As you may have noticed if you are following me on Twitter, I have closed the Twitter account of Silverlight and Whiteleaf Jewellery.
Twitter is a lot of fun, and I have enjoyed using it. However, in the past month or so I realised that I was spending time tweeting when I should have been creating new designs. This simply wasn't good for my business or for my customers.
There are so many people on Twitter, and so many crafters and small businesses using Twitter to drum up business instead of using Twitter as it was intended to be used: for conversing, keeping in touch, and chatting with people all over the world. It is so easy to become a spammer on Twitter rather than using it as a natural extension of one's business and activities.
So I have decided to close down Silverlight and Whiteleaf Jewellery's Twitter account, ten months after I opened it in July 2010 (as posted here). In that ten months, I amassed 2,450 followers, but I doubt that any of them will miss my tweets. And maybe that's a good thing.
So: farewell, Twitter, and happy tweeting to all of my fellow Twitterers! Thank you for all the fun times. May the little blue birdie continue to bring you happiness.
29 May, 2011
Bye bye birdie!
02 May, 2011
A Second Autumn Showcase
My bloggerversary is coming up this month, and one of the first posts I published was a showcase of Autumnal eye-candy from Felt.co.nz. So I thought I'd do another one, almost a year later.
The range and 'interestingness' of Felt's selection has grown in the past year, and I was delighted by some of the items that I found, and the beautiful photography.
One of my designs is in there – I couldn't resist including it, since it fits so well with the theme and the colour scheme of the showcase. Some of the items that appeared when I searched for 'Autumn' I recognised from last year's showcase! I avoided including these, with one exception: bonus points if you can pick it.
25 April, 2011
I've done it: Silverlight & Whiteleaf Jewellery is on Facebook.
My third big step into the world of social media (this blog and my Twitter account being the first and second): I reluctantly joined Facebook in early February.
I put it off for a long time, but after multiple requests from friends, acquaintances, and relatives, and after hearing for the umpteenth time about artisans who find that one of their best promotional tools is their Facebook pages, I decided to give it a try, and scheduled it for early February. Perhaps the reality of Facebook would be more fun than my mental image of it.
Regrettably, that was not the case. It took me 48 hours to grasp Twitter, and that felt like a long time. Two weeks after joining Facebook, I thought that I might be getting the hang of it, and I was starting to see the possibilities in it. Twitter was overwhelming because of the sheer amount of information being flung about; Facebook is overwhelming because it is complex, sprawling, feels unnatural, and, despite the fact that it's the biggest social network in the world, it's not user-friendly.
Despite all that, I'm now almost starting to like it. Unlike on Twitter, on Facebook you can post images and get rapid feedback from potential customers. Now that's handy. I can also say that I have made a sale due to Facebook, which is more than I can say about Twitter, fun though Twitter is. I've also found that customers are clicking on the Facebook link in my E-mail signature and are 'liking' my page, which is brilliant as it means that they are keen to keep in touch with my work and to see new designs.
Facebook is sort of like a blog, a bit like Twitter, a bit like StumbleUpon, and a bit like Tumblr. It's as though each of those social media platforms took an idea from Facebook and expanded on it, while Facebook itself, as the original social media platform, is the (more or less) happy medium.
You will notice that there is now a Facebook badge in the sidebar on the left of this blog. So you can now officially 'like' Silverlight & Whiteleaf Jewellery on Facebook.
11 April, 2011
A black and white ArtFire Collection
Silverlight Jewellery's 'Victorian Silver Key' bracelet was recently featured in this gorgeous, black and white, member-curated Collection on ArtFire.
Black and white – or black and silver – is one of my favourite colour combinations. It's the brand colours of Silverlight Jewellery.
The design is relatively simple, but the whole bracelet has lots of detail and subtle decoration.
05 April, 2011
Design of the month: Thornleaf House
This is a piece I've been wanting to skite about for a while. The more I look at it, the more I like it.
'Thornleaf House' is is a one-of-a-kind cluster necklace, inspired by a gloomy gothic aesthetic. It reminds me of Gloomth's aesthetic, though I wasn't thinking of Gloomth And The Cult Of Melancholy when I made it.
The charms are intended to be reminiscent of relics from an old mansion, hence the name 'Thornleaf House'. They are threaded on velvety black faux suede, which is very comfortable to wear.
The key is a reproduction of a vintage key, made of pewter and then antiqued. The pearl is a cream-coloured Swarovski crystal pearl.
