Made a Sale!

Yay, I made a sale! I'm really happy because it's been months since I made a sale. I think Etsy Day could have helped and I've been trying to get in the habit of promoting more lately. This is what I sold:



It's a mini book. I like the stitching for this because I just sort of made it up while I did it instead of doing a particular stitch. I also love the paper. The person is paying with cash/check so I'm going to send that out after I get it. I've never had any trouble with buyers on etsy, but it's good to be safe.

I might take a bookbinding class this summer at Hollander's (which is where I buy all my stuff anyway). I've looked at books or the internet to learn how to make crafts, but it'd be nice to take an actual class where I could hopefully learn new skills and get better at stitches. I've seen some really complicated stitches so there's always more to learn.

I reached over 1,000 followers on my twitter which is great. I try to search for people that might be interested in my shop or crafts and follow a bunch of people. Even though a lot of my followers seem to be random companies, I think it helps my shop. I also see my followers on this blog have gone up a little so welcome to any new followers! :) What blogs do you guys check out on a regular basis?

Etsy Day

Happy Etsy Day! :) Etsy Day is a day started by members to help promote Etsy.com. I think it's a great idea and I wish I had some way to promote Etsy offline. Since I've been really busy with school lately, I haven't had as much time to be on etsy as much, so I've been trying to do more etsy stuff today. I joined some new groups on flickr and I just noticed #etsyday is the number 1 trending topic on twitter which is great. What ways are you planning on promoting Etsy or celebrating Etsy Day? Since today is about Etsy in general, I thought I'd post some items I have in my favorites:

Etsy Addict Bird Sign


This sign is perfect to celebrate Etsy Day. I love all the little decorations and that it says "etsy addict". :)

Hand Screen Printed Camera Zipper Pouch



I'm sure I've posted this before on my blog, but I really like this shop. It's simple, but cute pouch. Now that I've been more in to photography (taking a photography course), it'd be nice to have a pouch for my more expensive, non digital camera.

Music is My Life Letterpress



This piece of art is simple, but perfect for music lovers. I would love to have something like this up in my room (maybe by where my CDs are).

Sweet Tweet Bird Soaps



This shop has lots of cute soaps that you can't even tell are soaps at first, like popcorn shaped soap, french fries, donuts, etc. I saw one of her items on the front page the other idea. The one picture is a bird soap. I think I'm just sort of in a bird mood because of springtime. :) I think these could make great Mother's Day gifts.

Original Travel Sketch - Italy



Since I've going to traveling to Italy, sometimes I'll search for Italy themes on etsy to see what will show up. I like this artwork which looks sort of like a journal entry or something out of somebody's sketch book. I like the use of one color and the simplicity of it. She also has some cool sketches of other places, like London.

I've been also thinking of new ways to promote my own shop in new ways. I use social networking sites, linkreferral, business cards and this blog. I guess that seems like more than I thought. Any other ideas? What do people use? I was thinking of doing some paid advertising. I would just start off with something cheap since I'm not making a lot of money right now. I don't know if paid advertising is worth it or if it really works more than just using free ways.

My laptop has been broken for a while. Since my hard drive crashed, when I got a new one, I just got one with 320GB because I have so many music and picture files and figured it would be nice to get a bigger drive anyway. Except now that I got my laptop to work, it's saying there's only 20GB when there should be 320GB so I can't add any of my files yet. Does anybody have any idea why it would do this?
ways to promote my shop?

I only have a couple days left and this week is Springfest at my college which is exciting. I'm so excited for this summer. :)

Celebrating Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Remember there's a 10% off sale for items in my springtime section. I thought to celebrate Earth Day, I'd list some ideas you can be more green in your shop. These are all things I try to do.

Re-use materials if possible. I try not to waste any of my crafting items. Since I use decorative paper and binder's board a lot, I always end up having left over scraps. I keep a big box of scrap paper, even if it's really small pieces, because I figure I can use the items for something. I've used scrap paper to make promotional items, like matchbook notepads, decorating greeting cards and for use in my personal journal and artwork. I've also used leftover binder's board to make mini items.

Reuse mailing materials. Instead of buying mailing materials, you can reuse old mailing materials you have and redecorate it if you're sending an item with it. Honestly, I don't reuse mailing materials for items that sell in my shop because I bought a couple hundred of white mailer envelopes in an ebay bid (to save money) and use those. I almost always save packages I get to reuse though. Even if it's not selling items that sold from my shop, I try to re-use old packages when mailing any sort of package. This is a great tip for people that don't have etsy shops too.

Be creative with old items. In my last entry, I mentioned how I used old children's books I had to make journals. Even though I could have thrown them out or sold them, it's much more fun to create a new item out of them and use your creativity. Even if you don't know what to do with some old items, you can keep a drawer or a box to save items that might make interesting crafts somedays.

Buy locally. In general, buying locally is a good way to save energy. There's an option on etsy that allows you to see which shops are near you. You can also try to buy crafting supplies locally if you have craft stores near you. Also, taking the bus, biking or walking to craft stores (or any craft events like craft fairs) can save energy.

Make crafts for gifts. If you're crafter, making handmade items for friends and family members during birthdays and holidays is a great way to be green and save money. Handcrafted gifts are also much more personal and memorable. If you don't make crafts, buying from shops with handcrafted items is a great way to support these shops instead of buying from big corporations.

Hope these ideas helped out. What ways are you green in your life or etsy shop?

Earth Day Sale Tomorrow!

Did you know Earth Day is tomorrow? I think it's a great day to remind people to take care of the environment around them. I'm having a 10% sale off items in my new springtime section. There's no code to enter. Here's a few items that are in the spring section:

Bird Travel Greeting Card



This is great if you know somebody that's going on vacation and want to give them a nice card.

Spring Garden Journal



This is one my older journals. The decorative paper it uses is great for springtime.

Tree of Life Box



I originally made this box for a custom order, but I love how it came out with this fabric, so it's made to order for anybody who buys it. The green swirl fabric reminds me of spring colors.

Coptic Bound Postal Bird Journal



I love bird themes and I love the paper I found for this. The cover is collaged with ripped decorative paper and is sewn using the coptic stitch method. It's also a little larger than most journals so it might be good for scrapbooking or sketching in.

Gold Sequins and Flower Congratulations Greeting Card



I used a fake flower I had for this one and had fun with adding gold sequins. It's a card to wish somebody Congratulations. It's also a little 3D and has some fun textures.

Also, I just noticed my I Am a Little Animal Recycled Journal is featured on the EtsyVeg blog today. One of those books was the first item I sold on etsy. I wrote up a little thing about it. I chose that item to be featured on Earth Day because it's one of my items that reused old books I already had.

Does anybody else use an RSS feed to read this blogs? I usually just use blogspot, but I was thinking of using something like Google Reader or My Yahoo because you can add blog updates from different sites. It'd also be nice if I could get my livejournal updates on there. Speaking of websites, I've been addicted to twitter lately, come follow me if you aren't already.

I can't believe the school year is almost over. I only have a week and a half of classes yet and one final. I'm counting down the days. :)

Record Store Day

Happy Record Store Day! Record Store Day is a day to celebrate the culture of record stores and music. There's a bunch of special vinyl and CD releases from bands just for this day. You can find out more on their website. Personally, I never grew up during the era of records and I only own one (because it's autographed), but I think the idea is nice and I like that people are still trying to support record stores. My first treasury I made on etsy was actually called "Vinyl Love" and themed around records. I thought it was a great theme and found a lot of nice items. Here's a screen capture of it:

I also have this set of vinyl records from the 1920s up in my shop. They are thicker and smaller than the kind of records most people have. I originally put it up on ebay, but when it didn't sell, I put them on here. I thought somebody might find them useful to collect or make a craft out of them (such as record bowls). It's actually going to expire pretty soon and I think I'll just let it expire if it doesn't sell:



If you want to do something crafty to celebrate Record Store Day, record bowls are really easy to make. You can keep little things in them or even put a plant in them.

1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2) Place an oven safe bowl upside down on a cookie sheet. Place the record on top of the bowl.
3) Leave it in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
4) Take it out of the oven. Turn the bowl right side up and put the record (which is now soft) inside of the bowl. It should make a funky shape and you can mold it how you want.

Let me know if you make one. :)

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter Weekend / Passover. To celebrate the holidays, there's a 10% off everything sale going in my shop this weekend. Just enter the code "EASTER" at checkout. Some good items for Easter:

Spring Garden Journal



Cupcake Desserts Cookbook (Sale)



Green Bird Journal



Purple Donut Altered Journal (Sale)



I got my fixed camera in the mail today. It's a little upgraded version from my old one which is nice. It also takes photos in "high definition" which I think my old one did too, but it's cool to think about. I also needed it for my Photography class. The only project I have left is my final and I want to do something with springtime and showing nature blooming. I want to have some photos in black and white and some in color (and maybe some in between) so I needed my digital for color. It's too bad I left some of my journals at home I needed to take photos of.

There's not a whole lot of new stuff in ym shop. I haven't been able to work on items, but I also haven't been selling a lot, so I don't feel a need to go out and make a bunch of items right now. I'm going to send some of my business cards out because I have a bunch I haven't really been using so hopefully that will attract some customers. I've also been using my twitter a little more to mini blog (or just respond to people). There's also a little box on the right side of this blog that shows my most recent tweets. That site's been getting a lot bigger lately it seems. I remember finding it on the etsy forums last year and thinking it was probably something no one else had heard of it.

I also made a thread on etsy about PETA attacking Etsy for selling items with fur and how they should not allow shops to have it. The petition is here. I'm in to animal rights so it's kind of an important topic for me. Even though I agree that fur shouldn't be sold in shops and it's morally wrong, I don't know how I feel about Etsy telling shop owners they can't sell something. It's funny I got a lot of really negative responses towards PETA on the etsy forum, but when I posted on the EtsyVeg team message board, everybody seemed to agree with them. What do you think?

Hope everyone has a good Easter!

World Autism Awareness Day

I just noticed today is World Autism Awareness Day. I'm part of the Etsy for Autism team because my brother, Teddy, has autism. I also have a few items in my shop that use the official autism awareness fabric.

Autism Awareness Journal


This uses a really pretty blue paper on the inside. 50% of your payment for this item will be given to a charity that helps promote artists with autism.

I also have a mini autism journal (which is the same journal as above, but smaller), but I gave it to the shop that's selling a couple of my items (if you're in Chicago, check out a shop called Light Speed, the address is in the announcements in my etsy shop). The money from that item doesn't go to charity because it was so small and I didn't think it'd be enough of a profit to give to a charity, but it's still a good way to raise awareness.



Speaking of charity, I'm trying to find a place to volunteer while I'm in college for next year. I'm self designing my own major that I think I'm calling Art and Social Action (I haven't officially decided on the name yet - I still have to officially declare it) where I'm studying how art can be used to change the world. I think it's a good idea to do some volunteer and maybe work with some type of art in the community so I'm looking at places now. Tomorrow, I'm going to a place called America Reads where I help tutor kids. It's not exactly art, but I'm trying a bunch of places and it should be fun.