While it is possible to learn the basic techniques of jewellery making, as well as add new techniques and materials to your projects through books alone, I have found that online video tutorials are a good way of getting some quick answers or ideas.
Youtube.com has videos on various jewellery-making categories, which is good if you want an overview of a style or method before going ahead and buying any books on the subject.
This weekend I got stuck on ring-making, for instance, as the book I was using left me without proper diagrams and intermediary steps to finish what I started making, so had to abandon it at step 3. I'm new to rings, was never going to make them, and the book I had didn't have anything very inspiring on them anyway, so I went browsing on YouTube to see if there were any better examples or explanations on there. This lead me to discovering other video jewellery tutorials, plus their websites where I ended up purchasing even more supplies. So if you want to increase sales of your designer jewellery, beads or jewellery-making components I would definitely recommend putting some video tutorials on YouTube and also on your own website. It is probably the best marketing for your business you could ever do.
Although grateful to those who are putting out this information, I just want to mention a few tips though to those who are filming these videos by themselves:
1) Please show the table with the beads, tools etc rather than yourself. Although an intro is good to start off with, and having you in the camera frame is fine, don't talk about any beads, tools or anything else without a close-up shot of them on the table. In fact don't talk about anything unless the camera is pointing to it (preferably in close-up) even if this means having to stop and start the camera.
2) Don't be afraid to change the position of the camera occasionally. For instance, if you are threading beads and all I can see are your hands covering the beads, try putting the camera on the other side of the table, looking over your shoulder, or anywhere so that I can continue to see the item being made rather than having to wait until you have finished that stage.
3) Please, oh please don't wear any other jewellery like rings when doing a jewellery tutorial. The piece you are making is the star of the show! Clean nails are important, whilst overly long nails can cover up a lot of what you are illustrating. But wearing other jewellery seems to be the worst offender, and I found it to be so distracting.
4) Try to keep everything you are doing within range of the camera. There is nothing more annoying when following a tutorial than to have the hands and jewellery item suddenly disappear for a while. If necessary, mark the area on the table where your hands and supplies need to stay within, with a cloth or some other guide.
5) Very quick movements of the hands can easily create a blur on the video. And please do close-ups of certain techniques that are impossible to figure out from a distance.
Well, now I've got that out of my system I am also keen to find out about new products, from tools and settings to glues and glazes, so even product videos would be interesting for me to watch as there is just so much out there, and I want to buy the best and most appropriate tools and supplies for my own projects. In fact, only just today I decided that I also want to sell jewellery components, supplies and unusual beads, along with my own jewellery designs. So I may end up making those videos myself before too long if I am to follow my own marketing advice. Meanwhile, I have a heap of projects to make, new techniques to learn, and a couple of hundred listings to put up on both Etsy and DaWanda so I'm not quite there yet. I'm not short of ideas and inspiration at the moment, it is just a matter of finetuning the techniques or trying new ones to achieve what I want.........so keep those tutorials coming!
Here is a good page of tutorials for various jewellery-making techniques including bead and wire jewellery, which is my favourite method. I also managed to find there a video on altered art jewellery, which is to be the subject of my next post.
Youtube.com has videos on various jewellery-making categories, which is good if you want an overview of a style or method before going ahead and buying any books on the subject.
This weekend I got stuck on ring-making, for instance, as the book I was using left me without proper diagrams and intermediary steps to finish what I started making, so had to abandon it at step 3. I'm new to rings, was never going to make them, and the book I had didn't have anything very inspiring on them anyway, so I went browsing on YouTube to see if there were any better examples or explanations on there. This lead me to discovering other video jewellery tutorials, plus their websites where I ended up purchasing even more supplies. So if you want to increase sales of your designer jewellery, beads or jewellery-making components I would definitely recommend putting some video tutorials on YouTube and also on your own website. It is probably the best marketing for your business you could ever do.
Although grateful to those who are putting out this information, I just want to mention a few tips though to those who are filming these videos by themselves:
1) Please show the table with the beads, tools etc rather than yourself. Although an intro is good to start off with, and having you in the camera frame is fine, don't talk about any beads, tools or anything else without a close-up shot of them on the table. In fact don't talk about anything unless the camera is pointing to it (preferably in close-up) even if this means having to stop and start the camera.
2) Don't be afraid to change the position of the camera occasionally. For instance, if you are threading beads and all I can see are your hands covering the beads, try putting the camera on the other side of the table, looking over your shoulder, or anywhere so that I can continue to see the item being made rather than having to wait until you have finished that stage.
3) Please, oh please don't wear any other jewellery like rings when doing a jewellery tutorial. The piece you are making is the star of the show! Clean nails are important, whilst overly long nails can cover up a lot of what you are illustrating. But wearing other jewellery seems to be the worst offender, and I found it to be so distracting.
4) Try to keep everything you are doing within range of the camera. There is nothing more annoying when following a tutorial than to have the hands and jewellery item suddenly disappear for a while. If necessary, mark the area on the table where your hands and supplies need to stay within, with a cloth or some other guide.
5) Very quick movements of the hands can easily create a blur on the video. And please do close-ups of certain techniques that are impossible to figure out from a distance.
Well, now I've got that out of my system I am also keen to find out about new products, from tools and settings to glues and glazes, so even product videos would be interesting for me to watch as there is just so much out there, and I want to buy the best and most appropriate tools and supplies for my own projects. In fact, only just today I decided that I also want to sell jewellery components, supplies and unusual beads, along with my own jewellery designs. So I may end up making those videos myself before too long if I am to follow my own marketing advice. Meanwhile, I have a heap of projects to make, new techniques to learn, and a couple of hundred listings to put up on both Etsy and DaWanda so I'm not quite there yet. I'm not short of ideas and inspiration at the moment, it is just a matter of finetuning the techniques or trying new ones to achieve what I want.........so keep those tutorials coming!
Here is a good page of tutorials for various jewellery-making techniques including bead and wire jewellery, which is my favourite method. I also managed to find there a video on altered art jewellery, which is to be the subject of my next post.
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