Why you should run craft or jewellery workshops
In today's video I explain what got me started running jewellery workshops and online courses, and why I think as a handmade business owner you should be running craft or jewellery workshops too! Plus A short tutorial showing your how to fire silver clay jewellery - this is an extract from my online course.
Mentioned in the video….
Secrets of the Ocean online silver clay course
Blog: how to run a successful craft or jewellery workshop
Watch the silver clay tutorial from 8 mins 49.
Show notes
Hello, I hope you're having a lovely week. So today I'm going to share with you one of the lessons from my online silver clay jewellery course, Secrets of the Ocean.
First I just wanted to talk a little bit about my background with teaching jewellery workshops and why I think this is such a fabulous way to kind of add an extra stream of income to your handmade business.) So I started teaching beginners silver clay jewellery workshops in 2018 and quite quickly they started selling out. I was originally teaching them up in Bristol, a city in the UK, where I was living at the time. Since then I've relocated to Devon but I've been teaching workshops still up in Bristol and Somerset and also down here in Devon and I've branched out to doing Hen do’s and I've also taught workshops at retreats as well which has been really, really fun.
So I had actually taught some creative workshops before. I taught some pottery workshops back when I was doing archaeology. I worked on a project where I designed some pottery workshops which was originally aimed at school children but you know I could teach it to adults as well, it's just as fun for them. So that kind of did help me with the whole teaching aspect of things. I knew it was something that I really enjoyed. When I was originally thinking about adding workshops onto my handmade business I had a bit of a kind of, you know, willy-nilly idea.
I was thinking ‘well I think I want to just do a creative workshop that helps people get in touch with their creativity and expand and spend some lovely time just being creative, design for people who probably haven't really done anything creative for quite a few years just to help them really get creative again’.
And whilst I do still really think that's really important, I think that is one of the key things that people are looking for and that they find when they do a creative workshop, you know a craft workshop, an art workshop, anything like that, I actually decided to do a bit of market research before I launched my workshop.
So I interviewed I think around 10 different people to find out what they would be interested in, what they might want from a creative workshop and I quickly realised that actually what people really wanted was, yes they wanted a lovely creative atmosphere, the chance to escape from everyday life and be creative.
But they also wanted to come out at the end of the workshop with something tangible that they can take away with them that they've created that's beautiful and that they're really proud of.
And I think this was a little bit of a light bulb moment for me and made me slightly rearrange how I decided to run my workshops because I realised that people, when people came to me, especially if they were beginners, you know they some of them might want to go on and learn silver clay jewellery, do further workshops or even become professional at it, but others of them they just wanted to have a fun few hours by their own or with friends and to come away with something really pretty that they'd made and that they were proud of.
So that enabled me to start thinking about my lesson plans and thinking about what I was going to ask people to create. When I first started the workshops I was quite broad with what they could create.I kind of said here you go, here's lots of different textures, lots of different patterns. I gave them a demonstration and then I said have a think about what you want to make and, you know, some of them went for it, some of them came in with very clear ideas about what they wanted to make, but actually a lot of people found that a little bit daunting and I think this is something to remember when you're running workshops for people. If they haven't or even if they have got the skills, quite often they're coming to you for one specific like thing that they want to learn or one specific outcome they want to achieve.
So in this my scenario they wanted to achieve, they wanted to make a lovely pendant which they could take home and wear out of silver clay. So I quickly realised that actually it would be better for me to hone in my workshops so that I actually gave them less creative kind of, they couldn't be as creative if they wanted. I wasn't just like here be creative because when people haven't had the chance to be creative for quite a long time that can be really daunting.
I mean as I said in my previous video, even for me who's doing creative stuff quite a lot of the time, it can be really daunting to be faced with that, oh what do I make.
So I actually kind of really narrowed down the workshop so that they had much less choice and I found that in a way in taking away that creativity of being allowed to do whatever you want, I was actually enabling them to be more creative in a way because they could get more into the flow of creativity, they could get more into the flow of what they were making because it took away the decision aspect for them, they didn't have to make a decision about what they were going to make, they could just really get into the task that I'd given them. And the other bonus of that was it meant that they're much more likely to produce something at the end of the workshop that they're really happy and they're really happy with and that they really love.
So I think that is something that's really, really important for you to think about if you're going to start introducing creative workshops into your handmade business.
And I have got a blog about creative workshops as well. So yeah, I started running my creative workshops and then I decided it was actually during the lockdowns that I obviously my workshops all had to finish, so I did run a virtual hen do which was quite fun.
I sent them the box of equipment and then ran it over Zoom, so that was quite fun, it was very different from the normal workshop experience. But I realised I needed to do something else and that was when I developed my online course.
So I have an online silver clay jewellery course, again it's aimed at beginners, it's called Secrets of the Ocean and you learn how to make a mould from a natural shell and then cast it in silver clay and add a lovely pearl onto it so that you've got a beautiful shell and pearl pendant. But I found this was a really lovely way and I've actually had people who've come on my in-person workshops but they've also taken the online course.
I had someone come who'd taken the online course first but then wanted to come along to have a go in person, to have me helping her out and giving her tips.And I've had it the other way around where people have come to the workshop and then taken the online course because they want to have the lessons that they can refer back to time and again. So again if you're thinking about workshops have a think about at some point adding at least one online course into your business because for us as handmade businesses there's so many different aspects to what we can provide and what can kind of help our business to be sustainable for us as well.
So I hope you found that useful let me know in the comments and what I'm going to do next is share with you my little snippet from my online course Secrets of the Ocean which shows you how to fire with silver clay.
I hope you find it useful and if we haven't met yet my name's Rebecca my business is called Rebecca Lucy.
I'm a jewellery designer maker based in the southwest of the UK. I specialise in silver clay jewellery and as I've mentioned I've been teaching workshops since 2018.
I also design my own collections and I'm really really passionate about handmade business. I've got a background in marketing and web design and I am just really passionate about helping handmade business owners or people who want to start a handmade business perhaps you've got a hobby that you'd love to turn into a business to be able to do that taking away some of the barriers to starting. So if that's you then please subscribe to my newsletter (you’ll get a fab freebie too - my social media prompt cards!) because over the coming months I will be sharing lots of little tips and tricks to help you get started.
