On the Front Page of Etsy!!

I check my Etsy site early Sunday morning and noticed one of my Sea Glass bracelets had a significant number of hits. Upon checking the buyers who hearted the item, I noticed it had picked up 6 hearts on Friday and Saturday.

But when I checked in at the EtsyNJ street team site, I then found out the real reason... the team had a treasury selected for the front page!! It seems one of the EtsyNJ team members, ShutterKate, who just happens to be a superb Etsy treasury builder (she's had several front page treasuries and several more that were front page-worthy) created an EtsyNJ team treasury and it was selected to appear on the front page of the Etsy site. My bracelet is the first item in the second row.

After reading through the street team's blog, it seems many of the items had over 100 views (I think my bracelet, which had been in another treasury last weekend also, was between 100-120 views)

Thank you to the members of the EtsyNJ team for creating beautiful items and a standing-ovation for ShutterKate for putting it all together... it was a fun way to start my morning!

til next time...

R

Father's Day, Summer, Beach Glass and more....

Summer is here... well almost, but living in south-central New Jersey after Memorial Day means it's summer. Seasonal rentals begin in June and since it's been pushing 90 degrees every day for the last week, the "bennies" are here for the next 3 months.

My s/o took a beachcombing trip early this morning in search of some beach glass. We haven't gone to LBI searching because the severe storm we had about 5 weeks ago, really took it's toll on the beaches and the beaches were pretty torn up. The beach crews really did a great job putting the beaches back together in time for for the early beach visitors.

The beach glass however, has been buried, perhaps until the next big storm. This morning's search for beach glass was pretty much a waste (but my hubby thinks someone beat him onto the beach. He said there were footprints along the washed up shell beds) and even though he came home with a handful of sea glass, it was mostly browns and ambers. He did find an olive green piece that just isn't good enough to be considered "jewelry quality".

Hopefully, we'll stumble upon a couple of jewelry quality pieces in one of our future trips.

I haven't had much time to sit down and create to many new pieces, but I do have a couple that I need to take pictures of. Of course today was hazy to overcast and I just couldn't get the lighting correct...maybe the sun will come out long enough tomorrow for me to get my hoop earrings and a sea glass bracelet onto Etsy.

I'd like to wish my hubby and all the Dad's a very Happy Father's Day!! Enjoy your day Dads!!

The May Recap, General Ideas, And Coming Soon...

A couple of late May sales saved the month from being my worst on Etsy, but that late momentum carried over into June with an Etsy trade with fellow EtsyNJ team member CreationsByDanielle. The trade was followed up with 2 sales late this past week (one being my favorite bracelet...a pretty turquoise sea glass creation. The pics didn't do the bracelet justice, as I just couldn't get the lighting right)

My last few sales have been for pieces with soft shades of blue, so I might be back to my craft table later today to make a few new pieces in Teal and Turquoise.

Sea Glass continues to be very hard to locate. Jewelry quality pieces are now selling for a premium and the harder to find colors are rarely found for sale. Authentic sea glass jewelry has become popular in Central and Southern New Jersey, especially in the summer months and trying to keep up my inventory has become a challenge.

I do have a few nice pieces of sea glass ready for creating and hopefully, I can get to those pieces during the week.

Besides the sea glass items that will be added to my Etsy shop soon, I just added a couple new bracelets and have a few pairs of earrings waiting for pictures.

No new shows are planned currently, but I'd love to find a good show for the end of this month or early next month, before concentrating on my Etsy shop and building inventories for the Fall and Winter craft show seasons.

til next time...

R

Proud member of the EtsyNJ street team

and

Buy Handmade.org

The State Of Handmade, New Advertising Ideas, May Recap

Wow, it's been nearly a month since my last blog, sorry all! We've had some health issues recently in the family. I had a double ear infection that was just soooo much fun to deal with and my hubby has a more serious issue that has so far turned out to be more of a scare, than anything (we're keeping our fingers crossed) . But enough of the gloom and doom...

As of right now, I passed on all the shows for June, though I might do a local show later this month. After talking to many crafters, it appears that the state of the economy has hurt both customer turnout at shows and the amount of money they are spending. A couple of the shows I attended recently as a customer, seemed real slow and after talking to some of the vendors I knew, they agreed the economy has slowed things considerably.
There were several shows towards the end of the month I would liked to do, but with "life" just seems to have prevented these shows for happening for me.

Even though I wasn't up for getting on the computer to promote my items on Etsy for nearly two weeks, my shop did have a slightly better month in May than in either March or April! We finally hit the 90 sale mark late in the month and a fun trade with fellow EtsyNJ street teamer- CreationsByDanielle.etsy.com gave me my 91st sale and one less Father's Day gift to buy! YAY!

I'll be concentrating on building up my items in my shop. Over the last month several listings expired and along with the sales I made, the shop now has fewer than 2 dozen items listed. I'll be taking new pictures of some of the expired items later today, (sun permitting) and hopefully putting together a couple of pieces to be listed over the course of the next few days. I have several pieces of beach glass drilled and just waiting to be used, along with a beautiful light purple piece that I haven't figured out what I want to create with it. I'm thinking a wire-wrap, perhaps bezel-wrap, and using this gem as the center-piece on a necklace.


One very new advertising idea I came up with is using a site that pays for participation (there's a little banner on the top of this blog page, with a pair of my earrings in the banner!) It's pretty cool site, we talk about crafting ideas, projects we're working on, doing shows, etc, etc. The amount of Etsy members seem to be growing weekly and our chatting about Etsy has brought both attention to the site for other crafters and now I'm noticing some potential buyers have found my shop.
Just yesterday, I finally figured out how to add my Etsy mini to to my profile and last night I already received a message from a member asking me about my earrings... maybe a future customer?
I've already made a couple of sales by uploading pictures of items and including my shop address is the description (and you get paid for uploading 1 image per day). If you're looking for new places to promote your shop, click on the link at the top of this blog... it's free to join and you might find a few new customers on the site, while earning a little bit of $$ for participating! It's works great for me and I've already been paid for participation : )
Every little bit helps!!

til next time...
R