Yay! 500 Sales!

My Etsy store just reached 500 sales!  I am so happy!  I never thought I would reach that number of sales so I want to sincerely thank you all of you who have supported me in my journey into running my very own online store!

I have learned so much along the way.  I think what surprised me most and has made me feel very thankful is that there are people out there that seem to like and appreciate my art work.  Thank you for your wonderful feedback and your faith in me.  You have given me an avenue to express myself and to share my ideas with others (like you!).

In celebration of this happy milestone, PDF paper dolls are only $1 each!  Most of them are usually $6, so this is a super good deal.  You could get all 12 available patterns for only $12!

So, cheers! And here's to another happy 500!

Designing and Printing - The Joys Of An Online Artist

I spent the day designing cards and other lovely print goods.A friend asked for a print of an artwork that I had made so I had to do some investigating on various online print companies. I came across Cafe Press and started a shop there, but I found it a bit difficult to use compared with Etsy. It's not very user friendly, at least in the free version. I'm not sure what the premium paid version is like, but the free version is not a good selling point to me.

Also, the base price of Cafe Press is very high so they are taking basically the entire price of the product. You would need to sell a LOT of things to turn a profit.I get regular offers from Vista Print, but I had not tried them out yet. I figured I didn't have much to lose so I started designing some cards and prints based on their size and resolution requirements. Shipping was expensive at about $17 dollars for the slowest delivery of 21 days, but I had a big order so it made things better. I'm hoping that it will turn out nicely because then I'll definitely order more things in the future.These images are just samples of what they SHOULD look like when they are done, but I have no idea if this is how they will turn out. I am sort of scared that they won't look like this. I'll keep my fingers crossed. At any rate, they won't arrive for another 21 days at least.

Ah, the waiting game.

What do you think of the designs? Do you like them?

Have a happy day!

Making Your Packaging Memorable

As you can see, packaging up goodies from my shop is a labour of love. I like it when others put effort into their packaging so I make sure that mine is very special and unique. I think my favourite part is folding the little origami bird and drawing on it. Each little bird is one-of-a-kind since it's hand-drawn, and it's fun for me!

I'm starting to run out of mulberry paper, which makes me very sad. It's so pretty! I hope the new owner of these "Felt Owl" stickers will like them. I've always really liked their unique shape and how vivid they look, and I'm glad that they have found a new home :)

Do you put a lot of effort into your packaging? Tell me about it! I'm always looking for goodies that come with some really nice or creative packaging.

Have a happy day!

Shop Facelift and SALE!

Christmas is over and my shop needed a little facelift. What do you think of the new banner and avatar?

I think Unloved makes a lovely mascot!

I was also pleased with my first sale of the new year yesterday. Hurray! I have packaged the bookmarkie up and it's now ready to be sent away to it's new owner.

There's a store-wide sale on now, so hurry over if you want to take advantage of the good deals! As always, 10% of all sales will go to the local foodbank. So you can do something good while you shop!

I hope you all had a very happy new year!

Skipping down the ACEO road

Today, I finished my first ACEO's. I'm really quite delighted! I've been thinking about making some ACEOs for a while now ever since I discovered that there are collectors for the specific canvas size of 2.5 by 3.5 inches (trading card size). I figured I should experiment with ACEOs too.

I had finished some paintings of Lemon Sherr Birds to be made into stickers, and I found that I could just cut 3 of the originals into the correct size for ACEOs. I glued the paintings to pretty paper backings, trimmed them down to size, and drew some lovely swirls, dots, and stitch lines around the borders (I do adore stitch lines!) Then I coloured the borders with a blue pencil crayon. For the back, I designed and printed out some "official" looking labels so that I could write the title and date in a neat format. I've also signed each one.

I'm not sure if these ACEOs will sell well or not in the store, but it's a fun experiment. In any case, I like the idea of making these ACEOs because they let the paintings stay as collectable art, rather than something more practical like bookmarks. I like art for art's sake sometimes.

I hope you had a good Remembrance Day holiday. I went to the local Legion. Every year they fire a canon 21 times as young folks from cadets and other related groups line the streets in salute. Of course there is also the traditional trumpet song and some songs by bag pipes.

A small boy in front of us cheerfully cried, "Mommy! Daddy! Mommy! Daddy!" repeatedly as he high fived them back and forth. I found it ironic as I thought of how many children lost their mothers and fathers in the wars. He also freaked out every time the canon went off.

Playing around with product photos

I asked V. and some fellow Etsians for advice on how to improve my product photos. One big comment was that my photos were too busy - they didn't know what was for sale in the image. Also, they didn't like the red background. So, I set to work trying to take better photos.

As you can see from the picture below, I removed the red background with all the distracting raffia and rice, and replaced it with an open book. You see the bookmark, and you can understand that it's on top of a book. It's not confusing anymore. I also tried to reduce the reflection I was getting from the lighting and the laminate plastic by angling my camera differently.

I think the new photos are much better, so thank you V. and fellow Etsians for your help!

It will take some time before I can swap out all the old photos, but eventually, they'll all be updated.

I'm in another treasury!

I'm always excited when I'm selected to be part of someones treasury - especially when the theme colour is blue! This treasury features my "i cry (one tear) brooch".

Check out the treasury before it expires!

Goodbye, Sylvie!

Sylvie was ready to be sent away to her new home yesterday so off she went! I tucked her neatly into a box with tissue paper and tuule, plus some little treats. I'd show you pictures, but then it wouldn't be a surprise for Carla!

It was a bittersweet moment to hand the addressed box away to the post office. That's felt doll #1 and sale #1 all at the same time. It was a bit exhilarating to be sending my artwork away across the country but, at night when I looked at my shelf, there was an empty spot where she used to be. It's okay though because I know she's going to a very good new home.

I hope I'll sell more things so that I can package them up and send them away too. It's so much fun.

Have a great day!

Toadstools, Felt Owls, and my first sale

I was delighted to discover today that my first felt doll, Sylvie, will soon have a new home. I took her down from the shelf, gave her her very own hand-drawn tag, and began to package her up.

It seems fitting that my first felt doll is also my first Etsy store sale. Today is a very special day for me. I think the very best part is that Sylvie will go to someone that I like and care about - it's funny how you come to care about the people that you meet online. (Carla, I'm going to make sure Sylvie is packaged up very nicely for you. I'll let you know once she's in the mail so that you can keep an eye out for it!)

Thanks to everyone who has been celebrating with me!

In getting things ready to send Sylvie off, I also updated my store with 4 new bookmarks - one of felt owls flying in the sky, one of red and white toadstools on grassy green patches, one of purple cats with striped tails, and one of felt owls flying about a patch of red and white toadstools.

I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!

Etsy Store Sale!

I'm having a Canada Day Week sale! Come by and check it out.

Playing Favourites

I know playing favourites is supposed to be a bad thing, but I'm loving it! I checked out my favourites page today and all these folks tagged me as one of their favourites! Awwww, I'm flattered :)

Thanks, everyone!

Happy Weekend and new tags

Hello, Everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend.

Mine was pretty fantastic. I spent the beginning of it making some changes to my store. The great folks on Etsy gave me some feedback on my store (thank you!) and I set away to start making the changes immediately. I added more shipping locations, updated the categories, updated store policies, and added some more photos. There's still more to do, so I'll be busy for a while.


I also tried out the Etsy Chat rooms, and boy is it fun! It's been ages since I've been in a chatroom, and I met so many nice people! It love the feature where you can post ID numbers of items on the side so you can showcase the work of other users or your own. I personally found it more fun to post other people's work, because other users were posting mine anyways. Very sweet gestures :)


Other than that, it was a pretty relaxing weekend. I did a little shopping, a little dining out, and worked on some tags for Unloved and Can't Dance.
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. They are drawn on patterned cardstock and tied with raffia ribbon. I scallopped the edges with my handy-dandy Fiskar edger scissor. I have discovered that those edgers don't work well on flimsy paper, but that they work extremely well on cardstock.

I'm in a treasury!

Waaaah! I made it into someone's treasury! I'm so flattered and delighted! This is the best thing ever!

Check it out!

It's up! Official store launch day begins!

Okay, I have activated all of the postings, and day one of my store has begun.

Please feel free to stop by and have a look.

Also, this is my first run at this, and some of you are much more experienced. If there is something I should be doing differently to make my store better, please do let me know. All feedback (good or bad) is welcome!

Thank you!

Store Launches Tomorrow!

Okay, it's finally here. Tomorrow is STORE LAUNCH DAY! Hurray!

I'm so excited!

The Unloved Monsters, felt dolls, and brooches will be up!

See you there!

Au Travail

After a much needed vacation, and some time catching up on missed work, I'm now back to my original plan - starting up an Etsy shop!

I spent last evening starting listings, uploading photos, and trying to figure out how much shipping costs. I still need some more accurate quotes for shipping, but I have a queue of listings ready for whenever I launch the store update. I am going to tentatively set it for this Friday, but I'll confirm this shortly.

I've noticed that I can "unlist" items by hitting "edit" and then doing nothing. Is this how many Etsy sellers manage their store updates? (You know, setting a date and then posting all their items at a specific date and time?) Does the expiry date start from when you wrote the listing or from when you activate it?

Well, I'm off to full day of regular work, but I know what I'll be working on when I get home tonight!

Have a great day!

Etsy Store Countdown #3

Designing a store banner

So I started on my store banner.

I sat down, drew what I wanted in pencil, inked it with my handy pigma micron pen, scanned it into the computer, started colouring it...

And then I stopped.

Wait, what size is the banner supposed to be? I checked the Etsy site - 760x100 pixels. Ack! I knew what was coming. I reduced the image size down to 760x100 and, sure enough, it was a blurry mess. Nooooooooo! I felt like Darth Vader in that monumental (and inadvertently funny) scene after he discovers that Padme is dead.

Not to be stopped, I opened up Flash and began to redo all of my work. This time in vector format. Sneaky, oh-so-sneaky! Now I can scale it to any size. Yesssss... my plan to take over the world, er, start an Etsy store is slipping into place perfectly :P

Well, I know what I'll be doing this weekend. I hope you have a great one!

Etsy Store Countdown #2

Signing up

I signed up! I have an Etsy account and an Etsy storefront now! This is super exciting for me. The link address is http://www.bluepandemonium.etsy.com/

I've set up most things (including adding some of you as my favourites!), and I wrote myself a profile message. I also added some sections, wrote a store announcement... but I still need a banner and a profile image.

I better get crackin' on those... my sketchbook is filled with ideas for them!

Etsy Store Countdown #1

Okay, now that I've decided on starting an Etsy store, there is so much to do! I figured I'd write about it in case anyone else decides on starting one in the near future.

Reading the forums

The first thing I did yesterday was to read the Etsy forums to see if there was any advice on pricing. I discovered that most sellers recommend increasing prices when items are popular but don't sell. This doesn't seem to make sense, but I guess increasing the price makes buyers perceive your product as more valuable (and thus a better buy). It also appears that most sellers don't charge enough for their products, or forget to take all their costs into consideration.

I also did some reading on what people find the most annoying about Etsy stores. It appears that bad spelling, blurry or tiny photos, and long store announcements are the biggest pet peeves. Not selling to international countries comes close, followed by not listing all the materials used. Some other pet peeves include no banner, minimal descriptions, no profile, not showing all angles of the product, and not listing location.

I also came across a Storque article called A Beginner's Guide to Starting a Shop on Etsy.

Deciding on pricing

I needed to decide on how to price my items. There were lots of formulas listed on the forums, but I decided to keep it simple for now. I made a list of all of my products. I made a column of the lowest amount that I'd be willing to let them go for, and then I made a column of the highest amount that I think someone would be willing to pay for the item. It's fun to see how you value your product compared to what you think you can charge for it. Of course, I can't be completely sure that the highest number amount is correct, but it's still fun to guess.

After that, I added all of the amounts up to see what my total would be if sold them for my price and for the highest price. This let me see whether I would be covering all of my costs and keeping afloat assuming I sold everything. At this point, I stopped and decided to take a break. I did some gardening, looked at my dolls, thought about what would happen if I sold them all... it was just part of the process.

Next on my list is to make an Excel sheet to start listing and calculating all of my costs exactly. I want to know exactly how much I can expect to lose in sales based on Etsy fees, Paypal fees, overhead charges, supplies, packaging, etc.

More to come...