New Listings

So I guess my giveaway wasn't a success. I didn't get any entries. :( Maybe it's too late to be giving away election items. I don't know what to do with my election and Halloween items in my shop since they aren't selling. I guess I could just leave them up and maybe somebody will buy it. I did get two new listings up from some items I made a while ago.

I Miss You Card



This card is made with plastic letters I bought from etsy. It was one of the first purchases I made on etsy. I also used the letters on my own journal to write my name on the front. I thought they'd look unique on a card and they went well with the black and silver decorative paper I found.

Green Bird Journal



I really like the decorative paper I used for this journal. It reminds me of springtime (even though it's snowing here already!) I also made a mini version of this journal which I'll list soon.

I'm working on two new journals right now and I already have a bunch of ideas for some other ones. I got this really pretty music note paper and I'm thinking of making a composer's book with it with music paper inside it (I actually made one like this with fabric with records on it on the outside, but it didn't hold together).

Election 2008 Giveaway - Giving away TEN cards!

I'm going to do my first giveaway today. There's only a week until the presidential election and it's really important for people to get out and vote, so I'm going to give out some election cards since I don't know if they're going to sell in time anyway.

First I should mention there's two discounts/coupon codes going on in my shop. With Halloween coming up really soon, you can get 10% off an items in my halloween section if you enter the code TRICKORTREAT at checkout. There's also a 10% discount for any election items if you enter the code ELECTIONBLOG at checkout. On to the giveaway...

How to Enter Giveaway:
1. Go to my shop - find your favorite item, post it, and say why you like it.
2. Say who you're voting for in the election (just out of curiousity, if you're not comfortable sharing, you don't have to say).
3. Leave your etsy username or email address so I can contact you if you win.

That will get you one entry. Winners will be chosen randomly.
*You get 1 extra entry if you post something about this on your blog, etsy forums, etc. and send me a link. :) (you can't get more than 1 extra entry though)

Grand Winner:


- 2 election cards of their choice from my shop (not pictured)
- 1 graffiti flat card (similar to the card here)
- 1 checkmark vote flat
- 2 stamped "Vote" envelopes

Runner Up:


- 2 "Please remember to vote" note cards
- 1 "Your Vote Counts" notecard
- 1 graffiti flat card

Second Runner Up:


- 1 flat card with three vote stamps on the front, the back says "Please remember to vote on Election Day (November 4th)" over blue, starry decorative paper

I will choose the winners on Halloween (Friday) and will send it out as soon as possible. I will need at least 10 entries for this to work (but if I get less, I'll just do one winner). Good luck! And don't forget to vote next Tuesday.

I bought a bunch of pretty decorative paper and supplies (glue, a new brush for the glue, etc.) last week and it came in the mail today. I can't wait to use the decorative paper and I'm excited about some new project ideas. I feel like I haven't listed or made new stuff in a while. I already started on a couple projects (including a mini address book). I'll be posting on the blog more as I get new listings up and hopefully photos and me making items in the process.

This is Halloween...

In the spirit of Halloween, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Halloween items on etsy. There's so many holiday items on etsy, but here some of the ones I hearted:

Happy Halloween Print


Jack-O-Lattern Felted Pumpkin


Pumpkin Pie Candle


Pumpkin Spice Handmade Cold Process Vegan Soap


Crocheted Organic Cat Nip


Don't forget to check out my halloween section in my shop for more Halloween items. Also, I'm in the Bookbinding Team Halloween book challenge. You can vote for my black and gold journal here.

New Cards

I listed another card listed in my Halloween section in my shop. It's a watercolor painted moon with bats flying across it. You can buy it here. I don't know what I'm going to do with my bat stamp now that I'm not going to be making any more Halloween items.



Somebody I knew since grade school recently passed away. It was shocking to hear about since he was so young. He died in a car crash while traveling for fall break. I wasn't really close with him or anything and I didn't really see him that much as I got older, but he was my class during grade school and I remembered him as someone who was nice to everyone.

I made a sympathy card for his parents. It's watercolor painted flowers and says "Sorry about your loss" on the front. Here's a photo I took while in the process of painting it:



I really like how it turned out. I think in the future, I'll make some cards like it to sell. This is one of the first cards I've made though that I've actually used myself and it was kind of a nice feeling to be able to make our own cards.





I had a couple blank watercolor cards left, so I painted all of those too. I should have a couple Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holiday items to list soon. I'm still thinking of ideas of what kind of holiday themed stuff I can make.

There was an online sale at Hollander's, the shop I buy most of my journal making stuff at. I needed some more glue, but I stocked up on a bunch of new stuff and got some new, pretty decorative paper (some holiday and winter themed one) I can't wait to use.

Pumpkin Carriage Greeting Card

I listed another Halloween card. I wanted to do something different than and did a pumpkin carriage sort of inspired by Cinderella. Everything is watercolor painted. There's a pumpkin carriage on the right side and two small pumpkins and a clock (to represent the stroke of midnight) on the back/left side when opened up.

I started off by drawing the image in pencil. I then watercolor painted everything - this card was easier to paint because I used watercolor cards that are meant to hold watercolor paint. I wanted something extra so I put gold embossing powder on the wheels and pumpkin:



And here's how it turned out:





It's a little bit more expensive than my other cards ($10) because I put a lot more detail and time in to the artwork of it. I also have one more Halloween card to list that features a bat and a watercolor painted moon. My internet is being slow so I can't get the photos up, but it should (hopefully) be up this week before Halloween. I also picked up some Halloween candies today. If anybody orders a Halloween card (or anything in my shop) during Halloween time, I was going to include a couple chocolates.

Two of my items are featured in treasuries. :) One of my other Halloween cards is in this treasury for the Etsy for Animals team. I also found out today one of my "Vote" cards was featured in this Obama treasury.

I was downtown shopping today and noticed there were a couple of local craft shows. Both were for early November, so it might be too late for me to do them and I don't have that many items here. There was also no contact info on the flyers I saw and I haven't been able to find any info/any other craft shows online yet. I've never done a craft show, but I really want to do one at some point. Anybody have any experience with them? What was your first craft show like?

Election Day Items

My Mini Indian Print Journal was featured on the etsyveg blog today for autumn colored items. I was excited they chose one of my items, I don't even think I entered it as a challenge item or anything.



I got a lot of new items listed. :) I finally got most of my election day cards up:

Vote Graffiti Card
This is a flat card (meaning it's like a greeting card, but it's just one side and doesn't open up) with random vote stamps all over in black and red.



Pink and Blue American Vote Card
This is a watercolor painted greeting card that features the American flag. I didn't have any red watercolor so I ended up using pink.



Vote Watercolor Greeting Card
This is another watercolor painted greeting card that uses a blue and red watercolor painted background and a red vote stamp all over. The inside is painted blue and reminds people to vote on Election Day.


All of these cards can put in to one of these A7 sized "Vote" envelopes:


These cards remind people to vote on November 4th and they have enough space that you can write a personal message or endorse your favorite candidate.

I also have to list two more Halloween cards soon and I have a couple more journals I made that I can't wait to share. :)

New Halloween Items

I made a new section in my shop with Halloween items. I thought it'd be good to put all the Halloween items in one place for people to find easier and it will draw more attention to them (I hope I'll get at least one to sell before Halloween). It includes some new journals I've listed:

Black and Gold Marbled Journal



This journal uses a really pretty marbled decorative paper from Thailand. It's the same paper used on this journal, but in different colors. I think the colors look sort of Halloween ish (orange and black) so I think I listed it at a good time.

I also listed two journals with a purple donut decorative paper - a ribbon journal and an altered book (on sale). It fits the theme of Halloween because of the donuts being a sweet.




I also have at least two other Halloween cards I recently made that I need to list and add to my section. I made some more matchbook notebooks today (some are to go in the Little Black Box, it's my first time doing it). My latest project is a small, round jewelry box.

Blogging

I've been very productive this weekend. I made some new journals and cards and took a bunch of photos. I have lots of new items to post, but because the photos won't upload on my slow modem, it might take a while to get them listed (which I guess is good because that ways items will be added gradually, but there's some Halloween and election stuff I want to get up soon).

I did get this Purple Donut Altered Book listed though. It has an imperfection and I wasn't sure if I should sell it, but I decided to make it a sale item. I also listed and got one photo to work for this feel better card:



I'm addicted to two new sites - listography and twitter. I use both to update on my personal life and stuff on etsy. I also set up a Project Wonderful account and you can see my ads on sites such as Handmade Showcase and Indiepublic. I'm thinking of maybe changing or adding an ad that includes a photo of some of my journals instead of my logo, what do you think? Hopefully, that will help bring more viewers to my shop (and hopefully more sales!)

Since I don't have a lot of new things to post, I thought I'd share a few of the blogs I've been getting in lately on my blog list. Feel free to recommend me any new ones, about etsy or anything else. :)

Etsy Edibles Art Team - This actually for Etsy's Edible Arts Team, which I'm not a part of (since you have to sell food to be a member), but I think it's fun to look at their blog. I love reading about and seeing photos of desserts. ;)

Eye Pop Art - This blog is for the shop of someone who paints and decorates old vinyl records. I love her artwork. It's kind of expensive for me to buy, but it's really fun and eye catching.

Afiori - I found this blog on a journaling community on livejournal. She has a lot of really nice journaling pages and crafts. I just added her blog to my blog list

Phizzychick - Another person who makes mixed media artwork. I love her journal pages, they're fun to look at and very inspiring to me. I found her blog on craftster.

I'd also thought I'd share this photo I took of a tree outside my window. The leaves are so pretty.

Travel Card Sale

I made another sale today. :) I'm happy because because I haven't got a sale in a while. It's for my Travel Card:



One of my Halloween cards is featured on the EFA blog right now. I hope some of my Halloween cards sell before Halloween. I'm also entering the diy Halloween contest on etsy/instructables.

I just watched a video on gluing when bookbinding and it made me in a journaling mood. I wish I had time to make more books, but it's hard to find the time and space right now with college and everything. Also, I lost the little blade for my cutting board, so I don't know how I'm supposed to cut paper now. :\ I have fall break this weekend though (which is 4 days) which will be nice, even though I just found out I'll be staying here instead of going home.

20th Birthday

It was my 20th birthday this Saturday and I thought I'd share some photos instead of talking about etsy today. I didn't really do a lot to celebrate, but I'm excited I turned 20. I feel so old, even though I guess I'm really young compared to most people on etsy.

My mom mailed me a birthday cake. She made it herself and I've indulged in it a lot. The chocolate frosting is so rich and good. The cake is also homemade. It's really good, but the cake part is so strong, it's actually kind of hard for me to eat that much of it.



She also mailed me some presents. I forgot to take a photo of them wrapped, but she got me some new clothes (there were also some black leggings, which aren't pictured.):



I'm in the process of uploading images of my journal to my flickr account. I also post entries of my journal on a couple communities on livejournal. Since I sell journals, I think it's fitting to share some of my own art journaling pages. Once I sell enough journals, I'm trying to get it so some of my buyers send it photos of what they use their journal for. I was then going to post up pages on this blog for inspiration... hopefully I'll get enough sales that I'll be able to do that. :)

I'm searching for some new blogs to read, etsy or non-etsy related, so if you have any blogs you love to read (or your own blog) - feel free to share. While reading another blog, I found a site called listography and I started an account there - you basically create lists of whatever you want. If you want to check out my page (still new), you can see it here. That's just my personal account, but I think it could be helpful with etsy related stuff and to create to do lists of things I need to do for my shop.

I'll have some new items up on etsy soon. I can't get any photos uploaded for new item listings because the internet connection is so slow at my college. I have a Halloween type journal that's black and gold and I love the paper I used for it. I'm going home next week for Fall Break so I'll be able to upload photos there and list some new items. :)

Consignment & Birthday

I just got contacted about selling my items for a new shop opening up in Chicago. I'm really excited because I've never done consignment before. :) I don't really know how it all works, but I know I'd sell my items at wholesale price. Hopefully, it won't be too complicated for me and it will work out.

I'm sort of slow getting some new listings up because of my internet connection. I'm putting up some flat cards (which are greeting cards, but they are flat and don't open up) that encourage people to vote in the upcoming presidential election. I got a stamp that says "Vote" on it and red and black ink and just sort of played with that in different styles. They came out cute I think and they're pretty simple, but some of them got smeared from the red ink so I don't know if I can sell all of them. I did get one up though (right after watching the vice presidential debates):

Gold Glitter Vote Note Card



I didn't want to be too political or one sided, but it's always good to get people to vote. Even though I did make a few with the Obama sign as the "o" in vote.

Also, kind of unrelated to my shop, but it's my 20th birthday today. I guess I have to change my description on the side of this blog. :)