Open For Business!

     I went to the Craft Shop and set up my new space yesterday, my daughter went with me and helped arrange the items.  It's a small space, but will work just fine for me.  I don't have a lot of stock there yet, I'm working on that and I still need to decorate it better, add cloth to the shelfs and some twinkle lights and I need to buy some "S" hooks so that I can hang stuff from the sides.  But I think it's a good start and I'm so excited about it.

This is a tall Shelf, the 1st picture is the top part of the unit and the 2nd picture is the bottom half.

What's a Portfolio?

     I've have a few people that have asked me what a "Portfolio" is... I sell sets of handmade Note Cards and I've recently learned how to make my own "Portfolio".  In my description of some of my note cards, I state "comes with matching portfolio" and it's the term used in that context that seems to be causing befuddlement (if that's not a word, it sure ought to be lol)  
     Anyway... the portfolio is a holder for the stationery.  You open it up and there inside are the cards and the envelopes and on some, even a little pocket to hold your stamps.  Here is an example of the portfolio for stationery: (don't forget that you can click on the image to get a bigger view of it.)

     You can see the cards and envelopes tucked behind the vellum pockets, and both sides are secured by ribbon so that they don't flop around.  This set is for sale at my store (see links to the to the right).

I've decided!

     I was having such a hard time deciding if I was going to keep going with the madeitmyself site or not.  I really like the way that things are laid out on that market, but the forums are pretty much dead, I can't get any support questions answered, the views of my note cards are stagnant and when I do a search on google shopping for "handmade note cards" both Etsy and Artfire come up with my items pretty quickly, but madeitmyself does not.  Wow, that was a long, drawn out sentence lol.  Anyway, I've decided to not post any new stuff on madeitmyself.com which means I need to hope that my sales start coming from Artfire.com  they are free, no listing fees, no commissions and so far no sales lol.  If any one would like to take a look at the artfire site, my shop can be found at http://www.artfire.com/users/NoteletsByDesign .

     I'm still struggling with the dreaded S.E.O, I keep changing the keywords hoping that the items get more views are Artfire, but so far it's only creeping along.  I'm averaging one sale per week, which really isn't bad but I would definitely like to pick up the pace some.  I'm still stuck on week one of my "45 days to success" plan because I still need to populate my shop with 60 to 100 items.  The bookmarks and gift tags were a great idea, those I can make in about an hour and so far I've not run out of inspiration for them.  Surprisingly enough, the bookmarks take more thought than I had originally anticipated. Why? because a bookmark is meant to mark the page of a book, not damage it.  With that in mind, I have to be very careful what embellishments I use on the bookmark.  I need to keep them as flat as possible or at least a smooth top.  I know, that doesn't sound hard, but surprisingly enough, it is!

My second post...

Ok, well I've come up with a way to get my shop to the 100 items mark.... I'm going to make and sell gift tags and bookmarks.  These are much quicker to make and will allow me to fill my shop that much faster.

I'm feeling pretty confident in my newly formed business, I just got another sale today sooo hooray for me!!

I also went through the artfire site and re-categorized most of the note cards by moving them from the stationary category to the 'cards' category, hopefully this helps with the views.  I'm not really getting that many views on the artfire site and it makes me wonder if my tags.... the focus of the Search Engine Optimization part of the 45 days to success plan, are wrong.  I re-did most of them, let's see what happens.

I'm also beginning to wonder if selling across 3 different store fronts is a smart idea.  The thing is, I sell on Etsy, Art Fire and Madeitmyself but the Etsy site is a paid site (per item listing and sale), the other two are free.  My delimma? I'm only getting sales from the paid site, Etsy... lots of views on Madeitmyself but no sales and far fewer views on Art Fire and no sales.   Seems like a simple decision except that Etsy comes up the quickest in the search engines :( grumble grumble.

My attempt at being an Author

I've been staring at this blank little square box that I'm suppose to write this audience capturing article in and then post my paragraphs of brilliance to the world.  My problem?  I can't write.  Not a lick.  I'm really not interesting, I don't have any earth shattering experiences to write about, so yup... I sit here and stare at this space and experience complete understanding of the term "writers block".

Then a small little thought starts to creep into existence as it unfolds in the back of my mind.... maybe, just maybe, I could write a bit about what I love to make, Note Cards.  Well, truthfully I couldn't just stop at Note Cards because I also love to make many other things, gift tags, book marks and I might even dabble in the occasional handmade book.  (by the way, my shop resides at artfire.com, you can find me here.)

So, now that I know WHAT to write about, all I have to figure out is how to go about doing it.  I really admire those that can write so effortlessly, how the words just flow from their pens and immediately make sense.  Me? not so easy, but here goes..

Why am I blogging in the first place?  Well, because I was told that it was necessary if I wanted to have a successful online presence with the sale of my handmade note cards.  I'm following a "45 Days To Success" plan and blogging comes in towards the end of week one - sigh.

The first thing that the "45 Days To Success" Plan tells me to do is set up my shop.  Well that was fun! I got to upload my pretty pictures (I thought they were pretty anyway) and I got to add some fun titles, a neat banner and even an Avatar.  I liked all that.  Then Day 2 came along.  Let's see... what does Day 2 have in store for me?  Reading.  Read some more and by the time I'm completely crossed eyed, read even more.  Yikes and Yuck and good lord save me from all the technical stuff.  I've learned more about Search Engine Optimization then I ever wanted to know. (Trust me, I wanted to know nothing about Search Engine Optimization - it makes my head hurt).  What did I get for all my hard reading?  I got Day 3, where I learned that I jumped the gun and set up my shop too early.  Double Yuck and triple Sigh because now I get to go back and pretty much undo everything I did on Day one.  Remember ever hearing that old adage... "Read the instructions first"? well, turns out that old saying is some great advice.  So back I went and re-did my banner, re-did my avatar, re-arrange my photographs and re-wrote my descriptions, page title, item titles and item tags.  Sheesh!

Oh yeah, back on Day 2 somewhere in all that reading I did, I was told that I needed somewhere between 60 and 100 items in my shop in order to stand a chance at being seen by google in a sea of other products.  Let me repeat that.... between 60 and 100 items... the texting term "OMG" comes to immediate mind.  I make NOTE CARDS! sets of NOTE CARDS!, what on Earth or re-phrasing, when on Earth am I going to have enough time, let alone enough creative juices flowing to ever make 100 sets of note cards?  I need to re-think the basis of my shop.  Tune in tomorrow (ideally) or in the next couple of days (more than likely) for the answer to this delimma.