Wendy Brandes is a jewelry designer who started a blog to market her products… almost four months later, she’s got a huge following… and no wonder, it’s such a joy to read her hilarious takes on her fabulous dress collection, ancient queens, and quirky fashion statements. Here she lets us in on a little bit about her life, and her blog….

Where do you live and work?
Wendy Brandes: As the song goes, “New York, New York. It’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.” That’s a good song to memorize. Knowing where the Bronx and Battery are will help you get around on the subway. How did you start designing jewelry? The first

things I designed were my wedding and engagement rings. My husband was cool with it because he was used to the way I operate. He never even got to propose properly to me. I always told him, “Don’t spring a proposal on me. I’ll tell YOU when I want to get married.” The way I told him was by announcing, “We can start looking at diamonds now.” This was about four years before I went into jewelry full-time but with 20/20 hindsight, it seems like an omen.

Why did you start getting interested in blogging?
WB: The short answer is: Britney Spears ran off with my Borgia poison ring after an OK! magazine photoshoot and I needed to tell the world. The long answer is that a few fashion bloggers had written about my jewelry, and some of them asked when I was starting a blog. Then I met the famously fashionable Agathe of Style Bytes and she asked about it too. So it was on my mind, but I wasn’t ready to commit. (This is reminiscent of my marriage proposal story, isn’t it? At least I’m consistent!) I finally set up a blog and posted that I’d start blogging soon, but not now. Later that week, the Great Britney Jewel Heist of 2007 went down and the rest is history.

Your blog has gained quite a following in a short amount of time, how do you do it? WB: I’ve reached out to people by reading their blogs and leaving comments to let them know that their efforts are appreciated. My insomnia helps provide the many hours of free time needed to do this. I knew that sleeplessness would come in handy someday! Anyway, those bloggers tend to reciprocate. I’ve encountered a couple of bloggers who have complained that they were blogging furiously but getting no reaction. I’ve told them that they need to interact with other people to get readers. There’s nothing like starting your own business to make you realize that you can’t sit around and wait for an audience to come to you. You have to hunt people down and drag them back to your lair.

What is your favorite part about blogging?
WB: I’m able to exorcise a few of the 10 million thoughts that are always crowding my mind. I really used to put a peculiar amount of time into ruminating over denim styles or whether a Tudor queen has been fairly portrayed by historians. Now I can post about these things and move on. And it’s always nice when someone says that they had a laugh over something you’ve written. I think most people can use more laughter. However, in my last corporate job, I had several lengthy outbursts of inappropriate, hysterical laughter in boring meetings. That’s taking it too far. Your colleagues shouldn’t think that you need sedatives.

Least favorite?
WB: Sometimes it feels like a bigger obligation that I anticipated. There are days where I’ve thought, “I want a divorce from this blog.” I almost blogged about that once, but I didn’t want people to think I was looking for compliments: “Oh, please, please, please don’t leave us!” It’s not that I worry about running out of things to say. I read tons of blogs before I started my own and observed that people really burned out when they assigned themselves only one topic to write about. That will definitely give you writer’s block, so I left my blog pretty open in terms of subject matter. With 10 million thoughts a day, there should be something worth writing down. And if not, I can always talk about my obsession with a pair of Christian Louboutin fish shoes. To clarify, those are not shoes FOR fish, but shoes that look like fish. Anyone who starts designing shoes for fish should probably get his/her head examined.

Would you mind sharing a random fact about yourself?
WB: I have successfully performed the Heimlich Maneuver on a small dog.

Wendy can be found at her blog:
wbjewelry.blogspot.com
or her jewelry site:
gigicaron.com