Colorful treasures to delight your inner child... and your inner rockstar.

No, this post isn’t about the mailing list giveaway – I’ve teamed up with the lovely babes over at MookyChick to bring a new competition. So if you’ve already joined the mailing list to be entered to win the monthly giveaway, head over to the best alt girl site on the net to grab a limited-time extra shot at a $20 to spend here at zlanarama.com! Hurry, ends June 7th 2008.

And of course, if you haven’t joined the mailing list yet, what are you waiting for? The sign up form is on the bottom of every page – you’ll be the first to hear about updates, and one subscriber is chosen each month to receive a $20 gift code. (I promise to never ever sell your email address – cuz that’s just not cool.)

Wanna read more about the crafty mastermind behind all this colorful mayhem? Check out the nifty interview I just did over at Mixed Plate! I had so much fun doing this interview, Liana asked some really fun questions and I really found I had some interesting, fun stuff to say. And the picture I gave her to use is so me – look at all those colors! If you haven’t heard of Mixed Plate yet, it’s a great blog that features indie designers and their wonderful wares. It’s your (near-)daily dose of rockin’ indie goodness.

Speaking of interviews, about a year ago I did another cool one with the on-hiatus but super-fantastic Ms. Flying Turtle.

Big news everyone! You probably already saw the announcement on the main page, or the addition to the sidebar, but I’m posting here too because I’m so psyched about this. I’ve revamped the product line and updated the sidebar navigation so that you can now shop by style as well as by product type. A quick description of the collections:

• Punky Rocker – Designed to appeal to your inner rockstar’s leather-jacket-lovin’ side, you’ll find lots of skulls and boomboxes here, along with plenty of hot pink and black.


• Princess Sparkle – For the inner child who wants to be a princess when she grows up, this collection has lots of girly fun stuff like unicorns and jewels, with lots of pink and other pastels.


• Electro Glam – Does your inner rockstar have glitter running through her veins? Then look no further for sparkles and neon for a fabulous glam-rock look.


• Kitschy Cool – If your inner child is full of fun and whimsy – and perhaps addicted to rainbows – this is the collection for you. Full of funky plastic charms and cute randomness!

With this update there are also new items (as promised – it’s the fourth Thursday of the month) most of which are in the Punky Rocker line. And don’t forget to check the etsy shop for older items. Many of these simply didn’t fit any collection well, so grab em before they are gone forever! Prices are already reduced by 25% or more from original website prices.

Whoops, been a while since I blogged. I heard from Renegade Craft Fair over the weekend, and I won’t be going this year. I’ve been pretty bummed, so I guess that’s part of why I haven’t had much to say. Aside from the bummer factor, I’ve also been pretty busy with some behind the scenes stuff though, and next Thursday I’m going to have a BIG announcement! I’m excited about it and I think you will be too. Sorry for being so mysterious, but I want it to be a surprise! :)

I’ve been back and forth on this for months. I’ve tried two different styles of finger rings at zlanarama.com, but neither one has been quite right. The rhinestone type has design issues, and the bling type doesn’t quite suit the zlanarama style to my mind. These issues have shown in the inventory numbers, and so the one remaining ring in stock has been moved to the etsy store and I won’t be making any more for a while. I hope to offer rings again at a later date, but until I find a component of high enough quality and fitting style it’s time to say goodbye.

Just a quick heads-up, I now have a schedule for when the site will be updated. Mark your calendars for the second and fourth Wednesdays Thursdays of the month, everyone – from now on I’ll be adding new items to the site on those days only. Next update will be April 10th! (Sorry for the confusion, I originally posted this would be Wednesdays, even though I’d decided Thursdays. Dunno where my head was!)

After a few lazy months of being pinkish-blonde, I have finally updated my hair! I’m really happy with how it turned out, very aurora borealis. I haven’t had blue hair in ages, and I’m really digging it. For Special Effects fans out there, this is mostly Fishbowl blue, with a streak of Cupcake pink, as well as some Atomic pink, and Electric blue thrown in for a really variegated look – I love the multi-toned look.

And hey, did you notice? I got my name fixed. My blog posts now show up as Betsi. Much better.

I’ve just entered my Rainbow Plastic Chain Necklace the Next Big Thing Contest over at Fred Flare. FF is super amazing, and I think it’s great that they offer this opportunity to indie designers to get their work seen by so many color-lovin’ funky folks. I find it can be really hard to reach the right audience, so I’m really excited about the possibility of being see by Fred Flare fans. I’m going to be sending in a couple more entries before the deadline too.

It’s all a matter of what I can make on a wholesale scale, which is something I’m trying to move towards right now. Even if I don’t go wholesale for a few years yet, making more limited edition runs of things (rather than every item completely one of a kind) will open the door for consignment and keep things from getting snapped up super-fast. For example, the neon pastels charm bracelet I used in my ad in the latest issue of NEET sold within a few days of the issue going up! I love making OOAK designs, I don’t ever want to stop making them completely. Ya gotta pay the bills somehow though, right?

If anyone knows of good consignment opportunities for my colorful plastic beauties, please let me know! I have a good sized list of online shops, but I may have missed one, and I’d love to hear about any local boutiques I don’t know about.

Whoops! Long time no blog. I've been so busy with behind the scenes stuff I completely forgot to keep this fresh. Well, I have big news to post about - in an effort to streamline the products, I've clearanced almost half the inventory to etsy - lots of stretch bracelets and necklaces, and a pair of earrings as well. Everything is 25%-50% off their original prices here at zlanarama.com - wow! No code necessary, the prices have already been reduced.

More news coming soon! I'll be rolling out some more changes related to streamlining the products and adding a TON of beading supplies to my etsy store in the next week or two.

(Hmm, one of these days I should get my web guy (aka my sweetie) to see about fixing the name on these entries. Legally my name's Elizabeth but I always go by Betsi!)

Ok, I admit it. I don’t completely understand MySpace. I’m on there, I have 200+ friends, I post bulletins.. but I don’t get how to use a lot of this site. There are groups, and forums, and classifieds, and any number of other parts of this site I don’t quite… get. Maybe it’s my age showing (a creaky old 25) but I just don’t find MySpace to be intuitive.

The hardest part for me though is editing my profile. It seems nearly impossible to create a page that looks good, let alone looks good and doesn’t look like a cookie cutter. There has to be a good tool out there, but I have no idea where to start. The market is so flooded with layouts and editors and so on that it’s tricky to pluck a gem out of the bucket of garbage that Google hands you when you try to do a search for something useful. Anyone out there have a recommendation?

What’s cookin’ at zlanarama? Well, lots of jewelry, but most of ‘em still have a while before I can dish them up. I do have one tasty new morsel for you – the multicolor star earrings shown above. Aren’t they fab? I’ve been saying over on MySpace how these are the earrings Rainbow Brite would wear if she were an ‘80s rockstar!

Right now the latest website news is that all one of a kind and limited edition items now have shiny new badges so you can tell at a glance. When I design and create jewelry for the site, sometimes I can only make one, others I can make a limited amount (usually somewhere between six and ten), and others I make as many as there is demand for. All the designs on the site are handmade and designed by me though, so you won’t find them anywhere else. The badges are searchable, so all you have to do to find limited edition items is type “limited edition” into the search box at the top right of every page.

Have you seen the new version of the zlanarama links page? I’ve always called this page “Kindred Spirits” because I strive to keep the links to other shops that would appeal to people who like my work. When I redid the page for the relaunch, I culled a few dead links and shops who didn’t quite fit. Then I revamped the whole format by changing from banners to min-reviews. The blurbs give you an idea of exactly what you’ll find when you click, unlike most banners. Plus, the page loads much faster now! I added some sites while I was at it, but I’d love to hear from you if you know of any other shops that belong in my little directory of cuteness.

Nothing like a good kick in the pants, right? I’ve been running my business, zlanarama, for about a year and a half now and I’m kicking things into high gear for 2008. Part of my plan is to finally get started blogging. I’ve been saying for a year now that I should write a blog for zlanarama. All the cool kids are doin’ it, after all. Which pretty much brings me to my point about a kick in the pants. I was cruising through my Google Reader, killing time waiting for my camera batteries to recharge, and up popped a new post to the Naughty Secretary Club blog. Jennifer’s latest post is entitled “A Few Small Business Tips,” which is a bit of a misnomer, I think. She offers a wealth of good info, more than what I’d call “a few tips” – including a great Top Ten List.

I leave you with 10 free ways to promote your business and get the word out.
1) Start a blog! Well no one wants to just read about your business so you need to spice it up a little bit too! Once you have a blog start your own Bead Bloggers or Web Snob Weekly Round Up with some friends to promote your blogs.

I’ll admit, I don’t know what she means in that last sentence, but I’ll ask! In the meantime, it’s a kick in the pants! I was planning to wait another week or two to get this started, because I want it to be a seamless part of my site. I’m a champion procrastinator though, and that week or two could turn into a month or two. So, here we go!

I was relieved to note that many of the other tips in the list are things I’m already doing. Zlanarama is on Myspace and Flickr and I trade links with some other really groovy indie businesses. I also have a mailing list, and as part of my website redesign it’s now accessible at the bottom of every page – pretty clever, huh? What I’m not doing? Swapping swag! I’ll be getting on that one ASAP though TheSwitchboards. I also don’t belong to local indie craft business group. I’ve tried in vain to find one near Boston, but I think I may just have to start my own. As if I don’t have enough on my hands already! :)

It’s hard to know what the future will bring, but in an effort to follows Jennifer’s advice about spicing things up, I intend to be blogging about indie business advice, my creative process, pictures on my workspace (brace yourselves, it’s one heck of a colorful mess!), book and product reviews, along with the occasional note about new products being added to the site.