Etsy and Me

Hey everyone! Before I dive into this blog post - I just wanted to say that my migraines are back full force. My couple of good days seems to have been a fluke. BUT the good news is we're trying more things, and I figured out how to get my lap top set up on the couch to use when I'm stuck flat on my back. So hopefully I'll be able to get more consistent about blogging...although adding new things to my shop is still going to be hard.

This weeks etsy blogger carnival is all about why you got started on etsy and what you think about etsy.

I found etsy through a friend. This was around a year ago, and my health had been rapidly declining for a few months. This gal saw me working on my jewelry when she'd come over to hang out and told me I should try selling. Well, she wasn't the first person to tell me that, but she was the first to introduce me to etsy!

Long series of events later - I found myself opening up my shop on May 5th, 2008. I was so excited and so nervous all at the same time! It seemed like there was a never ending stream of information to learn- and you know it still feels that way sometimes. Slowly but surely I got my feet under me, and a lot of that was because I met a few awesome people who were willing to help me find my way.

Now I have two shops on etsy. The first is my jewelry shop. I haven't has as many sales as I'd like, but I love that I have made sales! I've made enough to keep me going :) Besides, I LOVE making jewelry, so what else would I do with all the stuff I create?

Etsy Buy Handmade roseworksjewelry

My second shop is one I share with my Mom. I haven't been able to do as much to develop this shop as I'd like because of the migraines - but once I can get rid of those my Mom and I have lots of ideas! We've always been close - but it's been fun to have this to talk about :)

Etsy Buy Handmade kstreasures

While I love etsy - I'm also well aware that there are limitations to it. It can be hard to get recognition on etsy because it's grown so fast and they haven't always done the best job at allowing people to get time and recognition. Also my main market, jewelry, is very saturated no matter where you go, so that's just hard to sell in general.

I do love the people I've met on etsy and the friends that I've made!

Will I stay with etsy? Yes. Will I ever open up shop on another venue? I'd like to. I need to get a little more consistency to my health first though. For now, I have enough work with two shops and two blogs :)

Poetry

One of the blogs that I follow is called "Thursday Sweet Treat." I've only been following a long for a few weeks now - but I love it! Each week Natasha, the lovely host, puts up a new theme challenge for artisans to work on. Then, the next week, she displays all the lovely entries! I can't tell you how much fun it is to see the same theme interpreted by different artists across so many different genres of art work! I didn't get to participate in last weeks because I was too sick - but I was very inspired by this poem that another artist posted. So, with her permission, I'm reposting it here. You can find Kelly and her art work on etsy - just follow this link!

Dreaming in Color

they talk you know…

especially at night, tucked away in their bottles and bags and tubes.

and they spend a lot of time bickering and complaining…

“should have used us, what was she thinking”

“we’re the favorites”

(and they’re right, the greens ARE my favorites)

“she bought more of those!”

but eventually they quiet and drift into sleep…

and with sleep comes dreams

and did you know…

beads dream in color.

Etsy Blogger of the Month - Donna Pool

You haven't seen me mention too much about the etsy bloggers on this blog lately because...well...I've been behind the ball cuz of my migraines >_> oopsie! But...I'm still not to late to do this months featured blogger! So with out further ado...here she is :)

Donna is one not only extremely talented - her work is diverse! You can find her shop at www.donnapool.etsy.com and in her shop your find all sorts of fun stuff. I had to show off this example of her photography because, well, we all know I'm addicted to purple!

Iris

Donna also has tons of cute buttons in her shop. I had a hard time picking - but this one just fits me so perfectly I couldn't resist!

My life...

Donna ALSO sews. By hand. Can you believe this awesome ball was sewn by hand????

Sweet Heart Patchwork Puzzel Ball

Want to see more of Donna's awesome work? Don't forget to check out her shop and blog!

Some Ideas for You :)

Yesterday I posted up my weekly special and a tutorial on how to create and implement the "Buy Now" button. If you missed it, just click here! I know sometimes you look at an idea like that and you say, "wow, that's cool, now how on earth can I make it work for me?" So here are a few ideas about how you can sell on your blog - how you can make it work for you :)

There are two big areas that I can think of right now when it comes to selling on your blog. Now, there are probably more, but this is what comes to mind when I think of what I've seen out there on the blogs. The first of those is featuring one of your wonderful creations!

Now when I feature one of my items I like to put it out here on sale, but don't feel like you have to! That's not as important as getting your item out there and featured. I like having my weekly sale special, but you can also simply use the Buy Now button when you unveil a new creation on your blog.

If your going to be featuring an item in your side bar to sell I think it's important to rotate items on a fairly consistent basis. I've chosen to do this weekly, but the idea is that it keeps your blog looking fresh, and you never know what item will appeal to your blog readers! I wouldn't recommend changing it daily though. You want to give your readers a few days to notice, fall in love with, and decide they can't live without your product!

The other big way that I've seen the Buy Now button used is when the artist has a pattern or a kit that they've created. This is an item that they leave up all the time. I've known several artists that have been quite successful at selling patterns through their blogs this way!

Don't have a pattern or a kit to feature? Do you do custom orders? If you have a particular item that your regularly do custom orders on, so you have a set price, you can list that on the side bar. I plan on doing that soon .... so check back if you want to see more of what I mean!

Any more ideas? Leave me a comment!

Weekly Special and a Tutorial

Hey everyone! It's time to change up the weekly special on my blog! This week we're moving onto my "Simple and Fun Earrings" section in my shop. I love these earrings because they'll go with jeans and just about ANYTHING.

You can buy them now from this blog post or the side-bar widget for only $6! That includes shipping to anywhere in the world and a 20% discount. How sweet is that?

Want to learn how to sell an item on YOUR blog? Just follow these (hopefully) easy steps.

1. Pick the item your going to sell.

2. Upload a picture of that item to a photo storage service on-line. I like to use photobucket. DON'T use Flickr because that's a violation of their TOS. The picture should be about 200x200 pixels to best fit in your sidebar. You may need to experiment to find the best size if your sidebars are a different width than mine.

3. Leave your photo storage account open and open up your blogger dashboard.

4. Click on "layout"

5. Click on "Add a Gadget" (once you've done the initial set up you can go in and edit it from week to week by clicking "edit")

6. Choose the widget for HTML/JavaScript

7. Choose a title.

8. Leaving that window open return to your photo storage account. You'll have to figure out how your particular site works - but there should be an option to share the image (in photobucket, click on "share").

9. Copy the html code to share the image.

10. Go back to your window with the html widget and paste in the html code.

11. Enter a brief description of the item your selling.

12. Leave that window open and open up a new window for your paypal account.

13. Log into Paypal.

14. At the top of your paypal page is a bar that lists different options. Click on "Merchant Services." That will take you to a page that looks like this:



15. Click on the Buy NoW option.

16. Fill out the required information to best suit your needs.

17. Click "Create Button." That will take you to a page that looks something like this:


18. Highlight and copy the code under the "website" option.

19. Past the code at the bottom of your HTML widget window.

20. Click "Save"

21. In your Layout window make sure you click "save" again.

22. Go to your blog and admire your hard work!

I know there are a lot of steps - I hope I was able to keep it from getting to confusing! Tomorrow I will be giving some ideas of different things you can do on your blog to sell :) See you then!

Come Meet SpottedCowSoaps ToNiGhT

Red Velvet Cake Soap

If you've been around my blog for awhile you've seen me feature this awesome artist :) Linda, of Spotted Cow Soaps, is a great friend, fellow team mate, and an AWESOME soap maker! She will be my lovely guest host tonight at 9pm EST - so come join us!

Can you imagine???

I have a wonderful mental picture for you - but before I get to that - if you want to know why my blogging has been so sporadic lately check out this blog post :)

Now - do you listen to Block Head Radio? Well, if you do your probably familiar with our dear producer Rod:
Well - if we sell 50 of the 5,000 impression ads by March 15th .... he'll put on something like this:
Scary? Yes. A good reason to buy advertising for your shop? Of course!

Disclaimer: this will be done as tastefully as possible and I promise your trauma will be no where near as severe as the trauma his 6 children go through when THEY see it!

Want more information? Check out the original blog post on the stations blog :)

Like the pretty purple tutu? I found it (where else?) on etsy :D Go HERE to check it out :)

We have a Winner!!!

Woohoo! The One World One Heart Contest has officially come to a close and we have a winner for this blog! Ok, so actually it's more than one winner...but you know what I mean :)

I ended up with 259 entries...which completely blows me away! I want to say a big thanks to everyone who came by my blog and entered, and thank you so much for all your wonderful compliments on my jewelry work! It's definitely been a wonderful ego boost :)

And now for the winners.... I chose the winners using Random.org and I decided to give away 3 prizes instead of just 2 because I had so many entries!!! Exciting no? I think so :)

First place: Connie
Second place: Elsie
Third place: Momforeverandever

Well I'm off to e-mail the winners - I hope everyone has a great day!

Last Day!!!

Have you entered my One World One Heart Giveaway yet??? Today is the LAST day! Tomorrow when I wake up I'll be closing comments on that post and picking the winner...so go enter while there's still time!

You can enter by going HERE.

Tired...so I'm featuring a friend :P

I'll admit it - I'm tired and don't really feel like blogging :P My migraines are finally gone (just a lingering ache) but yesterday I had a really bad asthma attack....so I'm still exhausted. But I really didn't want to let this blog languish, so I'm just going to do some shameless promoting of my other blog and of my friend Cara :)

I love to write, in case you didn't already know that, and I'm working on slowly but surely improving my fiction skills. Don't know how good I am yet...but others seem to find it entertaining...so I decided to share my work :) Partially to challenge myself to write regularly :P It helps if I have a "deadline" of some sort and since I'm no longer in school...

Anyway, I just put up part one of Aria's Quest, feel free to go check it out! The art work was done my lovely friend Cara :) I love being an artist and part of the on-line artisan community! I'm trading a necklace (show you after it's photo'd) for this and one more picture later in the series :D Thank you Cara!


She has so many great things in her shop that I can easily get lost browsing...but here's one that made me smile extra big today :)

Tumbling Troupe

New Sale Item!!!

Ok, I promise, promise, promise I'll write a tutorial on how to include a "buy now" button on your blog soon! Several people have asked for it, and I DO plan on doing it. Soon. I just need to get my brain to stop wanting to explode. *sigh* I wouldn't trust the directions I gave right now worth anything...I'm impressed I managed to change the widget on my side-bar without screwing it up! So that should give you an idea of how my brains are right now :P

Anywho...I'm putting my Purple Snake Bracelet on sale this week! Only $23 with the discount and shipping already included. I LOvE this bracelet and I'm going to be really sad when it goes, but also really happy when it finds the right owner. The bracelet is 8 1/2 inches long and a total treat to wear! I need to find more beads in the right sizes and make another one of these in a different color....

Want the discount?

Introducing Kamila's Dolls

Join us TONIGHT at 9pm EST - www.blockheadradiolive.com - to meet the fantastic artist behind these dolls!

I met Kamila because she's a fellow participant in the One World One Heart Giveaway. Check out her contest here and if you haven't entered mine yet go here!

Update on OWOH :) (and life in general)

I'm participating in the One World One Heart Giveaway for the first time this year - and I'm having a blast! As of writing this post I've had 174 entries in my giveaway, and that's mind blowing! Want to hear something even more mind blowing? Are you sure your ready for it? There are currently 890 blogs participating in this event! The numbers just stagger me. Wow.

If you want to go look at pretty blogs and have a chance to win AWESOME prizes - visit the main site to see the full list!

Have you entered my contest yet? Remember - only entries on the original post will be valid! Here's the link :) I'll take all comers! And who knows...if the numbers get as high as I've seen on other blogs I might just throw in another prize....

That's the fun stuff :) The not so fun stuff is that I'm continuing to battle migraine issues. I saw a nice doctor lady yesterday and she gave me a med that does help - but I can't take it more than 3 times a month because it'll interact with other meds and all that sort of fun stuff. So while yesterday was a blissfully pain-free day because I did take one, today is back to my brain melting because I'm trying to only take the med if I absolutely have to. *sigh* Good news is their referring me to neurology :D Apparently there are daily meds I could take, but since my medical history is so freaking complex they'd rather have a specialist prescribe that. Which is fine with me because I'd like a better educated guess as to what's going on...but I also want the pain gone! So now it's back to the old "waiting for the insurance to approve it" game...

In the mean time I'm managing to get an amazing amount of stuff done in and around my brain melting! I have some new items I'm really excited about unveiling this weekend in the shop :D Now here's hoping that my brain re-forms long enough for me to get the pictures!

Selling Venues - Winkelf

Well my first impression of WinkElf is that I love their logo! Of course I am partial to elves and fairies so that explains that :P I also love the bar of multiple colors they have running across, so perfect for craftiness!

The next thing that caught my eye is that they are currently doing a Presidents Day sale - how cool is that?

The fee system on Winkelf is a bit complicated. You can list the items for free (see the pic below for what's included), theirs a 2.5% selling fee (reasonable), and then there are a lot of upgrade options! What I liked best about this was you can go free until the sale if you want, upgrade a wee bit if you want, or if you want to go whole hog on it they have a $5 a month package that gives you all the upgrade options :) I like have options like that!

For the shoppers you'll be glad to hear that there are a wide variety of items offered on WinkElf. What I liked best about their shopping options is a little bar on the left hand side that shows trends! They have; Editor's Pick, Featured Items, What's Hot, International, New Arrivals, Ending Soon, Feature Stores, Other Stuff Too, and Sold Goodies. So if you like being trendy (or want to be a trend setter!) there's lots of fun to be had there!

One last thing that's important to note about Winkelf. It currently doesn't have that large of a following. Which has it's positves and negatives as I've mentioned before. Yes, your items won't be as likely to get buried as they are on sites like etsy, but you may not have as many viewers either. As always that's what you have to decide for yourself if it's something you want to try risk :)

If you want to check out some of the Ranking Data about Winkelf, check out this post by my partner in this series - TiLTCreations :)

Feeling the Love - Sharing the Love :)

Once again it's time for me to catch up on recognizing those wonderful people who've given me awards! I know I'm a bit of a party pooper because I don't pass them along - but I do want to at the least acknowledge these awesome people that think, for some odd reason, that I'm awesome! Go figure :P

Before I start though, I have to sadly admit that I lost a blog award! I don't know what's going wrong... Ok, so to back up, I have a notepad that I put any blog awards I receive in because I usually don't have the time or energy or whatever to blog about them at that moment. And then I periodically try to "catch up" and do a blog about them. Well the link to this one's not working :( I can't seem to find the blog at all! So sad :( So if your the one who gave me the award - I'm sorry!

Ok, on to the fun! I have two awards to feature -
the Lemonade award and the Who's Awesome award!

Big THANKS go out to curiousmess and mamaslittlemonkeys for
thinking of me when they received this award :)

I found this awesome bowl made out of FABRIC in curiousmess's shop,
and I want to know how on earth she does that???

And here's some uber-cute pj pants from mamaslittlemonkeys :)