… And I feel fine (aside from the aforementioned injury, of course!).
Okay, so I know June isn’t exactly what most people around the world would think of as the end of the year. But in Australia it is the final month of the financial year, so for businesses big and small in these parts it’s a pretty big deal.
June 2010 – as seen in my desk calendar from ilee.
For me the end of June will also mark exactly a year in full self-employment. Hooray!
It’s been a crazy ride so far with many ups and downs – and hampered greatly by the need to move my home and business twice in 11 months – but the main thing is that I have survived it in one piece! My handmade jewellery business is moving along and my web design business is doing okay too. And both have plenty of scope for growth, so it’s all good.
The end of the financial year will also be a great help in better positioning myself into the future as my tax payments will better reflect my current situation instead of being based on one that no longer exists – payments to the Tax Office have been the bane of my life this year. Plus my bookkeeping will provide a much more accurate guide for planning into the future. I’m actually glad it’s coming around so fast.
So here’s to another year of self-employment – and a smoother (but still entertaining) ride with it!
Just a little note to let people know that I am moving both my home and my business over the coming few days. The boxes are out and the packing has started!
I’m not moving far away at all, but of course I still need to pack up my entire personal and business life, have it all moved and then unpack it all again.
Customers should be aware that it might take 1-2 days longer than usual to turn around handmade jewellery orders. I do have all regular items in stock at this point in time, but only in very limited quantities. I will of course endeavour to post things as quickly as I can, but at some point my packing gear, printers, etc. will be packed!
Made to order items (such as rings) are likely to take longer than normal to be made as my studio will be packed up as of today and is unlikely to be functional again for approximately a week.
Also be aware that I’m slow in responding to emails and other messages at the moment as there is just so much going on! But I’ll do my best to catch up on that tonight and to keep up as the move progresses.
I hope to have some photos of my new working spaces to share with you soon.
A while back I answered some questions for an article by the lovely Angela of The Jewelry Report, a blog for jewellery makers. I really enjoyed answering the questions as many were specific to the process of making jewellery and written by someone who knows a thing or two about it.
The resulting article has an introduction to make me blush:
Australian jeweler, Simone Walsh, is an inspiration to all one-man-band jewelery designs. Not only does her jewelry reflect a sense of originality and dedicated to quality, but her success is a testament to her hard work and dedication to being a successful business woman. Yet every…single…piece is completely handmade. Here she gives us some insight into that productivity, and I really feel that this gal is someone that many aspiring jewelers, and established jewelers alike can (and should) look up to.
So if you’re interested in reading the rest of the article with the Q&A I completed you can find it right here on The Jewelry Report.
Sometimes it feels a tad depressing to be working in a field where the cost of your materials is down to the sometimes extreme whims of a market which has absolutely nothing to do with what you make.
At the moment both silver and gold are priced higher than they have been for a very long time. However, especially since the global economic crisis kicked off the price of gold has been going crazy as investors have been sinking their money into it, seeing it as a much safer bet than the stock market.
But as someone buying gold as a material to make jewellery with and not as an investment (or to make investment jewellery with), this is definitely unhelpful!
The photograph above is of a piece of 14ct gold (that’s 14kt for Americans) which is 0.5mm thick (0.02″) and 35mm tall and wide (1.4″). It set me back AU$245 (currently around US$200). Ouch!
Silver has also been going up and up for the past couple of years for all sorts of complex reasons. It is currently costing around double what it has done for most of my career. But to give an idea of how much more expensive gold is by comparison, 14ct gold is currently around 28 times more expensive per gram than sterling silver at trade cost.
Gold is a wonderful material to work with, but it does indeed hurt when a very small business like mine needs to purchase it.
As for what I’ll be making with my teensy little piece of gold … well I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete at this point. I have been using thinner gold as highlights in a few handmade jewellery pieces for a while now, but I would like to make some pieces where gold is more of a feature.
Stay tuned for details!
Tags: 14ct gold, 14kt gold, business, costs, gold, handmade jewellery, handmade jewelry, jewellery making, jewelry making, making, metal, silver, sterling silver
Posted in Handmade jewellery | 2 comments »
Yes, I am finally finished the big web-related job I’ve been working on since late last year, along with another small one.
And finally I can get back to jewellery making and all sorts of other things for myself – until a couple of other lurking web jobs come to fruition, anyway! There is also the possibility that I’ll be moving up to the Blue Mountains in the next little while, which is exciting.
But this weekend and early next week I plan to spend a lot of time at my bench catching up with making work and attending to a whole lot of neglected bits and pieces. And once I’m caught up I’m keen to get to work on some new handmade jewellery!
If you’re interested in what I’ve been working on, the smaller project was for an exhibition of contemporary jewellery called Luminaries, which was organised by the Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group in NSW and shown from 2006.
There are plenty of photographs of some wonderful work by some of the luminaries of Australasian contemporary jewellery.
The much larger project was for the Corporate Responsibility Index in Australia. This was a complete redesign and rebuild of a site that I first created years ago and which was badly out-dated.
Although the front end of the site isn’t particularly complex, the new site runs on a content management system, which is what made it a much larger job to set up. But the good news is that most updates to the site can now be handled by the Index staff.
Thanks to my lovely friend Dusty at 27 Things I’ve recently discovered that I can create a business page on Facebook for my handmade jewellery business.
So tonight I made one – you can find it right here.
If you’re a Facebook member you can sign up and be my fan! Awwww. And if you’re a Facebook member with your own business, I suggest you have a look into creating your own business page.
I confess that I’ve been a bit slow to set up an email list for my business, but it was one of the jobs I managed to complete when I redesigned my website recently. I plan to use this mailing list sparingly, but will let subscribers know about new work, subscriber specials and any major developments for my handmade jewellery shop and business in general.
You can sign up on the home page for my website at www.simonewalsh.com (the form is on the right-hand sidebar).
I’m using a professional service to manage the list, so your details will most definitely be kept private and of course you will be able to unsubscribe if you wish. And I promise not to be spammy!
