Before moving ahead with her jewelry business, Shannon Orr of Charms wanted to test her market.

So she decided to invite people to a jewelry open house event, hosted at her home.

"However, this grand open house had to look grand without the expense," Shannon says, "a great opportunity to get creative!"

And getting creative is exactly what she did.

In Hosting a Jewelry Open House you can find out how Shannon stretched a shoestring budget to get elegantly set up with jewelry tags and earring cards, business cards, signs, price tags, displays, table coverings, catered food, and more.

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.

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.

Elizabeth of Stones in Harmony wrote to tell me about a jewelry business success day she had this past week:

First, she did a jewelry trunk show at a financial services office, where she made some great sales from just five customers.

While she was there, the necklace Elizabeth was wearing caught the eye of a top-level financial planner.

This executive fell in love with the necklace - and not only insisted on ordering it, but also wants to shop directly from Elizabeth's home jewelry boutique / studio.

(Since then, this executive has been spreading the word to her friends, who also are now interested in Elizabeth's jewelry.)

After the trunk show, Elizabeth returned home and the cable guy arrived.

Elizabeth says,

"I mentioned that he'd best buy something for Mamma for Mother's Day. It is creeping up on us. Would you come into my studio?

"The studio was empty of course. So I pulled my jewelry case from the car. [It was still there from the trunk show.]

"We sat down on the rug and pored through jewelry options.

"I gave him a really good price (yes, I did make a profit) because this boy had so much love in his heart for his mother and girlfriend that I just felt so gifted to be able to give him something so personalized and special, not to mention with gift boxes."

So here is one of Elizabeth's very happy customers - the cable guy who now has his Mother's Day gifts completely taken care of, well in advance, including lovely gift boxes:

You may remember Elizabeth's first jewelry success story - when she helped her washing machine repairman take care of his Christmas shopping with her jewelry gifts (you can read about it near the bottom of my Jewelry Business Success News issue #65).

Elizabeth very kindly gives me credit, saying she learned her success techniques from my Secrets of a Handcrafted Jewelry Shopping Service book.

But obviously her jewelry is a big part of the magic, and so is her manner of putting customers at ease and solving their gift-giving problems.

Elizabeth's jewelry business success story illustrates a couple of ways to recession-proof your jewelry business:

1) Take your jewelry for private showings to people who can afford to buy it (the financial services office trunk show).

2) Connect directly with people who have gift-giving needs to take care of (the cable guy).

The next day, Elizabeth sent a dozen roses to the woman who had invited her to do the trunk show.

She says, "developing friendships is much more meaningful to me than sales."

Congratulations, Elizabeth - for putting yourself out there and doing it, and for all the wonderful things that came from it! Thanks so much for sharing your success story.

While attending a fashion show, Sarah Faison saw an opportunity for her jewelry designs to put the finishing touch on the models strolling down the catwalk.

Find out what happened when she spoke to the show's featured fashion designer - and see photos of the results:

How Being Bold Got My Jewelry in a Fashion Show

by Sarah Faison of Sarah J Designs.

Jewelry parties are one of the best ways for us to sell our work.

There's no competition from other vendors, and no selling expenses like shop commissions or booth fees.

Just a group of customers who are friends of the party hostess - all ready to start trying on jewelry and have fun shopping.

If you want to keep scheduling more parties, one of the most important things you can do is to take exceptionally good care of each customer at every party.

Happy party guests very often want to host a jewelry party of their own.

Diana Kirkpatrick shares some wonderful tips for providing outstanding customer service at parties, in this new article:

Customer Care at Jewelry Parties.

This article also contains some examples of Diana's intricate, tribal-influenced jewelry designs.

After Kathy Reading of Catju Designs spent a lot of time, money, and effort organizing a jewelry open house and "one stop holiday extravaganza" - what do you think happened?

Find out in her article, Lessons Learned:  Organizing Your Own Jewelry Open House.

Avoid "Freebie Shows" - a type of jewelry show I've made the mistake of participating in!

Think twice if you're invited to participate in shows that mainly promote "free stuff" for people who attend. Usually these events are marketed in such a way that the people who come are not planning to shop or spend any money - and often they don't bring checkbooks or credit cards.

"Freebie shows" can be extremely disappointing venues for trying to sell your jewelry!

A few years ago I was invited to set up my booth at a show that was Read more

Question:  I have read your Ultimate Guide to Your Profitable Jewelry Booth ebook cover to cover. We have done a show at a church festival, a horse show when it rained constantly, and a Market Place Fayre.  We are doing very, very badly.  People walk by (and even other vendors) and say that our jewelery is really nice, and people stop to browse, but very, very little is selling.  Are we at the wrong venues? Is our marketing too low key (we're using mostly store-bought display stands)? We talk to people but don't pounce on them when they stop at our table.  We've purchased very nice decorative pouches to put purchases into.  We're ready ahead of time.  HELP!  We're registered for a craft show in November and would love to do very well there.  What are your suggestions?

Answer:  Thank you for writing, and for reading my e-book!

As I read your message, these are the things I felt most strongly about the situation you're experiencing: Read more

Question:  How many pieces of jewelry do I need for my booth in a craft show?  Do you make one of something to see how it goes, or do you make 50 and hope to sell them all?  I know you take your target market into consideration, however, I am confused as to the amount of each piece to keep in my inventory. Read more