Autumn Items & Craft Show Update

It ended up that my mom couldn't go to Arts on Harrison to do the craft show for me. I was kind of disappointed because I was really excited about it and to sell some items, but there's always more craft shows in the future. I actually got contacted by another craft show that I paid for in the summer, but they never got back to me when I emailed them. They finally emailed me back so I think I might do a few of those (this craft show is every week until the end of September).

I renewed a few Halloween and Thanksgiving items I made last year. You can see all my autumn themed items in this section.

Autumn Leaves Thanksgiving Card



It's weird to think of Thanksgiving this early, but I love the colors of this card and had fun making it last year. I used shimmer watercolor and went over it with marker.

Bat and Moon Halloween Greeting Card



I forgot to renew this item when I relisted my other Halloween items. I watercolor painted the moon and added bat stamps.

I just wrote an entry about statistics in my shop which I might post sometime in the near future. It's my observations from looking at Google Analytics for my shop and might be helpful for other sellers. I want to do advertising on Craftster. It's only $5/day which isn't bad. I don't have a lot of money right now though and I'm not selling anything recently. I was thinking of saving up a little at a time until I can put like $50 in to it. Has anyone done paid advertising? Is it more effective than social networking/free advertising? I've tried Facebook and Project Wonderful and they weren't that helpful (though Project Wonderful is an interesting idea and pretty fun). I think Craftster is good because it's really focused on crafts and I already get clicks there just from having my shop link in my profile.

In non-etsy related news, I've been really busy with homework this weekend. Some of my books are taking a while to get here since I ordered them online from Half.com (to save money). It's great that I got books really cheap - one I got for like $5 when it was originally $50 - but then it means I have to catch up on things I missed. I'm studying for an art history quiz right now. I signed up for an extracurricular horse back riding club and I think I'm going riding this Tuesday. I'm really excited about that.