my New Year’s Resolutions for the month of January:

Image via CrunchBase

1. Create a video advertising my Glamour Twinkles Jewelry

I am going to create a clever little YouTube ditty that shows off my jewelry pieces in an arty-farty manner.  I have an idea of what I want to do, and I’m not setting high hopes, we’re in talks with some pretty big names (Spielberg, Lucas, Geffen – shhhhh tho).  I think it will be a fun little venture for me during my Xmas/New Years’ Vacay.  I’ll be posting progress updates on my Facebook page to keep you all informed of my “proactivity”.

Coinage - Chunky Charm Bracelet by Glamour Twinkles

2. Spend actual money on some online advertising.

Yeah, yeah, I’ve talked about this before.  But I’ve continued doing secret research and I have decided to try my luck with a couple of places.  Etsy have advertising now.  I haven’t actually looked into this properly but Etsians have acknowledged my jewelry presence so I’m going to run with the idea.  There are a couple of other Etsy related blogs that I’m looking at.   I’m talking to you Handmadeology…

3. Jazz up this blog

I love checking out successful blogger’s blogs.  They’ve created a brilliant little empire that cries out for return visits.  It’s not just about the posts with these gals, its the whole ensemble.  Current favorites are:

The Glamourai

LLYMLRS

Red Velvet

Bluebird Vintage

Twitch Vintage

4. Set up an Etsy shop for my sister’s supercalifragelisic (insider joke, right Sis?)portraiture

5. Regular posts on my Sparkling Candy Tumblr blog

I have certainly neglected my Tumblrinos.  I want to create 365 posts in my Tumblr que so I have something posted every day.  Now that I know how to actually blog pictures from other websites I have the world as my very own oyster.  And everyone wants the world to be their oyster – for some weird reason…

Gothic Pagoda Earrings - The Making of...

6. Blog responsibly.

Create “pillar posts”  Search engines love pillar posts and I want them to love me right back.  A pillar post is something like a “how to” post.  I’ll need to find pieces that can be recreated by you, my audience of billions.  It may even become a monthly activity.  Oh, imagine the fun we could have.  You could make something using my how to instructions and then send me a picture.  Wow, now I see why the search engines like ‘em.  Thanks Google! I also want to include more Before and After posts, and have more photos of my new tidy workstation.

Gothic Pagoda Earrings - Red and Yellow by Glamour Twinkles

Like little gothic pagodas, I have a few new creations for my Etsy stable.  I’m so happy with how these earrings have turned out.

Gothic Pagoda Earrings - White and Green - by Glamour Twinkles

I had them in a different incarnation on Etsy when I first opened my shop but they didn’t complement the rest of my jewelry pieces.  Don’t get me wrong, they looked pretty and people liked them at market stalls but no one was buying them and to be perfectly honest – I didn’t actually believe in them myself.  But these pagodas I love.  Plus they look like the kind of thing that my latest fashion obsesh DG would wear (and say: these aren’t big enough).

Originally purchased in the form below, I’m thinking of bying another pair so I can make myself a few variations to add to my own personal wardrobe.

Original Pagoda Earrings from Diva

And I squeal with delight because they’ve copied my earrings:

Squeeeeee!
I’m totally famous! How can you not’ve heard of me? I’m famous thanks to my design partners at D&G.
And check out my haircut.

I knew the fabulous purple shade wouldn’t last. Sigh. Never fear, I’ll redo it at some stage. I’m so happy today because my Xmas holiday starts at 5.00pm NZ time on this very day! No going back to the office until 16 January 2012. That seems so far away now. It’s a wonderful day!!!