LIFELONG LEARNING & A FACELIFT

All of life is learning, or it should be. There were the square, circle, star, triangle, etc. for which you were tasked with sussing out the proper receptacle when you were a ‘wee bairn*.’ Or the worlds opened to you when learning to read. And for me, learning the intricacies of playing my flute and learning dressage**. Then there was my goal to bring the events I organized in a ‘previous life’ into the cyber world. I have two degrees in music, none in IT, not a single class!  But I bought books (many books), read, experimented, and learned to code in quel, then SQL, then write databases (back end and front end) through Oracle. And better still, they worked! Woohoo!

Fast forward and now I’ve used the Shopify platform to build my website. They use a language called ‘liquid’ and I understand it enough to make the tweaks I need. Marketing research led me to hire Laryssa Wirstiuk and her company Joy Joya Jewelry Branding and Marketing Services. With her very pleasant and expert guidance I’m working to be more relevant in my online 'hoofprint' via social media. I’ve been busy updating my website and integrating and setting up Facebook and Instagram Shopping. Wow, it’s been a lot of learning and work. But I do enjoy acquiring the knowledge and seeing the results. I also finally dove head-first into the tedious (and odious) task of removing the word Swarovski from my business. (Except the physical product tags, don’t think I’ll change them all out!) There are around 500 items on the website, so yeah, that little project took a good long while! Fortunately, crystals and crystal pearls are not a component of every item. That’s all I worked on other than horse care, self care, and student lessons for several days. The unwelcomed impetus for this chore was explained in the Important Bling News blog. The removal necessitated URL changes, so I had to go into previous blogs and attach new links. It also means that many links in old Facebook and Instagram posts are probably broken. All links in the digital shops on those two platforms, however, reflect the brand new, spiffy, and fully functional URLs. So please feel free to browse and shop away! Oh, and check out the new collection called Wedding Radiance and the always popular one named On Sale.

Apparently, it’s legal ‘best practice’ to use an email platform to communicate with subscribers from the website. Enter Klaviyo. Everything you receive from M’Lady Creations, aka Anna Whitlock Henry, will now be sent via Klaviyo or straight from Shopify.

Once I’ve hacked my way through the jungle of cyber exposure integration, I’ll be excited to return to the physically creative side of MLC and start plotting inspired jewelry with the newest arrival of freshwater pearls, crystals and crystal pearls - whose manufacturer shall not be named (see above removed name), stone beads, and sterling silver and gold-filled findings.

Hallelujah for Spring!

*small child

**a method of training & riding horses