We are Geeks

So, I should be working on  my new Boot Camp week post, but I already had this post ready to go.. so you will have to wait until later today for my second week Etsy report.  In the mean time, you can enjoy these two fine examples of how geeky my partner and I are:

The World Ends With You

(That screen shot is actually pretty old.. I admit I haven’t played The World Ends With You in more than a year… but this does remind me that I should start that back up.)

Pokemon: White

(This was my partner’s game of Pokemon: White, look at how dirty and scratched up their screen is.)

Holiday Boot Camp 2011 {week 1}

Since this is my first year at Etsy during the Holiday season, I have decided to dedicate myself to their “Holiday Boot Camp”, where they give out weekly goals, tips and business practices to help sellers have a successful season.  I am always trying to make my business run smoother, and make myself run smoother, and hopefully this is the sort of motivation I need to push forward and get off the ground.

Since this is only the first week, the goals and tasks are a little light:

Read Etsy’s blog post “A Flying Start”- DONE

I have to say that I am a little disappointed.  The post did focus on using the Budget Worksheet, in order to fully understand your costs and the season’s selling potential, however I was a little confused by these points:

• Offering customers express shipping options at higher rates so you aren’t left paying for rush shipping/mailing.
• Being clear about order cut-off dates so that you aren’t paying too much for help to rush through last-minute orders to meet the demand.
• Offering custom wrapping as a separately paid add-on to help cover some of your costs.

As far as I know, Etsy does not allow different shipping options and having separate listings for shipping is against Etsy rules.. so how are we supposed to offer rush and express shipping?  (Not to mention the fact that my shipping costs are already higher than I’m charging…)

I do agree that I need to figure out cut off dates well before the Holiday season is upon me.  I really hope that Etsy helps with figuring this out, since I don’t have a lot of experience shipping, let alone shipping during busy Holiday season.

Again, offering custom wrapping as a separate paid add-on is against Etsy rules and will result in your listings being removed… or are we allowed to do this during the Holidays?  I simply don’t know why Etsy would recommend things that are directly against their clearly stated rules.  Based on the comments from other sellers, a lot of people have noticed this and asked about it, but no one has answered (yet).  I would certainly like to add custom gift wrapping as a separate listing, but at the risk of my store.

Holiday Budget Worksheet - DONE         

Now I have to admit, I haven’t filled out Etsy’s Worksheet, I did look at it though and decided that I prefer my personal balance sheets over theirs.  This step seems a little redundant and unnecessary for those who already keep track of their finances.                                                          

Print and Apply boot camp stickers                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Okay.. maybe I did miss something somewhere? I don’t remember stickers being mentioned (in fact sticker isn’t mentioned in the blog post at all).  Is this boot camp supposed to be helping new sellers?  Shouldn’t these steps be explained a little?  What are these stickers for?  The day each week to have all the tasks done by?  What ever.

Find a boot camp buddy - DONE!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I did leave a post looking for another plushie maker to be a boot camp buddy (although I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of the term buddy, I feel a little stupid even posting that).  However, I don’t see this as a necessary aspect, although I agree that having someone to support/ encourage me through this could be helpful (especially when Etsy provides tips that are less than helpful themselves).  

DOUBLE UPDATE HELL YEAH:: So, as it turns out people on Etsy *are* friendly, despite my initial unease.  Its nice to be talking to a few people though, who know about much work goes into being a Solopreneur.  Roxie is Canadian, and she makes adorable fancy hats and felt accessories.

 

UPDATE::  I would say that I found a fellow Etsian, but truth is she actually found me (even on the Internet, I’m probably too shy to approach people).  Any who, she makes OOAK Cloth dolls, and I’m looking forward to learning to having someone to talk to a bit more about the pains/ triumphs of Etsy and this “Holiday Boot Camp”.                                                                                                                                                          

Share personal Holiday goals

Now this is the part that I think is the most helpful.  I have some high hopes for this Holiday season, but I need to work work work.  Here are some of my big goals for the  next few months:

• Maintain my blog with at least two posts a week, and update my website at least once a month.
• Online Roller Store Catalogue.
• Produce small series in time for Halloween.
• Introduce a new product series for Christmas.
• Sell Sell Sell!

I am trying really hard at balancing what is actually a reasonable amount of work for myself, and pushing myself to really excel during the months ahead.  I frequently get in over my head, and have recently been pulling in the reins and accepting that I can’t do everything all at once.  Of course, I also have to accept that this is the BEST season to sell hand-made items and I don’t want to waste it.

And so, all the best of luck to those following the Etsy Holiday Boot Camp.  I hope I can keep up with it, and I hope that I don’t lose my sanity by 2012.

xoxo

experiment in felt {gift}

So, when it comes to making gifts for people, I naturally want to make something completely *new* to me.  Its not that I mean to experiment on my friends and family, its more that I don’t give myself a lot of time to make one-offs or make some of the stuff that I don’t want to sell.  I know that, trying to craft as a business, I can’t be constantly learning new crafts, otherwise I will never be really good at any one thing.

I have been seeing tutorials for making decorative pom poms all over the internet this past summer.  I love love things like that, and they are definitely something that I will be making for myself (eventually).  So when I decided to make a gift for my Aunt Christine after she very generously gave me money when E-Di needed surgery, my mind immediately went to those fun decorative poofs.  All of the tutorials I found online were for materials such as jersey, or tissue paper.  I couldn’t find any colours of jersey that I was willing to cut up around the house, so I went to the stash that I knew had the colours I wanted: felt!

I knew that there would be some added difficulties for using felt instead of jersey or tissue paper, but I was willing to take the risk and I figured if it didn’t work out I would either think of something else, or head to the store for tissue paper.  I made these two pom poms a little smaller than some of the more adventurous ones I’ve seen, but I was worried about it not working.  But, they did turn out pretty well.  They look a lot thicker than their jersey and tissue counter parts, but the “petals” are easy to move into place, they don’t sag at all, and if I had thought about it, I could even round the petals or cut them into an interesting shape (I didn’t think about this until after the package was sent off.. derp).

Without further adieu, here are the pictures!

Yellow and Navy Blue, all packed up nice with a heart.

The tutorial that I used to make them was this one off of Craftaholics Anonymous available here.

Thanks for looking!

xoxo

{Forest City Fashionista}

Once upon a time, when I was a university student, I was stopped while walking on campus by a very interesting looking (read: super cool) woman who asked to take my photograph.  Now, this was fairly early in the morning (read: probably more like 11am, but at the time that was early for me), and I even remember getting dressed that morning: Uh clothes, on, hurry, brush hair, ugh,drink tea glug glug.  So I have to say, that I was a little surprised that the photo was for a local fashion blog (she even had business cards, she gave me one which is probably still floating around *somewhere*).  Any ways, I won’t lie, I was a little pleased with myself about this.  I was even more pleased to see that my photo was posted with a seriously adorable Asian student.

This post isn’t *really* intended to toot my own horn of fashion awesomeness, but to let any readers from London, Ontario know about this blog that really tries to focus on local people’s interesting and unique fashion (which must be kind of hard since London is sometimes more than a little lame).  I used to check out her blog every once in a while, until I forgot about it.  Today I saw a link to it and decided to look through some more recent fashion images.  I was even more surprised to find my feet also featured on her blog!  So admittedly, this post is also for me, in case I forget about it or lose the link again.

Well, back to point of this whole story, here is the link to Forest City Fashionista.

And, if you were interested in seeing the two photos of me:

Sleepy student photo.

My shoes are so freaking cool photo.

xoxo

It is Autumn {winter is coming, better get ready with a blog overhaul}

I can’t believe that it is already more than a week into September.  It seems that Summer has gone and past once again, and my stomach is already craving comfort foods and soft blankets.  Despite how much I despise Winter (mostly due to my 15minute walk to the bus stop in order to get to work, in a neighbourhood that is frequently neglected by city snow plows), Autumn is easily my favourite season.  Luckily for me, Autumn seems to be starting a little early, as it has been sweater and jacket weather since September 1st.    I enjoy the unique smells, watching the leaves turn colour, and the cooler weather.

To celebrate Autumn, I decided to do a *huge* overhaul of this blog.  This includes basic aesthetics, such as an updated banner, and background.  I also tried to make the blog a lot easier to find specific things, by completely removing all of my previous categories and re-organizing everything into a few, more focused and descriptive categories.  Previously, I had categories all over the place, and admittedly, I used categories the same way as categories.  This quickly became very confusing for me, so I can’t even imagine how a reader would have went about finding specific topics.

These are my new, hopefully more specific and organized, categories:

• DIY Home Decorating {you don’t need money to make your home beautiful}
• Inspiration and Motivation
• Art {sketches, printmaking, painting and multi-media}
• Fine Art Photography {process, reflection and beautiful images}
• the Wins and Fails of a Solopreneur
• Sailor Moon {screen shots, merchandise, fan art and more}
• Pokemon {screen shots, merchandise, fan art and more}
• Hand Sewn Plush Creations {OOAK, series, gifts, commissions, and craft swaps}
• Movie Reviews {she’s a real cinephile}
• Story Telling and Free Style Prose

Looking at this list.. I am starting to think that either I still have too many categories, or I just have too much variety.. But what do others think?  Are these effective categories?  They are certainly better than my previous categories, but I’m not sure if they are as focused or organized properly yet.

I also did a bunch of work on stuff that you can’t see, such as SEO.  But I won’t bore you with that sort of stuff.  I tried, unsuccessfully, to do some changes, such as font size and spacing between lines.  Unfortunately, I do not think that I can customize those things on my wordpress.com blog without paying extra for blog custom design.  Maybe this will push me to move my blog over to my official site?

Of course, this blog overhaul is only one step in a larger project that I’m currently working on.  I will be updating my official sweater eyes website and the sweater eyes etsy shop over the next week or so.  All of this is in preparation of my Autumn 2011 Catalogue (at least that is what I am calling it for now), and I am planning on it being a “look book” of sorts.  Yes, this also means a lot more products will be available for purchase, just in time for Holiday shopping.

Any Internet savvy people out there, if you want to try to help me customize my blog to be better organized, easier to read.. anything, please do!  I want criticism, and tips.

xoxo

Uh.. are you supposed to be battling? {Sailor Moon}

Quick, lets all of us cover our eyes before the bad guys expose themselves!

Wild Pokemon Live in My Hall {small home style}

In my blog preview post a few weeks ago (has it already been a few weeks?  I am so behind!), I posted a very small thumbnail for this next small home project I recently did.  It was a very quick, easy project, and over all not very difficult, but they makes me smile every time I have to run upstairs and see them blowing around.

So, we have this fan in our upstairs, cathedral ceiling hallway.  The main problem was (besides the fact that the fan is incredibly ugly and there is no way we can possibly reach it to clean it or even change the light bulbs..) we never knew which pull was for which operation.  One of them changes the direction of the fan, another the speed of the fan, and the last was for the light.  (Don’t believe me how ugly and inaccessible this fan is?)

That line on the roof? Thats the top pitch.. no attic.

So, since there isn’t all that much I can do about the fan itself, I thought at least I could make something for the extremely long pulls so that we don’t end up pulling at them randomly hoping that they do what we want.  I decided to make Pokemon charms out of shrink plastic and came up with these designs one afternoon while watching my afternoon stories (if you’re interested, Hell Girl season1).

(pre-shrunk designs)

Once they were shrunk down, I attached them to a slightly thicker cotton woven thread and added colourful beads just for interest sake.  Attaching them to the pulls was incredibly easy, since the old wooden pulls have holes on the bottom and top (so I just slid the wooden piece up, and looped my new fancy pulls around the same knot).  The wooden pulls cover the knots, and allows me to simply take down the pokemon charms at any time.  We still use the wooden pull to actually change any of the fan settings, but that is mostly out of my personal fear that they will break and beads will spill down my stairs.  They are probably strong enough to pull on, but I’d rather be safe.  I think I might paint the wooden pieces sometime, but for now this will do.

(clockwise from top left) charms after being shrunk, charms hanging up (with flash), charms hanging up with no flash

Thank you for looking!  If you have any comments or questions, feel free to ask.

xoxo