An Etsy Game!

Use the new Etsy suggested shops feature (go to favorites and click the tab that says "suggested shops") and post a link to the first shop on your list. Tell me in the comments if you LOVE it!

I got Tilly Bloom: Illustration Jewelry, Art Prints & Curious Objects
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TillyBloom

I do love it! Very much. Great, stark photography, too! 

 

{Tilly Bloom}
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TillyBloom

How to Make Money on Etsy @ Inc.

•  Be Different
•  Killer Photographs and Detailed Descriptions
•  The Art of the Listing
•  Get Involved

See the whole article here...

Simple Online Accounting for Crafters

One of the biggest things that scared me about starting my own small crafting business was what if I were to actually make more than $600 in a year and be forced to file for taxes!? Somehow, despite being born to a mom who was a valedictorian in math, I ended up a creative type, wonderful with words and artsy endeavors. Math is lost on me, and not just that I don't enjoy it and that it doesn't come easily, it gives me full-on anxiety! 

So, I was thrilled to have just found Outright.com. I just started using it. It provides FREE software that allows you to easily import from online accounts to put your bookkeeping on autopilot and prepare taxes and gives you up-to-the-moment reports for profit and loss, income, and expenses. So hopefully tax time next year (despite the added stress of combining finances and marriage for the first time!), won't be so stressful thanks to my little craft biz.

What I've been up to....

Well, not making enough jewelry for one! I'm on it!

Almost all of my pieces are at Lovely, Austin, and I just have a small handful on etsy right now. What I do have up is 15% off through Sunday to for a Mother's Day sale. Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas!

This wedding planning takes a lot of energy!! But it's coming together. My DIY save the date postcards went out yesterday!

We also got to go to Jazzfest in New Orleans, one of my favorite cities in the world, to see a reunited Simon and Garfunkel. I hadn't been in more than five years since the storm and Mike had never been. (He fell in love, as I knew he would!) We ate delicious food --shrimp, oysters, crab, crawfish, muffuletta, po-boy--ran around the city, made new friends, and had as much fun as you can pack into 65 hours or so!

Is Etsy Old Hat...?

That's a question a lot of us seller have been asking ourselves lately and that comes up in this article today:

Top 10 Reasons You Should Not Sell on Etsy

I myself was very successful in my first several months on etsy, then the sales began to taper off. At the same time, I have found a growing personal interest in boutique consignment and local shows and trunk sales to offest slow etsy performance. Especially when you log on to etsy and see the same handful of sellers getting attention without much new and provocative getting featured and stuff all over the site that is obviously not handmade or vintage.

I think maybe the ship is selling... and it's time to get creative with other ways of marketing your handmade business. What do you think?