Treasury Love Part IV

May the Stats Be With You.

"My shop got 447 views, 114 faves. The necklace got 170 views, 80 faves!"
— Linda Richards, of L Richards Design, reporting on her stats after being featured in a front page treasury on Etsy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/LRichardsDesign


Impressive numbers, yes? Enviable, too.

OK, so I know most of you aren't big on curating treasuries. You've always got your craft to do, or laundry, or the kids are well, being kids... but I'm a big fan of the talented Etsians out there, so I make treasuries. I am not ashamed to admit that I also like the exposure my treasuries generate for MY shop.

TODAY A TREASURY I CURATED MADE THE FRONT PAGE OF ETSY! ...
and the theme was inspired by Linda's elegant seashell necklace.
Everything I treasured had to be equally elegant and beachy. (Think resorts. Think lounge chairs and beach-side cocktail service.)

https://www.etsy.com/listing/122268984/silver-seashell-necklace-silver-and?ref=shop_home_feat


I created the treasury on Monday morning, before work, with a giant mug of coffee at my side. Once published, I promoted it in various treasury threads on various team boards. I promoted it again after work. I didn't promote it at ALL on Tuesday.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw Etsy's home page at about 8 this morning (Wednesday). I was like "Holy beach towel! That's MY treasury!" Cheap thrill, perhaps, but it was the first time I'd created a front page-positioned treasury! (it took 53 tries in almost as many weeks).

I was so geeked that I, of course, made a screengrab of the front page — after I'd convo'd Linda to let her know she was a front-pager!

 

https://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTAwNjM2OTF8MjcyNDQwODU0OA/summery-neutrals?ref=pr_treasury

THE TREASURY WAS ON THE FRONT PAGE FOR AN HOUR OF POWER! 
In addition to Linda's massive views and faves, my shop got 66 views and 54 faves, all in that one hour! I got some super-sweet convos, too, from the shop owners I treasured — a nice lift on a gray, drizzly morning — AND I also ended up in 3 treasuries myself AND had a sale!

Props to Buffalo Etsians...
Mary from Charmed by Wine https://www.etsy.com/shop/CharmedByWine?ref=ss_profile  
and Fiona from JJKZ https://www.etsy.com/shop/JJKZ?ref=ss_profile 
for showing the treasury some love. You just got a free promo! :)

Now go find some pretty, cool, wacky, rustic, fancy or funky things for your next treasury. And may the stats be with you.


Carla 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/716Buffalos

Following YOUR Path - Motivational Lyrics

There are many things that motivate us to do more, to overcome, to help or to simply be better people.

One of the most powerful motivators, for me, is music.

Not just the chords, the pounding drums or a catchy rhythm - although that's a piece of it.

I'm talking about the lyrics that lay on top of the music.

The words that offer hope, encourage the listener take a chance, give direction, or inspire you to run one more mile.

I'm talking about the stories that unfold within a song that wake you up to possibility, and urge you to take action.

One of my favorites, and I have many, from years ago - that really made me think
about my life and where I was going - was Time by Pink Floyd. If this isn't enough to wake someone up, I'm not sure what is:


Ticking away the moments
That make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours 
in an off-hand way

Kicking around on a piece of ground
In your home town
Waiting for someone or something
To show you the way                                                                                                                                   

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today                                                                                                                     

And then the one day you find 
Ten years have got behind you 
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun 

Many people are simply waiting for someone or something to show them the way. In the mean time, opportunity, time and life is slipping away.

 Don't let another day get behind you!!!! Take Action.

What lyrics have motivated you to do more or take a chance or simply helped you to cope with the ups and downs of this crazy game of life?? Share it here and inspire others!! Don't be shy!!!!!

written by Al Pilato of harvest woods

Monday Interview with Amanda from Rust Belt Threads

 This week Amanda from Rust Belt Threads took some time out to talk with us!

Please tell us a bit about yourself? My name is Amanda and I live on the westside of Buffalo with my husband, Nate, and our cat, Toulouse. I'm a big fan of mid century modern, cats, classic cocktails and drag queens. I'm also one of the co-founders of the Queen City Market, which is an annual local market held in Buffalo around the holidays.

What do you create? How long have you been working on your craft/art? Since I'm a vintage seller, I help create people's wardrobes and decorate their homes. I've been collecting vintage items since the mid 90's but became more serious around 2005.

How did you come up with your store name? Buffalo is part of the Rust Belt, and so is 99% of my inventory, so it seemed fitting.

How does Buffalo influence your work? Buffalo influences my shop immensely! There's so much history and so many great treasures to be found in this great city.

What is the best thing about having a etsy shop? The best thing about having an Etsy shop is being my own boss. I can set my own hours and work when I want. Shipping internationally is great too. It's amazing to think that some of the pieces from my shop are now being loved all around the world.

How do you promote your work to the world? I use various social media tools twitter, facebook, instagram, pinterest, and tumblr. Having the option to ship internationally is a great way to promote too.


What is the hardest part about selling online? The inconstancy of sales. One week I'll be rolling in the sales and the next week there'll be tumbleweeds in my shop.

Where can your work be found locally? Currently in my apartment (where my inventory is taking over) and the Queen City Market in December.

Do you have any advise or suggestions for new sellers to etsy? Joining an Etsy team is a great way to make new friends and learn from other shops and their experiences. If you get frustrated with your shop, do some research on how to better improve your photos, descriptions, tags, ect.

Do you do this full or part time? If full time how did you get yourself to that status? Keeping up with my inventory is a full time job in itself, but I do have a day job outside of Etsy.

Where can you be found online?
www.etsy.com/shop/RustBeltThreads
twitter.com/RustBeltThreads
www.facebook.com/pages/Rust-Belt-Threads/82513312122
rustbeltthreads.tumblr.com/
pinterest.com/rustbeltthreads/

Thanks Amanda for sharing your experience with us!

If you are from Buffalo and would like to be featured on the blog please contact me for more information!!

The April Creative Challenge Winner Is...

Bright Yellow Spring Flower Hair Clip by Fast|crawl

Update #2: We are now voting for our May winner here.

Update: We are now accepting entries for May's creative challenge here.

Jessica from Fast|crawl! Congratulations! It was a close vote, but Jessica's lovely bright hair clip won out in the end. Thank you so much to everyone who created something for this challenge and to everyone who voted. I think our first challenge was very successful!

As winner of the April challenge, Jessica gets to pick the theme for our May challenge, and she has picked a theme of: Sea Creatures / Sea Life. Sounds fun! I'm sure many of us wouldn't mind dipping a toe in the sea right now (or maybe one of the Great Lakes available to us? I wonder how cold they are still.).

Here is the rough schedule for May's challenge:

• May 19-24: We accept entries for the challenge
• May 26-29: We vote for a winner
• June 2: I announce the winner and the theme for the June challenge

This schedule leaves us all with a little less than three weeks to create something inspired by sea creatures and sea life. I hope that is enough time; let me know in the comments what you think.

Congratulations again to Jessica! And thanks again to everyone who participated, too!

ART SHOWS 101: Survival Tips for Show Artists and Crafters Vol. 7

                    Five Things You MUST Do Before Your First Show

1.) Obtain any and all permits needed for your shows -- NOW!

This mostly applies to obtaining your Certificate of Authority a.k.a. Sales Tax ID number. Once again, here are the links to New York State Department of Taxation. If you are participating in an out-of-state show you will need to contact that state’s tax department.

Online Permit Assistance and Licensing:

http://www.nys-permits.org/

New York State Department of Taxation (main website):

http://www.tax.ny.gov/

Some shows, like the Saturday Artisans Market, require a city vendor’s permit too. If this is the case the show promoters will tell you what you need to file for and how to go about it.

2.) Signage  

You want your potential customers to know your name, right? Decide now on what type of signage you want for your booth. It doesn't have to be fancy or cost a lot of money. Consider a hand-painted sign that coordinates with your work, or a table sized vinyl banner easily ordered from your local print shop or Vista Print (online service).

3) Hand Outs

Be sure to have business cards, or flyers, or upcoming show lists (or all of the above), to include with each purchase. Have extras to hand out to people who are interested in your work but not ready to buy at that moment. 

4.) Have a Display Plan

Do a dress rehearsal! Know in advance how you are going to set up your tent, table, panels, shelves and product. Having a good idea of where everything goes will save you SO much time and stress the morning of the show.

5.) Set your prices!

It’s best to have a price tag on each and every item you plan to sell, but this isn’t always possible. Price stickers don’t stick well to some surfaces, and it just doesn't make sense to price some items if you have many and they are displayed together. Use printed signs for items like these and place several of them near your items. Print up signs for any type of deal you may be offering too -- such as “Buy Two get One for Free”, “$25 or 2 for $40”, etc..

Until next time -- keep creating!

Alison

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SilentMyloStudio

Everything Old is New Again in Business

http://www.ivankatrump.com/

For this week's blog post I've decided to share with you a book I've been reading.  "The Trump Card- Playing to Win in Work and Life" by Ivanka Trump (daughter of Donald Trump).  I"m always striving to find new ways to improve my Etsy business.  I enjoy reading books/websites about business.  Sometimes they provide me with fresh ideas and sometimes they just provide good reminders.  "The Trump Card" is an easy read.  It gives you a good understanding of the Trump's background and offers some business basics thrown in the mix for good measure.  I would recommend it especially for young women in college. There is a great section about job interview basics. 

Here are some of the major points I walked away with that are applicable for us Etsy shop owners:

-Identify the void in your market and position your brand so that you uniquely fill it.

-Get away whenever you can.  Expose yourself to something new that will open you up for opportunities for growth.  

-The customer is always right..even when they are wrong. You want your client or customer to feel good about the transaction.

-Take full advantage of the contacts you make through family and friends but do not take them for granted.

-Handwritten personal notes are very important.

-Be flexible in your thinking.

-Be prepared to reinvent yourself.

-There is tremendous value in staying open to new ideas and opportunities.

-Enthusiasm and drive can certainly compensate for experience.

I will conclude with a great quote Ivanka included in her book by Abraham Lincoln.  It's my new favorite quote.

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."
    Abraham Lincoln

Following YOUR Path - Sarah Trumpp

                                                                                            


In 1937, John Steinbeck penned  "the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry" in his classic
Of Mice and Men.

It still seems to be true, all these years later.

On the flip side of it, approaching things in a more relaxed, flexible way, must open us up to new opportunities and, sometimes, more success than we thought possible. It must help us eliminate worry and disappointment or at least reduce it. Right???

Well, Sarah Trumpp of Wonderstrumpet shares a personal breakthrough this week that just may in fact give this theory some credence. Check out Sarah's 3rd update on her march to success in 2013.

You've applied to a number of craft shows over the next several months. Can you update us on the latest?  I just did Mayday Underground yesterday (4/28) - it went okay as far as $$ goes, but it was hugely successful in the learning and figuring things out part. 

In the past, I've mentioned trying to streamline and focus - this has been a HUGE stumbling block for me. I have spent way too much time and energy worrying about it. Looking back on the last few months, that's probably 80% of what I've been doing, which is ridiculous. I've had people I absolutely adore and respect tell me that what I'm doing is fine and I should just keep doing it, but it didn't feel right to me. But now suddenly everything has finally clicked in my head, which is AWESOME, and the booth setup caused it completely accidentally.

My husband made me a set of shelves to use on my tables, and I asked my oldest kid to paint them black for me. We just happened to be almost out of black paint, so I dug through our paint (I kind of went crazy at the paint department when we moved into our house) and decided on red, figuring I'd go back in and stripe them with white once he was done. That quick spur-of-the-moment decision has helped me immensely. I started walking back into the house from the garage, and the ideas started rolling. 

I figured I'd make the shelves striped and grimy and then would make a tablecloth with grimy red and white stripes, too. Then the idea for painting and wall-hanging displays came to me, and I wanted them to be sort of side-show-esque, since my work tends to go in that direction naturally. I thought about them for a while and then designed and built them (when I should have been working on something else, of course), and they worked well enough but will be rebuilt this week (which is fine since I know what I'm doing now..). I made pennant flag bunting with random felt bits I had laying around (like anatomic hearts and sugar skulls), and it all coalesced into this circus vibe that I can totally work with. If only I could make a cotton candy machine! ;)

On the way home from Mayday, I started thinking about this even more and figured out a way to incorporate all of the totally random stuff that I make into one cohesive whole, and this is really exciting to me. I have this brain that needs to compartmentalize things, and it's hard for me to move forward when things don't fit into their little boxes (I'm going to go take a picture of one of my tables which illustrates this perfectly. My husband made them to my exact specifications - everything is in its own little compartment!). I know all of this worrying may sound crazy, but it has been a huge HUGE Atlas-style burden on my back.

 I did get acceptance letters from the rest of the shows I applied for, so only Allentown denied me. I'll be doing Letchworth, Elmwood, Corn Hill, and Lockport. I'm freakingoutjustalittlebit but happy that I didn't get any more denials!


The first 4 months of 2013 have now passed us by. Can you share a high and a low you've experienced so far? The high was definitely all of the show acceptance letters. I feel like Sally Field in that Oscar speech = You like me! Although every time I make a sale (especially when the Etsy app is running on my tablet and it gives me a heart attack by screaming CHA-CHING!!! at me) it's a little burst of happy. The 80% of my waking hours being spent in this complete identity crisis has definitely been the low point. It's unproductive time that could be SO much better spent, but it needed to be done. That branding crap, it's apparently important.

What has a typical work day been like for you? Are you working more than 40 hours a week? Less?  I work every day, so definitely more than 40 hours, but it's hard to tell exactly how much more - I may have to start keeping track. My husband works out of town and is home about six days a month, and I have three kids, so it's kind of hectic crazy around here. I'm usually going full throttle from around 8 a.m. (unless I can drag myself out of bed earlier for some quiet time and yoga, which doesn't happen very often) until about 1:30 a.m. 

Working from home - it seems like it would be easy for life to infringe on work - does that happen? Oh yeah it does for sure. Like I said, I have three kids, and they never seem to need something at the same time. Plus the laundry alone is mind boggling. It's also easy to get lost in the internet or whatever. My middle son turned 11 recently, and it was spring break, so I spent a lot of time playing games with him on the Xbox as his birthday slave when I should have been working. It's one of the benefits AND downfalls of working strictly from home. I have been doing medical transcription from home since that same 11-year-old was 3 months old, though, so I have practice

Some days, though, I have a REALLY hard time focusing and am constantly distracted or spend lots of time pacing around the house worrying. I'm trying to find a way to get myself out of doing that, so I've been making supplies and organizing and cleaning when I don't have it in me to focus on anything. I've been doing a lot of that over the last couple of weeks. Last night I decided to do a daily 'Today I Made...' post on my personal blog, just as a sort of accountability exercise. THAT's the hardest part of working from home - you aren't accountable for NOT getting anything done.. I mean, your boss isn't going to yell at you, you're not going to get written up, you're not going to get fired... plus on those days when I'm feeling extra hard on myself and have been pulled in 1000 directions, I can say "well at least I got that ONE THING done."

                             Visit Sarah and make her tablet Cha-Ching at Wonderstrumpet


Next Week: 

The Sound of Music - A chance to share lyrics you find motivational

Written by Al Pilato of harvest woods