If You Write Online...

I have been reading alot of people's blogs lately and visiting alot of online shops of hardworking, independent artists. I have found some really incredible talent, both in arts and crafts, and writing. My grid has grown to 78 squares and counting...just 12 away from my goal. Check it out, click around...you'll find big talent there, and nice folks.

These are people whose websites I like, who work hard and do a good job at it. However, there are many who are floundering elsewhere. Why? My Grid project isn't the key. I just happen to find good talent and put it on there. They've done all the work.

The key to success online is simply to pay attention. Proofreading is your best friend. My biggest pet peeves when I am shopping online (I love to buy handmade!), are: bad spelling, bad punctuation, bad grammar, bad pictures, and bad desriptions. So if you have a store online, and want to improve (hey, we all start somewhere, and we all make mistakes), read on.

Please, please, please, use spell check if you know you can't spell. I stop reading a blog, website, or shop if there are more than a few spelling errors. I realize we all occasionally miss one here and there. More than five is just irritating.

Please do not end sentences with question marks and do not end questions with periods. Enough said.

We all start sentences with prepositions. My high school english teachers would have a fit. However, when I say bad grammar, I mean blatently BAD grammar. Grammar from the wrong side of the tracks includes putting extra commas in there (or not enough), crazy long sentences, or super short ones that aren't a complete thought. Basically, read your writing aloud the way you wrote it. If you are not e.e. cummings, write the way you speak. Don't try too hard, just write the way you naturally talk, and you will be fine, I promise.

Now, if you are selling your handmade wares online, remember, we need to see and know about what it is!! Good pictures are so important. Take them outside, if you can, either mid morning or late afternoon for good lighting. Overcast days are especially good for pictures as well. Use a tripod. You don't need a fancy camera, just get a $15 tripod so you don't shake (we all do). Out of focus pictures are a deal breaker. Please, please take your pictures from several angles or take enough to show every feature of what you are selling.

Last, but certainly not least, describe what you are selling. I want to know what it is, how big it is, what it is made from, and any special features it has. If it is a body product, tell me what it is for and how to use it. If it is jewelry, tell me what stones and metals are in it. Basically, tell me what I am buying. Leave out the froo-froo stories that have nothing to with the item. The nitty gritty information with a little flair is enough.

Hope that helps someone out there!! Good luck, and happy writing!

New Tattoo

In a perfect world, I would already be an accomplished tattoo artist. Probably partially covered in beautiful, meaningful, colorful tattoos. Of course, in a truly ideal world, I would live next door to a well thought of tattoo parlor, in dire need of an apprentice, that was willing to pay me a six digit salary a year to learn. Ahhh, in a perfect world...

Alas, it cannot be, and my dreams of learning this fine art will have to wait a little longer, In the meantime, I have gotten great joy from listening to some vague, or sometimes very specific, idea someone has for a tattoo they want, and being able to draw the design for them. I may not be able to actually tattoo it yet, but at least its my art. My latest one, for a lovely girl in Minnesota, who was VERY specific about what she wanted:

New work!

Memorial Day weekend is historically pretty eventful for me. This year's marks the third year I have lived in Kentucky, since Sierra and I moved here this weekend in 2005. It was a weekend of friends and family, and I spent every day since Thursday night catching up with someone different. We built a fire pit in the yard and tried to remember why we hadn't done it already. We then burned everything in the garage that was garbage and would burn, along with actual wood, and remembered the joy that is setting things on fire (disclaimer: daydream art studios and its representatives are not responsible for any arson as a result of this blog post. Do not burn things without an adult present. If you are an adult, but do not act like one, burn at your own risk). We drank together, cooked out together, and good times were had by all. And, even with all that fun, I still squeezed in some actual new work. I finished a custom painting, finished the outline of a custom tattoo design, and made an kid's craft apron from things I had laying around the house.

Interview of the week: Melissa Hart, aka catscradle

This week I interviewed Melissa Hart, from catscradle.etsy.com, and found more about this fellow Fabulous Artistic Mom. She is a nature lover, mom of four, talented jewlery artist and breast cancer philanthropist. So pull up a chair and sit in our our coffee talk:

Corinne: Where do you get your inspiration?

Melissa: I do what feels right to me. Some inspiration comes from what I like to wear, and some comes from nature.

Corinne: You call yourself a “southern gal” living in the north. Where do you call home these days?

Melissa: A quiet little town called Ellenburg Depot in the northeast corner of New York state.

Corinne: Do you spend a lot of time outdoors with your kids? It seems all your jewelry is very nature-inspired.

Melissa: I actually prefer to play indoors with my kids--I have two who enjoy playing piano and two who enjoy cooking with me. I like to dream about gardening--we're planning on planting a veggie garden with the kids and I'm working out details for a flower garden as well. I love the colors and shapes nature offers.

I enjoy spending time with my family. If I had to choose an outing, I would spend the day with my husband and our four kids--at the zoo! We all have a wonderful time when we go to the zoo; the kids are always looking to learn something new and my husband and I take advantage of the wonderful photo opportunities.

Corinne: are a lot of jewelers selling their things online. What do you think sets you apart from your competition?

Melissa: I create pieces that I have fun with; if I don't have fun with it, you won't see it in my shop. I feel that each piece I create has a unique buyer and the right buyer will eventually come along.

Corinne: That’s a great attitude! Your style is very young and hip, while still maintaining an elegance. What do you contribute that to?

Melissa: I'm always looking at what's selling in the mainstream and make my own jewelry loosely based on current styles.

Corinne: What materials are you drawn to working in?
Melissa: Silver- or gold-plated copper with glass and natural stone, but I'm extending my sterling silver usage.

Corinne: What piece of yours is your favorite right now?

Melissa: I have two favorites; the carnelian butterfly brooch and a spring-y two-strand necklace with a red jasper cab.

Corinne: One of my favorite things in your shop are these silver stardust turquoise earrings. What is silver stardust? I am enchanted by the hoops but can't quite tell what they are.

Melissa: Stardust is a term that refers to the texture of the hoops. It almost looks like it was rubbed with coarse sandpaper.

Corinne: I find your ACEO’s really interesting also. I noticed this is a pretty popular thing on Etsy. Can you tell me more about these?
Melissa: ACEO is also called ATC. ACEO is "Art Cards, Editions and Originals" and ATC is "Artist Trading Cards." I plan on integrating ACEOs with my greeting cards at first, then maybe selling them as stand-alone pieces of art. I also have several series in mind right now.

Corinne: What do you do to get over creative block or to take a break from creating?

Melissa: I browse the internet, get caught up on e-mail and visit discussion forums.

Corinne: Anything else you want people to know?

Melissa: I've been working with beads for nearly 10 years now, starting with creating rosaries for my parish bookstore. I have extending my bead-working to creating jewelry including bracelets, earrings and necklaces. I am continually looking to learn and perfect new techniques to further expand my line. I hope to begin offering rings in the near future.

Corinne: Do you have a website or blog in addition to your etsy shop?

Melissa: My website is http://www.catscradlecreations.com and my blog is http://blog.catscradlecreations.com. I also have a patterns site at http://patterns.catscradlecreations.com where I post free crochet and knitting patterns.

See Melissa’s jewelry in her Etsy shop: www.catscradle.etsy.com

Hell's Kitchen or The Muppets?

I watch Hell's Kitchen religiously. Every week this season, I laugh and laugh when Matt is mad about something. Why? I keep picturing him as the Muppet's chef...grumble grumble grumble. Maybe with a little of the balcony guy thrown in too, for grouchiness. Am I the only one who sees it?

Top 5 Reasons to Buy Handmade

5. Personal attention. How good is customer service at your favorite discount chain? How about when you shop online at any corporate run site? Do they really care if you're happy once they've made the sale? Do they know your name? Will they resize jewelry that is too big or small even if it isn't expensive? Buy handmade and chances are, the seller will.

4. Pride in the details. How often do you get something poorly made? Buy from somebody who cares how their product is made.

3. Your money goes to someone who needs it and appreciates it. Any large corporation could do with or without our business, lets face it. Someone will always shop with them. When it comes to buying gifts, who would you rather give your hard earned money to?

2. Custom work, like Etsy's alchemy. Why have someone tell you what you want? Here, you put a free posting on what you want, which could be vague and open to ideas for the impossible to shop for, or super specific, and how much you are willing to spend. Then, artists tell you what they can do in your price range. I use this for gifts and end up getting things I never would have thought of!

1. Have something noone else has! Don't we all like to own something noone else can get? When you buy handmade, you may pay slightly more (and you may not!), but thousands of other people don't have the same thing. Really, how cool is that?

Pay it Forward- The Etsy Revolution

The newest trend in online shopping- Pay it Forward, where sellers on the handmade items site Etsy are giving away their art and crafts and only charging the listing and shipping fees. Is it an exercise in philanthropy or just another marketing ploy? At this point, the jury is still out. My inner optimist wants to think that everyone just wants to do some good, and even if it is just a small thing, in great numbers can make a big impact. So far, the movement continues to grow towards great numbers, and more and more PIF (pay it forward) items are being listed everyday. I have searched "pay it forward" on Etsy, and found everything from clearance items to prayers that will be said on your behalf to really great handmade gifts. Some of my favorites:

The purse is one of several similar handmade purses listed by heidimonkey.etsy.com, and the glass earrings are a one of a kind item listed by debrasdesigns.etsy.com. I, myself have listed, and "sold" three pay it forward bracelets this week, and "bought" a purse from heidimonkey. The only requirements to "buy" an item is to either list a pay it forward item in your own shop, if you have one, or to promise to pay it forward, and commit to a random act of kindness for someone. The latter acts on faith, of course, and truly represents the movement as it was intended.

The hard question still remains, though, and the cynic inside me is bothered by it. How many of these sellers are just using this guise of philanthropy to get cheap publicity? Several PIF's listed are not items at all, but a prayer. In exchange for the listing fee (currently $0.20), a prayer circle that several sellers proclaim to belong to will get an instant message to drop what they are doing when you make your purchase and pray for world peace. A beautiful thought, but are they really doing it? Who knows? Does it matter? That is for the buyer to decide. Another thing to consider is that it does get the listing seller free publicity for little to no effort. At the best, you are getting a group prayer for world peace, at the worst, you are essentially paying Etsy $0.20 to visit the particular seller's shop.

Some sellers also see it as a way of trading, which may be what inspired this movement in the first place. Trading is already a favorite pastime of many Etsy sellers, including myself, and the listings for a trade are usually priced at $0.20, so Etsy gets their cut, but saves sellers on commission charges for items they aren't actually charging money for. It's a fun way to get handmade goodies in exchange for items you already make. It is also a great way for new sellers to gain that much-coveted positive feedback.

I will continue to partipate in the PIF movement on Etsy with the greatest faith that it is, at the root, a good thing. As with anything, not everyone's heart will be in the right place, and that is a risk, or a leap of faith, every seller takes when placing things in their shop to give away to someone they have never met. In great numbers, I still believe that it can make an impact.