Hello There

I'd like to start off my introduction by saying how delighted I am to be a new member here at Art Jewelry Elements. When I was first approached by Jenny Davies-Reazor to join I was flabbergasted!
Jenny did an interview with me back in April, you can read it here. I was completely amazed when she asked me for the interview.  Well, when she contacted me to join the AJE team-I was over the moon! Then all of a sudden, the little demon of self-doubt popped up and said NO: it's over your head, you're not capable, you can't do it right now, it would consume too much time, blah, blah, blah.
Guess what? I won. Beat that little demon right back into his box on the shelf.

So, here I am-Cathy Spivey Mendola, jewelry and fiber artist. I have had a long journey of creative endeavors over the years. Like my fellow newbie member Cooky, I was a nurse. Even while I was working as a nurse I was creating. I made teddy bears, rabbits and sheep as well as making dried and silk flower wreathes and arrangements for a local business.  Once my daughter was born I became a stay-at-home mom and the creative juices started to flow a bit more.

Frida Art Quilt, Circa 2007 With Minimal Beading

In the last 26 years I have made children's clothing, art dolls, jewelry, ceramics, mixed media paintings, collages, assemblages, art quilts, felting, knitting, etc, etc etc. Actually, it would take less time to list what I haven't attempted creatively over the years.  You can check out my blog to link to more of my past creations.

Beaded Buddha Art Quilt, Circa 2015 With Millions Of Beads

I just recently moved to NC from the Chicago area. I was very fortunate to have been a member of the North Suburban Needle Arts Guild; Womens Journeys in Fiber group; and a couple of smaller groups, one of which was a bead/fiber group named the Crazy 8's. Being a member of these groups helped me expand my skills in fiber arts as well as jewelry on top of making many great, creative friends along the way.

Beginning in 2013, a friend of mine and I decided to do an art journal. I had been feeling stuck and a little confused about the direction in which I wanted to go, artistically speaking. I thought joining with a friend would help keep me accountable. This wasn't your typical journal, this was a creative exploration that we came up with--try new techniques, new ideas, new media, and especially try all those new products we tend to buy and never use!

The very first month of the journal I decided to teach myself how to do a beaded peyote stitched bezel.

The Beaded Bezel That Started It All Done On Wet Felted Fabric

That was all it took. I became hooked on beading and bead embroidery.
Even though I had been making jewelry for years I had never really used seed beads (gasp!) except to embellish art quilts. I had never even WANTED to use them in jewelry! After I made several bead embroidered pieces to use in my art quilts I decided to try making a bead embroidered breast plate for the Shaman sprirt mask that I was making for our yearly project with the Womens Journeys in Fiber group. Once I created that piece I became obsessed with making pendants for necklaces.

Breast Plate For The Shaman Spirit Mask

I have had a lifelong habit of collecting sea shells, rocks, driftwood, anything I come across at the beach. So naturally, I started using these bits of found treasures in my beaded jewelry.
I was fortunate to have my beach themed jewelry featured in the summer issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry.

Belle Armoire Jewelry Summer 2016 Issue

Ammonite & Fossilized Shark Tooth Pendant

Now that I have joined the AJE team, I have a newfound love and appreciation of art jewelry components as well as my found treasures. I will keep exploring and expanding my beachy themed jewelry but I am also looking forward to using ceramic, glass and polymer clay components.

After AJE's headpin challenge last month, I realized just how much I have missed working with metals. It was so energizing to combine bead embroidered elements with the metals.  My enthusiasm for jewelry making has increased exponentially since joining, so stay tuned for more mixed media creations from me. I am really looking forward to being a team member here!

Beaded Moon Goodess Necklace

IT'S ME

Yes, it's Me! Cooky Schock, one of the newest members of the Art Jewelry Elements Team.  I'm creative, happy and grateful. But in reality I create in total chaos; I actually thrive on chaos-it's my happy place! I'm very asymmetrical in all I do, even my appearance.

I come from a nursing background so I did live in a very structured, well-organized world for a long while. And I am very grateful to be part of this community of artists. I have always been a maker of stuff: kids' clothes, bears, quilts and even quilted bears wearing kids' clothes. But seventeen years ago all that changed when I discovered The Shepherdess, a wonderful beadstore in Old Town San Diego. I learned to bead, create with wire and then work with metal, which became my passion.

I magically became the owner of The Shepherdess, which gave me the opportunity to meet wonderful teachers and students, all lovers of what I love! Three years ago The Shepherdess and I decided to retire and so we did!

Through the years I have had the opportunity to teach across the country, including Juneau AK and the Dominican Republic for Parson's School of Design. I continue to teach but I'm moving in a direction that has surprised even me.

 I've rediscovered a craft I did in the '70s this time more refined with an updated style that makes it more of a fine art. Welcome to my world of micro macramé!

It's a far cry from the plant hangers and fuzzy bearded Santas I made back then. My work has recently been featured in the Spring 2016 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry and in the new Fall issue also.

I'm sure that metal will always be a part of my art,  enhanced by the captivating colors and textures of the beads and fibers that I'm creating with now.

Actually, it's a good thing that my work, equipment, tools and supplies are becoming a bit more minimalistic because 2017 will find us (husband & two dogs) traveling in our new RV across the country, wherever the road leads us!

Website: www.cookyschock.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cookycrumb
Instagram: www.instagram.com/cookycrumb   

Instagram for your business

Do you Instagram? 

I do and I love it! It’s proving to be a great addition to my business. You have the opportunity to interact with people you couldn’t reach through other social media websites, share fabulous images of your designs and view tons of eye candy from other users. With 300 million active monthly users, there is something for everyone and inspiration everywhere.

My favourite thing is that it’s really simple to share what you’re up to, Facebook is quite involved, and trying to get yourself seen in the newsfeed is a daily battle, and call me old but I just don’t get Twitter. With Instagram, just take a picture on your phone and post with a short description… Ok, so maybe it’s not that easy, if you’re there, you want to build a following, and the great thing about IG is that you can easily target potential customers looking for exactly what you’re offering.

The key to IG is to appeal to people visually, and the most simple parts of your day can be made to look great with the use of their preinstalled tools and filters. I find it great for work in progress shots to generate interest for future updates, and I’ve been told a few times that people have missed my posts on Facebook and found out about what’s coming through my IG posts.

@blueberribeads

If you haven’t already, signing up is easy, use your Facebook profile, or an email and password, choose your profile name and your account will be created. 

So how do you use it to encourage buyers to visit your business? Firstly… fill out your profile. You have room for a profile picture, a bio, link to a website, your business name and your real name. Make sure that everyone can find out a little bit about you and how to reach your shop.

My profile

Next… great photo’s. As I said earlier, I like to share progress shots of what I’m doing, it could be a pile of beads for a jewellery design, a lump of clay ready to be turned in to beads, or some beads fresh out of the kiln. I’ve found that showing the work that goes in to your creations gets you customers that appreciate what you do. But it doesn’t have to be all about work, pet pics are always popular, sunsets, a close up of a flower in your garden, something quirky you’ve found or a naturally occurring pattern. Share all of the things that appeal to you, you can bet they will appeal to others and keep them interested in following your profile.

Once you’ve taken your photo, play around with the filters and tools, crop and straighten images, edit shadows and add a vignette to make them look amazing. Only use great photos, when other users visit your feed, you want it to look fabulous… a great set of pictures will encourage people to follow you. 

Once you’re happy with your image, you can add a sentence or two and some hashtags. 

Hashtags are simply words with a # before them. The # turns the word in to a link, so say you use the hashtag #jewellery if someone searches the site for jewellery, your image will appear in the results. The trick with these is to keep them relevant to appeal to your audience while growing your following. As you type in the tags, IG give you options of the most popular to choose from. Or create your own. A list of the top 100 tags to get your stats booming is available here. Using relevant tags that people are already searching for will give you a good start to building your profile.

Before posting your picture, you also get the option to share your image to other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr, (you can set up where to share to in your profile) hitting everywhere in one easy click. 

Once you have a small collection of pics ready for people to look at, find people to follow. Using the search, type in a word for what you’re looking for, typing in Ceramic Beads will bring up the relevant results from the top users, people, tags, and places on the site. While searching, take note of the tags people with similar interests to yours use. The more specific you are with your tags, the more accurately you can target people looking for what you have. 

Follow users you like using the button on their profile, comment on pics you like, share the love and you will likely find that the majority of your follows are returned and you’re well on your way to increasing your popularity. 

Once you have some followers, post regularly, build your brand and share your story, fingers crossed before long, your users will interact and those interactions will convert to sales. 

Keep a note of what works for you, posting times, hashtags used, content etc, and you should begin to build a good formula of what works and what doesn't. There are apps available for tracking your stats if you don't want to do it old style with pen and paper. 

To download the Instagram app follow the links for your device.

AppStore Download

Play Store Download

Here at AJE we love Instagram and you can follow us using the links below…

@artjewelryelements - The blog IG Profile
@jennifercameron - Jennifer Stout Cameron
@jdaviesreazor - Jenny Davies-Razor
@blueberribeads - Caroline Dewison
@suebeads65 - Susan Kennedy
@nikysayers - Niky Sayers
@thedaintybeader - Kristen Stevens
@ktotten - Karen Totten
@theaelements - Lesley Watt
@suburbangirlstudio - Diana Ptaszynski

I hope you’ll stop by and visit us!  Leave your link in the comments so we can come and see you!