For hundreds of years Taxco, Mexico has been world-renowned for its rich veins of silver and skilled silversmiths.

On a visit to Mexico a few years ago, Catherine D'Arcy was impressed with the craftsmanship of the Taxco silversmiths.

She requested a custom silver bracelet and necklace set - and a week later, she was surprised to receive 10 beautifully handmade sets of the same design instead of just one.

Catherine says,

"It was my fault, with my terrible Spanish, so I bought them and started thinking about what to do next."

Find out how this misunderstanding led to the birth of a silver jewellery business called Corazon Latino in Catherine's story, The Accidental Jewelry Business.

A few weeks ago we talked about bartering your jewelry for goods and services - and what Kari Anderson got in exchange for her pearls.

In a comment after that post, Cindy Burns related how she's traded with other artists at shows.

I love bartering with other artists too!  I have a lovely collection of items I use and enjoy every day, thanks to trading my jewelry for them.

I've bartered for stained glass, pottery, jewelry, prints, paintings, notecards, wine bottle stoppers, glassware, woodwork, and more.

And because I know the artists, these pieces are even more special to me.

This month I worked on a custom wire jewelry order for my pottery artist friend Tari Federer.

She had a river rock, a tumbled stone, and a crystal that are very significant to her.  She asked me to turn them into pendants for her, and to create leather cords in two different lengths for these pendants.

Although I ran out of time to photograph the pendants before I delivered them to Tari, I took pictures of her incredible pottery for which I traded my wirework:

This rustic, rectangular serving plate (measuring 10" x 14") has a slightly concave center, making it a sort of shallow bowl.  Tari pressed pine needles into it, which left an almost fossil-type of imprint:

She pressed sprigs of rosemary into the matching oval platter (measuring 6.5" x 16"):

Sage green is my favorite color, and I have a set of dishes called Lotus Grove that work beautifully with these two platters.

I couldn't be happier with our jewelry-for-pottery barter, and Tari feels the same way!

When Cathy Tran of Jeweled Blossoms first started selling her jewelry on Etsy, she was discouraged by the low traffic to her storefront there.

She says,

"What I came to realize many weeks later, however, is that I had simply not learned how to promote myself on Etsy.

"After many more weeks, I discovered many ways to get myself and, more importantly, my jewelry, seen on Etsy."

Discover Cathy's high-traffic strategies in How to Get Your Jewelry Seen on Etsy - a survival guide article Cathy wrote just for jewelry artists.

Recently jewelry artist Barb Macy of Accent Yourself served on a craft fair jury.

Read about her fascinating experience of reviewing artists' applications and photos - and her tips for applying to juried shows - in her article, An Inside Look at a Craft Fair Jury.

Mendy Ouzillou of Trezora Glass Jewelry and Art Glass says:

"Choosing my jewelry business name was very likely the most demanding of all the challenging tasks I have had to engage in. I obsessed, I lost sleep, I got mad and I got frustrated, but in the end the name I created was a winner."

Don't miss Mendy's success strategy for choosing a winning jewelry business name.

Packaging is the icing on the cake when it comes to jewelry sales.

Dawn Woodward makes lovely, custom-sized gift bags for her jewelry.  She says:

"I want to give my customers something different, something indulgent and unique when it comes to a paper bag to wrap their jewellery purchase in.

"I'm going to share with you how I make a bag like this in just 5 minutes (Yes, FIVE!) - and how they can help to increase your jewellery sales."

See Dawn's lovely gift bags - and her instructions for making them - in her article, Gorgeous Paper Gift Bags to Make…and Wow Your Customers.

A reader named Swedie adds this tip:

"As an addition to the gift bag article:  If they want to have their own company name on the bag, they can design a rubber stamp to have made, or they can have small or large stickers made to attach to the bag."

Jewelry artist Peggy Li shares a great tip for displaying jewelry at outdoor shows:

When doing an outdoor show, it is really important to have a way to hold down your materials if the weather kicks up!

I've used a variety of things, from beanbags to water bottles (fill them with water when you arrive and empty them when you leave), but the one that has worked for me are having clamps and thin strips of wood to batten down any displays.

Use "L" shaped displays rather than the displays with the "T" back, to give you a ledge to weigh them down or clamp them down.

The June 17 deadline for entries to the Halstead Bead Jewelry Business Development Grant competition is rapidly approaching.

The third annual award to a new American designer entering the bridge jewelry trade will include $6,000 in cash and merchandise as well as other benefits. Interested candidates are encouraged to Read more

When Janice Lam of Creations by Janice added jewelry making kits and tutorials to her website alongside her finished jewelry, she added a successful new stream of income to her jewelry business.

Janice says:

"This has opened up a whole new avenue for sales for me - the want-to-be jewelry artisan.

"So now I sell handcrafted jewelry to those customers who want my one-of-a-kind jewelry, and I sell kits to customers who want to learn to make their own jewelry."

In Jewelry Kits and Tutorials - Another Way to Profit from Your Jewelry Business Janice tells how she got started with making and selling her jewelry kits and tutorials.