It's April, already?!

Oh me oh my, where has the year gone? We don't seem to have done much at all in terms of the shop, and yet we have been "doing stuff"... We feel for all who have felt the affects of the horrible and devastating floods in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria; Cyclone Yasi; and then the Japanese trifecta of earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear reactors' ongoing disaster. What a year! And the Chinese reckon that the Year of the Rabbit is supposed to be a year of peace and tranquility!!!
I have completed 24 hours of classes, learning to make a website for our business, LizCat Handmade Jewellery and Cards. This was through the NSW government's Online Advantage funding for small businesses, held locally at the Yamba Community College. Our tutor, David Smith, was an absolutely excellent teacher who easily catered for all of our learning differences and made learning HTML and website design easy! He ensured that by learning HTML (hyper-text mark up language) we can understand the code that is behind most web-pages, thus enabling us to customise any templates and website design editors we may use. What a guy! Easy-going and a clear and competent teacher - way to go, David!
And so, our website http://www.lizcat.com.au/ was born! Although still in its fledgling stages, in that I need to put more images on, and have some "order now" and "on sale now" buttons...and we need to post our current stock on our online shop www.etsy.com/shop/lizcat yadda yadda... we now have a "web presence" and it's under our own domain name! Yay!
The idea being that all of our cyberspace ventures would be linked to the one website, and so those who would like to purchase our jewellery could get an idea of who we are and what we delight in. Check us out! Let us know what you think!!

Time to get the shop going

 



Lily's earrings: Sterling silver hooks, double twist dangle

 and headpin. Swarovski bicone crystals and Czech glass -
rondelles and firepolish faceted round beads.

 Well, after finishing these two gorgeous necklaces for our friend Ali, and these three pieces of jewellery for Liz's Mum - the latter as a gift for her granddaughter Lily; it's time to get our Etsy shop up and running! Especially if we want to sell anything for Christmas.

Detail of Ali's necklace

Not that it's terribly hard, to get an Etsy shop going. It's just that we want: our policies in place, our shop banner done, our photographs to entice viewers to view our goods, and our prices to be fair to the amount of work we put into each piece (not that this is remotely possible, but at least to ensure that we pay ourselves, and not just cover the cost of materials.) And to have all this done by the time our living down here One Year Anniversary comes around - November 19 -  Hmm...thankfully the Etsy blog The Storque has heaps and heaps of tips and great ideas, not to mention "how to's."

So, I'll start by checking out some shop policies of Etsy shops I like...



Lily's necklace: Sterling silver butterfly,
and as for bracelet



Lily's bracelet: Sterling silver open-wire rondelles,
Swarovski crystal rondelles and bicone crystals.
Czech faceted glass - rondelles and firepolish faceted
round beads. Sterling silver clasp and LizCat tag.



 





Swarovski "disco ball" and bicone crystals, Czech firepolish faceted glass round beads,
Indian foiled glass square beads, Sterling silver clasp, end caps and LizCat tag.
Non-tarnish artistic wire.





Thai Hill Tribes silver "squashed sticks" and beaten ovals, Swarovski "disco ball"  and bicone crystals, black and white Lampwork beads from Flamin'Beads, Czech faceted glass rondelles and black onyx briolettes. Sterling silver clasp, end caps, chain and LizCat tag. Non-tarnish artistic wire.

Can we...?

Can we make a living by being creative? We hope so! We both make jewellery and cards. We are slowly setting up our Etsy shop LizCat in order to sell them. Having both been ill-health retired from teaching relatively early in life, we are both still quite unwell and desire to nurture our bodies and minds back to health - and yet still have an income of some sort!!! Having lost nearly all our money thanks to our financial advisers, the now defunct Storm Financial (hiss, snarl), we chose to move to this haven in Northern New South Wales...

This is the view from the deck looking across the Clarence River to Yamba, and yes, it is this beautiful! Often, more so!!! Imagine being able to hear cows eat and watch birds, butterflies, kangaroos and cows, as well as this river. This peace is healing.