Farewell, Squidoo

It is with a heavy heart that I write that Squidoo will be no more. Squidoo has been the home of my online articles for 8 years, one of the best online writing platforms on the web, and a fun, supportive community that I and my fellow writers on the site will miss terribly. I have been very honored to be the official Squidoo Contributor for the Bangles, Baubles and Beads niche, and I will forever be grateful to Seth Godin, Megan Casey, Corey Brown, Gil Hildebrand, Bonnie Diczhazy, Robin Svedi, Susan Deppner, Stephanie Mangino, and the many people who made Squidoo a truly remarkable place.

Now I have to make some difficult decisions about where to move my more than 70 articles that currently reside on Squidoo. HubPages will be acquiring some of Squidoo's content, and I plan to move many of my articles there. But not all of my articles are a good fit for HubPages, and I may well be moving some of my jewelry making articles here, my recipe articles elsewhere, and the rest of my articles to still other sites. I promise to let everyone know as soon as I do where they can find my content in the future.

In the short term, until all the jewelry making articles I've linked to from this blog have found new homes, some of them may be temporarily inaccessible. If so, I apologize sincerely in advance. I will do my best to get my content relocated and update the links accordingly. In the interim, I hope you will understand and hang in there with me through the transition period.

Many thanks for your support!

Margaret

Share your jewelry making tutorials for free (and still make some money from them).

Have you ever thought about writing a few jewelry making tutorials but don't have (or want) a blog? Or maybe you have a blog...but not much of an audience? Do you want to share your tutorials for free rather than selling them and still have the opportunity to earn some income for your efforts? Then Squidoo could be a terrific option for you.

As most of you know, I use Squidoo as my primary publishing platform for my jewelry making (and other) articles and tutorials. It's free, provides easy-to-use content templates, and has one of the best management and support teams of any company I know. It also has a huge audience (389,222 unique visitors and 598,943 page views globally and 229,046 unique visitors and 331,994 page views in the US only as of today, according to Quantcast) that you could never hope to reach through your own blog.

Squidoo also does a lot to help promote the articles (called "lenses") written by its members ("lensmasters"), not only on the site but also in social media and through its magazines. So Crafty is Squidoo's popular magazine dedicated to crafts (jewelry making is categorized as a craft on Squidoo), and managing editor Stephanie Mangino does a fabulous job of curating terrific projects from Squidoo writers as well as from blogs and other online sources to make the magazine a worthwhile destination for crafting enthusiasts. So if you do a good job with your tutorial, there's a good chance that So Crafty magazine may feature and promote it on social media to give it even more visibility. And since I'm Squidoo's "Bangles, Baubles and Beads" Contributor, if you send me the link to your tutorial I'll check it out and might even feature it!

You can recommend Amazon items that relate to your project tutorials (and also eBay items if you use the default lens format) and earn a small commission if someone makes a purchase directly from one of your lenses. In addition, if your lens becomes popular, it also may qualify for "tier pay", which means that it is eligible for a share of Squidoo's advertising income. (Some types of lenses, such as product reviews, are excluded from tier pay, but they also have a greater chance of converting to sales because they feature detailed reviews of a specific Amazon product.) You can use Squidoo's regular lens format for your tutorial, but the "How To" format has been optimized specifically for projects and will result in a very professional presentation.

Getting started on Squidoo couldn't be easier. Just sign up to become a Squidoo member. Then after you have signed up, go to www.squidoo.com/new/howtoformat and follow the prompts to create your tutorial in the "How To" format (or click the big orange Create a Lens button on your Squidoo dashboard). Stephanie Mangino just made a terrific video on how to write a project tutorial using Squidoo's "How To" lens format that happens to feature my Romantic "Queen of Hearts" Earrings tutorial as the example.



If you have any questions about writing on Squidoo or using the How To lens format, just let me know. I'm looking forward to seeing your new jewelry project tutorials on Squidoo!

I was just interviewed on Squidoo!

Recently I was interviewed by Robin Svedi of Squidoo about my new role as Squidoo's "Bangles, Baubles and Beads" Contributor. I was really exciting this morning to see it posted on the Squidoo HQ blog!

If you'd like to find out how I fell in love with jewelry making when I was a young girl (thanks to my mom and some gorgeous Venetian glass beads) and ended up designing and making one-of-a-kind jewelry professionally, I invite you to check it out. :)



My interview about becoming Squidoo's new "Bangles, Baubles and Beads" Contributor

Share Your Favorite Bead Organizers and Bead Storage Solutions!

We all love seeing each other's studio spaces or work areas, favorite tools, books, etc. Yesterday I shared some of my favorite bead storage solutions.

Now it's your turn to share your favorite products for organizing and storing your beads. 

I've compiled a list on Squidoo of 50 great bead organizers and storage products for you to review.

Just pick a product you own and love and click the Review It button. Then write about why you love it. (And if your favorite product isn't in the list, you can still review it as long as it's sold on Amazon.) It's simple, easy, and fun, and you might even earn a bit of cash along the way if someone buys the product on Amazon through your review.

When your review is published, share the link to your review in the comments section of my product review list page (or here, if you prefer) so I and others can check it out. I'll be sharing some of my favorites here, on Squidoo, and on social media.

Ready to get started?

Review your favorite bead organizers and storage solutions.

 I've shared my favorites with you, so come on and show us yours. Fair's fair! :)

Welcome to the "Bangles, Baubles and Beads" Jewelry Making Techniques Blog!

Hi! I'm Margaret Schindel - jewelry artist, Senior Editor/Technical Editor of Metal Clay Artist Magazine and the new Bangles, Baubles and Beads contributor on So Crafty magazine on Squidoo.

I love making jewelry using many different materials and techniques including contemporary and vintage glass beads, findings and components - especially vintage-inspired jewelry; silver, gold, bronze and other metals - especially metal clay techniques; polymer clay - especially polymer clay mokume gane; and an ever growing number of others.

Here are some examples of my jewelry designs:

I also love learning new jewelry making techniques and sharing my experience, expertise and discoveries with other jewelry artists and jewelry lovers. So whether you're a jewelry making newbie or a professional jewelry artist, you'll find tips, trends, techniques, tutorials and plenty of inspiration from me and other jewelry makers. Start by checking out my helpful jewelry making articles and tutorials on metal clay jewelry, beaded jewelry and polymer clay jewelry as well as all my crafting and jewelry making articles on Squidoo.

Let's have some fun and share our passion for jewelry making together!

~ Margaret