How to Make Jewelry:
Going From ‘Handmade’ to Pro
With These 7 Tips and Tricks
(Part 2 of 2)

On page 1 of How to Make Jewelry With That Professional Look we covered 3 great tips for kicking your DIY jewelry quality up a notch or two without becoming overwhelmed by all your possible choices. 1) Concentrating on improving one design element or technique at a time. 2) Finding great ideas for DIY jewelry. 3) Making experimentation easy by choosing the right types of jewelry to create.

On this page you'll discover how to make the most efficient use of online jewelry making instructions, and tips about classes, tool choices and a bit of jewelry business advice.

Four More Ideas for Learning How to Make Jewelry With A  Professional Look

4) Search for free jewelry making instructions online, but...

Reading and watching can be a substitute for actually doing, especially for those of us who are research addicts. There's a mountain of great written and video jewelry tutorials that you can find on the web. Take advantage of them, but keep focused. Don't get lost. Set a timer to limit your searching and online browsing. You won't get lost looking at all the eye candy as often as you do now.

YouTube jewelry videos are a great resource for learning jewelry making techniques. But viewing video is a real time suck; wouldn’t it be great if you could do the equivalent of speed reading? Well you can! You can play YouTube movies at up to twice their normal speed. Trust me, they're still understandable, most of the time. You can also slow them down to half speed to catch important details that pass too quickly. Watch the video to see how its done.

5) Invest in foundational jewelry making classes

Yes. Spend some money learning the basics. There’s no substitute for a master of the craft like Christi Friesen, Lisa Pavelka or Marie Segal sitting down with you and pointing out a fabrication shortcut or how to improve your design. The good news is that with services like Craftsy and CraftCast, Skype and Google Hangouts even those of us who live in remote areas and are on a limited budget can take classes from professional jewelry artists and get personal feedback via video conferencing on our work.

6) Get the best jewelry making tools that you can afford

But don’t go crazy buying tools and supplies. For instance, you can do 95% of beading and wirework techniques with only 6 tools; chainnose, roundnose, flatnose, crimping and split-ring pliers plus a diagonal wire cutter. Good quality tools will be easier on your hands and last longer.

If you’re just starting out, or you're planning on travelling to classes and don't want to bring your expensive tools, consider purchasing a highly rated jewelry making kit to save you a bit of money. Click this link find out if the one that I like is on sale today at Amazon and read a few reviews

7) Remember to sell the bling, not the ring

Packaging, marketing and other jewelry business advice is not often thought of as part of the process of making your jewelry look more professional, but it definitely is. Perception is reality. The ‘reveal’ can be as important to your success as the product itself. So spend some time finding the right bags, boxes and wrappings to show your pieces at their best. And don’t forget the marketing. A compelling back story (which can just be your journey as an artist) can be the start of a golden brand ‘YOU’. 

For a good introduction to this topic read Marketing and Selling Your Handmade Jewelry. It's a treasure trove of good advice. And even though it was published in 2006 and doesn't reference some of the newer marketing venues like Pinterest and Instagram, its still a classic in its field.

That's all 7 tips.  They should get you started. Mastering different jewelry making techniques is the work of a lifetime. But at least now it won’t take you years trying to figure out what to do first when you’re learning how to make jewelry with that professional look.

What's Your Biggest Question about How to Make Jewelry Look More Professional?