Some Thoughts on the Challenge of Making Custom Quotes

Now that I have so many gemstones for sale, I get considerably more requests for custom quotes than I did in the past.  And I face new challenges.  I have been thinking that if I share some of these, perhaps I can get some suggestions from you as I develop price lists and a custom form for my new webpage.

               Making a quote minimally involves calculations on the following three factors:

1. Gemstones:  this math is easy if you have picked out your stone, but if I have to multiply out, say, sidestones for a pendant or ring, or diamonds for a halo, then that involves more.  I usually just “ballpark” smaller colored stones (1-2mm sizes) but I have to calculate out diamonds exactly.  Each size and each grade will change the calculation.  So a half pointer G/H VS is different from a 1 pointer G/H SI.

2. Metal cost:  this can be tricky.  It is easiest if I have an existing ring that I can weigh or that is one of my molds, because I have the weights listed in my mold sheet.  Then I multiply by the current gold price. If I have to make the ring from scratch, I have to consult a catalog that gives me the weights of metal strips in different mm sizes and thicknesses.  The weight is usually in 14 K yellow, so that involves conversions if it is platinum or 18k.  For silver I just ballpark because silver is cheap.  Another factor that influences weight is the finger size.  A size 5 is much lighter than a 9.  I have lists for that also, that is, how many mm metal strip I need for which finger size.  With gold, you need to be exact because just ¼ gram in weight can make a big difference.  I also have to calculate some metal loss, or the cost of the sprue, so I add a little % to each calculation.  Finally, settings can vary drastically in price, and there are no price lists that contain every single setting in every single size (for instance, bezels weigh more than prong settings, but some prong settings are more hefty than others, and each mm size makes the setting heavier).  Plus gold prices change every day so when you shop, you pay a % markup on that day’s spot price.  As you get more experienced, you learn to estimate better, and that helps.  But the rule of thumb in the market is not to underestimate because if you cut it too tight, you can very quickly lose money, especially when your markup is low (mine is very low by industry standard).

Metal Strip Price List for 10K Flat Wire

3. Labor: labor breaks down into several categories.  If it is a casting, then you add casting labor.  That’s only a few dollars, so that’s good.  If you have to make a mold, you add that in.  If there is 3-C printing or CAD work involved, that’s another price depending on the time it takes to make it.  If there is soldering, I have a rough idea of what each type of soldering costs and I add that in. Then there is setting labor.  Setting labor depends on stone size, bezel or prong, millgrain or pave.  And of course the number of stones.  So a ring with 12 sidestones that are 2mm, with a 6 mm center, pave, can be very different from a 3 stone ring that’s prong set.  Finally, you have to add polishing and plating costs (i.e. rhodium). 

Sample Page from Settings Catalog - Look at all those Sizes and there are Pages and Pages of this Stuff

Now this was the simple calculation.  When you get to a complicated CAD design then often you have to make a 2-D or even 3D rough drawing before you can get the pricing exact.  That means the customer has to be very specific about what she wants, or provide me with a budget first, otherwise the back and forth can be endless.  And if I have to send out 3 possible quotes involving three design alterations, I can easily be sitting for an hour just to do the math.

At the very end, I add my wholesale markup, which has to account for the following factors: my own time and labor which involves quotes, photos, seeing the order through, all customer communications, shipping time.  I work approximately 40 hrs a week just running the shop.  Then there is assistant’s overall time helping with the shop, shipping costs, overhead (computer cost, travel to NY, electric, etc), Etsy cost, PayPal or Direct Checkout cost, as well as development costs when I make new designs, putting orders together, accounting costs, and costs for items not sold, items wasted, items broken (not negligible!).  What does that add up to?  Very very minimally, you have to double your cost once you’ve worked out the initial item cost.  But a safer calculation is x1.2-1.5 depending on how much your other costs are.  Everyone in industry – just about any industry – tells you that even for wholesale, if you don’t do at least double, you will go under.  I frequently get chided by people for not being careful with my own costs, and I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty!  My shop does very well but I work hard for that.

Complicated enough for you?  Now you know why custom shops usually charge so much money.  By the time the customer is satisfied and the numbers are correct, you can have spent more time than it takes to actually make the piece.  Well, I’m overstating of course, but it is definitely more involved than what meets the eye.  That’s why so many shops just have basic designs and price lists based on those, as opposed to making everything to order. 

My Visit with Etsy

So Etsy has a bi-weekly event called Eatsy, where all employees of Etsy eat together.  Etsy employees, known as Etsy admin, can invite Etsy members for a visit and a tour, plus meet with various staff members that might be helpful to their shop.  I got invited to one last week by Bernadette Sweeney, Director of Community Connections.  Etsy is located in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, which is only a subway ride away from my house. Not every Etsy member is that lucky and I felt very privileged to get picked.  What I took away from the hour I spent there is that Etsy really practices what it preaches.  I’d love to work there - if I wasn’t already doing too many things full time, lol. 

Etsy Reception Area

Etsy Office Space

The first thing that struck me when I stepped through the entrance was how relaxed and welcoming everything looked.  The foyer is lined with plants, and the reception area contains lots of handmade items that set the tone for the company, which is all about handmade after all.  The work areas are open and spacious, dress is casual, and nobody has to punch in and out.  There are no phones on the desks (they’re not really needed) but there are little “phone” booths off to the side where one can make calls or sit with someone and chat privately. Bernadette allowed me to take some photos to share with everyone on my blog.

Etsy has a sizable kitchen area.  Lunch is catered twice a week by local restaurants, it is organic and sustainable whenever possible, not served on plastic plates but recycled paper with real silverware.  Every lunch has a vegetarian option.  There is a compost and the paper is collected separately.  There are coffee machines and refrigerators, but no plastic cups, only mugs which you can take outside to get a coffee at one of the local shops.

During lunch, I got to meet Kim Alfonso who is the Director of Seller Development.  She's the force behind the seller's handbook, the success tips and some of the other blogs.  We swapped stories about possible blog entries and we talked a lot about what works well on Etsy, as well a little about where there could be improvements.  Kimm was very interested in finding out my views about the seller platform, which is why it is so important for Etsy to meet with some of its sellers in person.

I also met with Nadine Heintz, the Seller Editor Content Manager, with whom I had a long chat about the convo system and custom orders.  As those of you who ask for custom work with me know, the convo system can quickly get unruly and then it is hard to find the important part of the conversation where the details of the order were settled.  And since I often manage 10 or more custom orders at once, I can easily get mixed up (and I have!).  I also get a lot of questions more than once.  To help with this, Etsy has created snippets, where you can copy snippets of conversations, i.e. my policies, with a couple of clicks, so you don't have to write everything twice.

Another thing I took away from our discussion was that I should create a custom order sheet which can be uploaded into the convo system.  That would eliminate some of the back and forth.

One of the things that really surprised me during my Etsy tour was that dogs were allowed in the work area.  I met Beanie (photo) and two other cuties that lazed around near their respective owners.  I wish more companies did that!  Etsy also has rooms with couches and other seating areas where you can work if you don’t feel like sitting at your desk, another thing that made the atmosphere very relaxed.  Those rooms are often used for meetings, or for workshops held by employees that want to share their craft.  In fact just about every room and every desk was decorated with some handmade item or other which the staff had bought on Etsy (every new hire gets a $100 gift coupon to buy something for their desk).

Kitchen Area

Working Space with Couches

Beanie

Etsy is what's called a B-Corporation, which is short for Benefit Corporation.  This is a for profit corporation but it has a special certification, similar to Fair Trade (for foods and apparel), that holds corporations to a higher standard of accountability, purpose and transparency (you can find the full explanation at bcorportation.net online).  The non-profit company B-corp is the certifying body, and there are now over 1000 B-Corporations all over the country.

The B-Corp standard is presumably why Etsy and its staff are so open to visitors.  I personally found it very reassuring that my mission to be sustainable and promote local artisanship aligned so well with Etsy’s own standards.  It makes me be very happy to be a part of it.

Etsy Mascot - Handmade of Course

Etsy Foyer

Bike Room

How Are Gemstones Sourced, and is Their Sourcing Ethical?

That is actually a question I come across fairly often in some shape or other.  I.e. are your gems ethically sourced, do they meet the Kimberly standards, are they Fair Trade?  I have written about this before, but I think it is time to revisit the issue.

               Three observations, an anecdote, and finally an indeterminate conclusion:  First observation. Most countries in which gemstones are mined these days have few to no laws that protect workers or the environment, and few offer anything like “fair pay” (however much that is).  Second observation: the Kimberly process only applies to diamonds not colored stones - and there is a lot to be said about whether it even works in the first place.  Third observation: the label “Fair Trade” does not exist when it comes to minerals.  Fair Trade covers only food stuffs and more recently, apparel and home goods.  So given the way the questions were phrased above, the answer is simple: no, no, and no.  But it is more complicated than that. 

               Now the anecdote – or rather, two anecdotes.  My German geologist friend Jochen Hintze had recently heard about some new tourmaline finds in the Congo that he wanted to investigate.  He travelled to neighboring Rwanda, first to a town called Kigali and from there, together with a local friend, he took a bus to Gisengy, right at the border to the Congo.  Upon his first try at crossing the border to get to a town called Goma, he was refused entry because he didn’t have a visa.  But after some negotiations with the border chef which presumably involved money, he was given a “special” visa – there is no such thing according to the law, but the practice is nevertheless common.  The town of Goma is dangerous so one can travel only during the day.  Jochen had heard of various shops where minerals were being traded, but none of them seemed to exist any longer.  So his Rwandan friend placed various phone calls to old school friends which resulted in an invitation into the house of a local official.  The official loaned them a car and a bodyguard for a “tour of the city” and placed some phone calls of his own.  Shortly thereafter, people came to Jochen’s hotel to offer goods.  They explained that the local shops no longer existed because they kept getting robbed, so all trading now takes place privately and through connections.  Jochen was offered some faceted tourmalines at a fixed price, and he bought a few.

               Jochen then travelled back to his office in Arusha, Tanzania.  There, he was told by local brokers that some tourmaline crystals of an interesting yellow and pink color had been found at Mwanga the day before.  Negotiations took place a couple days later, once the locals had decided on the value of their parcel.  Jochen bought the entire 2 kg lot in the end.  How did he know what to pay?  After all, there are no fixed prices, only what the market will bear, or what someone is willing to pay.  In making his offer, Jochen has to calculate his travel costs, the costs of the shows at which he will offer out the goods, how much of the lot might move at which price, how much of the lot may not sell, and what kind of total income this will yield.  The locals in turn have to figure out how many possible buyers they have, who will be honest and who will cheat, and what the competition can offer that is better or worse, and at what price.  And those are just a few considerations.

Mwanga Tanzania

               Mining itself is usually done in locations without electricity and with very little equipment.  Stones can be washed out of rivers, or drilled out of rocks, sometimes just on the surface, sometimes a few meters below, and in a few cases, like Tanzanite, up to a few hundred meters down.  Very little energy, except human energy, is used.  The price of rough depends on availability of buyers and material.  Profits are shared among locals, with some percentage going to the local government for the use of the mine.  Or the mining is “illegal” meaning somewhere in the middle of nowhere where nobody is watching and people just take what they can, then sell it.  In a sense therefore, there is a system, but by American and European standards, it is ad hoc and involves little to no government control.  Still, among locals, the rules can be clear and will be adhered to.

               Let us now revisit our original question.  If I buy some of Jochen’s tourmalines, did I source them ethically?  Did he?  What is your view? 

               I usually do know where my materials come from, and of course just like you, I have access to information about how that particular area or country is structured in terms of mining, or how what type of mining it is.  I also tend to think that the more money flows back to the original source, the better.  I am against cheating, against the use of violence in sourcing materials, and I would like to see those who work to find these gems paid and fed.  I’d like the environmental impact to be minimal.  But is this enough? 

                

A Few Little Known Facts About Ruby

July is ruby month, so that makes a blog entry about ruby apropos. But what can I write about ruby that hasn't already been said elsewhere? 

Not much, but let me try. Here are some of the lesser known facts about this pretty gem. 

As you surely know, ruby is the pinkish red version of the mineral "corundum".  But how pinkish red does corundum have to be to be ruby, and not pink sapphire?  The answer to this question is not as objective as one might like.  It depends, in some measure, on market forces. When pink sapphire is in style, sellers qualify fewer stones as ruby.  And vice versa.  Also, Indian tradition has it that a ruby can be more pinkish than what American gemologists allow.  Finally, if the gem is too purple or violet, even if its dark, we call it a sapphire again.  I've also seen beryllium treated red corundum that was classified as sapphire. Go figure. 

Melee Pink-Sapphire Ruby Mix 

And what about that famous pigeon blood ruby that so many customers want?  Well I've hardly ever seen a ruby that qualifies for that name.  Even most Burmese rubies are much more pink in color.  Glass filed rubies can be more red, but nobody wants those.  When I ask customers to send me photos of what they want, they often send me photos of spinel, demanding a ruby with that color.  But ruby really doesn't look like that.  Before we got clearer on the chemical distinction between these two gems, both were treated as ruby.  I can only surmise that this confusion is at the root of the quest for a spinel like sapphire. 

Red Spinel from Burma

Ruby from Burma (Sold)

Does origin have an effect on price? According to the pricing tables most labs use, no. While Burmese rubies are the most highly prized objects, it is hard to identify their origin. Overall, the redder and the cleaner the stone, the higher the value, regardless of origin. And these days, Afghanistan and Madagascar produce some very fine specimens. So if you have a gem that's not treated or heat treated only, a little reddish and not too included, then you have a more valuable piece. Cutting is often secondary in industry because the fiber specimens are too rare to sacrifice precious points for brilliance. 

These days, claiming origin is even more complicated because of the trade embargo with Myanmar (formerly Burma).  For instance, PayPal does not allow any Burmese ruby transactions on its site, even if they are certified pre-embargo.  So while the rubies I can obtain are pre-embargo, I cannot sell them via PayPal and hence Etsy (I was actually contacted by PayPal last summer and asked to remove the items).  But perhaps that's a good thing because it is pretty much impossible to say of a gem when it was mined.  So anyone can claim their material is from before the embargo.  From the perspective of PayPal, therefore, I can understand the dilemma.  

If I May Say So Myself: What I Would Buy from My Shop

With my semi-annual 15% sale coming up on July 13^th, I thought I’d assemble a shortlist of my own favorite items, and why I’d recommend those for purchase.  I’m going to try to limit myself to three pieces from each of my favorite sections.

Of course my own favorite shop sections are the gems, and my favorite stones these days are mint garnet and Mahenge spinel.  But there are other, less appreciated gems that I think would make good investments:

1.  The Mahenge ruby pear shape: the pocket from which that came was small, and while mining in Mahenge has been going on for over 10 years, no ruby had ever been found there.  The gem is a total novelty (there were a few more pieces but they all wandered off to another person who has a stake in the mine and they went overseas, so none came to the U.S market).  The quality stands up to good to fine quality rubies from elsewhere, the inclusions are to be expected, but because of them the little guy turned out not to be so photogenic.  Still, the investment grade is extremely high.  And he is much more beautiful in person: Mahenge Ruby

2.  The neon green Tsavorite oval: again, the best out of the bunch, the color is on the border of the blueish neon mint – a hair darker than the finest mints, so it was “upgraded” to Tsavorite.  The gem is extraordinarily bright for a Tsav: Neon Tsavorite

3.  The color change garnet: mining has slowed and fewer and fewer pieces are available: Color Change Garnet

Other recommendations are anything certified unheated sapphire, and the magenta red cushion spinel since that color is totally finished.

From my ring section, I would pick:

1.  The Mandarin Garnet and Burma Spinel cocktail ring.  It makes such a statement, it is beautifully set, the Mandarin is strongly saturated, and I used my best Burma spinels – I used so many that I almost killed my parcel, and that is a parcel I had waited for for 2 years! Cocktail Ring

2.  The Art Deco style ring with Mahenge Spinel and Mint garnet.  The gems are unusual, the color combo amazing.  I kind of feel that that ring style has been under-appreciated.  I wear it all the time, I love that I can combine different colors and millgrain patterns.  I know everyone wants a big center stone in their ring, but this style is so very versatile. Art Deco Ring

3.  The Victorian inspired scalloped ring with the strongly colored pink tourmaline and Mahenge spinels.  I love both the design and the colors.  The tourmaline is a very nice piece.  The ring is substantial yet very comfy to wear – it doesn’t stick out very high and yet makes a statement.  I gave it a test drive and got quite a few compliments. Scalloped Ring

The other rings I personally like are the ones with the petal designs.  Any the five stone hexagon/octagon ring.

Pendants:

1. My own personal favorite is the aqua gotham pendant in rose gold.  I almost didn't list that one.  The aqua is stunning (several people thought it was a blue topaz because the coloring is so good).  And the hand engraving can be enjoyed with the naked eye but also holds up under the loupe.  Since that is the original piece (before casting) you are getting a real little work of art. Gotham Pendant

2. Design wise my favorite is the three hex pendant, and another one with two kite danglies that I am going to list this coming week (rose gold with Burmese spinels).  Again, I love that I can do different color combos. Hexagon Pendant

3. I personally also really love the pillow pendant that I listed, and I like that particular style.  I love edgy, squarish looks, lots of colors, and antique designs with a modern twist. Pillow Pendant

And again, I love the petal styles, but mostly the ones with the larger center. 

Earrings (I’ll group these together):

1. The sapphire dangly earrings with the four petal flowers.  A superb setting job, and the fat pears on the bottom are totally unique (untreated as well).  One of a kind. Sapphire Dangly Earrings

2. The gotham earrings.  Love the style, love the color, love love love the engraving.  I’m on a kick lately, I wish every single item of mine was engraved.  Poor Alex (alexhandengraving.com), he’s going to get a lot of my stuff, and he is a very busy guy.  Smaller engraved pendant and engraved Gotham ring are coming soon. Gotham Earrings

3. The little mint studs (and the mint danglies).  I have to say, if you’re not buying these up you are asleep at the wheel.  The little calibrated mints are specialty cuts, they were done with some leftover rough and I am already running out of my parcel.  People bought them like mad, both from me and my supplier (he was supposed to save me some from his parcels but he came back from the first show, where he didn’t even put them out, and they were bought upon request).  One more parcel is being cut, then that may be it.  I am first bidder on it (mint addict that I am) but I can’t promise anything.  I’ve been waiting for 2mm sizes for 2 months already!  The thing is that the tiny sizes are super wasteful to cut out of the material, so nobody likes to do it.  The color is juicy.

Mint Garnet Danglies

Mint Garnet Hexagon Studs

What is your favorite item and why?  Put your comment below, I'd love to know.   

Why Don’t All Gems Come in Any Cut?

I got the following question from two customers just this week: can I supply a matched pair of Merelani mint garnets, elongated pear shape.  The answer – and I don’t even have to look – is “no.”  (I actually did find one pair, so I was wrong, but you’ll see the astronomical price tag on my Etsy site!)

So why doesn’t any gem come in any cut?  The answer is really simple.  Gems are cut to maximize the rough.  Take, for instance, tourmaline rough, which is cylindrical and long.  That’s great for elongated pear shapes.  So is aqua and emerald sometimes (all three are beryl so the rough is very similar).  But most garnet rough is more roundish, pebble like.  That’s why it gets cut into ovals, some rounds, cushions, and anything else that accommodates that shape. 

Also, certain cuts bring out the beauty of the material, hence the famous “emerald” cut.  Emeralds are more sleepy than crisp, so an emerald cut, which has fewer facets, can bring out the color over the clarity.  Ceylon sapphires, by contrast, are usually cut into cushions and ovals, with step facets in the back.  Step cuts are bulkier but for Ceylon sapphires this is important because the color is sometimes just in the culet, and that cutting will create the illusion of an even tone when the gem is viewed from the front.  This explains the famous “zoning” that you can often see from the back (so it’s ok if you see it) but not the front (so it’s not ok if you see it).  Tourmalines that have watermelon coloring (pink inside, green at the rim) are often sliced or carved so that this effect is preserved.

Dravite Tourmaline Rough and Cut (Ovals are Best)

Diopside Rough

Some gems, i.e. amethyst, come in just about any shape.  That’s because amethyst is so cheap it can be bought by the kilo.  It then doesn’t matter how much you waste, most of the cost is in the cutting anyway.  The material is (nearly enough) free.  In other cases, i.e. tourmaline these days, the rough is very expensive.  And of course, when you buy and re-sell, your calculations are based on your cost.  If a customer wants you to do a special cut that wastes the material, your cost is still the same and so you will charge more for a smaller gem.

This also explains why despite what is commonly claimed, a retail customer does not necessarily lose out when she buys a stone that is cut to preserve weight.  Because if the seller marks up based on the cost of the rough, the buyer can get the most amount of weight – and hence value - out of her purchase.  Of course many sellers do not have a straightforward markup policy, they charge what the market will bear.   In that case the customer can lose out if she hasn’t looked at the prices of the gem she wants to buy (comparison shopping really pays in these cases).  That’s why it always pays for you as a customer to have some idea of the current market, of the most common cuts for gems, and for what is and isn’t possible based on the rough.  A few minutes of internet browsing of some of the common gem sites is usually enough to get a basic idea.

Burma Spinel Rough Crystal

Kyanite Rough, Just Shaved Around the Edges

Here are some of the most common cuts for popular gems:

Amethyst: cheap rough, any cut.
Alexandrite: elongated cushion, oval.  Round costs extra.
Aqua: any cut really, the rough is a nice size.
Citrine: cheap rough, any cut.
Emerald: Emerald cut and oval, some pears, rounds are at a premium.
Rhodolite garnet: any cut.
Ruby: Elongated cushions, ovals, then rounds (same as sapphire)
Sapphire: Elongated ushions, ovals, then rounds. Very few pears.  Step cuts for Ceylon.
Sphene: Ovals and Elongated cushions, then pears. Very few rounds.
Spinel: Cushion (square and elongated), oval, then round and pear.
Tanzanite: Lots of ovals and rounds, some cushions.  The rough is a bit bigger so more shapes are possible.
Tourmaline: Lots of longish cuts including emerald cut and pear shapes, not many rounds.
Tsavorite and Mint Garnet: Ovals, then all the other cuts.

A good rule of thumb is that oval is the cheapest and most common cut in most stones. Round is the most expensive.  

Watermelon Tourmaline Slices

My New Website

As many of you probably know, I will not be going back to Felician College in the fall.  It will be jewelry full time for me for now, or at least for the next year or two, as I build up the company.  (I’ll probably apply for another academic position at that point.  I do love academia but I love this too.)

I’ve had to think long and hard about the direction I want to go in, and I’ve decided it’s time to build my own website, which will run alongside with Etsy – I have no plans on forsaking Etsy anytime soon, I had a very productive meeting with part of their crew a couple of weeks ago and I’ll be visiting their offices in the next month. 

As I build my own site, however, I would love your feedback and ideas.  I have built my entire shop around my customers, their ideas, interests, and feedback.  I find this process very enriching and as I grow, I want to continue keeping you all involved! 

I am signing up with Squarespace to host my site, they have fully built e-commerce platforms where you can create multiple collections for sale, hook up your blog, do shipping, sales, credit card and PayPal processing, analytics, mailing lists and more.  It looks very exciting. 

I’m still in the very early stages of design, but of course these are the most crucial because that’s where you do the basic organization of the site.  Below are my main ideas.  If you have any thoughts, please convo me via Etsy, email me, or use the comment box below.  I will send out a questionnaire at some point but I’m not at that stage yet.

1. I’d like my site to concentrate on the high end items, so gold jewelry only, and nicer gems.  Why?  Because Etsy is better for the low end stuff so there’s no reason to duplicate.  The average Etsy customer doesn’t spend as much (my average sale used to be about $80, now it is $300, but I have many items that cost more and that don’t sell that well on Etsy).  I also want to do more high end custom work.  This will be a slow process because I’m not willing to take out a loan - rumor has it those have to be paid back!  So as the sales increase, I will start creating high end pieces one at a time.

2. Instead of using the standard Etsy categories (ring, pendant, necklace, earring…), I want to sort by collection.  But there will be a “search” button as well so people can search within the shop for just rings for instance.  I have to rename some of the collections, and I need ideas for those.  Right now the collections I have are Hexagon (this will include the kite settings), Gotham (already named), Petal (all the Victorian flower pieces), and Scroll (the earrings with the scroll design and the matching eternity band, plus simple pendants using the scroll settings).  I may start with the most complete collections (Hex and Petal).  Then later I will add the rest, and eventually another line or two.  There are some items that I don’t know where to put: the daisy ring, the pillow pendant.  And there are items that will not make it to the site and stay on Etsy only – the rest will be cross listed since I don’t have funds to make two of each.

3. Gems: after my initial jewelry lines are up, I will add a gem section for outright purchase or custom work.  For matched pairs, there will be options to purchase the setting from my scroll and hex lines, or others as relevant (i.e. I can add an option to make a dangly petal earring).  For single stones, I will also offer setting options as applicable.  And I will add some sort of custom form where people can make other requests for the stone they buy.  I will also offer the option to source a loose stone but I may need a minimum price point because finding a stone can take time.  Also, as custom work is extremely time consuming, I want to put more visual emphasis on using my existing designs.  That way they will be the first choice a customer makes, and a custom piece from scratch will be the second choice only.  Offering custom pricing using my existing settings will also allow a customer to calculate a combined design (i.e. adding a dangly or using a pendant for an earring).  Squarespace has a lot of listing variations, and this will come in handy.

4. For the pull down menus, right now this is what I have:

About:  Shop Mission, Shop Owner (members), Resources

Shop:  Pull down menu by collection

Blog:  links to my blog

Where to buy: My local shop, Etsy (and of course the website)

Custom: TBA

Gallery: Past orders and photos

This is what I have so far. I assume you won’t be seeing the site until late Summer, but I can use the blog to keep you updated, and to send you layout ideas (I’m hoping a friend of mine will help me with this but I’m not sure yet).  Right now I’m working on the back end part.  I don’t know diddly about building a website, so this is going to be interesting!