Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Try, Try Again

I was jazzed a few months ago when a Facebook acquaintance saw a picture of a necklace I'd made for a mutual friend and asked me to make one for her, too. Yes! Word-of-mouth in action!
I asked a few questions to make sure we were on the same page. The necklace I'd made for our mutual friend included steampunk elements and was about 52" long so the wearer could double or triple it. I'd used lots of upcycled materials in it, including chains from older necklaces and in various metal finishes.

From our Internet discussion, it sounded like she wanted a similar necklace but with turquoise and coral accents.

I made one over the next few days and mailed it to her.



I was pretty excited to hear about her reaction.

Well. . . We hadn't been on the same page. She didn't want steampunk. She wanted sterling silver. She's petite and wanted a much shorter, smaller necklace. She was sending me money (along with the returned necklace) to pay for my time and materials and asked me to make her something else.

After wiping my ego off the floor, I rallied and made a trip to a store one hour away for sterling chain, nicer turquoise chips and other special touches. In another couple of days, I mailed off a second necklace. THIS one was a winner. She thanked me profusely and told others about how much she loved her necklace.

Win/win!





4 comments:

  1. Nice recovery! It's hard enough trying to hit someone else's design mark when they walk into the store. Cyber back and forth loses a little something in translation, I' m sure.

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  2. Thank you! I was sure at least one other beader would understand. :-)

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  3. I've had that happen too. I'm careful now to send photos of beads, charms, pendants before i buy them to get the customer ok, and send a photo of the piece before it is totally finished to get an ok. It's hard, especially when people say things like oh, i want a blue necklace. LOL

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  4. I hear you, Copper. The funny thing is, I sent photos the first time around, but I think they didn't convey the scale of the necklace! I was happy and relieved to get it right after only 2 tries. :-)

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