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Monday, March 21, 2011

Is seed bead work on it's way OUT?

I probably shouldn't have done it.  Because it was rather depressing.  I sat and scanned several sellers sites on both Etsy and Artfire yesterday, admiring the work involved, and looking at when they joined and how many sales they've had.  And it was a grim discovery - most of the people that do the detailed, beautiful, time consuming seed bead work - sell very little of it.   One sale, maybe 3 sales, sometimes even NO sales - in the last 2 years.  Not the information I was hoping for. And I should have known.  I've got a few pieces listed amongst the beads on my OWN Etsy site - and have sold NO jewelry in the whole year I've been selling.  Only beads.  I guess I was hoping to find better results on the whole.   Because I love this type of beadwork so much.  It makes me happy, and it's really more like therapy to sit and put those little beads together to create something beautiful.  But at some point, you really have to ask - is it all worth it?  I would like others to appreciate it too - and not just by looking at the photos.  Don't get me wrong - I love when people comment on my photo postings, and appreciate each and every one.  I try to respond to each of them as well.  But appreciation don't pay the bills. Or buy more beads. Simple as that.  So where do I go to sell this work?  I know I'm not alone in the love of creating with seed beads - but have we so over saturated the market for teaching the stitches and offering projects, showing everyone how to make it themselves - that we, the experts, the teachers,  can no longer successfully sell our own work?  It's a little unsettling, but I shall press on.  Maybe I need to start a 365 days of jewelry thread - post a different, fairly new piece of jewelry every single day - because I'm getting close to being able to do that already!
And now that I've gotten THAT off my chest - here's an update on the Spring Rain Fairy.  The first photo you saw of her looked like this....
And now she looks like this:

She looks much happier with hair, don't you think?  I should have a couple nice relaxing bead days this week.  I'll try to take a few more in progress photos during that time - but a trip to a bead shop with seed beads is definitely in order - the idea for the necklace portion is a double spiral rope - and I definitely don't have enough 'rain' for that....
TTFN

1 comment:

Robbie said...

Well, I guess she does look better with 'seed' hair! Actually, I do like the beading you did for the hair! She really didn't look that bad bald!