Coffee Shop Meetup with an Etsy Admin

Last week I was lucky enough to be able to attend an Etsy Meetup with Melinda, a Project Manager from Etsy.  Part of their 'Home for the Holidays' program, Etsy apparently invites and encourages their employees who are traveling for the holidays to set up local meetings with Etsy sellers.  It was a fun chance to peak 'behind the curtains', even just in listening to Melinda's response to the community's comments.

After starting us off with a round of introductions, she asked us to go around and share something we particularly liked about Etsy.  Since I found this interesting, I thought I'd summarize some of the highlights:

Getting Started

• It's an easy intro to the online marketplace.  You don't need a website, or a shopping cart, don't need to know HTML.
• Easiest no maintenance shopping cart.  (I agree!  I once took an entire quarter-long course at a local community college on designing a shopping cart using wireframes, HTML and PHP).
• Clean, elegant design - very professional.  
• The ability to copy a current listing and make just a few changes to set up new listings.
• You can start without a lot of inventory (I can attest to this as my shop opened with exactly one item!).  
• You can play around and experiment with inventory and ideas.  (though I'll add a warning here - this can be an INCREDIBLE time sink!)
• Information and Statistics - Etsy provides metrics on numbers of visits and which of your pages are most popular, also info on which of your keywords are most popular.

 The Marketplace

• Etsy is the 900lb gorilla in the market - if you want an online shop Etsy has presence it's hard to beat
• One of my favorite comments was from a woman who mentioned that she mostly did fairs & shows, but her show customers kept asking if she had an online store.  So she finally opened one so she could say "Yes".  And then suddenly people were buying her jewelry who were 'not her customers.  People from France and Nebraska!'.  Places she'd never been.  I've seen this in my own store, and it's AMAZINGINGLY WONDERFUL! 
• A 'certain type of person' comes to Etsy.  This was stated repeatedly; that people had wonderful experiences with Etsy customers.  I'd have to agree. 
• One seller apparently started her store back in 2008 and left it for years.  When she came back to it last year 'it was all still there' (no active listings, but all of her data had been saved).  Once you open a store, it's yours.  
• Community - many of the local sellers had made close friends through local meetups
• A number of Etsy sellers also buy supplies on Etsy.

Then Melinda asked the question that let the genie out of the bottle - what fix/changes would you like to see on Etsy?

The conversation quickly became embroiled in the issue of resellers who sold extremely inexpensive factory knock-offs of finished items, jewelry in particular.  This was a real hot button for a lot of people, and I can see why.  Apparently there's a whole team in Etsy that searches for and researches these issues, banning sellers who don't meet Etsy's guidelines.  Reporting a store helps point this team in the right direction (and does NOT get you in trouble with anyone at Etsy - a side question that came up).  But Etsy is a smaller company than I'd realized - about 400 people total, according to Melinda's guesstimate, with many teams working evenings and weekends to try to keep up with work.

Me being the slightly pushy person I can be when I have a goal in mind, finally broke into and hijacked the conversation with my own wish list (it took three tries to hijack the conversation, but with each attempt I gained a little more traction).  My requests:

• How to enroll my store to include shipping upgrades options in individual listings?  I've seen other sellers that had this option, but couldn't figure out how they did it.  Turns out there's a Beta Team you simply need to sign up for here and waalaa, it's available to you!  Score!  
• Allow sellers to type in their own keyword pairs for Search Ads.  I recently tried out their version of 'ad words' with very little success because the only keywords I could use were the one's they provided/suggested.  The term I most wanted to optimize for, "freeform peyote" wasn't even offered as a possibility.

Then others jumped in with some fantastic suggestions including such things as

• Allowing sellers more than ten categories to organize their inventory (having recently had to search through one of the larger Etsy stores looking for a particular item, I have to agree!).
• Change Vacation Mode, so shoppers can still look at your catalog, viewing items (and prices), they just can't make purchases until the seller returns and turns off vacation mode.  This would be fabulous!  Right now, vacation mode vanishes your entire store, which isn't good for continuity. 
• Combined Shopping Cart - where you can add multiple items from multiple stores and check out all at once.  This is the holy grail for Etsy, but complicated by the fact that they allow individual stores to accept so many different forms of payment.  But there is apparently a team trying to get some version of this functional for stores (and shoppers) willing to use Etsy's in-house payment system (rather than Paypal for instance).  

 In the little time remaining, Melinda shared a bit more about Etsy and their corporate culture.  According to her, they look for people who are interested in and passionate about craftsmanship as well as technology. Because of the nature and fusion of their business, Etsy has a much higher female/male ratio than most US tech companies, with some departments like editorial and marketing which are almost entirely female. 

We met at the original Cherry Street Coffee in Pioneer Square, one of my personal favorite places that fits well with the Etsy theme as the coffee shop is also a small, independent.  A big thank you to Melinda to take the time out from her holidays to come meet with all of us!

New Things in my Etsy-verse

I thought I'd put together a quick post about new listings in my Etsy-verse.  Most of my 'new' listings are really variations on established themes.

First there's my new Beaded Bead Collections. 

Purple Frost pendant kits, $25

One of my Corset and Stays beaded beads, my Purple Frost kit comes with everything you need turn it into a pendant necklace or ornament, including an extra long headpin and a ribbon necklace blank. Looking at it here on my blog, the angle on the pendant in the photo looks a bit wonky; I may need to try and retake this photo. 

I'm a sucker for beaded Christmas ornaments, so I had to turn my Corset Beads to the task, coming up with my Yule Tidings kit with all the beads and materials to make six beaded beads.  This kit includes the full PDF of my book Corsets, Caps and Stays (if you'd rather the print version of my book, let me know - as a blogger friend I'll make the substitution for free through the new year). 

Yule Tidings Miniature Ornament Collection - Beaded Beads kit, $54

While it doesn't show the whole collection, I think this is one of my favorite photos

The bead on the far right above reminds me of a Japanese lantern, I love the warm of the dark bronze metallic iris beads against the deep ruby red and olivey greens. 

Want to tackle a larger project?  There's my Stars at Midnight necklace kit.  This is the necklace featured in my book - I finally gathered all of the materials and put together kits so you can make your own version.  Including again, a full PDF of my book. 

Stars at Midnight long necklace kit, $62

I've also brought back my Personal Planets series of freeform peyote beaded beads.  This was one of the classes I'd proposed for Bead & Button and Bead Fest, but since neither were interested, I'm slowly adding the kits to my Etsy shop.  For now, there's Quinacridone Summer (inspired by a painting by the fantastic artist JJ Jacobs) and my newest beauty: 

Whispers in Pink, freeform peyote beaded bead kit, $41

With Whispers in Pink, I had a great time playing with magatamas, tila beads and baby spikes and included all three in the kits.   The strong silvers and blue-greys combined with the spikes give it a harder, almost industrial feel, but the whispers of pinks and lavender add a hint of the romantic, keeping it from tipping over the edge. 

Whispers with its Kumihimo braid

This is one of my all time favorite beaded beads.  And the photo above is another of my favorite photos. I love how Whispers seems to float in a sea of darkness, like a planet drifting through space.
  

All of my Personal Planets kits include two base beads and more than enough seed beads so you'll have some left over when you're done.  In the photo at right I used some of my extra beads in a Kumihimo braid, finishing it off as a necklace. Each kit comes with my extra-long headpins to make quick pendants.  Whispers is a little more expensive than my Quinacridone Summer kit simply because the beads (including the 14 baby spikes) are more expensive. 






Then there's my newest Fish Friend kit.  Way back in college I had a Betta Fighting Fish named Mordred in just these colors.  So I thought of naming this kit after him, but for now it's simply called Rumble Fish, because I think that's fun enough as it is.  (And that was one of my favorite book titles back in the day). 

One of my Rumble Fish hanging out in some coral, $45

Each of my Fancy fish kits should make three to four fish.  They all come with four bead cores, and I've used each kit myself in the testing process.  Others in this series include Ellie the Elegant (also known as my Wedding Fish kits), Rosie the Red and Blue Fish, who are stuck with the Dr. Seuss name for life. 

And in case I haven't shared it here yet,  I've also put together some new Snowflake kits, like this one:

Peppermint Twist Beaded Snowflake Kits, $27.50

Each kit is designed to make LOTS of snowflakes - it just looks prettier in the thumbnail when I only include one. 

So that's what's new at Skunk Hill Studio.

My Stash to Your Stash

I've also openned a new little shop called MyStash2YourStash for, you guessed it, Destashing!  I was totally surprised that someone else hadn't already grabbed the name.

I'm a collector.  I start into a new artistic or crafty medium and I start collecting.  Many of the items in my studio were gifts, some have been passed on to me by other crafters, much of it I've purchased.  When I move on to something new, the old gets carefully stored away against future need.  But after moving my studio (and everything in it) twice this year I've decided that maybe it really is time to let a few of these things go to new, loving homes.

So far, what you'll find are my Crazy Quilting grab bags containing smaller squares of fabrics, lots of trimmings, buttons, braids, lace, yoyos and more.  I spent ---far---- too much time putting together these themed kits, but I'm really hoping people will love them.

All the listings in my new Destashing store

Some of the items in my Garden Greens collection

from my Arabian Knights grab bag

While I collected all of this for crazy quilting, I've also used them to make ornaments and decorate masks, and they'd work well for Barbie doll clothes, too.   I just popped over to MyStash to grab the screenshots and discovered it has an admirer!  Wow, someone found my store through search!

After the new year, I plan to add more to both stores.  Let me know if there's anything in particular that you'd love to see.

Kit Making - What format should I offer the instrutions?

I've been busy with a new round of kit making, filling in gaps where inventory has run low and putting together some new kits as well (some already available on my Etsy shop and some of which should go live within the next week or so).  As part of this, I've revisited the issue of the format of the included instructions.  Specifically - should I continue providing the instructions as printed pages, or should I move to a digital format - either as an included CD or as a digital download. 

As part of this process, I put together a Pro and Con list for each of the three format, trying to look at things from both my and my potential purchasers perspectives.  Here's what I came up with:

Paper Copies
Pros

• The kit is immediately complete, without need for further work on students part
• No need to have computer/internet access
• Hardest to reproduce - though not by much

Cons

• Weighs more - increases shipping rates, especially for international packages
• Bulky - especially in the case of my fish tutorial, which is 24 pages long
• Costs more - ink costs keep going up, and I have to pass those increases along in my kit prices. (I spend nearly as much on ink in a year as I do on beads).
• The instructions are printed on my inkjet printer, so if they get wet, the ink will likely run

CDs
Pros

• Instructions are part of the kit
• Purchasers can print multiple copies for their personal use if first copy is damaged
• Purchasers may also load the file onto their digital devices (tablets, iPads) if they like

Cons

• Many newer machines don’t have CD drives - could make it difficult for some purchasers
• CDs are fragile, and could be damaged/broken in shipping
• Ease of printing multiple copies makes it tempting to print extra copies for friends
• To make them look nice, I’d have to print CD labels - one more layer of complication

Digital Downloads
Pros

• I already offer a number of my tutorials as digital downloads - people seem comfortable with the format
• Purchasers will likely have the instructions well before their physical package arrives
• Purchasers can print multiple copies for their personal use if first copy is damaged
• Purchasers may also load the file onto their digital devices (tablets, iPads) if they like
• Purchasers may access the download from anywhere with an internet connection
• No printing or CD costs
• More and more people are comfortable with digital formats

Cons

• Instructions not an immediate part of the kit - Purchasers must take an extra action to access instructions
• Students must have an Internet connection to download instructions (but if they purchased my kit through Etsy, then they obviously do)
• Ease of printing multiple copies makes it tempting to print extra copies for friends
• Etsy doesn't have a built-in system for dealing with digital content as part of a physical sale, so I will have to email the download code to the purchaser, instead of allowing Etsy to provide it.

There are definite pros and cons for each format.  After way too much thought, I've decided I'm leaning toward digital downloads.  I think it's a clean, streamlined approach.  Personally, I like having my tutorials on my iPad - it's far more convenient for me than having to keep track of lots of pieces of paper, especially when I'm working out in my garden and there's a breeze.  For the download, I will email the Purchaser within 24 hours (48 hours over weekends) with the download code and will also include download instructions inside the kit itself.

But, I'm moving slowly.  So, through the end of the year if you purchase one of my older kits for which I've already printed instructions, you will receive a printed copy.  Unless it adversely affects shipping costs (such as in international packages) in which case I will send you a digital download code instead.  For newly minted kits, you will receive a download code for the instructions.  The instructions will be in PDF format. 

And, as a fail safe during this transition, if you have a preference as to which format your instructions come in - printed or digital download - let me know.  Send me a note with your purchase and I will make sure you receive whichever you prefer.

So that's where my thoughts are at present, but I'm curious if you have any preferences, one way or the other?  Let me know!  While I make the kits, I make them for people like you and your feedback helps me stay on track.  

The Holiday Collection and Cyber Monday at Skunk Hill Studio

This is my first year with an active Etsy Store leading into the holiday season.  Last year, my store featured exactly one item - my Snowflakes pattern.

This year, I've added an assortment of my favorite kits and patterns, many just listed in the past week. 

I've even created my first ever 'Holiday Collection', featuring items I thought particularly suited for the holidays.

Among the listings I've added are a freeform peyote beading kit to make a piece similar to my Peacock Spring freeform peyote cuff:

Like all my kits, this one includes all the beads and findings you'll need, along with thread and beading needles.  The eight-page tutorial includes detailed, full-color illustrations to get you started and design notes about my process with full-color photographs.

On the upscale side, I'm offering a custom, made-by-me-for-you Lacework Bracelet in your choice of colors, sizes and closures.  I've only listed one of these.  I decided to offer this for the holidays and won't be offering it again any time in the near future. 

Beady-related postcards

After spending some time looking through a slew of other Etsy stores, I added gift certificates in two denominations.  While I worked with gift certificates years ago as co-owner of a gallery, this is a new exploration for me as a solo artist and designer.  Guess I'll see if there's any interest.

I'm currently running a Black Friday - Cyber Monday Promotion: for all orders over $25, I will include a free set of seven bead-related postcards. Six feature some of my original beadwoven designs and the seventh is a fun collage of my concrete cabochons. This offer is only good through November 26th 2012. and only on sales which include shipping.  But if you enter the code BAUBLE into the comments section during checkout, I'll extend this offer now through the end of the year for my blog readers. 

Extra sets of postcards are also available for purchase.

I've even updated some of my older listings, such as my Snowflakes and Stars.  How do you like its new look? 

Oh, and now I have snowflake kits too.  They were one of my post popular items at Bead Fest Texas.  If you already have my instructions and just want the kit fillers, contact me and I can put together a 'refill' listing for you.

 

 

 

 

 

Etsy Rain

This weekend was the EtsyRain holiday show.  They took over McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center for two days.  I didn't have a booth, but I was there on Friday, helping to set up.  Which meant I got to be one of the first people to see all the booths once they were set up.  Fun!  I thought I'd include a sneak peak of a few of my favorites here: 

Just a few of the wonderful vendors from the show

gift tags from Tuttaloupress

I purchased to jars of Sweet Caroline's jams. They were supposed to be Christmas presents, but we've already broken into them over the Thanksgiving weekend because they were too yummy to leave alone.  So it looks like I'll need to buy more.

The award for funniest item has to go to the knitted beards from FoamyWader.  Especially the Peanut Butter and Jelly paired beards.  Don't know what you'd do with them.  But they definitely deserve a chuckle.

Somehow, Tuttalou Press didn't make it into my treasury, but she definitely deserves a call out.  Her work is simply gorgeous.  Her "It's Coal" gift tags are her best sellers, but there's plenty else wonderful here. And check out her About page!  She has some great pictures of her using her vintage press.

Winter Give-Away Celebration

To help celebrate a stellar year and my first every Holiday Collection, I've decided to host a series of give-aways here on my blog.   The first is for one of my Snowflakes and Stars Kits.  This is a $27.50 value plus shipping.  I'd like to leave this open to everyone, but international shipping quickly adds up, so if the winner is from outside of the US, I will happily cover up to $3 worth of shipping and send you a paypal invoice for the difference.   

In order to enter, leave a comment below between now and December 1st, when I'll be teaching my Snowflakes and Stars class at Fusion Beads.  I will draw for a winner that evening after my class.

For additional entries you can also post this giveaway to your blog or Facebook page or favorite items in my Etsy store and let me know you've done so by posting here.  And, if you make a purchase in my Etsy store, that will give you two additional entries. 

And the Lucky Number is 3

I spent the day at the School House Craft conference. 

It was billed as "a dynamic three day conference for people wanting to gain the skills to run a successful creative small business" and I have to say that Day One definitely lived up to the billing.  I have pages of notes and action items from the sessions I attended, as well as reports on some of the other sessions. And I received some great feedback about my kits from some of the other people sitting at my table over lunch. (Yes, I pulled out two of my bead kits to see what people who knew nothing about beading, but lots about handmade, thought of my presentation.  I'm shameless!)

I promise to write more about the conference, but you may have to wait a week or two until I have time to digest it all first.

In the meantime, I promised to do a drawing for the next stop in the Art Bead Love Chain Tour.  So, drum roll please!  I decided to let Random.org do the honors.....
 

And it looks like the Art Bead Chain will be heading to Cindy at Devine Designs next.  Cindy - I will be emailing you to invoice you the $6.00 for shipping for the chain. 

Work in Progress Wednesday - New Kit & New Photos

Quinacridone Summer, my newest freeform peyote kit

There's a one-woman celebration going on at my house!  Why?

Because I've finally finished putting together all the pieces and parts for my latest freeform peyote kit.  Available now on Etsy.  Woo Hoo!

This time it's a beaded bead, entitled Quinacridone Summer,  drawing its palette from the warm, rich colors of JJ Jacobs' abstract acrylic painting, Gypsy Wind.  

I finished the bead early this month, but just finished up the project notes on Tuesday.

As I began work on my Etsy listing, it occurred to me, wouldn't it be nice if I could show a sample of what the bead could look like made into a simple pendant?  Brakes on, full stop.  After a brief debate, I dusted off my rusty wireworking skills and made some head pins.

They had to be extra long to fit the bead and give me room to work.  With a pretty end at the bottom.  Something decorative.

One thing I've learned about myself is that the first or second of anything I make tends to be a bit rough.  This includes skills I haven't used in a while.  So I cut enough wire for two dozen headpins, pulled out my pliers, hammer and bit of railroad tie and went to work. 

Together at last!  My full-color tutorial and my new beaded bead pendant

Head pins complete, it took me three tries to turn one into a reasonable looking pendant (you can see a closer shot in my Etsy listing).  And by then I was on a roll. 

 If it was a good idea to create a bale for this beaded bead, then wouldn't it be a great one to make bales for my Corset Bead kits, too?  I bet you can guess how I spent the rest of Tuesday and then Wednesday morning. 

That done, it was finally time to set up my little photography studio.  I think the photos turned out really great, so I have to share. 

New bale for my Turquoise Antiquity beaded bead

I'll be making up kits for this one next week

My favorite photo - festive Holiday beads

I am simply pleased as punch with how they all turned out!  A fun, silly fact, bottle in the last two photos was a bottle of milk that came with my slice of chocolate birthday cake.  :-)  

So, now my all my bead kits will come with decorative headpins and an little accent bead kit for bale making.  I'm not generally including my earwires (shown in the last photo - used as an ornament hook) with any of the kits.  But as a special for my blog readers, if you convo me with your purchase, I'll include earwires too.  Just let me know you want them. 

Why Make This? Telling Your Story

Steph Cortes with her fantastic 'nerdy' crossstitch - Venn diagrams anyone?

Last week I attended a fantastic Etsy workshop with Steph Cortes of nerd JERK entitled "Balls Out Branding".  I'd dithered 'til the last moment, whether or not I'd sign up.  I am so glad I did.  It was a small workshop - just six of us, and Steph was a total riot.

I came away with two key points, presented in entirely new ways.  The first is the title of this post - "Why Make This?"  Steph pushed us to explore why, out of all the myriad things we could be doing, we are drawn to our particular art/craft forms.  And to tell the story of our work. 

Sounds so easy and in theory it can be so very hard.  Blogging's one thing - here it's really all about story.  But as soon as I head to my Etsy store to write listings, I start thinking about key words and how will people find me and what details about the product do they need to know.  All the dry, completely necessary, but often boring things.

It's easier in person, where you can sort of hash through ideas. I realized that conversation is in many ways like a first draft.  In most conversational instances, your words aren't expected to be picture perfect.  Instead, if you're like me, you sort of feel your way towards where you want to go.

So, Saturday morning found me sitting at the computer, looking at my Etsy listings and thinking about how I can add to them.  Except, great procrastinator that I am, I decided to go out hunting for other artists with story telling abilities and see how they did it.  A reconnaissance mission! 

I made a treasury to record my findings:

My very eclectic, story-telling treasury

As I searched and searched for stories, I became more and more open to what that could mean. 

With two of the items in my treasury, their photography tells the story. 

Emma Sommerfeld's collection of photographs for her Cherry Red Scarf is a study in simplicity and contrast.  Her model, a cross between Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood, wears a dark dress and stands in a winter forest.  All of the colors are shades of black, white or neutrals except for the scarf and the red lipstick. 

I absolutely cannot wear that color of red, yet she makes me want to buy this scarf because it's so beautiful and romantic.  Her shop's on vacation right now, but the links above should still work.

 On first glance, I thought that CamilleDesigns made crocheted doilies, reminding me of my grandmother Lela as she used doilies extensively in her decorating and I inherited many of them.  So of course I had to check it out. 

I discovered - she makes rugs!  Somehow I'd managed to miss the two bare feet at the bottom of the photo.   What a wonderfully clever way of showing the scale and immediately letting people know what they're looking at! 

Here, it was simply the title.  Where most of the listings from my search started with "Felted Slippers" or more detailed, "Felted Wool Slippers".  Here we have "like a sunrise on the ocean" - almost a little haiku.  Or the title of a painting.  I could wear a bit of vacation and art every single morning if I bought these!

Search engine optimization recommends including your search terms early, early in your listings.  But what if every once in a while I let poetry take precedence instead? 

With others, threads of story ran through multiple aspects of their Etsy presence.  Callie Mitchell's beaded bracelet tutorial, Garden Rows, is beautiful in it's own right.  The story of her inspiration for the piece made it even richer (told in one short paragraph). 

Her artist bio continued her story as well; far more engaging than a dry recitation of dates and awards.




Don't want to bore you, so just two more call outs.

Since she inspired this treasury, I wanted to include one of Steph's pieces and her comic, A Girl Can Dream, Right? was a perfect fit. 

I love how her listing starts with the story of the comic's origins, segues to the comic itself, then back to it's creation.  All in three short paragraphs.  Nice. 

I caught her at Geek Girl Con and made her sign a copy for me.  She even drew a little self-portrait!

And then the pièce de résistance.  If you only look at one listing, you have to check this one out simply because it's absolutely over the top.  Be sure to take a look at Jimmy McBride's artist profile - that's where it all comes together. 

His entire Etsy experience is internally consistent, even if it doesn't quite match the world as you and I know it. 






So, there were some of the examples I found.  Do you have any amazing examples of storytelling to share?  Ways of connecting the viewer to the artist or the art work?  I'd love to hear them!  :)

And like an extra scene after the credits at the movies, here's Steph's signature and self-portrait.  

Working on Freeform Peyote Kits

My first freeform peyote kit!

That's mostly what I've been doing this past week - working on kits for freeform peyote. 

I've put together three kits, only one of which is currently available in my Etsy Shop.  That's to make a bracelet similar to my Ocean Currents cuff. 








My Ocean Currents kits include ten different colors of seed beads shading from bright white to deep cobalt blue, 2 shades of drop beads, an assortment of accent beads, metal button, three different colors of beading thread, even two of my favorite beading needles.  The whole nine yards!

The idea is that it should have pretty much everything you need to dig in and get started.  So why haven't I listed the other two kits yet?  So far I've:

Hunted, sorted and rummaged through my stash of beads until I found the appropriate colors for each kit.

My postal scale comes in handy once again

Measured and weighed seed beads into little plastic baggies, feeling like quite the drug pusher.

Stitched up (and photographed the living daylights out of) a new freeform peyote Beaded Bead for my third kit.  This one's inspired by a friend; I'll tell you more about it next week.
 

Two of my kits with their respective inspiration bracelets

Packaged them up with pretty kit covers.  And tried to photograph everything. 

Then I thought, even if I do sell the kits with my book (which is one of the purchase options),  wouldn't it be nice to have some design notes pages for the project, similar to what I did for my Spanish Dancer bracelet in my book? 

So that's where I am now.  Working on design notes and trying to decide just how comprehensive they should be.  It's sort of like a hydra in that it seems to keep growing.  I check one item off my list and three more appear.  Today, I'll be working on those design notes again. I don't have much in the way of process photos for the two braclets, so I'm planning to create illustrations of key points instead. 

Between working on illustrations, editing photos, writing text, doing page layout and editing the whole shebang, I've decided to shoot for listing kits for my Peacock Spring bracelet kit and my new Freeform Peyote Beaded Bead next Friday.  Wish me luck!  I'm going to need it!  :)

Six Month Overhaul

It's amazing the things one ends up doing as a working artist.  This past week it's been website redesign.  Turns out the last time I sat down and really worked on my website, skunkhillstudio.com, was back in January, so it was definitely about time. 

A screenshot of TextWrangler in action

I've been neck-deep in HTML and CSS (cascading style sheets) and even poked my toes at a little PHP.  Love the alphabet soup!  I always forget just how long it takes to make simple changes.  I spent three hours making little thumbnails for each of my classes and trying to get the markup and CSS to look right for my Classes & Workshops page.  Then I had to check on it in several browsers, to hopefully make sure there aren't any huge surprises. 

If you happen to have a Mac and are looking for some free text-editing software to work on web pages, I highly recommend TextWrangler by Bare Bones Sofware.   It does a beautiful job of contextual mark-up; color coding the code automatically so it's easier to read.  Looking at their website, it looks like I'm just barely touching the surface of its capabilities.  But back to my web redesign. 

My main goals for this overhaul were to:

my new Classes & Workshops main page

Update Workshop pages - for some reason only a handful of the bead classes I've prepped to teach were actually listed.  Now I think I have them all there, divided into three sections that at least made sense to me - Freeform Peyote, Mixed Stitches and Right Angle Weave.  Also now have my current teaching schedule on the same page, rather than a separate calendar page. 

Update my Gallery pages, adding new work from 2012 and dividing my bead work into similar categories as the single page was growing too long.  Also, put my older fabric pieces into gallery archives (they say never delete anything from your website - along these lines one of my most popular pages is on how to set up for freemotion embroidery with your sewing machine).  The main Gallery page is still a little stark - I expect I'll add something to it, just not quite sure what at this point.  Suggestions are welcome!

Make it easier to find my Kit & Tutorial listings. This was mainly a matter of playing with different names for the navigation link, and adding a few more pages to my website detailing out what I have available.  Right now, I have detailed information about my tutorials and kits on my website, but I'm only selling them through Etsy.  I have a Paypal account, so hope to sell through skunkhillstudio.com shortly, but I want to make sure I have all the various issues sorted out first.

If you do direct sales through Paypal via your website, I'd love to talk to you about your experiences. 


Redo my Home Page.  The main page is far and away the most difficult to design, at least for me.   Other pages have a specific purpose:  Galleries, Classes, etc.  The main page needs to be a little bit of everything to everyone, an introduction page and an easy path deeper into the site.  So I ended up trying several different home pages.

The old homepage for Skunk Hill Studio

Take one on the new homepage for Skunk Hill Studio - too much text?

New Home Page, less text, blog feed & gallery links above the fold

So there it is, my new home page.  I now have the RSS feed for my blog above the fold (and discovered that RSSinclude (the service I used to add my blog's RSS feed to my website) now offers additional styling options, so I took advantage of that as well.  Also moved the gallery page links to fill the space to the right of my Fall class schedule.  Reminds me a little of the front page of the newspaper, with a headline image, then lots of smaller links to other places on the site (Lacework Leaves, read more on page 3).  :)

I've tested it in a number of different browsers, but if you happen to stop by and notice anything really wonky, would you let me know?  It's amazing the differences that can happen when CSS is involved!  And thanks for letting me share!

Book Review: How to Make Money Using Etsy

I ran across How to Make Money Using Etsy: A Guide to the Online Marketplace for Crafts and Handmade Products by Timothy Adam a while back and decided to check it out.  I wasn't quite sure what I was expecting, and when it arrived, I flipped through it and set it aside as a 'someday' read.  The interior's black & white and reminded  me of a little too much of a programing textbook.  Glancing at the table of contents and first few pages, the contents seemed pretty simplistic, too.

Earlier this week, I took it with me to read on my commute.  I quickly became absorbed to the point that I kept stopping to jot down notes on action items to improve both my website and my Etsy shop and almost missed my stop. 

Listing title becomes page URL
First line of text grabbed by search engines
Need to rework to include my key words 'freeform peyote'

Timothy's book goes far beyond the simple mechanics of working with Etsy, focusing heavily on SEO (search engine optimization), both inside and outside of Etsy, and leveraging your social networking using blogging, Facebook and Twitter to build name awareness and bolster sales potential.

Here are two simple tips I picked up regarding SEO from the section on listing your first item with Etsy.

1) Timothy recommends including your most important keywords in your listing title - and most specifically in the first 40 characters of your title - because this becomes the title of your listing page, which can improve your Google search rankings.  Checking my Etsy shop, I was pleased to see that I'd done that, mostly. 

2) Include your key words again in the first sentence of your description text.  That first line of text becomes the meta-description for your page and is the line of text that shows up in Google searches below the URL.  I'm not so good there, I discovered as you can see at right.  I tend to include my key works in the second paragraph, rather than the first.  Something I will need to work on in future postings.

Using Etsy includes a comprehensive section on blogging - from setting up your first blog (using Blogger) to topics, strategies and ideas for keeping your established blog fresh.  Following some of his own suggestions, he also includes several interviews with established bloggers from some of the top Etsy stores.  Again, while I was familiar with much of the material, I found a number of real gems within each of these sections.

Timothy also pays considerable attention to tracking the performance and reach of your various efforts using everything from the various sites' in-house statistics to Feedburner and Google Analytics.  I hadn't realized I could set up Google Analytics for my Etsy store; turns out it's under "Options".  And it reminded me to go look at my Feedburner stats for the first time since I set it up. 

All in all, I found the book easy to read, with gems of information for anyone considering setting up their first Etsy store.  But even if you don't have an Etsy store, or if you're simply looking to improve the reach of your blog or Facebook page I think you'll find considerable information of worth.  I know I did.  My burgeoning to-do list attests to that!

Decisions, Decisions - What do you think?

Two days ago I discovered that the August issue of Beadwork magazine will include a 'Meet the Teachers' section for people teaching at either Beadfest Philadelphia or Texas.  Since I will be teaching at the later, I'm thinking of taking advantage of the offer and posting my own ad in the section, but everything's due today. 

The ad size is 2.25" x 1", and I'm trying to figure out which of the images below works best.  I'm hoping to use one of my Lacework bracelet designs as that's one of the two classes I'm teaching, and it also is more aligned with my freeform beading.  I'm a little worried that my beaded bead is less indictative of my normal style.

But before I sent everything off, I thought I'd see if I could get a few second opinions here.  What do you think?  Which image do you like best?  Second best?  Why?  Any thoughts on text?

They'll do the actual layout, but I put this sample together in Photoshop so that I could get an idea what the finished product might look like. 


One more potential point of interest - I just found this in my inbox (literally).  I wonder if it would help with consistency if my add featured the same bracelet as in their advertising. 

Thanks for your help!!!!!!