Beautiful Sea Glass... Etsy Product Review #9

Here's a different sort of product review... My mom bought me this beautiful set of sea glass jewelry from a Guantanamo Bay craft fair from the maker of Castaways Jewelry Design. I had the opportunity to meet this talented lady at a memorial day craft fair this year (My table was 2 rows behind and one to the right of her table). When I was comparing her packing up at the end of the show to how my mom and I packed up our tables, I decided she is much more organized that we have ever been :) Now, Castaways Jewelry has let her etsy shop listings expire in August, but hopefully she comes back soon! I noticed that this summer she has a new display in a Guantanamo Bay gift shop and I'm so glad because now people can buy this jewelry all the time versus just at craft shows.

Castaways Jewelry uses only sea glass found on the beaches of Guantanamo Bay to create her designs. My set was accented with amethyst and fresh water pearl beads on silver settings.

So if you're ever at a craft show and see Castaways, you definitely want to check out this booth!

Bright Fire Notecard... Etsy Product Review #7

Looking at a neat treasury a bit ago, I ran across this firey peacock print on a notecard from ARTSHARYNE. I love the combination of brilliant colors and vibrancy of the illustration. I received the card from Australia in less than a week and it came in a resealable plastic liner and cardboard lined the envelope. Overall, I believe this is the most professional looking package I have received from any online order.

Sad to say though, the card is no longer in my possession as I have already written on it and posted it in the mail to an aunt who also appreciates artwork and loves animals.

If you like this illustration, check out her blog.

So when do you have time to actually do your craft?

So you have to take pictures of all those items you made last year... you post them along with a description that is now taking you longer to create because you no longer think your descriptions are interesting.

You try to keep up with all of the blogs and forums you've registered to read and be a part of so that you can get exposure.

You go back to those articles about advertising.

You post your website on http://www.freecraftfair.com/.

You register and submit your website to http://www.aimsearchengine.com/.

You post a 30 day classified add at http://www.inetgiant.com/ and http://www.cmather.com/.

You add your website to search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

You register with http://www.dmoz.com/.

You post your website at http://www.bust.com/ under their "Girl Wide Web."

You register your website on http://www.yaami.com/.

You add three more of your items to google base for a one month subscription and finally see the one item you added 2 weeks ago still has zero clicks...

No you wonder what is the point. You just spend five hours, your butt fell asleep, you've gotten a headache... and nothing to really show for it.

Creating an online store for your craft is supposed to give you another venue to sell and give you more "exposure" to a wider range of people. But then you come across all of the forums and advice that say you have to advertise, you have to create a blog, you get exposure through facebook and twitter....

My response is, so when do you have time to actually sit down and do your stuff? Me, since I started the esty shop.. I've started one new pendant... haven't finished it yet nor have I started any other crafts. I'm just too tired after all of this work on advertising. I think I just need to get back to what I had wanted to do to begin with - creating things.

Sneak Attacks on Etsy

One of my first days looking around on etsy, I found an interesting group...

Sneakers Notorious on Etsy for Attacking with Kindness (Etsy Team S.N.E.A.K.)

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they do an "Attack" on a new shop or a shop that donates to charity. So far I've only participated in two of the attacks because there was a week in there, where the stores they hosted did not have anything I could use... and there were two with really bad pictues and no profile or policies.... which definitely makes me a wary buyer. Although overall, I think it is a very good idea, and if I keep following... maybe all of my Christmas shopping will be done by August :P

You can read more about them on their blogs or catch them on an etsy thread...

http://etsyteamsneak.blogspot.com/
http://handmademovement.com/

Bad Craft Show Experience...

Ah, if I only knew these rules before I signed up for that fair!

Here's a link to some good pointers:
http://cinnamonspicecrafts.blogspot.com/2009/05/craft-fair-tips-for-papercrafters.html

Brought to us by the lovely owner of http://www.cinnamonspice.etsy.com/

It is geared toward the papercrafters, but since I was at the same show, I can verify that this list of tips applies to all crafters. One good thing did come out of this horrible 2.5 week long fair - I met the extremely nice owner and creater of Cinnamon Spice Papercrafts. She is the one who pointed me in the direction of etsy - mentioning the crafting-only selections, the great people willing to help you and point you in the right direction, etc, etc. She also pointed me toward Vista Print (an online printing solution for just about anything you may need for your business) and the fact you can get many free items from them :) - Let me know if you see my purple P.T. Cruiser running around Raleigh and Fayetteville with my big Shore Debris magnet!

If accidentally find yourself in a bad craft show, I wish you the luck to meet someone who can turn the whole experience into a positive for you, too.

Tidbits on making your website better...maybe :)

I've been soaking up all the information I can from the etsy community forums and ran across this neat piece of info:

http://website.grader.com/#ReportTop

This is a report tool that "grades" your website on its set up, announcement line, how google finds it, etc, etc. So my grade came to be in the 67th percentile... but it also told me all of the etsy buttons like add to cart, the etsy logo at the top, etc were not attached to anything and bringing my score down. It also said my score was brought down because I have too many pictures.... so maybe it is not the best tool in the world, but it seemed neat at the time. (That could also be because it makes about the same amount of sense to me as Google Analytics.)

I did notice at the end of the report that apparently I do not show up on any google search at all, so I guess I need to figure that out by the end of the week, huh?