The Difference

So the other day Ava had her friends come over to our new house and they took part in helping with one of the stages of Nato Botto Art's creation process, packaging.

I had one of the girls punching holes in the earring cards after I had written the prices and collection name on them and another girlfriend put the earrings on the cards.

"Wow" $25.00" "That's a lot of money for a pair of earrings. You can buy some for 5.00 at Walmart, Target, Forever 21" or whatever highly commercialized store she was referring to.

This is when I felt compelled to give her a lesson in what all goes into creating the final product, how much time is spent in production and how little people get paid in other countries to create the earrings bought in such commercialized stores.

So what is in this process...Well lets go back to the beginning...Inspiration...What does my heart say? It wants to make some jewelry for people to wear and feel happy, creative, energized, loved, focused, confident, whimsical, flirty, sexy, elegant, etc. :)

So begins the next step..

Gathering the supplies, hunting down all the components needed for these creations to be brought to life. This can be a long process because I'm not just going to buy any old bead, finding, etc. I am going to find just the right one...Then the wait begins, the wait for the stuff to come in the mail..

Oh boy the mailman, yay! Next process begins, stocking the studio, putting all the supplies away in an organized manner for creative efficiency, so I don't make a complete mess of the place trying to find unorganized supplies. "Creativity is messy" that's a name of an fellow Etsy seller, her name is right, it can be messy which is why having a perfect place for everything to go makes cleanup A LOT easier.

Next step...Designing, having an idea for a collection is a great way to start. Like this last jewelry making session I had a few headline collection names I was going off of, Blown glass creations, flowers, funky fun and spring mint to name a few. Once a design starts usually I create a few styles off that original idea.

The next process begins... For us Etsians we have to take pictures of our work to sell so off our creations go to a photo shoot....Next process please...Photoshop/editing/sizing photos to fit in our store layout then ready to be listed in our store...Each item is carefully categorized, priced and described for all to see..But that is not all..Packaging, our products are then carefully/artfully attached to packaging to be sold not only online but in boutiques...So then what? Product is then brought to these boutiques to see if they would like to sell them in their stores..On top of all that there is invoicing to be done, taxes to be filed, etc and the process just begins and ends over and over again..But its all a wonderful journey..