How I Taught Myself to Print Gold and Launch A Jewelry Line

I had no intention of launching a jewelry store.

It started off as looking for some side gigs to finance one of my own software engineering projects. I listed myself as available to assist people with their Etsy store on a task by task basis. The idea was to view it as pocket change for projects I was never funding due to it being a "frivolous" pursuit. (I still don't have that rasberry pi that's been sitting in my project bucket list, for example!)

One of the requests I got asked me to look into an API integration between Etsy and specific 3rd parties. The API went over their head and they weren't sure how to implement it. One of them was a 3D printing company that offered a wide range of printing services if you could simply understand the documentation and how to integrate it with Etsy. The idea was that once set up properly, it would fulfill orders in an automated fashion.

It sounded like an interesting problem compared to the other requests around basic Etsy web administrative tasks. I read the documentation and instantly became intrigued with Etsy's API. After I was done with the project, I couldn't stop thinking about the API and features that looked fun to play with.

Ironically around the same time, I had been given feedback to start publishing small development projects publicly. I had never really been motivated to do that since I was always preoccupied with my day to day work, but the idea of making a portfolio to make landing gigs smoother became a priority. This Etsy API idea was the perfect project.

It was small, quick, and a succinct demonstration of how I understand APIs and automation - a critical skill for a DevOps Engineer to have. If it never sold a single thing, it was still a good proof of concept piece to discuss in interview situations.

I set up Emma Gold Creations as the shop itself. The name was picked as a reference to Emma Goldman. The 3rd party I picked to integrate with is a 3D printing company with jewelry quality materials - silver, gold, gold plate, platinum. They had a basic tool set that would allow me to upload vector graphics and generate a 3D model automatically. This was a simple and dirty way to quickly create a sample product listing to play with. I picked a vector graphic I was using for a separate project and created the model to print it into a necklace pendant.

I then followed the documentation to get the integration up and running. The main pain point was realizing that I need to be certain that the renderings had been done on their servers before trying to push them to the Etsy servers. The API is designed so that the listing push is a one time action. If you push it too soon, you create garbage listings for products that people can buy, but you can't deliver. That was a nightmare situation I wanted to avoid.

There were a couple other kinks to work out, but I did end up with a listing that required minimal manual clean up after the import process. Once I was satisfied, I ask a friend of mine to order the necklace in silver so I could be sure that the ordering piece of the automation was also working. It went without a hitch and showed up within the expected turn around time.

I was ecstatic. The automation worked and now I had an object to prove it.

The experience of physically holding something you designed and executed in the virtual world is an odd experience. Most of my software engineering projects did not involve production of anything physical. Once I held my pendant in my hands, I was hooked.

There was no way I was going to leave this a one listing shop.

What easily could have just been a proof-of-concept portfolio piece is now the "bucket project" itself. I started working with the API more to create more sophisticated original jewelry designs. The aesthetic I decided to work with was classic retro gaming and pixel art. Below is an example of the "Long Haired Hero" pendant. With this design, I had to play around more with rendering options to get better views of the potential final product.

This "collection" has presented even more kinks to work out while working with the 3D printer. The technology is so flexible you can't be sure what you can do with it until you ask it to try actually printing it out. The code can only predict it's a viable design to a certain extent without committing to a test print. The original "Long Haired Hero" for example, needs to be re-tweaked since the printer felt it was too delicate despite it originally being accepted as a viable design.

So an unexpected lesson from this API automation project is if a physical object is the outcome of the automation, the success criteria is completely different than "traditional" automated delivery pipelines. This is called out in the vendor's documentation to assist designers when creating their product lines.

At the end of the day, however, my main advice to anybody creating a professional portfolio is to let it grow organically. I ended up learning far more than I expected, and now I have a new hobby to be passionate about.

Enjoy my work? Feel free to leave a tip or visit the shop featured in this piece, Emma Gold Creations.