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1) What Do You Know About Dichroic Glass?

2) What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - new articles!

3) Featured Article: How to Build Your Jewelry Business with Joint Ventures

4) Neat Jewelry Related Website: Fashion Era Jewellery History

What Do You Know About Dichroic Glass?

Many of us here have designed jewelry using gorgeous dichroic glass created by glass art wizardry. We know its coloring is magical and our customers love it, but how much do you know about the dichroic glass itself?

It was originally developed for the US space program, and it possesses the unique property of reflecting one color while transmitting another. As a result, we see different colors when we hold the glass at different angles.

Dichroic glass is made by spraying a chemical film on the glass in a controlled environment - which makes it one of the most costly glasses to produce. That's why it's usually used in small items such as jewelry or as accents in larger art pieces.

Before firing, the dichroic glass coating is fragile and easily scratched, but after firing it's much sturdier. However, it should not be left in water for long periods of time since the coating may soak off.

(Source: Warm Glass.)

What's new at
Home Jewelry Business Success Tips

This month I'm introducing an exciting new section of articles:

Jewelry Business Success Stories
I'm interviewing several successful jewelry artists who share their stories of earning a living with jewelry art. Their insights and individual paths to success are inspirational and full of helpful information.

Paul Tarlow of Izm Studio
Here's our first jewelry business success story. Warm glass artist Paul Tarlow discusses his road to jewelry business success with the gorgeous glass art cabochons and pendants he creates in his Izm Studio.

Keep an eye out for more Jewelry Business Success stories coming soon.

And now here is our newest selection of great articles from our guest authors:

A Cure for Jewelry Designer's Block
Every jewelry designer experiences an occasional creativity block. Guest author Rickina Velte of Spipo Designs offers ideas for breaking out of the block and getting your creative jewelry designs flowing again.

What Jewelry Stores Don't Want You to Know About Their Pricing
Understanding how retail jewelry stores price their wares not only helps you shop and negotiate for the best deal, but can also help you price your handcrafted jewelry for sale. Guest author Eugenia Bivines of Wholesale Jewelry Connection explains how jewelry store pricing works.

Jewelry Website Building for Dummies
Building a website to get your jewelry business online can be a simple process. Guest author Heidi Batiste of Mia's Treasure describes her experience with setting up her own jewelry business website.

Why don't you become published author too? Submit a jewelry business article and in addition to fame, you'll also receive a free permanent link to your website, plus a boost in your traffic. Our guest authors report a nice flow of traffic coming from their article links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips!

How to Build
Your Jewelry Business
with Joint Ventures

A joint venture is when two or more businesses agree to work together toward a win-win situation. One of the main reasons businesses decide to work together this way is to have access to resources or markets that they couldn't reach alone.

As a jewelry artist, you can really build your business by working cooperatively in all kinds of joint ventures. It just takes a little creative brainstorming, a willingness to share, and a belief that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

Joint ventures can be large or small. Depending on what you'd like to achieve, your joint venture partners can be either other jewelry artists, or businesses in completely different industries.

Examples of Jewelry Business Joint Ventures

Here are a just few ways you can benefit from working cooperatively with other businesses. The possibilities are endless; you can use these examples as a springboard for ideas for joint venture partners and projects that would benefit your jewelry business:

1. Reach each other's customers - for example, put each other's coupons/ads in your product packaging; organize your own shows together; package some of your products together; personally refer customers/friends to each other.

2. Share advertising costs - advertise cooperatively and share ad expenses; on your websites, endorse and recommend each other's site (a step beyond the standard links-page link exchanges); exchange newsletter ads.

3. Jointly buy and share expensive equipment that you couldn't afford individually - such as an art show tent, a Cloud Dome photo studio, or a precious metal clay kiln.

4. Share fees and space in a booth you couldn't afford individually - for example, at a major multi-day show or a trade show.

5. Work with another jewelry artist to produce a jewelry line for a wholesale market that's too big to fill by yourself.

6. Combine your products or services into a new product or service - for example: local resort + jewelry artist = jewelry workshops for tourists; jewelry artist + software guru = new jewelry business software; florist + jewelry artist = beautiful jewelry from preserved flowers; bench jeweler + lapidary artist = incredible one-of-a-kind jewelry.

7. Cut costs on supplies - combine your jewelry supply orders with one or more other jewelers to meet wholesale minimums or volume price breaks, and to share shipping costs.

Some Benefits of Joint Ventures

• Build your credibility by associating yourself with other established, reputable businesses.
• Benefit from another businessperson personally recommending your jewelry business to his/her customers, colleagues, friends, and relatives.
• Have access to supplies or equipment you couldn't afford individually.
• Add new customers to your mailing list and grow your customer base.
• Solve some of your business problems for free.
• Save time by sharing the workload with someone else or farming out the tedious parts.
• Save money by combining orders with another business and sharing equipment and other resources.
• Make your business more valuable to your customers by offering them new/better services or products.
• Target new market niches.
• Go after bigger, more profitable markets.
• Grow your business faster.
• Barter for services or supplies.
• Network with other professionals.

Joint Venture Success Tips

In a successful joint venture, everyone contributes something and everyone benefits from the project. Consider what you'd like to achieve, and also what you have to offer in the way of time, materials, equipment, expertise, etc. Once you know your goals and what you can contribute, you can start thinking of appropriate joint venture partners.

Look for partners with resources, skills, and assets that are a good fit with what you want to accomplish. Also think about what's in it for them, and how they would benefit from participating.

When considering joint venture partners, it's also important to decide whether their thinking and business styles mesh well with yours, and whether you like the person or people enough to work with them on a project. It's hard to work cooperatively with people you clash with.

It also helps to be open-minded to the fact that everyone (especially artists and other one-person businesses!) has a different way of working. You will gain the most from this partnership if you're flexible about the project and listen carefully to each other.

Make sure everyone involved understands the details of the joint venture, and agrees to what each party will contribute and receive. It's a good idea to have the project in writing - either in e-mails that all parties keep as a reference, or in an informal agreement detailing the project and signed by all parties.

If you feel the need for a more formal agreement, consult a lawyer about drawing up a contract. Here's an example joint venture contract.

What do you want to achieve in your jewelry business that seems beyond your grasp? Detail one of your goals, and then look for a joint venture partner to work with toward your mutual success!

Neat Jewelry Related Website

Our neat site this time is Fashion Era Jewellery History. Did you know that in the 1300's fake pearls were made from white powdered glass mixed with egg white and snail slime? Or that Napoleon's coronation crown was decorated with cameos? And that the design of Victorian mourning jewelry often incorporated hair of the deceased loved one? There's no end to the fascinating trivia you'll discover in this site - you'll never again think of jewelry as mere adornment.

Find Specific Jewelry Business Info

Looking for specific jewelry business information or the answer to a question? Try our "Search This Site" feature to scour Home Jewelry Business Success Tips for any keywords you enter. A link to Search This Site is available from the bottom of the navigation bar at the left side of every page.

We have well over 140 articles now, plus lots more coming up - and sometimes knowing where to find specific information among so many articles can be tricky. But now you should be able to search easily and find what you're seeking.

If your search doesn't turn up any results for our site, then you've discovered a topic we need to add - please let me know the info or tips that are missing from our site.