Today brings us a wordless post of photos pertaining to our work! I got bored on the computer last night, so I started playing with polymer clay! Look for new goodies to enter my shop soon!
I had this put on a small wall in my studio, it now holds items that are ready to be packaged and sent off, I love having somewhere to have things without them being in piles on my work station!
Yesterday, my son turned 4! It was a busy day with a lot of running around and celebrating! I wanted to take a moment to post an ode to him. Happy Birthday Gabriel! The little boy that
It's time for a Christmas Give-away!! This fantastic prize package can be yours just by following a couple rules!
On my way to the hospital in the morning and I had to sit in the backseat! My dad and husband took me while my mom watched the kids at home. They already started treating me like a Princess. It was nice, but I knew the worst was yet to come!!
I didn't have to wait long, since I pre-registered over the phone yesterday. Here I am getting my IV in and lo-and-behold, a miracle occurs, the nurse comes in to tell me that the Doc is running early and I will be heading in next!! That never happens!! I went in about 1 hour early!
Here they are wheeling me away! I told my husband no crazy hat shots, but my dad told him to do it, so here i am trying to look glamorous in a hair net!
Surgery was about 32 minutes and here I am all swollen and creepy! I was sooo woozy from the anesthetic, that I only wanted to sleep. That is until I realized how FREAKIN swollen my uvula was, that no matter what position I was in, I couldn't get it out of the way and it blocked my breathing. Grrr...
Record timing again! 1.5 hours later, I was signing discharge papers, I just wanted to get home!
Almost 2am and you can tell I have seen better days, I'm exhausted and still can't sleep due to the swelling. I have been taking the NASTIEST tasting medicine EVER and that's not helping at all. My fridege doesn't make ice chips, so my husband has been making them for me non stop and that's not helping either. The only thing that helps is sleeping sitting up or standing up. Just becareful! I almost fell over 2 times.
Friday at my childrens' school was Pajama Day & the kids had a blast being snuggly all day!!! I went through alot to track down new pajamas for everyone for the occassion! I loved seeing all the little pre-k kids snuggly and sweet!!!
The little guy had to be in his jammies too, especially since EVERYONE was doing it!! I just happened to forget one thing.......he was not staying in school all day!!!! So I of course had to take him out and about on errands in his jammies! hahaha!!! I could have taken him home to change him, but it would have been more of a pain, since he had to keep the jammies on for the school party later in the day.
My husband had some errands to run last night for work in his truck, so we joined him and needless to say it was CRAZY cold and snowy and icy!! I was a bit scared, but at least it was nice and plowed by the time we headed back out. Wish me luck everyone! I'm a bit nervous for just how painful this surgery can be!! I will try and bring my laptop with me, just hope they don't take it away! hahaha!!!! I have to be there 2.5 hours early for the surgery on Monday, so I'm going to need something to kill time!!! 
I have a TON of favorite Esty Sellers and in fact have purchased from many! I will share some hidden gems that have snuck onto my radar recently! I am going to hit 1 shop from each of the main categories! Handmade, Vintage and Supplies!
From the Handmade Category, I must tell you I have FALLEN IN LOVE with Maybe You Should Die and her cards. They are witty, funny and totally original. You should definately send one of her cards if you are ever feeling snarky! I have a couple of occassions hopefully coming up that I will send these for! hahahaha!! They are just too perfect! I have a couple favorites, but you will have to see for yourself!!
Popping over to the Vintage Category, I find myself constantly oooing and aaahhing over Fancy Pants and More and her amazing selection of lingerie! Each time I peek into the shop, I find something else I totally want. If you love vintage pieces and just don't like looking through all those places yourself, this shop is the place to go!!!!
Strolling into the supplies category, I find mysself drawn to the awesome photography stylings and bright, bold colors of School Locker and the amazing amount of supplies they have!! So many times I want to just buy loads and loads of stuff, but I just have no clue what I would use it for, so there it sits as a favorite shop until I figure a use for all these amazing goodies!! Peek in and you won't be disappointed, in fact, you just may buy something!!!
Enjoy reading on my Team Members blogs about their favorite Etsy shops!! Start with Indigo Orchid and work your way around the ring! Keep in mind our team members are all in different time zones, so they may not all be ready at the same time! http://theeclecticartisansteam.blogspot.com
Hello all! The 2nd post in my series on Social Networking is on the Facebook Fan Page. Yes, I said Fan Page and not your normal Facebook Page. It's better to seperate Business and Personal life, just in case. I drop my links every now and then into my Personal Page, but that's about it. You never know when one of your 'friends' will say or do something stupid to your FB page and all your customers can see it then. On Facebook, you often have people adding you just for the heck of 'checking up on you' and who knows what will come out of their mouths! haha! You do run the same risk on a Fan Page of course, but this way it's more contained. They won't be able to find you as easy if they don't know the name of your biz.
Do you have one yet? If not, the easiest thing to do, would be to go to mine HERE, scroll to the bottom of the page and above the SHARE link, you will see a link to CREATE A PAGE FOR MY BUSINESS. Click that and you are rolling!
Now for the down and dirty, how has a Facebook Fan Page worked for my business? I only opened up a page at the request of a customer that said she lived on Facebook and wanted someplace where she could see what I was up to shop-wise & share it with her friends, without just having to spam links all the time that no one would click. It made sense, so I started the page. Because I have a personal Facebook Page, it's not always all that easy to keep up with, but I am getting better. It has led to 6 sales since I started it about 8 months ago. These sales are PURELY from the page alone. AFTER I ran an advertisement. I will go into that detail in a bit. In order to know where my sales are coming from, I assign UNIQUE codes for discounts, free gifts, etc. to EACH location I post that code to. That way I know where the sale came from. I do try and upload sneak peaks at upcoming items on my Fanpage, to get people into the shop and not just look at everything from there. I post any information posted about my shop online there to the page as well. (Treasury Features, Blog Features, etc.)
There are always places you MUST be online popping up ALL THE TIME! When I first started here, it was FLICKR that was the be all end all to online advertising. What many people didn't tell you when toting this site, was to stay AWAY from:
Just a quick note to all my fans that the December Newsletter from MichellesCharmWorld has gone out and there are some SPECTACULAR deals in there!!! Don't forget to sign up so that you can get next months letter! Next months letter will have an advance viewing and chance to reserve new items that will be arriving in the shop. It will also give out information on when I will be listing new items, have a great READER ONLY sale & last but not least will give out a 10.00 Gift Certificate to ONE lucky reader!!! Yay! Yay! Yay! Sign up today and don't be late to the party!
I was reading a favorite blog of mine early this morning and I commented that a messy desk is a sign of hard work going on. I really believe this is true. I am compulsive about keeping my work station clean, but sometimes I just get under the thumb of too many tasks and ideas flowing at one time and I just can't get ahead of the mess! I was in the middle of 2 wholesale orders and the Christmas rush in my shop and in person. I couldn't believe how much I had to do, then before I knew it I was surrounded by disaster! I was trying to do it all at once and at the same time when an idea would pop into my head, I was trying to execute that as well. Everything truly does have a place, but this entire past month has just been a whirlwind! Don't get yourself down when you find yourself surrounded by chaos, just remember that it means you are working hard!
I would like to take a quick moment to thank my friend Beckie at BirkzWorks for the AMAZING work she did on one of my Christmas presents to my Mother. They are truly wonderful and I know she will love them!!!!! check out her shop for more amazing work by a super talented and sweet woman!
Happy Sunday Readers!! Hope you all are doing well! I wanted to thank you all for the uplifting words from my last post! I truly appreciate it! Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with all the people that really don't see being a mother as a career. Don't see that selling stuff online is a career, because it's online. It has no bearing where you sell, it's the fact that you do it & that you have the courage to do it and put yourself out there. It also has to do with the simple fact that doing it online, helps me still be able to stay at home with my children. Life will always have it's ups and downs and that is why we have our friends to bring us up when we are down. I hope you all enjoy your weekend and have a wonderful upcoming Holiday! Can you believe how close we are to Christmas?!?!
I had to run to Toys R Us last night and pick up some last minute goodies and lo and behold, what do I arrive to? A snowman!! The kids got really into it after seeing the first one and I had an idea for another one! hahaha!!!
This is the Daddy Snowman pulling a cart with the Baby Snowman, you can't really see his arms, but the Daddy Snow man does have some! haha! I fell into the snow trying to bend the branches off the tree! heehee!!! This was also after his hat had blown away! The Snowman kit on the Daddy is all plastic pieces from Hallmark you get it free from purchasing 3 cards I believe it was.
Yay for Fridays! Last night we spent the evening making Gingerbread Houses at the school my 2 oldest go to! My husband and I took the 3 kids for 2 hours of sugar coated fun!! Each kid got to make their own home and I think I had more fun than the children! haha! I kept sneaking in trying to do my youngests house and he kept telling me 'MINE!' I really love that the school does things like that to involve families after hours. What did you spend doing last night?
I have listed some new items in the shop and I will be listing even more throughout the day, so stay tuned! I wanted to share a tip with you for the weekend. We all seem to get busier on the weekends right? Kids are out of school, husband has the time off, time to run errands, see family etc. etc. etc. I know my shop gets MAJORLY neglected and I tend to renew old listings once or twice each day IF that. It really slows traffic if not brings it to a STOP. I then have to spend the rest of the week trying to rebuild my customer base, that I seem to just get drained by Friday. New items are what get people in the shop and get the buyers buying! I know it's virtually impossible to get any time on a saturday to type up a description and come up with 14 tags, but I figured a way to make it super easy! Do up a few new listings when you have spare time during the week. Make sure they are NEW items that you are saving for the weekend. Do the ENTIRE listing process but DO NOT click on the FINISH button on the last step! When you get to that last step copy and paste the URL (www link) into a notepad or word document page. Somewhere you won't forget it! Then on the wekeends when you want to perk up your shop, find the link, copy and paste it in and you are all set! Click Finish and you just listed a NEW item in less time than it would take to search, find and renew an old listing!! Try it this weekend if you get a chance!!
Are you a Fan of mine on Facebook Yet? Come on and join up and get access to Free Items, Codes for Discounts and so much more!!!
Seeing as how it's Thursday, it's time to get back to Blog Ring Thursday from the Eclectic Artisans Team. We are an Active Street Team that strive to not only promote ourselves, but each other as well! This week are blogging about Our favorite Colors to Work With & stepping out of our comfort zone of colors for crafting. I posted my photo above from my shop.
Join the rest of our Team Members in the Blog Ring by proceeding on to IndigoOrchids blog ( http://www.indigoorchiddesigns.blogspot.com/).
I have found recently that my bill with Etsy is on the high side, but you know what else I am noticing? My sales are going up too! It's true, you really do have to spend money to make money. I am nearing 300 items in my shop and yesterday I spent 1.20 in listing NEW items and I sold 10 items! Today I have spent 3.20 and sold 4 items and received a large wholesale order. I know that spending upwards of 3.00 a day can get tiresome and spendy for some, but try something smaller. Try doing 1.00 a day (5 listings) for AT LEAST 2 weeks. YOu will be amazed at the results. Remember, there need to be some NEW items in there too. I did a study where I just renewed OLD items and the success rate was VERY LOW. I take the weekends off from listing and usually just renew 1 or 2 items a day. In the months of October & November I also tested another theory.
In this study, I focused on pure renewals, as my time was tight and I did not have much free time to create. I would spend the entire day renewing ONLY 2 items throughout the day. (Usually each item was renewed 3 times). I did this only 3 times a week and on the other days just renewed items randomly. EACH AND EVERY TIME I did this, I sold 1 of the renewed items. I renewed 1 lower priced item (5-10.00) and 1 pricier item (15-40.00). You shouldn't have to worry about spending .60 to renew a 5.00 item, because renewals should be built into your advertising budget and the fees should come out of there as opposed to your profit margin.
