Seconds anyone???

[Stacy]

So what do you all do with your "seconds"? I've heard bead release mixers, plant sticks, garden art, junk jars, mosaics etc...and am wondering what you do, and what your opinion on selling them or giving them away.

[SuzyQ]

If it isn't too bad it goes in the boxes for my auction customers. Others go in a big bowl of beads I sell for $1 at shows or give away to kids. Often I let a child look for their one free bead while their Mom can spend time shopping.

[Marcy]

It depends on what kind of "seconds" it is. If the end is too messed up and I can't string it with a bead cap, it goes in the garbage. If it isn't "perfect", but still okay, I give it away, string it into something for me, or find some creative location to leave it for someone else to find and enjoy. I have a hard time selling seconds, if they're not right.
Marcy

[judy]

I can't sell me seconds, either. I let children have them at shows. A happy child lets the mom have a minute to shop and makes a happy mom. Whether or not the mom buys anything, the kid at least got a little something, and everybody ends up happy. As a mom, I love it when people are nice to my children. Occasionally I will have a friend making something and I'll let her sort through and take any seconds she wants. Once in a while I am asked to do something like teach a Girl Scout troup how to string a bracelet and I let them pick through my seconds each. I usually gve a limit like 2 or 3 beads per child or else they would take them all.

[Cherine Perrin]

I usually throw mine away but now I think I will be saving them for kids at shows. Thanks for the idea!!

Cherine

[Juliac]

Another option is to donate them to a brownie troop or do a birthday party craft with them. We made some great backpack hangers!!

[M'lis]

I have a bead-bowl at the shows we do - if a child is being well-behaved and "looking with their eyes and not with their hands" I'll usually let them fish around in it for a bead for themselves. On the other hand, the little perishers who maul, pick up, muck about, and generally wreak havoc are likely to be roped, hog-tied and returned to their parent(s) with a bill for damages.

Melissa

[Patch]

Originally Posted by Marcy

It depends on what kind of "seconds" it is. If the end is too messed up and I can't string it with a bead cap, it goes in the garbage. If it isn't "perfect", but still okay, I give it away, string it into something for me, or find some creative location to leave it for someone else to find and enjoy. I have a hard time selling seconds, if they're not right.
Marcy

I love that idea of leaving it somewhere for someone to find it. I'll do that during the summer. I have tons of seconds!!

[bolimasa]

My big question is how do you define "second"????

I'm not really in the selling game yet, mostly beacuse I can dream up a thousand different excuses not to sell. (yeah,yeah, I know I need to get over this) Among those excuses is that every single thing I make is not a stunning, one of a kind, unique, work of art; some of my beads are actually *gasp*, ordinary, uninspired or even downright ugly. But at the same time they arennecessarily flawed (super wonky, bad ends, cracks etc.).... but does this make them seconds???

Since I don't really sell, a lot of beads pile up around my house, many I keep as inspiration for future work, or jewelry, some I keep as future sellers for when I get off my lazy rear and figure out the selling business, many are Ok but don't seem interesting enough to sell, or weren't quite what I envisioned them to be. From this last group some go to my kids friends, most of my florals go to my mom (she doesn't mind that one's with the less than perfect petal or bubble that irritates me with most my florals), and recently I gave about 40 to friend for a fundraiser. My friend and her daughter volunteer doing bird rehabilitation at a nature center. They have been bending and hammering wire into bookmarks and adorning them with my beads, and will be selling them in the nature center gift shop in order to raise funds for the bird rehabilitaion program. My friend showed me about 30 of them last night. It was cool to see my beads "all done up" and interesting to see beads that I wasn't particularily impressed with actually looking great made into bookmarks.