Does What You Learn Lead You to Take Action?

Don't let your learning lead to knowledge,

let your learning lead to action.

                                      Jim Rohn

We have so many opportunities to gain knowledge and to learn from others around the globe in this computer internet cyberspace age.  I don't know about you, but I can spend hours surfing the web reading about all kinds of things ... health information, financial information, marketing on the web, decorating, how to articles, etc.   My mind gets overloaded with all this information.  I can spend hours doing this in the evening, and then, I'm tired and I go to bed.

But ---what am I doing with all this information?  I find I have multitudes of ideas for action, but very few of them come to fruition.

When it comes to my jewelry business, I decided I need to take one of my ideas, test it, market it, and see it through.  I seem to jump around a lot.  I may decide to work on improving my photos, so will take some photos again to post online for the items in my shop.  Then I may read a good article on keywords and off I go rewriting my titles and descriptions of products. Meanwhile my blog gets forgotten for weeks.

Blinders on

Really, I believe I need to put on blinders to prevent me from being distracted by all the data and information coming at me through cyberspace,  totally focus on a plan of ACTION, and see it through.  The plan can be multifaceted, but should have clear goals and milestones.

I am trying to do this by marketing to a niche of  career women who need to wear id badges to work each day.  I am focusing on  making beaded lanyards and selling them.  I set up a new shop on Artfire, LeAllyson's Lanyards and I also sell them at my Plumbeadacious shop on Etsy.  I am beginning to have some success with these.  Here is one I sold just this last week.

Gold Chain Lanyard with Lampwork Focal Bead

How do you deal with the massive amounts of information or knowledge that you take in each day?  How do you put your learning into ACTION?

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.

                                         James 1:22  NIV

Daily Jewelry - Beaded ID Badge Lanyards

I am focusing much of my beading efforts these days on creating beautiful beaded id badge lanyards.  As a person who works at an organization that requires me to display my id badge at all times above the waist, I find that having an attractive way to do that makes me feel good.  I have created five different ones that are in my own personal collection.  Now I have created many more to sell.

I have come up with several different styles of these.  One style I really like is to use a large lampwork bead as the focal bead, and then use smaller beads on the strand of beads.

Turquoise Shell Beaded ID Badge Lanyard

Some people may not like a large lampwork bead, so I have made some lanyards with smaller beads such as the one below.  Realizing that many people cannot afford or want to spend money on multiple lanyards, I am trying to make some that are fairly neutral that can be worn everyday.

Simple Silver and Crystal Beaded ID Badge Lanyard

For those who love to wear chain necklaces, I created chain lanyards.  

Rainbow Chain Beaded ID Badge Lanyard

And finally, the holidays are just about here.  For those who love to wear holiday apparel, I am beginning to make lanyards for Christmas.  Here is the first of those.

Santa in the Chimney Beaded ID Badge Lanyard

Each of these is carefully handcrafted from strong materials to ensure durability and safety.  

Do you wear an id badge lanyard to work?  What kind do you like to wear?  

Photos of Jewelry in Natural Sun Light

Since I moved to Colorado, I have many more opportunities to take photos of my jewelry in natural light.  My key light sources through windows are to the east and to the west.  Both are good, but in different ways.  When I lived in St. Louis, I took my photos for my shop, Plum Beadacious, in the basement with a homemade lightbox and artificial lights. I had everything set up for me to place my jewelry for the shot.  I did occasionally change background surfaces, and programmed my camera for the type of light I was using.  I think I got better over several years at doing this, but the pictures still had a harshness to them that I never did eliminate.

Now I have been playing with taking pictures in natural light.  I can get fresh crisp color that is not harsh, but I can't get it consistently.  The light changes from hour to hour and day to day.  Take a look at the pictures of a beaded id lanyard I made for a special order.  These pictures were all taken about 5:30 PM after I got home from my day job.

The first picture is one that was taken in my east window, somewhat shady at 5:30, but it has been a beautiful sunny day.  I placed the lanyard on the white painted window sill.  The blinds were lifted to allow as much light as possible to spill through the window.

Nice, but a little blue looking.  This is because of the shade at this side of the house at 5:30 PM.  However, by adjusting the lighting level on Photoshop Elements, I can improve this picture dramatically.  I do this by using the Full Edit function and going to 

• Enhance
• Adjust Lighting
• Level 

There you will see some icons that look like eye droppers.  I clicked on the white one and then moved my cursor over my photo to a place on the white background that is closest to true white and is not too close to the item or any shaded areas.  I then clicked my mouse, and magically the entire picture lightened up.

I then went to 

• Enhance
• Auto Sharpen

This provided crisper edges to my jewelry photo.

Next I selected the crop tool and cropped the picture to a square.  

Once I do all of this, I select File, Save for Web.  This allows me to tell the program what size picture I want.  Since Etsy recommends 1000 pixels, I type in 1000 pixels, and since the picture is square, and it is constrained to proportion, the picture ends up being 1000x1000 pixels.  I can then save it into my pictures folder in Windows.  It is ready to post on Etsy or anywhere else I would like, such as this blog.

Here is the edited photo - same one as above.  It is much brighter, but is it the best it can be?  Not really!

Let's take a look at a photo taken minutes later at my west window.  The sun was quite intense there at 5:30 PM.  I lowered my nice honeycomb blinds about 2/3 of the way, and I placed my item on a table about two feet away from the window sill.  The light was more intense than the east window, but not glaring.  I also used a soft decorative floral background.

Look at the first picture here taken at the west window, unedited.  Notice the crazy angle.  This is how I took the picture.

Now look at the edited version of the same picture.  I changed the orientation by going to

• Image
• Rotate
• 90% right

Then I did the same edits with the lighting level using the white eye dropper, and auto sharpened.  Don't you think it looks much better?

These edits are quicky fixes to immediately enhance your photos.  There are more sophisticated techniques to make them even better.

Natural light is my friend for my jewelry photography, and besides that my life is definitely enhanced by taking pictures in the wonderful sunshine instead of a dark basement with artificial light.

I invite you to share your experiences with photographing your jewelry, whether done in natural or artificial light.  We can all learn from one another.  I hope this is helpful to some of you.

More about Beaded Lanyards

Beaded Lanyards to Delight the Eyes

I have found the most delightful eBayer who creates stunning lanyards for id badges. They are incredibly beautiful. Her name is Emmie, and her shop is Emmie's Gems. Here is my favorite lanyard that she sold at auction.

Emmie's jewelry is full of gorgeous beads. She uses lots of handmade polymer clay beads that she purchases from various polymer clay artists. Then she accents these beautiful beads with all kinds of unique and wonderful silver beadcaps and spacers. All of her lanyards are yummy eye candy.

Emmie not only creates beautiful handcrafted items, her marketing of them is superior. She has oodles of excellent photos, and she carefully describes each of the beads she uses in the product. She explains her high quality in a way that is convincing to the customer.

I am inspired by Emmie's artistry and her dedication to presenting her work on eBay in a delightful way. She has lots of Christmas designs too. Here are a few more. Click on the pictures to link to them in her eBay shop.

Stylin' As We Work

As school is started and vacations are over, we all start thinking about supplies and needs to make our everyday work a bit easier and more convenient. Many of us, including myself, are required to wear or carry an ID badge to work or school. These have absolutely no style or fashion sense at all, and are a necessary item in today's world. Many crafters make beaded ID badge holders to wear around the neck as a fashion accessory. They are called lanyards, and some are remarkably beautiful.

I tried my hand at making a few of these and will be selling them at my Plum Beadacious shop on Etsy. They are comfortable to wear, and add a touch of fun to every day attire. I made mine without magnetic break away clasps. I did this because whenever I wear a piece of jewelry with a magnetic clasp, I am constantly watching to make sure it has not fallen off. I have had problems with that, and so don't want to be losing my ID badge because of this. However, I do know that for safety reasons, many schools and employers require break away lanyards. So I will do them if customers would like me to. I plan to go ahead and make some with break away clasps so that customers have a choice.


I would love to hear your comments about these. Do you wear an ID badge? Would you wear a beaded one? Would you need a break away clasp? Please let me know.