Meet my son Oliver

He was born on 15th July at 11.15pm weighing in at 8lb 11oz

Isn't he gorgeous :)

My first commercial outlet

I'm so excited!
I've just been for a chat with a great local shop here in Bristol called Fig. 1 that I actually included in the Bristol city guide I did for Design*Sponge back in March.

They sell 'ethical and design led gifts and homewares' from around the world as well as selling local artists work (such as one of my favourites Lucie Sheridan but I'll write about her another time).
It's a really beautiful little shop with character and great taste so I'm thrilled to be part of it.


So I've literally just walked away having left some of my pieces in a gorgeous refurbished French glass cabinet on their counter!

They only starting selling jewellery this week and don't know how it will take off so they've taken a couple of different designs of differing price ranges and we're going to see how they do.

It does means that I've had to take half of my stock down from Etsy including the most popular turquoise resin pieces but hey, Etsy shoppers had their chance now lets give the lovely people of Bristol theirs!

It's such crazy timing with the little one due tomorrow an' all. I just want to order a whole pile of silver and start making a whole load more stuff to put back up on Etsy and have as back up stock for the shop.

I think I probably should at least have the materials in just incase. Right...baby, you have to be at least a week late please!

Baby links

Here's a random list of links that has created itself in my bookmarks over the the last few months regarding all aspects of pregnancy, birth and parenthood.
I haven't even had a proper look through many of them yet but hopefully someone else might find them of use too.

I'll try and add to them as I come across more...

Information:

gurgle.com - General baby info
BabyCentre - General baby info
The Nest Baby - General baby info
Relaxed Birth & Parenting - Holistic training for birth
Parent Hacks - Parenting tips from parents

Shopping:

JoJo Maman Bébé - General baby stuff
Lullabys - General baby stuff
Bump to 3 - General baby stuff
Notonthehighstreet.com - General baby stuff
Urchin - General baby stuff
Mighty Junior - Shopping Blog
Holz Toys - Wooden toys
The Nappy Lady - Cloth nappy advice and shop
The Used Nappy Company - Buy and sell used cloth nappies
50 Best Stylish Baby Buys - Taken from iwantmymum.com
olli and lime - Contemporary eco design interiors for kids
Fleurville - Designer changing bags
Petunia Pickle Bottom - Stylish baby stuff
Tiny Dodo - Designer stuff for babies and kids
Nordic Kids - 'Scandinavian cool' baby stuff
Crib Designs - 'online boutique'
Baby Curls
Revilo Toys - Top quality baby toys

Before & After #3

This small chest of drawers used to be my parents and lived in my bedroom for a while. They kept hold of it knowing I liked it but it slowly got more and more trashed over the years so Ben's done ANOTHER great restoration job on it just sanding it down and oiling it ready for use in the baby's room.

I made the Etsy homepage!

I'm so chuffed!

After 5 days without going online (the longest I've gone in..?) I've just logged on to find a message from my blog buddy Jaimee over at Modern Classics congratulating me on having made the Etsy homepage! Shame I missed it but how cool is that! (Thanks again Jaimee for letting me know.)

Well, since I'm winding down now and will most probably be having some much longer offline periods once this little bab arrives, I figured this seemed like a good time to do a few Etsy related stats.

I've been silversmithing for about 8 years, and for the last half of those I've been promising myself to make more of a concerted effort to get in to the market place and actually make a go of selling my pieces. Well, I never did, so once I became pregnant I figured that it was now or never to try and build something up whilst I still had the time and opportunity. And then, should life make it possible, I'll have something to pick back up and carry on when time allows.

There are a few shops around Bristol that I would like to try and eventually get my work in to but I felt like I needed to get a bit practiced and established and thought Etsy would be the perfect practice ground for me to find my business feet.

So to cut a long story short I eventually registered with the Inland Revenue and opened my Etsy shop in January 2008.

Since then, in the last 5 months I have had:
over 5000 views to my shop
224 people heart me
141 item hearts
1 homepage appearance

I've also learnt that the average ratio in the shop is 35 views per heart and that by far, the resin pieces are the most popular and in particular the turquoise items:






The turquoise ring for example has been viewed 1538 times and been hearted 48 times, making it by far the most viewed and hearted item.

But here's the thing... I've only made 1 Etsy sale!

I have a pretty good idea that the main reason for lack of sales is probably down to pricing. This is an ongoing battle for makers - what it costs Vs what somebody will pay for it - but the fact the Etsy is primarily an American site means that the majority of my prospective customers are also facing my prices at double their actual cost because of the current exchange rate. Plus the average amount people are happy to spend on Etsy seems to be around under $50.

The fact that I did actually make a sale within my first two months kept me positive though. That, and the fact that I didn't need to rely on sales to pay my bills!

Just opening the shop has started preparing me mentally for all the different aspects of creating a business and because of this, I have actually made some sales outside of Etsy too.

So I definitely have more confidence now and know what I need to do to move to the next stage when I'm ready to.

But in the mean time SOMEBODY BUY THE BLOODY RING ALREADY!

NB: stats are all thanks to the Heart-o-Tron3000 at majaba