Like Nina Designs on Facebook for a chance to win: an iPad2 (Grand Prize), a Kindle Fire (2nd Prize), and a $100 Shopping Spree at Nina Designs (3rd Prize).
An iPad2 16MB & WiFi is a wonderful tool for jewelry designers to sketch jewelry designs, organize jewelry photos, and shop for silver charms and jewelry findings at Nina Designs. And, with both the iPad and the Kindle Fire you can watch movies, read books & mags, download fun apps, play games, and upload/share photos and videos. After all, even jewelry designers have to rest sometime, and have fun! Tell your friends and family so they can join in the fun.
My job here at Nina Designs has lots of perks, but sharing a love of jewelry and jewelry design with those around me is definitely what I appreciate most. That’s why I got a tingle up my spine when Lorelei of Lorelei Eurto Jewelry, one of our blog partners, emailed to say her post featuring our bronze jewelry charms was published. I couldn’t wait to see. But, I purposely saved it as my treat for finishing my to-do list.
And, it was worth the wait! Lorelei’s Blog is as delightful as her handmade jewelry designs. It is filled with beautiful photos, fun bead swaps, and informative interviews with other creatives. From the very first post you get a sense that Lorelei is obsessed with crafting jewelry & collecting beads. (It’s good to know we are not alone). And, her love shines through her jewelry. Every piece has a loving intention – every color choice, every found object, every art bead was selected with great care.
And, the necklace she made with bronze bird charms and leaf charms is a celebration of color and shapes. While the pattern of beads is random you get a sense that each one has purpose – and, seriously – what bead doesn’t want to be on display? She also designed a gorgeous leather necklace and a pair of earrings that are simply – to die for!
Lorelei's Sweet Necklace
Lorelei Eurto Jewelry
Nina Designs New Bronze Earring Hooks
Queen Bee Necklace
Bronze jewelry charms fit right into Alison Kelley’s jewelry aesthetic. Her designs are modern with a bit of whimsy, and complimented with a soothing color palette. We are thrilled to have her as a blog partner. We sent her a goodie bag filled with bronze charms and pendants and she really knocked it out of the park!
Be sure to go to Alison’s blog to see all her creations. The gemstone combo she paired with the bronze peacock feather is just lovely; and the gold filled chain is a perfect match! Her whimsical combination of tiny bronze charms with hand-stamped messages are super sweet too. I personally feel that all moms everywhere should be rewarded with one of Alison’s Queen Bee necklaces!
Follow Alison’s blog for a chance to win her fabulous Tree of Life necklace. Shop Alison’s jewelry on her Etsy shop.
Tesori Trovati Jewelry
Tesori Trovati is one of our latest blog partners and a wonderful jewelry designer who created a stunning necklace with our new bronze feather pendant. She very expertly combined art beads with pearls, silk ribbons and bronze pendants resulting in an opulent necklace with a warm berry palette. Her use of color is masterful. Get a closer look on her Treasures Found blog, and pick up her creations in her Etsy shop, Tesori Trovati Jewelry. Make sure to check out her “simple truths” charms. They’re adorable handmade charms with simple affirmations and a paired image on the other side.
If you make jewelry and blog about it, then consider joining in the fun. To become a blog partner, email juanita(at)ninadesigns(dot)com.
I am thrilled to introduce our new blog partners and share what they are doing with our bronze jewelry findings. It’s exciting to get our bronze charms and pendants into the hands of amazing jewelry designers to see what they make next. I especially love seeing how they mix Nina Designs jewelry findings with beads from their own stash. It’s unpredictable and fun, fun, fun!
Gorgeous necklace created by Jeannie's Blog. See what else she whipped up!
It’s going to be a blast. Check out what the first of our blog partners are doing. Many are hosting giveaways, so join the fun!
Bella Vita Handmade Jewelry Blog has scheduled giveaways for every Friday this month.
Alison Kelley Designs will also be making jewelry and hosting fun giveaways.
And Jeannie designed amazing necklaces with lots of texture. Stay tuned for her giveaways too!
Just so you know . . . each month we select a few bloggers and send them goodie bags. In exchange, all we ask is that you blog about your goodie bag and link back to us. Get creative! Craft a piece of jewelry, write a review, use them in design challenges, give them out as prizes in a give-away – what you do with them is up to you. Then, we link to you from our blog, Facebook and Tweet about what you’ve made. If interested I can send you more details; email juanita(at)ninadesigns(dot)com.
Our Silver Pendants, Charms and Jewelry Findings are winging their way across the country on the pages of our new catalog. If you don’t receive yours in the next week or so, give us a call and we’ll send you one. This catalog is the first one that does not have printed prices. The Silver Market has been so volatile that any price we set would have been instantly obsolete. Instead, we added a printable price sheet to our website that we will update as needed. You can download the price sheet any time you want. Just remember to check the website to be sure the prices are still accurate if you are referencing a price sheet you printed at an earlier date. We do apologize for the inconvenience. We hope that it is offset by the user friendly modifications we made to both the catalog and the website. What do you think of the new edition?
Paper for Printing the Catalog
Rising Silver Prices
As many of you are aware, the cost of silver in the market has continued to soar. It is currently 35% higher than it was when we last increased our prices in January. We have postponed our price increase in the hope that the market would calm but at this point we have to accept the new, higher prices. Our new prices will go into effect on Thursday, April 7th at 5pm. There is no flat across the board percent increase for this price adjustment. In anticipation of our new catalog, which will ship in a few weeks, we evaluated each style one by one to determine the lowest possible price we could set and still remain viable.
All orders placed before April 7th will be processed at the lower prices. However, effective immediately, all backorders and special orders will be at the new prices. Existing backorders will remain at lower prices.
Please note that orders will be processed and pulled as we normally do: orders with expedited shipping (UPS Overnight, 2-Day, and 3-Day) are pulled before UPS Ground and Priority Mail orders. UPS Ground and Priority Mail orders are processed in the order received. This is important to keep in mind because we may run out of stock on some items and backorders will be at the higher price.
We know what a toll these constant price increases are having on everyone’s ability to market affordable jewelry. I think we need to focus on marketing silver as a precious metal that is still much less expensive than gold. It will take the public time to adjust to this new positioning. In the meantime, we are developing bronze versions of our designs that will be priced significantly below silver. We expect to begin offering bronze styles by July.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. We appreciate your business!
Click here to watch our NEW Welcome Video
How can we persuade you to try our silver pendants in less than 3 minutes? That was the puzzle we grappled with as we planned our new Welcome Video for the website. Purchasing online is scary, especially if you are unfamiliar with the vendor. We wanted to put potential new customers at ease, to reassure them that we are experienced and trustworthy with high quality products, fabulous customer service and unique designs. We also wanted to highlight our company culture and the amazing skill of our silver smiths.
Having a camera crew in our office was exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. I kept having to remind myself to breathe. Fortunately, the director put us all at ease and did a brilliant job on the edit. What do you think of the video? Did we get our message across?
Silver Pendants are gorgeous. We all know that but did you realize they are good investments too? In this economy, every marketing angle you can get is valuable. Don’t forget to remind your customers that silver jewelry is a great investment! If you tune in to just about any investment oriented news broadcast, you will hear the pundits pushing gold. The reasoning goes that with a weak dollar, a weak Euro and most countries deep in debt, other investments are risky while gold will surely hold its value. The fact that precious metals have increased in price so dramatically in recent years helps feed the frenzy. On the flip side, there are many companies offering to pay cash for gold jewelry. I have even heard of women throwing parties where everyone brings their old jewelry and a broker cashes it in on the spot. (Don’t do it! You can get a better rate at Rio Grande)!
What you may not realize is that silver prices have increased alongside gold. Over the past 10 years gold has appreciated about 400% and silver is a close second at 360%. In many cultures silver and gold jewelry is a woman’s only source of financial security. In the US, we have many other options, but it is nice to know that our silver pendants and silver jewelry are good investments!
10 Year Gold Chart
10 Year Silver Chart
Jewelry Marketing through social media usually focuses on Facebook and Twitter but don’t forget LinkedIn! I used to think of LinkedIn as primarily for professionals in more traditional careers but then I joined and discovered groups like Hand Crafted Jewelry and Women’s Jewelry Association. These groups provide a forum for designers to share advice on many relevant topics.
Make Connections & Market your Jewelry through LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great way to stay in contact with people you meet at trade shows or other public events. I channel all my jewelry related contacts through Linked In and save Facebook for close friends and family. This is a nice way to balance connection and privacy.
Giving recommendations on LinkedIn is easy and most people will reciprocate. If prospective customers look you up on LinkIn and see glowing recommendations they are much more likely to place orders!
I only recently learned about one of LinkedIn’s most powerful marketing features. If you look at the Network Statistics option under the Contacts Tab on your home page you can see how many people you are connected to. I have 133 direct contacts, 15,900 2nd degree contacts and 1,451,400 3rd degree contacts. LinkedIn allows me to search and reach out to these 3rd degree connections. If I want to sell jewelry to Barney’s, I just enter the company name in the search field in the upper right corner and discover that I have a connection to a buyer at the store through someone I met while setting up our micro-loan program. I can now send this person a message asking for an introduction and advise on how to proceed. That sure beats a Cold Call! Don’t be shy, people are usually quite helpful in this setting.
Do you use LinkedIn?
