This week we have a delightful interview for you with Lisa Davis from Lichfield, England, UK. Her shop name is LisaDeluxe .You’ll discover over 400 gorgeous photographs of her work in her shop. We think she does a great job at presentation in addition to her jewelry expertise.Lisa has a love of contemporary silver and is currently designing a new range of silver jewellery. She is a trained silversmith re-discovering her silversmithing skills.Please enjoy the interview, leave Lisa a comment, and then use the Share Tools so others can read it, too. Please spread the Zibbet Love!
When I wasn’t upside down as a child, I watched my dad paint. He even let me put my little hand print on one of his huge oil paintings. He was an artist yet became a picture framer to feed us. That may explain why I couldn’t just be an artist. “It’s not a proper job”. So although I can’t remember a time I didn’t have a crayon in my hand – just like I can’t remember my 1st cartwheel (more later) I had to do something ‘sensible’ at college. As I still had no idea what I wanted to be, I did Retail Jewellery and Gemmology: I was already working part time in a jewellers (literally the first shop to answer ‘yes’ to my question ‘do you need a Saturday girl?’) and spent school holidays elbow deep in freezing water grading rough gemstones for my Uncle, a geologist and miner in West Africa.I’d always made miniature things though; teeny dolls clothes; tiny cross-stitch pin cushions; mini felt stuffed thingys - my art now is a small, detailed affair - so aged 25 with a toddler and a spinal problem, I retrained in Jewellery Design and Manufacturing (and looked for a new doctor) thinking, soon I will: be fixed; work from home: have exhibitions; do bread and butter repair work; buy a ramshackle house and do it up; recycle everything. Anything but a ‘proper’ job, we’d get by and happily.
I can still remember that eureka moment: my 1st day at college, after the magic that is soldering had happened to my copper wedding band (!) I began the mesmerizing process of filing square wire into a D section with a huge file - I’d fully expected the tools to be tiny, but no, you get man-sized blow torches, rolling mills the size of me and standard tools you’d see in a woodshop, the tiny stuff comes later. I remember thinking ‘This is what I’m meant for!”Plans are made to be changed though. Back in hospital for the umpteenth time I realised silver-smithing was not going to be physically possible. It’s taken me 20 odd years, numerous career changes; businesses I developed from my bed waiting for the next big operation that would restore me to health, procedures - needles the length of my foot, good job they were going in my back come to think of it, otherwise I may have baulked! - and hours spent in physio. Them; “Oh, you’re so lucky! so slim! Good muscle memory, this will be so easy!” me: “I used to do gymnastics.’ them “Ah, did you ever fall?” me: “Of course I did; I spent my childhood upside down and I wasn’t just cartwheeling.” Although I’m much better than I was, I’m still at home – good job I’m happy in my own company.
I spend way too much time at my PC trying to promote myself. Am I wasting it? Such a small minnow in a World Wide pond. Or a tiny fly in a huge spider’s Web. Apart from domestic chores, of which I do precious few, I think everything I do is creative in one way or another. I write, sew, draw, design houses for fun – all bells and whistles in case we win the lottery, or humble multi-functional one room barn conversions.Over the years, I’ve done illustrating and rendering for housing development companies and worked for a Spinal Charity creating their 1st website and newsletter. I am not always able to admit that there are limits. But I am never at a loss for something to do. I love reading – I feel positively rich when the house is full of new books - learning new things and as the pain is relentless, I can’t really pace myself, I spend my days pottering from job to job depending on how stupid I feel like being. My stubbornness is both a blessing and a curse. I’m just in pain – 24/7 debilitating pain, but at least I’m able to see the silver lining in everything. Like being in a wheelchair allows one to wear high heels and, if so desired, get the best seats at the Theatre!
Having an enforced slower pace means you can appreciate the tiny things that may go unnoticed when striding through life frenetically. I certainly wouldn’t have the technical drawing skill without the hours of practice I get. After actually designing and creating something - my next favourite thing to do is lovingly package something I’ve sold. Hurray! I’ve a brain chock full of ideas and the luxury of being able to make some of them happen.Inspired by a trillion things – I love Art Nouveaux, the Arts and Craft movement and too many artists to mention. Pinterest is an amazing tool for inspiration – addictive though, I have to limit myself to coffee break time!
If I had to pick one, it would be C.F.A Voysey, a man who applied his art to many elements from tiles to teapots and architecture to wallpaper, I think he was the 1st true ‘designer’ in that no matter what he worked on, his unique style shone through. My dad was the same, even a simple line drawing was unmistakably ‘him’. That’s what I’d like to have. An artistic ‘voice’. I’d certainly call myself a designer rather than an artist.You’d think that by now every romantic notion of moving to France and doing up a farmhouse into gÎtes, welcoming hikers in summer and skiers in winter; silver smithing to my heart’s content; feeling under hens for new laid eggs and making jam would have been firmly put to one side – oh no…you have to have hope don’t you? Dreams? Even if they never happen, you don’t need to admit that bit to yourself, you could easily go to the end of your days without having to be ‘sensible’.
I’m at a place now I really like. (not back-wise, I still yen for cartwheeling and my other great passion dancing) My toddler is grown and flown, I love everything about him but the facial hair! And – this bit is huge - I’m with my soul mate, - does happy dance – (in head, obviously). He has teenagers and if there was ever a benefit to being a paper hoarder or general craft ‘ho (©Lisa Davis 2013 - no seriously that one’s all mine) it’s that when one says ’’have you got an embossing tool?” I can say “what size?”My man is an absolute marvel and takes great care of me. His myriad ‘gifts’ to me are two-fold. Not simply the act of vacuuming, cooking etc…(great in and of themselves eh girls?) it’s the saving me from it. He gives me my ‘good time’ daily like a million tiny tokens of love - and I wouldn’t be able to run my Zibbet shop without his support and practical help. My ‘doing up a farmhouse’ dream has become ours and could actually happen as he’s a mean DIYer too.
For fun I’m drawing some of the front doors in our village – It makes sense to offer these as Christmas cards. See! I find it hard to switch my would-be entrepreneur brain off. I’ve even got a book by the bed called ‘can’t sleep, write now’. And I do. Even if I can’t always make sense of my doodles the next day!You don’t need super techy skills. Using Zibbet is easy. Setting up your shop takes no time. You can even import your listings from other sites – so cool! And the ‘customize your shop’ feature is fab – I have hot pink gift wrap so making Zibbet match my own colour scheme was not only useful but fun! To be honest, I’m still discovering new features. Using my Zibbet shop and community, I can interact with people who I would never get to ‘meet’ any other way. I’m socializing! (my Doc will be so pleased…ironic sigh)
So if the internet is my lifeline – Zibbet’s my sea anchor stopping me floating off into cyberspace. My Zibbet shop is somewhere I go daily; to tidy things up, tweak my keywords and list my newly created items. I have a policy of making at least one thing per day - I go to work like everyone else, often in my Pj’s or lying down if needs be but all I’ve ever wanted is to be successful. To make a living is not the be all and end all, but I’m still trying.If I could change anything about how Zibbet works, personally I’d like to list in GBP. The recent change to having photos on the same listing page will be fabulous. Zibbet is constantly evolving and the changes are intuitive, if I get stuck admin are able to help me with one clear sentence. Thoroughly good.
Oh and in an ideal world, I’d like at least the above the vertical scroll of the homepage to be ‘designed’ as it’s our collective shop window – and sorry, but some peeps pics are er…um…hate to say it but… well… they’re slightly, ever so, er…less than good. The home page should entice buyers and get them coming back again. To do this fairly Zibbeters could offer up their best items, be accepted - or advised on how to make their pictures more ‘clickable’ - and these could randomly picked for front page use.Not well enough is the short answer - I’m on the usual suspects; Facebook, I love Pinterest, I’m on flickr and I have my own website where I’m trying to swap from mass produced jewellery to my own and where I blog once in a while. I know I need to do more though. I even strung a few cards in my bay window – we get a lot of foot traffic! No luck yet though.
It would be get your photographs as professional looking as possible. I’ve worked on this for over a year and I’m still not satisfied with mine. Use the Zibbet forums and ask advice, they’re a friendly bunch and help willingly. Also, prices. Try calculating a ‘unit cost’ as your wholesale price which includes your profit - in case a bricks and mortar shop wants to stock your things, they’ll add 250% mark-up - I kid you not. Industry standards for people buying from trade fairs is between 2.3 and 2.8 times the makers price. I don’t follow this as strictly as I should. I make unique items so have to buy small quantities of supplies from retailers, but I do try to. Just because you are watching Neighbour’s whilst knitting - or beading - doesn’t mean you charge less for your time for that half hour. You are effectively the CEO-to-mailman of your business. The hours you spend sourcing materials, promoting, driving to the post office and bookkeeping all form part of your unit cost, even coffee or tea go down as expenses (I need extra caffeine to counteract the drugs!) I started out way underselling and learned the hard way.
Oh and patience – I’ve yet to find my niche and wouldn’t expect a shop on my local high street to be in profit within a year. So I’m keeping at it.…better…no really… in my right mind I know there’s no operation or quick fix for my spine – but in my left (and I’m left handed so do listen) I still want my body back. Also, I’d really love a workshop as I would like to get to a point where I’m practiced enough in my silver-smithing to create a range I can market on Zibbet – proper designer jewellery, my own hallmark registered at last, ah, that would be fab. Working smarter, not harder applies so much more to me.Cheers all!Lisa xTags: Featured Zibbeters, Lisa Deluxe
