Effectively Efficient: Now I know why I was avoiding this task

Now I know why i was avoiding the task of setting up my shop with all of the beads and jewelry I've made. It's too complicated! After a 14 hour slog taking photos, editing photos, simplifying my shop categories, and uploading all the photos on Saturday, I finally have all but 35 necklaces uploaded to the shop and ready for my liquidation sale of the artistic meanderings I've been taking for the last few years. What that means for you, if you're reading this post, is a fabulous discount on my already low prices for sterling silver, glass, polymer clay beaded jewelry. I have some base metal components (copper) in some of the pieces, and super easy simple pieces strung on cotton cord - perfect for casual beach wear.

Making my processes efficient

One of the big learnings this year has been to simplify, simplify, simplify so I can be more efficient and serve my customers better. The net effect is that I can make my pieces and style much more cohesive and efficient. I'll be focusing on my best sellers for Bead & Button and using those as the foundation for my Bead Collections and my Jewelry Collections. It's still a lot of work, and it also happens to be work I really love and enjoy.

Studio Setup

In other news, my oxygen concentrator is in the "hospital" getting repaired. I had unknowingly abused it by working outside with it and then leaving it outside in the humid Florida weather. I learned that the sieve beds need to be rebuilt to get a decent flow of oxygen.

One of the benefits of problems is that it forces you to learn more about your setup. While the timing isn't great (I'm getting farther behind on bead production), I understand my setup much much better. Fixing the oxygen concentrator will make me more efficient in the long run.

And I learned more about safety, such as installing a flashback arrestor on the propane side of the torch. I like the cachet of doing an industrial art, but I am also still learning a lot about the safety. My torch is a surface mix torch and less prone to flashbacks, but it still can happen if I were to let the propane run out and then the flame would get sucked back into the propane line. Without the arrestor, it could, at a minimum cause the lines to explode. At worst, it could go all the way back to the propane tanks and cause them too explode. No thank you. Flashback arrestor please.