Balancing jewellery with full-time work

How do people manage to work full-time and run a small business??? It's tough. Commernced ft work some weeks ago and assumed I'd be able and dedicated enough to devote lots of time to it after work!

Silversmithed takes soooooo long! Filing, cutting, sanding, soldering, pickling, filing, sanding, polishing etc etc etc. I had lots of gemstones I wanted to put into my pieces but its just not easy!!! While im not new at all this, im not exactly an expert at it either. I need to find something thats a filler! I was thinking of cutting loads of shapes from the copper and just heat treating them and making them into pendants. Perhaps???

How do you guys cope? Or is it just me having a bad time at the mo?
:confused:

I've recently quit my job to go self employed, finish on the 17th July, can't wait. In my experience, if you have no social life, no family or basically nothing to take up your time outside of work then you can do it, otherwise, as I have learned it's very difficult! I find it hard to work on jewellery in random segments of time that I can grab, especially when a piece demands quite a lot time to complete. I guess if you are wanting to make it work, you'll haver to be ruthless with time management and what you will devote time to outside of your ft job to make it work. Good luck, let us know how you get on!

To be honest I found it too hard working and focusing on my jewellery.
I quit my job to do full time jewellery in Dec 07. Its been great being my own boss.

Though it can get a bit lonely if you are at home all the time on your own - agent_44 make sure you get out lots! Or find lots of forums! Luckily my fiancee is now working at home too, so I have someone to talk to now - and to make me coffee! :D

Yes - I used to work for myself, and I was a bit of a hermit! And in fact all of my friends did live inside of my computer! Life's very different now however - I went back to ft work to meet people when my (now ex) husband and I broke up, and I have quite a lot of local friends and an active social life so the balance should be much better. I'm also a web developer so I plan on doing contract and freelance work in that area too which shoud get me out a little bit as well. And I am a bit of a forum addict!

I could do with someone to make me coffe though, hmm, I wonder if one of the cats could be trained...

I've been a freelance web designer for the past 8 or so years and I work from home, so when I decided to set up Milomade and start selling my work it was quite easy to fit around work as I'm not at the computer for a full 7 hours a day or even every day of the week. If I was working for a company doing the 9-5 I don't think I'd have the time/energy to do Milomade at all as I'd be away from home.

I have my studio/office set up with my web design desk against one wall and my creative desk against another. I've just starting learning silverwmithing/metalwork and so bought a small jewellery bench for that and that sit's in another corner - it's a tiny space but I love it. It does get a bit messy but I have a huge clear up every w/e.

It's a good mix as if I'm working away on a web project and get bored or frustrated with it, or am simply waiting on a client to supply content. I can go sit at my other desk and do some soldering or work on a project there and keep swapping like that to my hearts content.

I'm just a "hobbyist", but I also find it hard, with a nearly full time job and toddler to look after. I find it goes in fits and starts. At the moment, I've not managed more than about 1 hour in total over the last three weeks!

It's making me seriously cranky, actually - I just want to shut myself away and make something!!

Milomade - you sound like you have exactly what I want to acheive - although I am more of a developer than a designer!

It works for me. Think things will go tits up if I ever get pregnant and have kids though.

I work full time in a library and study too, so jewellery making is a very part time business for me. I just shut the door on my workshop so that I am not tempted to get lost in there when I should be doing other things. :(

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Originally Posted by Milomade

It works for me. Think things will go tits up if I ever get pregnant and have kids though.

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Although, I imagine it would be more managable and flexible than having a full time office job!

I work part time for the NHS and part time making jewellery. There has to be some give in the system and I'll be glad when the business is able to stand on it's own two feet!! Sometimes I'm busy(like know) sometimes I'm not

I work part time as a craft curator (2days a week), teach jewellery skills and design in the local college (1 day a week), am studying for my pgce (1 day a week), and making jewellery (3 days a week - note no spare days!). I never feel like I have enough time to make the things I want to make, and for the last couple of years I have worked on comission after comission, so my goal for this summer with my few spare days a week is to get some work made that I WANT to make and try and have it exhibited. I need a rich benefactor happy to fund my playtime I think!!

I gave up selling computer software (well paid) to make jewellery full time 4 years ago. Now I'm poorly paid but very, very happy. One day I'll stop buying tools and pay myself more (rofl yeah right!)
Nicola x

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Originally Posted by Milomade

It's a good mix as if I'm working away on a web project and get bored or frustrated with it, or am simply waiting on a client to supply content. I can go sit at my other desk and do some soldering or work on a project there and keep swapping like that to my hearts content.

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Sounds perfect, Im slowly getting there, but its the funds that are stumping me! need to find me a millionaire but of stuff on the side hahah!!
have recently become unemployed so looking for the perfect part time job to go along side!!

Balancing full time work and jewellery making is almost impossible! I've been doing both for a year and a half, making jewellery on Saturdays and Sundays and working in London during the week (I live in Brighton). It was very frustrating. So last month I decided to give up the pen pushing job and work on my jewellery full time. Its been a great month and I've nearly finished my first collection of pieces (only 12 items!) which hopefully will sell well locally and earn me a bit of a living.

I used to work part time and make jewellery part time. I gave up in December '07 to work full time on jewellery. I enjoy every minute although it's really hard work and I don't have much of a social life. Like Muranosilver, a big chunk of my profits goes on equipment.

Up until 2007 I worked as a clinical midwifery manager at the local hospital. I loved my midwifery but going into management was a mistake and made me quite ill. The stress was appalling. Then I had a stroke of luck (sort of); I was diagnosed with a health problem that precluded midwifery (something called Behcets Disease) and had to retire. Problem was, we still have a mortgage to pay and my OH is ten years older than me and due to retire. He had also given up a very well paid job in IT to enable me to further my midwifery and also to enable us to move to Devon.

Crap hit fan time eh?

Well, I set myself up, quite successfully as it happens, as a freelance writer and that pulled in more than enough to pay the mortgage. I was doing something I loved that was compatible with my health issues. Then came the credit crunch - the first people to get hit are the freelancers - especially if they do something like writing because everybody thinks its a simple matter to write and the function gets brought in house.

So, now I have time to reclaim my jewellery making. If you find a market for your stuff that can pay (although not like writing and certainly not like health service management). At the end of August my OH will be 65 and to my shame (because he gave up a well paid job for me) he will have to continue working in the cardboard box factory down the road. :'(

All of this is dealable with but the thing I find really difficult is the solitariness of working from home. Going out to work is as much a social activity as it is an economic necessity.

So, those of you who are lusting to give up the 9-5 - just remember that it ain't all roses (although, on balance, it is better than facing the politics of the workplace everyday!).

Di x

It's really encouraging to see so many people having given up work for jewellery and loving it! My plan to go Self Employed took a slight turn but I am hoping it will give me the right balance between being emplyed and having the freedom to work on my business. Basically I have found a job, from a website I frequently buy from, as a Web Developer, but I can work from home and hours to suit me, so I will save travel time, can have things in my kiln while I am working next to it, etc etc. Will make my life muuch simpler and easier to make time for my jewellery with any luck, and still give me a bit of time for my other half and social life too!

Oh Di, you posted that while I was writing, don't think I am being oblivios to your comments!

Sounds like you have had a rubbish run of bad luck financially :( I agree with being aware of the isolation of working for yourself, I have done it before. From my point of view I love ebing able to be at home in the day - I have my cats and tortoise for company (I know how sad that sounds, but I do find them good company - well mostly the cats - not so much interaction with a toirtoise!!) and I have a pretty good social life now. I didn't before and I was a bit of a hermit! And of course there's the internet :D

Hey 44 - I realised that but thank you for being concerned about it :X

I have Floozie (the ginger Tom) and my friends on FB and a couple of other sites and my ex- boss visits, as do a couple of friends. And, tbh, I prefer my own company - although most folk think I'm a raving extrovert.

I just wanted to remind folk that its not all its cracked up to be. Me being me didn't think about the downsides - the opportunity came and I went for it! I think that the pig flu (or whatever it is) caused me a moment of emotional incontinence. :">

x

Ooh, hope you don't have Swine Flu!

Yes - it's easy to wear the rose tinted glasses - I definitely do it!

Hi Di, I hope you are feeling less 'piggy' today. Just been reading this thread for the first time...and wanted to send you a big hug![] Our lives seem to have run very similar paths...including the much older OH - mine being 18 years older than me...and money problems - we lost our house and everything in the last recession and never really recovered. And I notice your logo is almost the same as mine - but I can't get the piccie to show for some reason (it is in my profile though!)

How is the 'evil brew' going? ... ready for the next Solunar 'Alternative Treatments' suggestion? I read recently that auto immune diseases respond well to an increase of 'good' intestinal bacteria...something to do with 'bad' bacteria encouraging a 'leaky gut' to allow allergens to pass into the bloodstream and create merry hel!!. A healthy 'good' bacteria colony helps to seal up this 'leaky gut' problem. Have you tried kefir...or some of the more bizarre fermented products like natto or kombucha tea. I use kefir a lot but haven't tried the others. (They sound like fun though - especially if you have a 'mud pie' mentality!;)) I don't think the commercial bacteria drinks offer much benefit being as they are pasteurised...you need the real 'buggy' macoy!! If you don't already do it - it might be worth reading up on it!!

And I'd love to know what you write about!!!.....

Sorry folks...this is all a bit off thread....bacteria and all that!!!:-p I'll just crawl away and hide now shall I??!!:-"
Barbara

When we started our own business i still had other little jobs, but had to give them up because my husband needed me at the garage full time. It stayed that way for the last 7 years until a few months ago.

I was getting into my crafting (not jewellery making at the time) and the receptionist suggested to my husband that i should have two days at home to persue it. He begrudgingly agreed, but his idea is that i should have produced a lot in one day and should be actively marketing it and therefore earning a wage on those two days off. It has become a bit of a bone of contention in the house now, almost to the point that last week i said i would not take the two days (i have to do the shoping in one too) to which he said that as long as my work was up to date i could (the shackles immediately rose on the back of my neck) i am always up to date, but having said that i didnt want it thrown at me again that i only work 3 days a week and "play" on the other two, he said he wouldnt do it any more (yeah right, til it bugs him again) So my being at home, comes at a price. I have pressure of producing something which will make him feel i have actually been working all day (after shopping, cleaning the kitchen and setting off the washing and drying)
I have decided i will take the plunge and buy a website in a box from MrSite and put my stuff on there just to say i am trying to sell stuff if nothing else to him.The jewellery is the thing i mainly want to concentrate on, but i am so inexperienced at it so thats not gonna help. I am not a natural seller, i am scared of my own shadow, terrified of conflict, and so doing shows and stalls etc fills me with horror, and yet i so desperattely want to be a success at something.

what a wuss.

Oh God! I'm going to be shelling out hugs all day[][] I can so relate to you...although my husband wouldn't have got away with saying that!! Having had 4 children then starting to have to help with grandchildren when my youngest was still only 9 I have been a 'stay at home - meet no one who doesn't need their nose wiped - talk to no one with a conversational subject more electrifying than 'Fifi and the flowertots' - mum for the best part of 25 years. Scared of shadows - yes... Scared of people - yes... Scared of being told my work is rubbish - yes... I am all of that too.

I started to look into 'self help' type of books to boost my confidence...and it seems like a lot of rubbish - talking to yourself in a mirror and telling yourself you are confident..good..strong...etc...positive affirmations all day and that sort of thing - but over a period of time it seems to be working. I'm still a wreck but I have learned to 'go for it' a bit more. You have to say - 'what does it matter if I make a fool of myself?' - (Generally it doesn't matter at all and most people won't even notice and will be engrossed in what you are saying and the jewellery you are showing them.) Take the plunge and go out and meet people....but take a friend with you too so you don't analyse everything you have said and done and they can take up the slack if you get 'lost for words'. You may be pleasantly surprised! And second time round it won't be quite so scary!;)

I think we are all like that really...lets all try to get more confident together!![[]]
Barbara

Having also just given up full time work, I can say that I probably got a bit more done when I was working than I do now :-O. But I think that was because I was more focussed when I was working, because I knew I only had 2 hours in the evening to 'do my stuff' before doing tea and OH coming home. Nowadays I am totally out of any routine and spending too much time on the PC:-D

Oh Sue, I do emphathise with you.

Barbara is so right. Life can throw all sorts of horrible things at us sometimes, can't it?.

I used to work full time in an office (hated the work, loved being with my workmates), but now that I work at home full time I have to have a structure to my day, otherwise I would spend all my time doing domestic cr!p and not making any jewellery. I work from 8-12 and 2-5 on jewellery things and the rest on 'home' stuff. It makes me more productive having breaks from doing jewellery, than trying to spend all day on jewellery and putting pressure on myself to finish something. I've got lots of half-finished things in a box which I look at when the mood is right. Do you think having a structure would work for you?

Here's a quote from a book I have called "Shoot The Damn Dog", by Sally Brampton

Letting go is not getting rid of
Letting go is letting be

Have you tried writing how you feel? It can be liberating to write it all down and then burn it (if you want to)! It worked for me.

So, have another hug from me [] and, remember, you're not alone. There's lots of us here to support you.

Jules x
[]

Oh, and if you haven't already got some, try some Bach Rescue Remedy - that might help too.

Lol yes i spend too much time on here too. I was a stay at home mum for over 13 years, as our eldest son, Rikki, was severely mentally and physically handicapped and i spent many a week in hospital with him and doted on him when we were at home. That worked good for the younger two boys too, and i had a nurse that came in twice a day to allow me to take the other boys to school like normal mummies - Rikki had a condition called Trisomy 18 or its common name is Edwards Syndrome for those in the know, and was oxygen dependent and i wont go into all the probs, but i could only be relieved by a nurse.

Sadly we lost our beloved tiny 13 year old (he only weighed 20lbs and was the size of a six month old child) in February 2000, and i was thrown into a totally alien world to me. I had a "valid" reason to be at home in those days so it was never an issue with hubby, but since we have had the garage he has changed and as i said earlier, i need to prove that i can earn from this hobby of mine.

My other boys are now coming up 18 and 15 at the end of this year and dont quite need mum any more apart from a taxi service, so maybe the crafting fills a void for me i dont know, but i would love to be here all the time doing it, instead of in an ofice on my own. I too never get to speak to anyone either at work or home. Sometimes thats nice, but it would be nice to be able to share ideas and stuff with the family sometimes lol

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Originally Posted by Solunar Silver Studio

I think we are all like that really...lets all try to get more confident together!![[]]
Barbara

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I think we should. I was so scared of everything I could barely leave the house. Doing my first jewellery course a couple of years ago was what got me back into circulating with the world and it's only really these last couple of years that I've considered myself "living". But I'm still quite scared, just got better at hiding it I guess.

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Have you tried writing how you feel? It can be liberating to write it all down and then burn it (if you want to)! It worked for me.

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Genuinely without wishing to blow my own trumpet, I've had a book published about exactly that! Having journalled all my life, I have found that writing about the crip stuff is what got me through.

I empathise with Sue too - my old man is exactly like that and thinks in terms of £SD (sorry, showing my age). So, if I make something beautiful his first question is 'how much can you get for that.' :(| But enough of all that!

Barbara, I'll answer your questions in a PM rather than bore everybody else rigid.

I love this forum!

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I've been thinking Su (bustagasket)... What sort of garage do you (does he) own? Does it come with a snazzy sales area? Is there anywhere where customers are directed to wait while their car is 'seen to' or finished off? (I make it sound like a breakers' yard there - but I'm sure you know what I mean!) Does he send out promotional literature to past/present customers by post?
...couldn't you involve him and the garage in your 'marketing'? Set up a sparkling display cabinet in the showroom/waiting area ...where women can drool over it and men can decide what to buy their woman as a surprise gift while they are waiting? Or a business card or leaflet for your jewllery popped into every envelope that leaves the place...(all my family are doing that for me now!!) ...or stapled to the final bill!!:eek:
If he wants your business to prosper - get him to help...just like you have helped him for 7 years!!:mad:

Barbara

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Originally Posted by Solunar Silver Studio

I've been thinking Su (bustagasket)... What sort of garage do you (does he) own? Does it come with a snazzy sales area? Is there anywhere where customers are directed to wait while their car is 'seen to' or finished off? (I make it sound like a breakers' yard there - but I'm sure you know what I mean!) Does he send out promotional literature to past/present customers by post?
...couldn't you involve him and the garage in your 'marketing'? Set up a sparkling display cabinet in the showroom/waiting area ...where women can drool over it and men can decide what to buy their woman as a surprise gift while they are waiting? Or a business card or leaflet for your jewllery popped into every envelope that leaves the place...(all my family are doing that for me now!!) ...or stapled to the final bill!!:eek:
If he wants your business to prosper - get him to help...just like you have helped him for 7 years!!:mad:

Barbara

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Unfortunately we have a car repair garage, and that creates a pretty dirty "air"
I have a stand in reception with me cards on and a layout of candles and a couple of display bouquets, but i have to clean the cellophanes every week cos they get coated with a kinda greasy black dust that come from brakess and seems to drift into everywhere. So its not the best place to display stuff, and definately not for jewellery.

I have today ordered my MrSite website in a box, so i am looking forward to that arriving next week and then having a play with it. I shall probably have to rephotogaph a lot of stuff and i really need a booth to do it. I am hoping that once my son moves all his stuff out properly from his room, that Pete will build some shelves and things in the wardrobes, and make up a bench for me. Gotta prize him away from his fishing for it :-s

Well done getting the MrSite Su. Hope you have fun doing it. Mine is still 'in production' but will be getting back to it soon. Perhaps we can have a MrSite thread for if anyone needs advice or help with anything - I'm still not sure exactly how the shop works i.e. How I will get notified about someone buying something...

i have a long wait for it to arrive now (yeah i know it will be withing a week but i want it yesterday like everything else) Just hope i can underwstand the bugger when it gets here lol