Communicating the brand

Everything your customers see and hear about you and your work is part of your brand. Everything – including things you don’t intend.

Here are earring cards I made with Zazzle’s design tool.

Here are earring cards I made with Zazzle’s design tool.

As an artist, you hope that your work that speaks for itself, but that’s not always the case. That’s why it’s important to control for aspects of your brand that you can.

One of the ways I do this is by using earring cards and jewelry tags that are customized with my logo. The cards are clean and simple – much like my jewelry finishes. They provide a backdrop that is on brand and highlights my creations.

I wanted some new cards that were both freestanding and could be hung on my shutter displays (more on those in a later post). I found a folded business card on Zazzle that I could customize with my logo and website address, and I ordered them.

Zazzle doesn’t offer custom cutting/hole punching so I had to do that myself with an awl (a tack would also have worked). The end result was pretty good -- and affordable. With a discount code (Zazzle always has some promotion going on), I was able to get 75 cards for about 42 cents each.

Zazzle also is a marketplace for all kinds of items – from the business cards I got to t-shirts, stickers, mugs, banners, magnets and more – and is open to anyone to design and sell items there. Zazzle fulfills and ships any orders and pays designers a royalty.

Because I have a pretty good idea what jewelry makers want and need, I decided to design and sell earring cards and jewelry tags. The store, argento supply, is here: https://www.zazzle.com/store/argento_supply.

Take a look and let me know what you think. If you order any cards, I will get a 5% royalty.

Cleaning copper

I use copper in most of my work, often in conjunction with sterling silver (The "kupra" in the company name means "copper" in Esperanto). In time, copper will tarnish and darken as it reacts with compounds in the air.

It's inevitable. The copper will darken, even if it has a protective layer or patina applied. You may like this, or not. I've found that Sunshine Polishing Cloths do a good job of removing the tarnish and shining up the copper. I provide a free sample cloth with every direct sale of $50 or more.

There are other ways to clean your copper jewelry. Nunn Design, which produces jewelry components, tried and tested several methods using household items. I've used a few of these myself.

  1. Lemon Juice and Salt

  2. Vinegar and Salt

  3. Baking Soda and Salt

  4. White Vinegar and Salt - boiled. This was declared the winner

  5. Ketchup and Water

Read about the testing on Nunn Design's blog.

Here's another technique I tried that produces a satin finish. Soak the piece in vinegar for several minutes, then clean with an old toothbrush and toothpaste.

One last thing. If you have purchased my jewelry and live in the Hampton Roads area, I will clean and polish the items for free. If you are out of the area, please contact me and I'll recommend the best way to clean your jewelry.

Lemons can clean your copper jewelry.

Lemons can clean your copper jewelry.