My name is Karen and I am a stay home mum!

This is a website to help budding jewelry makers find information on crafting tips and is a place where I share insights to running my own online jewelry business.

First of all, I want to share some of my personal experiences of starting up a new business and I hope it can inspire you to do the same!

Basically, I had researched all of the aspects on how to make money online for months and I can tell you first hand that some of the most critical information was hard to come by. This letter is designed to outline the steps of setting up a home based internet business and to give you numerous resources for you to check out.

I hope that the information helps you in some way. If you are read, grab a cup of coffee and let’s go!

Is a Home Based Business Even Possible?

So, you are thinking about starting a home based-business to make money on the internet but that is as far as you have gotten. Well, let me tell you my story. I am a stay-at-home mother with four kids and am blessed with an extremely supportive husband.

I used to make and sell crafts in a local consignment store. I wove baskets, tole painted, made jewelry, cross stitched…If you could name it chances are, I actually did it.

That was until baby number 3 came along. Then, I realized I had no time, no energy and no room to craft or spend time on my hobbies. As the years went on, our fourth child had gotten older and became independent.

I started thinking about what I would like to do with myself and how I could contribute to our household income rather than deplete it with my hobbies.

This is where my journey into the jewelry design business begins:

I researched all aspects of an on-line jewelry business for 6 months. I researched suppliers, new jewelry techniques, wire wrapping techniques and polymer clay. If you are just starting out, I suggest that whatever you choose as a new home-based business, you should do learn everything that is possible about it.

Whether it is web design, crafts, jewelry or making gourmet dog biscuits (the list of possible home based businesses is endless!); learn, research and read!

A Community Helps!

I went to About.com and joined some of the forums. Basically, a forum is an online community that enables people to post a question or a picture and get answers from other like minded people. These are a group of highly experienced individuals who are giving out their best kept secrets and advice. Through these forums, I was able to find suppliers, books, and resources to help me learn more about the art of jewelry making.

One of my friends also gave me the advice that you need to give more than you receive online. In order for people to trust your opinion behind a screen, you need to make sure that the information you provide is of value and not rehashed from other sources.

Ok, you’ve done your homework, and you are ready to get busy.

Start out by getting your sales and use tax number. I really urge you to get your tax ID number as soon as possible. This is because many wholesale businesses require tax ID numbers before selling supplies to you.

I only paid around $17 for mine and the upfront cost is minimal while its upside of helping you save money is tremendous. When you go to a store and present your ID number, you don’t have to pay tax on the supplies that you will be using to resell.

The second tip is to time the orders of your supplies from wholesalers. To do this, you should have a list of suppliers that have reasonable prices with products that you are interested in beforehand. What I do is that I make a spread sheet in Excel with columns and rows. To stay organized, I write the suppliers name on the headers of the Excel file and on the side columns, I write the supplies that I need to order.

Next, I get on the internet and write down the price that 3 or 4 suppliers will charge for each item I am looking for. Make sure you don’t forget to add shipping costs into your prices. Most times, I have to order from a couple of suppliers because I can’t find a supplier that has everything that I am looking for.

Once you have products in stock, you want to get your business up on the internet. This is where it gets hard. If you think researching your trade was hard, getting your business on the internet will take you weeks or months of research and marketing. You can’t just build a site and expect customers to come!

To get started with jewelry marketing, I recommend a fantastic course on internet marketing and making money on the internet by Sitesell. They have a program that will reveal numerous ways to get your internet business rocking!

It is called Make Your Site Sell and they offer a FREE trial so that you are fully protected. Anyway, I already got my money’s worth out of the program. It is so reasonably priced that you can’t go wrong. I honestly believe that I would not be making money online if I hadn’t spent $29 to order the program.

I can’t say enough good things about it. If you are serious about making money online, I highly recommend that you visit this site if you don’t want to become one of those businesses that gets lost in the shuffle.

Good luck!

Do bookmark this webpage and check the other content we have on making jewelry. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mail @ jewelrymakinghq.com.