Ear Wires, I own them

Ball tipped, hammered, extra long, petite, leaf shaped, hooped, bright, antiqued, sealed and unsealed.

I make them myself mainly because when I actually get to the point where I need a whole lot of them, I do not have money to pay someone else to make them for me. So I stay up late, melting and hammering out as many as I can before my brain and hands quit from such a menial task.

Once on twitter, a male follower stated he couldn't buy things unless he saw it on a model. I put aside what I really wanted to say to him and made a mental note that this is how most men are; they need fleshly visuals in order to penetrate their thick skulls of little or no imagination in order to purchase something.

Hence the excessive use of the female form in today's advertising.

But as a small business (miniscule, started in my kitchen with a $2 block of plastic clay) I do not have a budget for "models".

Oh, but I have a camera and a steady arm.

So I model my own earrings now.

This brings me to the reason for the blog post;

I switch the ear wires assembled to the earrings photographed with my own or clean the specialized shapes and hoops with an alcohol wipe before shipping.  I do this so my customers can rest assured that none of my cooties will be shipped along with their gorgeous, unique jewelry that I really believe was created for a specific gorgeous, unique woman who needs that particular accessory at that particular time in her life.  

I sit in my garage where the soft, hazy, mid morning, north light comes in, the light that is kind to a woman my age.

I make sure I change out of my graphic T into a slightly more feminine style of shirt and I load up a tray of bagged earrings, hair bands, bobby pins, a bowl of my personal ear wires, a mirror and the alcohol wipes. I sit on the concrete step to the house and make sure the door behind me is relatively clean of kid smears. I hold the camera out at arms length, take a photo and then look at it in the viewer to see where I need to adjust my body position and my chin (sagging skin, wrinkles, moles, bra straps, etc.) so the potential buyer sees exactly how the earring looks hanging on a real woman, albeit a short necked, ghostly pale, freckled one. The second and third photos are taken at close up, to distance myself from the hundreds of people who are going to eventually view this listing and I am afraid they will see straight into my soul if I show my eyes.

Just kidding.
 (Sort of.)

I do think that cropping out a lot of the "empty" space around the earring helps the buyer focus more on the actual jewelry, instead of me.

Lemon Quartz with Russet Copper Teardrops

(I subject my facebook friends to those full on shots cause they make me feel pretty.)

So far so good, I think it has helped sell the jewelry a little more and I have noticed a slight increase in shipments to male names on the packages of jewelry. I will have more concrete numbers once this holiday season is over.

I hope this assists those who are in need of more photos that showcase their jewelry and can't afford models.
Of course having a good friend near by and willing would be helpful also.
Green tea and almonds, anyone? You can go through my beads, if you want.
:)
Peace and Prosperity,
Shannon