2009 Saul Bell Award-Enter your Jewelry Design

Rio Grande's Saul Bell Award deadline is just around the corner (Sept 19, 2008). Entering a well known design competition and being a finalist is an awesome way to get some major PR time.

This design competition has several categories including an emerging artist for those under 18:

Gold/Platinum
The predominant metal is gold, platinum or a combination of both. May be cast, fabricated, forged, assembled, or any combination of techniques. Must be your original design.

Precious Metal Clay®
The predominant material is either silver or gold Precious Metal Clay® (PMC), PMC+® or PMC3®. Must be your original design.

Beads
The predominant design elements are beads, pearls, or other strung ornaments. Beads may be any material. Must be your original design or assembly.

Silver
The predominant metal is silver. May be cast, fabricated, forged, assembled or any combination of techniques. Must be your original design.

Hollowware
A vessel that is spun, drawn, forged and/or raised. May incorporate decorative cast or fabricated components into the design. The medium is predominantly silver and/or gold.

Enamel
The predominant surface material must be enamel. Use glass-based enamels and fire on any type of metal. Must be your original design and construction.

You can get an application here....

The Customer Is Always Right....

Let me share a little Customer Service Issue and how I'm handling it...because the customer is always right!

Phew. I'm frustrated and I'm sure my customer is very upset. I had sent an sterling silver ammonite pendant to Spain. The customer felt it was more iridescent in the picture than in real person ; Designing-Diva Jewelry policy is that if you are not satisfied return any purchase within 7 days. The customer notified me of the intention to return and I waited...and waited...only to get an e-mail saying from the customer the package had been delivered and unclaimed since 3 weeks ago. I got the delivery attempt notice from the customer, went to the post office and ...yep, it is on it's way back to Spain.

Since I never received a package notice from the post office, I had NO idea that it was even here...just down the street at the local post office. My home studio always has someone around from 9am-6pm ; the delivery attempt log says 5:37pm on a day I knew I was firing glass (daily work log) until 630pm. Hmmmm....so how did that happen??? Don't know...but it is out of my control and it just means the customer's frustration level is probably through the roof right now!

I sent an e-mail with my apologies and included a generous gift certificate to assist with covering costs of shipping return back to me twice!!! Yikes!

I would love feedback...how would your business deal with this? Do you have policies in place for something bizarre like this?

I can honestly say, I have never had a delivery issue like this one!!! :)