Nici's Art and Jewelry

@niciart

I was born and raised in East Germany and was 12 years old when the "Wall" fell. Currently, I reside in New Mexico with my hubby and black lab "Roxy." Art has always been my hobby and an escape from a stressful day job in health care. The vacuous desert of New Mexico inspired my creativity to fill the voids with huge colorful paintings of flowers, plants, mountains, landscapes, and extraterrestrial planets. Having run out of space on our walls, I began selling my pieces at a local farmer's market. Always in search of new ideas and mediums, I took a few courses in silversmithing and became passionate about creating custom handmade jewelry.

506 posts

Posts

A little aluminum vs. sterling experiment

I did a little experiment a couple of days ago in my own facebook https://www.facebook.com/NiciArt/ and a metalsmithing group I belong to that is also in facebook .

My posting there asked the question ” which is which ? ” What guitar pick is made of sterling and what is the aluminum . Just by looking at a picture . When I did the math about 76% percent picked the wrong metal – by the way…

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#aluminum #art #artist #guitar #guitar pick #handmade #music #plectrum #sterling

Going to the Show

As our 2017 market season comes a close, we are left thinking about the year in retrospective and as is typical for any business, discussing the endless should haves, could haves, and might haves. The only similarity between selling on-line and selling at a venue is the importance of having products with demand, however once you step into that arena with the gladiators battling it out for…

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New Guitar Wall Hangers

2017 was a year spent filling wholesale orders and not meeting our creative expectations for listing a new item at least once a week, blogging, or working on the websites. As the Christmas Markets are now behind us and the orders from the biggest buying days such as Cyber Monday are well on their way to good boys and girls everywhere, we are finally able to launch a few new guitar wall hangers. …

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Latest Wooden Guitar Wall Hangers for Father's Day

Latest Wooden Guitar Wall Hangers for Father’s Day

With orders eclipsing previous years sales, Spring 2017 has left little time for creating and has been more an exercising in paddling a kayak upstream during during heavy snow melt, however as a last minute surprise, we are proud to release two more wall hanger designs just in time for Father’s Day. Our first new design features a Paw Print routed into a Cherry Wood 8 inch disc using a wood…

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Introducing Our Wooden Guitar Wall Hangers

Over the past 5 years, our jewelry has trended towards gift ideas in a process we call “giftification.” This concept of “giftification” is often responsible for the demise of online Etsy Shops, where the repetition of saturating social media specialized for particular occasions such as anniversaries and weddings combined with squeezing from competition, undermines the “everyday appeal” of…

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The Art of Exercise - Finding inspiration in 2017

The Art of Exercise – Finding inspiration in 2017

Coming off the worst Christmas season to date with nearly a 30% drop in revenue on Etsy followed by endless wayward Pacific storms taking the scenic route through Cave Creek, AZ with uninterrupted drenching rains, January 2017 ushered in a period of zero inspiration and low grade depression, where the point of our business endeavors became awash in a mixed cocktail of anger, frustration, and…

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What's Changing in 2017 at NiciArt? We're going Content Rich

What’s Changing in 2017 at NiciArt? We’re going Content Rich

Introduction After Google saved Nici’s Picks and NiciArt from the curse of disappointing sales that are plaguing our Etsy Shop at the moment, this final week before Christmas has been a period to pause, rewind, and reflect on what may have gone awry. The most obvious mistake was being comfortably content on Etsy and letting the days pass with a complacent mindset buttressed by the old adage “too…

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Is it worth the time of putting together a website?

Posted almost daily in the Etsy forums is the question whether it’s worth the time and effort to create your own website in addition to selling on Etsy. Most often this question is posed in connection to slow sales on Etsy and the website is being viewed as a logical alternative or addition that will help a seller realize their sales goals. The unfortunate answer to this question is far from a…

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Adding Extra Rows for Promoted Links/Featured Items on Shopify Responsive Theme

Accommodating a growing business always requires a little code juggling and planning. Currently, we really like our Responsive Shopify Theme, however having only 8 featured categories presents a challenge for NiciArt as we move into 2017. To expand our line-up, we are planning on offering photography, jewelry tools and equipment, paintings, and overhauling our golf ball marker category in the…

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NiciArt Reports Mixed Bag of Sales for the Holidays

Are Shoppers holding back in 2016? With the holiday shopping nearing a close, NiciArt was left with mixed messages and piles of data requiring some considerable extrapolation in order to find meaningful conclusions for the 4Q Holiday Sales. The clearest change in holiday patterns was on our Etsy Site, where revenue was down 20% and sales down 50% based on sample sizes of over 1000 orders. Though…

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The Metal Ethos

The Metal Ethos blog truly marks the end of an era at NiciArt. Selling on-line offers comfort to those who seek anonymity in cyberspace, but for a company like NiciArt that thrives on telephone support, interacting with customers and working in all three dimensions, cyberspace is a cold vast frontier. The first step in conquering that cold dark space is both members stepping out of cyberspace…

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Black Friday

Black Friday 2016 is in full swing with sales trickling in through out the hour, however volume is definitely lower than expected heading into the midday hours. Much like being glue to the electoral maps on November 8th, we are filling orders while keeping another eye focused on the stats. We attribute election shock as the sole reason behind the sluggish start to the holiday season which was…

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Back in the Game with Etsy

Seeing Etsy’s stock dip back to $12.86, we re-entered and will continue our long position. I could have also elected to hold through the little dip and add to the position, but I really don’t want to play big on Etsy. Not only do I see investing as a necessary evil to turn a little measly Etsy Shop salary into a sustainable living wage, I enjoy breaking up the work day with a little background…

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Etsy Stock Sale

After Monday’s resistance at $13.00, I decided to close out my long position on Etsy and take home 3.2%. My gut feeling is Etsy will retest, retake, but settle in somewhere in the low $13s. The reason to invest in Etsy is Etsy has a unique and almost unchallenged position in a niche market, however that niche is also has limited growth. As Etsy continues to pursue a path of spreading traffic and…

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The Holiday Rush has Started

Usually the holiday rush starts the Friday after Thanksgiving around midday and wave upon wave of orders leave us buried for those 4 weeks heading into Christmas and New Years. Much like trying to shovel snow in blizzard with a soup spoon, trying to get ahead is impossible, however we manage to keep up with short nights and long day. This year, the holiday rush started on Saturday the 19th,…

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On the first Day of Christmas My True Love gave me Etsy Stock

Getting in the holiday spirit, we started working on that Christmas shopping list which now includes opening a long position on Etsy Stock @ $12.59 with an intended exit at $13.75 by the close of the year. While our sentiments regarding Etsy as a selling venue for NiciArt and Nici’s Picks would be perform down from outperform just a few months ago, the arguments for a stock run up to $13.75 and…

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Making Money is Easy, Doing Business is Expensive

Had someone even suggested making money in our jewelry and guitar picks business would be easy 5 years ago when we embarked on this journey, I would have baulked and dismissed such a claim as being absolutely disconnected with the obstacles facing small business. Since 2012, we have seen revenue increases year over year making our dream a reality, so we should be going out tonight to celebrate…

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