A fun filled week

Before I start with this weeks show off of work, I just wanted to thank all of you that left me lovely comments last week; you are always so lovely and put up with all my crazy whims, Hugs for you all.

X

So this week I got to play with all kinds of fun stuff, I made another art doll, 5 mixed media hearts, 3 stitched and painted aceo cards, 2 paintings on wood and a little art doll from air drying clay (who was sneaky and didn’t include herself in the main piccie)

It was a whole heap of fun and made me smile everyday; I am really loving making all these little bits and pieces all of which are now available in my Etsy shop :o)

 So enough waffle from me, on with the piccies:

First up is this sneaky little (3 inches tall) Snow White, super lightweight clay doll, she is a total one off as I won’t be using air drying clay again (maybe polymer clay though, we’ll see ;o)

Snow White:

This week’s stuffed art doll is a bigger size than the others I made, she is roughly 6 ½ inches tall.

The Queen Of Hearts:

These 3 aceo cards were such fun to make, Snow White, Willy Wonka and a little froggy called Hopper.

 Here’s another new item for my Etsy shop it’s mixed media hearts, they are all made with a wood core, paper mache, fiber paste, beeswax, acrylic paint, pens and pencils and finished with matte varnish…….I love them!!!

 And last but not least, these 2 paintings on 5x7 inch mdf wood panels:

Have I gone mad?

Off with their heads:

Well that's all from me for this week, check back next Sunday to see new more new goodies :o)

X

The fifth and final Etsy Wednesday

Linky week:

This is my fifth and final Etsy Wednesday; I hope all that I have posted in the past couple of weeks has given you some helpful information and a good start to your etsy journey.

This week I am going to be posting some links to sites ‘off Etsy’ that you can check your shop stat’s, seo stuff and some general tools to helping you further with Etsy, I hope you find them useful.

If anyone knows of any other links to add to the list, feel free to comment and add them in :o)

Craftopolis – a very handy quick reference check for your shop and an easy way to quickly change item prices, i use this all the time.

http://www.craftopolis.com/#com=sl

Etsy Shoptimizer – A quick shop stat reference check for your shop, some etsians don’t agree with the results on this one I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

http://etsyshoptimizer.com/#

Etsy fee calculator – A very handy tool for working out what to prices to charge for your work on etsy to get the total money you want.

http://www.rolbe.com/etsy.htm

Statsy – A fun easy to use way of finding out whether you have been featured on Etsy and how to renew listings at a pre arranged time.

http://statsy.org/vutrac.php

Craftcult – A fun easy to use site for seeing who hearts your shop, previous treasuries, front page treasuries etc

http://www.craftcult.com/index.php?userid=

Easy Etsy – Lots of simple to understand tips and helpful stuff for Etsians

http://www.easyetsy.com/

Etsy mentors blog – helpful information on setting up your etsy shop

http://etsymentors.blogspot.co.uk/p/critique-your-own-shop.html

Etsy on Sale – I haven’t personally used this one but I know a lot of people swear by it for listing items on sale

http://www.etsyonsale.com/

Search engine land - This one is for all of you that want to look further into the seo stuff and get a more in depth look.

http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo

Good luck with your etsy shops and don’t forget to have some fun along the way, it’s not all scary business stuff  and remember, if you love what you are creating then someone else will surely love it too, keep creating and love what you do.

X

Etsy shop update - new goodies

Hello everyone,

We've been dealing with some crazy stuff here in my part of the UK.

We had some road works going on outside the front of our house a few weeks ago which drove me crazy with the noise of the pneumatic drills all day long; they were here for a whole month so I was very pleased when they left. But ever since then, every time it rains heavy all the sewers flood up and raw sewage is everywhere, we've had it all down the side alley between our house and next door’s house, fortunately none got in to our house though but our neighbours on the other side of the road have had their house ruined, they've had to move out into her sisters house for a while (her, her husband and 2 young kiddies)

We had the water company come round Wednesday to investigate and they said there is a brick in the sewage pipe?!!! Thursday some new work people arrived and started digging up the road again.

 As of today (Sunday) it looks like the problem has been solved, the hole is filled in again and we are waiting for them to tarmac over it.  Looks like those 1^st work men messed it all up a bit!!

I’m super glad we don’t have to deal with brushing away sewage water every time it rains now; I just wish we’d never had the problem in the 1^st place.

My back and shoulders have been constantly aching with all the brushing we’ve been doing, the other day alone me and the Mr Hermit were out there for an hour and a half in pouring rain sweeping pooey water until someone came and cleared our drain out.

I can tell you now it has not been the most pleasant experience of my life for sure.

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Other than that though life is good, my kids are now on their school holidays and we have come up with some fabulous plans for crafty fun over the summer break.

With fun in mind I will not be creating any of my older girls over the next month or 2 but instead will be making more of these funny, quirky little girl and boy characters.

My muse and I had a long chat over the past few weeks and came to the conclusion that I needed more fun in my life so these little funny characters were created and then lo and behold Tascha decided to hold her first ever on-line class, well that fitted right in with the kind of thing I was wanting to create, so me and my kids decided to do the class together…….YAY!!!!

We will also be teaching ourselves all kinds of new crafty skills over the holiday period so keep an eye out for any new mixed media goodies I might be adding into my etsy shop too.

And now I’m on the subject of new skills…….guess what? ……….I finally at the age of 36 (37 in 3 weeks) taught myself how to use a sewing machine lol, I had a serious hatred of sewing and fabric but me and the muse decided it was time to get over it and start making some new things ;o)

These first few art dolls are the prototypes that I played with before settling on some completely different patterns to make my future dolls out of so these really are one of a kind and won’t ever be reproduced.

With that in mind they are in my Etsy shop now at a slightly lower price than what I will be charging for my next lot of art dolls.

They’re made from muslin fabric and polyfil which has been painted and sanded a couple of times before adding the final details and matte varnish to finish them off, I do hope you will give them a good welcome ;o)

Now I know some of you that love my older girl paintings will be wondering if I’ll ever paint them again and the answer is…..maybe, I’m in 2 minds about it so we’ll see. I know some of you will think I’m crazy (I am so you are correct) but as I’m always telling my doggy when he’s licking things he shouldn’t……”just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” ;o)

After the school holidays are over I will be re-assessing my work again and trying to find a happy medium for my crazy brain.

For now though I hope you will welcome these little girl’s (and boys) and keep an eye out for all the funny little situations they might get themselves into.

Painted and stitched aceo original's:

Curiouser and Curiouser:

 I'm Late:

Off to Granny's we go:

 Play:

Smile Please:

 All the new goodies you see above are now available for purchase in my Etsy shop :o)

Much love and a bucket load of fun

Micki x

Oooh before I forget I will also be moving my weekly blog update and etsy shop update day back to Sunday’s from now on, I seem to think better on a Sunday ;o)

Etsy Wednesday

Tagging, titles and seo:

This really is the nightmare of listing on etsy, the headache that won’t go away the nail biting ‘WTF am I doing’ time.

In my opinion if you get really stressed over watching your etsy statistics, views to your shop, followers and favourites and what treasuries you may or may not be in then you are wasting valuable creating time and keeping up with creating is the most important thing for a healthy etsy experience.

There are though some things you should be doing to help with your shop getting seen in Etsy’s searches.

You will need to make sure your titles, tags, photos and item descriptions are clear and informative.

They should hold all the information a potential buyer might want to know about your product.

If you did the research from the first Etsy Wednesday blog post then you will already have a good idea of how some of the most popular sellers on Etsy list their items.

Keeping the descriptions short but informative is the way to go, most buyers skim through these descriptions and don’t want a hefty spiel about the work you have done.

Your titles should include tag words that are relevant to your painting with the name of the piece included in there to.

As I have said before I am no expert on SEO (search engine optimisation) and tags, the one thing I do know is that your tags on your listings are important so make sure you use all 13 spaces.

 There are lots of Etsy forum discussions on the best way to tag your listings, there is no one way of doing things, lots of different people get different results from how they tag their listings.

 I am going to link here the discussions and some other links that I have personally found useful, maybe you will too :o)

This Etsy forum post in particular is one of the most informative posts I’ve read on tagging and titles for your listings with some very helpful stuff; it’s a big read but a useful one.

(http://www.etsy.com/teams/12647/ask-angela-friends/discuss/10387556/page/66#)

Another big read but worth the look

http://www.etsy.com/teams/9651/marketing-made-easy/discuss/10371506/

A team on etsy that specialises in all things seo

http://www.etsy.com/teams/12637/seo-and-relevancy-reviews

This link is a blog post as to why this Etsy seller doesn’t get hung up about seo and tags for etsy

http://thejerseyshoremom.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/little-voices-on-etsy.html

Next week will be the last Etsy Wednesday where I will give you some links to other etsy related websites.

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I will be back in blog land on Sunday with an update on my latest work so stay tuned.

X

Last day of my summer sale today, all items will be back to full price tomorrow so get them cheap while you can ;o)

Click on the picture to go to my etsy shop sale section x

Yay I'm an Auntie

Welcome into the world my lovely nephew Huxley

Etsy Wednesday

Opening your first Etsy shop

Ok so who’s all excited about opening up shop? ;o)

I am super excited for you!!

First things first, though no matter where you live you must tell the tax man before you sell anything.

You do not want to earn extra pennies and then get yourself in trouble.

Telling the tax man will be easier than you think, there are lots of help topics in the forums for your specific country tax information, I suggest you read through it all!!

It sounds scary but is actually so very simple and not a big deal at all.

When you have read through the paperwork and filled out your first tax form you will be an old pro (that’s professional and not prostitute for those with smutty minds ;o) and wonder why on earth you got so stressed in the first place.

Once all the official stuff is out of the way you can start having some fun *YAY*

Get yourself a funky banner and avatar to add in your shop and while you are at it get a matching one for your blog/facebook etc too.

Having a cohesive look makes people more likely to remember you.

Don’t worry about sticking with the same one forever though it is good to have a change now and then, so mix it up every few months or so and keep it relevant to what you are selling in your shop.

If you are not computer savvy there are an abundance of people on etsy selling banner/avatar packages and are a good place to look if you don’t already have the know how.

There are also a few friendly folk in the etsy forums and teams that will help you out for free if you are really stuck.

When your shop is all set up and pretty you can start to list items for selling, you will need a paypal account for this so you should set one up if you haven’t already.

 Remembering all the info you have collected from your research on other etsy shops and from in the forums you will have an idea of how your listings should look. (If you skipped the research stage you may feel like a fish out of water and not have a clue where to start, research really is the key to surviving the land of etsy)

I try to keep 40+ items in my etsy shop at any one time, shoppers like to have choice, if there are only a couple of items listed then you may miss out on precious sales.

Most of the big sellers on Etsy have plenty of items for sale in their shop with a wide variety of choices.

To start with try and build up an inventory of items to put on sale before you officially open up shop.

Then once you have a good stock try listing 5 items a day for the first week and see if any of the days/times get more views than others (check your etsy shop stats) This will help you to decide what days/times are best for you to list your items on in the future.

Remember once you have stocked up your shop to keep on making items and listing them.

 Once you’ve set up shop being consistent with your listing days and times will help you to get sales.

 If customers know that you put new items in say, every Wednesday then they will check your shop on that day to see what you have made, once you build up a few customers that have been happy with what they have purchased from you they will come back again for more.

Most of my big sales have come from happy return customers, I love my repeat buyers and hopefully they will continue to love me too ;o)

Nothing will sell though if your shop stays static, if new items aren’t added regularly then no one will return to your shop after the first couple of times of looking because they will get bored. Try to add new items at least once a week.

 If you can’t list new items that often then at least use the ‘rearrange your shop’ function on etsy to make things look different and mix it up a little, if it looks the same every time someone visits it will get boring to look at.

Taking good product photos is also important, I don’t have an expensive camera but I have learnt the best ways in which it works for me, play around with your camera settings, read the handbook and see what works best for you.

My photos are not perfect but they do show off my art as true to ‘real life’ as possible (remember though that what looks great on your computer monitor may not on someone else’s, different monitor colour settings can really throw things off)

I recommend wherever possible to take your product photos in natural light and with a white background.

Here in the UK natural light can be hard to find so I have a lamp which gives a ‘natural light effect’, it is in no way as good as natural light itself but it works for those dreary grey days which all us UK sellers hate for photographing in.

Try to take photographs of your item from several different angles showing the sides of the painting as well as the front and don’t forget a good close up too, this doesn’t have to be of the whole painting but get a good cropped close up of a section of the painting to show textures and colours up close.

There are 5 photo spaces that etsy allow you to have try your best to use them all to get a good overall feel of your work.

There are times on Etsy that will be slower on views and sales in your shop, for me July has always been a very slow month so I use this time to study new things, re-think my shop layout, check all my tags, source new supplies, clean my studio and have a good look round at other people’s shops and blogs etc

Using your down time efficiently will help you when things start to pick up again, this is not the time to mope around feeling sorry for yourself and thinking everyone hates your work (I learnt that one quickly) this is the time to get busy on the business front and get prepared for future sales.

  

And just in case you thought I was slacking off whilst taking time out from my blog/shop here is a sneaky peek at some new goodies I am creating and I am also just about to take an on-line course with Tascha too  ;o)

New On My Work Table:

Next week’s etsy Wednesday will cover the tagging, titles and some SEO (search engine optimisation) stuff on which I am no expert but will give you a few links to places that can help you if you want to learn more.

Summer Sale

Now on in My Etsy shop, all small paintings down to $20 for a short time only ;o)

Click on the piccie to take you there.

X

Me and my muse

Here are this week's ladies all now available in my Etsy shop.

I will be taking a break for a couple of weeks whilst me and my muse have a long chat about life, love, art and future possibilities ;o)

My Etsy shop will stay open during this time and any purchases will ship out as normal but I won't be updating any new paintings either in the shop or here on my blog.

I will however still pop in to blogland for my usual 'Etsy Wednesday' blog posts so keep an eye out for those.

Now it's time to meet this week's ladies:

This is my last one in this series of paintings, I have thoroughly enjoyed painting these girls and their flowers, I may do some more of these sometime in the future but for now I am ready for a change ;o)

The Garden Of Truth:

I've not painted a girl with anything other than black hair for a while so I thought I'd have a change, I really like how she turned out:

Who Am I?:

Well my good friend Stacy reminded me I'd not painted any ACEO cards lately and you know what? I forgot how much fun they were, thanks for the reminder Stacy x

Je t'aime:

I love this ladies hair and just in case you thought the background looked a little plain, checkout all the texture in there, it is loaded with gorgeous fiber paste......love that stuff!!

Your Greatest Strength Is Love:

Oh so sweet and pretty this girly has been collecting flowers, none of that round here I'm afraid as it's been peeing it down with rain again!! *Sigh* gotta love the British summer.......Not!!

In The Company Of Flowers:

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Before I go I just wanted to show you all the give away prize that I made for the lovely Jessie Lilac, she chose greens and turquoises for her flower colour choice and I have to say that even though I probably wouldn't have chosen to paint those colours myself, I think she turned out just fabulous, awesome colour choice Jess!!  I know Jess is happy with the painting so I can show you guys a piccie ;o)

The Garden Of Innocence:

So that's me all done for a while, keep checking back for the Etsy Wednesday updates and I will return with more paintings in a few weeks.

Micki 

X

Etsy Wednesday

Etsy Forums: http://www.etsy.com/forums

For those of you that already have Etsy shops and already have some knowledge about Etsy, this weeks Etsy Wednesday might be a tad boring for you but I have 3 more Etsy Wednesday's to come so keep checking back each week and hopefully there will be something in there for everyone :o)

Etsy has a wide range of forum topics, I suggest you go in there and read some of the topics, see what you can pick up from the bigger sellers in your category and ignore the stuff about people not getting sales and bitching about stuff ;o)

If you’ve never used an online forum before then think of the forums like you would a work lunch room where all the staff members get together and talk about their day…..BUT….. Remember the forums are open to everyone…. imagine that same work lunch room but with all your ‘would be customers’ also watching and listening in on every word.

Be polite and courteous at all times, no matter what someone else has said.

Also remember that not all people are there to help you, unfortunately some people will give you miss-information on purpose, you have to be aware that this ‘might’ happen.

That said, I love the forums, they are a good place to hang out and talk ‘etsy’ with the people that know etsy best.

There are also separate small forums within etsy’s ‘teams’ section. http://www.etsy.com/teams

Basically you find a team that you think fits your selling category, join up and read what people have to say.

Some teams are more active than others and do things like ‘team treasuries’ and ‘facebook promos’ helping to promote themselves and their team mate’s work. Some require you to do certain things to keep the team active so be sure to read all the team info ‘before’ joining.

Personally speaking I haven’t spent a whole heap of time in the ‘teams’ section and I was even kicked out of one a while ago for not being ‘active within the team’…..oops lol ;o)

 If you feel teams are not for you then don’t sweat it, the main etsy forums have the majority of the bulk of information you will need to get by in etsyland.

The forums can be a help in many ways; information on the in's and out's of etsy is vital to get by, this is the place to be to find out about all the newest Etsy updates and whether they will affect your Etsy shop, what new apps they are adding and whether the site is having any glitch's that may cause you any issues.

The forums is also a place for networking, just commenting now and then can bring viewers to your shop, every comment you leave has a link to your shop and your avatar so that people can get an idea of the kind of things you make and sell, you never know your humble comment could lead to a sale or 2 if you are lucky ;o)

Even if you don't actively participate in commenting in the Etsy forums I suggest you still visit once a week to read through what might affect you and you Etsy experience.

I visit the forums at the end of my working day on most nights, I don't always comment but you can be sure I am reading and learning every day.

After all this research you should be feeling ready for setting up shop, so next week's Etsy Wednesday I will be talking about actually opening up your first Etsy shop and some of the things you should be doing that you might not have thought of.

X