I have 6 sales!!!

Well, I am finally starting to make some sales from Etsy after all this work and I am so happy. It has taken forever to figure out how to get my shop looking good. I had to totally change my photography style. Unfortunately because the typical icon display in Etsy is so small, my gold fabric background just wasn't working. I switched out to photographing against a simple deerskin and the results were much more dramatic. Here are some examples of the old and new style. This is actually a burgundy mask in one picture and a purple in the other, but it shows the background difference

I also had to really learn my camera to actually make decent pictures. Of course the first thing I really learned about my camera was that it didn't really want to do, what I wanted it to do (grrr). I figured out how to use the white balance function which helped a lot to make the color true to life, as well as how to bracket automatically, and shoot with a delayed timer so that my hand wouldn't shake the camera when I pressed the button. I'm starting to be really happy with the results.

Anyway, so I have been trying to promote my shop heavily, and keep looking for more ways to get out there. I was having nothing really happening at all until this week/weekend when I finally started selling and have sold 4 more masks and some earrings on top of the first mask sale before Halloween. I definitely feel validated now, and really believe this is going to work if I can just keep growing it.

I'm going to have to raise my prices though because they really are too low. I have been ordering work from other successful mask makers on line, and it has been really interesting to see the pieces as they come in. It has actually made me feel really good in general, because it has validated that my work is good quality. However they are charging half again, to twice what I am for most of their stuff. I decided that Christmas would be my changeover and that I would add $10 to the price of all the masks.

Anyway, probably better get back to bed. Tomorrow will be a big day of learning how to ship something internationally.

Hope everyone has a great day.

My Etsy Shop Critiqued

I had the wonderful experience of getting my Etsy Shop critiqued by one of the Etsy administrators named HeyMichelle today. Etsy has a really cool feature where they have a Virtual Lab where you can go to have live interactions with other Etsy users and with administrators

Wow, so much to tell!

Well, it has been an amazing month so far.

My husband and I have actually created a real workspace for me in one corner of our kitchen, in the hope that I will no longer take over the entire kitchen and living room with my crafting. Here is a picture.

It has really helped a lot to keep the house cleaner.

We also cleaned out the garage and created a real plaster working area, as well as getting my cool spray paint booth that my husband built vented to the outside of the house.

Lat weekend I also did my first craft show with three of my favorite friends. We went down to Driftwood, and exhibited in La Ventana. The drive was really lovely, and it was a beautiful day, however the craft show itself was a bust. We sold very little because I think it was just the wrong audience for our stuff. Our display looked wonderful though. Here are some pictures.

Here are the wonderful scarves that Katrina knitted.

And here are pillows from my friend Amy Brumley. You can visit her blog here for more wonderful crafts and recipes

And these adorable pillows were from my friend Cherie. I felt like my set up was pretty bland in comparison, but oh well.

The really good thing about doing the craft show was that I was finally able to put together some of the jewelry ideas that had been percolating in my head. It is mostly just earrings right now, but I am slowly adding other types of jewelry. I'm putting them up for sale on Etsy, one or two every day. I did sell a couple of pairs at the craft show, and several to the ladies in my Bible study.

I also was able to finish a mask for my friend Betsy for the big Austin Shakespeare Luminalia last weekend. It is a little more girly than my other masks, but it was fun to use lace for the first time. Sorry, the pictures are not the best quality.

Apparently they got a lot of notice, and they were sweet enough to hand out cards for me, and so it made me feel really good.

So I am currently looking at 2 more craft shows, a bunch of Christmas performing, and trying to promote myself on Etsy. Lots of fantastic things happening.

More soon.

My First Etsy Sale and Treasury.

Well it has been an exciting couple of weeks. I managed to make it through the Halloween rush unscathed, although there were a lot of late, late nights involved. I didn't even get sick, which I thought I would after spending so any cold nights out selling masks at Scare for a cure. We did really well though, sold a bunch of masks and handed out even more cards.

So now I am working toward a craft show in mid November that is out in La Ventana, which is a gated community south of town. What is really exciting for me is that I have gotten three of my friends to do it with me, and each bring their unique arts. I'm planning on bring out some leather jewelry at the show, and so I have been working on cuffs and earrings, and learning more about leatherwork.

In the mean time, I have been trying to clean up the house, and create a real workplace for myself, so that I am not always dominating every horizontal surface with craft. My husband is very appreciative of this effort.

In other news, I made my first Etsy sale. I shipped off a superhero mask just before Halloween, and the woman was very pleased with it and left me fabulous feedback.

My Greek Goddess Mask was also chosen for an Etsy treasury called Believe by misfitchic. Woohoo, my very first treasury!

I hope to have some jewelry pictures soon, and some of the new workspace.

Have a great week!