featured Friday: kitkit96

My name is Catherine Beigel, and I am thirteen years old. I live in Steubenville, OH with my Mom, Dad and seven siblings. I currently don’t belong to any etsy teams but I have applied and am still waiting to hear back from etsy youth and etsy jewelry designer’s guild.

I am homeschooled and am in the 8th grade so that takes up a big chunk of my time. Also like people my age I babysit and hang out with friends. During the summer I take tennis lessons as well.

 

I first started making jewelry when one of my friends got a jewelry making kit. I loved it and asked for one for Christmas. That is how I got started and now I am addicted. 

I do different things to come up with Jewelry designs. Some of those thing s are brainstorming sessions where I go sit down somewhere, in the car, in front of my beads, or outside, and just sketch different ideas. Also I surf etsy and Google images for color schemes and different ways to put different types of beads together. I never copy anyone’s designs. 

I use a lot of different types of supplies. It really just depends on the project I am working. Some supplies I use a lot are silver plated findings, silver toned findings, glass beads, gemstone chips, and occasionally I use sterling silver.

I love all of my jewelry pieces and it is really hard to pick a favorite. I really love the colors in this set though: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30852783 

I visit different websites and don’t really visit any top five, but I do check my email at gmail.com, and check my hearts at craftycult.com. I also go to different gaming sites, like foopets.com 

Although I am still fairly new myself I do have one tip for new etsy people. List, List, List. People can’t buy what is not there. Try listing at least one thing a day. I wasn’t doing this and I just started to about a week ago and I have already seen a jump in views of my shop and I have received 7 new hearts. 

I am really glad that they have the forums. I go there and I get such a wealth of information about everything craft related. As for things I would like to see, I’m not really sure. I love everything that the admin is adding and as long as they keep up the good work I am happy.

I’m not a very big promoter so I’m not the person you should take advice from. I use the forums and I hand out a lot of business cards at craft shows. Also I do occasional do interviews for people’s blogs like this one. 

My ultimate craft dream is to open a boutique store some day selling my jewelry and being open for consignment. 

And there you have it, a little about me, my craft and my business.