All of the traveling and set-up involved in selling your jewelry at shows can become frustrating and tedious. Although you realize the better solution may be to sell your handcrafted jewelry online, you may not know where to start.

Although you will eventually want to design your own website, using a website to sell handcrafted jewelry doesn’t guarantee traffic or sales. Getting people to visit your site can be one of the most frustrating aspects of selling online. Many jewelry designers put up a website and eagerly wait for the traffic to come. Unfortunately, it never arrives and they end up giving up entirely on selling handcrafted jewelry online. This is unfortunate since you can reach an international market when you sell your handmade jewelry on the web.

Another option that works for some people is to sell handcrafted jewelry on eBay. While eBay receives an enormous amount of traffic, many of your potential customers have a “bargain basement” mentality. Simply put, they’re looking for a steal and aren’t willing to pay the decent prices you deserve for your handmade jewelry. If you happen to designer lower end handmade jewelry, it’s possible you could do well on Ebay although you still have to compete with all of the imports and mass produced jewelry.

So, what’s the solution if you want to sell handcrafted jewelry and make a decent profit? One of the best options is to sell your handmade jewelry in an art and craft online galleries. The advantage to selling through an online gallery devoted to handmade items is you’ll have an automatic source of traffic which will leave you more time to design jewelry instead of spending excessive amounts of time promoting an independent website.

The other advantage of selling handcrafted jewelry through an online gallery is the site usually takes care of the payment transactions for you and sends you an email with notification of the sale. You then package the item and send it on its way to your customer. It can be liberating to not have to deal with the hassles of having your own merchant account. Selling handcrafted jewelry through an online gallery also gives you a certain level of credibility which can enhance your reputation as a jewelry artist. It’s a wonderful alternative to craft shows and online auctions.

Body jewelry and body piercing practices have been observed by various groups of people all over the world throughout the centuries. For some tribes it is a rite of passage, for others it is an indicator of social status. For many, body jewelry is used to enhance personal beauty and as devices to rise above the rest of the pack. Today’s celebrities have been at the forefront in making body jewelry much more mainstream and acceptable – even desirable.

Today, body jewelry is endorsed by pop celebrities with mass followings, including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Fiona Apple and Lenny Kravitz. Britney Spears has an extensive collection of navel rings, and Christina Aguilera is said to wear the most interesting body jewelry in areas that are covered by her clothing.

Some celebrities with an otherwise ‘serious’ image are nevertheless fans of body art. Actress Camryn Manheim of the television drama ‘The Firm’ sports multiple earrings on the cartilage of one ear. Gillian Anderson, who played the cynical and skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully in the television series ‘The X Files,’ has a pierced belly button. Performers with tongue piercings include former Spice Girl Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) and dancer Jimmy Gulzar, while supermodels Christy Turlington and James King are proud of their piercings. Some sports celebrities also wear body jewelry, including WWE wrestlers A-Train and Billy Gunn, as well as football player Ricky Williams.

Body jewelry has also been used throughout the ages to enhance sensation, and by extension, sexuality and sexual performance. Genital and nipple piercing in both men and women, while not as widespread as nose, ear, tongue, navel and eyebrow piercing, still has its own following. Singer Janet Jackson has stated on the Oprah Winfrey talk show that she likes the sensation that her pierced nipples give her. Other celebrities with pierced nipples include rock musicians Axl Rose and Tommy Lee, Icelandic singer Bjork and rapper Lil Kim. Pop princess Britney Spears likewise has a pierced nipple.

Celebrities, whether they like it or not, are oftentimes looked up to as role models and the influence they wield over their fans is considerable. Fans emulate their idols’ preferences: from clothing, mannerism, even to the wearing of body jewelry. More and more, they are playing a leading role not only in the direction of today’s fashion trends but also in the shaping of modern pop culture.