Howdy! I added some new items to the shop a couple days ago and one of them has already been featured in a treasury! GreenBomb did a fantastic job of pulling together some happy, Spring colors.
I'll be talking about the new items in the shop over the next couple of days, so stay tuned!
I just added a couple of new items to the shop. Check out these spool necklaces!
The inspiration came from my good friend over at GreyhoundThreads. Luckily, she's not stingy with her ideas. I have to say, I love them.
Right now, there's a red and a purple necklace listed, but feel free to contact me if you'd like a different color. Your choices are only limited by the colors of threads available.
In other news, I attended my second Chicago Craft Social last weekend. It did not disappoint! Once again, we had a blast and were super impressed by the goody bags and projects. I didn't get pics at the actual event because I was too busy getting my craft on, but I will post some pics of my projects and prizes. Can't wait until the next one!
Inspired by my friend Amanda's treasury, I decided to make my own. What a fantastic way to show appreciation and shine a little light on some wonderful artists.
A treasury, for the uninitiated, is a collection of items on Etsy that fit a theme. The purpose is to make shopping easier by creating a group of like things and to raise the exposure of all involved. The cream of the crop get chosen for Etsy's front page.
With Halloween on the way, I put together a list of items inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and his writings. Have a look!
As I was searching for the items, a couple of things occurred to me.
The pictures of the items, in order to be front page worthy, need to be works of art in and of themselves. This stressed to me the importance of perfect item photos, which I know I need to work on.
Whenever possible, I chose a seller with fewer sales. That's not true for all of the items included, but, when trying to decide between two items, I did my best to pick "the little guy."
Compiling a treasury is more work than you would think! "I'll just pick some stuff I like and be done with it," you might say. But a good treasury tells a story. Finding items to compel the story that have awesome images can require a fair amount of looking. Even when the items were chosen, I worked with placement to create a balanced group of pictures.
It was a lot of fun! I may try to do one of these once a week.
Let me know what you think! Regardless of what you think of my treasury, you should click on over and check out the amazing artists!
It's time for the blog to go in the blender. I'm anxious to introduce a whole new look and feel! Some changes are already in place: New colors, separate pages for the about me page, the Etsy shop and my tutorials. Other changes are still in the works.
I just posted a request on Alchemy for someone to "rebrand" the blog and the shop. This is a relatively small rebranding effort, as it goes. My goal is to get a couple shiny new banners and coordinating business cards to make me seem more legit.
In an effort to communicate the look I'm going for, I put together this mood board.
Since I've been making purses, I've started thinking in fabrics, so that's where I went for inspiration. As I was putting this together, it spawned several new purse ideas. :-)
To make the mood board, I surfed Fabric.com and saved the ones that communicate the image I want. Because I have limited access to awesome photo editing programs, I resized and cropped the images in Paint, compiled them in PowerPoint, pasted a screenshot back into Paint and saved it as a jpeg. Good lord, I need PhotoShop.
Non sequitur alert! Someone nearby is eating something garlicky. Can't wait for lunchtime.
I received feeback for the custom kitteh purse. She says,
"Amazing quality and craftsmanship. Couldn't be any happier!"
Here's my latest song obsession. You Don't Know Me by Ben Folds, featuring Regina Spektor. I find the video mildly disturbing, so you may want to close your eyes or skip ahead.
I just placed an order with Fabric.com that I'm super excited about. It was hard not to get carried away. Handbags with love birds, owls and woodland creatures are coming soon! Here's a preview...
Btw, if you've thought about ordering from Joann online, I'd think twice about it. I ordered some stuff just before the holidays for Christmas presents and was disappointed.
For starters, they sent partial items. For example, they ran out of some fabrics and sent 1 yard instead of the 2 yards I ordered. When you're talking about fabric, this can render the item useless. Such was the case for my projects. Secondly, you can't return or exchange in store. Granted, I should have read the return policy before I ordered, but seriously?
So now I have a bunch of fabric that I can't use and have to make a trip to the post office to return. (Does anyone else hear the world's smallist violin?) I ended up with enough fabric to complete 1 of the 5 projects that I ordered for.
I emailed Joann and got a canned response about how they're forwarding my concerns on to the proper authorities. I doubt that anything will come of it, but sometimes you need to vent. Multiple times, it seems. At the end of the day, I'll still shop at Joann because I've never had a problem in store. However, I won't be ordering online again and that's disappointing.
Here's a pic of a bracelet I forgot to post. This one's a gift, so it's not available for sale. I found these handpainted glass beads at the International Gem and Jewelry Show, which is what sparked the new jewelry making obsession. I wish I had picked up more of them now because I absolutely love them.
Artfire is free, but you can only list 10 items, so see etsy for the full breadth of offerings.
In other exciting news, my first sale has reached its destination and the buyer says, "I received my Pac-Man purse and it is freaking awesome! I love it!!! Thanks =)"
Butterfly Wallet 
KINIES Ruffled WAIST PU... 
Vivid Poppy - Fine Art ... 
MIMOSA GRAY with spring... 
Orange Black-Eyed Susan... 
BRIGHT ORANGE COLORED P... 
NEW...Erin Knot Dress..... 
Orange Garden Spring Lo... 
Birdcage Print 
Small Outdoor Rustic We... 
Blaze...Reddish Orange ... 
Free Shipping in US - L... 
Top Secret Cat : Orange 
Boutique Owner Earrings 
Spring Sunrise, Hand-dy... 
desert in bloom 
