Artist Interview

This interview is a long time coming!  I contacted Shari in 2009 about an interview and I have to apologize publicly for taking so long!  I think you will find it well worth the wait. Thanks for your patience, Shari!  (make sure you make it to the end because Shari has offered up one of her eTutorials for our contest here!)  Let’s get started…

How long have you been making beads and how  did you get started?

I took  my first beadmaking class in 2003 but really didn’t get fully into making only  lampwork beads until 2004, so 6yrs or so.

What does your day look like?

I have to laugh LOL! It’s embarassing to share my day. I get up early  (7am) make sure my daughter is up for school. I do a bit of housework, then head over to my studio to check for emails and orders. I answer emails,  quickly check online for messages, go through the forum/facebook to see what’s  happening. I try to not spend too much time online.

I then empty my kiln, remove my beads from their mandrels and clean my  beads while I watch the morning news and have some breakfast. If I get up  early enough I’ll try and fit my workout in.

I then usually do a photo shoot of my beads, upload them to the computer, edit, get layouts ready for Etsy & eBay. Meanwhile I’ve turned on my kiln which, by the time I have all my layouts done, my kiln is ready.

I then sit down and make beads. My time at the torch is always  inturrupted by having to take the dog for a walk or his pee break, a lunch break for me, or going and emptying the laundry or unloading the  dishwasher.

Basically there is always something to do. I also inturrupt my time at  the torch to get any orders ready to ship and I make a run down to the post  office, drive my daughter to work, come back and list my beads, then back to  making beads.

It always seems that I barely get a nice batch of beads made and it’s time to go in and make dinner. I clean up after dinner, spend a bit of time with my husband (who falls asleep within 15 minutes of watching tv as he works at 3am) once he’s asleep I head back out to my studio and take whatever energy I have left over to make more beads, fill orders and answer any other emails  or messages.

You started the Beads for a Cure site.  Tell us  a little bit about your experience with that.

Whew! That’s a long story.

Well I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 and went through chemo and radiation treatments, shortly after I went through multiple surgeries to save my life. Propholactic surgeries and breast reconstruction. A few years after recovering and recouperating I decided to get involved in fundraising for breast cancer.

I had never been interested in jewelry before, nor did I have a clue how to make it. But the local jewelry store gave me a few tips on how to get started. I bought your basic imported beads of glass to make my bracelets. I sold my bracelets at a local breast cancer event and they  sold like hot cakes. All of the money going back to breast cancer except for my cost of the beads. I had so many requests for more that I decided to start a website and sell them online.

It took a lot of time educating myself about online sales, running a website, uploading photos, making changes, optimization of my website etc. It also took a lot of money to have a website created, and buy all the tools to get started with stock, making jewelry. I played it safe and only invested money that I made back into my business. As far as my website, it helped that I had a nephew that creates websites, and had two computer nerd sons, to help me with any questions or problems I would run  into.

Shortly after starting my website, I was invited to take part in a bead making class. At that point I didn’t even know that you could make your own beads, nor had I even thought about how they were made. I just assumed they were manufactured, but not made by hand. I really enjoyed the class and quickly purchased the basic tools to make beads. I have never had any other “hobby” so I didn’t mind the investment and I kept my investment minimal in case I decided I didn’t like it after a few months.

But as we all know, once you start you can’t  stop. As my skills improved and my sales improved, I invested my sales into buying more tools and upgrading from a hot head to a minor torch and from a crock pot to a kiln as I wanted to make sure my customers were getting bracelets made with quality beads. Gradually I stopped buying beads and all my  jewelry was made out of my own handmade beads.

Eventually I heard about eBay and decided to give  it a try. So I started selling my beads on eBay, I think it was in early  2007. My sales started out as 60% website (Beads For A Cure) and 40% eBay and over time that switched around. Especially with the economy taking a dive last  year, my website sales really took a drop. Not only because of the economy but  also because I was so busy making beads for eBay and Etsy that I was  neglecting my website.

Eventually at the end of 2009 I decided to shut the website down and leave that part of my journey, my cancer journey, behind  me. It was a hard and emotional decision but it was one I had to make in order to grow creatively.

I have a review of your Arrowhead Tutorial on my other  blog.  Any words about what it takes to write a pdf tutorial and sell it  online?

It takes a lot of work to put together a tutorial. First you have to plan out in your head the steps and make sure that you get photos of each step that you want the reader to see. They have to be important steps. When my  daughter takes the photos, I will talk as if I am giving a class and then I’m not missing any steps. I will instruct her when to take a shot. She usually takes 100′s of shots. Once the photo shoot is done, I have to go through those  hundreds of photos and pick the important ones, the good ones and crop and edit them so they are pleasing to look at. Then I have to sit down and do a layout. As I do the layout I write instructions next to each photo.

When writing a tutorial I always try to keep in mind that some artists reading the tutorial do not speak english or have little english. So I try to keep the instructions simple so that if the reader wants to translate the tutorial they can, without any confusion. For example if you use slang words that are easily distinguishable to us, they may not be to someone who doesn’t speak english and they may not be easily translated. So it is important to use proper english.  A lot of editing is done after the initial layout is finished. I usually try to get a few people to read over the  tutorial for me to look for errors, to make sure the steps are easily understood and to make sure I’m using proper english.

It’s never perfect, but I try to do a better job with each tutorial. That includes my writing and my photos.

I searched around and  didn’t find a web site for you other than group web sites, ebay or etsy.   Other than the Beads for a Cure site, have you ever had a web site  solely for your glass bead business?  How has that worked for you?   (note:  forgive me if I just couldn’t’ find it!)

No I have never had a seperate site for my beads.  I do have a neglected blog which I hope to find time to pay attention to and may start a bead website once the economy and sales pick up. I find that there really isn’t a need for one at this point as I don’t sell at shows or venues anywhere except eBay and Etsy.

How do you  market your work and what have you learned over the years?

Oh my gosh. This year I haven’t really done a lot of marketing. I use to  promote my work on LE [Lampwork Etc.] in the self promotion section but I don’t even do that anymore. I haven’t had the time. So the only marketing I do really is, showing  my work in the gallery on LE, and posting photos of my beads on my facebook page. Other than that, I guess they sell themselves.

What have I learned over the years?   There is a fine  line as to promoting your work and shoving it in someone’s face. For example, spamming people with emails about your work (unless they’ve subscribed to a letter), constantly asking people to join your fan club on facebook etc. Do it  in ways that you are promoting without the customer knowing that you are  promoting.

There are many tips to marketing that I could  write a book about, but I’ll try and share a few. If you do sell locally it’s easy to get free advertising by talking to a local columnist in your local paper and asking them if they are interested in writing a story about your business in the local paper. It’s free and you get a lot of readers. Word of  mouth is great. Wearing your work is great for promoting yourself. Putting up flyers in changerooms at the fitness centres. Having a family member or friend  have a home party for you (like tupperware) selling at local farmers markets.  Passing out your business cards with your website address on it. There are so  many ways of promoting yourself, your work or your website. Think outside the box, maybe even invest in having your logo and website address on your car.  You wouldn’t believe how many see it. I spoke with someone who had spent many  years in marketing and he said that your return is only as good as your investment.

So basically the effort or the time and money that you put into promoting or marketing yourself will come back to you in  sales. Spend nothing, get nothing.

I think I remember  you posting in the Lampwork Etc. form, daily posts about wellness.  It  sounds/sounded like you have a passion for that as well.  Would you like  to say anything about that?

Having gone through cancer I do have a strong belief in living a healthy lifestyle. I use to post about wellness a lot on LE but thought that maybe I was getting to be too annoying to others. I don’t believe in shoving things down anyones throats. Whether it’s health or my beads. LOL! Plus I just  didn’t have the time to keep it up. I constantly struggle with health issues that keep me from being consistent with my working out, but I keep trying and dont’ give up. As far as my eating habits go, we try and live a healthy  lifestyle. We rarely eat out and when we do it is usally a healthy meal.  We rarely buy any processed groceries, and rarely eat fast food. We don’t smoke, drink very little alchohol and make a point of keeping stress and negativity out of our lives.

It is my feeling that stress does a lot of damage to our bodies and is what brought on my cancer, even though my breast cancer was genetic. So I only work when I feel like working. I never pressure myself to make money, nor does my husband pressure me. We don’t depend on my bead income to get by, so in that regard I am lucky. If I want to take a month off , I do. So it makes it easy for me, if I have lost my muse, I just take time off. So no stress. For me, making beads has really never been about making money. It started out as wanting to help out a little with the family income if I can and it has stayed that way. If I help out I help out, if I don’t I don’t. I try to keep my life simple, positive and stress free. I found after what I went through in the past with cancer, that life just is not worth it if you’re constantly stressed about your work and dealing with negative people.

What advice would you give to beadmakers who are  just starting out and selling their work?

My advice would be to not spend more then you need to or can afford to on glass or tools. Then practice, practice, practice. When I first started making beads I sold them, even though they were nowhere near the quality that they are now. I was criticized for it and at times now am embarassed at how bad they are, if I run into someone still wearing a bracelet I made for them.  But it’s all part of the learning curve and in order to upgrade I had to sell my beads, because I was not about to dip into the family budget to feed my bead business. So I never listened to what anyone said and sold my beads even if the dots had undercuts, the edges weren’t clean or they were  ugly.

My best advice is to grow slowly if you’re going to make a business out of it. If it’s a hobby then don’t spend more then you need to if you’re just making bracelets for family or friends. But if you are  going to make the step to sell online then you should invest in a kiln. If you  can’t afford it then you shouldn’t be starting a business or selling online.  As far as your skills go, practice, read books or forums, watch videos on you tube, buy tutorials, have play dates with other artist and share your  knowledge, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. The worst thing that could happen is they don’t answer you.

Is there anything else that you tell us so that we know you better?

I am a pretty care free person. I don’t like confrontation or negativity, I’ll walk away from it and avoid it at all costs.  I’m quiet and unassuming. I’m quite happy with my business where it is now. I  don’t have a desire to be big or make huge sales or go to big shows. I like to work at my own pace and in my own time. Even though I don’t have a lot of confidence in myself, my husband says that I’m very friendly and outgoing when I am around people. However I’m not good in big crowds. I consider myself  pretty giving and caring of others. I try to accept people for who they are.  I’m just as excited when another artist does well with their work as I would  be for myself. I love seeing others succeed and I like to help others starting out as much as I can.  I’ve been married to my childhood sweetheart for  30yrs, and have three children. Two boys who are now adults and a teenage daughter. I enjoy photography. I don’t have any other activities. I spend most  of my days and time in my studio. Not sure how intersting any of that is.  LOL

So that’s me in a nutshell. A big nutshell at  that.

Thank you  Shari!  What a great glimpse into you and your business!  If you are interested in seeing more of Shari’s current work or purchasing one of her eTutorials, visit her etsy store or items on ebay.

And, if you’d like to win one of Shari’s eTutorials, read the review at the Lori Greenberg blog and enter to win.

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