You may have noticed Lumen has been silent since late Feb. We had big plans for 2020 (didn’t we all!). More in person classes as well as retiring old designs to make room for new blinky bling in kit and jewelry form. But then the global pandemic started and events were postponed. And postponed again. […]
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Amazon Update

It has only been a month but we have already broken even. Wow! What does that mean, exactly? With all the fees involved selling on Amazon we weren’t sure when sales would cover them plus cost of goods. But we’ve had enough sales in our first month to have a net loss of only $1.24. […]
Lumen is on Amazon

Lumen Kits are on Amazon! We’ve entered the 20th century! Check them out. And I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but if you have Amazon Prime you get FREE SHIPPING! (Unlike our website.) Why on earth would I tell you that? Because we need reviews, which weigh heavily in the Amazon search algorithms. It’s the […]
New York Maker Faire Recap

We are finally recovered from our first New York Maker Faire, September 23rd and 24th. It was both the best and worst show this year, as only New York can do. I’m going to give a bit more detail than I usually do, in the interests of transparency. Unfortunately it wasn’t all shiny. The Bad […]
New Butterfly Necklace

The new and improved Butterfly Necklace! Over the past year we’ve been re-designing the Butterfly necklace. The most obvious difference is its size, we shrunk it by 30% based on customer feedback. We also completely re-designed the circuit to charge faster with solar. It now takes 15 to 20 minutes to charge, rather than the […]
New Photos!

We have updated some of our photos. Photography has always been difficult for us. Cameras do not work the same as the human eye. If the lighting is too bright, the camera does not pick up the blinks. If it is dim enough to see the blinks on screen, the jewelry is too dark to see detail. […]
Lesson #6 – Lumen By the Numbers, Pricing Part Two.

Before I get to our pricing structure, there is one more concept I need to explain. Wholesale vs Retail Pricing Most consumers know that the price they see in a store (retail) is not what the retailer paid for it (wholesale). At the end of last post I quoted a retail markup that may be […]
Lesson #6 – The Dirty Secret of Pricing Art, Part One.

I had several ideas about what to write for this final installment of lessons we learned selling art. The one that scared me the most was to bare it all and explain our pricing. I was (am) afraid people will argue with me, call us greedy or unreasonable. Once you put out a number someone […]
Lesson #5: Art Shows Aren’t Selling Art.

I am not normally this cynical sounding. But in my experience… Art shows are not in the business of selling art. What do I mean by this seemingly contradictory statement? Of course an art show exists to sell art! They have art, with price tags. That’s what I thought, at first. But after a […]
Lesson #4: Networking and Stalking

4. Networking and stalking (online) are your BFF Last post I spoke about the importance of finding our target market. Despite very few sales at the first few art and craft fairs we attended, we learned valuable lessons. Good things can come from events that are financially a “failure”. Similar to being an engineer, as […]