Sunday, August 2, 2009

August, Schmaugust

Some two or so months later, Sunday night, 9:44 p.m.

I thought a new post was in order, to let you all know that I reached my 100th sale on ETSY this past Monday (July 27)! And, I've got a fantastic feedback rating to boot. I was ecstatic to see the following on my shop page:

liko18
Feedback: 100, 100% positive

I think this was motivation to kick start me into gear again.

To my good fortune, my son's baseball coach mercifully moved our Saturday game to Monday evening, when we would have practiced anyway. That left Saturday as a completely free day--which made me wonder what I did on Saturdays before baseball. For the uninitiated, baseball for 5 year-olds entails two practices during the week, and two games on the weekend, one on Saturday, and one on Sunday.

Another sign that it was time to get going: the weather was beautiful on Saturday. But you live in Hawaii, you say! Yes, but this summer, it has been raining practically every day, to my son's chagrin--because his summer vacation was somewhat dampened, literally.

So, I set out to take yet another set of photos of my jewelry. I know. It has been excruciating, this process of working with my camera. First, I have zero photography skills and knowledge, which means that I generally leave the settings on automatic and press the button. Second, I don't have one of those fancy Canon SLR cameras that everyone talks about. And third, even if I had the fancy camera, I still wouldn't know how to use it.

In the end, I got some shots that I felt were not bad. Why all the fuss? At the moment, there are 48,421 pages of jewelry listings on ETSY, making it one of the most competitive categories on the site.

Then, I forced my two boys to go outside and play. No Wii! I said. No TV! I told them. And while they were outside entertaining themselves with Star Wars and CARS toys, I sat myself down at my desktop and started listing my first four jewelry pieces.

Here is a photo of one of the earrings I listed for sale:



And, just to see if it would be accepted, I submitted a different photo of the same earrings to a website called CRAFTGAWKER (www.craftgawker.com) This is a spin-off of the uber popular FOODGAWKER site (www.foodgawker.com) The name pretty much says it all...check it out and I promise you that you'll be hungry! This is a moderated site and after holding my breath all day....my submission was accepted, and my photo made it to the Home Page of the site! Here is a preview of the photo that I submitted:



What do you think?

I couldn't figure out how to paste the Craftgawker HOME page for you all to see. Please check it out, the photos of everyone's work is beautifully done.

Remember way back--when I had hoped to get my jewelry posted in time for Mother's Day? Ha! Well, it's August. August, Schmaugust. The start of the fall season, the school year, and a seasonal reminder that yet another year is quickly moving along and will soon be over.

And, for those of us who craft and hope to sell our wares--the holiday season is quickly approaching. This, of course, means there are more pieces to make, and more photos to take!

Get busy, all you fellow artisans!