Tagging

Specifically on Etsy and no, not those kind of tags although I won't moan if you decide to buy some! I belong to Team Eco Etsy on Etsy and their blog has some brilliant information on it. I thought I would share this particular post about tagging and how to get more shoppers to your Etsy store as this is something that everyone wants right?

You can find the post here and if you read carefully enough you will see that they included some of my aforementioned gift tags to illustrate the post!

Sharing the love people, sharing the love!

Some new Nana chickens

I've been busy today and have made some new Nana chickens. They are called Nana chickens because I use 'Nana' linens such as tablecloths and tray cloths.

This one here is Betty and I have two made from this fabric. I love the colour!

Chloe is a nice bright chicken who loves the sunshine! I have two of Chloe available for sale.

Chrissie is made from an unusual cross stitched tray cloth. I have two available but they differ slightly in colour as the person who made the original tray cloth wasn't interested in having symmetrical colours!

Freda is made from a large tablecloth which had been embroidered all the way round. Again all the stitches are similar but the placement of them on each chicken may be different from the one shown. I have six Freda's available.

Fabienne above is my favourite and she will be coming to BCTF with me so isn't available for sale yet :) I may be tempted to keep her for myself but I'll see how she goes at BCTF!

These will be available for sale soon but I need to show this post to a valued customer who has first choice :) I'll pop them in my Etsy and Folksy shops and update this post to let you know when they are available. And of course I can take pre-orders and reserve a chicken for you!

New product photographs

I was cursing the snow here this morning (it's 2.45pm and it's been snowing constantly since 7am) but it turns out that with a bit of brightening in Aviary, snow lit skies are great for taking product photographs! I hadn't changed the product photographs of some of my early gift tags since I started selling them so it was high time for a change!

The ever popular chickens :)

And their cousins, the brightly coloured chickens! My original photographs of these were taken in my homemade light box which was actually quite rubbish and gave off lots of weird shadows!

I love how these new photographs of the security envelope tags really 'pop' - the last ones were really wishy washy.

The wool gift tag pictures were fine but I needed to take new ones as I have reduced the number of gift tags available in a set and needed new photographs to show this. I have gone from 10 tags per pack down to 6. I've done this for a number of reasons but the main reason is that most of the tags I make are hand drawn and they do take a long time to make - I just wasn't making enough money for the amount of time I was putting in.

Do let me know if you like the new pictures :)

Robots in the craft room :)

Matt bought me a Spidercamp Bunny of Purity for Christmas and when he bought that he also bought some robots :)

They are sold with the proviso that you guess how many robots you will get for $1.39. Spidercamp thinks about 19 but we actually got 22 :) As soon as I saw them I knew what I was going to do with them - a robot garland (well two actually)

I asked the girls to colour some of them in but after a while they got bored so I continued where they left off.

I hung one up in the craft room to take these photographs but I think I may have to give one to each girl instead of keeping one myself!

Tie chickens, not Thai chicken!

Yeah, good one Lynsey :)

As you may have guessed from the title, my long made (August 2011!) tie chickens have finally made it into my shops! They have been to fairs with me, and several have sold so you are seeing the last few available. They all have appropriate 1970's style names as they are indeed made from 1970's ties :)

Randy

Kenneth

Here is Clive

Duncan

Rodney

Simon

Trevor

Trevor and Simon have twins as the ties they were made from were huge - I believe the term is kipper ties :)

I'm on the look out for some gaudy ties so I can add to the tie chicken collection :)

Procrastination

But prettifying at the same time so it's not all bad :)

I don't know about other bloggers/readers with school aged children but at this time of year we get inundated with Christmas cards and those Christmas cards tend to be tiny (what is it with children wanting to give out tiny cards?) So much so that they tend to get lost! Not this year though :)

Ta da! Who says a bit of garden string and some wooden pegs can't be fabulous? :D

Bad picture but you get the idea and yes, my hall is that dark even with the lights on!

Is that a Dot Cotton Christmas card you spy? Why yes it is! A lovely lady called Laura makes them and you really should pop over to her shop and buy some. She has a Pat card, a Frank card and an Ethel card too :)

Next year I'm planning on making a proper garland (possibly one with pom poms on) instead of the garden string and prettifying some wooden pegs with a Christmas theme but, as you know me well, you will probably see the garden string and bare pegs for a good few years yet!

Gift certificates

Whooot! I finally got my act together and did something within 24 hours of announcing that I was going to do it. That never happens! Ever!

You can now buy gift certificates in my Etsy shop :) They are available in denominations of £5, £10, £15, £20, £25, £30 and £40. Perfect if you suddenly realise you have forgotten to buy a gift for Aunt Marge who is visiting tomorrow. Or as it is the last day tomorrow to get things posted to America from the UK (Australia and Asia have already passed!) then you can order one and print it at home safe in the knowledge that you will have something to give from far overseas!

If you are thinking of adding some to your own Etsy stores then there is a great blog post here that explains in great detail how to do it.

Folksy gift certificates will be in my shops tomorrow (we will see if I can do this promising thing again!)

Another sale!

Phew! My Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale has just finished and the editing of all the shop information has ended too (long job!) I am now offering another sale but this time on (most of) my large envelopes. I haven't been happy with the style of them and have designed some new ones that are more envelope shaped and that are self sealing so no fiddling with sticky tape for you to get them closed!

The above envelopes can be found for half price (£2.50) in my Folksy shop. Along with lots of others!

And these are a couple of the sets in my Etsy shop. There are more in there too!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of those celebrating today :) And if you aren't celebrating then you can still enjoy festive cheer as I am offering a huge 35% off sale in my Etsy shop until the end of play on Monday 26th November! It's a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale and it's 35% off ALL items in my shop including my already reduced sale items!

Little Gardenia's normal price is £8.00 and for this weekend she is reduced to just £5.20!

Maureen, the one of a kind doorstop, is normally £12.00 but she is reduced to £7.80!

My packs of 10 gift tags are reduced from £3.00 to just £1.95 and this means that the sets of 5 gift tags are under a pound at just 98p :)

So go and grab yourself a bargain! Sorry, I mean Christmas presents for those you love :)

P.S. If you are visiting my shop late on Friday night or during Saturday you may notice that I am low on stock. This is because I am attending the Green Party Christmas fair in Lancaster (Friends Meeting House, 10-4, just next to the train station!) on Saturday and I have taken all of my one-off items out of the shop just in case they sell at the fair! If they don't sell then they will be back in the shop late on Saturday. And if you are reading this on Thursday and you spot something, go and buy it now, just in case it goes ;)

Here I am!

It just struck me that some people visiting this blog, especially those coming via Blogtoberfest *waves* might not know exactly where to find me online other than this blog. So I thought I would tell you all :) If you know all of this already then feel free to ignore me and go about your daily business!

Selling wise (which I will get out of the way first), you can find me on Etsy and also Folksy selling my upcycled treasures. I also have a range of chicken doorstops on Dorothy and Theodore - the fabrics used there are exclusive to them (in doorstop versions)

I also have a vintage shop online called Anya's Attic after our elder daughter! It sells lots of different things and is crying out to have the gorgeous things I found in France over the summer added to it. I just need extra hours in the day!

I am an avid Tweeter and am nearing 25,000 tweets! Erm, maybe that's where I can gain my extra hours from! I also have a Facebook business page, which I resisted at first, but now I love it :) You can find me too on Flickr, Linkedin and I also run Cuteable which is sometimes a chore yet at other times I find it thrilling to be looking at and finding all the cute out there.

My favourite thing at the moment (and something else I resisted) is Pinterest. It's fan-dabby-dozy and I love that I have somewhere to store all the great things I come across on the internet.

Like this cool tree.

And this yummy bread

And things that make me drool like this chair :)

So, where do you hang out online?
Do you have a Twitter or Pinterest addiction like me?
Are questions at the end of blog posts annoying or do they encourage you to comment?

Target reached :)

Whoot! 100 items in my Folksy shop.

And 100 items in my Etsy shop.

I would have reached the target earlier but I've sold three things today - not complaining though :)

A mini challenge

In a bid to get the stock that is sitting around and not in my shops, into my shops, I am setting myself a mini challenge. By the end of the weekend I will have at least 100 items in my Folksy and Etsy shops.

My Etsy shop should be easy as I only need one more thing in there to take it up to 100.

And my Folksy shop needs 7 more things in it to get up to 100. So 8 things over the next few days - it should be do-able shouldn't it? Unless you all buy things and then I will have work that bit harder!

New things in the shop

Yeah - all the chickens I made on Sunday have finally made it up into the shops :) I'm better at making than listing quickly it seems!

Meet Decka the doorstop chicken.

And Decka the pincushion/paperweight.

Meet mother and daughter Gardenia.

And mother and daughter Sweetie. All of the chickens are in both my Etsy and Folksy shops except Sweetie the doorstop as she is a one off :)

And I also listed these two notebooks in my Folksy shop :)