Design This – Can You Make Multiples?

Sometimes a custom request is as simple as someone wanting more of an item than I have available in a listing. Since many of my bead supplies are purchased as a strand of beads, often I am able to oblige. Two custom requests came in last year that I managed to have just enough matching supplies on hand to fill my customer's request.

I had a flying pig keychain made from a couple of beads that reminded me of an evergreen conifer in my EclecticSkeptic Etsy shop. I received an inquiry for seven or eight total of the tree keychains (The tree was a must). Luckily I had just enough of those stones left to be able to make the total of eight that she preferred. She asked about making some of them silver instead of gold as seen in the listing. Since these would be made from scratch for my customer, that was easy for me to do. She also decided she wanted two keychains like the agate and silver flying pig keychain listing I had available. I had three agate beads left that I thought were pretty similar to the one in the listing so I included them in a photo with the green tree parts and numbered them so my customer could choose the stone she liked for the second keychain. After she chose it was time to assemble the eight new keychains to our agreed upon specs and ship them with the two she had seen listed originally.
Another request came later in the year for a larger multiple of a listed item than the tree keychain request. It was for a total of eleven square brown shell lapel pins like the one I had listed. That request proved to be pretty easy but when that customer came back requesting another twelve I held my breath as I counted the square brown shell beads I still had on hand. Luckily I had just enough and was able to fulfill the second request as well.






When I run out of a supply that has been popular I keep my eye out for more of them when I get a chance to shop at a trade show. So far the carved green stones and square brown shells have eluded me. While I will purchase more if I find them, running out of a supply helps push me to come up with new designs and keep my offerings fresh.

If you are interested in seeing if I can make more of a particular item than the number I have listed as available, please contact me to see if I can accommodate your request.

Design This – Flying Pig Pins for Weddings

Most of the time I am not told what a purchase will be used for and that is fine. However sometimes some of my customers who order ready to ship items from my shop will let me know and often my custom order customers will tell me. It warms my heart when I find out that my items will be part of someone's special day such as their wedding. Last summer and this summer I have received inquiries based on the same flying pig pin listing in my EclecticSkeptic shop that turned into custom orders destined to be part of weddings.

Last year my customer asked what I might be able to do to incorporate a heart and the color green into my flying pig shell pin listing. After a few conversations back and forth, I came up with a few choices as a starting place. The white shell with the light green heart was her favorite so I made a mockup of that option to make sure that was going to be what she wanted before proceeding with the custom order.

My first inquiry from this year's customer was just to see if I could make more of the blue shell pins than I had listed as available. After I replied, she also thought of checking to see if I could produce similar pins in black and purple. I didn't have any plain black shell beads but I did have one light purple and three dark purple tagua nut beads in stock. (Tagua nuts are referred to as vegetable ivory. They are a green alternative to ivory that can be carved and dyed a variety of colors.) It turns out that the color combination I had on hand along with the flying pig theme was perfect for what this customer wanted to be able to include in her wedding.

Photos of the completed orders can be seen below.

The customization for custom orders I have done is sometimes simple and sometimes quite involved. Either way, if I have the materials and can tweak a ready to ship item to meet your needs or start from scratch from your request, I'd love to help you. My contact info is under my custom order tab above.

Customize This

I love it when a potential customer takes the time to ask me a question when they find almost, but not quite what they want in one of my shops, on my blog or in one of my facebook photo albums. Since my items are handmade, I am often able to accommodate these requests. Some of the requests that I have received involve changing the color of a particular component of an item, making multiples of an item that they liked or giving me some general dimensions, colors and elements that they want in the custom item. Unfortunately there are times that I don’t have the correct raw materials on hand or the time to tackle a large custom order, especially if asked during the height of the holiday retail season, but I’m always excited to try to help the people that take the time to write to me.

If I know that I have a variety of materials that will allow me to customize the color of an element in an item, I will include a photo in my listings of several possibilities along with a comment asking the shopper to contact me about the color availability of their choice. Such a request led me to adding tagua nut flying pig pins to my EclecticSkeptic shop since I could not find shell beads (pictured) in the desired color. Tagua nut is a sustainably harvested product that is a great ivory substitute and can be dyed a variety of colors. Recently I was pleased that I had the raw materials on hand to make as many multiples as needed of a different type of flying pig pin that someone saw in a listing, liked and wrote to me about.

So please don’t hesitate to send me an inquiry if you like an item of mine but it doesn’t quite have everything that you are looking for or need more than what is currently listed for sale. I welcome your inquiries and promise to see if I can create for you, the vision that you have in your head. Many other artisans feel the same way. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.