Dishfunctional Designs: Happy Thanksgiving! Broken China Jewelry For Black Friday

Wow, it's Thanksgiving week! I hope you all have a great holiday no matter how you spend it. :)

Years and years ago before Etsy was created and before I had my own website, I started off selling my jewelry on Ebay. I remember gearing up for the busy holiday weekend and Black Friday and creating tons of jewelry for my Ebay shop.

Back then it was auction-style selling, which was fun and exciting, and it really was a great way to learn what items were the most popular out of everything I sold. I met so many wonderful customers, many of whom still are customers! I think I sold over 3,000 pieces of jewelry on Ebay - wow!

Then around 2009 Etsy came along, and since it touted itself as a "handmade marketplace" I knew that it would be a good venue for my work.

In between the two I also listed my jewelry on my own website, www.dishfunctionaldesigns.com, but that got to be very time consuming and hard to keep up with, so I decided to focus my efforts on Etsy.

At the same time Ebay's fees were mounting, and once they decided to take a cut of the seller's shipping costs - meaning the seller had to pay a percentage of shipping costs to Ebay - I was out of there. I guess they did that to make up for the tons of sellers who would take advantage of buyers for listing an item on Ebay for $10 but then charging $20 for shipping.

I miss selling on Ebay and on my own website and have been toying with the idea of trying one or both out again, maybe once things settle down after the holidays.

One of my best Thanksgiving weekend memories was the year my daughter Rachel was born (who just now turned 13 on Sunday!). Born the week before Thanksgiving, and there I sat at my desk on Black Friday, at my computer with a tiny little newborn baby in one arm, writing up sale after sale with the other arm, till 5am. I think I got an entire two hours of sleep that night until I had to get up in the morning for my 2 & 1/2 year old! :)

Here I am, still keeping on, very much jewelry later! I am so thankful for all of my wonderful customers that I've had over the years, and for the ability to build a career around what I love that gave me to ability to work for myself, at home.

Here are some of the brand new pieces that I just listed in my Etsy shop. Some are favorite old patterns, a few I haven't worked with before, but I think all are pretty. Hope you like them, and Happy Thanksgiving!