WindysDesigns

What is Handmade?

2012-01-09T01:27:00.000-05:00

Nope, not the age old debate about "my handmade is more handmade than yours", but a deeper look into what it means to me and my view on society's take on it.

Recently, the topic of 'resellers' invading the handmade artisan community has come to point where some of us feel that something needs to be done about it.

What is a reseller? well, generally speaking, just about any store you can think of is a reseller. They buy inventory from a wholesale source and resell it to the public. In and of itself, it's not a bad thing. It's the way commerce works. From Wal-Mart to Macy's virtually everything comes from a factory of some sort and is produced in mass quantities. Some things carry a 'handmade' label, such as embroidered slippers from Indonesia. We're not talking a few women in their homes, we're talking whole villages of people cranking out X number of items per day. Their weekly salary is often less than our hourly minimum wage. The conditions are not always sanitary or safe, and very often young children have to work under these conditions in order for a family to make ends meet.

I don't tell you this to get you riled up, or start a movement to boycott these products or companies, but to point out the different definitions of handmade.

Recently, within the last 5-6 years the "Handmade Movement" emerged onto the scene. It really isn't such a new concept, lots of people have been making their own clothes and their children's for many years. People have been raising livestock such as sheep, rabbits, llamas and alpacas for their fiber for commercial purposes for hundreds of years, many of them kept a portion for their own use to spin into fiber and then construct into garments for their friends and family and to sell to local folks. Co-ops where groups of people grow their own fruits, vegetables, grain and meat to trade, barter or sell.

Craft shows and flea markets have been around forever, where people make and sell their own furniture, soaps, clothing, accessories, jewelry, as well as items they've collected over the years.

To those who don't belong to this segment of society, handmade is a novelty, or a completely unknown concept. With the introduction of the internet, handmade has gotten a lot more attention, mostly by other crafters as they can now gather from across the world and converse with others who share their handmade ethos. They can gather in virtual markets and sell their wares. Undoubtedly, this is the largest market for handmade products, as very few can fully appreciate the time, skill and quality of handmade like another crafter or artisan. The added exposure has increased awareness, certainly, but I think it's still a novelty or an unknown to the general masses.

Education has helped, but education is a double edged sword. It might convert a few non cratty types to appreciate and purchase handmade products, but it also gives the do-it-yourselfer the means to try their hand at crafting and selling. I think the crafting pool has grown larger, faster than the buying pool. And then there's that reseller issue. Finding a formerly untapped market, resellers begin to label their things as handmade, and due to their lower prices, sometimes lower quality, and their ability to flood the market with their mass produced goods, it is squeezing the crafters and artisans out of their market. Now we're faced with what to do about it.

It's pretty obvious that we're never going to escape the resellers, they will encroach on every market they can, using whatever tactics they have to in order to compete with us. It's a dilemma that handmade marketplaces are now facing. It's not just that resellers are encroaching on our territory, but that they are misrepresenting their items as handmade when they're not, undercutting our prices, copying our pictures to represent their items and often duplicating the exact items of some handcrafters. I think most of us can accept competition when both sides play fairly, but not when one side cheats.

It not only hurts us by taking away business, but the deception to the customer is just as serious. Certainly there are people who don't really care whether or not something is handmade, as long as it's what they want at the price they want to pay. That's fine, commercial items have their place and their market. But what about the person who wants to support handmade and they are fooled into thinking that they are purchasing a handmade item only to find out it is mass produced in another country? How do we protect them? How do we educate them before they make that purchase? And if they are fooled, how do we repair the lost trust?

There aren't really any magic solutions to this problem, it will be an ongoing project for us to educate the buying public. And there will always be those who don't care.

If I can enlighten one person, or give them pause, or encourage them to be a more informed consumer, then I have done my job. It's more than I expect, but everything I hope for.

Artfire: A dollar and a dream?

2012-01-08T00:01:00.002-05:00

What is Artfire you ask? Well, up until a few monthss ago I would have said a selling platform for handmade, vintage, supplies and commercial resellers. A fairly nice place that has some pretty cool tools, great educational discussions in the forums and lots of help on things like taking photographs, writing good listing descriptions and Search Engine Optimization.

Now? It's a bug filled selling platform whose seller populations went from 80,000 to 15,000 in just a few short months, and they are losing sellers daily. That's a lot of sellers to lose, don't you think? First, in August of 2011, they kicked off over 40,000 basic sellers. Basic accounts were free for sellers, with limited tools but unlimited listings. The idea to increase from a dozen listings to unlimited was to bring traffic to the site. The more things you have out there on google and other search engines people use to find things, the better the chances of them finding something listed on Artfire and thereby bringing a prospective customer to the site.

Except in April when Google changed their algorithms and started to punish websites with a lot of ads and duplicate content, they decided they'd better do something about all those basic shops that were full of ads (to generate some revenue since they weren't paying anything for their studio) and mostly empty, unattended or full of stuff sellers had listed primarily on other venues. The decision was to get rid of them. Ostensibly, the premise behind the free basic studios was to get people to upgrade. Artfire had offered several special deals for discounted 'for life' rates that never seemed to generate a whole lot of interest. Except among the sellers they already had. I had signed up at an $11.95 per month rate and when the $5.95 locked in for life special came along I snapped that up. So did a lot of people who were paying more for their shops. Not exactly a money maker there.

Now, fast forward. So 40,000 + sellers are kicked off and another 20,000+ some sellers leave for whatever reason and now you have a grand total of 15,000 sellers left. And Tony the COO announces that due to a high number of complaints and shop closures (2500 consumer complaints and 800 shop closures) they have decided to offer an 'assurance plan' for prospective buyers. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? they figure it will convert all those nervous shoppers who look but don't buy and along with this program they'll also promote this program with ads to make shoppers aware of it. The premise behind it is the success of Zappos and Amazon with their liberal return policies. Except, hello, Artfie isn't Zappos or Amazon. Mostly in the most obvious of ways, Zappos isn't a handmade marketplace, and they have no 3rd party sellers. Amazon, while they have 3rd party sellers you hardly notice that because it looks like you're buying from Amazon. And they have their own payment processor whereas Artfire doesn't. They have a 3rd party payment processor and then sellers can take additional methods like Paypal or Amazon or Google checkout or checks or money orders. None of the payments go through Artfire at all.

Then you get to the part where when you read the fine print, you realize that the shopper is going to have to go through the seller first to resolve any complaint, and then through the payment processor before Artfire will take over and issue that refund. guess what folks? And, there will be exceptions to the rules as well. That's been in place forever already, it's nothing new. As a matter of fact, most sellers will work with you to your satisfaction because they stand behind their business and their product and they want you to come back.

Ok, so where does the dollar come in you ask? Well, they want the sellers to fund this program. It's going to cost an additional dollar per month. The variable rate sellers will see an automatic increase in their monthly rate come February. Those who are locked in at a fixed rate will have the chance to opt out, but along with that comes penalties. First, the ads that draw in buyers will go to pages with just the sellers that offer this guarantee. They won't realize that their default for search is automatically excluding anyone who doesn't pay into this scam. I mean scheme. I mean program. Then, to make sure they catch the ones coming in from the front pages, they'll have a radio button to filter their search which will be their default until they choose to end using that filter. Pretty sneaky, eh?

Now, some of you are thinking, 'hmmmm...all this fuss over a dollar a month?' the answer to that is 'no, not actually'. What most don't know is what goes on behind closed doors. The private discussions regarding the working out of the final details and the overall implication of what this really means for their sellers. It's not simply a dollar a month more, its that Artfire is now placing itself in the midst of every seller's transactions. If they feel the customer deserves a refund, despite the seller's policies against them, or even if Paypal sides with the seller and doesn't feel a refund is warranted, in their effort to keep the customer, Artfire will offer an appeasement refund. Great for the customer, not so great for the seller. In addition, the seller will gain a black mark against them for adhering to their own policies! So many black marks and you're closed down. You can effectively be closed down because of sticking to your policies!!

Now, as if this wasn't bad enough, the forums have become a battleground. There was a lot of opposition to this program, by sellers with legitimate concerns. But their opposition was thwarting Tony from proceeding toward finalizing the details so this program is ready to roll out by February, so in an effort to quell the dissention, he started banning/muting paying sellers from participating in the forums discussing it. He refused to answer questions that were asked regarding the figures he threw out as justification for this program. Sellers wanted to know the breakdown of the 2500 complaints they received. The site has been so buggy since August, checkout problems, cart issues, listings disappearing, corrupt picture files, in house messages not going through so communication between seller and buyer is spotty at best and a host of other problems which have been mostly denied as an Artfire problem, but rather they are browser issues, computer issues, plain old user error (as in your customers are too stupid to know how to add things to their cart or check out). Many sellers were getting emails from prospective customers that they were having multiple issues and unable to complete their purchases. And Artfire blew them off.

There is a group of sellers called Mavens that allegedly are used to test new features and give feedback on usability issues and such. Most of them do a fine job and are wonderful sellers. But a select group of the same sellers have made it their mission to squelch anyone who has a problem or issue with Artfire. They gang up en masse to berate, mock, swear at and demean anyone who doesn't toe the party line. And it got worse after the warnings, mutings and bannings started, yet, they were allowed to continue while their victims, one by one, got their forum privileges taken away and their shops closed down without notice. Now that they are virtually untouchable, they have run rampant on the forums bullying and spreading their vitriol and it hit a fever pitch 2 nights ago to the point where Artfire took the whole site down.

So, the dollar and a dream has turned into a nightmare for many. Many who held out hope for venue in which to sell their products with a friendly community environment, where it used to be fostered and bragged about as a community where the staff listened and interacted with the seller base has turned into a place where sellers have to tread carefully or risk being muted or booted. The uncertainty has turned the forums into a place where this small group of mavens have the run of the place, untouched by the rules the rest have to abide by.

While I wouldn't advise anyone to not sell on a site just because of the forums, it's a good measure to see how the sellers are treated by the administration because it will touch on how they treat you as a seller in other areas. The trust has been damaged, irreparably for many. Too many of the promises made have gone unfulfilled and there is just too much double talk and double standards. Add to that, something drastic has changed on Artfire since August, along with the aesthetic site changes, there has been a drastic decrease in traffic and sales for many, many sellers.

I've downgraded my shop and it will be closed by the end of January. That is, if Artfire doesn't see fit to close it earlier. Between the bugs, the forums and the lack of sales and traffic, it's just not a viable selling venue for me any longer. And by the looks of things, it's not a viable selling site for many others either because sellers are jumping ship in droves. Just in the last few days that I've gone back and reopened my Etsy shop, and started a Team, I've had over 60 sellers join. A few will still be on Artfire because they've invested too much time and effort into their shop there to just up and leave, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they're all working on plan B so that they can eventually leave.

There are still some great sellers on Artfire, so I wouldn't ever tell someone not to shop there, but I'd advise you to check and see if they sell anywhere else. And if you want to open a shop there, do so with extreme caution, because the changes that they've mentioned that are on the horizon will be geared toward the commercial discount mentality akin to Kmart's blue light specials where you'll need to offer deep discounts to bring in traffic. And if you choose not to participate, you can bet your visibility will be diminished in one way or another.

Search out selling platforms carefully, read the fine print and if you're not sure, hang out in the forums and read and observe and watch for the signs.

Much success to all, wherever you sell!

****ADDENDUM******

It has been brought to my attention that I am spreading misinformation regarding my assessment of the site (Artfire) closing down the whole site due to the chaos in the forums. Let's look at the facts, shall we? Every notice in the announcement section of the forums has scheduled maintenance that has the same time for every session, that would be 11pm MST. Now, I wasn't looking at my clock at the time the site went down because frankly, the site goes down for unscheduled maintenance all the time. But there is your first clue, when they take the site down, it doesn't say "unscheduled maintenance" it is "scheduled maintenance". From my best recollection it was at approx 7 or 8pm MST and went offline for approx 1 hour. It came back afterward for approx 1 hour and then went off again for the scheduled maintenance that was announced. I am merely drawing logical conclusion from the timeline of events, if anyone has proof that I am not accurate in my assessment, I'll be happy to retract my statements.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN NONE OF THE CHOICES ARE GOOD?

2010-05-20T19:41:00.001-04:00

I tend to compartmentalize issues and speak to them individually, Not that my opinion would change so much, as in the recent changes Etsy has made with regard to mature listings, but that when looking at the issues leading up to this change, more people are to blame for this change than just Etsy.

Etsy is still, in my opinion, at the very bottom of this issue since it is their lack of enforcement of their own rules that caused this. When weeding through all that led up to this action, it is clear to me that sellers pushed the envelope too far.

Since mature items have always been allowed on the site (that follow specific guidelines) and there have always been treasuries made with these items, it wasn't until recently it was viewed as a problem.

With the introduction of Suggested Shops in each Etsy user's Favorites section, supposedly based on things you mark as a favorite and those that favorite you and their favorites it has led to a flurry of discussions. First about it all being big sellers and Etsy favorite sellers, then about the items not appealing to a given user. Then it turned to objectionable items; ie mature. If this feature had been thought out a little better, it would have enabled each user to, at the very least, delete shops that didn't appeal to their tastes so that new ones would replace it. And although the feature is supposed to change daily, as it stands now, in my own list, very little has changed except for the ones I marked as a personal favorite are now not showing. I still have the same shops, shuffled around a bit, and a couple of new ones to replace the ones I marked.

Because of the lack of an option to delete and the generally static list of shops, now users with objectionable material in theirs are not able to avoid it. So, they go to the forums and voice their opinions, calling out mature sellers of certain items.

In retaliation, mature sellers and their supporters go to that wonderful new feature called Treasury East, where anyone can make as many treasuries as they want any time they want and they never expire. They put up a full page of treasuries of mature items and because of the controversy, they remain on the first page due to the 'hotness' factor.

Mature objectors are now becoming more vocal in the forums, because now not only is there a link on the front page to the Treasury East but the default first page is full of 'hot' treasuries full of mature listings. Some sellers feel, and I think they have a point, that some people are going to be offended, especially if that is their first exposure to the site.

The skirmishes in the forums led to using the Treasury East as a battleground in full public view. Despite the fact that some items did not fit the rules of the site, treasury curators used them, probably as a shock factor to make their point. Escalation was inevitable and Etsy had to jump in and try to manage some sort of damage control.

I think the childish behavior displayed by both sides of this issue forced Etsy into making a hasty decision. As far as I'm concerned, nobody looked at the long term effect of their actions, not the objectors, not the mature sellers/supporters and certainly not Etsy.

Sellers complain all day long that Etsy doesn't vet their front page features, but for some reason fail to comprehend the treasury curators responsibility in the equation. If they vetted their choices, it stands to reason when Admin picks a treasury for the front page, it will already be in compliance with site rules. Because Treasury East was used as a platform to air disagreements and not the promotional tool it was intended for, it is now going to be more restrictive.

I'd love to place the full blame on Etsy, since if they just enforced their rules regarding mature listings, none of this would be an issue, certainly not of the proportions it has reached currently. Nothing has really changed except for the Suggested Favorites addition and the Treasury East. Logic would indicate to me, that if all other things have remained the same, the problem is likely with these two changes. Then you would have to look at what the common problem is, which is the presence of thumbnail pictures that have the potential to offend. That same image, by Etsy rules, should be G-rated for all audiences. Enforce compliance and this becomes a non-issue.

All of this aside, it does not excuse the childish behavior of the sellers. What did they think would happen when the Treasury East was used as a battleground? Did anyone ever stop and think that their actions might bring about consequences they didn't expect? Did anyone look beyond their own offended nose to consider what might happen? I'm guessing not.

Keep poking the tiger and he eventually will bite you.

Do I agree with Etsy's choice in how to handle mature items? No, I do not. I'd much prefer they enforce their rules. Do I think sellers got what they deserved? Yes I do, unfortunately. I think they pushed too far in this instance and it backfired on them.

ETSY YOU'RE GETTING HARD TO DEFEND

2010-05-19T16:09:00.000-04:00

It never fails, the minute I defend Etsy on one count, they do something so utterly stupid and illogical I wonder why I even bother. Today they announced this, apparently in response to several forum threads regarding the new Treasury East and a number of treasuries depicting mature items.

So now, those sellers who don't bother to follow the rules regarding mature listings have now ruined it for the ones that do.

So, for Etsy site search you can 'opt out' of mature listings in your results, but in treasuries you have to 'opt in'. But if you're not following the rules and don't tag mature, your item won't be filtered out and if you also haven't modified your thumbnail to be appropriate, then voila, your item appears to exactly the person who conscientiously tried to filter you out, opting in doesn't really make sense because they'd be there anyway. But the default would exclude them.......again, only if they follow the listing criteria.

Etsy, you have literally just endorsed not complying with the mature listing rules, did you know that? If someone following the rules is punished because of the rule breakers and nothing is done to those who break the rules, what do you think the end result of that is going to be?

Take down the listings and treasuries that break the rules! You made the rules regarding mature listings, why don't you just enforce them instead of a useless filter that anyone can bypass?????????? Punish the rule breakers for once and not the ones following the rules.

Big Fat Etsy Fail!!!!!!!!!!!

When You Let Everyone Play...Nobody Wins

2010-05-06T16:36:00.001-04:00

As if the reseller problems aren't bad enough, Etsy's claim that 'hand assembled' equals 'handmade' has hit an all time low.

I understand the reasoning behind allowing the assemblage of commercially made products under the definition of handmade, but it is my belief that in doing so, it has opened the doors to so much abuse, that when looking at Etsy, it's difficult for the truly handmade to stand out.

Every time I see that Ladders commercial, with everyone running out of the stands onto the tennis court, I automatically think of Etsy. "If everyone is allowed to play then nobody wins".

By Etsy lowering the bar on what constitutes handmade, they have diluted (and polluted) the pool.

When someone who buys mass produced knitted or crocheted hats and clips or glues on a mass produced embellishment is considered to be just as handmade as someone's hand knitted or crocheted hat with handmade embellishments, then something is seriously wrong.

Just today I ran across commercial Pandora Beads on commercial Pandora Bracelets listed under handmade jewelry. Apparently, because someone put those beads on that bracelet with their hands, it is now deemed handmade according to Etsy standards. Pretty low standards if you ask me.

I've been saying since the tagline 'Your Place to Buy and Sell All Things Handmade' was removed (under the guise of it not being inclusive of Vintage and commercial supplies) that it was a bad omen. Etsy is no longer the place for handmade, and though it has never been officially noted, it appears that it's new tag line is more along the lines of a 'global marketplace'.

It was once argued that handmade was not in competition with big box companies. That we are not Walmart, but guess again because big box is selling right along side you now with Etsy's blessings.

Many will argue that it's difficult to draw the line. I say hogwash. If integrity and handmade ethos were important enough to Etsy, they would draw that line and enforce it. It's much easier to change the tag line to be all inclusive of what now is on Etsy than it would be to raise their standards and weed out what does not belong.

Too bad, so sad for those of us that joined years ago believing that Etsy was the Holy Grail for handmade artisans and crafters.

I could rant on forever, but the Ladders commercial really says it all.

THE NEW ETSY THEME SONG!!!!!!!!

2010-04-27T16:35:00.001-04:00

From Meatloaf's song lyrics Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back
(certain liberties have been taken by this author)

I want my money back
Say it like you mean it
I want my money back
I'm gonna rock your world

(chorus - hey - hu - hey)

It's all or nothing
And nothing's all I ever get
Everytime I turn it on
I burn it up and burn it out

It's always something
There's always something going wrong
That's the only guarantee
That's what this is all about

It's a never ending attack (ha)
Everything's a lie and that's a fact
Etsy is a lemon and I want my money back!

And all the Admins
And all the techies with their stats
They're the ones who make the rules
It's not a game it's just a rout

There's desperation (there's desperation)
There's desperation in the air
It leaves a stain on all your clothes
And no detergent gets it out

And we're always slipping thru the cracks (slipping)
Then the movie's over fade to black
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money...

I want my money back
(Etsy's a lemon) what
(Etsy's a lemon) what about it
I want my money back
(Etsy's a lemon)

What about the site?
It's Defective!
It's always breaking in half

What about categories?
It's Defective!
It's never built to really last

What about search?
It's Defective!
All the batteries are shot

What about tags?
They're Defective!
All the parts are out of stock

What about SEO?
It's Defective!
It's corroded and decayed

What about faith?
It's Defective!
It's tattered and it's frayed

What about your Admins?
They're Defective!
They forgot the warranty

What about your shop?
It's Defective!
It's a dead end street to me

What about your answers?
It's Defective!
It's a pack of useless lies

What about your work?
It's Defective!
It's a crock and then you die

What about your sales history?
It's Defective!
It's dead and buried in the past

What about your future?
It's Defective!
You can shove it up your ass!!!

It's all or nothing
And nothing's all I ever get
Every time I turn it on
I burn it up and burn it out

It's a never ending attack
Everything's a lie and that's a fact
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money...

Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon (and I want) and I want (and I want) and I want my money back

Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon and I want my money back
Etsy's a lemon
And I want
And I want
And I want
And I want my money back!

10 THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE SELLING ON ETSY

2010-04-15T19:32:00.000-04:00

Recently I've been in contact with a number of old classmates (Yeah Sweethome Class of 74'!!) who, upon noticing my Etsy Shop, have asked me about selling there.

After nearly 4 years on the site, what do I tell them? Without going into the gory details, the struggles, and all the hard work, I've decided to come up with a list of things to keep in mind if you want to sell on Etsy.

1. Look around the site, particularly the categories you want to list in. Read the rules regarding what is allowed on the site. I would recommend staying away from the forums. It is a huge time suck, and 99% of the questions you may have can be answered by reading the FAQ's. If you can't find an answer to your question and you know someone else on the site with a shop, send them a message. You can also send an email to support#etsy.com, though the wait time on answers can be long.

2. Etsy is a place to buy handmade, vintage and supplies. Understand that handmade encompasses everything from obtaining your own raw materials and processing them yourself into a finished product to commercially, mass produced items 'put together' to form a finished product. Vintage is anything (and I mean anything) that is 20 years old, or older. Supplies can either be commercially made, or handmade. This is the only place that mass produced items belong, as long as they are a craft supply that is used in the making of a finished product.

3. Etsy has a hard time enforcing their own rules. The handmade ethos has kind of flown out the window. You can still find wonderful handmade products by talented artisans, but the site is also overrun with resellers selling mass produced clothing, jewelry and handbags (among other things) so this has tainted many a seller and buyer's experience.

4. Etsy has it's own idea of what is popular. Etsy has a reputation for being 'hipster'. That's ok folks, I never heard of that term before either. Consequently, the shops that have that cool, edgy, urban vibe tend to be the ones that get face time on Etsy.

5. Etsy plays favorites. Because of this tendency toward favoring a certain look and feel, there is a lot of repetition with front page features and blog articles of the same people and the same items. Some people have made the front page hundreds of times, often multiple times daily and weekly.

6. Etsy is clunky, From the listing process, to search, to checkout. It takes 5 pages to list an item. If you don't hit 'finish' you lose your listing to the inactive section. Choosing categories and tags is difficult because the category system setup is illogical. Tags are subjective so tag abuse is rampant which messes up the search. Paypal is your only option for credit card payments and is not integrated with Etsy, so people can 'buy' an item and take it out of your shop (goes into sold section) without actually paying for it. Sure, you can relist the item and cancel the transaction to get a refund on your listing and final value fees and try and hunt your customer down to try and find out if they just changed their mind or they can't figure out how to pay.

7. Etsy does no outside advertising. Etsy has always espoused the 'viral marketing' concept. You tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on. Etsy sellers are expected to advertise for themselves which in turn brings more customers to Etsy. Most of the articles written about Etsy and features done by people such as Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray and The View have emphasized the selling aspect more than the buying aspect and as a result, there are over 200,000 shops on Etsy and more than 5 million listings. While Etsy may have a measure of built in foot traffic, don't count on it as a way to make consistent sales. Especially if you're not one of the 'chosen few' that Etsy likes to feature.

8. Etsy is not really cheap. Sure, each listing is .20 for 4 months. Sounds like a bargain, doesn't it? Until you realize that sellers have learned to game the system by renewing listings daily, at a cost of .20 per renewal. Why would people do that if a listing lasts 4 months? Because Etsy search is based on recency and not on relevancy. So prepare to absorb or tack on an extra dollar or two to each item you list so that you can renew items often. Just remember, thousands of other sellers are also renewing all the time so it's constant pile on that you're never on top of for more than a few seconds. The final value fee is 3.5% of the selling price. Pretty reasonable until you read #9.

9. Etsy has no tools for you to offer sales, discounts, gift certificates or coupon codes. Sure, you can work around most of these things by having the customer send you a convo before purchasing so you can adjust a listing to reflect a discount, but that is tedious and time consuming and really deters those impulse purchases. You can refund them the amount of the discount price via Paypal, but you will still pay the final value fee on the sold price, not the discounted price.

10. Etsy does not 'care' about you. There is a common misconception that Etsy is a community of sellers who support each other and that Etsy is our friend. While up to a point it may be true, Etsy is first and foremost a business and their first priority is to make money and be profitable. They have investors and venture capital. This means that at some point, these investors want to see a return on their investment. It also means that at some point Etsy will go public. They will do what they have to to continue to make money, even if those of us who use Etsy disagree with their choices. We can suggest and request for the things we want, but ultimately Etsy will decide if and when they will implement any given suggestion. This is logical for most, but for others it has been a bitter pill to swallow to realize that Etsy is not their 'friend'.

Does that mean that I don't recommend Etsy? no, not at all. If you can accept it for what it is, keep your expectations reasonable, diversify so that you have other outlets in which to sell and realize that selling anywhere, regardless of how much foot traffic they have, requires work on your part then you should have minimal frustrations with Etsy.

ETSY, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

2010-04-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

I was waiting for the March weather report to confirm my suspicions regarding the 'low view, low sales' threads that have been overtaking the Etsy forums for the last month or so. I don 't doubt that some are experiencing a drop in sales and/or views, and that Etsy and/or Google may have changed something that had an effect on this. The fact is, sales have remained steady with a slight increase, so this tells me that while some shops are definitely noticing a loss, others are noting an increase.

The thing is, I'm betting the ones who have seen an increase in sales and views have no need to come to the forums to find out why. I think that it's natural for someone to open a shop and expect sales to increase over time. People come to the forums to either connect with others or to report a problem of some sort, so I feel like this issue is being blown way out of proportion. Again, not saying that those complaining about a change for the worse are making it up or exaggerating, or that something hasn't changed, simply that the issue isn't as dire overall as the forums would indicate.

An overall observation of the forums shows multiple threads with shops reporting drastic drops in views and sales starting on specific dates in March. Most, if not all, of the threads contain the same people reporting the same information, but as they drag on, newer sellers are jumping on the bandwagon to report similar findings, some long standing sellers coming to the forums looking for a correlation to their observations of a sudden drop in views and sales, and a fair number of sellers with no real history or data chiming in just in case the reason their listings aren't seeing the kind of views they'd expect or they aren't selling like they thought they would might be the same.

Then you have Rokali announcing that they made no changes on the specific dates in March, and that Google is introducing a change to their algorithm called 'Caffeine' that may or may not be affecting all of this.

Then you have pandemonium again because now all these people who are 'complaining' are just 'whiners' and 'need to take better pictures, write better titles and descriptions and/or go elsewhere'.

Then, LisaJune opens a thread asking for sellers to post if they've experienced this phenomenal drop in sales and views originating on those specific dates in March so that the engineers can look into it. She get's to 1000 posts and the thread is closed. Of course, you have that same mix as in the other threads, some with data, some without, and plenty of twitching, head-desking and shiny distraction innuendo.

Then you have a thread started several days after LisaJune's thread was closed. Wanting to know what the results were from that thread. Nothing impatient about THIS crowd. One poor engineer reported that after looking at 20 shops in that list, only 2 showed any drop one showed a significant enough drop to mention. Of course, then you have people demanding to know what criteria was used to evaluate this, because we all know that Etsy will just skew the numbers in their favor or even outright lie about it.

Just another day in the forums, there's a problem, people demand answers, they speculate and form conspiracy theories because they don't get answered fast enough, and when they do get an answer they still aren't satisfied because it isn't what they wanted to hear. And laced throughout it all, like weaving random golden threads in a tapestry, you have your sighing, twitching, drinking, popcorn, pennies, pebbles and snide remarks about Etsy admin's maturity, hipness, intelligence, age and experience.

A few brave souls try to hang on to any kind of positivity they can and share it with the rest and they are shot down like AKA-47s firing on a colorful hot air balloon. They aren't having any of THAT! No sireee, there is "A PROBLEM" and there will be no one allowed to look for silver linings and God Forbid that someone else may not be sharing this problem. Stomp those out immediately, because they are dismissing the concerns of massive hordes of sellers who KNOW SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Etsy Dream

2010-04-06T16:29:00.000-04:00

When I joined Etsy in June 06' it was touted as THE place to buy and sell handmade. It advertised itself as a hand-built site and stressed the fact that it was different than anything else out there. Indeed.

Although I wasn't there from the very beginning, I think I came on board early enough to watch and grow along with the site. And boy has it grown. I was there when they moved from a beta site and grit my teeth along with everyone else with the bugs, setbacks, outages, slowdowns, revisions and rollouts. I knew (and still know) very little about how a site integrates with search engines, but I have come to realize that different isn't always better.

As I learn more about SEO (search engine optimization) I've come to understand that Etsy wasn't really built with that in mind. In short, if a search engine such as Google can't find you, no one using that search engine looking for products like you have will find you.

Etsy has supported odd tactics that are not used on other selling sites. And as they start to realize that this has the potential to do more harm than good, they are scrambling to become more mainstream. The problem is, people who got used to the 'old ways' and especially the ones who were successful are now starting to feel the sting.

They created a listing for .20 that lasts 4 months, yet they have a search based on most recently listed. This is fundamentally illogical. If search had always been based on relevancy, what someone was actually looking for, instead of what is most recent (and often not relevant) then the constant renewing of the same products over and over again wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately, it was a practice that caught on and likely produces significant income for Etsy and I'm sure they're loathe to change it. I don't doubt for a minute that sellers found this advantageous and now don't want to see it changed, but it never should have started in the first place.

The main focus had always been on handmade. It has veered from that dramatically as the number of vintage and commercial supply sellers has increased. I understand their inclusion as true vintage items are usually rare and unique, and certainly a site where people craft is a built in customer base for the supply sellers. However, the increase in these two categories has forced Etsy to re-evaluate their tagline from 'your place to buy and sell all things handmade' to.......who knows? This is another factor in the disillusionment many of us are facing.

Being unique is probably not a viable choice for Etsy and somewhere along the line they had to decide if they wanted to make money and grow or stay small and remain a haven for truly handmade, knowing that every seller and every buyer is there because they truly support and appreciate the handmade concept.

The recent problems we've seen, I believe, are just the tip of the iceberg. Etsy has to change it's very foundation and work it's way from the bottom up. The Etsy I joined nearly 4 years ago is very different from the Etsy today, and I have a feeling it will be unrecognizable as a 'handmade' site in another 4 years.

This realization saddens me, as I bought into the Etsy dream and vision. I had a loyalty to Etsy in the beginning, and though I was often critical and didn't always agree with the way things were done, I was always hopeful that the changes would benefit the handmade community.

JEWELRY MAKING BASICS - WIRE CONTINUED

2010-03-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

Here is what wire I use for which project, again, nothing is written in stone, my main considerations are what will fit through the bead hole, and if the wire size is in balance with the size of the stones or beads used.

For earring hooks, I generally use 20ga HH (half hard). That seems to be an all around good size for everyone's ear holes. 18ga seems a little bit of an overkill and can be too thick for piercings, and 22ga just seems to flimsy, even if you hammer it. I have used it in a pinch, especially with more delicate earrings, but it isn't my preference. Some wire resources offer 21ga which is also a good choice, but in all my years of wire working I've never purchased 21ga wire.

For beaded links, where you link beads together to make a bracelet or necklace, I generally use 22ga (HH) wire. If my beads are between, say 4mm and 8mm I think this is a good choice. Sometimes I like the look of a b it heavier wire with 8mm beads and might go up to 20ga (HH) if the bead hole allows it. The highest I have gone for linking beads is 18ga (DS) dead soft, and usually use that size for chunky, larger beads where I want a substantial silver look to it, otherwise I stick with 20ga (HH). So all in all, for bead linking I use 22ga and 20ga (HH) the most.

For fishhook/shepherd's hook clasps I pretty much use either the 18 or 16ga because I hammer them to harden them to keep their shape. I will use 20ga half hard on more delicate pieces and hammer them well to harden them, and that seems to work very well too, but I would not go any smaller than that for a clasp. You might be better off using a commercial spring ring clasp (which I will use myself).

For wrapping briolettes I try to use the largest wire that will go through the holes. Generally, gemstone holes are poorly drilled, 26 and 24ga wire are usually the best wires of choice. It's thin and can become brittle and break if overworked, so I usually recommend using DS. These are also great knitting and coiling wires, so I always have a few oz of each in my inventory. Pearls also have notoriously small holes, but I have been fortunate to be able to get 24ga wire through them without having to enlarge the hole. This is much easier to do than to try to enlarge gemstone holes and a topic I will cover later.

For headpins, again my rule of thumb is pretty much whatever will fit through the hole. Headpins should always be HH. Length is also a consideration, I don't like using short headpins, they should be at least 2" in length and longer. If you want to fit more than one bead on it you need to leave enough room to be able to make a loop and have enough 'tail' to wrap around a couple of times to make a secure wrapped loop. You can make a simple loop as shown in the beginning of this link: http://www.howtodothings.com/video/how-to-make-a-wrapped-loop-bead-tutorial but I personally never, ever use that type of open link. It's way too easy for the loop to pull apart and have your jewelry break. You can probably get away with it for earrings, since there really isn't any tension on it, but I'd never use it to link beads together in a necklace or bracelet.

Well, that's all I can think of for now about the basic uses of wire. I will end here by telling you what I normally stock in my inventory so I have what I need at the ready. I will highlight in red the wire that I think you, as a beginner, should start out with and you can add more as you expand in your wirework.

26ga round DS
24ga round DS & HH
22ga round DS & HH
22ga square DS

20ga round HH

18ga round HH - this one isn't an absolute necessity and you can leave it off if you don't think you'll use it for the purposes I"ve outlined above, but I personally think it's nice to have some on hand.

18ga 1/2 round DS
16ga round DS or HH (some places only have the DS but because of the thickness of the wire, DS is pretty strong and easier to work with and you can hammer it in some cases to harden it further).

JEWELRY MAKING BASICS - WIRE

2010-03-03T13:17:00.001-05:00

Ok, not professing to be an expert by any means, just passing along information that has served me well in my years of making jewelry. There are several levels of wirework, from simply needing to link beads together to the more intricate coiling or knitting and crochet work. Understanding the terms used for gauges of wires and tempers is the first step and creates the foundation on which to build to whatever level you wish to attain.

Gauges: AWG is the American standard of measuring wire, it uses numbers such as 22ga, 20ga etc. SWG is the actual measurement of the wire diameter using the decimal system and commonly used in Europe. There are plenty of places you can Google for conversion tables so I won't go into specifics, but for the sake of what I am comfortable using, I will be using the AWG standard.

In AWG the higher the number, the smaller the diameter of wire. For example, 22ga is smaller (thinner) than 16 ga wire.

Temper: Wire comes in 3 basic degrees of hardness; dead soft, half hard and full hard. IN my experience, dead soft is good to use when you will be manipulating the wire a lot, as in wire sculpture. Half hard is good for making wrapped loops, findings such as headpins or clasps. I have never used full hard wire, although if you were making something such as a pin (broach) it would well because it would hold it's shape and has a strong 'spring back'. Think of a safety pin and how securely it's held closed because of the force of the sharp end tries to 'spring back' against the part that holds it closed. Also, try and manipulate a safety pin, it's not easy to bed is it? It's not really a wire for a novice and in my experience even for an advanced wire worker, it really has very limited and specific uses.

Dead soft wire will harden somewhat as you continue to manipulate it, this is called 'work hardening', so the finished product will hold it's shape. I personally do not recommend using dead soft for simple projects such as wrapped bead links, I find the links easily bend out of shape and tend to look sloppy. There is something you can do to harden dead soft wire if that is all you have to work with. My method requires a pair of pliers and a hand drill. I cut a length of wire and close one end in the chuck of the drill, hold the other end of the wire in my pliers, hold it taut and twist the wire until it breaks (usually at one end) or just before it breaks. You get pretty good at guestimating after you've done it a few times. I probably wouldn't use this method on wire thinner than 22ga because it can become brittle.

You can also harden it for things like hook clasps or earring hooks by hammering it with a rubber mallet. The rubber mallet will harden without flattening the wire, but you can also use a chasing hammer (or hardware store regular old hammer) which will flatten the wire as well as harden it.

Wire shapes: round, square and 1/2 round. Round is probably the most commonly used wire, I normally carry round wire in 26, 24, 22, 20, 18 and 16ga. It is ideal for making wrapped links, findings, coiling. I use square wire when sculpting because it usually requires two or more wires together and square wire allows the wires to lay flush side by side and are much easier to bind together with the 1/2 round wire. You can also twist square wire to get that lovely twisted/faceted effect. Half round is exactly what it sounds like, domed on one side and flat on the other, and is most commonly used to bind other wires together

Although you can Google wrapped loop tutorials and find tons of them, Here is one for you to begin with: http://www.howtodothings.com/video/how-to-make-a-wrapped-loop-bead-tutorial I would like to add after viewing this video one more tip. Chances are the loop will be off to one side, so just slide your round nosed pliers into the loop and gently straighten the loop so it sits more evenly above the wrapped part.

JEWELRY MAKING BASICS - TOOLS

2010-02-28T16:18:00.001-05:00

As you advance in your wire work you will be adding many more tools to your collection, but for beginners, these are the things that I think are basic necessities. My first pliers set I got from a flea market and it served me well for years. I then upgraded to a mid priced set of pliers. I mostly look for ergonomic handles as this reduces the stress on your hands. I would recommend starting off with an inexpensive set and use it for awhile to find out what qualities are important to you and upgrade as necessary. Just be sure wherever you get your pliers that none of them have the gripping grooves in them, some of the hardware sets will have chain nose pliers with those grooves and they mark your wire terribly. So look for a set specifically for jewelers and you should avoid this problem. You can google them all day, and I hesitate to recommend one over another, but I have bought my tools from Urban Maille as Aislyn is a friend of mine, so I am linking you to her tool page. I can say her prices are probably the lowest you will find for the brands, and that her standards are very high so I know even her cheapest tools are quality. http://urbanmaille.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=6

Round nosed pliers:
Chain nosed pliers:
Bent Nosed Pliers:
Flat Nosed Pliers
Cutters:

Chasing Hammer: A new household hammer will work, I stress new because the hammering part will not be marked up thereby marking your wire.
Rubber Mallet: Again, hardware store mallet will suffice. However, my hubby picked up this set of mini hammer with changeable heads for me and I use it all the time! And it's cheap! http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=99895

Rawhide Hammer: I did finally invest in one of these, but my dog got ahold of it and chewed it to shreds. Although it is often recommended, I don't find it a necessity so it's up to you.

Anvil: A lot of jewelers recommend a bench block, but I find my small jewelers anvil quite adequate for my purposes and cheaper as well. Here is the one I have: http://www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/PROD/jeweler-anvil/SAA2-51RJ

Steel ring mandrel: Not a necessity, again, it depends on how far you want to go with your wire work, but making simple rings is fun and expands your repertoire a little bit more. I recommend steel as opposed to the cheaper aluminum or wooden ones, simply because you can hammer to harden your ring shanks on the steel without marking or denting it.

Tumbler with Stainless Steel Shot: This is probably the most expensive beginner investment, but worthwhile. It is amazing the amount of shine tumbling finished jewelry will give. It really brings that finished piece to a whole new level. I bought a Lortone single barrel tumbler and have used it for years with the same belt and no problems. I do have a backup tumbler I got from HarborFreight which is cheaper but I've heard mixed reviews on it. It is a good starter tumbler though.

I cannot stress enough about using stainless steel shot as opposed to just steel shot. Stainless steel shot requires no upkeep, and will not rust, the steel shot is very high maintenance and will rust even with the best of care. Oh, and I cannot forget the strainer. I use an old tupperware strainer that is dedicated to my jewelry making, you can just dump the contents of your tumbler container right into it, rinse it and pick out your jewelry to lay it out to dry.

I will add tools to future posts for those who might want to move on in their wire working, but for now, I think this covers the basics.

WHAT DOES YOUR FONT SAY ABOUT YOU?

2010-02-11T16:50:00.000-05:00

I'm about 1/4 the way through this discussion. My first thought is people really need to learn the art of discussion and debate and stop getting offended by someone elses opinion. Why do so many people personalize any sort of criticism? Granted, the original post could have been worded better, a little less critical and a little more helpful, but some of the responses would like to dismiss the whole subject because of the 'tone' rather than looking past it to actually find the message within.

A few other people have come along later in the thread to relay the message in a more pleasing tone, but it appears that some are still stuck on the original post and totally miss the points made.

What I got from it is that there are a few fonts that are overused and misused. I have absolutely no graphic design background and couldn't tell the difference between arial and zippedy doo da. What I do know is that on a subconscious level I do associate certain attributes to certain fonts. Just like the signage I see on brick and mortar stores gives certain impressions about the content within. Not that a fancy sign necessarily means that the stuff inside is fancy or of good quality, but to put forward that impression might at least get a customer through the door and possibly purchase something. I can't speak for anyone else, but if there were two dress shops with exactly the same merchandise inside and one had a fancy, professional looking sign and the other had a hand painted posterboard sign, I'd probably be more inclined to go into the first store because I would feel a little more confidence.

I think it's just another part of an overall look you are trying to achieve. Like your photos. Blurry pictures, poorly lit pictures, pictures taken at a distance and don't allow for any view of the details are usually a put off. While it may not be a reflection of the quality of the merchandise, it gives the impression of poor quality. What is that saying about first impressions? When you go on a job interview, you try to present yourself in the best light possible. If you are one of a hundred applicants, and your qualifications are all pretty much the same, then the choice will depend on other things. Personality, presentation and someone who gives the impression of being a good fit for the position. They can't really know for sure, so they go with the candidate that best fits their aesthetic.

Someone mentioned that anyone could buy a professional banner so it's not really a reflection of the quality of the merchandise in a shop. A crappy crafter could buy a really impressive banner, but it doesn't improve the quality of their stuff. Very true. Just like a crappy crafter can hire a professional photographer to take their product shots and make them look like a million bucks. But truth be told, which will you be more likely to look at, the poorly lit, blurry picture of something that could be of great quality or the fabulous, artful shot of something that is (not so obviously) poorly crafted? the whole point about signage is to get people through the door. The merchandise then has to meet the customer's satisfaction. It's just window dressing, but it is a proven fact that the more attractive the outside, the better your chance of enticing the customer in through the door.

So, what does this mean on Etsy? If the site was set up in such a way that storefronts were the first thing that was visible to a shopper, then this might be an extremely important aspect. If you were able to meander down a virtual street lined with shops, the signage would probably be of utmost importance. But Etsy is more focused on the product shots than anything else. I know as a shopper on Etsy myself, I barely look at banners, much less notice what font they use. If I am drawn into a shop by a product they carry, my next focus is to see what else they have that I might like as much or better, or if they carry (in the case of supplies) other things I can combine to stretch my shipping dollars. Is this to say that banners aren't important? Not at all. They definitely have their place as a part of a cohesive, overall look, but I'm inclined to think that it's not on the top of the list when judging whether or not to purchase from a particular shop.

My ex-husband is a musician. We couldn't go to a concert, whether it was a symphony orchestra or local bar band that he wouldn't at some point start critiquing the music. It drove me nuts that he couldn't just sit and listen and enjoy (or not) in silence. It dawned on me later that this type of behavior is inherent in one who is intimately familiar with a subject. I, as a maker of jewelry, find myself looking at other makers of jewelry and noticing things that would probably not be on the layperson's radar. Such is the case of banner fonts. Those with graphic backgrounds or backgrounds where fonts play an integral part of their craft will always look at that aspect of a shop much closer and more critically than a layperson. I believe any perspective they can offer should be considered, and assessed and used as readily as product photography advice, or any other advice offered as a way to improve your shop.

Does that mean that everyone should change their banner text because they are using Papyrus or Comic Sans? Of course not. But, if it got you thinking about whether or not your banner text is portraying the look you are trying to achieve, then that is a good thing. If it expands your knowledge base on something you formerly had no clue about, that is also a good thing. Push your delicate sensibilities aside for a few moments and actually look at the information presented. You can take it or leave it, but do it based on the actual information presented and not the 'tone' you think it's presented in.

NUMA NUMA

2010-01-28T19:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, I needed a break, and went through my bookmarks looking for that hilarious lip syncing dude. Seriously, this guy makes me smile every time I watch him.

RELEVANCY SEARCH.....PART 2

2010-01-28T17:08:00.001-05:00

This is the second Thursday that Etsy is tweaking the search feature and making 'relevancy' the default, as opposed to the usual search by recently listed. The first Thursday was pretty eventful and the forums were filled with both opposition and support and pleas to give more information so people could figure out how to get their items in the top of the search.

As I expected, not much information was forthcoming, as I expect Etsy had to use that first test as groundwork to figure out what exactly they were going to do. I found a few threads that had this quote in it by one of the engineers (?), though I can't seem to find which thread it originated in.

"jasondavis says:

Hi all. Sorry for taking so long to answer some of your questions. We've been working super hard to address some of the concerns everyone has brought up here. On Thursday you should notice several improvements over last week - I'll mention a couple of big ones here:

1) Penalizing extra-long titles: some of you noticed that some of the search results had very long titles. Titles with 5 or 10 words are fine. If your titles are much longer than this, the search will penalize them slightly (or more, if they're much longer than this).

2) More recency weight: We'll be incorporating more emphasis on item listing recency, something which many of you asked for. This will help promote your newer, more recently listed items over older ones."

It's good to see that they noted the excessive titles and are attempting to address them. People are still claiming to see them in the first pages of their search so I'm not sure how this works. I suspect that similar to google, while you may have excessively long titles, the search only actually picks up on the first 70 or so characters, so regardless of the title length if the first 70 contain keywords associated with that search they will still show up. This is just a guess on my part. I don't think that Etsy search would just automatically kick out excessive titles, but only use a portion of them, which would explain why they still show up.

As for weighting recency more in the search algorithm, I am totally against this. My personal feeling is that when something is listed has no bearing on what I am looking for, it should not even be a factor used in that search. A search based on listing dates already exists, if you weigh listing dates in a relevancy search, how are the searches going to differ from each other? One's a little more recent, ones a little more targeted? That makes no sense whatsoever.

I really resent the move to cave on this, I really do. I was really hoping that Etsy was looking to actually improve the search capability of the site, not cater to the ones who are used to renewing and are now crying because relevance eliminates that tactic.

If all you were really going to do was make the current search a little more targeted to what a buyer is searching for then you should have said so in the first place. Some of us actually thought you cared about what buyers want.

I will say again, recency has no place in a search based on relevancy. At. All. The date something was listed on has no bearing on anything I am looking for. If it was listed 2 minutes ago, a week ago or 3 months ago, if it fits the search criteria, it should show up.

Perhaps if Etsy did take recency completely out of the relevancy search algorithm they could focus on making more folks relevant to the search queries.

An EXERCISE IN CONTRADICTIONS

2010-01-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

"I have 23 items all tagged the same, how come they don't all show up on the same page?"

"Why is someone with 47 items all tagged the same dominating the first few pages?"

"I think Etsy should randomize the results so there is more variety"

"Why are there so many different items showing up in my (general) search?"

"I'm so upset, people who stuff their titles making them 5 lines long are taking over and pushing my stuff back"

"I just changed some of my titles to include more relevant keywords and my items are moving up in the search"

"Please make Etsy's search more like Ebay's, I can always find what I'm looking for there"

"Please don't make Etsy's search like Ebay's, I left there because I was buried and couldn't be found"

"OMG, put the search back the way it was, if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

"Etsy, please for the love of everything that is good and pure, fix the search so people can find what they're looking for"

And on and on it goes. Here's hoping Etsy can separate the facts and data from the rest of the crap. While theoretically I support a relevant search and feel that the current 'renewing to be seen' is a recipe for future disaster (as more and more sellers discover this method and adopt it, rendering it useless), I'm pretty certain that either way they go will result in someone being unhappy about it. As long as the decision is based on data and facts and not swayed by emotion, I'll be happy, even if I personally don't like the final decision.

MORE THOUGHTS ON ETSY'S RELEVANCY SEARCH

2010-01-24T16:41:00.001-05:00

Even though the first test day is over, this subject is obviously still on a lot of people's minds since the next two Thursdays are slated to revert to the relevancy default as Etsy continues to test, tweak and listen to feedback.

In continuing where I left off in this thread, I came upon a comment that I couldn't let pass without giving my thoughts on it (yeah, something new, right?)

"Ok, I'm trying to think like a buyer and see if this relevancy searching thing benefits me. Yes, if I'm looking for what I sell (hand stamped necklaces, etc.) the results ARE relevant. They are hand stamped necklaces. But I feel like it shouldn't be "random" (although I know it isn't actually random) where I end up in the search. I liked being able to control where I end up, by paying to get higher in the list (when all items are the same kind of items, and truly relevant). When your category has thousands of options, I feel like people SHOULD be able to pay for premium placement..."

You may feel like you are in control of where you are in the categories right now with the recency search, but I don't believe it is common knowledge for the majority of sellers that this is what is going on. It is spreading daily as people either come to the forums and see it suggested or someone figures it out on their own, but if only 5% of the sellers on Etsy come to the forums, that's a lot of people who are not yet aware of this and therefore are not doing it. I don't think the comment above is looking very far into the future, nor are they considering the impact of 200,000 sellers constantly renewing to be seen.

At some point even renewing will become useless, as you would have to renew so frequently that you would likely use up any profit and wind up paying Etsy more than the value of the product and wind up with a loss. Etsy, and the sellers using renewing to stay visible in categories and search were able to coast along for a time before it hit critical mass, and Etsy had to retract their statements of support for this practice due to some features not being able to support it, such as the recently listed scrollbar at the bottom of the main page and the enlarging of the batches of listings that are uploaded to the inventory database. Even though you still have a chance at being seen in the recently listed or the top of your category, it is no longer a given and can not be guaranteed. And I think Etsy would be disingenuous to leave things as is because they had the shortsightedness not to see the potential for this to get out of control. I know I mentioned this a few times during my forum posting days, but logical, well thought out ideas tend to be like trying to swim against the tide.

If they scrap relevancy as the default, I hope that they let all sellers know that in order to be on top of the search in their category they must renew items frequently or risk being buried and never seen. I imagine they wouldn't do that though because the onslaught of 200,000 sellers all renewing constantly all day long, every day would render that completely useless. And then what?

It is my opinion that Etsy, for all it does poorly, is actually trying to do something right. The execution may be lacking, but looking at the bigger picture I believe they are trying to make a stable, reliable search tool. Of course there are going to be flaws in the beginning, to expect it to work perfectly the first day is not realistic. And without a group of active sellers to test it out and try to figure out ways to game the system, how are they ever going to refine it and make it useful?

To think that Etsy hasn't taken into consideration that the renewal revenue stream may be impacted by this is foolish. I am quite certain they are aware that if they make renewing less necessary that there are people who will stop renewing. I'm pretty certain someone at Etsy figured out that at some point people were going to start complaining that renewing is useless because they are still landing way back in the pages of the category. Actually, people are already complaining about that, blaming 'batch listing' as the devil. It would have been so much more practical to have renewing just extend your listing another 4 months and not have it go through the newly listed process because the concept of 'fresh listings' is really not accurate if the majority of those listings are renewals.

Etsy and some sellers rode the crest of the renewing wave, but all waves peak and then drop. You can't ride a wave forever. Thank goodness someone at Etsy realized this and decided to do something about it now rather than waiting for another critical mass situation.

RESEL;LERS ON ETSY

2010-01-24T01:36:00.000-05:00

Resellers, those shops that try to pass off mass manufactured products as handmade are getting a strong foothold in the Etsy doors. Allowable reselling are in 2 categories; vintage

and commercial crafting supplies, nowhere else. It is even not allowed to buy an item on Etsy and then turn around and resell it, unless it is a commercial crafting supply or vintage. Any other category is reserved for handmade by the seller.

So, how do you identify who is a reseller, or if a seller has items that are not h andmade by them? Most of the time, people who are in the a specific craft can pick them out much easier than those that aren't. And you tend to have at least 2 different kind of resellers, ones who have a shop of handmade stuff who are usually trying to unload stuff they don't want or won't wear anymore. For example, a gal that sold simple handbeaded jewelry, also had cast rings with stamping in them. A red flag is when certain items just don't fit the sellers skill set. Of course, that in and of itself isn't enough proof, so a little detective work is necessary to see if you can find out where else this type of thing can be purchased. Sure enough, in this case, I found the exact ring sold in Target, so my guess is she bought if for herself at one time and either can't wear it anymore and figured since she already had a shop with handmade jewelry she could slip it in.

I often find the casual sellers are a little more difficult to back with proof of reselling because a lot of stuff is picked up here and there over a few years and might no longer be in the current inventory of the store they bought it from. They're profiles are usually pretty general and they might elaborate on their love of crafting and creating the perfect thing and yadda, yadda, yadda with no real details about their craft.

However, the career reseller, one who's shop is dedicated completely to items purchased from a wholesaler is usually easier to spot, but still it is much easier for those in that particular craft to discover them, they are more familiar with the wholesale sites that carry these items. And of course, some shops just give themselves away by stating that their item is new in the package, or new with tags or imported from wherever. They also use names like Gucci, Dooney and |Burke and other famous brand names, and whether they are the real thing or knockoffs they are reselling and not allowed. Unless, of course, they are vintage, and then the vintage people can spot the ones that aren't vintage.

Resellers often have no location listed, very scant announcement, no policies, their descriptions might give specific details as to size, material content, but there is no connection to the buying public and they tend to use only 1 or 2 tags only. The pictures can be another clue, even though we have some artists who take spectacular pictures, there is something about catalog pictures that gives them away. Oftentimes you can google their shop name and find other places they sell that will describe their items as imported. That's a nice piece of proof that I have used before when reporting a reseller. If the same items on that website are the same on Etsy and the website says their imported and Etsy just implies they're handmade by avoiding mentioning it, it's pretty safe to assume they're reselling on Etsy.

I'm sure there are more little things I've omitted, so feel free to add to them. I don't think anyone who isn't familiar with a craft can spot them like those who are intimate in a particular craft can. I'm quite sure though, that we have knowledgeable people in every category who could go a long way to weeding these sellers out,

BANG......BANG......BANG...... GOES MY HEAD ON THE DESK

2010-01-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6413464&page=1

I finally ventured out of the same thread I've been in for 2 days straight, to be assaulted by this ignorant post. Where the hell do I start.

Since when did forking over .20 to renew constitute 'hard work'? Since when is renewing any measure of how hard anyone works on their business?

All renewing for visibility shows is how people 'game the system', a flawed system, I might add.

You might take a clue from your own words:

"If people here are saying the relevant search is no good, instead of opposing their view, think about why they say that. Are they whining and complaining? No! They are upset that all their hard and honest work is now being pushed aside and lost in a severely flawed system."

If people here are saying the most recently listed search is no good, instead of opposing their view, think about why they say that. Are they whining and complaining? No! They are upset that all their hand and honest work is being pushed aside and lost in a severely flawed system,

See? It works both ways.

"I really think it's great that many have succeeded here on Etsy, but they did not get there by sitting around waiting for Etsy to hand them the sales. They worked for them and they worked hard! They got out there and did what ever they needed to to get to where they are and where they want to be. And now a search system comes along that makes all their hard work here on Etsy disappear under pages of sellers that break TOUs and stuff titles etc...I really think it's great that many have succeeded here on Etsy, but they did not get there by sitting around waiting for Etsy to hand them the sales. They worked for them and they worked hard! They got out there and did what ever they needed to to get to where they are and where they want to be. And now a search system comes along that makes all their hard work here on Etsy disappear under pages of sellers that break TOUs and stuff titles etc..."

Um...ok, so you are saying because a seller refuses to jump on the renewing bandwagon.and or because they support a relevant search tool they are just sitting around waiting for Etsy to hand them sales? You didn't really say that did you? Cause, that's a helluvan assumption to make. I will add that breaking the rules is not ok for anyone to do, and I am of the opinion that this will be addressed as the relevant search is fleshed out and improved. As it is, people are breaking the rules in an effort to be seen under the current search, so I really don't see this as a valid reason to scrap relevancy.

"But reality is, if you want to run a business you need to invest in it and work at it yourself without taking shortcuts!"

Ok, now that I have finished laughing at this sentence, I might point out the rather obvious fact that renewing to be seen is a shortcut in itself. It's an easy loophole that has been exploited and made to appear legitimate because it was easy for Etsy for a time, and also generated revenue for them. The fact is that Etsy let it go on for so long, to the point where it is only beneficial to a handful of sellers who are able to renew on a constant basis, and now those who have benefitted from it are scared of losing that edge. Maybe when it gets to the point where 160,000 sellers start renewing their hundreds of thousands of items daily (in addition to the newly listed and relisted products) and sellers are consistently finding themselves on page 10 or more immediately after renewing they'll realize what a leaky boat they've set sail on.

IF I WERE ETSY RIGHT NOW

2010-01-22T19:32:00.001-05:00

I'd be banging my head against the wall. Rather than everyone waiting patiently to see if what is currently being done (tags, titles, descriptions) can be worked into a useful relevant search, sellers are desperately trying anything they can to be 'on top'. How any reliable data can be parsed from this is beyond me. I sure hope it's possible.

If your whole business and/or livelihood is dependent on one day's views and sales, then I would say you don't have much of a business.

The ignorance of how even a basic search works is just astounding. The utter lack of patience and the demands for Etsy to tell them the recipe for relevance is unbelievable. I'll give you a clue here, because I am the generous type. If everyone titled, tagged and described their items accurately and somewhat uniformly, it would go a long, long way to understanding relevancy. But, rather than do that, people spend their precious time trying to game the system, stuffing titles, adding to titles, subtracting from titles, stuffing tags, changing the order of tags, stuffing the materials section with non applicable text. And then, come screaming into the forums wondering why their item isn't on page one of a general search, or they can't find what they're looking for, or the search is a mess. Of course it's a mess, you people are making it that way, worse than it was before. I certainly hope the engineers were supplied with a pillow for their desk yesterday, they are going to need it.

I don't know yet if a relevancy search will work on Etsy. There are too many variables that affect the outcome of any search that need to be fixed first, such as tag and category abuse. But I am willing to at least give them a shot at trying to make it a useful and beneficial to both sellers and buyers. And that's a lot more than I'm seeing currently in the forums.

Nearly every single thread I have read in all my 3 1/2 years on Etsy about complaints, or suggestions for Etsy has included 'fixing' the search. 'Search is a mess', 'I can't find what I'm looking for', 'buyers are turned off because Etsy's search is worthless' and on and on. Now that Etsy is trying to 'fix' the search people are screaming for them to put it back the way it was. Suddenly now, the current search isn't 'broken'. What? Since when? I'd laugh if I wasn't crying.

Suddenly renewing for visibility isn't such a bad idea. Never mind that it should have never been a tool for visibility in the first place. I'll be honest, I wish they'd disallow renewing until an item has expired. I'm sure that opinion won't win me any friends, but there it is anyway. But don't worry folks, I don't see Etsy changing that to suit me because even if they went to a completely relevant search, people are so conditioned to renew to be seen, they'd continue to do it anyway.

I've seen a few people mention that relevancy search will hurt sellers who put out new and innovative designs because buyers won't know to look for them. They are conveniently forgetting that Etsy has tools to see what is newly listed, not only in the category pages, but in the Time Machine 2. It would be nice if search wasn't just a duplication of those, but another way to explore and discover and find what one might be looking for. Why even bother having a feature to show the most recently listed items if the search is just going to be the same results?

Yes, for certain, if I were anyone at Etsy right now I'd be one frustrated individual. Probably more so than I am right now. Heh.

Relevancy Search.....continued

2010-01-22T15:09:00.000-05:00

There is just so much fodder in the forums lately regarding this experimentation of the relevancy search it's hard to keep up. I'm only on page 50 o f this thread and it's all I can do not to come back and post on my blog every few minutes. I think it's running about 50-50 of those opposed and those in favor. Some of the opposed make some very good points, especially about the title stuffing that is apparently happening, and the alleged stagnation of certain seller's items in certain categories. I say alleged, because I haven't researched this myself.

Etsy definitely has some housekeeping to do in terms of fixing these and a few other things, such as tag and category abuse, and as much as people complain about experimenting in a live setting, I really, really think this was the only way to go to find potential pitfalls, especially in such a short amount of time. You have to admit, testing in a controlled beta setting is probably not going to be as useful. Etsy's past performance on rolling out features that have supposedly been beta tested first didn't have a whole lot of success either.

Which brings me to the latest post that has gotten under my skin. Now, I will start off by first conceding that I do not make my living on Etsy. While I certainly treat this as a business, it is not a means of dependable income, so this may color my views to a point, but because I do treat this as a business, there are certain things that being in business would require of me, or of anyone who's intention is to establish and maintain a business as an artist or crafter. Preparation and planning being among the top 2 items. Ok, so here is the quote:

"This might be a good thing to test for maybe two hours a day for a week. But as a seller with two children who has found a way to make this a viable income producer for her family by getting between 10-30 sales a day, let me just say that having zero sales today is like showing up at work and being told, "We're doing an experiment with payroll today. Work your butt off and mayyyybe you'll get paid!" Completely changing what has been working well for 24 hours: not cool.

I would like to reiterate that even if this helps buyers find what they are looking for today. The quality of high volume shop products will go down if their incomes get slashed. (I can't come out with new designs if I don't have the income to support the back stock.)"

Ok, I am not unsympathetic to a sudden loss of sales and income due to the search change. Even for one day. But there are a lot of things that could also cause this one day loss that don't have the potential for positive change. Etsy could just plain take the site down for a day, or two or longer, believe me, it's happened before. You could be in a car accident and be incapacitated for an extended period of time, one of your family members could become ill and you might have to tend to them rather than your shop. These sorts of things should be taken into consideration when planning for your business.

As for 'the quality of high volume shop products going down if their incomes get slashed', well, I don't really believe this statement to be even a tiny bit truthful. Quantity? maybe. Obviously if you are not selling a lot you won't continue to produce at quite the same rate as you would if you were selling multiple items daily, but it should never affect the quality of the items. Especially if you are relying on the income of those sales directly to fund the creation of new ones. I would imagine most of us do this, to a certain degree. I know I do, but I also have reserves set aside so that I can buy supplies if I want to try a new idea or if I want to just continue to produce inventory for my shop. Naturally, a portion of my sales go back to those reserves to help replenish it, but I felt it was a necessary business decision because not all business take off immediately, and the potential is always there for something to happen that might slow down or cut off one of my income streams.

All in all, I guess what I am trying to say is I really resent the emotionally charged reasoning rather than the factual reasoning. If Etsy is going to scrap the relevant search, I'd much prefer that decision be based on the hard data that tells them it isn't going to work rather than a bunch of sellers crying that they have lower views, fewer sales and they are ultimately going to have to go elsewhere if this continues. If the hard data shows that sales are still up, then it probably means that the sales are being spread out a bit more and as much as that might hurt your business, it is probably helping someone else's.

Here's a piece of unsolicited advice.....spread out your eggs into other baskets. Start advertising your shop and bring in your customers and stop relying on Etsy foot traffic. That foot traffic is a bonus and not a given and, for one, am glad that Etsy is trying to spread out that foot traffic more equitably.

Relevancy Search and Random Questions

2010-01-21T18:53:00.001-05:00

A discussion was opened for comments regarding the relevancy search. I would like to point out a few of the comments made really illustrate just how seller-centric people are refuse to see the benefits to a potential buyer.

"But if there are 1866 amethyst rings and I am searching for an "amethyst ring", how is ring number 1866 ever going to get to the top? If my ring was number 1866, I would cry not being able to renew to get to the top. I don't like the relevancy search idea. When I renew and I am seen, I get sales. Otherwise I'm stuck in the middle of the 1866 amethyst rings. It's not all about the buyers. Without sellers, you can't have buyers."

First of all, while someone may be looking for an amethyst ring, I'm fairly sure there are other qualifiers they have in mind which will alter the results and potentially give anyone the chance of being in the top of that search. Do they want gold? silver? faceted or cabochon stone? Do they want a single stone ring or multi stone ring? these are things that will narrow down their search results, and based on what criteria they use will determine who appears at the top of that search. Using broad search terms is a act of frustration because logically, broad search terms will give broad results and is meant to so the buyer can narrow down what they are looking for. I don't understand why people don't understand this. Not everyone can be on the first page of a general search, it's impossible, but the more relevant your items are to what a buyer is searching for, the more likely you are to appear in the first pages of that search.

"Didn't we just go through this last year? It didn't work then, and it looks like it isn't going to work now."

The difference, as I understand it, is that back then, they didn't really follow through and tweak it or change it based on user feedback or data. People complained and they finally took it down. I honestly think if they are interested in making it work, they need to put it out there and make it work.

"I think a Random search would be so much easier to put together and fairer as well."

Not quite sure what you mean by random. It seems to me right now any search term you type in will give you random results, results pulled from every category with those words used in the item in some way. That's pretty random to me. Theoretically, relevancy is the fairest search both for the customer and the seller, provided the buyer is looking for what the seller is selling. Now, so far, I have to agree that we're not quite all on the same page as far as efficiency is concerned, there are a lot of factors such as mistagging, miscategorizing and lack of suitable categories for all items, BUT, the potential is there to make this work. It's just going to take a lot of time and patience and rather than trying to fight Etsy every step of the way, to try and work with them and help them. It ultimately helps you.

"it really stinks that people have spent so much time researching the best time, day of the week, types of items, etc. to renew. People have built a marketing and business strategy around this and now it means nothing."

What is really kind of 'sad' is that this was ever promoted by anyone in the first place. I remember the day it was announced by a seller that they used this tactic and found it successful in generating more sales. It took awhile, but eventually Etsy itself jumped on the bandwagon and suggested it as well, made reference to it in their FAQs and blog articles and then subsequently, when everyone started doing it and the site grew larger and larger it became impossible for certain site features to continue to support it. Eventually Etsy had to retract their support of this as a way of getting seen, but the damage had already been done.

This is also why I fear Etsy giving out too much information on how to become 'relevant'. If they give too many precise details, people will jump to conform and then 'everyone' will fight and claw to become tops in the search and find ways to circumvent the system to get on top. General guidelines and some parameters to force people to comply (such as limited characters in titles) might be useful, but then, I imagine there will be an outcry that this is too restrictive. Rock and a hard place, if you ask me.

"If I search for "caramels" I get an entire first page that includes art, clothing, jewelry, housewares, handbags, quilts -- all in caramel colors -- but not a single edible. Yet the odds are that a buyer searching for "caramels" is looking for the candy, not the color."

Again, expecting specific results out of a general search query is asking it to read your mind. I did this exact search, and yes, the very first results are everything and anything 'caramel'. But if you are wanting something edible, you look to the left and there is the category called 'plants and edibles' and if you click on that, the results show yummy and delicious looking confections that will get your salivary glands pumping. If you go to Amazon and put books in the search box, will you get books relating to astronomy in the top results? Probably not. You have to be more specific either in your intial request or drill down using categories. It's not rocket science!

"Really, I'm just pretty flabbergasted that you guys think it's a good idea to "experiment" with the entire site like this."

While I understand this comment, I have to wonder how it would have played out had Etsy beta tested it privately and then released it as a done deal and we had to accept it 'as is'? People complain all the time that they don't get a say in new features and that Etsy should have asked the general populace what they thought and that they should get more input from users. We're actually getting what has been asked for. How are you going to have any affect once it's beta tested and then rolled out? Sure, some changes might come after that, but not nearly as many as might take place now with them testing it out for everyone to give their opinions and suggestions. Etsy is giving users what they've asked for and even that doesn't make them happy. I guess it's a 'no win' situation, but at least this time they erred on the side of giving too much than not enough.

"im not liking this change, because it seems no one will know how to get relevant, then someone who is relevant, they will try to copy those who are relevant and everyone will have the same thing... then who is relevant? I know im not too relevant and I have things set up correctly.

This post made me giggle. I can just see the crossed arms and pouty lip. I wonder how anyone knows whether or not they are relevant. What are you comparing yourself to? Ok, kidding aside, what I'm getting from this based on the category this seller is in, is that for high volume sellers who dominate the category at any given time by relisting sold items, that they will no longer dominate in a relevancy based search. I get that. It's got to be tough when it's something you've gotten used to and come to depend on, just like those at the opposite end of the spectrum have gotten used to low views and sales because they don't have the volume to relist or the funds to continually renew. The difference is, the change finally levels the playing field for all sellers. And in reality, it's only the search that is being affected, because if you go to the category you are still going to see the most recently listed items, so you haven't completely lost your 'edge'.

"If etsy wants to switch to a default relevancy search, fine. But give us some warning and guidance about how we should be listing to be relevant. And don't allow abuse of titles.

What I have a problem with right now, today...is that I don't like being part of an experiment for 3 days out of the next 3 weeks. We all try hard to run our shops well and to change the rules on us as an experiment doesn't seem right to me.{If etsy wants to switch to a default relevancy search, fine. But give us some warning and guidance about how we should be listing to be relevant. And don't allow abuse of titles."

This kind of goes with the comment earlier, but my thought is that not giving us guidelines ahead of time is part of the tweaking process. To find out what is currently working and what is not. I'm of the feeling that everyone running around changing tags and titles in an effort to be seen as relevant is probably doing more damage than good to the data results. Everyone should have been tagging for relevancy in the first place, I mean, if you're selling red widgets, wouldn't you tag, title and describe those red widgets so people could find them? In my estimation, any buyer confusion is most likely a result of sellers changing things around trying to guess what the winning combination will be rather than a relevant search.

"From the FP--> (ignoring the annoying drop down suggestions,) type in Clutch in the handmade search.

THE FIRST ITEM THAT COMES UP IS A BALL! The last item on the first page is a pair of EARRINGS!

Seriously, are you kidding me?"

Again, we have a perfect example of how people just do not understand the mechanics of a search tool. A general search for anything is going to give you general results of anything containing that word. What have you given the search tool to understand that you are looking for a purse and not a pair of earrings with a clutch back? The search tool cannot read your mind, you have to help it along, so to help you help the search, along the left side of that page result are some categories for you to narrow your search. And I just did that very search ) http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=handmade&search_query=clutch ) and found satisfactory results, the first page, with the exception of a pair of earrings actually did show all clutches of the purse variety. But to eliminate any other items other than purses, you can choose from the following categories:

All Items

Handmade

Bags and Purses (22,463)
Accessories (1,393)
Weddings (988)
Children (736)
Knitting (343)
Crochet (316)
Patterns (279)
Jewelry (198)
Toys (41)
Holidays (40)
Geekery (31)
Paper Goods (30)
Clothing (25)
Art (21)
Everything Else (17)
Needlecraft (16)
Books and Zines (11)
Bath and Beauty (8)
Housewares (8)
Woodworking (8)
Dolls and Miniatures (5)
Music (5)
Glass (4)
Quilts (3)
Candles (1)
Furniture (1)
Pets (1)
See more categories

Once you select your category, you can further refine you search using any other qualifiers that relate to what you are looking for.

"My confusion is this... when I search for 'finger puppet' I am on the third page, fine. Most of the items on the first two pages DO NOT HAVE FINGER PUPPET or PUPPET as a tag. The term is mentioned once in the title, once in the description. The item isn't really even a finger puppet. So I'm confused. Will any of my items ever be in the first few pages of a search? Or am I lost near the middle forever?"

Ok, I did this search, http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=handmade&search_query=finger+puppet and got 1197 items on that list. The first page was dominated by a seller selling ipod covers that doubled as a finger puppet. While I understand your frustration with not being more relevant than that seller, if I were looking for a finger puppet for a child I would probably scan that first page or two and then look at the categories listed on the left and select the toy category. In which case, one of your items appears on the first page. Once again, I will reiterate, a general search term will yield general results. You must be more specific both in listing items and searching items to find what you are looking for.

"A lot of stores are paying alot of money in relisting and renewing items to find were are now at the back of the listings and old listings (2-3 mos old) are at the front, we will loose alot of customers to this system and Etsy will loose alot of revenue why should we pay to renew or relist if were not getting any exposure."

This is getting redundant. There is no evidence that Etsy will lose any revenue, as a matter of fact, their revenue could remain the same or increase if buyers are able to find and purchase what they are looking for. And I have to ask, if your customers are complaining to you that they can't find you, then how are you receiving these complaints? lol. The fact that older listings are appearing in the search is actually proof that the search is working. That is what it is supposed to do, return results that are relevancy based rather than listing (or renewing or relisting) date. Once again, sellers who are successful under the current system are going to resist any changes that might impact that. I understand that. But with the number of sellers and items listed and that continue to be listed there has to be a better, more equitable system to find whatever it is that someone can be searching for.Ok, that's enough for now. this is getting too long and I'm getting increasingly irritated with people who do not know how to tag for relevance to their own items. If you are listing a dog bracelet, then for goodness' sake, tag it dog bracelet and look up the breeds of the dogs for the correct spelling. It's Lhasa apso not asa apso. Cripes.

THE SKY IS FALLING!! and the New Relevancy Search on Etsy

2010-01-21T14:55:00.000-05:00

As usual, an announcement is made and the forums go wild with complaints and speculation. Rob (Rokali) announced yesterday that for the next few Thursdays the default search would be based on relevance rather than the current default which is by listing date, most recently listed.

The fact that they are only doing this one day a week, to test and tweak, and to gather information from both the forums and the data collected behind the scenes is actually kind of refreshing, for a change. Of course, this is no guarantee that should this roll out eventually that it won't be fraught with problems, but at least it appears they are trying to do this the right way.

As per usual though, the moment something like this is announced people are quick to rush in and gush their thanks or lodge their complaints without even giving it a chance. And I know, this is the norm for the Etsy forums, it just becomes a bit comical after observing it for so long.

I read with interest a number of discussions of people decrying this change and I honestly hope those that make the final decision as to whether or not relevancy becomes the default search takes into consideration that the majority of the complainers are not using logic. A few of the example searches they gave are clearly not based on knowledge of how a search engine would work. One example that was given was an artist would now did not appear in the first results of a relevant search for "Bird Art". And she's right. A cursory search using the handmade pull down and those words put into the search bar brings up thousands of mixed results. Everything from every category possible with a bird or art in their title, tags or description comes up, and for good reason. For the casual browser who is simply looking for something (but nothing specific) can of course, wade through hundreds of thousands of items one by one, or they can narrow it down by the categories to the left.

So, now I know that this person sells original mixed media bird art, so after narrowing my choices to the art category, I select the original mixed media category and voila, right on page 1 is this person's Bird Art. Had I wanted a photograph, or something else, I would have clicked on that category and chose (or not) from there. For the purposes of finding this person's particular items though, I went with the sub category they chose.

Another example given is someone who is concerned because their photograph title (the name she gave the photograph) lowers her relevancy. A number of artists concur that the title the artist gives to their work is relevant and meaningful to themselves and their customers. I don't doubt that, but when searching (at least for myself and others I have seen post) it's rarely a search term. I tend to look for subject matter first. One of my often used browsing searches is 'lighthouses'. So, using the dropdown menu under handmade, I type lighthouses into the search bar. Of course, my first result is everything on Etsy related to lighthouses, so from there I select Art from the categories on the left hand side of the page. Now, I can peruse everything in Art pertaining to lighthouses, or I can select further from the choices on the left. If I want a painting or a photograph or mixed media or a drawing I can select even further. If I don't know for sure and want to just browse, I can stay where I am and go through the 73 pages one by one. At this point, whatever the artist has named their work is really not of importance to me, but if I see something that catches my eye and click on it and read that it is titled "The Watcher" (and I don't know if this exists or not, just pulled that out of thin air) and that title resonates with me, I may purchase it, or put it in my favorites for now and keep looking. If I am looking for a painting, no, I am not going to see your collage or your illustration so you will not be found. But for my purposes, as a buyer, I am finding exactly what I want and it's irrelevant when it was listed because the search is returning results that are most relevant to my query.

I find it odd that there is so much controversy and energy and time expended trying to categorize the Art section so that everyone has a 'place' to list their art, and at the same time complain that they are not first in a search for whatever it is they do in a more general search.

Another seller of digital images used in collages and jewelry (and whatever else) is concerned that up until now she was always in the top of her category and now with the new search she is relegated to the back pages and 'can't be found'. As someone who has searched for digital collage sheets in the past, I can tell you that I usually will search by subject. Just searching digital collage sheets brings back 1165 pages of results. No way would I slog through all of that. I *might* click on the first few shops if their thumbnail or title was descriptive or enticing enough, but it's not likely. It is more likely that I would narrow it down by subject matter since the category choices on the left hand side really only reflect where someone thought they should list since I"m not sure there is an actual category for these. I could be wrong, though, but that's how it appears. So, anyway, if I want gothic images, or images of fish or birds or cupcakes, I type that in the search bar and then I get more specific results and right off the bat, for one of those subjects, this seller is on the first page with several items.

Now will this work for every item? I don't know. Theoretically, it should. If you have google analytics you can see the keywords people use to find your items, that is a big clue as to how you should title and tag your items. Categories and sub cats should also be utilized, after all, that is where you are placing your items.

I really hope that relevant search will become the default, it has so much more potential for buyers to find what they want in a logical fashion.

In closing, I just want to give an analogy to illustrate the way I look at this. Imagine your perfect handbag. It has individual compartments so that you can find your cell phone or your keys or your checkbook. Your wallet further separates your money, your credit cards, your change and receipts. If you keep it free of clutter and clean it out regularly, you should continue to find the things you are looking for readily and easily. You can tell someone else where to find something and because of the organization, they can find it easily too. Much easier than a bag with no pockets and everything is just thrown in. Sure, you can rummage around and dig out your wallet, or your keys, but if you don't find them right away, don't you often go looking around the house only to come back and rummage some more and then actually find them in there? I know I've done that.

I look at Etsy as trying to get the handbag organized, by giving sellers the pockets to put their items in, rather than the current haphazard way things are now, with the last thing you threw in that handbag being on top.

Believe me, I'll be one of the first ones to call Bullshit on Etsy, and I have. Etsy is a very easy target for the disgruntled to shoot at. They do a lot of things wrong, but at some point, maybe they have to do some things right. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now and see how this plays out.

Admitting 'you can't'.

2010-01-14T00:26:00.000-05:00

I was reading a thread in the Etsy forums this morning, about a young girl who was asking for advice on how to fit Etsy into her full time school and work schedule. Being frustrated with not having enough 'Etsy time', she asked for advice on how to balance it all.

Having read similar stories about people trying to 'Etsy' with already overflowing schedules made me consider this phenomena a little more deeply. Sure, some people are trying to make an income, whether supplemental or more. But others, for some reason, are trying to fit Etsy into a tiny little slot in their schedule, as if it's a requirement and not something extra.

Granted, many people balance work, kids, home and Etsy, or any other combination of circumstances. But the reality is, that there are only so many hours in a day, days in a week, and so on. There comes a time when you have to admit that you just can't fit anything else in without sacrificing something else.

Maybe it's an age thing, or a generational thing, but young adults today seem to want to do it all now. When my kids were younger I worked part time, kept house and was a volunteer fireman. I did do crafting when I had time, but I couldn't imagine trying to fit in a serious committment to selling those crafts during that period, no matter how much I might have wanted to, or how much it might have supplemented our income. Something would have suffered.

So here I am, 20 years later, still crafting, and having successfully sold those crafts for many of those years. Now I have the time to devote to making this a full time business if I so desired, without sacrificing something else.

Don't be afraid to admit that you can't do it all. Nobody can, no matter how it may appear to you, I know these things, I'm old and wise. Well, ok, I"m old. Wise, not so much, but my years of living have taught me a few things. It's ok to say no, and it's ok to admit that you can't do it all. It took me a long time to learn that. You are much better off the earlier in life you learn and accept this fact.

If you really want to do something, fit something in, then you find a way to balance all the things in your life. Only you know where you can cut back, or find the time. The reality is, if it's bringing you stress, then consider the possibility that now is just not the right time for it. Life is stressful enough without inventing things to add even more stress to it.

While crafting and selling those crafts can be a pleasant outlet, in most cases it's not a requirement or something that must be done right now, so it's ok to wait until you have the time make the committment, even if it requires a bit of a balancing act.

Unmuting the Muted

2010-01-12T19:46:00.000-05:00

In Rob Kalin's most recent installment of answers to questions upon his return to the CEO position at Etsy (which is done interview style) Answering your questions, #4 , he stated "Any Etsy member who is currently forum muted will have this restriction removed.". This is one of several points made that has caused a lot of reaction in the forums. Being one of the permanently muted, I did find his comment rather interesting as well as the opposition to it voiced in the forums.

I will admit that I only know of 3 (including myself) who were perma-muted, the other two being 1. an associate of a competitive selling venue and 2. an outspoken buyer who likes cats. Oh wait, there is one more, another vocal buyer turned seller (on another venue). Ok, so 4 I know of, including myself. There must be a faction of others that I am not aware of, that did unspeakably evil acts for the opposition expressed in this thread. You'd think that Rob announced that resellers were going to be welcomed back complete with a ticker-tape parade and guaranteed front page exposure for all the animosity expressed in that thread.

I'm guessing that those who are allowed back into the forums will not be given a free pass to wreak havoc and their return will be conditional in some way. But maybe that's just my common sense talking. As it stands, no one really knows the how/what/when/ and as usual speculation runs rampant and the usual suspects stir up the forums.

I guess what I am getting at is while some of you may have very valid reasons for fearing the return of some of the muted, and I mean fear, not dislike or irritation or disdain, don't paint all the mutees with the same brush. Just as you don't want a 'blanket unmuting', I don't want to see a blanket campaign to try and get Rob to retract his statement. Some people do deserve another chance.

And some of you, try and rise above the behavior you so despise, because you look rather silly denigrating others when you are trying to prevent those who you accuse of doing just that, from returning to the forums.

Just sayin'.

The Pioneer Woman

2010-01-10T12:37:00.001-05:00

Nowadays blogging is where 'it's at'. Everyone and their gerbil has a blog and cover every subject from A to Z. Some people are really into it, and others, like me, are new to blogging and haven't found their rhythm yet and are kind of all over the place with their topics. I was never a blog reader either, except for things pertaining to Etsy, but although the blogs are entertaining and informative, they tend to get a little boring and can be a bit of a downer since most of them bring up and belabor the negative points of said site.

So, completely by accident I discovered The Pioneer Woman. Advertising on blogs is quite common, either by purchasing advertising space or being reviewed by the blogger. I decided to google top blogs and in skimming the list, happened upon one that sounded interesting, so I clicked and started reading. I haven't stopped!

I started with her true life story "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" where she tells the story of meeting the love of her life "the Marlboro Man". It's romantic and the kind of story you'd read in a Harlequin Romance Novel. I was thankful that I was reading it as she was just finishing up the last few chapters, I don't think I could have survived breathlessly waiting for each installment as they were written.

The funny thing about Ree Drummond is that she comes across as a real person. I feel like I know her. Reading her blog always makes me smile, and if I lived closer I'd kidnap that adorable Charlie because I just know they don't love him enough!

I've followed her as she published her first cook book and did her book tour. Her blog is filled with recipes, homeschooling, gardening, photography, animals, kids and an eye-opening look at ranch life.

I'm not much of a blog reviewer, so if Ree ever catches wind of my post, I hope she's in a forgiving mood. I just know what I like, and I absolutely love her blog and wanted to share.

Just make sure you have a pot of coffee and a comfy chair because I can guarantee you will spend hours being entertained on her blog.

Be Careful What You Wish For

2010-01-09T00:33:00.001-05:00

I've come to use that phrase when referring to Etsy, a lot. Several years ago, Rob Kalin decided to get rid of vintage and supplies. After the hue and cry in the forums he changed his mind and allowed them to stay. I often wonder A. what were the reasons he felt they didn't belong, and B. What convinced him otherwise?

I was never comfortable with them being there. Believe it or not, I was more worried about supplies than I was vintage. Vintage doesn't compete with handmade. Supplies don't really either, at least not in the same way. But, the problem is something I see happening more and more in the forums; copying. Sellers looking for the next hot item on the front page, in the storque finds, gift guides, wherever. Suppliers looking there and hunting down the supplies and then selling them so that we can have scads of scrabble tile jewelry, octopus necklaces, tulip flower jewelry, acorns, deer, mustaches, cowls....you get the picture.

You see something you like on Etsy? you can almost lay odds that someone on Etsy sells the supplies for it. Along with it comes the expectation that everyone is going to share their designs, techniques and resources. And finished item shops mixing supplies in is just asking for trouble. People are constantly offended when they are asked to share how they made something. Really?

Every single person I know that has a shop mixing finished items and supplies sees the supplies selling faster and with more regularity than the finished items. The smart ones know this will happen and use these items as window dressing to show what can be made with their supplies. They might even be selling tutorials and tools as well. Good business for them, and potentially for every other supply seller because some people are not out to copy but make their own designs so they may look around for something not quite the same. But what about your fellow finished item sellers? What are you doing for them by providing the supplies and directions to make what is also their craft? I ust think there needs to be a few more degrees of separation between supplies and finished items, personally.

Not only that, supplies opened up the floodgates to anything and everything that could potentially be used as supply. I remember asking in a forum thread one time that if I could get a good deal on fish bowls, could I sell them as a crafting supply? after all, they can be used for other things; terrariums, candle holders, lamp bases, etc. I never did get a straight answer from admin. Fast forward to a few months ago when they came out with some changes to the Dos and Don'ts which clarified some points and just muddied the waters even further on others. Here is the section on commercial supplies:

A commercial crafting supply is not a commercial item that, although it may be used in crafting, is ready to use as is (for example: mass-produced clothing, dollhouse furniture and clothing).
Commercial tools, elements and accessories that are used in conjunction with handmade items, but are not used to create a new item may not be sold on Etsy as a commercial crafting supply (for example: make-up brushes, wax tart burners).

The first bullet is pretty clear, although I think they could have given a few more examples from some of the different types of crafts sold here.

The second bullet is very muddy. Maybe they should have said anything not a part of the finished construction cannot be sold as a commercial supply.

I learned a long time ago in my early days of jewelry making that a supply was something that was 'used up' in the construction of a given craft, wire, beads, clasps, yarn, fabric, thread, but things like pliers, jewelry polish, polishing cloths, sandpaper, saw blades, sewing machines, rolling mills, sergers, cameras, printers are tools, used in the construction of a particular craft, but not part of the finished product.

But it's a double edged sword. Get rid of a lot of the stuff that doesn't belong and lose the potential revenue? Or try to steer Etsy back toward it's course. Not that it really clears up the copying issue I outllined earlier, for that they would have to remove commercial supplies altogether, and unfortuntely, I don't see that happening. And for those of you screaming about commercial chains now being disallowed, how about instead you scream for options in listings so you can list a pendant with a chain and without, with 2 different prices and let the customer chose. I'd much rather see that then Etsy start making exceptions to the rules they put in place and just re-opening up the same problems as before.

Etsy and an In-House Payment System

2010-01-08T23:35:00.001-05:00

Every day the forums are filled with complaints about non-paying buyers. Those potential customers who click all the way through the buying process only to not pay in the end. This takes the item out of the seller's shop, and then they have to pursue the customer via email to have them complete the purchase. In many cases, it's just a matter of the customer not quite understanding the payment process, some don't understand that they can use a credit card through Paypal and they don't need an account. I imagine they click through to the paypal page and get scared and back out. Others change their mind, some respond to the emails, others you never hear from again.

Etsians would like to see the site come up with a way for items not to be removed from a shop's available inventory until payment has been made. From what I've discerned from the forums and some admin responses, this could be accomplished from having an 'in-house' payment system, meaning Etsy would process the the payments from the customers. In this way they can program the system to not remove items from inventory until a payment has been made. Theoretically, it sounds like the perfect solution. Right?

Some of us, myself included, are a little low on customer confidence in Etsy to handle this task. Past performance has shown us that clarity, consistency and communication are not their strong suits. But have you thought about it beyond that point? to what it actually means for Etsy to handle payments? I have.

It most likely means that you won't get paid at the time of purchase, but at a designated time, such as once a month. It also means that most likely they will take out all their fees prior to paying you. You will likely lose the ability to cancel sales/transactions and Etsy will make the rules on whether or not you must refund the customer. And, depending on their specific rules, they could actually refund the customer themselves before paying you if you have money in your account. I'm fairly certain they would do everything in their power to avoid eating any costs, so conceivably they could institute some sort of percentage 'hold' on monies in each account in the case of refunds, chargebacks or sellers not delivering.

Right now, despite the non paying buyers, I think we have it pretty easy. They really don't get involved with issues between sellers and buyers, although they do tell you to email them if you have a problem, they really can't do much about non deliveries, refunds or non payers. Sure, they can shut the shop down, but often that just complicates matters and leaves customers hanging in the wind. And deleting a buyer's account is pretty fruitless, because they can just make a new account and repeat the behavior. I suppose each of us has to weigh the pros and cons and decide which is more acceptable for us.

Of course, this might give buyers a little more protection, and that's a good thing. However, if they handle our customer's issues the way they handle our issues I don't hold out much hope for it's success. Not that I think this feature is imminent, I don't. I think it's way off in the future, because basically it's beyond the scope of the current staff's capabilities to not only integrate it, but maintain it as well. At least I hope it's way off in the future. Please.

So what made me think about this issue if I don 't think it's something we need to worry about for quite some time? Mostly because when I read the forums I see a lot of people with no experience piping up about things they think are so great, or bitch about things they want or don't want. They rarely think things through, they throw out ideas and suggestions without taking into consideration the ramifications down the road, or how their idea might affect their fellow seller or their customer. People who think they know everything, or the right way to do a certain thing when the only experience they have is a few months selling stuff on Etsy.

When you think you want something, take a minute and think it through. Are you willing to accept all the other things that might come along with that want? Because from my years on Etsy, you need to be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. See my next post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-01-01T13:13:00.001-05:00

I know I'm not much of a writer, as evidenced by this poor excuse for a blog, but then, my readership isn't such that I feel like I have anything to live up to, ya know? I can't talk about my jewelry all the time, I don't have any funny stories or pictures to share about family because my son's live far away, my daughter, who lives at home, spends all of her time going to college classes, working or with her boyfriend. When she is home she's holed up in her room studying or just chilling out. She can be a hermit just like her old lady.

My husband, although he is around fairly often when he isn't working or off in the woods hunting furry creatures (which manage to elude him for the most part) isn't particularly funny or photo worthy unless you catch my daughter grabbing that little clump of hair under his bottom lip (we call it the grabby thing) and makes him lip synch to South Park's ''Kyle's Mom is a Bitch''. It's hysterically funny, even after the eleventy thousandth time.

So mostly, it's just me, Lily the dog and Loki and Razzy the cats. Somehow, I can't seem to make the dog curled up in her chair or the cats looking out the window a newsworthy event. And besides, even when they do something funny or cute, I don't have a camera nearby. The last time I tried, by the time I got the camera, discovered the batteries were dead and I had replaced them, got back to the scene of the cuteness.....well, let's just say the moment had passed.

My life isn't that interesting and there aren't very many ways to dress up the mundane. For example, we had New Years dinner with my sis in law Bonnie and her BF Joe. We had steak and lobster. It was delicious. We did have to play musical chairs before sitting down to actually eat because Bonnie's house is quite small, and some of us aren't so small and we like to be able to breath when we eat. Just makes the meal more pleasant. So, once we all had sufficient 'tummy room' around the table, we ate a delicious dinner, drank homemade wine and homemade christmas cookies for dessert. We sat around the table discussing various family members and Bonnie received a text message from our nephew Jimmy, which said something to the effect that he wanted to wish all the ugly people a happy new year early, because he had to text the beautiful people later. Or something like that. That's our Jimmy!

I suppose I could tell you about Christmas Eve at Freddy and Sandy's house. It's tradition that the family gather's there every year. We all bring food, sit around and chat, drink, talk about 'the old days', which usually always includes the story about Bonnie falling back in a chair at the funeral home and not wearing any underwear.

The last few years have seen the annual family gathering grow smaller and smaller. We lost Billy just a few weeks before Christmas. He was the second youngest (my husband is the baby). He had been ill for quite some time, so this wasn't unexpected. He was never the same after his wife Donna passed a few years ago. Anyway, Freddy (the oldest) and Bonnie went over to the funeral home and brought Billy over to the house to celebrate Christmas with us. Did I forget to mention that his remains had been cremated? So, Billy sat in a place of honor and we all toasted to him, reminisced, and Bonnie put his teeth (dentures) in the box with him. Just in case the afterlife doesn't come equipped with a full set of pearly whites.

So, did I make any New Years Resolutions? well, I resolved not to eat any cooked green vegetables like broccoli, peas and lima beans, the same things I give up for lent and so far I've stuck to it. It seems a little foolish to change things now since I have the fortitude not to be swayed from my resolve. I resolve not to torture my family with home cooked meals and order take out more often, and I resolve not to be such a neat freak and let our home assume a more relaxed, lived in atmosphere.

I suppose I could make a resolution to be a more responsible blogger......or not. Tell you what, I will resolve to blog as often as I feel like it, how's that?

Well, Happy New Year everyone, I hope 2010 is everything you hope for and more. Of course, I say that EVERY year and then at the end of THAT year, I hope the next year isn't as crappy as the one before. Hope springs eternal, I guess.

Etsy, Your Place to Buy and Sell --- Whatever the New Tag Line Says When They Revamp It.

2009-12-31T00:33:00.000-05:00

Of all the the things Rob Kalin has stated so far, this new little piece of news has me the most concerned. He states: " We'll be changing our tagline next month. But this is a small change. We need to make the marketplace more flexible." For 4 1/2 years the tagline has always been 'Etsy your place to buy and sell all things handmade'. I got the impression that there were already places to sell commercially made things, but a very short supply of truly handmade selling sites. Now, I know businesses have to grow, expand and change with the times, and I also know I don't do well with change so perhaps I am feeling more trepidation regarding this than I should.

It concerns me because back when the search dropdown was arranged to include vintage and supplies, Rob stated then that the focus was always going to be on handmade first. That was the original vision. The inclusion of vintage and commercial supplies was supposed to augment that slowly growing handmade community, and they complement each other, but as I understood it (or wished it) handmade was still the point of the site.

Remember too, that at one time Rob was of the mind to remove vintage and commercial supplies from the site so that the focus remained handmade. The hue and cry from the community apparently made him change his mind, for better or for worse, so they remain, and have grown considerably since then.

Little by little the little niche handmade was starting to carve out for itself began eroding away, with vintage sellers, especially, making demands to be more visible on the site. and commercial supply sellers popping up like freckles on a redheads's nose in the summer.

Maybe it is time to change the focus and the tagline, but then, who will build that site for handmade and stick to that vision that Etsy had early on, that gave so many of us handcrafters a haven from selling next to commercially made items?

That petulant little kid in me wants to tell them,'you go find a site devoted to vintage in categories and advertising, have them allow a handmade category to round out and increase the community and complement it, too. Watch the handmade numbers grow and grow and the handmade sellers become more vocal about what they think they should be entitled to since they pay the same fees. And then one day the CEO comes in and says that the site really needs to have a more flexible marketplace and that the tagline that once stated Vetsy your place to buy and sell vintage is going to be changing. Tell me you would be perfectly fine with that, even though you came to the site in it's early days specifically because it filled the vintage niche. lf you can acept it with no problems, more power to you. I know that isn't my strong suit.
maybe with some discusion, and a look at what the tagline is going to be will change the way I feel, I don't know. But as always, I'm open,

Thank God it's Over!

2009-12-26T20:07:00.001-05:00

I never used to say that. When my kids were little, I shopped my heart out, decorated the house the day after Thanksgiving. I put up my manger, complete with lights, I put up a large table for my Christmas Village. I put candle lamps in every window. I had every imaginable Christmas themed candle holder on any available surface and displayed my snowman collection. I spent Christmas Eve (after church, of course) wrapping gifts and artfully arranging everything under the tree. Every label said "From Santa". I put cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer, and made sure it looked like they enjoyed the snack by leaving some crumbs on the plate and just a few drops of milk in the bottom of the glass.

I baked a dozen different kind of cookies, planned Christmas dinner and actually enjoyed preparing it. We visited with friends and family, went to everyone's Christmas parties and sent Christmas cards.

I'm not sure when it all changed, but looking back a few years, I can see that everything became much more of an effort, I enjoyed it less and eventually I started just not doing some of the Christmas rituals. I became more stressed out, year by year, gift by gift, cookie by cookie until last year I just didn't think I could face another Christmas. Or another day. I'll spare you the gory details and just tell you that I suffered a major depressive episode and dragged not only myself, but my family through hell.

When I think of all I didn't do this year in preparation for Christmas, my dear husband pointed out all that I DID do this year. It's been a long, hard road, and my journey is far from over. I'm not in that dark place I was a year ago, but I'm not my old self either. Today is one of my better days. I"m not sure if it's relief that Christmas is over, or the fact that I slept until 1pm today, lol. It's moments like this that I get just that faintest glimmer of feeling like my old self. Somewhere inside me, I still remember what it feels like to be happy.

I'm not sure why I'm putting this in my blog. I'm not usually one to share this kind of personal stuff. Maybe I hope someone might see themselves and know they aren't alone. Maybe I just want to chronicle this moment in time to see how far I've come a year from now. Maybe I want people to remember that there are real people out there in internet land, and not everyone is all happy and shiny. And maybe I just need to know I'm not alone.

Whatever the reason, I hope those of you who read this had a nice Christmas, and that the New Year is filled with good health and happiness.

And though they don't read my blog, I just want to thank my husband and daughter for being there for me. Without their love, understanding and support I would not be here. I love you both more than you will ever know.

Are You Right Brained or Left Brained? Find Out!

2009-11-15T01:24:00.000-05:00

Being a creative type, I always assumed I was right brain dominant. But I noticed that my approach in certain things took a decidedly left brain turn. Of course, then I started wondering if I have any real right brain tendencies at all and maybe I'm just fooling myself that I am creative. Especially in those times when motivation is at a low point.

So, I decided to take this test and find out. Sure enough, I am 41% left brained, and 59% right brained. The test also gave a rundown on each of the sections and it was clear to me that it was pretty accurate in how I approach the creative process.

If you're curious, try the test, it doesn't take but a few minutes and if you are anything like me, it gives you an insight as to how you use the sides of your brain in your approach to your own creative process. http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_test.htm

Brutus the Wonder Dog

2009-11-15T00:36:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm feeling a little down today. Hubby is at the cabin, Kayle went to a photo shoot all day, came home long enough to wash the theatrical makeup off and change clothes and she was off with Nick for the night. I couild have gone to camp with Bruce, he keeps asking me to go, but I guess I just haven't reached a point where I'm comfortable leaving home for more than a quick run to the neighborhood grocery store...and that's only if I have no other choice,

Anyway, I just started thinking about my beloved dog Brutus. Since Bruce and I were too old to have our own children, he with 2, me with 3, we talked about getting a dog. One day we got a call from his cousin who lives in the next town over telling us that her German Shepherd Hallie had puppies. 11 of them

She has papers and they always thought they might breed her down the line, but it seems that somebody else got to her first- a lab/shar pei cross that belonged to a neighbor. Well too late to do anything about it, she offered us a puppy so we packed the kids in the car and drove over. We picked out a little square headed pup with shepherd markings and way too much skin. His cousin told us he was found outside (in January) and they had thought he was dead, but put him under the heat lamps and he seemed to come around. Friends of ours Hoyt and Maryann also picked a puppy for their daughter Megan, and they named her Penny. As the dogs grew older they grew as different in looks as if they weren't even from the same littler. Brutus picked up the coloring of the shepherd, and the head and skin of a sharpei. Penny looked exactly like a black lab.

Brutus was always a very easy going dog, didn't bark, didn't mind little kids mauling him and went everywhere with us. On the sailboat on our excursions to Port Dahlousie and our weekends at our camp in the Adirondack mountains. But when we were home, he could always be found lying at my feet. No matter where I was, on the computer, in the living room, in bed, that dog was always right there beside me.

Brutus was my heart, and I miss him so much. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him or look at his 'baby book' and remember his puppy days and the joy he brought to our family.

This is the last picture we have of him. Kayle would often walk him over to the state park so he could run on the beach and play in the water.

Rest in Peace My Angel, I'll see you again.

Windy's Designs Cabin in the Woods

2009-11-14T11:13:00.001-05:00

Friends of ours, Bob and Pauline have a lovely spot in the Southern Tier nestled in a small valley where they have 4 cabins. They've been camping in one of them for years now, and offered the large 'kitchen cabin' for my husband's use since he likes to go deer hunting in the southern tier, The deal was we clean it and fix it u p and it's ours to use for as long as we want. 2 years ago Pauline was treated for breast cancer, and because at that time she didn't know how long she would be around, she made arrangements to pay it off so that it would always be a place for Bob and Bruce to go.

It's an open L shaped floor plan with a huge fireplace at one end, a huge round handmade table with an equally huge lazy susan in the center of it. It does have an indoor bathroom, a kitchen with hot and cold running water. Bruce sleeps on a vintage day bed and I sleep on a convertable couch that clicks down into a bed. Initially, all we had for additional heat was an old iron cookstove and we managed simple meals on it, but because we have electricity, we have coffee maker, toaster, crock pots and bought a 2 burner hot plate.

This first picture is in the corner beside the back door, my husband's latest project. We once had a huge antiquated old fridge there and it was removed and we placed a small apartment sized propane stove there. He built a shelf and on that you can see the small apartment sized fridge. behind that wall is the shower.

This is a picture of the shower. that back room used to be full of wood scraps and tools and there was no place to wash up other than the bathroom sink. Sure makes it nice!

This is the bathroom, it's directly across from the shower area.

This is the kitchen, directly across from the new stove and fridge. To the left is the shower and bathroom.

If you follow the counter around, you see the rest of the kitchen, and beyond the dining area, and the antique iron cookstove.

Here you can see the huge round table with the lazy susan in the middle. The photo was really dark, so I lightened it up a bit, you can see the detail much better if you click on the picture to enlarge it. Notice the woods outside the window!

Here is the antique daybed my husband sleeps on which doubles as seating during the day since there really is no 'bedrooms' to speak of.

across from the daybed is my click clack couch that turns into a bed. Notice the big stone fireplace to the right, we'll get to that in a minute.

Here is the long view. It really is quite spacious, even if it lacks a bit of privacy.

Here is the fireplace. It's easily 10 feet to the top, I know my eye level is lower than the mantle. We used to have a free standing wood stove on the hearth with the pipe going up the chimney, but we lost so much warm air to that huge gaping maw. Eventually, we found an excellent used fireplace insert, and it had made a world of difference. One thing that helped distribute the heat a little better was the installation of ceiling fans. My husband put one up above the fireplace, one as close to the center of the cabin as possible and one in the kitchen.

Here is the outside view of our cabin. Even though we are up on a hill, you can still see in the background the hills behnd us.

If you back further down the hill you see part of Bob and Pauline's cabin to the left. Oh, and you can see we also have satellite dish......

And here is the guest cabin. It looks teeny, but it's actually not a bad size. It's heated by a propane wall heater and get's quite cozy. This was my daughter's cabin for a couple of years, but with work, school and the boyfriend, she just doesn't have the time to come down, so Pauline decided to fix it up so that anyone of us could have visitors down. She put an antique sleigh bed in there and my husband says it looks wonderful. I wish he'd have gotten a picture of it, because I haven't seen it since it was changed.

There is a 4th cabin, up on the hill beyond ours. It's not been used and is rather hard to access. It sits overlooking the valley and it appears the ground will eventually wear away. We've jacked it up but Pauline would like to find a way to move it and eventually fix it up as well so it could be used.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my tour of our little cabin in the woods!

Etsy Faith or Etsy Fail?

2009-11-07T14:52:00.000-05:00

Among the changes from the old rules to the updated ones, is the rule about canceling transactions. In the past you could (as a seller) cancel any transaction for any reason and get your listing fees and final value fees back. Initially this process was quite slow, but later on it became automated and the refunds were nearly instantaneous. Which leads me to believe that even though the old rules said you weren't supposed to cancel a completed transaction (and I wish I could find the old wording to back this up), it was never actually clarified what a completed transaction was. Back when I was still posting in the forums this question came up fairly often and we were always referred back to the rules. I even contacted an admin for clarification because I always believed that a 'completed' transaction was one where money changed hands and the customer had their product, and as such, canceling a transaction for a return shouldn't be allowed. Even contacting an admin didn't clarify it for me, as I was referred to the wording in the rules. I believe I even read a time or two that an admin said that it was allowed. My thinking now is that because they hadn't really clarified it they couldn't deny them.

For years sellers have begged Etsy to clarify their rules, spell things out more clearly, draw a line in the sand so we know the boundary and now that they have, people are not liking the clarifications. Big surprise. How many times have I said 'be careful what you wish for'?
People are claiming that Etsy changed the rules on them because 'they used to do it'. Well folks, 'they used to do it' because they hadn't really clarified what a completed transaction was in the first place and because they never had a process to separate what is allowed from what is not allowed. I'm suspecting the latter is still true, and by and large they are still relying on member honesty not to file a cancellation based on a return, but they have finally clarified what a completed transaction is.

I know I initially I supported those opposed to this change, and I still do to a degree. I find, upon reflection, that it isn't so much to do with the actual practice of not allowing cancellation of transactions for refunds, but rather the whole process itself. The payment process, the feedback process and the refunding process, each of these programs were based on honesty of the user, just like the tagging system, but as everyone knows, not everyone is honest. While the faith in humankind is very endearing (to a point)it isn't a sound business practice to rely upon it. Safeguards have to be in place, and programs and features need to look beyond the functionality aspect. Yes, we can leave feedback, but so can someone who never paid for an item. There is definitely a flaw in the fundamental workings of this system.

Removing the emotional response for the moment, I have to ask are returns really that numerous to any one shop? Is it really going to affect your bottom line? Does any shop really have so many returns that this is a major issue for you? Because if you answer yes, then in my opinion, it's time to evaluate yourself and what you sell. Returns are a part of the business of selling. It is part of the overhead you should be figuring out, in addition to replacements for lost or damaged items, as well as other costs of doing business.

The argument that people who sell higher priced items are taking a bigger hit is true. But, those final value fees are acceptable if the item sells and is kept right? Successful sellers will always pay a higher bill than the less successful ones. They don't seem to mind the amount until it comes to a return. Sellers are loathe to absorb that loss, but then, so is Etsy. Sellers can build that kind of loss into their overhead, Etsy, not so much. Unless they raise fees. And on that note, a few people have expressed that they wouldn't mind if Etsy raised their fees from .20 to .25 to cover that loss. What makes you think it would only be a nickel increase? Last time they increased fees the price doubled. Would you be willing to pay .40 a listing? What about a flat monthly fee of $20 with free listings and no final value fees? After all, they have the traffic that other sites don't to justify charging this much. It's foolish to speculate that the increase will fall within the range you find acceptable. Now, successful sellers probably wouldn't blink at the flat fee, but sellers like myself, and hobbiests and new sellers would probably find this unacceptable and risky. I kind of like the 'pay as you go' system on Etsy.

For the record, it wasn't the changes in the rules that prompted my post, but the responses in the forums. It's one thing to express your displeasure and call for change, I think everyone has that right whether you agree or not. But the treatment and attitude by certain members toward other members is disgraceful and embarrassing. You can use the excuse of frustration all you like, been there, done that. I've been muted from the forums longer than many of the current complainers have been selling. And I've said my share of snide and disrespectful things. I'm certainly no angel. But being a forced observer for so long has changed my perspective on a lot of things. You can liken it to someone who who quit getting falling down drunk on weekends with friends. You suddenly see that behavior in a different light, although when you were doing it yourself it didn't seem so bad. You realize that your friends look rather foolish and become annoying and sometimes they're downright assholes. And they don't care.

Is Etsy perfect? Hell no. Do they make mistakes? Hell yes. Are there areas that need improvement? Absolutely. too many to list. Should people continue to speak out if they don't like something? Of course!

I've come to the conclusion that Etsy is damned if they do, and damned if they don't. No matter what, someone will always be complaining.

For the most part, I have no problem with the new dos and don'ts. Yeah, a few things got caught in the net, so to speak, that are questionable, but overall I think they did what they could to clarify things as they have been asked to do over and over and over again. It's just unfortunate that bits and parts have been magnified into huge issues when the overall intent is to help sellers and buyers. It just sucks that what you want that clarification to be and how Etsy clarifies it might not match.

Well, I feel better having gotten this off my chest.

Nick and Kayle Sitting in a Tree C-A-R-V-I-N-G

2009-10-31T03:20:00.001-04:00

So with the festivities of Halloween nearly upon us, I decided to invite Nick over for spaghetti dinnere so that he and Kayle could carve pumpkins at our house. Kayle picked up a couple of big ones on her way home from schoolk and they sat ominously on the counter awaiting their fates.

notice how innocent and unsuspecting they are. They have no clue what is in store for them.

But first, Nick had to wrestle with Lily. Naturally, she thought he was there for her benefit, and was not disappointed.

Loki took his usual spot on my little computer side table to watch from a safe distance.

Nick owns two rottweielers and a golden retreiver, so energetic dogs are not new to him. Lily, however, has the energy of the energizer bunny and keeps going, and going, and going...

Loki tires of the nonsense and wishes they'd get down to carving pumpkins..........*sigh*

Pumpkin one is started and Kayle decided Bruce needs a pumpkin guts facial.

Now that's not very lady-like.

And Nick and Lily are still going at it......she's having the time of her life!

One pumpkin down......now Nick has sufficiently tired out the dog so he can carve his.

Ok, they're finally finished!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Etsy's New Mission Statement

2009-10-26T01:01:00.000-04:00

Being a forced observer in the Etsy forums gives me the opportunity to read threads in full, take in all points of view and ruminate on the many opinions. Where I normally might have a knee-jerk reaction and respond one way, I now find that I often change my initial reaction because I've had time to consider.

Etsy's original mission statement was:

"Etsy is a marketplace for buying and selling all things handmade. Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things and to reconnect makers with buyers. Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade."

And with the emergence of the draft of the new Dos and Don'ts (Etsy's rules) an new mission statement has been made:

"Etsy is the world's most vibrant handmade marketplace. Etsy celebrates individual creativity in design, craftsmanship and the feel of hand by connecting unique people, stories and items in a playful and meaningful way."

I might note at this particular time, that there has been a lot of people demanding that Etsy change it's mission statement, mostly from the Vintage and Commercial Supply People because it doesn't reflect the fact that they are a part of the site. People upset with the fact that resellers of imported merchandise are not being monitored well, (if at all), and a place that touts itself as a place to buy all things handmade, it is a bit deceptive to potential customers who may not be aware that someone is reselling mass produced products.

This is one of those, 'be careful what you wish for' Etsy moments. You got the change alright, it just wasn't what you were expecting. Reminds me of the pleas we used to make for an announcement section to keep abreast of all the goings on on the site. There was really no place for them to disseminate any information except in random threads that had to be ferreted out and raised by the membership so that at least a smattering of people would see it at any given time. WE waited, and pleaded and we were told that the 'new couch' was coming soon, and guess what? We got the Storque! Talk about killing an ant with an elephant gun. Now they had the updates buried in all the other crap so you still had to search for it, and to let us know they made a new Storque post, they came to the forums and started a thread about it. Only for it to get buried within a few hours. And round and round we go......................... So, 3 years and many headaches later, they broke down and gave us the announcement forum.

Anyway, so people are taking exception to the word 'playful' in the new statement. And I will admit I did too, at first. And it's easy to get caught up in the reasons people are against it and support it. I am not on Etsy to play at selling, my items are not cute, kitschy, trendy, fun or playful. But, is that really what they are trying to say?

There have been a couple of mall analogies presented, so I put on my buyer's hat and went to the mall. The first mall I went to was just stores. the center concourse was empty, except for the few mall walkers who came in every weekend to get their laps in. This was once a pretty active mall, all the stores were full, the concourse had little kiosks, there was a foodcourt with a half dozen places to get food, a coffee place, a restaurant. It regularly held events in their huge concourse, antique shows, craft shows, concerts, boat and car shows and one end held a small area with a merry-go-round and a popcorn vendor for the kids. It was 'fun' to go there and spend the afternoon, shopping, window gazing, stopping for refreshment and just enjoying the outing.

When a venue makes your experience enjoyable, then you are going to spend more time and probably more money there. You won't just walk straight to the one store on your list, get what you need and get out again. You will meander around, wander into a couple extra stores and maybe make some small (or even big) impulse purchases. you are more likely to stop for some sort of refreshment and after a brief rest (and if time allows) you may just go back to one of those stores you passed by the first time.

You don't do that at a barren mall.

That said, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with 'playful' as part of the mission statement.
BusinessDictionary.com defines mission statement as follows:

Written declaration of a firm's core purpose and focus which normally remain unchanged, whereas business strategies and practices may frequently be altered to adapt to the changing circumstances. Properly crafted mission statements (1) serve as filters to separate what is important from what is not, (2) clearly state which markets will be served and how, and (3) communicate a sense of intended direction to the entire organization. A mission is different from a vision in that the former is the cause and the latter is the effect; a mission is something to be accomplished whereas a vision is something to be pursued for that accomplishment. Also called company mission, corporate mission, or corporate purpose.
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/mission-statement.html

This is their company's mission statement, not ours. It's a reminder to their employees why they are in business, they are providing a fun and playful venue in which to shop. It is no more a slap in the face to their vendors than the mall with the carousel in the concourse across from their front windows. The shop knows the benefit of having entertainment for the children, moms can promise a ride on the horsey if junior behaves while she finds a pair of shoes, or dad can keep little princess occupied while mom shops for a dress unencumbered.

As the definition above shows, though, Etsy's mission statement is pretty clear in where they are putting their efforts. They are still standing by the handmade initial vision, they developed a more 'free-spirit' approach to it and they've put emphasis on an aspect that has always been a part of Etsy and their vision, but now they are making it an official part of their mission. As far as I can see, nothing has really changed.

I guess this is one bandwagon I'll watch, rather than ride on.

Hibiscus Moon on Etsy

2009-10-09T10:44:00.001-04:00

I just have to laugh. This gal came to the forums to complain about her being overwhelmed by sales. Poor dear. Just what the other 170,000 shops who aren't selling squat want to read.

Upon perusing her shop, to see what was so hot about her items to put her in such a pickle, I noticed.....you guessed it, mass produced items and non handmade things in the everything else category.

Those crystal clusters, at the very least should be in supplies, the everything else category (as are all the categories with the exception of vintage and supplies, are for handmade items, so she's listed them ALL in the wrong category. Same with the crystal skull. I bought one on ebay from someone who was selling a ton of them, definitely not handmade by the seller.

Her box of gemstone chip jars are for sale on Gemstone Factory where you can buy them wholesale, along with her rose quartz puffy hearts (her shop)and Gemstone Factory and pendulums (her shop) and Gemstone Factory Definitely not handmade, vintage or a supply.

Can't flag her items since her shop is on vacation, but I can send an email to support to point out the violations.

People think that we go looking for stuff, why would we need to? Most of them practically wave their arms saying 'look at me', and it's hard to avoid.

Calling Out On Etsy

2009-10-06T15:14:00.001-04:00

Ok, I don't really want to use my blog to call people out, or denigrate others, there are plenty of blogs out there that do this already, However, I have a perfect example of why the flagging system is flawed.

On 9/21/02 I flagged this shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7252357 for listing mass produced mood rings in her shop:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31299595
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31300004
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=26846448

Which you can find here:
http://www.globalmarketstore.com/moodrings1.html
Note the pricing, for goodness' sake, if you're going to buy a mass produced mood ring, buy it directly from the wholesaler and save yourself the markup.
Now, you don't find the exact same mood rings here, but I think it's enough proof that the shop owner did not make the rings. Period. So they don't belong on Etsy. I don't see what the hold up is.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25917321
I found an ebay shop selling the same bracelet:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Swarovski-crystal-flowers-with-Frogs-stretch-bracelet_W0QQitemZ370228820462QQcmdZViewItem
and a website that carries them:
http://www.amerimark.com/cgi-bin/amerimark/postkey_find.html?cm_mmc=channel-_-engine-_-media-_-069933&keywords=069933&media=G60705&srccode=cii_9324560&cpncode=23-56664433-2

She even started her own thread, calling herself out here:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6292751
And though the thread was closed, still nothing has changed.

And that's not all I flagged. There's plenty wrong in this shop, for example:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27812220 she says its vintage (is it really?) and yet it's in housewares.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27789293
This is in dolls and miniatures. Really? She made this out of hard plastic? how talented. We all know it's not handmade, it's not a supply and she doesn't mention that it's vintage so it just plain doesn't belong on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27838469 ok, so these are in woodworking. Did she handcarve them? I'm guessing not, she does not mention making them herself. They are not a crafting supply, they are not vintage...they don't belong.

I'm sure there are more violations, but honestly, these are the ones I flagged, gave proof of and the tag abuse is blatant, why the hell can't Etsy do something about this?

I also came across this ring:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30760561 and flagged it with a link to the same exact one sold at target:
http://www.target.com/Sterling-Silver-Karma-Inspirational-Ring/dp/B002ICIV7W
If you look at her rings category, there are 4 others I flagged, though I don't have proof that she is reselling, judging by the jewelry she handmakes, she doesn't have the skills to make these. It gives me the impression she went through her jewelry box and is 'destashing' stuff she doesn't want. Still, flagged early in september, and even the one with proof of not being handmade, it still remains.

This is all stuff I came upon by chance. I don't make a habit of looking for violations because, quite frankly, even if I did purposely look, I wouldn't have to look hard, they're everywhere. Some blatant resellers, some not so noticeable. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter whether I purposely go looking or happen upon them by accident, they're there and I flagged with enough proof to prove they either don't belong or are in the wrong category but nothing is done. I'm getting pretty sick and tired of i t.

ArtFire versus Etsy.....The saga continues...................

2009-10-02T00:36:00.001-04:00

So. Not being able to post on the Etsy forums gets frustrating from time to time, but after 3+ years, not much is new.
Same gripes, the whiners may change but they're pretty much the same issues. Ad infinitum in the ideas section and yadda-yadda-yadda. Among one of the discussions was a "I am closing my shops on Artfire" declaration, followed by the usual supporters, naysayers and a slew of people content to use someone elses reasons, rather than their own judgement, to either close or not even open an Artfire shop,

So I meandered over to Artfire and perused their forums. I have had a basic shop for over a year now, made a few sales and just basically let it sit. I wanted to spread out my eggs a bit, but I wasn't ready to fork over the cash just yet. There seems to be a new promotion going on, The Free For All, where all basic shops can list as many items as they want, and they've even provided a tool that transfers all your Etsy listings to your Artfire shop, rather than having to do it all at once. Pretty neat, huh? Here is the link to the Artfire thread.

As expected, there was an outcry against this, some Artfire members feel that they are being shortchanged by basics being 'given' one of their sacred tools they pay for. I can see that. AF staff says that the point is to generate as many listings as possible and flood google with all the products so shoppers are lead to AF. The thing is, What do you do with a shop full of items you can't organize or categorize, you can't get a facebook kiosk to sell your products there, and you do not get preferential treatment when it comes to the internal search. Their search is based on relevancy with dash of random thrown in to give everyone an equal chance. Except, they will pull verified members items first in a search. So if your category is overly saturated by verified members, the liklihood of you being seen is much much less.

As I ruminate over this some more, it starts sounding a lot like Etsy and their method of advertising. Etsy constantly appeals to crafters to generate sellers, but not really to help the current sellers improve their sales by advertising to buyers.

Artfire makes it sound pretty that they are doing everyone a big favor by the unlimited listing whoo-haww.....but it smacks of the sellers being used, and appealing to the bandwagon mentality that exists on Etsy that if someone says something is awesome, the lemmings storm over the cliff to get a piece of the pie. Ok, so I mixed my metaphors, but you get what I mean.

So for my first post, here, I decided to make a suggestion to give all basic members 2 months of free verified services. And if they could swing it, give the verified memberships a break on fees for the month, to make it equitible. My reasoning was/is based on my own feelings about this unlimited listings offer. What am I going to do with a mish mosh of 100+ items that I can't put into categories? My shop will be a mess. If anyone does come to my shop, they can search for things, if they use the search box, but categories are much more convenient and buyer friendly. What if a new buyer comes upon a few of these basic shops with no bells and whistles and thinks the whole site is that messy? Buh-bye.

If I upload all my stuff from my Etsy shop into Artfire and there they sit for the next 3 months and I don't sell a thing, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to sign up for the verified account, hell, I have no proof of viability. And if I did make reasonable sales during that time, what is my incentive to upgrade then? I can do it without all the bells and whistles.

This is when I discovered that Artfire isn't really doing it for anything but the numbers. They want to have a full site with lots to choose from for shoppers and the only way to do this is to encourage as many of the shops on Etsy as they can to open or add to their basic shops. It was mentioned that Artfire's finances are based on only 10% membership, they expect that 90% will use the basic shops and if any of them upgrade, it's just icing on the cake. Or it makes up for the verifieds that close up for one reason or another.

My suggestion for the 2 months of free verified status for basic shops was actually based on making Artfire more money. IF a basic shop has no clue what the perks and tools are or how they could work for them, they don't miss them. But give them a taste of it and let them get used to having them for a period of time, they won't be so easy to give up.

A few people saw the wisdom of my suggestion but thought maybe the timing wasn't so great because some people were upset with the recent unlimited listing thing. Others implied that I was just being greedy and that I was given an inch, but wanted a mile and some people are never satisfied no matter how much they are given. oooooooooookay.

And now there are grumblings that Artfire is turning into Etsy (wished I would have taken bets on that one) and they are not as transparent as they used to be, and artfire's view of things may not always coincide with sellers views. Big surprise.

So, will I upgrade to verified for the Christmas Shopping season? Probably not. And I won't be uploading 100 things I can't keep in a neat shop, and I definitely won't be upgrading afterwards. Why? because I don't like being used, And I need to see some benefit to me for handing over my money.

Etsy and Artfire have their strong and weak points, but honestly, I may be jaded, but I feel that their first responsibility is to their business and will try to put the spin on anything they do to make it appear to be to sellers benefit.

Lily Got Skunked ------- Again!

2009-09-26T00:50:00.001-04:00

Yep, you read that right. Only a few weeks ago she got skunked while my hubby was out of town, and guess what? He left again today for the weekend, and voila' Lily hit the stinky jackpot once more.

This time is was earlier in the evening,. Since the hubs wasn't around for her 9pm walk, I took her out in the yard to let her run off some steam and do her business. She ran over into the next yard as always making these huge sweeping circles as if she knows this is her only chance to blow off that steam for the night. Suddenly she comes racing into the back yard and doesn't come back to the front where I am waiting for her. I wait a moment, call her, and hear this scuffling coming from under the back deck. Sure enough, she's under there with some kind of animal, I don't hear anything but underbrush being torn apart, and I can't see anything because the motion light on the back corner of the house doesn't throw enough light to see under the deck. So I call, and call, with promise of cookies and treats and still the noises continue. By this time I'm thinking the lack of noise means it's probably a rabbit, and I'm visualizing it trying to dart past or around her.

My thoughts were quickly proven to be wrong, however, when that familiar stench began filling the air. Lilly came running out from under the deck and started rolling in the wet grass, digging her face in it to get the spray off of her. Of course, like an idiot, I didn't replenish the hydrogen peroxide I used the last time this happened, so I'm standing there wondering what the hell I'm going to clean her off with this time. After one more attempt to get at the skunk, I managed to get her into the house. I now have a headache from the smell. I managed to find some oxyclean under the sink, so I used a washcloth and wiped her face , neck and chest off.

I guess she smells a little better, my nose is stuffed up now so it's hard to tell. I'm sure my olfactory nerves have also gotten used to the smell.

I'm thinking now, since this has happened twice since my hubs has gone out of town that he is responsible for this. He probably figures I have wild sex parties while he's gone and he'd throw a wrench into it by letting a skunk out nearby, knowing my dog would have a run in with it. The dog would stink, the house would stink, I'd be preoccupied and not in the mood for a party so it would wind up not happening. Pretty smart man. What it really ruined was my 3 favorite program's season premiere episodes tonight. I'll get him back though, I'm going to let her sleep on his side of the bed while he's gone, under the covers and use his pillow. He he.

I Wonder What People Are Thinking

2009-09-25T12:38:00.000-04:00

when they come into a selling site forum and ask people how to make the things they sell, because ostensibly, they want to make it themselves for a gift. They email specifically the people that make these items and expect them to just give them that information? And they wonder why no one responds to their query? Really?

Do these people not understand that Etsy, although a great community (at times, and under some circumstances) but it is a SELLING site, and most shops are in the business to make money off their creations. Whether they are selling for pennies to replenish their craft supplies, or they need to live off the profits, I don't think anyone purposely is there to sell at a loss. And as helpful as people can be toward one another, I believe there is a line in the sand you just shouldn't cross.

And where does the mentality come in that people think they can just pick up a given craft and with a few instructions and little to no practice, produce a pleasing and quality product? Most crafters have worked long and hard developing their techniques and establishing a skill base upon which to build. People dabble in other mediums, this is most apparent when perusing the jewelry category when you notice crocheters and paper crafters, and others whose main craft is totally unrelated to jewelry, making simple bead earrings by the boatload. But, they excel in a particular area, mostly because of the time they've put into it,.

Think about it this way. You have 2 people who know how to remove a gallbladder. One is a surgeon who specializes in it, the other a lawyer who took a class and learned how to do it. (aside from the fantasy and lack of legalities in this scenario) which one would you want performing your surgery? The surgeon, who has spent years not only learning how to take out organs, but what to do if other organs fail while they're doing it. They are trained to recognize things that may not belong (like tumors), and they are capable of treating you for other things afterwards. Now, the lawyer may be very skilled at that one task, removing a gallbladder. He may have had several successful operations. But he is not equipped to handle a situation if you should go into cardiac arrest on the table. He doesn't have the experience built upon years of learning and honing his craft. And there's the difference.

There's a difference between someone asking about a certain aspect of a craft they they've been trying, but not getting, and someone who wants it all laid out in a neat, pretty package with all the work done by someone else.

But I keep wondering what it is about Etsy that gives people the impression that we crafters and artists, who are trying to sell our things, will just hand over our suppliers, techniques and 'how-to's' to anyone who asks?

Tags on Etsy

2009-09-24T15:39:00.001-04:00

are a joke. The flagging system is a joke. I have purposely not used the word 'Etsy' in any of my later posts because I refuse to give them any more advertisement because they sure as hell don't do anything for me, but I'm hoping google picks up this post and they read it because I'm fed up.

I'm fed up with people using Etsy as a place to unload their personal stash of jewelry. I just happened upon 2 shops that I know for a fact are doing this. I have found one of the rings they are selling at Target.com and flagged and supplied the link. The fact that their 'handmade' stuff is at such a basic skill level and then they have these metalworked rings with stampings in them, no less, is very telling, but the items remain despite the proof. I found someone who is selling stuff from globalmarketstore.com. Seriously folks, if you want a spider mood ring, buy it there and not from this seller, it's only $4!!!!!!!

Someone else is selling a cast iron 'animal' that they pulled out of their yard. A little rusted, but you can use it in an easter basket. It's in supplies. They also have little cardboard houses they claim to have made themselves and the same ones are for sale on http://www.paperchristmasguys.com/pine-cone-papier-mache-people.html . sure, you can buy kits and make them, but why not sell the kits? The finished product is not a supply, and it barely passes as handmade as far as I'm concerned. Any monkey can put a kit together. The problem with shops like this is that they do have legitimate stuff in their shops that either really are a supply, or handmade stuff, but then they add these other items that are agaist TOS and there is nothing we can do but flag.

I didn't go looking for these infractions either, I just clicked on a category and there they were as plain as the nose on your face. No one but us monitors the listings and if they are so backed up with flags, what does that tell you? That maybe there is so much on the site that doesn't belong that it's a problem? Or so much is miscategorized or mistagged that it's a problem?

And then there's alchemy. Where you are supposed to be able to request a special item to be made for you. Something that isn't already offered on the site. Not knockoffs of other people's work for a cheaper price, not knockoffs of precious name brand jewelry or clothing because you can't afford the 'real thing'. It's not supposed to be for 'what can I get for my boyfriend's sister's BFF for $3 including shipping'. You aren't supposed to advertise your business there. You aren't supposed to request supplies or vintage items there. I saw someone looking for scrabble tiles. There are dozens of shops that sell them. Contact one of them if you are looking for a specific letter. I don't look at alchemy too often, I'm busy enough with custom work, but sometimes if I'm bored I"ll look. The other day, in 3 pages I must have flagged over a dozen of requests for flagrant violations. Another dozen were 'what can I get for' or requests for knockoffs. The problem with no one monitoring this section is that they get bids, so by the time it's removed (if it even is) they've already gotten what they're looking for.

The whole site is just a free-for-all. do what feels good to you and the hell with everyone else. The problem with that is it screws up the site for those that follow the rules. I'm sure some of the ones who would never dream of abusing tags or categories are now finding that joining them is much easier than trying to change it. And those that have no clue that their abusing tags and categories? Sorry folks, you get lumped in with the ones that do it purposely, because ignorance is no excuse. Just because you don't know something doesn't mean it's excusable, it's your responsibility to know the rules of the venue you are selling on.

And don't get me started on SEO and google base. I may not be able to post in the forums, but I sure read them. What a clusterfuck those issues are. I have no faith that Etsy will get either of those right the first time. Or the second, or third time.

Ok, rant over for the moment. You can all go back to your regularly scheduled rainbows and cupcakes now. Thank you.

My Favorite Things - Lighthouses

2009-09-20T20:04:00.000-04:00

Those familiar with my taste in things will know that I am a lover of lighthouses. I'm always looking for things related to that and decided to do a little searching on Ehtsee to see what I could see. And I found a treasure trove of beautiful things and thought I'd give them a little boost in my blog.

Latimer Lighthouse - An Original Watercolor Painting by David Young

If money was not a concern, this would be mine. Yesterday. What a beautiful painting by a very talented man.

18 X 12 Ceramic Tile Mural Lighthouse Ocean Nautical Lighthouses Rocks

(ok, not the greatest title, but I'm not here to criticize!)

So vibrant and beautiful I could really see this in my bathroom.

16x20 OLD FRIENDS..Original..Ready to Hang

This is a little different style of painting, done in acrylics on canvas, but I think it captures the serenity of a calm summer night. The moon and the lighthouse, guardians lighting the way for sailors for hundreds of years.

Manistee North Pierhead Light Original watercolor

This watercolor is exceptionally well done. The artist, Brenda Thour has a beautiful selection of well detailed watercolors.

14 Karat Gold Lighthouse Miniature Sculpture

A little something different. The lighthouse is

cast in 14K yellow gold. The lighthouse, dock and rowboat were carved in wax, then cast. These were in turn assembled to the stone base, with the oars and rope hand fabricated. The entire sculpture is then mounted on a mahogany wood base with a glass dome cover for dust protection. This is definitely for the serious collector, and a beautiful study of textures and color.

Lighthouse and Sailboat Suncatcher

Beautifully hand cut stained glass.

I am no art critic, and I'm always at a loss for words to describe the feelings I get when I see things I love, and I rarely do them justice. All I can say is that each and every single item I've featured here has struck a chord within me and represented one of my favorite things so well that I had to show them to you. I hope you enjoy them and check out their shops to see more, because even if lighthouses aren't your thing, I can guarantee you that they will have something that strikes a chord in you too.

Loki

2009-09-04T14:19:00.002-04:00

I should probably start with Raz, our other cat, since we got her first, but finding Loki in one of his typical poses with a camera handy was the determining factor in who got blogged about first.

We got Loki as a kitten from a friend of my daughter's. She brought him home late one night after a graduation party. Mind you, we already had a dog, a rabbit and another cat and my husband was vehemently opposed to adding another animal to our zoo. Since we only had Raz for a short time, and they are both black, we actually got away with my husband not noticing we actually had 2 cats for awhile. One evening after dinner, both cats happend to run into the kitchen while the hubs was sitting at the table. The jig was up! He picked Loki up, gave me that look, sighed and said "I guess we have another cat?". For all his gruff and bluster, the hubs is really a softy when it comes to cute little animals, so Loki was officially made a member of the family.

Loki is a polydactyl, meaning he has 6 toes on each front paw. His front feet look like catcher's mitts.

Loki is Lord of the House. There is no place that he doesn't belong and he insists that we accommodate him no matter what we are doing.

In fact, he can be downright stubborn even if I am trying to work.

And this is probably his favorite pass-time..... playing dead.

I actually had to look very closely to make sure he was still breathing. And of course, he can't do this after I've vacuumed.

He also likes to monitor my computer activities. I have a side table that was supposed to be used for working on projects while I surf, but Loki figured it was for him and makes darn sure that anything I put on that table is pushed off onto the floor and therefore in the dog's domain. Sometimes I think he jumps on the kitchen table just to push stuff off for the dog to chew. You'd think I'd have learned, but no...my sterling silver omega chain had it's clasps mysteriously chewed off, and just last night Lily walked past me reeking of Little Black Dress perfume. I later found the bottle, intact with the plastic top chewed to bits under the table.

Anyway, here is Loki monitoring my computer activities:

Did I mention I love this cat to bits? He's just so self assured and regal. Even our vet called him handsome. And lovable, and so good natured.

Now if I can just get the elusive Razzy to pose for some pictures, I'll tell you all about her next!

I don't get it.

2009-09-03T18:24:00.002-04:00

So E rolled out a new feature enabling each shop to rearrange their items. I know it was a feature some people wanted, maybe even I did at one time, but I have to say 'whoopdedoo' on this one.

Have I become so jaded that nothing E does is good enough anymore? True, one doesn't need to renew items in order to put them together on the first page of your shop anymore, and I understand that some people really want this and find it useful. I don't. I dont' have it yet, so maybe that's part of it, but it looks to me like how you would rearrange a treasury. To make 'aesthetically pleasing' pages.

Maybe I'm not 'every shopper', but I rarely look at the aesthetic of the shops I buy from. The photos do matter, but not how they are arranged in one's shop. Categories are a good thing to have, what I really wish is that we could have thumbnails for each of our categories along with a place for a description, and those could be your front page thumbnails. That I would find useful and be all 'thanks E for all your hard work!'.

As far as I'm concerned, this was a feature that should have been part of E since the V2 rollout. It shouldn't have been something that people begged and pleaded for for years so that when they finally did get it they fell over themselves in gratitude. Sheesh, it literally makes me ill to read all the gushing people do. I guess I am jaded.

Now, how about fixing those SEO issues?

Our Vacation

2009-09-03T14:46:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I've been slacking in the blogging department. Sometimes I have so many ideas about things I want to write about, and I have half a dozen drafts of things waiting in the wings but this blogging business isn't as easy as it looks.

Anyway, in August, we went to Wellesley Island up in The Thousand Islands to the state park to camp. Camping for me is a 27 ft trailer with running water, electricity and an indoor bathroom and shower. I've done the tent thing, and trust me, there is no glamour in tent camping. And it's a darn good thing we didn't camp with a tent. The first night we were there, there were torrential rains and further on down our row of camp sites, the poor tenters were flooded. I wish I had gotten pictures of that, but I felt sorry for them.

So, it was a 5 hour drive for us. We invited my husband's sister Bonnie and her Significant Other, Joey. They also have a large trailer, and our sites were diagonally across from each other, close enough to be together, but not close enough to "be together", if you catch my drift. I love Bonnie and Joe with all my heart, but in small doses. And dang if I didn't get pictures of them, or our campsites or any of that stuff. Come to think of it, I didn't get a lot of pictures, except of the scenery, which is worth it in one respect, but not so great in the story-telling department. Oh, did I mention that Bonnie has a fear of bridges?

Oh Bonnie.......did you see the view from the bridge?

My daughter Kayle brought her friend Cassie along.

We arrived and set up camp around 3pm. My husband, with his years of truck driving experience, backed into our site on the first try. Joey, on the other hand, even with my husband directing him took about a half hour of back and forth, in and out to finally get situated. The first night is kind of a blur, we ate, it rained, we watched TV, yes, my husband bought a new flat screen TV and hooked up satellite dish for our convenience. Yes, I am spoiled.

The next morning, the sun shone and we headed off the island to Alexandria Bay. It's a neat little town filled with tourist shops and restaurants, and you can also take river excursions and visit Boldt Castle, situated on an island. We didn't do the castle tour this time, we did it years ago when my daughter was in a wheelchair with a broken ankle, thanks to her older brother. That's another story though. Suffice it to say, once was enough. The memory of pushing that wheelchair all over the island, in and out of buildings is permanently burned into my brain as something I don't want to relive, ever. However, I did take some pretty spectacular pictures of the island with Boldt Castle on it.

It was "Bill Johnston's Pirate Days" during our visit. Bill Johnston was a renegade after the patriots war, who blew up the British steamer, Sir Robert Peel, hid among the 1000 Islands, and was hunted by both U.S. and Canadian authorities. The annual Bill Johnston's Pirates Days celebration commemorates some of his exploits. There were all sorts of things going on, reenactments, a pirate ship and people dressed in pirate garb all over the place. We didn't really see much in the way of entertainment, but we managed to catch the pirate ship.

We walked through the town, and Kayle and Cassie bought some cute t-shirts, we ate ice cream and just kind of soaked in the sun and enjoyed the day. Bonnie found some wine glasses for Joey's collection to commemorate their visit. I didn't buy anything, my favorite thing to do their is just sit by the water and take in the view. The islands dotting the St Lawrence are just so beautiful, and I love to imagine what it must be like to live on one. Bonnie wanted a picture of one of the ferry's that gave tours, so here's one for you sistah:

When we arrived to the campgrounds, we noticed this huge, huge nest atop a power pole. My hubs and Cassie went back to take pictures:

WE thought it was an eagle nest, but later learned it was an osprey nest. I don't know much about this bird, but luckily there was a sign with some great information right there!

While hubs and Cassie were investigating the bird nest, they decided to take a look around another part of the Island. Well, the hubs decided and Cassie went along for the ride. They found a boat dock area (how exciting), and thought the approaching sunset was photo worthy.

And then discovered Eel Bay, and took another picture of the sun setting.

All in all, we had a nice little vacation. I really love our new trailer, and I look forward to using it again, most likely, next summer. I think though, I'll plan a little earlier next time, this was kind of a spur of the moment getaway for 4 days, and it would have been nice to be able to stay a little longer.

To end this blog post, I'll leave you with a beautiful picture. I have no idea where it was taken or who took it, but it is a fitting tribute to the beautiful area we visited.

Lily Got Skunked!

2009-08-25T11:43:00.003-04:00

Lily has got her routine down to a science. Every evening a few minutes before 9 pm, my husband gets his shoes on and takes Lily out for her nightly walk. Sometimes she has fallen asleep in her chair next to me in the living room, but the minute she hears him stir, she's up hanging over the back of that chair looking down the hallway expectantly. He calls her and she runs! This routine ends with her receiving 3 or 4 'cookies' and going into her crate.

Promptly at 11pm, I turn off the tv in the living room and it's her cue to get excited about the next step in the evening's festivities, her nightly run. We live out in the country, all our neighbors know Lily, and she has a standing invitation to go across the street and play with Sasha, the black chow. So these nightly romps can last up to a 1/2 hour or so, and if it's longer, I go outside and listen for the tinkling of her tags, which actually sound more like cow bells and whistle for her to come home. She always comes in like a bullet, all out of breath and happy to be able to run around before settling in for the night.

This night, however, was different from the norm. She went out the back door as usual, went around the side of the house, turning on the automatic flood light and I heard her race to the empty lot next door. It's at this time I take my ambien for sleep. It takes about a 1/2 hour to kick in and I enjoy the mellowed out feeling until I"m ready to retire. As I'm sitting at the computer, I smell the distinct fragrance of a skunk. Not too concerned, because we get that smell often as there are feral cats running around the neighborhood, and the state part is just across the creek from us. Tonight though, the smell seemed extremely pungent, and the first few stirrings of apprehension started to appear in my gut.

Within minutes though, I hear Lily's tags clinking as she runs toward the back door. I go to open it, hearing her tags jingling louder and her panting as she bounds up onto the back porch and through the door..........and my fears were realized. The stench was nauseating and she bounded through the door straight into the living room.

I went after her, half expecting to see the skunk hanging out of her mouth, but thankfully I was spared that. If you've ever smelled a dead skunk on the side of the road, or one that has let loose somewhere nearby, that's bad. But the smell of fresh spray on your dog is way beyond that. My mind went rushing (as fast as it could with my ambien in full swing), and oh, did I mention that my daughter was asleep and my husband was out of town?

"Tomato Juice" I said out loud...that's what they recommend! Never mind that I don't drink the stuff, don't have it in the house and the stores are all closed, and even if they were open, I was in no condition to drive. So I sat down to think, think....what could I use? I briefly thought about the pot of spaghetti sauce with meatballs I had in the fridge. But would it work? should I pick out and save all the meatballs first? Or let her eat them to try and distract her from the fact that I was dousing her down with an italian meal. Then I remembered the bloody mary mix I got for Christmas but never used. I ran to the liquor cabinet, found it and realized it was clammato flavored....Just what I needed, a dog that stinks of skunk and fish. My last resort was a tube of sundried tomato paste. I could have cried. But by this time I was so tired I almost didn't care what she smelled like, and suddenly, she didn't seem to smell 'so' bad anymore.

Now, she sleeps on our bed, down at the foot on my side, although when my husband is away she likes to sneak up and sleep on his pillow. I ordered her back down to the foot, turned the fan in the window on so it would blow across the bed and out of the room and we went to bed.

In the morning, the full reality of just how bad she smelled hit me full force and my daughter wanted to stake her out in the empty lot next door. Before I hit the stores for the tomato juice, I decided to use good old google to see how much tomato juice you need for a 40lb dog, or if there were any other methods that might work better. And I found one, miraculously that I already had the ingredients for in the house. It was actually developed by a scientist based on the compounds in the skunk's spray. It consisted of 1 quart of hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup baking soda and a teaspoon of liquid soap. I mixed it all together, used the hose to wet her down and scrubbed her with a microfiber cloth with this concoction. And it worked. Like a friggin' charm! Your supposed to let the stuff sit on her for 10 minutes and let the oxygenation lift the smell out and the soap cleanses it away. Or something like that. So I let her run around the yard until it was time to rinse her off. Just don't get it in their eyes or ears. I used the cloth to wipe her face down and clean out her ears. Needless to say, we are stocking up on the giant size bottles of peroxide, because I have a feeling, knowing Lily, that she is not deterred by mere stench. She certainly isn't deterred by our two cats that claw and hiss at her when she chases them.

So that is my saga with the irrepressible Lily. I'm sure there will be more. She just has that look on her face.

2009-08-24T15:55:00.000-04:00

Sale and Free Shipping!

Ok, in my efforts to continue my blogging, and having nothing new to report, I decided to let all of you know that I am having a sale in my shop. With free shipping. On selected items. That you can find HERE in this section. And...if you mention my blog, I will even give a further discount of 10%, all you have to do is mention you saw this special discount in my blog in the message to seller box, and then wait and I will send you an adjusted Paypal invoice.

And I'll tell ya what else I'll do. If you find something else in my shop that you'd like that isn't in my free shipping section, I'll still give you 10% off. But you have to mention my blog!!

**This special sale will run from today, August 24, 2009 until Friday, August 28, 2009.

2009-08-23T00:56:00.001-04:00

Rules, laws, commandments and convention

I've been observing some forum discussions lately, that while interesting and thought provoking, seem to deteriorate very quickly when certain people enter the thread and start throwing digs at the Original Poster.

It makes me feel, without going into detail, that the person being targeted was not punished by the hosting site sufficiently for a small, but vocal group of people who continue to harass this person. As far as I know, it was one incident, no animals were harmed and I'm fairly sure the rule breaker was set straight on the necessity of following the site rules, or else.

They also claim that this same person's posts are nothing more than thinly veiled promotions, and again make the point publicly, as if to try and discredit this person further. they must think that if they harass her enough, she'll just disappear and won't disgrace their forums with her presence any longer. One wonders why, if they feel that way about this person's posts, that they even enter them at all. After all, we are free not to read a subject that is going to upset us. And if it's behavior that you seem to feel is repetitive, then, by all means, stay out of them, unless, of course, your sole purpose in participating in them is to wait for an opening to further denigrate this person.

I think people need to let go and move on, harboring these kinds of negative feelings can't be good for you. I find if someone is toxic to me, I avoid them, I don't need their toxicity in my life. I then cease to care what they do. It's actually a very freeing concept.

2009-08-21T18:59:00.004-04:00

A New Day Dawns

It seems that all the reading I've been doing about blogs are that they are for the purpose of advertising your website. Although I started out needing a place to put my wedding photos and tell my "story", after I opened my Windy's Designs Shop I figured I'd use it for promotional purposes. I managed to get a few of my jewelry pieces in here, but somehow, it just didn't keep my attention, and advertising, when I don't really have any readers, seemed pointless.

Then we got Lily, and I thought, 'cool, now I have something to blog about!'. Well, one year later, I see that even she wasn't enough of an inspiration to keep me going. (We still have Lily, by the way).

So, I started reading blogs. All sorts of blogs, ones that give tips and techniques into jewelry making, ones that help people with their online businesses, some more that are just about life in general. I figured, generally speaking, I have a life, such as it is, and I could blog about that. So, with renewed enthusiasm, I have officially re-started my blog.

I can't promise pithy prose, or laugh your butt off humor, but I can promise that I'll do my best to keep it interesting. And if it winds up boring, well, you can read it before bedtime instead of taking a sleeping pill.

So sit back, grab your cup of choice, fill it with your favorite potable and we can have a virtual sit down at my kitchen table. After I clear it off, that is. And I clean the kitchen, and vacuum and fold the laundry you can see lying on my bed. Oh, and lest not forget the bathroom where my husband is grateful for the 1/2 inch of counter space my daughter and I provide for him.

See you soon!

2008-07-30T22:27:00.002-04:00

Lily (short for Lily Munster from the dramatic widow's peak markings on h er face) was picked up by our local shelter as a stray. I'm guessin now, that we've had her a month she has settled down somewhat, although she is still full of that puppy exuberance that is hard to tame down. After 2 accidents on the floor, she now goes to the front door and patiently waits and if someone doens't appear to be paying attention, then she jumps up on the back of my chair, letting out little breathy yips, just in case the claws on the chair are not enough of a clue that she wants out.

Once out, on a leash of course, she sniffs around, squats to pee an just when you think she sniffing to prepare for round 2, a distant barking dog, or a misplaced garbage can at the curb will immediately derail her from her mission.

The spca staff told us she was a german shepherd cross.....I suppose I can see it, sort of, but she definitely has terrier in her. Had I know about the terrier side, I'm not sure she would have been my first choice for our family. I am not that active and she really needs an active family to take her for walks and play with her.

She crate trained righ from the start, with nary a peep, she seems happy, if not bored and is affectionate with us, so it gives me hope. As does her looks, she's kind of hard to resist

All things Handmade: We, the people :O)

2007-11-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

All things Handmade: We, the people :O): "ink"

2007-06-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

My custom items don't always get a lot of air time, so I thought it would be nice to feature them here. This is an Argentium sterling silver byzantine bracelet with a gorgeous Venetian glass heart. I wind the wire on a mandrel, cut the rings and assemble all by hand. I welcome custom work, so if you're interested, visit my Etsy Shop and contact me and see if we can't make something especially for you!

2007-06-29T18:51:00.001-04:00

I am used to doing custom work, but I am so proud of this latest one. I recently got a request from a customer to make a mother's pendant, but could I also make it a pin because her mother wears more pins than pendants. Using the birthstones for April, for the mother and two daughters, I sat down and created this combination pin/pendant. I am really pleased with the way it turned out and the customer was thrilled!

2007-05-11T21:17:00.000-04:00

My very first attempt at etching copper and I am quite pleased with the results. I have been designing this and making this in my dreams for quite some time now, and only recently got the ingredients together to make my dream come true. Now that I've started, I have plans to do more. The process from making the design on copper, etching and then the oxidizing is very fulfilling when the finished product is realized. I've taken some brass wire and a black tourmaline bead and 2 copper beads to make a bale and I've hung it on a greek leather adjustable cord. It is not listed in my Etsy Shop yet, but will be in the next few days. I rather like the organic look and can't wait to expand my line.

2007-04-27T20:18:00.000-04:00

WEll, today I got a nice surprise, an email from Mike, from the blog What My Girlfriend Wants
telling me that my Pearl Dangle Ring was featured on their blog, along with several other talented Etsians. This is really a boon to my confidence that out of all the jewelry sellers on Etsy (and there are hundreds, if not thousands), mine was exceptional enough to be chosen. And I am in good company, as the other Etsians chosen also offer some lovely pieces.

2007-02-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've been making jewelry for about 8 years now. Never once have I oxidized any of my sterling silver until the other day. It seems to be a popular trend, this darkened silver, and I have to say, after trying it out, it really changes the look of the jewelry.

At first I tried the boiled egg method.....it's where you boil an egg, cut it in half and put your silver in to oxidize in a natural way. Egg yolk has sulphur in it which causes the chemical oxidation process. Um...not for me. So I bought a bottle of Liver of Sulphur. Mixed it up according to directions, with 1 cup of cold water and...voila! Nothing. So, being the reader I am, I have done my homework and researched this method and find that the water must be very warm. So I microwave the solution. Upon opening the microwave, I am overcome with the smell of rotten eggs. Not a few, but hundreds, maybe thousands of them. I hold my breath, dip the earrings in and like magic they start to transform!!!

The smell is becoming rather noxious, so I open the back door for some ventilation. Did I mention it's 6º here with a wind chill factor of -30º? So, here I am freezing and gagging trying to fish the earrings out of the solution, manage to wash them off and try to decide if I want to save the solution or dump it. I opt for some saran wrap over the container while I decide.

The earrings turned out fantastic!!! The finish is permanent and a very striking contrast to the ruby red quartz briolettes. Serpent - Blackened Silver and Ruby Quartz Long Dangle Earrings

Since winter is in full swing I'm not sure when I will try this again, doing it inside is just not an option. Freezing my butt off outside is also not an option I'm likely to try anytime soon, either.

Lori

BRUCE AND LORI OCTOBER 11, 2003 SOULMATES UNITED FOREVER

2005-07-31T20:59:00.001-04:00

After the ceremony, out on the grounds of Fort Niagara, the mouth of the Niagara River as it opens up in to Lake Ontario

2005-07-31T20:58:00.000-04:00

Kayle, Me, Bruce, Casey

2005-07-31T20:57:00.000-04:00

The wedding party, from left to right, Step father Dick, my brother Scott, my daughter Kayle, Myself, Bruce, my mother Jan, Bruce's son Casey, my son Brandon and Bruce's son Kevin

2005-07-31T20:55:00.000-04:00

Greeting our guests after the ceremony, Casey, Bruce, Me, Kayle

2005-07-31T20:53:00.000-04:00

The new Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Lort!

2005-07-31T20:50:00.000-04:00

Waiting in the wings

2005-07-31T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here comes the bride

2005-07-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

The altar in the small castle chapel

Our Wedding, October 11, 2003

2005-07-31T14:16:00.001-04:00

Bruce and I had lived together for about 7 years before we got married, he stating repeatedly that no matter how much he loved me he never wanted to get married again. In the first few years we were together I tried to change his mind, but no amount of crying, cajoling, bargaining or threatening to leave would change his mind. So when he had a heart attack in July of 2003, I think it got him thinking about life and love and loss and then he couldn't make me his wife fast enough. He even came to my workplace with ring in hand, and out on the Hospital grounds where I and some of my coworkers were taking our morning break, got down on one knee and proposed.

We decided on a date, far enough away to prepare, barely, and got to work on the fine details. My then 16 year old Daughter Kayle was to be my maid of honor and Bruce's oldest son Casey the best man. I decided to do the flowers, my bouquet, my daughter's, the toss-away bouquet and the boutenniers and corsages for the rest of the family/wedding party as well as flowers and decorations for the church. My son Brandon played the trumpet for the processional and recessional and I asked my brother Scott to walk me down the aisle.

Neither Bruce and I belong to a church, so the next obstacle was to find someone to marry us. At the same time we didn't know where we would hold the ceremony. Living so close to Niagara Falls, we did have the option of a wedding chapel, and I did call a couple of them, finding that the ones we were interested in were rather expensive. Along with that there was the reception to think about and the food and the cake. We were already on a tight budget and checking out hotels and catering was rather disheartening. Bruce is the youngest of 5 and one of his older brothers, Billy, offered to do the food and cake as a wedding present. Billy is one of the best cooks I know, he and his wife Donna (who passed away from cancer about 5 years ago) always brought the most delicious deserts to all the family functions. So we sat down with him and devised a menu and finally felt like we were making some headway. We still didn't have a place for the wedding or the shower and as I gathered materials for the floral pieces and started collecting supplies for the favors and table decorations for the reception, I worried out loud to Bruce on several occasions about not finding a place. It was easy for him not to worry, all he had to do was show up!lol One of my friends from work offered her restaraunt for the reception, a cute country cafe type place which would have been difficult to use because of the layout, but I was beginning to think it was the only place we would be able to afford.

Then, one day out of the blue, Bruce came home and asked me how I would like to get married in a castle! One of his customers worked for Fort Niagara and offered the tiny chapel to us. They used to hold weddings there fairly regularly, the stipulation being that you had to be dressed in period costume and be willing to be on display for the tours. If we were to have our wedding after hours we didn't have to meet the costume criteria, so we said yes and set the time for 6 pm which was when the Fort grounds closed. Now we had a place to get married!!! But no one to marry us and I was still reluctant to commit to the little country cafe for the reception. It wasn't long before Bruce again came home from work one day and announced that his boss's brother Tom who lived in a very posh condiminum complex had offered us the use of the community room (for free!) so now we had a place for the reception. What a relief! And the decor, although a little dated was still very elegant and had everything we needed to serve food and beverage, dance and it had the most awesome view being located on the river. Now I could relax somewhat, but we still didn't have anyone to marry us. One of my supervisors at work is a minister and I crossed my fingers hoping she would be able to do the honors, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. She would be out of town that week. Again, Bruce came to the rescue. One of his friends is a judge in a neighboring town and a quick phonecall confirmed he was available and willing to marry us!

My daughter and I had discussed dresses for the wedding andI was having a hard time convincing her that she wasn't going to wear black. I knew of a place in one of the malls that everything in the store was $20, and I had seen some beautiful formal dresses in there, so that's where we started. We looked in the racks and we both picked out a beautiful deep purple/blue satin dress.....the size was perfect. She put it on and even she liked it, that in itself was a miracle. It needed to be hemmed up a bit, but I decided I could do it so we bought the dress. 1 down and 1 to go. We headed to another store in the mall,a small boutique with very exclusive and expensive dresses in the window. I hesitated because most of them looked to be made for much younger (and thinner) women. I really didn't think I'd find anything, but my daughter was already in there ooohing and ahhing and pulling out dresses left and right for me. I knew I didn't want a traditional wedding dress, but I did want something elegant and wedding-like. They had a small rack of wedding dresses in the back and as I thumbed through them looking for my size, the only dress on that rack that I even considered just happened to be the only one in my size. I pulled it out and the sales lady ushered me to the fitting room. It fit like a glove, other than needing the straps to be shortened, the dress fit me like it had been made for me. In one shopping trip both dresses had been found, I knew things were finally falling into place.

The rest of the time flew by, I was busy assembling flowers for bouquets, boutenniers and corsages. I made some arrangements for the altar in the chapel and I got some lovely ivory ribbon bows, the kind you see on the ends of the pews in the church. I added some of the same silk flowers to the center of those, got some ivory tapered candles and the church decorations were all set. I got some elegant silver swan candy holders on clearance and made up the favors and found some cute silver bells, so I made up a label sized tag and with some ribbon and some tiny silk rosebuds tied them onto the bells. On one side was a line from "our song" "I cross my heart and promise to give all I've got to make all your dreams come true, In all the world you'll never find a love as true as mine", and finally the favors were done. We got some more ivory candles, and I decorated a single crystal candle stick with the ribbon and Ivory and deep red rose buds and those were placed on each of the tables. One evening we were out shopping for the candles, we were wandering around Michaels Craft Store and Bruce spotted one of those arches. I bought yards and yards of tulle, got a few strings of christmas lights and several ivory rose garlands and I had the most beautiful archway in the reception hall. Attached to the main room was an indoor pool, so we got some floating candles which flickered romantically in the pool, the light reflecting off the gently rippling water. One of the gals I worked with from the housekeeping department offered to help serve food and clean up, and I know Billy, after all that food preparation and the lovely cake was very grateful for the help. My friend Kathy, Bruce, I and our kids helped decorate and set everything up the night before. It was a LOT of work, but it went off without a hitch, and everyone had a great time. People stayed and helped clean up afterwards which was a tremendous help, we got home about 2 am and managed a few hours sleep before taking off for our honeymoon in Cape Cod, transportation provided by Bruce's boss and good friend Bob, who gave us the use of his little Beamer 2 seater convertable. We had a blast there, and hope to return again one day.