Wish You Were Here

Connect the Rings by NekeDesigns

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Forever Learning

"When you stop growing you start dying."
— William S. Burroughs

Chalkboard Teacher Notebook by Gibberish2

I decided to open my etsy shop about a year and a half ago exclusively to sell my hand-knit items. Research on how to sell crafts became part of my life. I have spent at least 10 hours every week since then reading everything i can get my hands on about how to improve my business. Some have been very inspiring, others less so, but I would never have known that had I not taken the time to try.

Today I take my first live session with April of BlackburgBelle. This is the first time I am paying for help with my site. I felt like I had exhausted much of the free resources, and with the success and growth I have seen in my business, it was time to re-invest. April has been working me HARD already. 4 weeks before our first class the homework began. Think about your customers, inspirations, blog ideas, short biography, etc... I am officially overwhelmed! Taking a break became necessary.

ANYWAY... the point I really wanted to make is that it is very important to not limit yourself to what you already know. Yes, I know how to knit. I know how to write a pattern. But as we in the all know, it takes allot more then that to run a shop. Expand your skill base. There are tons of free and cheap resources available online. Also, be sure to check out your local library for great books on selling your crafts. And lastly, give yourself a break. You are not going to learn everything in a day, take your time and learn as you go, you may find that you are learning as much from the experience as from the research.

Why Do They Want This Instead Of That?

The Riddler Question Mark Fingerless Gloves by TinyBully

I have been putting allot of thought into this question recently. My shop offers 3 products: golf club covers, football helmets, and patterns. I strive to have current items in my shop, like football teams during football season, and make sure most of the winningest teams are represented. I have been featured on the front page of etsy several times, and even made it to CNBC. Dont feel bad for me, I know these are impressive accomplishments, especially in a shop that is less then 2 years old.

This is what gets me; my number 1 item in terms of views is my Pittsburgh Steelers football helmet hat. It has been on the front page twice and was recently featured in a pre-superbowl etsy email. 3500 views and 77 hearts! That is 2000 more views then my next highest item. I have never sold that hat. I have had at least 20 custom orders based on that listing, but the original hat is still in stock.

OBVIOUSLY people like the hat and I am very happy to fill any custom order based on its design, but I will tell you this is not the only item this has happened with. I designed the Grateful Dead Dancing Bears golf club covers with my father in mind and ended up creating several versions of the bears for custom orders (including the panda) but did not sell the original 2. It doesn't stop there either. Do I not have my finger on the pulse of my customer? Why am I just slightly off so often? How do you figure out what people want?

Top Shop: Stats Analysis (part 2)

If you read my first top shop article on stats you already know how to use etsy stats and paypal to get a better look at how your shop is really doing. I have discovered yet another way to get a better idea of how you are doing. This time it is especially for your blogger blog and your facebook fanpage.

I had no idea that blogger had all this information readily available. Sign into blogger and look at the tabs under your blog name. The last tab on the right is called Stats. DUH! They have collected some great information there. You can see how many people have checked out your blog in the last day, week, and month. I found the most popular posts to be very helpful, it gave me a better idea of what people really like. Almost 500 people have come to read my DIY article on recycled art postcards. That is far and away the most views for any one of my articles.

Now lets talk about that Facebook fanpage. I know they send you some basic stuff in an email every week, and they have that cute little box of basic insights in the left-hand column of your page, but did you ever think to click on see more? I have never done that as I am assuming many of you have not either. It is full of useful info on who is frequenting your fanpage. Some of which could be very helpful in finding your demographic. While looking at the insights, I found out that the vast majority of people looking at my page were in their 30's to 40's and female. In fact, I had barely any male viewers at all! There were quite a few people who looked at my page but did not comment on my posts. I am hoping to change that shortly. I could use this information for facebook ads, which I am sure they would like, though I will likely use it to discuss topics that are closer to my audience's heart.

What do ya think? Were you surprised by any of the things you found out?

Geekly Weekly: Nerds in Love

Love is in the air. Like Han and Leia, Wesley and Hermione, Peter and Mary Jane... love is everywhere in the geek universe. There is no reason to celebrate this Hallmark holiday the way the card companies have told us to. Break out a page from your favorite fanboy materials to stir up the romance.

collageOrama $6.99	FixerUp $47.99	WeebeeDrives $24.95	happyfamily $16.00
itsastitch $60.00	TheWallaroo $3.50	NelmaK $15.00	ArtWalls $9.80
WhatsEatingYin $8.00	LuciusArt $18.00	kiracards $2.50	TheWallaroo $10.00
Toridawn11 $7.50	ElectrikPinkPi... $1.00	blackbirdandpe... $12.00	goblinhut $7.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

side note: the last selection was for my honey; happy valentines day pica <3

Top Shop: Organize your Space (Part 3)

If you are just joining us, you can read all about Day 1 and Day 2 of this project. Now, on with the show...

Day 3 was a Monday morning. I am surprisingly efficient on monday mornings, I think it is my most productive time of the week. i got my kids on the schoolbus then got right down to business.

There were still piles stacked up outside of the room and even some that ended up back in the art room so that I could add items to the cabinets as I went. My greatest challenge lie in the space stocked with the kids stuff as well as some of my old cardmaking supplies. I emptied out the whole thing and noticed allot of dried up paint and markers, as well as half empty boxes. This was no good. I consolidated all the usable items, even bringing down my stamps and an old school bedazzler. I must have thrown out a bucket of old markers and paint pens!

Once the challenge of the kids area was taken care of, I was able to start work on re-organizing the yarn I actually use for my shop. I already had most of it stored in clear plastic containers by color, but I still had a hard time finding what I needed most often. This time I took out my handy-dandy chart and was sure to put the most used yarns in the easiest place to find them.

Since I completed this project I have done 2 projects; a NY Giants football helmet and a Yoda golf club cover. Both use completely different yarns. I was able to quickly and easily locate all the yarn and tools I needed, flipped through my pattern notebook to find the patterns and get right to work.

Geekly Weekly: Deja Vu

I am sure most of you get the reference, but for those of you who are a LITTLE slow, this week is Groundhog Day. That amazing movie staring Bill Murray as the weatherman stuck in Deja Vu until he figures out how to "do things right". In celebration, I have put together a little Deja Vu of my own. See if you can spot the the repetitions in this week's collection.

knotworkshop $15.00	darkcyclecloth... $20.00	beaujangles $45.00	ViperCoraraDes... $16.00
darkcyclecloth... $18.00	ElectrikPinkPi... $1.00	lterrill9 $17.00	LLsCreations83 $19.99
NerdJerk $38.00	YellowBugBouti... $30.00	czechpub $36.00	MadamePoindext... $45.00
superdecals $7.90	CorsoStudio $12.00	mrsdazo $10.00	EternalSunshin... $16.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com.

Etsy on MSN mag Glo

Touchdown! MSN has this amazing online magazine called Glo that has a feature article today on Etsy and the cool things you can buy for Superbowl. Check out all the rest of the gems but be sure to take a good look at my beautiful boy's smiling face in my Football Helmet Winter Hat.

I Love This: cross my heart

Corset Heart Necklace by FrostedTreats

Top Shop: Organize your Space (Part 2)

If you want to read how the saga began, be sure to check out Day 1 here. And so we continue...

Now that the floor was (mostly) clear, and the room next door was filled with stuff, it was time to start finding places to put it. I came up with this idea to "display" my golf club covers and hats rather then store them away in boxes after a customer ordered something I had in stock and I proceeded to re-knit it, only to discover the item on completion. Not a huge deal, but certainly a waste of my time during the busy Christmas season.

When i did craft fairs this past year, I would hang this light weight plastic fencing from my tent and pin all of my club covers and hats to it for display. i have loads of extra, so i thought that would make a great bulletin board type way to hang things in my room. As you can see, i still have plenty of space left. I also took an old foam core sign and put it on my currently unused easel with pushpins to keep track of important papers. Note that it is blank, i have not gotten to that part yet.

Next was the stuff i have not used allot recently recently, but I am not ready to part with; my painting supplies. i was able to consolidate the mess and get everything into one cabinet. i stacked all the paintings in their respectively sized shelves, including those unfinished ones I left out in hopes it would remind me to get to work.

Still there was so much more to be looked through, and this was only the stuff that I DIDN'T use on a regular basis. The last cabinet I worked on that day was full of yarn, but not the yarn I use for my shop, this is my personal stash. It also houses my collection of knitting needles and unfinished projects collected in their individual bags. I decided that i was much better off stacking coloring books high up and making my yarn more accessible in hopes that I will get to use it more often. i also used a recently cleared chest of drawers to organize my total mess of knitting needles, scissors and random tools.

Fortunately, this was Friday, and I was able to get a nice relaxing weekend in before I would tackle the next day of work on "The Room". i discovered through this process that as usual, the areas that were the most out of control housed the things that were not mine at all, they belonged to my children. I made the mistake of keeping their art supplies in this room as well. But that challenge came on Monday.

Geekly Weekly: Who's The Man?

All this football in my house had me thinking about men. What kinds of things would the superman(ly) geek in your life love to have? A few of these may work for you.

knotworkshop $13.00	findstotreasur... $14.99	LoveDogCardCom... $55.00	projector $30.00
DesignDude $3.99	sushibooties $42.00	MighteeShirtsC... $15.00	Triplelle $15.00
iDecalPro $8.95	bombastitch $4.00	ctrlaltdeviant $1.25	sweetbitesllc $6.25
strikebooks $225.00	crabappledesig... $24.00	jamjamtees $14.99	FforFelt $49.00

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com.