She was tall, elegant, well-dressed, and well-spoken.

She never carried a weapon, broke into a store, or held anyone up.

But for five decades, Doris Payne made a career of stealing expensive jewelry from upscale stores.

She had a simple, effective strategy:  "Pick a nice store and look like you belong there. Make sure your well-cut outfit has deep pockets."

Once inside the store, Doris would have the clerk bring out several pieces of jewelry for her to try on.

When she decided which piece to steal, she would make sure the clerk first saw her wearing that piece, and then saw her without it.

In the confusion of having several pieces of jewelry out, it was easy for Doris to slip the chosen piece into one  of her deep pockets.

As a jewelry artist who has had my own jewelry shoplifted once at a show, Doris' story fascinates me.

I also think it's a good cautionary tale about the need for vigilance for anyone who sells jewelry by any method.

You can read Doris' full story in this Los Angeles Times article:  Too Elegant to Be a Jewelry Thief.

I also highly recommend visiting the Jewelers' Security Alliance website.  It has lots of helpful info on jewelry crime, including videos of actual jewelry thefts.

Here's a unique, free resource of useful information on various aspects of making jewelry:

Reviews & Guides by Charlene Anderson

As of this writing, Charlene provides 59 clear, concise online guides covering primarily jewelry-oriented topics - but also touching on related topics such as crafts and collectibles.

Thanks for providing these great information resources, Charlene!

Before moving ahead with her jewelry business, Shannon Orr of Charms wanted to test her market.

So she decided to invite people to a jewelry open house event, hosted at her home.

"However, this grand open house had to look grand without the expense," Shannon says, "a great opportunity to get creative!"

And getting creative is exactly what she did.

In Hosting a Jewelry Open House you can find out how Shannon stretched a shoestring budget to get elegantly set up with jewelry tags and earring cards, business cards, signs, price tags, displays, table coverings, catered food, and more.

Holly Edwards found a neat way to get design ideas for Cloisonne and other similar styles:

"When creating faux Cloisonne jewellery and in need of inspiration, I found that looking at stained glass designs is really helpful.

You can also look at simplistic line art, or find designs you can simplify (but only if they are royalty free!).

Essentially you are looking for line and color patterns…even stencil patterns will do!"

Dover Publications is one good source of copyright-free stained glass designs.

Scott from JC Jewelry shares this great bead storage tip:

Upon starting our own business with customized bead jewelry one thing began to make itself clear:  Bead storage is a major issue.

We looked at everything from tackle boxes to craft organizers - however, with the amount of inventory that we needed these items became expensive very quickly.

We had to come up with something cheap and effective for our beads, thus we came up with this idea: Photo tubes.

These are actually FREE, imagine that, if you just ask for them at your local photo shop.

They can hold up to around a 16" strand of 8mm beads.

If you go to a higher bead size, you can just place the beads in two tubes instead of one.

We have taken the idea even further and purchased a three-drawer storage unit at Wal-Mart and placed the tubes with the beads in it.

They fit perfectly and this keeps the tubes stable.

You can also use the lids if you choose although we do not.

Hope this helps another fellow designer as I know I hate reinventing the wheel.

A tip for storing larger mm beads, such as nuggets:  The plastic baby containers work magically, and you can see through them.

Scott also shares art/craft show photos and more at his JC Jewelry blog.

A major challenge in selling your jewelry online is building trust with potential customers, since they don't get to meet you face-to-face.

One way to build customers' confidence in you is to share true stories about your jewelry and your business.

I came across an excellent trust-building story at Fine Jewelry by JR Dunn Jewelers.

It expresses the company's trustworthiness and standards while establishing its history:

"The House of Gems was robbed during the first year (1969) and every piece of jewelry was taken, including customers' repairs. Ann Marie and Jim R. Dunn went from door to door informing clients and reassuring them that their prized possessions would be replaced. The Dunns paid for the stolen jewelry out of their own pockets to preserve their reputation for integrity and trust."

From this story, potential customers can be reassured that JR Dunn has been selling jewelry for at least 40 years.

But they also see the trustworthiness and high level of customer care they can expect from this business.

Think of stories you can share about your own jewelry or jewelry business - and put them on your jewelry blog, website, or other marketing literature!

"Many of my students who have jewelry businesses and were primarily beading have found that their metal clay pieces sell faster and better, and draw a lot of attention at shows and other venues," says Lis-el Crowley of Art & Soul Gallery / Studio.

If you've been tempted to try your hand at the fascinating jewelry medium of metal clay, see Lis'el's article Getting Started with Silver Clay before you shop for supplies.

She's a certified Art Clay Silver instructor who creates gorgeous fantasy pieces - have a peek at the jewelry in her Heart of the Fire Etsy shop.

For hundreds of years Taxco, Mexico has been world-renowned for its rich veins of silver and skilled silversmiths.

On a visit to Mexico a few years ago, Catherine D'Arcy was impressed with the craftsmanship of the Taxco silversmiths.

She requested a custom silver bracelet and necklace set - and a week later, she was surprised to receive 10 beautifully handmade sets of the same design instead of just one.

Catherine says,

"It was my fault, with my terrible Spanish, so I bought them and started thinking about what to do next."

Find out how this misunderstanding led to the birth of a silver jewellery business called Corazon Latino in Catherine's story, The Accidental Jewelry Business.

A few weeks ago we talked about bartering your jewelry for goods and services - and what Kari Anderson got in exchange for her pearls.

In a comment after that post, Cindy Burns related how she's traded with other artists at shows.

I love bartering with other artists too!  I have a lovely collection of items I use and enjoy every day, thanks to trading my jewelry for them.

I've bartered for stained glass, pottery, jewelry, prints, paintings, notecards, wine bottle stoppers, glassware, woodwork, and more.

And because I know the artists, these pieces are even more special to me.

This month I worked on a custom wire jewelry order for my pottery artist friend Tari Federer.

She had a river rock, a tumbled stone, and a crystal that are very significant to her.  She asked me to turn them into pendants for her, and to create leather cords in two different lengths for these pendants.

Although I ran out of time to photograph the pendants before I delivered them to Tari, I took pictures of her incredible pottery for which I traded my wirework:

This rustic, rectangular serving plate (measuring 10" x 14") has a slightly concave center, making it a sort of shallow bowl.  Tari pressed pine needles into it, which left an almost fossil-type of imprint:

She pressed sprigs of rosemary into the matching oval platter (measuring 6.5" x 16"):

Sage green is my favorite color, and I have a set of dishes called Lotus Grove that work beautifully with these two platters.

I couldn't be happier with our jewelry-for-pottery barter, and Tari feels the same way!

When Cathy Tran of Jeweled Blossoms first started selling her jewelry on Etsy, she was discouraged by the low traffic to her storefront there.

She says,

"What I came to realize many weeks later, however, is that I had simply not learned how to promote myself on Etsy.

"After many more weeks, I discovered many ways to get myself and, more importantly, my jewelry, seen on Etsy."

Discover Cathy's high-traffic strategies in How to Get Your Jewelry Seen on Etsy - a survival guide article Cathy wrote just for jewelry artists.