Puppy Love Jewelry: A Handmade Artisan in the Ecommerce Age

Well, it’s been a looo-o-o-o-ng time since I posted on this blog! Why? Because when you make your living creating one of a kind treasures and then photographing them and programming them into online venues so they can sell....there are not enough hours in the day!

I love what I do! I am so grateful for our precious little business, Puppy Love Jewelry. I say "our" because I am not alone in this endeavor. I may be the only human, but I consider this business the baby of our little family which consists of me and several different kinds of animals that people had let down. I created a family out of rescues, and they are all part of this business. And if you hadn't heard by now, Puppy the Guinea Pig (International Rodent Superstar) is our CEO. He is an amazing being that fills my heart up in so many ways!

I have always been very active on twitter-it is where I share bits and pieces of my life. But recently I have decided to revive my blog and also become more skilled at pinterest and instagram. Pinterest is FUN...it is a giant sparkly happy black hole that will suck time out of your life if you love fairies, animals, crystals and creativity (so I'm pretty much doomed)!

Being an artisan earning a living from her craft is challenging. It requires skillful time management, if you are going to truly do all the things a business should do. Most people making a living at ecommerce simply buy what they sell from factories. Sometimes the stuff even comes with pre-manufactured photographs for them. As an artisan I spend the majority of my life making the jewelry, sourcing the materials to make the jewelry, photographing my work and then programming it into online venues. To keep up with search engine optimization and social media promotion too- it’s almost like having two or three jobs all going at once!

But as I said earlier, I LOVE what I do. Handcrafted artistry is a fading presence in the ecommerce world because we are getting buried by junk from other countries selling for one cent. It has become more and more difficult to get customers to see what we are selling amidst all the fake garbage. I am sad to say that all the wire wrap artisans whose work I admired when I started this business are gone from ebay and many are gone from online selling altogether. Maybe they are selling locally-I hope so.

While artisans struggle more and more to sell their wares on the major ecommerce venues, at the same time it seems there is a growing demand for what we create. But we cannot easily connect to the customers and the customers cannot find us amidst the sea of cheap mass-manufactured stuff. The big companies pay to direct traffic their way and are given contract advantages on the large ecommerce venues. Also factories have started trying to make their items look handmade (yes, there is machine/factory made wire wrap jewelry all over the internet for sale, trying to fool the less experienced shoppers...and don't even get me started on the glass and plastic being sold as gemstones and crystals.)

I just want to earn an honest living. I want to work hard at something I love and in the end feel satisfied at earning an honest living. This is the path I choose. Every day of my life I spend moments considering how fortunate I am to do this for a living. Most people cannot say they truly love what they do...most people suffer in unhappiness at their work. Most people have to compromise their ethics and values to some extent when they work for someone or something else. So I'll take the lean times, the tech challenges and the constant struggle to keep current with social media....I'll take it all in stride with a smile because I know how fortunate I truly am!

I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to all of our customers who make this precious little business a reality!

Today's creations....