Undiscovered Shops

Okay, so I was looking for some crochet items in Artfire this morning and found a shop that had some incredible stuff! Here is my favorite:



This is a hand painted, Blue and Gold Macaw ploymer clay pendant. Isn't it cute? I originally found ArtisticJen when I clicked on a cute little crochet purse that was listed in Artfire. I was oohing and aahing when I found this pendant. I'm such a bird brain that it really stood out for me. :-) I'd love the shop even more if she had a Timneh African Grey pendant or even a Nanday conure (hint, hint Jen!), but she does have others that are really neat.


Here is Jen's description:

Product Description:
his pendant is a painted Blue and Gold Macaw. The painting was done right onto the clay and sealed for protection. The back is covered with a matching clay cane in a feathery pattern.

It measures 1 3/4" across.

All beads are hand created by me. They are then baked and handed sanded before I apply 2-3 coats of an acrylic finish to them, also all done by hand.

Shipping is thru First Class mail. Insurance is optional, but highly recommended.Canadian orders are shipped thru First Class mail.

If you want to look at more of ArtisticJen's items, click on the link below:

http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&seller_id=16922



I fell in love with this little lady right away. What a lucky crafter to find a model to show off her items - and willing to work at such a young age. :-) :-)

This little hat is available from sweetbabybowtique on Etsy. Her shop is filled with little jewels like this. This one is called Crochet Baby Beanie Hat Grosgrain Big Bow- RED.

I'm really surprised that these baby hats haven't started selling sooner. She has 18 items total but no sales. Her prices are not bad considering the kind of work that goes into each little treasure. Here is sweetbabybowtique's description for the hat pictured above:

This adorable baby beanie hat was created using our 1 1/2" grosgrain ribbon to created this 4" big bow. Bow is attached to an alligator pinch clip for easy removal, so in the future your little one can wear just the bow alone too!

Hat fits ages newborn to about 12 months of age best.


Here is a link to this shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7341


Okay, so there they are! :-) One undiscovered shop from each, Artfire and Etsy, with hopes to get something going for these shops. Take a look around - you never know what you'll run in to! :-) :-)

Take care,
Pinka

To learn or to create?

I have no idea if anyone else has had this problem, but I'd love to hear from you if you do... I've been getting so little sleep lately that I'm tired even in my dreams! I had a dream last night where all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. So I woke up exhausted. But as soon as I heard my 4 year old moving around in his bed through the monitor, I knew that I'd have him cuddling with me for a few minutes before getting up. :-) :-) That's my favorite time of day and I want to make sure I'm awake for that. :-) :-)

So I've been working on so much lately... so much but then so little too! I've been working on trying to get my bead crochet bracelets 'out there' by trying to network like crazy. I've been learning about Twitter, posting on places like Etsy and Artfire, I've been adding listings to new shops like Buy It Sell It and Silkfair. I've been reading a lot too... learning about Google Analytics and even set my Artfire shop up. But I have no idea how I did it because I haven't been able to do that with Etsy or Silkfair - and I know that both have it available. I set up my Google account to use Google check out though I'm not sure if I did it correctly, but it's a good thing that I'm in the habit of checking everything at least once a day just in case I actually do make a sale. :-)

So with all of that I've been ignoring my bead crochet. I don't mean to because I have so many ideas going on in my head that I can't get my hands to move fast enough to get them all started. It's a good thing that I keep a sketch book on hand at all times or else I'd forget before they can be created. :-) :-) The past couple days have been especially hard because I've been itching so badly to create that I've been trading sleep for creating time. I'm please with my few crazy ideas and have even altered my original ideas for new ones. :-) The lack of sleep though does play around with my eyes so when I look at my piece again when I'm a little more awake, I can see that my color choices were not the best. :-) :-) But that is easy to fix with the next one - I just want to make that first sample. :-) :-)

Okay, I'm done here for now. I have another idea going around my head but I need to make lunch for the 4 year old first. Then maybe read a comic book or two to relax. :-) :-) My son has been going nuts over the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons - and now we're reading the comics. They're not as fun as Captain Underpants, but they're still fun. :-)

Take care,
Pinka

Artfire Shop

Store not available

I'm on Artfire now! :-) I keep hearing how Artfire is so much better than Etsy... we'll give it some time to see how true that is. I've started off with the 10 items max that it allows with the free account and if I can make a couple sales, then maybe I'll just yank the plug out of my Etsy account and just sell there.

I'll just have to see what works. Promoting is so time consuming and so hard... it takes up so much time on the computer and that is the part that kills me. I really don't know what else to do. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope the little bit I can do will help. :-)