The Holiday's are Here

So, once again, I've been terribly neglectful of this poor blog.  Eventually I'll get with the program and remember to post here more than once every month or so.  Honest, I will.

Thought I'd post a quick update on how things are going.  The holiday season is most definitely in full swing, and my Etsy business is doing fairly well for its first year out.  Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales more than doubled my in shop sales in months prior.  I went from 12 to 29 sales in 4 days :)  And one of those orders was fairly large, which is always nice.

Here are the 2 most popular items so far:

Mixed Set of 4 Silver Stacking Rings

Set of 3 Textured Copper Rings

I did the math on Tuesday and realized that if I kept selling at the same pace (2-3 sales/day) I would have over 100 sales by the end of the year.  But, naturally, that volume of sales doesn't seem to be in the cards for me, so I've set a goal of 50 sales by year's end instead.  That's only 31 more sales.  Totally do-able.  I hope.  You know what they say about shooting for the moon...

Even with all the activity and excitement in my shop, I've been spending a lot of time working on new projects.  I haven't decided if I'm going to launch these new items before or after the holidays, but either way I'm wicked excited about them.  I recently taught myself how to etch on metal, and I'm totally in love with the results I've been getting.  I thought etching would be a big complicated process, but as it turns out, it's actually really easy to do.  With some copper and brass blanks, a laser printer, and some etching solution, awesome things are possible.

Post Etching

 This is a brass blank that's destined to be a cuff bracelet by the time I'm through.  In the photo above, you can see the piece fresh from the etching solution.  The black marks you see are the resist--the material applied to the metal to protect it from the etching solution.  The areas that don't have any black marks become recessed areas, which you can see much more clearly in the close up photo below.

Close up before cleaning

Close up after cleaning

 In the picture above, you can see the raised areas still bright and shiny.  These areas are where the resist protected the metal.  The lower areas have a neat texture to them, as well as a slightly different coloring.  The picture below is a ring blank fresh from the etching solution with the resist just cleaned off.

Copper Ring blank post etching

 And then, with a little magic, a little soldering, and a little wax, this is what I decided to use the ring blank for.  After forming the ring, I used a sharpie marker to color in the recessed areas, bringing a little more depth and definition to the awesomely cool texture.  Then I cleaned things up and buffed the whole ring with a little bit of Renaissance Wax.  The wax will help keep the ring from tarnishing, and from turning peoples skin green.

Copper Wide Band Ring using the etched ring blank

Angled Front View of the "All You Need is Love" Copper Cuff

And last but not least, here's one of the finished cuffs.  This was the only cuff I attempted to put any writing on.  It says: "All you need in love."  I wish I had left the metal in the solution a little bit longer to give the writing a little more depth, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Angled Right View of the "All You Need is Love" Copper Cuff

As with any new project, I still have a few kinks to work out, but I'm really excited with how things are going.  I've had so much fun experimenting with new techniques in metal working, and there's still so much more to try.

Since I'm notoriously terrible at remembering to update here very often, I end this post by wishing you all happy holidays from Little Hill Jewelry!