Kingsday Freemarket Sale 2015

We have been pretty absent again recently, but this time we had a very valid reason: Kingsday preparations!

Just like the previous three years, we were present at the free market in our hometown to sell our jewelry (and pretty much half of Lisa's wardrobe). We expected a cold, rainy day, but it actually turned out to be a wonderfully sunny!

 

We woke up at 5 to get ready for our big move - getting a full clothes rack, a table, three chairs, and about four heavy bags of jewelry and related materials to the free market area - and to find a proper spot for us to settle. We found the perfect spot, exactly where we had our stand three years ago! After setting up, we covered ourselves in cardigans and shawls, waiting for coffee, and bracing ourselves for the coming cold and rain. We're not exactly morning people to begin with, so at events like these we always have some difficulty starting up.

But then the sun came up, and the sky was blue. Two adorable kids sold us coffee from a wheelbarrow. Lisa's boyfriend got us some breakfast, and Ivanna got us cotton candy.

And that's when the day really started to become fun! We always love having face-to-face contact with our customers, so we love market sales like this. The coming and going of family and friends is also a lot of fun, and the general vibe in the town is always great on days like these.

It's totally worth the hard labour and short nights ;) We'll be back next year!

Love,

Lisa & Ivanna

Blog Planner

We finally found a very handy and fun way to organise our blogposts! We made ourselves a clear and cheerful paper blog planner (which you can download for free!).

In our previous post, we mentioned that we had some trouble organising our posts. We felt like there wasn't enough variation in our posts, and we had issues coordinating our blogposts and Youtube videos. But not anymore!

Apparently, this blog calendar thing is nothing new - 90% of all bloggers seem to use one. So it's kind of crazy for us not to have tried this before. Well, actually we tried loads of stuff. At first, we really wanted an online tool that we could both reach, since we blog together, but are often working seperately from our own homes. So we tried Google calendar, Dropbox, Evernote - you name it -, but none of them really worked for us. It seems nothing beats good ol' pen and paper.

So, we finally decided to use a paper planner as well, and even though we have only one copy that is not always within reach for the both of us, we love it already!

The main focus in our planner is the monthly calendar. Here, we can plan out our posts and videos, and because we use small post-its to colour-code our categories, we can make sure we maintain some variety in our posts. The post-its come of really easily, so if we decide to change our planning, we just move them around.

In addition to the calendar, we also have a to-do list to keep track of what we have to do for the different platforms we use. This is very useful for us, since we tend to forget a lot...

Since we also like to keep track of our growth, we added monthly statistics rubrics as well. Our idea is to fill this out at the end of each month, so we can track our progress on each platform, and see what went well and what didn't.

Of course, it wouldn't be nice to keep this planner all to ourselves. Therefore we give you the opportunity to download our planners for free. Just follow the links below and you'll find the planners and lists ready to be printed.

• Monthly calendar (year 2015)
• Social Media To Do List
• Monthly Statistics

Let us know in the comments what you think of our idea of blogpost organisation! We are also interested to hear your other creative ideas of blogpost planning. Share your thoughts with us! :)

xx

Lisa & Ivanna

Unofficial Blog Meeting

Because we both had the day off and were a little bored, we decided to have an "unofficial blog meeting". As you may have noticed, the blog looks a lot different than it did two months ago and we're still making little improvements here and there. For instance, we only found out this afternoon that our breathtakingly spectacular drop down menu that had taken us at least six hours to make and perfect with our non-existing knowledge of HTML and CSS looked utterly awful on other people's computers. Luckily, we have managed to build up enough experience in this field to be able to fix these kind of problems within a reasonable time frame. Which gave us enough time to have lunch, cuddle kittens and play Sims 4. 

Kingsday Free Market Sale

Last Saturday was The Netherlands' first ever Kingsday! And, just as we did with the previous two Queensdays, we joined the free market in our hometown Vlaardingen. We had been working incredibly hard - making an enormous supply of jewelry (which explains why we haven't been very active on our blog recently...), designing and printing new cards*, and moving around all kinds of furniture to display our items properly. Add that up to the fact that we had to get up at 5 in the morning to find ourselves a nice spot, and you can understand it was quite an exhausting day ;) 

Shop Update: Behind-the-scenes - Handling Orders

Not really a shop update, but since we've been so busy with our shop lately, we thought it would be nice to talk about our "behind-the-scenes" process a little more! We love pretty much everything we do for our blog and shop (except for writing Etsy listings, which is kind of a drag :p), but the thing we love most is handling orders. Because ultimately, that is what it's all about: making our jewelry, and trying to make our customers happy. So, today we will share a little insight in our process of handling orders!

Firstly, when we receive an order, we immediately start creating and/or adjusting the items. In case of bracelets, we might have to adjust the size, or create a new bracelet altogether. Sometimes the customer can choose from a variety of colours or charms, and we will make and adjust the items to the customers desires. Since we often have just one piece per design in store for pictures, we usually have to make the ordered item from scratch. This takes a bit of time, but personally we like that we can really put our heart and soul into that one piece!

Men's Jewelry Moodboard

We have had some requests from our male friends to make more jewelry for them as well, instead of just their girlfriends. Of course, we have made some men's jewelry before (like our leather Dead Or Alive bracelets, our Squaretacular Bloodstone, and Rocking Charms), but now, we wanted to dedicate ourselves completely to the task of designing an entire collection of men's jewelry!

The obvious thing for us to do, would be to make the same items we made for our female customers, only darker and sturdier, but we think our boys deserve more than just these cliché pieces. We always try to create from a natural angle, using as many pure materials as possible, and trying to capture the colours and textures of nature, while combining them with emotions and symbolism. And who says men can't wear this type of jewelry instead of just black leather and skulls? In order to assemble our ideas, we created the moodboard you can see below. Of course, this is just a little taste of what we have in mind, but since we've already started working on the new pieces, we can assure you it will look great!

Lisa & Ivanna

PS: What kind of jewelry do you like for men?

Photos by us, the Hemp Beadery, Allthedumbthings, and Sayila

Queensday Sale

As we announced earlier, this Queensday we were at the free market in Vlaardingen (with our handmade jewelry). The weather wasn't as great as we had expected, but despite the cold we had a great day!

Meeting at DE Café

Last weekend, we met at the Douwe Egberts Café in Rotterdam to discuss some new ideas for our shop. The atmosphere in this café is very cozy and homely. At the same time the interior has a modern look and has place for people who want to chat with friends, but also for people who want to study with their laptop or read some magazines. This place is really inviting to have an informal meeting on creative projects like ours!