Love These!

Okay...I'm not a super funky chick. I am very conservative in just about everything, including the way I dress and the jewelry that I wear. But I saw these Resin bracelets today being featured on Etsy's front page and was pulled in. They are gorgeous!



I do not understand how she can only charge $15 a piece. Seriously. I took a resin class a couple of weeks ago and did NOT like it at all. It is not an easy material to work with. I seriously ended up throwing away 99% of the pieces I made in the class. And I burned myself during class. I know some people are just naturals so Resinated must be one. I think she should be selling these for at the very least $30 each. I think she'd even sell more at that price...perceived value and all that.



Each of her hand crafted resin bracelets requires filing and polishing. Plus they are just fabulous!

Charging for your time is a very important aspect of pricing that many artists don't account for when thinking about their profit. Sure an item may only "cost" you $2 to make. (Just an example, I have no idea how much her resin bracelets actually cost to make.)

That is $2 in materials outright. Now ask yourself how long it took you to make that item. I've made some very complex pieces that didn't necessarily "cost" a lot to make but they sure took a lot of time and energy.

I harp on charging enough for your work because charging too little hurts you and other artists. Handcrafted work needs to be valued and the consumer sometimes needs to be reminded why it is worth it to pay a little more to buy directly from the artist as opposed to shelling out less at Target or Walmart for something mass produced in China.

Think about alllllll the other random expenses that we don't always consider when creating our pieces. I have invested money into so many things that don't factor in to my final "cost" of an item.

For example:

• Business cards
• Advertising
• Professional Memberships
  
• Tools Purchased (I have almost more tools than hubby)
• Storage Containers and Bins
• Plastic Bags for material storage
• Work Desk and space taken up in my home (this does have a value)
• Electricity used - not just light...when I use my drill or kiln (if I had one) and Tumbler, it takes electricity
• Materials used that are hard to price like Liver of Sulfer and Solder that are hard to price per piece
• Pens and Receipt Books
• My Digital Camera
• Time spent Photographing and editing photos
• My laptop
• Internet connection
• Magazine Subscriptions related to my craft
• Classes I take to improve or learn new skills
• Oh and TIME

I'm sure there are tons of other things that people spend money on and don't take into account when pricing. I didn't even include packaging - that's another issue all together.

I know I'm guilty of not remembering to factor these costs in sometimes as well. But when you really write out all the things that "cost" us as artists you may realize that you're not making as much of a profit as you thought.