Farmer's Markets

To do, or not to do...that is the question. I've been pondering whether to venture out into the Farmer Market world to sell my cards. So I decided to do some research today...googled 'Farmer's Markets Ohio' and came up with a nice list. Of course I know nothing ABOUT those markets. If they are busy, expensive, take non-food venders....etc. I e-mailed the ones near me and am waiting back for info. The only one I did hear from was Grafton's (I know, who knew that my little town has a Farmer's Market!!) and unfortunetly they don't do non-foods. But she did say she'll contact the councilman to see if he'll consider broadening the market this year. So we'll see.

I tried to go on the Cleveland Handmade forum on Etsy.com to get their opinions, havent' heard much back from that either...oh well. Mabye when the weather gets nice, me and the family will pack into our card and take a little adventure to all the nearby ones. See what the foot traffic is like and talk with the vendors. I still need to bulk up my inventory before I do this anyways. I'm slowly adding to my collection.

Take a gander at my new ones :)

Sneak Attack!

I was recently the 'vicitm' of a etsy Sneak Attack. It is something sponsered by http://www.handmademovement.com/ and three days a week at an appointed time, an Etsy shop with few or no sales is announced on this site. As many people as possible then buy items from that shop, resulting in a frenzy of surprise business to the unsuspecting shop! I was the chosen one on February 20th.

I became aware of it when I went to check my e-mail right before me, my hubby, and 22 month old daughter were about to leave for dinner. When I clicked my e-mail and saw that I had 22 messages from Etsy my heart stopped. My first thought was that it was a malfunction, because they were all within a minute apart. Then I feared it was a spammer who was buying my cards, but not paying for them (I've heard about someone being a victim to that recently)...but then I saw the Paypal notification. Okay...breathe...breathe, what the heck is going on! When I clicked on HappyClouds e-mail and read that I was a 'victim' I was estatic, floored, and flattered. As an artist, you want your things to be admired by others, to be validated some way. And this little message showed me that I had a product out there that people wanted!

So after I came back from dinner (oh yeah, and a Jewelry party) I got busy creating some of the orders that were ordered from my custom listing (already sold cards that people can buy and get custom made to fit their style). Needless to say it was a busy weekend...but I was floating on cloud nine!

Thank you all who participated in the sneak attack, and thank you Handmade movement. You made a gals day! :)

Spring is in the air

63 degrees today in Ohio! The warm air gets my creative juices flowing. It makes me want to go in my craft room and sit among all my papers and grab the vibrant greens, buttery yellows, and blushing pinks. To grab my flowers accents and use them. I need to replenish my stock anyways because I was fortunate enough to make a big sale recently. Someone bought 22 cards! It pretty much wiped out my stock though (as you can see) so I need to get working! So I think tonight I'll go down, crank up the tunes, surround myself with the senses of spring, and create :)

Cat in the Hat

I got an order in Wednesday for a "Cat in the Hat" card. I was totally up for the challenge! I was a preschool teacher and a craft teacher for the last 15 years before I quit to be a mom, and in those years we celebrated "The Cat in the Hat" alot. One of my passions is drawing, so I was always the designated person you came to when you needed something drawn...pooh bear, flowers, and "The Cat in the Hat". But this was many years ago, so I didn't know if I still had it in me! So I sat down in my craft room, and tried to remember what it looked like.....blank, nothing, nada, zip. So I got up and went to my computer and cheated, and googled. Found a picture of him and sat and stared at him. How could I make this into a card? Then I thought, "Why not just do the hat?". So I got my sketchbook out and sketched away. After many trial and error (the bottom was a bit thin in my earlier draft) I came up with this card. It felt so good to create something out of nothing. And it brought back alot of memories of when I used to draw all the time. I hope my client loves it as much as I do. :)

Satisfaction

Total bliss. That is what I'm feeling right now as I look at my completed order. This is why I do what I do. I love looking at a finished product, knowing that I gave it my all and made something out of nothing. How I took an idea or thought from someone, and turned it into something that they wanted, but couldn't create. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside! :)

So here's a silly photo I took, just for the heck of it. I made the the invites look like a whole pizza!

invitations

I got an order in the other day to make a pizza invitation for a little boy. I love when that happens...it's my favorite thing to do, custom make cards! Of course, I had to have the help of my hubby, the pizza King!! We went into my craft room, and poured over all my papers trying to find just the right 'cheese' paper and so forth. I think the end result was perfect!

exposure

As I sit here in my quiet house, listening to the baby's monitor 'swoosh, swoosh, swoosh'...I rack my brain on how to get more traffic to my webstores. I so want to be successful at doing something I love, and that brings a smile to other people's faces. That's why for the past 3 years I've been striving to make my card making business a success. I've found some cool sites out there to get my product on, it's just the matter of getting seen. I know it's possible. I look at other webstores on those sites and see that they've sold 100's....I just don't know their secret!

So I've vowed to get as much exposure as possible to get the traffic I need to sell. So here it is...my first blog! Hopefully I get some traffic here!

Wish me luck...