What You Don’t See

April 22, 2012 in Jewellery | 1 comment

Among the millions of reasons for loving the internet age, my favorite thing is the famous “behind the scenes photos”.  It offers  a glimpse into the hidden work that goes into that blogger’s  amazing photo shoot.  My favorite blogs give me a sneaky peek into how they style their shoots, what kind of laptop they have (it always seems to be a Macbook…. and why not?), where they write, what they wear etc.

Choosing the perfect retro background for my Etsy shop Beaded Bauble Ring photos

I love those kinds of sneaky looks.  So I think to myself – COPY THEM.

Actually, I’ve been doing a lot of shooting and editing for the past few weekends and not really making any new jewelry, so it seems like the perfect opportunity to show you the messy little background behind my new media friendly, crisp white background press pictures.

The mess behind the magic, it's all necessary for the perfect shot

Added bonus: two new rings now available on Etsy.

Complete with retro background shots, mannequin shots and, hopefully the boring but oh-so-important for selling online – crisp white background (doesn’t it look like its been clearcut) shot.

Behind the Twinkle – Oriental Butterfly Necklaces

April 18, 2012 in Behind the Twinkle, Etsy, Jewellery, Necklace | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

During my sisters jaunts to the UK she sent me a link. But not just any old link. It was a link to a bead catalogue. The shop? Only the bestest little bead shop containing the coolest beads in the land Beadworks. She instructed me to go through the shop and choose whatever I wanted and she would get it for me. Naturally I would pay her back when she came up with the goods. So I go on my webby way, clicking and printing out stuff I wanted, and after converting to NZ $, falling to the floor in a financial faint, I trimmed my dream shopping list down to the most special of special beads that I knew I couldn’t get here in EnZed – you know, all of the good ones.

Oriental Butterfly Necklaces by Glamour Twinkles

Among my order were some fantastic copper enameled butterfly pendants.  Being somewhat of a butterfly fan (not the real insect kind though) I could not resist having these pendants in my stable.  When my sister arrived back to the Land of the Long White Cloud and showed me the pendants I noticed, with mild alarm) they were much, muchbigger than I imagined.  Too big for me to think of what to do with.  And so these pretty little (well, large) pendants sat in their little sealed baggies until I could come up with an idea for using them.

Peach and Turquoise Oriental Butterfly Necklace by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry available on Etsy

One day, while flipping through Vogue back issues (don’t I sound like a lady of leisure) I noticed a necklace that had a very familiar look to it.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what is was…. oh my goodness.  It was an exact replica of the Oriental Butterfly Necklace.

Yes, I blatantly copied someone elses work.  What’s more, I’m blogging about it ONLINE!  Isn’t imitation the highest form of flattery?  No,  I’m a big fat copy cat.  Or, I’m making something that was once only available to the rarefied Vogue reader available to the normal average gal on the street.  You or I for instance.  And that, dear reader, is the story Behind the Twinkle.

Creepy Creator

April 15, 2012 in Blog, Facebook, Jewellery, Twitter | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Light Blue Gothic Pagoda Earrings by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry Copyright 2012

O Pixelr, how I do Love Thee,

Trendhunter – I want to try something different t to get “Likers” on my Facebook Page from this blog. I guess I could harass peeps that like my blog posts, inviting them to “Like” my Facebook.  Did you know it takes 7 attempts before someone will notice your ad or Etsy link or post… It’s one of the lessons from my marketing mentor Andreea Ayers.

Purple and Blue Charmed Ice Ring by Glamour Twinkles, available on Etsy

In other news, I’ve been reading a great little magazine from the people who bring us Trendhunter, called “Exploiting the Chaos” that you can download for the handsome price of ONE TWEET – giving you a doc-chock full of people who made it against the odds. Did you know that Fortune mag came on the market during the Depression? Me either. It’s full of info and factoids that made me go: hmmm, things that make you go hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm – got that song in ya head now, doncha?

Chained Heart Earrings by Glamour Twinkles available from Etsy

So, back to Likers vs potential customers.  Yes, that’s what I was getting to in the opening paragraph.  I don’t want to offer free jewelry if you Like Glamour Twinkles Jewelry, I want something quirky, kitschy and more Me-Like (pun most certainly intended).  Something’ll come to me.

I’d been feeling a bit guilty because I thought I’d been in new business rethink mode for the past 2 years but I realised it’s only been since last September – I found an old Fishpond book purchase receipt in my old emails.  It was for my Fishpond order of How to Make Money on Etsy by Timothy Adams, and it was dated 15 September 2011. Not that bad – knowing how S L O W L Y I generally work on any Glamour Twinklesy related tasks that I loathe doing (FB, I’m talking to you now).

In keeping with my new media-mindedness (have you seen my media friendly photos?) I’ve decided to do something somewhat creepy, in a market savvy way.  I don’t know about you but I have some Twitter people who have become TwitStars to me.  They are all creative people, living the dream of spending much of their working time creative fantastic jewelry, modelling the coolest of street wear, and are generally pretty cool people (to me).  But I want to know how they made it this far.  What does a typical week in the life of one of my TwitStars involve?  Brilliant Idea#253 stalk their businesses online (see, creepy behaviour).

  • Do they blog, how often.
  • Do they Tweet/Facebook/Tumblr?  How often?
  • Where do they advertise? How many sales do they have?
  • What’s their ratio of “Likers” to sales?

It’s all very interesting to me and I will enjoy learning about their business ventures online.  Yeah, its kinda creepy.

Behind the Twinkle – Medal Earrings

April 11, 2012 in Behind the Twinkle, Etsy, Inspiration, Jewellery | Tags: , , , | 2 comments

ANZAC Day, it’s a day of remembrance, a day where soldiers proudly wear their medals.  I actually find medals interesting. I recently learned that they must be in a specific order on a uniform, and that the colours have great significance.  Also, during the Anzac parade you are allowed to wear the medals of your relative if they have slipped this mortal coil.  My apartment building is actually on a flight path and every year I hear the air force jets fly over.  Actually, this is New Zealand, we don’t really have much in the way of “jets” so our military helicopters fly over my building for the dawn service. What does all this random history have to do with Glamour Twinkles?  A lot… well, a little bit actually.

Not so nice bracelet, chock full of potential Glamour Twinkles Jewelry pieces

I had done my Equip and Diva pilgrimage and purchased the above (yucky) bracelet.  But, looking past at its ordinary blandness, I could see great potential.  I snapped up two bracelets and went home to pull them apart.

Attaching chains to the top and bottom of the hearts I was struck with the “emblemness” of the earrings.  At first I’d made the earrings using the same gold plated chains.  Yawn.  They looked nice but the world is full of “nice” jewelry pieces.  I wanted “interesting” earrings.  Rummaging through my stock I found thin silver plated chains and, affixing them to the bottom of the medals I had created Emblem Earrings.

The name has caused me confusion. Whenever I make a new piece I generally have a name in mind, and no matter what, I always remember it.  Until these earrings came into being.  In my mind they’re called emblem earrings or medallion earrings.  I always get the names mixed up.  But I’ve got to think about names that potential customers would search for on Etsy.  I don’t like my chances of someone jumping on Etsy to search for medallion earrings.  Not that emblem earrings is any more likely to be searched for, but I have to call them something.  They remind me of medals so the medal name stays.

Hitting the Hundreds

April 8, 2012 in Etsy, Inspiration, Jewellery | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yellow Gothic Pagoda Earrings - Media

I’ve hit 100 items in my Etsy shop!  Happy Hundreds Day, Glamour Twinkles.

Nothing viewably exciting to report to my little fan base.  I’ve been chipping away at my mountain of To Do Tasks this week.  It’s all boring behind the scenes stuff – updating Etsy tags, uploading some new photos for random items and editing my fabulous new media friendly photos for my e-course.  I know, I know, I started the marketing e-course in January (damned blog making my procrastination a public concern).

Work in progress, getting that white background...

I’m not completely happy with the first lot of media photos I took last week, so I’ve spent some of this lovely long weekend shooting more photos.  I will have high res white background photographs on my media page if it kills me.

Trialled a flash for this shot. Kinda like the look of it...

Actually, I’m rather enjoying shooting the photos.  I even dug out the instruction manual for by beloved Pentax I-10.  I’m definitely NOT enjoying trying to “style” or “pose” necklaces and bracelets for their portrait. I ‘m looking for photos tat scream “oh wow”.  At the moment my photos say “meh”.  Ands I don’t want to use filters and showbiz effects on the finished product. I want to do as little photo editing as possible to achieve a plain white background.

It makes me appreciate a great jewelry photo.  I used to look at photo of a diamond ring and say “so?”  Now I look at a photo of a diamond ring and say: how the heck does that not have any shadow, no reflection of the photographer, even, crisp white background and on and on and on.

Behind the Twinkle – Tattoo Necklaces

April 4, 2012 in Jewellery | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Behind the Twinkle – Tattoo Necklaces
Sadness is when something previously “alternative” becomes main stream. Like tattoos. Now every man and woman and their dog, sport tattoos*. In fact it’s weird seeing someone who doesn’t have tattoos. But, they’re not for everyone. And quite rightly so. Imagine having a removable tattoo… hey doesn’t some Kiwi girl have something like that in an Etsy shop?
Why yes, yes she does.
Being the owner of 10 rat-a-tattoos (that’s tat-speak) I also have a number of tattoo magazines. Not the naked chick sprawled on a motorbike kind of magazine but the respected Inked Magazine, Tattoos Down Under, et al.

Tattoo Necklace by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry, available from Etsy

Reading through said tattoo mags, noticed a recurring theme: butterflies, diamonds, hearts, sparrows, and skulls are popular images and just so happen to be jewelry charm staples as well. Well, they are in my wacky world. So I hit upon a charmingly ingenious jewelry idea: remove able tattoo jewelry.
Alas, the sparrow is a rare jeweled pendant charm and only having 10 sparrows in my NEST I could only make 10 necklaces. And one for myself, natch.

My Tattoo Necklace

They were a hit at the last fair I attended and I only have 3 necklaces left – in the entire wide world.

Tattoo Necklace - Rose Heart by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry available from Etsy

So above you see all that is left in the Tattoo Necklaces by Glamour Twinkles Jewelry range.

*Not advocating animal tattooing ever!!

Lights, Camera, Action

April 1, 2012 in Jewellery, Latest Purchases | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Tattoo Necklace Butterfly Padlock - Media ready

Heavenly weekend dear reader. Why? I hear you ask. Because my wonderful, brilliant photography lights arrived on Friday. Due to the fact that Miss Buster cat refused to open the door when the courier called around on Tuesday, I had to get the lights delivered to work.

Lights - One of the Twins

Then they took a day longer to reach me because the courier didn’t give me the right code number on the delivery card. After some phone calls, and a hunt around the courier storage area, my package was located, delivered and enthusiastically ripped open by yours truly.

Early morning set up with lightbox

When I get home I can’t wait to use them.  I’m a bit paranoid about blowing a fuse in my apartment but one of the guys at work assured me I wouldn’t be blowing any fuses with my lights.

Lights and Tripod in Action, my snug little set up

Gingerly, I plug them in, set up my little studio and marvel at the perfect white, crisp photos of my jewelry. Perfection – thy name is …. well , the lights don’t actually have a brand name on ‘em. Who cares! They do the job and I am hap-hap-happy.

Now I can start creating a press page.  New plans afoot, dear reader.  New plans a foot!!

Behind the Twinkle – Lil Gangster Necklaces

March 28, 2012 in Behind the Twinkle, Etsy, Jewellery, Necklace | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Truth time: I’ve had these necklaces in my jewelry stable for a while but I love them. I love the juxtaposition of the dainty black chain against the big chain. Hey, what poet laureate hijacked by blog!?

I’m back. These necklaces are actually secretly named after Biggie Smalls. Yep, that is the original true life Behind the Twinkle story to the Gangster in Lil Gangster Necklaces. Now I know the “g” word has negative connotations (dang laureate’s back again) but that is the honest truth behind the gangster label – in this case. One day/night, I was watching some video show, a Biggie vid comes on, he’s wearing humongous (undoubtedly genuine) gold chains. Thus was born the first incantation of the Lil Gangster Necklace.

Lil Gangster Diamante Filigree Heart - Original OG

But it was a little ordinary for me. I found a bunch of black thinner chains that I draped all across the original necklace to “goth it up”, making it look a little bit more like something I want to convey to my market (bugger off business plan girl, being back the laureate).

The ones you see on my Etsy shop are the only ones in the whole world. So you better snap ‘em up before they all gone (sic). Chuckles, oh laureate, you jokester, you.

Bright Ideas

March 25, 2012 in Facebook, Jewellery, Trade Me | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tattoo Earrings - unretouched photo - errings available from my Etsy shop

Winging their brilliant way to me are two brand new daylight 5500 watt photography lights. Here’s hoping they have lightbulbs in ‘em. They are real photography lights too. Not the fabled 100 watt lamp that seems to be more urban legend than actual fact. I’m not going to get too excited about them until they arrive at my house, I’ve plugged em in and they don’t cause me to blow a fuse because a) they aren’t right; b) not bright enough; 3) they actually blow the electricity in my house.
Timeline Time
I visited my Facebook page to trial their new timeline system. Yuck. But I guess we’ll all get used to it. Still – YUCK! Cannot get into being active on Facebook. But I’m changing my thinking. I know I have to make it worth reading and visiting and, more importantly, “Liking” it. Begging for Likes just seems so High School, “Hey there cool kids, pleeeeeese like me……”
Last weekend I did some confounding research on the link between popular Etsy shops and their Like rating. D-Pressing. And non-sensical. I visit a shop where very cool little hearts are made. But I note 1K Likes but not nearly as many Etsy sales. How do they relate? Being liked on FB didn’t seem to equate with actual hard cold cashola. Are Likes more important than sales? Not to me. Popularity may be important to people like the geek that invented Facebook but how does one translate that into money.
“Sorry I can’t pay my rent this week Mr Landlord. But 25 people liked my Facebook page.”
“Oh Twinkles, don’t worry about the money. Knowing you’re liked makes up for the cancelled mortgage payment to my bank…” Yes, that would be an interesting conversation.
In keeping with the FB revamp I’m having my own little revamping. I’ve started taking some refresher photos for Etsy. I’ve been scheduling tweets and attaching the same pictures for the past few weeks. Handmadology advised a revamp using different photos can do wonders for shops in a rut so I’m unrutting my shop.
Show Business
I’m still working on my dream future business plan which is rather enjoyable. I wish I’d known about working backwards years ago. It’s part of the reason for my renewed (slight) interest in getting my Facebook page updated. You see, in the future I’m on it All. The. Time. And my 1000′s of future Likers are also on it. I haven’t got to the part where I know what you guys are all Liking about my page but, trust me, it will be worth it.

Behind the Twinkle – Chained Hearts Earrings

March 21, 2012 in Behind the Twinkle, Earrings, Etsy, Jewellery | Leave a comment

Paisley Flower Earrings made from the ugly necklace I bought

One day I bought this pretty (ugly) necklace – sorry if anyonereading this acyually has this necklace…because I loved the paisley pendants on it.

While scouring Etsy for popular items I came across a shop that had pretty little earrings and I’m ashmed to say, I tried to copy them hoping I too, would sell them in my little electonic shop.

Paisley Flower Earring

Alas. They didn’t sell. Alas, even more, I didn’t really like them that much either. They didn’t really fit with my overall “aesthetic” of slightly kitchy goth inspired jewelry. So I played around with some uber lightweight silver chain I had laying around my fantastic imaginary castle, and came up with the Filigree Key Chained Heart Earrings – the vision you see before you.

Chained Heart Earrings - available from my Etsy shop

From something plagerised came something Glamour Twinkley…

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White Gothic Pagoda Earrings By Glamour Twinklesville

Purple Pink Green ABC Alphabet Earrings

Pink Red Orange ABC Alphabet Earrings

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