Merry Xmas 2012

I always make some gifts for Christmas. This year it was tough, because I was selling and sewing right up to the last minute. I did make some really cute sachets, out of old denim with white machine embroidery. I didn't even get a chance to take pictures of those, but trust me, they were adorable.

For the most part, though, I was sick to death of sewing, so I tried my hand at crocheting. I knew I could crochet the scarf, like the Minecraft scarf that the Dink is wearing, but I didn't know that I could make amigurumi. My first ever is the Yoda on the right. As that went so smoothly, I thought I might attempt a Slenderman for the teen. I found one that I liked and based my pattern on that. I had no pattern to work from. He turned out pretty cool. Even has creepy curly tendrils coming out of his back.

The picture below shows the teen and Slenderman, enjoying a cup of cocoa. Dink and Luna enjoyed Christmas a LOT, even Santa Fuzzy did. That hat was bought by someone for the puppy whose head is bigger than mine now. Well a LOT bigger than Fuzzy's. Hope you enjoyed your holidays, family, and learning new things :)

Biz Buzz - Another Life

I have to admit, I was really bummed when I got my Etsy Apron shop closed. It was very inconvenient, but I opened one in only my name, not shared with my DD, after all I HAD completely taken over the shop.

OK, so I was seriously bummed when Etsy shut down all of my shops and eventually BLOCKED my ISP so that I couldn't even buy or browse on Etsy. Well that's not entirely true. I have my backdoor ways to browse, but that's my little secret. And Etsy, just try to figure out which email is mine so that you can block my Finds email again.

I guess the point of all this is that my posts were always geared toward Etsy sellers. Etsy this, Etsy treasury, Etsy that, Etsy SEO, Etsy, Etsy, Etsy. Like the Sun and the Earth revolved around Etsy. Well guess what. it doesn't.

I didn't realize that there was a whole other world of sellers and seller sites out there. I moved to Etsy from eBay, the top seller site. And while I really had to adjust my product line. I'm selling about as much. Oh and what I mean by adjust is offering far less product. I don't have to design something new each week, there is enough traffic for my limited selection.

I've also found other sites that work in a very different way. Like flat rate. I really like flat rate. Artfire, Zibbet and Groove Press to name a few, only charge one monthly fee. I like that. And you don't have to be on, relisting all the time, because relisting only breaks your links, and makes it harder for buyers to find you. I can list multiple items now with no penalty, awesome.

There is another benefit to working on lots of other sites. You get to meet very interesting people. Sellers that don't even sell on Etsy, because they WANT to. Not just because they've gotten kicked off. There are actually nice and very talented people who don't "live" on Etsy. There really is another life. How much have you sold on Etsy this summer? I've sold quite a bit.