During the month of March 2021, I have been taking part in the #marchmeetthemaker challenge on Instagram, set up by Joanne Hawker (https://www.marchmeetthemaker.com/). For those of you who missed it, or don't have Instagram, I wanted to have an amalgamation blog post of my Instagram posts, so that you can get an insight into Purple Wyvern Jewels and me as the maker. Each Monday to Friday in March there was a theme prompt to -
"Introduce yourself and your brand to the world, let people in behind the scenes of how and where you work and show everyone the various different aspects of running a small creative business! There's something for everyone!"
So meet Purple Wyvern Jewels...
Day 1 - Brand Introduction
Where does my business name come from? Well...
Purple - my favourite colour
Wyvern - a mythical creature and close relative to a dragon, in reference to my love of fantasy books, who love sparkly beautiful...
Jewels
I started Purple Wyvern Jewels back in 2012 and my original logo was of a cute little purple dragon. Over the years, what I have made has changed and my cute dragon logo didn't fit my brand as well as it used to, so I did a re-brand last year. My dragon may still pop up from time to time, but he's now retired and having a well-earned rest.
Purple Wyvern Jewels, the brand, primarily focuses on creating and selling personalised jewellery and keyrings that are love and family-focused. Including memorial remembrance keepsakes with a particular focus on baby and pregnancy loss. Whilst experiencing infertility, I came to know many other wonderful women through an online message board who had experienced the heartache of a miscarriage. I learnt how important it was to them to have their loss acknowledged in some way.
Day 2 - Style
My style (or theme might be a better way to describe it), is centred around love and family. Offering the ability to customise and personalise with initial letters and birth month crystals. Predominately using sterling silver or stainless steel metals.
Day 3 - Beliefs & Values
I think that my beliefs and values can be summed up in the word quality, quality of parts, of finished product and of good customer service.
I've moved away from cheaper parts to higher quality stainless steel and sterling silver ones. This has not only had the added benefit of an overall higher quality product that will last longer but it's also resulted in less wastage of parts (bent/scratched/marked parts would happen with the cheaper ones). Less wastage is obviously better for the environment! Plus, I've tried to reduce plastic use and reuse when I can. I haven't been able to eliminate all plastic but have actively reduced it. And switched to some fabulous presentation boxes made from recycled card from Eco-Craft.
Day 4 - On Your Desk
I don't have a traditional desk that I work from. Which given the fact that the desk in my house along with the kitchen table are in regular use by other family members for work and homeschooling right now (hey COVID pandemic!), it's been useful that I have a set-up that means I don't need to use those spaces.
I have a side table that's just the perfect size to fit my laptop (essential for any online business) and boxes of parts and tools, so they're easy to hand when I need them. Plus a small folding lap desk (that my laptop can sit on when I want it right in front of me) but doubles up as my main workspace for creating my items.
Another essential item is my notebook. Which is effectively an ongoing to-do list, list of social media posts/blog posts, items that need photographing/editing, ideas for new products and anything else that I want to remember.
Day 5 - Newest Make
My latest creation is a keyring in celebration of adoption. It symbolises that wishes can come true...
WEEKEND BREAK
Day 8 - Work In Progress
Traditionally this concept would be showing pictures of what products are currently being worked on or developed. As, plenty of my other posts in this #marchmeetthemaker challenge will include showing off of products, I wanted to flip this around and focus on something different.
Running your own business is always a work in progress. Quite often that means learning new things; working on improving how and what you do (not just creating products, but of photography and social media etc); keeping on top of changes that are happening, particularly with selling online and rules/laws/tax changes etc. There is so much that goes into the daily work of running even a small business, that for me it always feels like it's a work in progress.
Day 9 - Learning Curve
When I started this business, I went through a huge learning curve. Never having run my own business, nor sold products online before, I found that I had a lot to learn.
If there was one piece of advice I would give to someone else wanting to pursue a similar endeavour, be flexible/adaptable. What might work and sell well right now can be entirely different next year. Fads come and go, tastes change as to what people want to buy. Suppliers will stop selling certain parts or even go out of business, having a knock-on impact to your own. Being able to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances will help you to continue on. And that's in normal times, not to mention any curveballs that are thrown in by a worldwide pandemic!
Of all the things I find the most challenging, I would have to say product photography. However, with a light case and plenty of practice in editing photos I've improved these over the years. What do you find to be the most challenging aspect or the greatest learning curve?
Day 10 - Small Detail
Sometimes the small details come down to using the right tools for the job.
For example, when creating loops in wires (for instance in my crystal charms), Wubbers looping pliers over other round nose pliers are the right tool to use. Unlike other pliers which have a tapered edge that you wrap the wire around, these looping pliers have a consistent thickness. This means that every single time I make a metal loop they will be exactly the same size.
Day 11 - Portrait
Hello! This is me, the face behind the brand Purple Wyvern Jewels. I don't like taking pictures of myself, but for today's March Meet The Maker prompt of portrait, I decided to just go for it. I took this picture today on my walk posting out orders, it was a sunny but very blustery and windy day, hence the windswept hair!
Day 12 - In Use
Obviously, I sell jewellery to be worn, plus keyrings and bag charms that - obviously - get used as keyrings and bag charms. However, a way that one customer used a bag charm they purchased from me, that I had never even thought of up to that point, was attached to their wedding bouquet. I only found out when they left me the above lovely review.
What's something that had personal meaning to you, that you have used in a different way?
WEEKEND BREAK
Day 15 - Focus & Priorities
My main focus and priority is redoing my product photos. As one of the sites I sell through has stipulated that they now want products photographed on plain white backgrounds. Fortunately, my product photo-taking/editing skills have improved over the years. So I'm able to get product photos on a pure white background. (Just for fun, I've added an old product and a current product done on white backgrounds. It's one of the reasons I went with a non-white background for a really long time as I struggled to get a proper white background.)
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The other main focus is to add extra products, particularly focusing on more stainless steel charm products so that I am able to offer a wider range. At some point, I would like to create more macramé tutorials (which I sell exclusively through Etsy due to digital tax reasons). But they take me quite some time to put together, so they're unlikely to happen for quite a while.
Day 16 - From The Archive
I started out making jewellery with semi-precious gemstones. I loved coming up with different designs and ways of combining colours. The oval purple amethyst necklace was one of the very first items I sold. The butterfly pendant was the most intricate wire wrapping creation I made. The last photo shows some of my product evolution as I moved on to creating macramé items after that.
What I make and sell is ever-evolving. Some is down to the fact I like to try and make different styles (most recently I've been making some chainmaille items). The rest is down to changing customers tastes.
Day 17 - Process
I try to edit similar product photos together, I find that it saves me time, but also makes it easier to have a consistent size and look to the product photos.
My photo editing programme of choice is GIMP, it does what I need it to do and best of all it's free!
Day 18 - Colour
Black • Pink • Purple • Silver
Throughout the entire time, Purple Wyvern Jewels has been in business, these colours are my predominant go-to colours. Whether that was back when I was making gemstone jewellery, macramé jewellery and even now in my packaging and business branding.
These days, the majority of my products aren't bold in colour, they tend to be silver with splashes of colour added by the use of coloured crystals.
What colours are your go-to colours, that you always like to have?
Day 19 - Silver Linings
(Photo Credit: Matthew Henry)
Today's prompt is silver linings and positives that came out of 2020...
- I completely redid my website moving it to a different provider. It has improved functionality and more features making it easier for customers to use.
- I finally got to the point of being able to get decent product photos on white backgrounds!
- On a more personal note, there was obviously far more family time and in general a slowing down and appreciation of what's important in life.
It's easy to focus on the negatives as the COVID pandemic has had a huge impact on everyone's lives, but what's your silver lining for 2020?
WEEKEND BREAK
Day 22 - Hands On
Currently working on some beaded chainmaille ideas...
Day 23 - Job(s)
People have a tendency to assume that running your own creative business involves designing and making items and then packaging them up for customers.
Whilst that obviously is a part of what I do, the reality is that I spend plenty of time on all the "other stuff". The stuff that actually supports and keeps the business running. Like stock control, supply purchasing, photography, website and social media managing, customer service etc.
Day 24 - Wrapped & Packaged
All items are packaged in a cardboard gift box (available from Eco-Craft) that is made from 100% recycled card that is ready for gifting.
I have been actively trying to reduce the amount of plastic in my packaging and minimise it as much as possible. However, I am unlikely to be able to eliminate it entirely. For sterling silver items, the jewellery item is attached to a rectangular card inside a resealable plastic bag, that is then placed inside the cardboard gift box. This is to ensure the sterling silver item reaches you in perfect condition without any tarnishing of the sterling silver.
Day 25 - Starting Point
My starting point varies... Sometimes, I might be browsing a suppliers shop to see what else they have, which inspires me to create something new. Other times I play around with parts that I already have and see what other combinations of ideas I can come up with. To maximise the items I can make out of the parts I already have.
My latest starting point for my newest creations was chain offcuts. I'm able to purchase sterling chain in long sections so I don't have many offcuts/wastage with it. However, the stainless steel chain is only available in smaller lengths. So I find that I have lots of extra smaller pieces of chain left over after making necklaces. These smaller chain lengths are ideal for use in bracelets. I've just been needing to come up with more ideas to have a wider variety of stainless steel bracelets. If you check out my post three days ago (day 22 "Hands On") you'll get a sneak peek of what I'm working on, plus I'll show the final product next week (day 30 "Range").
Day 26 - Favourite
One of my favourite creations that I've made was this green agate teardrop sterling silver necklace. It's a combination of the translucent green colour of the agate and how the gemstones hung on the necklace that invokes a cascading waterfall imagery to me.
What's your favourite item of jewellery and why?
WEEKEND BREAK
Day 29 - Reel
I've never made an Instagram reel before (a short video of up to either 15s or 30s). So it took me longer to figure out how to make one (as I wanted to be able to remove the sound, edit it and speed it up to fit in the time allowed) than it actually did to create it!
I created a reel showing me making up a necklace box and packaging my personalised initial stainless steel world earth map charm necklace. I hope you enjoy watching it.
Day 30 - Range
I've given hints about a new range of jewellery items I've been working on recently (see day 25 - starting point and day 22 - hands on). So here's introducing my new range of beaded chainmaille jewellery just released for sale today!
The bracelets started from an idea of trying to come up with more ideas to have a wider variety of stainless steel bracelets. To help make use of chain offcuts from when I make stainless steel necklaces. The necklaces and pendants evolved out of the bracelet designs.
Day 31 - Looking Forward
I can't believe it's already the end of March and the end of #marchmeetthemaker2021 and thank you to @joannehawker for organising!
So today's prompt is looking forward. Oh, this is a tough one. It's difficult to see what the future holds unless you have a crystal ball...
(Photo Credit: Feroz Quazi)
So what will I be doing next? I have some more chainmaille jewellery ideas. Plus I plan on adding more charm items with personalised birth month crystal options. In the longer term, who knows... I started Purple Wyvern Jewels back in 2012 and it has evolved and changed over the years with the style of jewellery that I make, plus I enjoy the challenge of creating different styles of jewellery, so I'll just have to see where inspiration takes me...
P.S.
I hoped you enjoyed getting to know more about Purple Wyvern Jewels!