The new Vogue Knitting is here! The new Vogue Knitting is here!

Earlier this year, a staff member from Vogue Knitting requested samples of my knitting mugs. I hoped one would end up on the pages of the magazine, but didn't want to get my hopes too high.

But Vogue Knitting didn't let me down -- my mug is pretty much right in the center of the "What's New, What's Now, What's Next in Knitting" article. The page, called "Mug Shots," is filled with all sorts of cute knitting-themed mugs.

I love you Vogue Knitting! And, of course, the amazing wit of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

Front Page

It's been quite a while since any of my items were on Etsy's Front Page. Getting something into a front page treasury is the best free advertising you can get!

This week I broke the no-front-page streak with two FP treasuries!

If you have an Etsy shop and would like to be notified when one of your items is on the FP, visit Statsy, click on "Featurator," and sign up.

Attack!

It's time to attack! The following shops have been chosen for today's attack:

RoseHips - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5922732

artrepublik - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5056766

Don't forget that the attack runs all night. So if you don't get to the website right away, you can still participate. Visit the Handmade Movement website for more information on Sneak Attacks.

For Today Only: Sneak Attack Central

Phippsart, the papa of Sneak Attacks, will be away today for the holiday. Since I'm hosting the attack today, I'll be posting the shops here at 7:00 pm EDT.

For more information visit The Handmade Movement website, chat on the Etsy forum beforehand, and stay tuned....

RAK-a-Day

I'm taking part in a very fun swap -- perform one or more RAKs (Random Act of Kindness) per day for a week then write to your partner to let her know about your week.

Most of the RAKs will be quiet ones. You don't need to know. It's more fun that way.

But one of the things I'll be doing this week is listing one or more PIF items in my Etsy shop per day. PIF stands for Pay It Forward. Sellers list an item for 20 cents (the cost of the listing). The buyer is supposted to continue the movement -- list something in their shop as a PIF or perform sort other sort of RAK.

I did a seach for PIFs yesterday and discovered that (as is the case with most things) some sellers are using the PIF listing as a selling tool. They tag something PIF but charge a huge shipping charge (often the actual price of the item plus shipping). Really bad karma, I'd say.

These PIFs are real. The cost is 20 cents (because Etsy won't let you list something for free). I'm paying the shipping charges.

Be on the lookout this week!

EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival: Summer Shop Show & Tell

The current Blog Carnival theme for EtsyBloggers*:
Show & tell: Summer line - what you will be making/showing in your shop this summer...

I've been wanting to introduce some new items to my shop for a while now. But RL work has been keeping me very, very busy. And sales in the shop have picked up just enough (during this otherwise busy time) to give me pretty much no spare time.

Here's to hoping I can get to some new things soon!

I want to add a line of decorated cotton twill tape (similar to the commercial tapes you can get from Japan). The materials are sitting in my studio waiting for me. Look for them soon (I hope!).

And my hand-carved rubber stamps are doing well in the shop. I want to continue to expand my offerings. As you can see, I've got a sketch of a gnome ready to go.

Look for the new offerings soon. I hope. :)

*EtsyBloggers, I apologize for not fulfilling my April blog obligations. So sorry!

Giveaway on the PhatFiber blog!

Head on over to the PhatFiber blog right n0w! They're running a giveaway for one of my celtic heart rubber stamps.

All you need to do to enter is to visit my shop and then post a comment about your favorite item(s). If you blog, twitter, etc about it, you're entered twice!

Good luck... and keep your eyes on the PhatFiber blog, there's always lots of great giveaways.

PhatFiber

Have you heard about PhatFiber?

It's a new venture begun by partners Jessie and Marcus. Each month they solicit samples from independent fiber shops, then package those samples into PhatFiber boxes. Each box contains a minimum of 20 samples.

The first round of PhatFiber packages was sold in January. I heard about it shortly after they were sold and decided to take part in the February boxes. If the sample contributors send a minimum number of samples, they receive a box for themselves!

The photos you're looking at are my sampler box from February. What a wonderful array of goodies! Raw fiber, roving, handspun, hand dyed yarn, stitch markers, patterns.... Enough to make me want to purchase indie fibers from a whole lot of sellers! And I suspect it'll be the reason I start spinning again (I haven't spun since I was in my mid-20s).

For March, I made up samples with a Celtic knot and a kelly green Czech glass stitch marker. And I was able to finish the April samples and send them with the March ones. Little gift tags suitable for fiber artists -- stamped with a leaping lamb on paper embedded with wildflower seeds and packaged in a woven box made with recycled materials.

Are you interested in purchasing a PhatFiber box? They've grown to be such a phenomenon that the March boxes sold out in less than 2 minutes. How to get one? Register with the PhatFiber folks -- they'll send you an email letting you know when the boxes go on sale in April. Then visit the Etsy shop and start refreshing your browser as quickly as you can to catch a box as it's listed. Good luck!

Sheepshape

Meet my new Etsy Shop Buddy, Sheepshape!

Elizabeth, a fiber artist from London, has a wonderful shop filled with hand-dyed roving and handspun yarn, along with the most adorable, huggable knitted animal friends.

We both recently took the Stone Soup Challenge, decided that our shops compliment each other well, and declared ourselves Shop Buddies. What a great way to extend the Stone Soup idea even further.... to promote each other's shops!

Take a look at Elizabeth's shop. Luscious colors, gorgeous textures... traditional crafts with innovative techniques.

Everything in the shop is lovely (and highly covet-able) but the items that stand out from other Etsy sellers are her glow-in-the-dark fibers. Do you know a child who would love to see his or her blankie or stuffed animal in the dark? What an amazing idea! You can purchase handspun yarn made with glow-in-the-dark fibers to knit or crochet a very special blanket for a very special child. Or lovely huggable animals knitted with glow-in-the-dark yarn.

EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival: The 3rd Month

Here's the current topic for EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival:
Month 3 - We are already on March!! What have you accomplished this year in real life or on Etsy?? Have you followed your New Year's resolutions? What are your plans for the rest of 2009?

I've been thinking about this topic and planned to blog about it on my own. Even better that it's a Blog Carnival topic.

Ok. Let's go back and look at what I promised two months ago (how soon I forget!):

*Make more stuff.
I've been doing pretty well with this. Keep on going.

*Expand the line of items I make for knitters.
Good so far. I created a line of knitting-related rubber stamps. Still need to do more. What's on the drawing board? Covered tape measures, circular needle holders, more stitch markers, a few more rubber stamps.

*Once I have the knitting items added to the shop, maybe do a little advertising on Ravelry?
Not yet for Ravelry. However I did a different kind of advertising to knitters. I contributed to the PhatFibers boxes for February and will send in my March & April contributions on Monday. So I guess I've done this... or a variation of this.

*Oh, and start donating $1 from each set of stitch markers that I sell to Susan G. Komen For the Cure.
Done. Haven't sent out my first donation but I'm planning to do it at the end of each quarter.

*Keep expanding the line of hand-carved rubber stamps.
I have made more in addition to the knitting stamps. And I need to keep on going. They're very popular and fun to make!

*Now that Etsy has finally connected up with Google Analytics, I need to take advantage of that information.
I've been checking it regularly.

*Try to add more items made with upcycled materials.
I've made a few. I want to make more.

*I'm making a limited-edition 'zine for a swap and will have some for sale in the shop.
This is almost done. I expect to list it sometime next week or maybe the week after.
*Redo my "Categories."
I added a "Goods for Knitters" category but decided not to mix it up more than that. I took an informal survey and discovered that folks like straight-forward categories and are irked by squishy ones. So no squishy categories for me!

*Change up my banner and avatar regularly.
I've been doing this.
*Keep up with LinkReferral.
I've not been doing this on a regular basis. Bad Etsian.

*I'm thinking of trying 1000Markets, ArtFire, and FunkyFinds.
I haven't gotten very far except to buy a shop on ArtFire. Perhaps my biggest failing on the resolution list.

*My art/craft room desperately needs cleaning and reorganization.
Also not done. But needed. Sometime soon, I promise.

The Stone Soup Challenge: February

My pledge to The Stone Soup Challenge is easy to fulfill. One of the main reasons for setting up my Etsy shop was to make spending money to purchase goodies from other online vendors.

I pledged more than the recommended amount because I knew I was already spending more and wanted to push myself a little. My pledge was to spend at least 50% of the profits from my Etsy shop with independent online vendors, including the of purchase one item per month from another shop participating in The Stone Soup Challenge.

The earrings pictured above are my first purchase from a SSC participant, christinececelia. I love images of bees, so these sweet little earrings were a natural choice.

This month I've also sold an item to another SSC participant, my8kidsmom. She ordered a custom stamp with her shop name. What a fun purchase! And The Stone Soup Challenge is working already.

EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival: My Etsy Shop

For the February 27 EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival (yes, I know I'm early), the topic is:

What made you open a shop on Etsy? What do you like about being a seller on Etsy? What don't you like?

For many years (before Tommy was born and when he was little) I had a booth in the Ann Arbor Art Fair. One of the largest art fairs in the country, the A2 fair sees over a half-million visitors in four days in July. I enjoyed being a part of the crazy art fair scene, but it started taking over my summers, and I eventually dropped my booth.

I never really missed the fair, but I did miss making things to sell.

For the past few years I've been swapping through Swap-Bot and Flickr (and more recently, Ravelry). And I made lots and lots of items to include in these swaps. Several of the items -- especially the Harry Potter charm bracelets -- had lots of requests (through Flickr primarily) from folks who were interested in buying them.

I had been an Etsy buyer for a while and decided to give it a try as a seller as well. That was a little over a year and 217 sold items ago.

What do I like about it? Lots of things:
* The ease and low cost of running the shop and adding new items
* The sense of community
* The warmth of the other members
* The great things Etsy sellers and buyers do for each other
* [Generally] The look of the site
* The wide variety of gorgeous and wonderful items for sale

What don't I like?
* The way I feel like a needle in a very, very large haystack. It's very difficult to get noticed
* The exclusive attitude of the Etsy admin. There are many, many instances where I feel excluded rather than included
* The emphasis on opening new shops and relisting items, rather than helping us make sales
* Communication - it's often non-existent or mishandled
* The lack of flexibility in setting up (both organizationally and graphically) my shop

The Stone Soup Challenge

Every year when I was a Cubmaster (when Tommy was younger), the pack and I would retell the story of Stone Soup and make a big pot of soup. And, of course, it would always begin with a stone.

The boys and their families loved the tradition of it. They enjoyed hearing the story of a town that worked together to produce something bigger than their individual parts. And they loved the great soup we made!

Now Laura of Katydiddy has issued a challenge to the art community based on the story of Stone Soup. The idea is to commit to purchase from other independent artists. She is asking folks to pledge a certain percentage of their shop's profits each month to purchase something from another artist's shop.

Since the main reason I opened my shop was to support my art/craft supplies habit and to allow me to purchase an occasional item from Etsy, this is not difficult for me at all! Basically it's just asking me to formalize this commitment. And with the amount that I spend on Sneak Attacks, I'm already there!

So here's my commitment:
I pledge to spend a minimum of 50% of my profits with other independent artists/shops. And further, I pledge to purchase a minimum of one item per month from one of the other shop owners who have taken The Stone Soup Challenge.

How about you?

Here's what you need to do to participate:
* Decide how much you will commit to spending each month. Laura suggests 10% to 25% of your shop's profits. I'm pledging more because I know I already spend more!
* Visit The Stone Soup Challenge website and leave a comment regarding your pledge
* Blog about the challenge

That's it!

When we work together, everyone benefits.

Universal Letter Writing Week

We're at the tag end of Universal Letter Writing Week. The 2nd week in January is a great time to catch up with a letter or two to a friend.

When is the last time you wrote a letter? How about receiving one?

We tend to write a lot nowadays but so much of it is in an email. Instant gratification. But what about the physical pleasures of a handwritten letter? Lovely, smooth paper. A great pen. A special envelope. Your own handwriting (how many of your friends have never even seen your handwriting?). The time you took to sit down and write the note. A beautiful commemorative stamp or two.

Take the time soon and write a letter. The recipient will be thrilled.

EtsyBloggers Blog Carnival: New Year Goals for My Shop

Rather than making monumental goals for the New Year, I try to come up with lots of smaller, more do-able goals.

This is the case with my Etsy shop as much as it is with me personally.

The goals tend to be ideas I'd like to implement. Here are a bunch that have been rolling around in my head. Take a look, and we'll look back in a few months and see how many actually got implemented.

*Make more stuff. That's easy to understand why. It's great to have some old favorites, but shops always need NEW stuff to keep them fresh and interesting.

*Expand the line of items I make for knitters. It's a natural connection -- off Etsy, I'm a pretty passionate knitter. I don't know if I'll ever sell any knitted items (possibly), but I love the idea of a whole line of goodies that cater to knitters. So in addition to the current ones (notecards made with recycled knitting catalogs and stitch markers), I'm think of more stitch markers, cute covered tape measures, knitting-related rubber stamps, and possibly some needle holders for circular needle sets. I recently received the Harmony circular set from KnitPicks (love them!) and would like to develop a holder specifically for them.

*Once I have the knitting items added to the shop, maybe do a little advertising on Ravelry? I've never actually paid for an ad, but this is probably the best way to start. They certainly are the perfect targeted audience.

*Oh, and start donating $1 from each set of stitch markers that I sell to Susan G. Komen For the Cure.

*Keep expanding the line of hand-carved rubber stamps. I enjoy making them and they sell well. They're a natural for expansion.

*Now that Etsy has finally connected up with Google Analytics, I need to take advantage of that information.

*Try to add more items made with upcycled materials.

*I'm making a limited-edition 'zine for a swap and will have some for sale in the shop. The subject? Currently a secret. Check back at the end of the month for more details.

*Redo my "Categories." Right now, they're sorted by media. I'm gonna try sorting by subject matter to see if it's more interesting. But if it's less useful, I'll go back to the traditional way of sorting.

*Change up my banner and avatar regularly. Of course, stick with a recognizable look. But keep it interesting by highlighting different items, holidays, etc. So far, I've done this (see the banner at the top of this post), but need to keep it up.

*Keep up with LinkReferral. I'm not sure that I've seen any specific sales from it, but it sure gets a lot of folks to view my shop. Since that's my main problem with Etsy -- the needle-in-a-haystack syndrome -- anything that gets eyes into my shop is a good thing.

*Speaking of problems with Etsy, the painfully-hip-twentysomethings-in-Brooklyn thing is starting to get on my nerves. They're so horribly exclusive in so much of what they do. But they do have the traffic -- so I need to keep playing their game. However, I also need to put some energy into trying one or more of the alternative sites. So I'm thinking of trying 1000Markets, ArtFire, and FunkyFinds. Will you visit me there?

*This is not part of my shop, but it's certainly related. My art/craft room desperately needs cleaning and reorganization. It's overflowing and needs some rethinking (along with a whole lot of cleaning). I'm too skeered to show you a "before" picture, but will show an "after" one if there ever is an "after..."

Whew! Is that it? Well, check back later and see how much I actually accomplish....

Front Page!

SplishySplashCraft was kind enough to include me in her current treasury as an alternate. It just made the front page and one of the items sold, so I'm in the lower right hand corner. Yay!

In the Depth of Winter....

....I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer...

I used this Camus quotation as the springboard for an Etsy treasury celebrating the Winter Solstice. Glimmers of light and color on the darkest, frostiest day of the year....

ETA: It made the front page Sunday evening. Yay!

Plarn???!

I recently ordered some PLARN (recycled plastic yarn) from JesSpins. You send her the raw materials -- I sent plastic grocery bags; plastic mesh from clementines, avocados, and onions; an old cassette tape; etc -- and she spins them up. You pay by the yard -- mine worked out to be 99 yards.

I should receive it next week sometime. I'm looking forward to playing with it... and I promise to have Show & Tell once I've got something completed.

Calligraphy Meets Craft

I'm a calligraphy snob. I've seen a lot of bad calligraphy in my life and don't care to see any more. 'Nuff said.

However, I adore Katy's calligraphy! Her Etsy shop, KisforCalligraphy is filled with wonderful little bits of gorgeous calligraphy... tags, envelopes, ornaments, envelope seals, some very funny zipper pulls... Her shop changes every time I visit -- and I love to see all the new things she's created. She has a very distinctive style that's casual, easy, fun, and graceful.

Here's more about her (from her profile):
I have a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a minor in French from the University of Montana. I never expected to be a self-employed professional calligrapher. However, my mom had a sneaking suspicion that I would love calligraphy. She nagged me to take a class as soon as I learned how to write. A couple of decades later I followed her hunch and enrolled myself into a calligraphy class, I am proud to say that I have created a career for myself as a professional calligrapher. Handmade is my creative choice. Whether it is a handmade birthday card or an original place card, it is my belief that giving is best when you are giving handmade. I cannot imagine a day without doing calligraphy or creating something new. And my props to Etsy for making it possible for artists and artisans around the world to share and sell their creations!

Katy and I are EtsyPaper pals this month, and I'm so pleased to be paired up with her. I heartily encourage you to visit her shop -- I guarantee you'll find some goodies you must have in your life!

Get Ready... Get Set....

...Shop!

Starting Friday, November 28 ("Black Friday") through Monday, December 1 ("Cyber Monday") I am running a store-wide sale in my Etsy shop. The sale is part of a large promotion headed by EtsyBloggers. There are over 50 Etsy shops taking part in one way or another. Visit here for a list of the shops.

So here's the lowdown on the sale:

Buy 1 item - get 10% off
Buy 2 items - get 15% off
Buy 3 or more items - get 20% off
In addition, I am offering free shipping for all orders of $75 or more

Have you been looking at something special in my shop? Now's the time to buy!