Frontpage by Munieca

Munieca put my scratching cards in a treasury and it made the frontpage.
Yaelfran told me it was there - luckily otherwise I would have missed it!
Kreativlink send me this printscreen.
Do check out the shops of these great artists! Incredible what a boost the frontpage does to your shop. In a short period of time, I had 435 more views on my scratching cards and lot more visitors & hearts in my shop too. YAY!

Background

Thought about changing the background of my photo's in my Etsy-shop. It's really hard to photograph some colors (like red) on a dark background because this absorbs so much of the color. It doesn't give the customer a right sense of the item and that has been bugging me for a long time now.
It is a huge job to change it all but I think it's worth it.
I don't like too many different backgrounds as I think it looks a bit messy. There's no way to switch items around on Etsy, so if you use different backgrounds, they are always mixed up.
I have done it for some of my greetingcards already.
You can see the difference here:








Now I just need enough bright days to do more photograpy...

Dawanda

Since I have been too tired to create anything new lately, I decided to set up a shop on Dawanda, the European Etsy.
Curious how things work on Dawanda.
First of all, I find listing the items very slow. I don't really know why it takes such a long time to list an item. I really have to get used to it. Refreshing a page takes ages. I don't think that's to blame on my computer since it's fairly new and we also have a fast internetconnection.
Second everthing is priced in euro's which I find an absolute advantage. Especially with the dollarrates it's really hard to set and keep prices.
Third, on Dawanda it shows more statistics on the items you have listed - I like that feature a lot! Not only that, but people are able to leave a comment on an item you have listed. That way you get feedback from customers and other sellers on a specific item.
I did not make any new items for Dawanda. I just used the ones I have on Etsy and cross my fingers they won't sell at the same time! ;)

Barbapapa

A few days ago I joined 'We love Etsy' and 'Indiepublic'.
I use a different avatar there.
For those who are curious what the avatar is all about:

A few years ago I had to make an assignment for my ceramic evening class: as smooth as glass. Design a series of small, fluent shapes. These shapes can be part of an entity what concerns shape but it doesn't have to be the aim. The shapes need to be polished, several times to make the surface smooth as glass.
When I heard the words smooth and fluent, I immediately associated the words with the figures I remembered from my childhood: Barbapapa. I love smooth, fluent shapes.
They invite to touch. There are no sharp edges.
My shapes have been 'naked raku' fired. A technique where at first you give the shape a very thin layer of clay slib, in this case it was a gray slib and then you put the glaze on top of that layer. The shape is fired in an oven with a maximum temperature until 880°C. Then one takes the shape out of the oven and sprinkles it with drops of water. The glaze breaks and when the shape has cooled down, it can be removed. You then have a matt piece of ceramic.
Would you like to read more about Barbapapa en Co?
Have a look at: http://www.barbapapa.fr/

Survey results

Here are the results of the survey:

95% of my blog visitors found me on the forum
5% of my blog visitors found me some other way

That means I spend way to much time on the Etsy-forum-threads. :)

Frontpage

Danielle from Etsy labs and http://preciouspups.etsy.com/ included me in a treasury full of newbies, a few days ago.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it on the frontpage a day or two later!

Never had so many visitors in my shop in such a short period of time.
I was actually a bit shocked!

The scatching cards surely have been noticed now! ;)

For Felting Freaks

A little while ago, I got this beautiful book as a present.

It's a book which is written in English and Dutch and it's an absolute must for all those 'felting freaks'.

It has wonderful photography, decribes the process of felting and gives some great felting artists a chance to show their work.

It is written by Ria van Els-Dubbelaar. She is a passionate creator of textile art and feels equally enthusiastic about passing on her art and skills to others.

You can order this book here: http://www.zijdarbook.com/shantoeng/catalogus/Products.asp?PGID=598
If you live in Belgium, they sell it in this shop too: http://www.debanier.be/