Pinky's lilies have started to bloom, it is so much fun to watch her excitement! She is helping me in our yard a lot this summer, watering, digging, finding bugs. She'll carry a worm around for a half an hour before I point out that it will die, should she continue.We are growing carrots, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon and lettuce to eat, then marigold's, lilies, roses, sunflowers and Rex wanted to start some cactus.
But the one that gets most of the attention is the primrose! My husband doesn't like them for some strange reason so he cut them all down, but that was evidently what they needed because they came back with a vengeance, filled in our garden beds and make a wonderful splash of color against our gray house! People comment on them all the time and they required no effort on my part at all. Yep, I cheat on our garden.
I made a whole series of collage pieces using a tutorial from Somerset Studio magazine by Jenny Crossley. They called it Industria and used a lot of metal hardware attached to Julie Van Oosten's new line of chip board products. I couldn't quite bring myself to use my hoard of antique metal so I used fabric transfers, Hambly's Vintage Corner rub ons, patterned papers and little bits of patina-ted metal. 2 atc's, 3 tags, 5 pieces of art work to hang.
I had no idea it would be that much fun to scratch and tear at painted surfaces like that. I need to do that more.
I have finished my Embossing on Polymer Clay pdf. (sounds of angelic choir in background)That was hard.
I wrote several drafts and then decided that it was not decorative enough so I designed the background "paper" using digital elements from Designer Digitals. Then rewrote the whole tutorial on each page.
I have another artist working with me, Kristin Friesen of Sweeter Than Me Designs , she has been invaluable in giving me points I hadn't thought of.
Learning how to publish in a pdf format was the most difficult for me. I found a free service called
cute writer.
Adobe was just to technical for me to understand. Not that I have a clue what cute writer does but I was able to read and comprehend enough to utilize this free service, then once I had it downloaded, it kinda did the work on it's own. Like magic.
I have so many ideas for this, it is hard to work on one at a time!
This was a very interesting post. Your business has been up and running a lot longer than mine, so you're a little more established than I am. My shop, though it has taken off considerably since I started, is still struggling. I have done the "over-listing and renewing" thing and been stuck with an huge bill at the end of the month, and it really sucks. So now I limit myself to no more than 3 renewals a day, but I sometimes wonder if I would be selling more if I were renewing more. It's kind of a catch 22. I liked reading your thoughts on Etsy and marketing and all that, it's helpful to learn from the experience of others :)
ReplyDeleteand ps- your tutorial is amazing, I am confident it will do well in your shop even if you move all your merchandise to your personal website. :)
i can't believe it either. just a month ago, i was getting john ready for pre-k graduation night.
ReplyDeleteand now it is june 16th. john is already bored out of his mind.
i too, am getting really discouraged with etsy. i spent a great amount of time in March and April giving my shop a better appearance and all. listed, relisted, became a forum junkie, did some promoting and have had two sales since April. the way they are handling certain things, the search change, the down right snarky-ness that exists on there has made me take a good hard look at where i want to be. so late last night, i joined a cartel. oh, sounds dangerous, doesn't it? bigcartel.com. listed some items. today purchased my domain name and now trying to figure out how to transition into my one woman rodeo and not be stuck in the pond with all the big fish.
I should add, it is completely possible to develop more business through etsy, by listing items in your store you never know who will be shopping at that time and it could end up being the shop owner, blog writer, etc that features your work.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder if the show on Martha Stewart has anything to do with the sudden increase of sellers, the balance of buyer versus seller seems to be heavy on the seller side.
Where I was selling to new members who had just signed up previously, now most my few sales are to small shop owners.
My belief is that most members on etsy are looking at other shops and thinking to themselves "I can make that" therefore why should they buy ?
Just a few thoughts, I certainly do not know this for sure!
Thank you both for your encouragement and I hope you both find a venue that works for you.
Girl, girl, girl!
ReplyDeleteYou have been busy in the best kind of way!
And your gardening ventures are a hoot. Your primose story especially - THAT is the stuff that keeps me going!
Glad I came here tonight. I thought it was just me. I was on a real roll of sorts (for me anyway) and then KAPOW! Sales took a nose dive! And like you, I didn't do anything differently. It is very discouraging.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly did Etsy change to make us all start losing sales like this? And what the hell happened to all our views? I used to list and get at least 10-15 views pile on. Now when I list I see maybe 3 or 4. It's sooooo disheartening.
Question to both you and Misti:
Is having your own personal website a good thing? Does it bring in more sales than Etsy?
I'd love to have a clue as to what happened to Etsy. I read the Storque and get the updates in my email regarding the news, etc. But I just didn't see what big change they made that screwed us all like it seems to have.
And yes, your tutorial is wonderful! You go girl!! :D
I will post more on this subject, because it does seem widespread.
ReplyDeleteI am not claiming to be an expert by any means, but I think it was a combination of things.
etsy's change in search engines
no press for etsy
very slow economy
There is something else, nagging me, but it is buried far back in my mind and I can't form a lucid thought about it!