Part of my weekend was spent putting together jewelry kits for Annie’s Attic. This was reorder number 2, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a regular thing.

Now I have a good spot to sit and assemble the kits, and I am starting to get more of a pattern down when doing this so it doesn’t take me all day long to assemble a few dozen earring kits. I am also thinking of making more kits, especially now that I may have a good market for them. I have to say, however, that these first two kits have really taught me a lot about kit making, designing, and selling.

When you design a kit, you have two issues to deal with first: you want to create a pleasing design that has unusual materials in it, but you can’t really have materials that are too unusual because you have to be able to buy them repeatedly as you sell more kits. It is one of the catch-22 things: unique but not too unique. The other issue that relates to this one is cost. You want unique, easy to buy, and not too expensive; otherwise, you can price the kit too high for anyone to buy.

Another issue is color. You need to pick colors that obviously look good together, but you also have to consider how they will look when photographed and then the photos are added to a web site or catalog. As an example of a kit that does not do well as far as color is my Briolette Earring kit and tutorial that I sell on Etsy. When you see these in person, they have lots of sparkle, and I get compliments whenever I wear them. But, photographs just do not do justice to them because rose quartz, silver, and clear crystal do not show up well in photographs. No matter how much my husband and I played with the lighting and even tried enhancing the photos, they just don’t look the same as they do in real life.

These are just a few of the elements I have to think about as I work on future jewelry kits. It definitely makes my exercise my jewelry design muscles!