A Day in the Life

Posted on by grayspinel

Have you ever wondered what a day looks like in my life? Today is the day to find out!

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7:00-7:15am Do a preliminary check of my email and social media to see what might be coming my way for the day.

7:15am Get my daughter dressed, fed and ready for the day.  I’ve recently weaned myself off coffee, and it’s been absolutely brutal.

8:00am See my husband and daughter off to work and school/camp.

8:15am A thorough check of emails, start planning the day.  If it’s a Monday, I write a bit on Facebook for the blog post, mentioning any big things that have been going on, designs I’m working on, sales etc.

9:00am Take photographs of gems and jewelry, depending on what the sun is doing. During the winter months, it’s almost always overcast, so sun is a precious commodity!

10:00am Respond to email.  Post to social media, usually instagram.

10:30am Post new items to etsy, edit photography, write descriptions for items while eating lunch – often yogurt, unless I’m feeding my daughter too, which means I will eat something more substantial.

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12:00pm Shipments usually arrive around this time. If I’m not expecting anything, I will probably ship items.

1:00pm Work on new designs, or incomplete designs that need to be revised and finished.

4:45pm Stop working on designs, start thinking about family time and dinner.

6:00pm Dinner time! I often recruit my daughter to help me cook, which for a 4 year old means stirring. She is an excellent stirrer!

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7:00pm Play time. Sometimes I will try to post to social media here and there, but I usually reserve this time to spend with my family.  Often we will go for a walk if it’s light out, or watch something on the Food Network (my daughter’s favorite shows are Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen because she likes eliminating people), or just play with toys.

8:00pm Get my daughter’s bath time and bedtime routine started.

9:00pm Do a final email check for the day, post to instagram. Tuesday is usually my blog writing night.

9:30pm Watch tv shows or a movie with my husband, I tend to continue checking social media throughout (while he is checking his email!), and might post to SnapChat. Some favorite shows range from Game of Thrones, Better Call Saul (and Breaking Bad!), Homeland, UnREAL,  Arrow, Once Upon A Time, among others.

11:30pm Hit the sack. I’m usually lucky to make it to 11:30 without falling asleep. Every once in a while I manage to stay up past midnight, but it has become more rare lately.

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I mentioned that I will post to FB about my sales – I am running a sale for the month of August, and you have to check my Facebook posts for the coupon code!

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Social Media Updates

Posted on by grayspinel

Ok, I’ve been trying to be more active on social media as of late, so I figured I should update everyone here!

Instagram
username: @thegemstoneproject
I have tried to cultivate a fun Instagram feed and carefully decide what to post every day. I typically try to post 3-5 times every day. I will often alternate between bright colors and more subdued black and white images (or black and white items) because I feel like the colors stand out more if they have black and white to temper the bright color of the images. I post a LOT of macro images. Instagram is probably my social media platform of choice. I love taking photos.

Facebook
Want to know when I update my blog? Or when I want to give a quick update, but don’t have time to do a full blog post? Facebook is that place. I also respond to messages, and I try to keep people up to date on all of my goings on. I usually post every one or two weeks.

Pinterest
I don’t think I’ve shared my Pinterest boards before. Well, if you want to take a look, I am here to share them! I have a multitude of different boards for jewelry, and it should surprise no one (seriously, no one!) that they are organized by the color of the jewelry on the board. Blue, pink, teal, red, black & white, gray, etc! My favorite board is the “Multi Colored Bling” board – Some really amazing use of color in fantastic items of jewelry! Note: the “Delicacies” board is a bit tongue in cheek!

Twitter
username: @gemstoneproject
Typically I tweet whatever I’m thinking when I’m thinking it. I’ve also taken to tweeting out my instagram posts as of late. This is going to give you a more candid look at what I do, and I often rant about cooking related things on Twitter (almost always related to Food Network shows!)

Snapchat:
username: gemstoneproject
Want to know what I’m cooking? Or fun stuff I’m doing? I’ve been enjoying snapchat lately, posting snapshots of life, often a bit more candid than what you might see here, on etsy or on instagram. Random bling shots, cooking, food, a bit more life rather than bling.

Etsy
The bulk of what I offer for sale is available here. I try to be more methodical in my sale listings because etsy takes so long to make a listing, it takes away the fun of adding a flair for the dramatic in my writing.  I seem to do more seasonal updates here, and often post items that people have consigned with me.

And just because I always post a picture….

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Updates on Jewelry Line

Posted on by grayspinel

Sometimes I go into Sunday and I realize that I have no idea what kind of blog to post for Monday. And there are sometimes when I’m super organized and have blog ideas or even whole blog entries that are ready to be posted a month into the future. I currently have a bunch of informational blogs that are in the works (at least ten?) but I haven’t had time sit down and write, edit and crop pictures to add to them, so I’m just going to write a bit about what I’ve been up to!

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I don’t know what is going on, but I’ve hinted around at things a bit on social media. My daughter was going down the stairs earlier this week, when she took a tumble and fell 2/3 of the way down the entire flight. Not to be outdone, my husband tried to jump down the stairs to catch her, and in the process fractured his ankle, while she just has a handful of bruises. So, I have been driving them everywhere and taking care of dogs, cats and the house as well as my usual activities and chores, and my work has been suffering as a result. My husband is finally a bit more mobile, and getting better every day, but most things are still a struggle.

I typically try to avoid working much on weekends, since it’s the only time I really get to hang out with my family, but extenuating circumstances happen from time to time, and you gotta roll with the punches. So, if you have sent me a conversation on etsy or email inquiries, and I am slow to respond, that is why. I will get to everything eventually, it will just take a while longer than normal!

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Anyway, I have a necklace design and a ring design that are just about finished and out of production. Not sure if I will put the necklace design up onto the site immediately or wait for a bit, but as soon as that ring prototype is in my hands, and photographed, I will get it up on the site, which should be later this week. It’ll be the Aurore setting if you want to be on the look out for it.  I am waiting for two halo ring prototypes to be completed, and again, as soon as those are complete, they will also go straight up onto the site. I’m super excited to share these with you – they have been in the works for so long! If you want sneak peeks of these upcoming items, the place to go would be Instagram, where I tend to post at least 3 images a day of gems I’m playing with, jewelry items, architecture, my animals or pretty flowers – which will likely soon turn into winter scenes!

I am also working on a custom setting for a gorgeous blue-violet spinel cushion, a setting for a large violet sapphire, and just got word that I will be getting some stones in the not-too-distant future for some more custom projects (sounds like earrings and rings). I also had an idea for two pairs of complementary statement earrings that will be fantastic once I can collect all of the stones for them. Oh, and I received some amazing gray spinel pairs from one of my favorite spinel vendors.

Stay tuned! Fun stuff is on it’s way!

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JCK 2015

Posted on by grayspinel

Last minute informational post, because I have a lot going on this week, and have already posted a lot of blogs for the month!

I have been invited to attend JCK as a designer with a LA based company that I have done some contract designing with. As much as I’d love to live blog from JCK, I think that I will actually just tweet and instagram like a crazy person instead.

So! If you haven’t found me on Instagram or Twitter already, now is the time to do it!

Twitter

Instagram

On another note, I have decided to hold a SUMMER SALE on my etsy shop. Starting TODAY through July 31st, you can use the code: “SUMMER15” (no quotes!) for 15% off any purchase over $100. I will be putting my etsy shop in vacation mode while I am at JCK, and packages will not be mailed out until I get back.  The Gemstone Project on Etsy. 

And an Aquamarine just for fun!

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Update on Social Media

Posted on by grayspinel

I’ve been spending a bit more time on social media with little updates here and there, so if you haven’t already, you should find me, especially with JCK and related events coming up! Here is how my social media presence typically breaks down:

Instagram – multiple daily photo updates 5-7 days a week. I take an obnoxious amount of pictures (of everything!) and upload gemstone, jewelry, inspiration and other images very often.

Facebook – 2-5 times per week, sometimes multiple daily updates depending on what’s going on.

Twitter – 1-5 weekly updates, blog posts, what I’m up to, retweets of interesting articles or interesting tweets of trade related items

LoupeTroop – I have decided to preview items from inventory to LoupeTroop, since it is a designated jewelry bulletin board. I will add items here first before they go into the Etsy shop. I anticipate adding a couple new items once a week or so.

Etsy – I’m hoping that the Etsy shop will be functional for about a year in total. I would like to concentrate my design efforts elsewhere with settings and away from selling loose gemstones in about a year. I would prefer to add items that have not sold on LoupeTroop to the Etsy store about 2-4 times a month.

Pricescope – My current trade username there is ElleW, my former non-trade username is FrekeChild. I try to post at least once a day, but with the trade regulations, it makes it a bit harder to post frequently.

Pinterest – This is still under construction.

I prefer to not post my email address publicly at this time because there are so many options to contact me privately and in public. My Facebook page, etsy, LoupeTroop and instagram are probably the best places to send me private messages!

Here is a cute little tsavorite since this is a photoless post!

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Social Media

Posted on by grayspinel

Have you found me on social media yet?

I was just lamenting to a fellow gemstone lover, Jeffrey Hunt, the other day that with blogs, you don’t really get to interact with people a lot. Sometimes I feel like I’m just writing for myself and posting it out into the vast vacuum that is the internet.

So, in the event that you want to know what I’m up to on a more regular basis, you can find me on instagram:

thegemstoneproject on instagram

I typically try to post at least once a day, although sometimes its not until the middle of the night! I typically post pictures of what I’ve been working on that day or just pictures of gems I photographed and liked.

I also try to update my Facebook page at least a few times a week, which you can find here:

thegemstoneproject on Facebook

Right now I’m considering if I should start an etsy shop, or if I should go into a full blown website to sell some loose stones I have floating around, and eventually my own designs. Feel free to drop me your opinion on either of the two links above!

Untreated Blue Topaz:

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Blue sapphire:

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Blue sapphire:

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Unheated Aquamarine:

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I figured I’d go monochromatic with the gemstone pics today. Yay blue!

Also, because I’ve been putting so much effort into social media and getting designs together for a collection, I figured something needed to be cut a little short. So I know that I’ve just started doing two blogs a week again with the new year, but I just can’t maintain everything else that I’ve been working on and keep the blog posting up to twice a week. It’s either that or sacrificing sleep, and I’m already at a minimum on that! If I do find myself with extra time, or I happen to have a bunch of extra pictures so I can do a Gem Blast, I will post an extra post here and there!

Also, an important announcement is upcoming! So the next two week’s blogs should have some exciting things going on! Which reminds me, one of those blogs will be an extra post, not the regularly scheduled ones!

(Here is a hint: one refers to something I mentioned in this blog, and another has to do with a surefire way to make sure your jewelry doesn’t look like anyone elses!)