Woman's Jewelry

My wife has decided to start making woman's jewelry and has posted a few photos of what she has on her website. I was wondering if I could get an opinion from some of the men\women here on how she's doing (I myself am biased on the subject).
I'm not looking for sales, but opinions.

http://www.beadnyx.com/index.php?p=1_2&a=Jewlery

If the mods feel this is inappropriate please feel free to remove this topic.

IMO, i think the pictures could be improved by some basic commercial-style photography techniques that some of the members here use for their SOTD. I think I saw a resource here with an illustration of their method and equipment... edit: i took another look and it kinda looks like that the pictures are employing some of what i am describing, but something is missing...

it's a great effort and I wish her luck..

the pictures are teeny tiny! she is clearly skilled but I wouldn't wear jewelry that big, to be honest. less is more. and probably easier for her too. I would recommend she check out some sellers on etsy.com who do bead work to see what the market will bear.

engdom said:

the pictures are teeny tiny! she is clearly skilled but I wouldn't wear jewelry that big, to be honest. less is more. and probably easier for her too. I would recommend she check out some sellers on etsy.com who do bead work to see what the market will bear.

Click to expand...

The photos do expand if you click on them. She tried making simple, elegant, items (like what she wears), but it seemed like everyone who was looking wanted the bigger\chunky style jewelry.

In terms of photography you need more than one light shining on the jewellery. The shadows are distracting and a clean, well light image will show off the jewellery better. Good jewellery doesn't need "atmosphere".

I agree that the beads are too chunky for my liking.
I like small jewellery but if I wear it big I tend to go for an elaborate piece with LOTS of small beads and then one big statement brooch/pendant or something in the middle.

Simply upscaling all of the beads to bigger beads doesn't do it for me and looks very chunky. These necklaces look like magnified versions of ones that one look good being made smaller and more delicately.
If she wants to make bigger pieces she needs to thing more in the lines of the gold and blue on she has on there. In my opinion that one is probably more likely to sell.

Get her to have a look around etsy at some of the more popular sellers and to seem what sort of techniques they are using.

I like the copper toned piece with the flowers in it too. The work on the second page of images is stronger in my opinion.
Holy moly I just clicked through more and saw the one with the beaded yellow flower! Not THAT'S a nicely done piece. She clearerly has a lot of talent and I think she should be showcasing this work. The piece on the first page look like "get thread, thread a load of chunks beads on, end necklace" but from looking at this other work she has talent in molding designs and shapes too which is great.
The top three on the third page are lovely. Does this kind of stuff not sell?

Also I like the darker black-ish background to the navy one.

Barber-Eile said:

In terms of photography you need more than one light shining on the jewellery. The shadows are distracting and a clean, well light image will show off the jewellery better. Good jewellery doesn't need "atmosphere".

I agree that the beads are too chunky for my liking.
I like small jewellery but if I wear it big I tend to go for an elaborate piece with LOTS of small beads and then one big statement brooch/pendant or something in the middle.

Simply upscaling all of the beads to bigger beads doesn't do it for me and looks very chunky. These necklaces look like magnified versions of ones that one look good being made smaller and more delicately.
If she wants to make bigger pieces she needs to thing more in the lines of the gold and blue on she has on there. In my opinion that one is probably more likely to sell.

Get her to have a look around etsy at some of the more popular sellers and to seem what sort of techniques they are using.

I like the copper toned piece with the flowers in it too. The work on the second page of images is stronger in my opinion.
Holy moly I just clicked through more and saw the one with the beaded yellow flower! Not THAT'S a nicely done piece. She clearerly has a lot of talent and I think she should be showcasing this work. The piece on the first page look like "get thread, thread a load of chunks beads on, end necklace" but from looking at this other work she has talent in molding designs and shapes too which is great.
The top three on the third page are lovely. Does this kind of stuff not sell?

Also I like the darker black-ish background to the navy one.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all the advise. I've been keeping her informed on all of it.
To answer you question about selling; No...she's been having a hard time finding a market. One that she did (for her mom - not pictured) was a dragon bracelet where the mouth and the tail created the clasp. She always gets complements on her work, but no one hardly every wants to buy (and for most pieces she only prices $30-50).

ph33nyx said:

Thanks for all the advise. I've been keeping her informed on all of it.
To answer you question about selling; No...she's been having a hard time finding a market. One that she did (for her mom - not pictured) was a dragon bracelet where the mouth and the tail created the clasp. She always gets complements on her work, but no one hardly every wants to buy (and for most pieces she only prices $30-50).

Click to expand...

I like here pieces. My girlfriend wears similar jewelry. Good luck.

Every woman probably has her own style, and I'm no expert on women's preferences. But.. My wife (32 yo) would not wear most of the pieces displayed on your site; too large/chunky like some others said.

Regarding people commenting on your wife's jewelry: I wonder if some people recognize the work put into it, see the skill involved in making it, but just don't find it to their liking? They're complimenting her efforts maybe. Also, many times "potential customers" are just trying to be nice. They may not want to say "I don't like any of your pieces", because that sounds rude. It is like when a young man gets a gaudy, handmade sweater from his dear grandmother. (I got a gaudy handmade pillow from an aunt once..yikes). Now, I'm not saying that your wife's pieces are gaudy, but even if they aren't people sometimes have trouble coming forth with the truth.

Here's my advice on improving sales, though. If people have told your wife they like chunky jewelry, then she's got to be sure she's selling to the same people. She might also want to define the group that she hopes to capture, and then make sure they're the ones who see her product.

I would also say that if she got some of her the people she's wanting to market to, to wear her pieces, their friends might catch on. Might have to give some away to get the process started. She could also design a piece based upon the request of a trendsetter. If she knows someone who frequents parties/events/corporate meetings/whatever where the market group is, then get that trendsetter to help design a piece that the she'll wear.

As far as the site goes, it would have been helpful to me to see (at least some of) the necklaces actually on the necks of real people. I'm not sure I got an accurate sense of the size of some of them on the fake necks. Probably some optical illusion; some seem pretty big.