hey its the anon about your prices im really sorry i didnt realize how much work was put into them and that they were really great quality. i feel even worse because of all the nasty things people said in comments and stuff :(
It's okay. I can't control what other people write on my posts; I'm sorry if you were hurt by something they said.
In the past people have been incredibly rude to me about my prices (telling me I'm scum, even) and it gets so, SO frustrating having to explain every single time.
I use high quality supplies. I DO NOT buy from China. All my wire/chains/etc. are made in USA or Germany.
I use only all natural gemstones. A lot of people use dyed or treated stones, that are less expensive, but I do not. My stones are always 100% natural and not messed with.
The stones I use are high quality and some stones are very rare. Stones like opal that I have in my shop are very rare, most people use synthetic opal which costs nothing compared to the real thing. It takes very little effort to google "Andamooka opal" and see what a stone like that costs.
I spend hours upon hours upon hours working. This weekend was the first weekend in forever that I allowed myself to take off. I even worked through my little sister's birthday party. I manage this business all by myself. I take the pictures, I answer people's questions on tumblr and Etsy, I write all the listings, I actually make the pendants, I have to travel far to do things like go to mineral shows and get stones drilled and whatnot. Sometimes I spend a whole day doing a bunch of things for people asking for custom orders, only for them to disappear once they need to pay.
I don't buy wholesale. I don't have a resale license yet, so I can't buy things at wholesale prices.
I live in Los Angeles.. one of the top 10 most expensive cities in the entire country. My husband's job isn't exactly great, and I need to be able to pay bills.
When you calculate the number of hours I work and the amount of money I'm making, I'm barely, BARELY making minimum wage. So if I wanted to charge even more for my pendants, I could easily do so, and it would be justified.
I simply deserve to be payed for my work and effort.
There. That's pretty much everything that goes into the cost of the things in my shop. I hope that makes it clear and easy to understand. I've finally written it all out, and the next time someone asks me that question (whether they were polite or not) I'm just going to kindly link them to this.
Thank you for reading and understanding.