Creating a Craft/Handmade Jewelry Look Book

I will be very honest and tell you that this has been one of the most difficult task for me to take on because your Look Book is literally a presentation of all your work and your statement piece when your items are not present.  It does give you that boost of sales you are looking for.  I am still working on my pieces and I cannot tell you how many times I have changed it.  The pages I am displaying are just sample pieces but I do plan on changing them because I feel simple is key.  You do want to make things easy for your viewers to search through your items but you do not want to take away from the merchandise on each page by adding a bunch of words and making the page look overwhelming to the eye.  It can be a turn off when there is too much going on.  You do however want to make sure you add the price listings to all your pieces because buyers do not want to try to figure out or ask how much each item cost.  

I went to the Innovative Bead Show this weekend in NJ and I have to say I was intrigued by this one booth but I was so annoyed that I had to ask the price for each and every item I was interested in.  When there is only one person at the booth with people interested in items and no prices listed, waiting for the sales person to even acknowledge you becomes a huge turn off and your customer walks away and you lose a sale.  That is what happened with this particular vendor and I.  I just didn't want to wait anymore than I had to and I was there for more almost 20 minutes.  

No imagine your customer looking through your Look Book and they may be interested in many items but they have to inquire about each and every one.  Now imagine that your Look Book is not even in your presence, are you honestly going to remember the price of each and every item including the new inventory just listed.  I highly doubt you will be able to do that unless it is an item that is a great seller. 

You can add the items on one page and the prices on the other.  You can match each item to the prices by added reference numbers or anything that will make it easier for your customer to order your merchandise. 

It was very difficult for me to find anything regarding a Look Book so as of right now, I used simple references and am making it up as I go.  Since I am having great difficulties, I hope that at least I can help you. 

It's a lot of work and patience to do because you want it to look good.  I am printing out all of my items on a 8.5 x 11 page using brochure paper because the quality is better.  You can easily have them printed elsewhere.  I am using the http://www.picmonkey.com to create my Look Book.  The program is pretty simple to use considering again, I knew nothing of what I was doing but I like how things came out.  

As you can see in the pictures above, one as a border and the other does not.  You have to play with your set up until you like it.  As I stated above, I am still trying to figure out what will work for me but I wanted to provide you with a sample so you at least have an idea of how you can set up your Look Book.  I am not even sure if this is the standard Look Book but it is a start and it looks good to have a portfolio of your items. 

As you can see one of these pictures has numbers and the other does not.  I wanted to give you an actual reference as to what I was referring to in regards to added numbers to each image to make it easier for your price points.  Since the image is already displayed with merchandise I have created, if I added the prices to this on top of what it looks like currently, your eyes would be every where instead of on each piece.  

This is the same concept but using different images of my merchandise. 

If you have any tips or ideas that would help me or others, please comment.  I would really like the feedback.