J.E.N.D.S DAILY DOINGS

Out With The Old, In With The New!

2011-12-31T09:43:00.003Z

Well today is the 31st of January 2011, New Years Eve, always a day of mixed feelings, but especially for the J.E.N.D.S family. It is the end of the old year and for some that is a relief, for others it's a little sad depending on how your year went. It's a day for making resolutions, for resolving to change things that have caused you problems in the old year, or just to try to improve upon successes of the previous year.

Here at J.E.N.D.S we have decided not to make actual resolutions, on the grounds that most of them get broken in the first week anyway. I myself personally have made a mini bucket list instead. A bucket list is a list of things that you would like to do before you "kick the bucket" and I do have one of those, this is more like a "Year List" in other words a list of things I would like to accomplish in the oncoming year.

This is the bucket list for me, I hope you like it and that it inspires you to create one of your own.

1. Create my Facebook shop with all the Jends Jewels in it.
2. Give Crystal chalice designs a face lift.
3 Promote both new shops to get them to the front page of Google.
4. Write my first book.
5. Lose 5 stone in weight.
6. Buy a car.
7. Help Pascal move from Enschede and really make him feel cherished and loved!
8. Deck the garden and fill with tubs of flowers, new furniture and a new hot tub.
9. Get an allotment.
10. Learn to speak Dutch.
11. Decorate Kitchen.
12. Decorate Lounge.
13. Get my passive income earnings to treble figures per month.
14. Pay off two of my credit cards.
15. Get all my Infobarrel articles cross linked and linked to my other sites.

So that is a lot to do for one year, especially alongside making more jewellery and keeping the eBay shop running smoothly. One bit of good news is that Pascal has decided to work with me on the business rather than get another job in order to be able to get the business really successful for when we move to Enschede in about 4-5 years. This means there is much more chance for me to be able to really make a go of things like the writing and the new shops, as he focuses on the eBay shop. It also means that when we get the car we can maybe concentrate more on going to craft fairs and building up lines for the shop such as the Hampers.

Steve has moved on now and is happily engaged to the lovely Shauna and living with her. We are going to disband the partnership, although all remains amicable between us all. Much though it is sad that he has left, it quickly became apparent that we are much better as friends and I wish him all the best for the future.

This year will see Daniel starting school in September, Jess going into year 11, continuing with her G.C.S.E's and participating in the Cultural Olympiad in July with her school! A very exciting year for her as she contemplates college choices and looks towards he future. Teddy will be hitting double figures in August and continues in his current school for another year, although he will be sad when his best friend Annabell goes up to senior school with out him in September.

I will be hitting 40 in October and I suppose that this means Pascal will be laughing at me lots! For himself he is moving here officially very soon and getting used to being a significant part of both the family and the business. I for one am very glad he is going to be here and am looking forward to 2012 with tremendous anticipation and excitement.

So here is wishing all our readers on all of our sites a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. Also a little mention to my Grandad who passed away on this day several years ago. Miss you lots still Grandad, the excitement of New Years Eve is always tinged with sorrow at your passing. Thanks for still being my inspiration in all I do.

Bright Blessings,

Nici and the crew xxx

J.E.N.D.S. Gets Into Bed with Facebook!

2011-08-30T22:55:00.003+01:00

OK so it's a very important time at the moment for both the family and the business as we work towards a different future than the one we had already planned. It has come about that I need to be making the business earn possibly up to £1000.00 per month through both active and passive income and steps are being taken to generate new styles of revenue all the time. As mentioned in a previous post, I have started writing my first romance book and I am very excited about this, not least because the idea for the plot for both this book and the one after came to me in that lovely moment between waking and sleep.

The next exciting thing for the business was offered over the phone a couple of days later. An innovative company called Freestart are creating on-line business owners the chance to create their own Facebook store. This is at a very reasonable rate and you get full control over the store and it's appearance and content. In fact the cost to create and host both this store and a better one for crystal chalice works out at £42 cheaper than I am actually already paying for just the vista-print site.

So the concept behind these Facebook stores has already been put into practice in the US for the last 8 months and is proving remarkably successful with businesses in the many thousands creating stores to showcase some of their products to the Facebook audience.

It works much the same way the groups and pages do with the shop owner inviting friends to join their shop as guests therefore allowing updates to be posted to their walls. It gives a way that customers can comment on the store, or on the merchandise which also will be added to their walls and also to the shop page's wall where all the fans can see it. It accesses a market of millions of Facebook users and has the potential for great things.

You can link this store to other stores including your eBay store and also to their Facebook pages so it helps all your sites have a bit more G-juice!

For my Facebook store I intend to get all my non-silver jewellery off crystalchalice designs and eBay and put them into this shop. This will mean creating lots more pieces of stunning costume jewellery and lots more professional photographs taken. Which is very exciting as I have had quite a long break from the jewellery making what with the eBay shop and the writing.

I am going to make a blog for the new Facebook store, that articles it's whole journey from conception to creation to productivity which is by itself another revenue and link generating opportunity.

So as my good friend Pascal is fond of saying... lots more work for me! But it's all fun isn't it, no chance to get bored and all that.

And with the children going back to school next week and even little Daniel starting play-school soon I am going to need plenty of things to occupy my mind... other than World of Warcraft of course!

Nici xxx

A family writing it's way into the future.

2011-08-29T17:58:00.005+01:00

We are at a bit of a crossroads in the whole J.E.N.D.S family and business at the moment as personal lives and business life has taken a bit of a change.

Steve and Nici the original creators of J.E.N.D.S are no longer a couple although we are still great friends and business partners. There is now strong talk that the family may be moving abroad at some stage in the distant future and so the whole business team is working flat out to get the business as successful as possible.

There has been a few bits of significant news on the business front not least the fact that I have started writing as one of the many "pies I have a finger in!" I have designed several websites of my own and also write for prestigious sites such as Infobarrel, Postrunner and Yahoo's Associated Content. The purpose of this writing is two fold, one to spend time doing something I really enjoy, and two as a platform for adverts that can earn me money. The whole concept is called internet marketing and works thus; A person creates an account with Google Adsense which you link to a bank account. You then create web content in the form of articles on a large site such as InfoBarrel or on your own niche sites. Then you allow Google to place targeted advertisements onto pre-chosen parts of your site/content. The hope that is that people will visit your website, click on an advert they find interesting and go and buy something from the advertiser either then or at a later date. Each of the adverts is worth a certain amount of money ranging from 1p a click upwards!

I have now got over 85 articles on the sites like Infobarrel and several blogs and sites of my own. My main site is called Creative Crafts and is an information site about all different types of craft work. I was ecstatic last week when I discovered that this site had made the front page of the Google search engine for the targeted keywords creative crafts.
I have several other sites up and running as does Jess and a new one about to be started in the next couple of day... this one is about eating and drinking so is going to be a real hardship!

Other sites that I have are well this one for a start! Also World of Warcraft - Cataclysm Journeys, New Beginings Guild Hellfire Server, Last Day of Work Games... (are you getting the general theme here???) and finally the eBay Experience, for the trials and triumphs of the eBay shop. Jess has two really great sites one, called Teens in Touch (please do NOT abbreviate that!) which is a site created by teens, for teens, about teen which her and a group of her friends write articles about ever single teenage issue that can be thought of. Her other site is the much more personal Writers Corner, where she exhibits all the wonderful poetry and prose she creates. I admit to having one poem on there from where the muse suddenly struck me after a recent plane journey!

Along with all of this I have finally started writing my first Mills and Boons Romance book, with another one already in the pipe line for future work.

The passive income from the on-line content seems quite small at the moment but becomes more impressive when you put it into context. We are approaching the £20.00 mark on Google Adsense at the moment and have made $1.59 on a link site called Redgage. Now for eight months work I am sure you are thinking that this is not very much but all in the world of internet marketing agree that you should not expect to make very much money in your first year. If you bear in mind that this is by nature of a hobby for me, I write about things I enjoy and am interested in, it gets published on-line where it sits quietly minding its own business and gradually working its way up the search engines.... for all eternity!
And every time someone visits the site/article and clicks on a link it creates more passive income... for all eternity! Obviously the more things I get published the higher the earning capacity, especially as you can use all of your articles and sites to link to the others. While working out the position of webpage in the Google search engines Google looks to see how many external links the page has pointing to it, so it is up to me as an internet marketer to get as many links pointing back to each page as possible.
This can be done two ways, firstly by using social networking and social bookmarking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Infopirate and Redgage. The other way is by creating other articles/pages that link back the the first one and so on and so forth...
Thus it becomes a merry go round of writing, linking, writing some more, linking some more and so on! Some days I have to admit it does make my head fairly spin. Then I think about the other way in which this form of passive income is pretty OK.

At the beginning of the year I opened a cash ISA with a £10.00 deposit and any passive earnings I make from writing I intend to put into this account. While my writing, which has cost me nothing but time and inspiration, something I have great quantities of has made the nearly £20.00 on one place and $1.59 on another the £10.00 I put in the cash ISA has made an enormous.... wait for it...10p! An acquaintance of mine who also writes for Infobarrel wrote and told us about a recent revelation he had had regarding passive income. He had been with his wife for a financial assessment, these guys are a lot further along the whole process than I am and are earning about $69.00 a month in passive income from writing. Their financial advisor was absolutely amazed (and is presumably looking at a new career path) and told them that to make that level of passive income by interest from any bank account they would have to have deposited £25,000.00 in the account in the first place. Obviously they are making this amount of "interest" from their stories, articles and web pages that they do when they finish work for a hobby. Others on the site have been able to give up their day jobs and become full time writers as their passive income is consistently month after month more than they were earning in paid employment. This passive income keeps on rolling in, whether they are working, playing, sleeping, on vacation or up all night comforting their new baby!

So we are looking forward to a combination of internet marketing and writing books will eventually bring in a passive income that where ever we live will be earning us enough money to live and live comfortably!

More about the Internet shops in the next instalment!

New Year New Start.

2011-01-08T14:53:00.002Z

Well after a busy end of year and a lovely break over Christmas and New Year, we are back again and raring to go. 2011 is an exciting year here at JENDS with many of us involved in new exciting projects. Jessica is getting ready to go on a Battlefields tour with her school and has become the drama ambassador between her school and the local arts centre. Edward is continuing at his school which he loves very much. He has been there a full year now, is in the upper class and has made a new best friend although he will have to day goodbye to her at school in september when she leaves to go to senior school. Daniel will be 3 this year and so will be starting playschool! Steve is working hard towards his black belt in Jujitsu and continuing to curse Liverpool FC! I (Nici) have started a lot of new exciting projects and am straining at the bit to get to them all. www.crystalchalicedesigns.co.uk is having a make-over to make it far more easy to navigate, www.jendshamperstogo.co.uk is now established and more hampers will be going into the shop this year, the ones we launched last year were really successful. We now have www.jendsbeautyonline.com so I wont link it yet until we have the domain name registered and more products as it is in its infancy with only 5 products at the moment but many more to be added later in the year. I have a new site I am creating called www.sunnyspeaks.com (again will link that when its all set up and all the bugs are ironed out!) which I am launching shortly, an information site about all things craft related (both meanings of the word), and am now an article writer for Infobarrel, a fantastic infomation site which is growing and becoming more well known every day. So all in all a really busy year and with my other two blogs the ebay experience and last day of work, I have plenty to keep me occupied. In fact at the moment I have no idea which bit to start on first and am about to create a timetable to allocate time to the different projects each day so I dont get over-run. As it is I feel like I am writing content in my sleep and time off is a forgotten dream! Still if we keep busy we cant get into mischeif right? As I get more articles on InfoBarrel, or items in the shops, I will keep you posted so that you can see all that is going on. And as the rest of the family progress I will keep you updated with that too. This blog after all is about the daily doings of all of us! Meanwhile if you want to see what we got up to at Christmas, read this article, I keep reading it to remind me what all this hard work is for!

EBAY AND THE COMPETITION

2010-04-18T12:08:00.007+01:00

Hello and welcome to the first update of the Nici and Jess eBay trading competition! Without going into boring detail our ebay selling practises have all changed, and with these changes has grown a fierce spirit of competiton between me and Jess. Armed with £20.00 each to spend on things to list on auction, off we strotted to the shops. This was on Wednesday, and home we came two exhausted but happy shoppers. At this stage the interest on items on our shop, was 2 people watching things, that was it.
Thursday was a flurry of photographing, learning html code (groan), photo editing(jess groan) and shedulng listings to start at around 6pm. Jess seems to have drawn the big winner with a gorgeous pair of river island shoes (bought for 2.95)

She has a bid on these already!

I have a variety of baby things on, will show the gorgeous snoopy baby dress tomorrow, and interest in the shop has gone up to 21 people watching and 1 bid!

I think it is really encouraging to get the younger members of the family involved in the business, although in Daniel's case it is more in demanding to become the immediate owner of the newly purchased for listing toys. His most often heard expression at the moment is "is that for eBay mummy...?" rather wistfully!

Steve is enjoying his new responsibilities with the business, having taken over the position of "post man".
He now has to take all sold items from the shelf, package them in a set way and ensure they are dispatched within the following day of the payment received. He is not really ready for the listing yet but I will have him taking pictures before long if it kills me.

Teddy is enjoying school as always and I am happy to say is a much happier little person now, quite oblivious to the fact that a vast amount of this work is to ensure him a better future. He has special needs and we are at this point uncertain as to how much of an employment future he will be able to enjoy, so we are building up this business to look after us in our old age and him as he grows up.

Keep watching to see how all these things progress in the future!

Nicixxx

Pandora "Handora" Beads

2010-04-01T13:05:00.007+01:00

A new and very exciting development in the world of Pandora compatible beads is the newly created Handora stopper bead. Available on ebay at the moment and going into the shop presently. These lovely little beads are coils of silver wire with a silver charm on th end, they fit on the end of your bracelet or necklace and prevent your lovely beads from falling off every time you open the clasps.

You can unscrew them when you want to add a new bead, and they are fitted and unfitted by the simple process of screwing them onto the end cap, and bending the inner most coil of wire over the end of the clast with a small pair of pliers.

People buying a "Handora" bead at the same time as one of my pandora bracelets, dont have to pay postage for the bead and can have them fitted before dispatch! At only £2.50 plus p+p they are an inexpensive, yet stylish way of protecting your favourite bracelet.

Hurry and get yours today!

A lovely jewellery review...

2010-03-30T21:45:00.005+01:00

Was done for me today my by good friend Nickie at typecast.
Check it out here
Nicki is a fantastic lady, who's help has been invaluable in setting up this blog and also getting me tweeting all over the place, so she was my first choice when it came to starting my blog reviews program.
And I am so glad I did as I couldn't have hope for a better review! She mentioned the Pandora bracelets I make, did a stunning review about the new hampers and was very complimentary about the bracelet I designed for her. You can get your own bracelet at http://www.crystalchalicedesigns.co.uk/PROMOTION.html for the special introductory offer of £10.00.
So keep an eye out in the future for new reviews along with the new designs, and watch this space for information about a new blog coming out soon about all things jewellery, from how it began, to how it developed, to its cultural significance in today's hectic world.

And if you want to have a chat with nickie about her smashing blog you can find her here

Bright blessings for the rest of the day!

Nici xxx

SPECIAL BRACELET OFFER

2010-03-29T19:03:00.016+01:00

These are examples of the newly created calming bracelets. Designed as usual with a friend in mine I am particularly fond of these as they can be made incorporating many colours. The main colour obviously is the purple of the amethyst for the general all over healing, but the freshwater pearls for the purification and calming can be placed in any colour and combination of colours required. This makes them not only fun to make but versatile to sell as they can be made to suit anyone's colour preference.

I am really happy at the moment with how the photography is coming as well although I clearly still have a lot to learn. Future projects involve getting some white hardboard as a back drop and maybe eventually a new camera. Still the positioning and the extras make these look really good. If you like these calming bracelets then follow the link to the shop and let me know when you order of your colour preference, your wish, as always is my command!

As well at the moment we are concentrating on learning the whole blogging process and finding out how it all is working... there is a lot to learn, but my friend Nicki from Typecast is proving a valuable ally! The getting of the followers is what is getting to me and although I am on twitter and my following there is growing slowly on here it is a much slower process. Still with time and understanding I am sure I will get there eventually even if I have to bribe family members and friends as well to follow :D

So for today I hope you enjoy looking at all the bracelets and the other goodies onsite and I will be talking to you again soon!

Bright Blessings,

Nici xxx

Beading, Hampers and Pandora style jewellery!

2010-03-26T16:41:00.011Z

So this blog is not all about the business! Its all about the money (said in a corny accent with eyebrows waggling). And the family of course! In the case of J.E.N.D.S the whole concept of business and family go hand in hand and every family needs money of course, not only to survive but also to grow from strength to strength. So I will be using this particular blog to let you know in a broad scheme what things the whole family is getting up to. I have lots of other blogs as well, however and over time these will focus more and more on different aspects of the business so feel free to follow this blog and then join the others I will link to see what things are going on!

Meantime I will show you some pictures of the recent Pandora bracelets that are now available on site here
They are on sterling silver bracelets and the beads are glass with sterling silver inserts. Hope you like them!

This one is called "Paige" and is a bit gothic like the girl herself - my daughters best friend!

This one is called "Jessica" and is named after my daughter, because she is worth it too!

This one is my personal favourite and is called "green tea"

This one is called "Bronwyn" and is named after my mum!

So I hope you like them many more colours and other lovely designs can be found at J.E.N.D.S for your perusal!
Nici xxx

Return to the game!

2010-03-26T13:33:00.004Z

So after a prolonged absence due to flu I am back and raring to go! I am very excited at the moment as am learning about e-commerce and how to more effectively promote the business and make more money from it. Its a challenging time at the moment, with the new hampers to design, and the recession is reducing sales dramatically. So it becomes hard to keep working at something that shows no return.

The new ideas I am learning will helpfully help me to make a bit more money, and not feel that all my hard work is for nothing!
Now I was going to post a link to the new improved website, but as the vistaprint linkbuilder isnt working, its still not quite finished. Still it is possible to see the new improved flash intro and some other new features, check it out here, crystalchalicedesigns
and let me know what you think!, just bear in mind that some of the links are not working properly, yet, its a work in progress!
So busy busy busy, need to look into a website provider that doesnt charge for multiple websites, find out about partner affiliation and keep on studying. Mind you it has been a really busy week so this may have to wait until I have played World of Warcraft for a bit!
Catch you all soon!
Nici xxx

HAMPERVILLE - THE NEW CONCEPT.

2010-03-06T09:16:00.006Z

And so we have a new business concept at the moment which is taking all my obsessive time and attention, contributing to the lack of sleep, and generally causing much squeals of frustration and gnashing of teeth - until I get it right and then it's jubilation all the way!
It all came about at the end of last year when a very good friend of mine had her second daughter. I was absolutely thrilled for Cat and Tom and their older daughter Emily and wanted to do something for them to congratulate them. "A hamper" I thought, "I will order an online hamper full of goodies, to show how proud and pleased I am!"
Well could I find a suitable one anywhere? Not a one, the ones for new mums where all full of baby stuff, I didn't want that, I had already contributed a car load of baby things, I didn't want to get anymore! Not alcohol, either, wasn't sure if she was breast feeding. Didn't want chocolate as she had been diabetic throughout the pregnancy. Couldn't afford a posh foodie hamper, and besides I had no idea whether they would eat all the stuff in one of them anyway. So sadly I had to settle for the choccies, champers and teddy bear option, but it came to me that there was a gap in the market for affordable hampers that were a bit different from the norm. So for example one for a new mum, may include some bubble bath to help her relax, possibly a book, some nail polish maybe to make herself feel pretty, perhaps a relaxing cd, a nice scented candle, or some incense. Maybe a photo album to put all the piccies of the new bubba, or perhaps a child record book.

And so the concept of Hamperville was formed. I wanted to do it in such a way that there was something made by me in the hamper, perhaps some jewellery, and maybe something knitted (another passion of mine!) so that it was directly connected to the original business.
The pictures at the top of the post are of the first Hamper we created, The ColdCareCabana. This is a lovely get well soon gift for anyone suffering from the nasty cold and flu bugs going around lots at this time of year. it contains a mug, some lemon juice and some honey to make a hot toddy (just add whisky), some throat lozenges, chest rub, nose drops, anti-bacterial hand wash to stop the germs spreading, a large box of tissues contained in a lovingly hand-crafted tissue box cover and a gorgeous bracelet made from crystals that are particularly useful for helping colds. The fittings for the jewellery are in silver plate rather than sterling silver to keep the cost down, and the hamper sells at £25.00 plus postage and packing. Have a look at the facebook fansite for more details. Now £25.00 is much less than your bulk standard bunch of flowers online, (which will only make the recipient sneeze more!) and this lovely gift will help your friend or loved one, (or even employee) feel so much better, really soon. We offer a delivery service that will take it straight to the recipients door with a little card with a personal message from yourself, that they will be able to read once their eyes stop watering!
So that was the first one, the next one is going live tomorrow and is a lovely gift for mums off all ages, for mother's day, or just to say I love you Mum!
Hope everyone likes them, I know I would love to get one from someone!
Nici xxx

Good morning... or is 3 hours sleep ever enough?

2010-03-06T07:00:00.005Z

So here we are again, a mere 5 hours since Jess was fiddling around with the blog last night, and something the worse for wear. The smallest member of our "crew" Daniel appears to have decided that sleep is for wimps, and is determined to prove that mummy and daddy are superheroes. So after a mere 3 hour sleep I awake to hear him bellowing. I go to investigate only to find he is downstairs with his dad where he has been since half an hour after we went to bed. Poor Steve is a pale imitation of his former self. Daniel on the other hand is full of beans and is ready to play with/destroy/push the boundaries on anything he can get his slightly sticky mitts on! So after an hour of trying to convince him that it was still night time, despite the growing contrary indications in the sky, we have given up! He is rampaging round the room and I have sought refuge on here!

The good news is that prior to going to bed I was able to complete work on the last pieces for the newest hamper, which brings me nicely to the opportunity to do a bit of explaining about our blog.
This is a slightly different blog than normal, I believe, as it is partly personal and partly corporate. This is because ours is a nice little family business, and we all more or less help out in some small (or somewhat larger) way towards it. This means that it is a large concern for the whole family, there is not much of the house and garage that aren't consumed with it and it does take up a lot of many of our days. On the other hand, however, we don't want to do a different blog about the goings on of the whole family either. So we are combining this blog into a joint one about both the business and the family, so watch this space for all new developments.
So before I sign off for now and go and stuff Daniel head first down the toilet, I would like to thank my lovely friend Nickie for helping me get this set up, being the first to follow, send friends over this way and generally being a great support. And also a huge big welcome to all the new people reading, watching, following and nattering, its great to meet you. If you want to look at the jewellery prior to me getting the pages set up with photographs, there are links on the side of the page to both www.crystalchcalicedesigns, and to our ebay shop, also a link to the face book fanpage, where you can become a fan, (regardless of friend status) post comments and keep up to date with new developments across the board to do with the business. I would love to see people join, and to hear your opinions of the bits and bobs I make to make the world a slightly shinier, happier place.

Right now where is that toilet brush...........................

Help I have no idea what I am doing!

2010-03-05T02:57:00.002Z

So welcome to the long contemplated J.E.N.D.S. Blog. This is obviously our first post and I have absolutely no idea what I am doing, how to navigate the site, or what I am putting on here. So bear with me! I am Nici, creator of J.E.N.D.S. crystalchalicedesigns and family mum! the rest of the family consists of Steve - chief cook and bottle washer, Jessica -tech department and consumate eater of chocolate spread sandwiches, Teddy - style and product testing, when we can get him out of the shower, and Daniel - quality control, if he cant break em, no one can.
So the idea of this blog is to record stuff that the family does, mostly on behalf of the business so new projects, hopes and dreams will be posted here. We will also be updating on the crew members daily ups and downs, hopes, dreams and plans etc.
So nice to see you here, taking an interest in our family and business, we hope to spend many a happy hour, chatting, sharing (and selling things!)
Nici xxx