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An Enchanting Etsy Team!

Posted on September 17, 2013 by admin Posted in Etsy Store Pics, Etsy Treasuries, Things I've Learned Selling on Etsy Leave a comment

I want to give mucho luv and a big shout out to the AWESOME Etsy Team of Keepers of Enchantment. A thriving, happy team of over 1,200 members, they shocked me yesterday after I joined by including my Celtic Purple Triad Single Earcuff in the beautiful Treasury Purple Haze!

I especially love the 4 Handmade Porcelain Deep Purple beads by beadfreaky. I spent almost an hour going over her wonderful, handmade beads and buttons alone, contemplating adding them to a line of designer divination and tarot bags – my next, crazy, non-beadwork project for our other Etsy store. There’s just one problem; I favorited so many of her dragonfly, tree of life, goddess and hamsa designs, I wouldn’t know where to start! How about by cleaning out my bank account and buying them all, lol!

‘Purple Haze’ by kukochan

A collection of enchanted and psychedelic pieces, made by the members of Keepers of Enchantment

Blue & Purple Hand Bead… EnchantedSoul… $23.75	Fine Art Print “Ki… FairyTaleFigm… $5	4 Handmade Porcelain De… beadfreaky $10	Fairy Wishing Candle – … TheEvergreenN… $10
Celtic Purple Triad Sin… TheEarsHaveIt $21.95	Rainbow Galaxy Pendant … demiflux $14	Polished Purple Amethys… MountainUrsus… $19	leather bracelet – leat… thebeachgirls $30
Flower headband style e… DreamCatcherD… $14.5	Purple Iris – pretty bo… ShriKrishnaDe… $81	COLOR CHANGING!! Vanill… SweetheartMoo… $7.95	Classy Purple Feather B… fairystitchfa… $50
Violet wire wrapped ear… RasaVilJewelr… $17	Oriental Bollywood Kash… SandstormArt $14	Handmade Purple Elven P… EnchantedTree… $60	Compact Mirror Acrylic … WildEthereal $35

Treasury tool by StylishHome.

Seriously, though, if you’re still reading this far and are an etsy seller who sells pagan wares, consider joining them. They are wonderfully generous and I can’t wait to get to know them better. This is what an extended pagan family is all about – the love.

Doing what you love

Posted on January 24, 2013 by admin Posted in Finding your place in the Universe, The Life of a Bead Whore, Things I've Learned Selling on Etsy 1 Comment

Someone once told me at a business college seminar, “If you want to make a living at what you love, first, find what you love and do a lot of it”.

I am learning that that is only the beginning of what is needed to be successful.

Certainly there is a Law of Attraction element to that advice. Doing a lot of something will get you noticed eventually. And getting noticed will get you admirers, fans and sales.

For me, the hard part was discovering what I loved. I know that may sound crazy, but it’s true. And I bet a lot of other people go through this too. In this rushed age of stress, job necessity and distractions all around us, we really are pulled off-course more than we care to admit. To find what you love, sit back, take a calm, quiet moment and look back at your life. What were you alway pulled back to do? What makes you happy? What are you naturally good at? These give you the answers. I was always creative, so I knew for a start that the answer lay in that direction. After trying lots of creative things, I hit upon something people saw me do that I loved and loved it as well and told me so. Others input and reactions can tell you much about yourself if you sit still and listen to it.

Doing a lot of what we love (once we find out what it is) also sharpens our skills at what we do. One isn’t born the greatest musician, doctor, test pilot or beader of their generation. We all have to work at it. And when our skills get better, that also gets us noticed. Many people do a lot of something and get quickly and easily bored with it. That is a warning sign it is not what they love – what they were born to do.

So why is it that so many people love what they are doing and are not successful? Maybe perhaps they are not passionate about what they do.

Passion fuels fire. Fire never goes unnoticed. Even if it is just a little spark at first, if it is fueled by what we do and our passion for something grows, eventually it will explode onto the scene and then no one will be able to ignore it! Sound familiar? How often do we see companies on the internet or in real life that suddenly made it big? It never happens that way. They worked to get to where they were and it took time and effort and of course, passion.

Passion and fire have another element in common that is vital to success at doing what you love – sacrifice. Fire eats up what is around it in order to make it grow. Passion means you will start doing less of something else (even if it is nothing) to make more time to do what you love and want to do. Also sound familiar? How many marriages are torn apart because one spouse works too much, sacrificing their quality time for money? It’s an imbalanced way of living, but a good example of how powerful passion is and can be and how it can take you places you long for and never even dreamed of going – for good or bad.

So, in closing, 1. discover what you love, 2. do a lot of it, and 3. be passionate at it.

If you like this topic and want me to delve further, please leave a comment. Together we can help you find your passion. Don’t let it take 50 years to find, like I did.

Why you buy what you buy

Posted on July 19, 2012 by admin Posted in Finding your place in the Universe, The World of Cosplay, Things I've Learned Selling on Etsy Leave a comment

I was rushing last last night/early this morning to tidy up my Etsy earring store, The Ears Have It. Seeing that the best selling items were getting buried at the bottom of items I was relisting, I created a category called, “Best Sellers“. I chose the top five selling items for this category as one of the last things I did before I fell exhausted into bed at 2 o’clock in the morning.

This morning, not particularly thinking about the store I had spent so much time tidying up last night, a thought occured to me. These Best Sellers were trying to tell me something I had been chasing after for a couple of years. They were lying in wait until I had a chance to calm down from the frenzy of creating stock and promoting them before the tapped me quietly on the shoulder and said, “Hey, you need to notice something here”.

When they got my attention, they said, “Hey YOU! This is your target market!!!”

Startled, I drew back for a moment. This wasn’t what I was expecting to learn. In fact, I wasn’t writing this article in search of who my target market was. I had simply seen a trend of all my best sellers being items that incorporated symbols and the thought fascinated me. In fact, to diverge here for a moment, they made me proud of my customers. With all the Facebook posts and even one on Twitter recently about Gay Pride, Hate Crimes, Homophobia, etc., etc., etc. my customers are strong, brave and not afraid of these parts of their lives.

How do I know this?

Because they dare to wear those symbols that others find provocative. Peace signs, Ankhs, Rainbows, symbols that point towards one’s Pagan Path, towards their sexual orientation and even their political beliefs. I dare not presume to say any one of my customers are any of these things just because they purchase them, but they are definitely enlightened individuals that dare to wear what they want to wear in a world that sadly would judge them – right or wrong, for what they chose to accent their couture.

So, because our outer selves are a reflection of our inner selves, I ask you to ask yourself and your customers why do we wear what we wear? Dig deeper than the “it’s pretty” or “the colors match my outfit” excuses. Why are they not afraid of other’s base (and sometimes ignorant) reactions? The answers might lead you and them to a journey of self discovery and help you serve your customers better in satisfying their need to stand up and out in their world.

So You Want to Sell on Etsy

Posted on June 5, 2012 by admin Posted in Things I've Learned Selling on Etsy Leave a comment

I get this question from time to time, so I thought it was high time I sat down and composed my thoughts on the matter. Etsy is great for selling handmade jewelry – that’s its purpose. Whether you are successful depends on; 1. how much effort you put into it and, 2. having a plan. There are some important marketing rules I tell anyone who asks. With these, you have a better chance at having great sales.

1. Make something that is unique and STANDS OUT. If you do a search for “jewelry” on their website (like I just did right now), there are 3,201,217 items. Designers have to have something unusual that stands out from all the millions of other pieces of jewelry on Etsy or they will get lost in the crowd.

2. Take GOOD photographs. It is already game over if you don’t follow this rule. If you aren’t sure what constitutes a good photo, take a look through some Etsy listings. It is an eye-opener. Basically, they need good lighting, to be in focus and not blurry, minimal but nice backgrounds that don’t distract the viewer from the piece being sold.

3. Price to your market. Not too much, not too little. Look at what the competition is pricing their pieces at. Do expensive pieces not sell? Too cheap won’t sell, either. Look at how much a store sells. If it’s a lot, they’re right on the money for the audience you want to attract.

4. Clear, concise, attractive verbiage on each listing. Again, look at the competition. What are the high sellers including in their descriptions? Follow their lead.

5. Marketing. It is NOT a “build it and they will come world”. The market is too saturated to rely on that type of strategy. Once you have a nice store, lots of stock and beautiful pictures, a whole new set of rules kicks in surrounding marketing and everyone on the planet wants to sell you advice. The only rules that apply no matter what you are selling is this; 1. Find your target market, 2. Upload/relist stock often and ON A CONSISTENT BASIS (i.e., every Tuesday, every other Friday, etc.), find out where your target market hangs out and post notices of your listings ON A CONSISTENT BASIS and of course – DO NOT SPAM…EVER!!!! Spamming gets you kicked off social networks, your internet provider bans you, your email client bans you and your fans HATE YOU if you spam. Remember, your fans, once you get them, will account for up to 85% of your future business because if you give them good service and quality products, they will come back and buy more.

6. Are you enthusiastic about your product? Silly question, but your love for your craft gets translated into the product through the energy you spend in making it. This may sound a little way out there, but it is a fact. If you don’t love what you’re doing, how can you market it? How can you convince someone they can’t walk away from your store or table without buying from you? Through some contagious, enthusiastic interaction with the customer. Just beware, too much enthusiasm and you’ll look either fake, desperate or that you’re trying too hard.

If you are an Etsy seller and have any tips to add that have helped boost your sales, we would love to hear them. Please share them with us in the comments.

An Etsy conversation – How do you get out of your creative ruts?

Posted on July 25, 2011 by admin Posted in Things I've Learned Selling on Etsy Leave a comment

Understanding why we get into a “rut” helps deal with the issue and keeps us from getting frustrated. The word “rut” definitely misinterprets the problem. Our brains are designed to work in balance, the left hemisphere with the right and vice versa. Because one is adept at analytical issues and the other at abstract and creative concepts, overworking either one trips a “time out” switch that stalls our efforts. It is then time to move on to something else – for me the more opposite the diversion, the better. Gardening, designing a website, doing house chores all reset (or reboot as us nerds call it) my brain so I can go back to my bags or parasols with a fresh perspective.

It is important for every creative artist to find their most effective distraction. For some like me, it is something as opposite the creative arts as possible, i.e. something that engages logic, calculations or chores. For others it is turning to the inspiration found in their fellow artist’s projects, however they are found on the internet, through books, art galleries and of course, in the amazing patterns and designs found in nature and the universe themselves. It does not matter how or where you find the source, the important thing is you expand your awareness to include something else in this universe that will refresh your mind and eventually allow you to return to the project and either complete it or move on.

Remember, everything in nature – and we all are a part of nature – is cyclic. Every person, place, project and thing has its time to bloom, and pushing it when it isn’t ready or the time is not ready for it, does both you and your project a disservice.