Hi,
I am new to this group and have not searched through all of the
archives yet so please forgive me if I am asking a question that has
already been answered at some point in the past.
I am new to the world of jewelry making - I have been doing beadwork
for the past few months, using semi-precious freshwater
and shell pearls, and bali silver (I am totally obsessed! I love it,
and have signed up for a course in Basic Metals, wanting to expand
my horizons) The owner of a very nice gallery saw my work last
week and asked if he could show it in his gallery (as you can
imagine, I was surprised and thrilled - and a little nervous as
well!) If all goes well, I’ll be making more pieces and am more
concerned than ever with the costs of goods.
So, I have a question that concerns this issue: I am guessing that
buying my pearls, and silver through my local retail bead
store is not the most economical way to go about this, even though
my local shop does offer a 20% discount to those with a tax ID.
There are tons of websites I could order materials from but I have
tried this and, more often than not, am disappointed when I receive
the item (it never looks as good as it does in the photographs and
is often smaller than I thought it would be based on the
description). So, how do the professionals go about buying their
materials? Do they buy in bulk at bead shows( do bead show vendors
generally offer better prices than retail stores do?) Do they go
through specific vendors that sell to jewelers? If there are
specific vendors that sell to jewelers, how does one go about
finding them?
Thanks so much! Any advice is much appreciated!!!
Leslie