Another milestone!

I just noticed I'm at 500 hearts!! I have been kicking around doing a 500 Heart Celebration Sale that is better than the sale I have now! Check out my shop later this week or stay tuned here!!

A day late and a Twitter account short...

If work hadn't been a little on the crazy side yesterday I probably would've seen a mention about Etsy Day somewhere in the forums. Instead it caught my eye in the Announcements section as I was on my way to post a "JUST LISTED" post in the Promotions section. I wish I could've helped the movement yesterday! I've been thinking about starting a Twitter account but I'm still trying to decide if I want a personal acct where I can post personal and etsy stuff or an etsy only acct. I don't think I have the time to update 2 accounts so this is why I'm still trying to decide what I want. I'm always telling people about Etsy and this would've been a great way to help out our awesome community as a whole. That's one thing I love about Etsy. It's driven by the community that uses this amazing platform to buy and sell hand made goods! Since opening my shop I now tend to lean towards picking the hand made item or the local shops and restaurants over the mass produced national chains. I love supporting the hard working small businesses like myself!!

Check out the Wall Street Journal article about it

Shop Milestone!

I'm so excited! Today I listed my 300th item in my shop! 15 months after I opened my shop with the inital 10 items I've reached such an amazing milestone! :)

Florida Sunshine

I had been hoping for some more sales in my Etsy shop so I didn't end the month on the worse month in my shop history. Today, I made the decision to relist 1 bag that was expiring in a few days to help me promote a relisted item and put me in the list of newly listed items. I noticed 1 sale right before I left for work and then it was like a buying frenzy started in my shop. I noticed they were all coming from around the same area in Florida and figured I must have been lucky enough to be posted somewhere good to get noticed. Then lovely Michelle replied back to my "thanks for purchasing a bag from my shop" convo in Etsy, saying that she loved my bags and passed along my shop link to all the people in her knitting group. More purchases kept pouring in. I'm in shock, so excited and grateful. I met my monthly goal today thanks to them. Tonight once I'm home from work, I'm going to be packaging everything up and running to the post office to mail them since tomorrow we are forecast to have a blizzard all day. Most of the prints that were sold today I have more bags made in so they will be relisted this week. Wow, this must be what a sneak attack feels like :) I can't stop smiling!

Ravelry Market Listing Ad

I only took me 20 days to finally design my little market listing ad for this month.


I need to research what is acceptable to put in the market listing graphics. I'm curious if I can advertize a sale there like I would in a group forum banner.

First post of 2009!

I'm not one for resolutions since I always fail at them but I really do want to post more in my fiber blog this year. My goal is to post something every 2 weeks. So far it's almost 3 weeks into the new year and I'm already failing LOL but I need to start somewhere right?

The Holiday rush was very good to me. I sold 83 bags from October through December. I successfully saved up enough to pay cash for my washer and dryer too thanks to everyone buying gifts! Now if only I could get my butt in gear and buy it but I'm being the thrifty buyer and waiting for a sale on the set I want :)

I was going to take January off from sewing new bags for my shop but had a stack of bags I wanted to finish before I took my break. As of this morning I only have 2 zipper box bags left to do that are half finished. These will be done tonight! Since I've been working on bags so much this month, I'm going to move on to designing my new bag and then *fingers crossed* take February as a craft for me only month! I actually finished 1 of the new bag design this past weekend but I think I want to modify it just a tad before I make it my final design. Hopefully I'll have a bunch ready by the end of the month!

I haven't knit anything is probably 4 months. Even then I was only working on a cabled hat (similar to the pink one I knit before but the rim is not a fold over) but accidentally did a few too many repeats on the main body before I started to tapper it off. So that will need to be frogged! Thankfully the yarn won't be ruined and I can just start over. My Aunt has breast cancer so I think my first knit project next month will be this same hat but in a fiber that isn't so scratchy on a bald head!

February "craft for me only" Projects:
1. Hat for my Aunt.
2. Floor length crimson red fleece rob, pattern modified for buttons inside of wrap around tie belt. (I feel warmer just typing this).
2. Fingerless cable gloves (first attempt at gloves!).

1 YEAR ETSY-VERSARY!!!

I can't believe it's been a year since I opened my shop with my first 10 bags. I've sold at least 175 bags so far. It's crazy but I thought it would take a year to pay off my sewing machine and it only took 8.5 months! I'm already past 50% saved for my washer and dryer set. I've met a ton of awesome people in the past year that has helped make my shop experience out of this world!

FREE SHIPPING to celebrate! Now thru November 14th!

First Craft Fair

The JL Holiday Market weekend was a bust. The crowds just weren't there and even the seasoned craft fair vendors were upset over the lack of people there to shop. I only sold about 30% of what I needed to to break even :( It was a learning experience at the very least. I'm actually not that upset about losing as much on the entrance fees as I thought I would. Sure it sets me back on how much I have saved for my washer and dryer but my product won't go bad. I just won't be working my butt off for the next craft fair in the beginning of December. I've decided to concentrate on making my Zipper Box Project Bags instead of the drawstring ones and also try to get the design down for an accessory that will work with both to hopefully make it's debut by Cyber Monday. I also have decided to have a Pre-Holiday Clean Sweep Sale to help sell off some of the prints I have decided not to carry in my shop anymore. Well a few I'll relist but the majority won't. I've got my booth pictures to show soon as well!

Holiday Market Craziness!

I'm on the verge of becoming a crazy fiber luni!

The JL Holiday Market is in 10 days and I have SOOO much still left to design and get done.

I ordered my business cards from Moo yesterday morning and paid way too much for express shipping but I can't chance regular shipping from England.

I finished my booth banner design last night around 2am but was too exhausted to create the final JPEG to email to the Etsy seller who's creating the banner for me. This I'll finish before the Pres debate tonight.

I need to order my white shopping bags from an eBay supplier today during lunch (just put a post it on my monitor so I don't forget!).

I'll get all the rest of the stuff for my booth setup Saturday.

I think I might do generic price tags this go round as I don't think I could design and get cool ones done before it starts.

I'm still worried that it's going to hurt me that I won't be able to accept credit cards at the event. I wish they had a wireless connection there cause I could "borrow" our test laptop from work for the weekend and people could pay via PayPal. Oh well, I'll totally be open putting a bag on hold, sending a PayPal invoice and then meet at a mall foodcourt to deliver.

I also want to finish another 30-40 bags before the end of this weekend which is totally do-able since I have Monday off. I just have to really hunker down and do it.

I can't wait till the craft fair is over because then I'm not touching my sewing machine except to sew an awesome Halloween custom for at least 2-3 weeks. I also plan to take the month of January off from sewing. Course I say this and would totally not turn down any custom order requests.

Ads

I finally got my butt around to creating an ad for Ravelry so that maybe I can get even more business from there.



I have a bunch of customers who love spreading the word about my bags so I thought it was time I did a little advertizing as well! My best customer has not only sent 4 people my way but has also decided to feature me in her first huge swap as well! Nine custom zipper box project bags is so awesome! I've had fun grabbing new prints to use! Course I've also been thinking about the huge craft fair I'm in in 6 weeks! I haven't started to panic yet but I'm sure it's the calm before the "omg I have how many bags still left to make??!!" storm.

I'm offical, almost!

So I was invited to be in a Holiday Bazaar here in Rochester this coming October but in order to be apart of it I needed to finally become an offical small business with my own tax id. This week has been productive and not just because I've added 9 new prints to my shop too! I obtained my DBA (doing business as) last Tuesday and finally got answers to my tax form (NYS DTF-17) questions yesterday so I could submit the form online! Hopefully by the end of August I can start getting supplies and not have to pay tax :) Mailed my bazaar deposit today. Then after I survive this weekends civil war reenactment (picture me in a long sleeve multi-layer dress complete with corset and 90°+ with high humidity), I have to start my goal of making 17 bags a week! I've been going over the logistics in my head and I think I can handle it without going nuts but talk to me in a month!


Me: Boo, smile!
Sophie: Not today, I'm feeling frizzy.
Me: Then get out of my picture!!

Shop Featured

Oh cool! I was featured in someone's AllAboutEtsy blog!

OMG

A woman who purchased a bag back in the beginning of February finally left feedback...negative feedback. She says that the first time she closed the bag, the drawstring broke. I am feeling a rush of emotions right now. I'm horrified that this woman potentially ruined my reputation on Etsy without ever speaking with me first. I didn't expect her to leave feedback since she purchased a bag from my shop so long ago and to get negative feedback before ever talking to me to try to work something out, how rude! I use quality materials and I sew the crap out of the 2 ends so that they do not come apart. How she broke the drawstring is beyond me. I am extremely honest person and I stand by my workmanship! There is a part of me that thinks the bag she bought is fine and she's just out to get her money back. I checked what feedback she left for others and she has left negative feedback for someone else today as well but wrote that she did make an effort to contact them but didn't hear back. What am I chop liver that I don't get the courtesy of a convo first before she ruins my Etsy life?!?! I was about to celebrate my 6 month etsy-versary with a sale but now that'll have to go on hold until this mess is cleared up. So I sit here needing to vent and on the verge of tears trying to come up with a polite emotions in check convo to send to her to try to "Kiss and Make Up". Is it so wrong of me to have doubts since she made no effort to contact me first to try to resolve the issue before leaving feedback?!

You know when...

You should stop sewing and go to bed when you sew thru the side of your finger because you decided to wipe away some lint on your quarter feed foot while the needle is moving!

My Inspecter

Before listing a new project bag in my shop, each bag is inspected to assure optimum quality is upheld!


"well the bag is the right height, looks like you've attained the right amount of holding space"


"front looks good but kinda floppy"

Silk

As if I don't have enough project keeping me busy, I have to have an Esty item peek my interest in raising silkmoths for silk.

So inbetween calls at work I have been searching google for info on it. Just how hard would it be to raise my own and then process the cocoons? I've found a couple interesting sites that look like the owners have taken a lot of time to put their sites together with a ton of resources.

I'm interested in learning to spin yarn but it would be cool if I could use silk with the other yarns or pure silk yarns. I'm having visions of beautifully woven silk scarves from my loom. Dying to my own specific colors.

I'll probably be consumed by this till the weekend and then lose interest. Well maybe in just the raising part. I can only imagine my furball trying to eat the moths and finding the food/leaves to feed them would probably be a pain too. I need to research if I can buy bulk cocoons somewhere on the net.

http://www.kiva.net/~daylight/moth.html
http://www.wormspit.com/index.htm

My Mini Helper

It's easiest to give her her own piece of fabric and pattern piece. Otherwise, she'll sit on the one with the pins and sharp scissors cutting it out! (I was cutting out the pieces for my Civil War corset that I almost completed at the Ivy Thimble All Sew Weekend)

Happy 4 month Esty-versary!!

Wow it's been 4 months already since I opened my shop with the inital 10 bags! Of those 10, only 3 are still for sale. Today has been a banner day. Not only has it been 4 months but I've sold 5 bags today! That is the most I've sold in a single day so far!! All of these bags can be relisted as I have enough for at least 1 bag of each :) So those will be doled out in 2's for the rest of the week to give me more opportunities at promoting my "new" items in the forums! I've learned so much since I've begun that when my friends express interested in opening their own shop I'm bursting with tid-bits on how to get up to speed much faster then I did. I don't think I'd be where I am today if I didn't discover the forums and the chats. Oh! I sold 2 bags to Austria today! That brings my foreign countries to 3! I would have never specified UK and a couple other countries if I hadn't been in a chat room with a couple UK people who advised they wouldn't bother asking for a quote for shipping. They want it listed or else they don't even think twice about buying. Since then 3 UK and 1 Austria buyer! Yeah me! 57 down and 63 to go till my Bernina sewing machine is paid off!!

Launched my shop

Today I finally launched my Etsy shop with the first 10 project bags!

My etsy shop

Since I'm determined to make my new used sewing machine pay for itself, I've turned my ideas for cool things into real items to put in an Etsy shop. I have the inital 10 medium sized project bags finished with 3 more almost done and 8 linings for future bags done. I'm cropping the photos for the initial 10 now and will be creating all the "terms and conditions" for my shop and listings afterward. Hopefully within the next day or 2 my shop will launch. I just need to sell 100 bags to pay for my machine :) which I think is totally doable!