Just want to summarise for you what we have been doing over the last couple of months. Believe me, there has be a lot of that proverbial water go under our bridge. Some crystal clear and good, some not so much. But that’s life and we move on.

We recently made a big decision to devote more time and resources to promoting what we do, including our online presence, this blog and our new online store. In addition, we want to get the word out about our home gallery so that hopefully our locals and maybe visiting tourists will pay us a visit looking for a unique gift.

The biggest change has been on our website. You have probably noticed the new look and feel. This was necessary to add our new online store to the site.  We have decided to host our own store in addition to our Etsy store. With luck we will eventually let the Etsy store go. As this is very new I would love your feedback on how it looks, and if you have the time please try it (you don’t need to buy anything) and let me know of any issues you may encounter.

For several weeks we had a stall in the Market Room at our local large shopping center. This really took up a lot of time as we were there for minimum of nine hours three days a week which then reduced the time we had to do other things. Sadly, the response there was not great. All the market stall holders suffered the same outcome – poor sales. Seems like everyone is having the same downturn in sales, even the permanent stores in the center. But we will be back at some time. Things may change in time.

We also spent a week at a great venue sponsored by the CUA here in Toowoomba. They have a great showcase area they make available to local small business so we just had to try that. Sales weren’t bad, but could have been better. The miserable weather at the time didn’t help.

A suggestion was made by a couple of customers that we should have a trade name for the pendants and earrings we make that incorporate dichroic glass. Mainly because of the process I have developed that makes them quite different to the normal dichroic jewellery. So we took that suggestion, had a discussion, and came up with a name. You will find that we now refer to our Jefanite™ Pendants and Jefanite™ Earrings. I’ll leave it up to you to work out how we came up with the name Jefanite. Please bear with me as I slowly photograph and list our stock.

Another decision we have made is to include a video in our product descriptions wherever possible. We now have a YouTube channel that you should visit. This takes a little time to do but flat 2D photos really don’t do the items justice. The videos should show the products much better.

On top of all this we have had a few private issues come up recently that just made it difficult to keep everything current. If life is kind we will be able to post more regularly and keep things fresh and interesting. Be careful out there and hope you stick around for much more.