How can you get paid to do what you love?
Posted on Apr 18th, 2007
by
Heartseed
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for April 18, 2007:
For right now, I admit I just don't know.
I have a natural gift for making a particularly harmonic form of stone bead jewelry. I create necklaces for grounding, necklaces for heart opening, that can be worn daily, and are for the most part "self-cleaning", (though I recommend a 2 week dry salt vacation after particularly difficult times). I've never met anyone who does what I do or understands it as completely as I do.
It's not about charging the things. Any Reiki 1, or for that matter nearly anyone, can do that. It's about building a stone creation that synergistically supports human energy field shifts, without charging, as a thing in its own right.
Much of the stone jewelry I see is not harmonious. And for a sensitive person such as myself, it's sort of like listening to cacaphonic static of a low order. You just don't want it around, and can't understand why anyone would. However, acknowledging my princess and the pea nature, I realize it's a peas-ful world to most people, who love it that way.
I had made these pieces in bulk, with a build it they will come attitude, and had not been able to sell anything. The Peas-ful people found little value in my work because they were not energetically sensitive, and refused to pay anything close to a reasonable price. Their idea of a proper price was often below my actual cost, because the beads I can use for necklaces comprise maybe - out of a good batch- only 1/3 to 1/2 of the materials. And yes, I was buying wholesale as much as possible, but without volume, wholesale doesn't always help that much. I gave the "low-energetic-quality" materials to someone else to make earrings.
So far - I'm incredibly gifted at making something people enjoy as gifts but aren't willing to pay for. FYI - I was charging $30-50 for a choker length with 18K finishings, and $100-200 for 28-30 in (handsewn deerskin leather finished) necklace and earring sets. And naively - this was not priced at 50% or more over cost, so that I'd have a margin to run crazy sales. My profit margin was fairly slim, given how long it took me to properly make these things. And I can't turn it over to anyone else to do because each bead is chosen and placed in harmonious resonance with the others, and I haven't met anyone else who understands how to work like that properly, even if they have the pattern. My stuff is just unique.
You can see examples in my photo section. http://heartseed.zaadz.com/photos/album/4418
After working at it several years, I gave away the pieces and sold my bead inventory, because it wasn't working at all commercially. I gave up on this project until I could figure out what to do to be paid at this work.
At least my paintings sell occasionally. I love to make them, too, but not as much as the jewellry. They're not all gifts. There are people who "get" my paintings and will pay - usually - about $200 for a canvas. Derivative work (cards, posters thru Zazzle.com http://www.zazzle.com/loveisall ) hasn't sold.
So --- I'm all ears ----
How can this stone beadwork that I genuinely love to do - more than anything else - be done successfully commercially?
I have a natural gift for making a particularly harmonic form of stone bead jewelry. I create necklaces for grounding, necklaces for heart opening, that can be worn daily, and are for the most part "self-cleaning", (though I recommend a 2 week dry salt vacation after particularly difficult times). I've never met anyone who does what I do or understands it as completely as I do.
It's not about charging the things. Any Reiki 1, or for that matter nearly anyone, can do that. It's about building a stone creation that synergistically supports human energy field shifts, without charging, as a thing in its own right.
Much of the stone jewelry I see is not harmonious. And for a sensitive person such as myself, it's sort of like listening to cacaphonic static of a low order. You just don't want it around, and can't understand why anyone would. However, acknowledging my princess and the pea nature, I realize it's a peas-ful world to most people, who love it that way.
I had made these pieces in bulk, with a build it they will come attitude, and had not been able to sell anything. The Peas-ful people found little value in my work because they were not energetically sensitive, and refused to pay anything close to a reasonable price. Their idea of a proper price was often below my actual cost, because the beads I can use for necklaces comprise maybe - out of a good batch- only 1/3 to 1/2 of the materials. And yes, I was buying wholesale as much as possible, but without volume, wholesale doesn't always help that much. I gave the "low-energetic-quality" materials to someone else to make earrings.
So far - I'm incredibly gifted at making something people enjoy as gifts but aren't willing to pay for. FYI - I was charging $30-50 for a choker length with 18K finishings, and $100-200 for 28-30 in (handsewn deerskin leather finished) necklace and earring sets. And naively - this was not priced at 50% or more over cost, so that I'd have a margin to run crazy sales. My profit margin was fairly slim, given how long it took me to properly make these things. And I can't turn it over to anyone else to do because each bead is chosen and placed in harmonious resonance with the others, and I haven't met anyone else who understands how to work like that properly, even if they have the pattern. My stuff is just unique.
You can see examples in my photo section. http://heartseed.zaadz.com/photos/album/4418
After working at it several years, I gave away the pieces and sold my bead inventory, because it wasn't working at all commercially. I gave up on this project until I could figure out what to do to be paid at this work.
At least my paintings sell occasionally. I love to make them, too, but not as much as the jewellry. They're not all gifts. There are people who "get" my paintings and will pay - usually - about $200 for a canvas. Derivative work (cards, posters thru Zazzle.com http://www.zazzle.com/loveisall ) hasn't sold.
So --- I'm all ears ----
How can this stone beadwork that I genuinely love to do - more than anything else - be done successfully commercially?

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