Etsy Favourites - Autumn

Decided on a seasonal theme for this week's Etsy Favourites feature, now it's September already and it's starting to get dark by 8 o' Clock. I find it such a depressing time of year, but these beautiful items are enough to get a smile on anybody's face!

Blue Heron

This shop features hand made Jewellery, Pottery and fused glass items, such as the lovely item featured which is a glass sculpture, which can either hang in a window to catch the light or be displayed on a stand.

Little b Bunny.

This lovely shop is the place to shop for some gorgeous handmade cards. I liked the cat on this Halloween themed card. The seller named her shop after her daughter's nicknames, which I think is soo cute. It's little personal details like this that make shopping somewhere like Etsy so nice. The shop features a wide selection of cards for all occasions and in a wide range of styles. Little b Bubby also has a blog: http://littlebbunny.blogspot.com/

Radiant Mind Designs

I love this shop. It is full of absoloutely gorgeous beads and also has stunning photographs. Definitely on my list of Etsy shops I will be purchasing from! This shop features handmade lampwork glass beads in small co-ordinated sets or larger focals. Some are one-offs to purchase before they're gone, others are from the custom line that are re-made when sold. They also sell lampwork recipe e-book tutorials for those who fancy trying their hand at making their own beads. Radiant Minds also have a blog: http://www.glassmuse.blogspot.com/

Humblebeads Gaden Party

Another lovely handmade bead shop. Humblebeads is owned by Heather whose beads are inspired by textures and colours in nature. Her beads are made from polymer clay and hand buffed to a matte finish. The shop contains smaller disk beads and really nice focals and pendants, including things like hedgehogs and owls! Another shop to add to my shopping list! Heather also has a blog: http://www.humblebeads.blogspot.com/

Lavender Cottage

This shop features handmade metal Jewellery, using fine silver, sterling silver, copper, brass and occassionally gold. The findings are even handmade as well! The pendant i've featured is hand drawn and cut from sterling silver, resting on a background of hammered copper. The stone is a carnelian. It measures an inch across, so is a pretty delicate little piece. Lavender Cottage is a blogger: http://lavendercottageoriginals.blogspot.com/ and also a Twitterer: http://twitter.com/lavendercottage.

I hope you enjoyed this week's autumnal favourites and have been inspired to do a bit of seasonal shopping.

Not on the High Street

I have been away on a training course for my day job. We left on Tuesday night, flying from Inverness to Manchester with the lovely Flybe, then returned last night after the course, eventually getting home about 11pm last night!

Whilst on the flight I read their inflight magazine, Flybe Uncovered. In this magazine, they have a 'business' section and the feature in the current one is businesses starting up in a recession. It was a very encouraging and inspiring read, particularly for those, like me, that are attempting to do just that!

One of the businesses featured created hand-stitched personalised baby mementos and was selling them on a website called NotOnTheHighStreet.com. I'd never heard of this website, but thought it warranted investigation, so had a look today and it's got some really lovely stuff on it, and an impressive list of press exposure. You need to apply to be a seller and they only agree to partner with 5% of those that apply, so I imagine they have strict criteria, and is probably fairly expensive compared to the likes of Etsy or Folksy, but still, there's no harm in asking for information, which you can do via their website. I may well do in the future but not until I've got a bit more organised about what i'm doing!!

They also have a blog: Not on the High Street Blog and are on Twitter: nothsdotcom

Persistance

I found these lovely Rune Pendants on an internet site when buying some other Jewellery making bits and thought they were lovely. I like old symbols and whatnot and love the rustic look of these pendants so bought several with different symbols on. This particular one is for me and is the symbol for Persistance. I wear it as inspiration not to give in, to remind me that one day that first Etsy sale will actually happen!

I do think that I'm getting somewhere. My page views are going up on Etsy, i'm gaining more followers on both Twitter and the blog and featuring other Etsy & Folksy sellers has really helped me spread the word around and a few of the lovely people I've featured have then put links to the blog on their blogs. I do really feel it's helping. I now have 16 hearts, compared to 3 at the end of June, if i carry on collecting them at the rate I am now, I'll have 84 by the end of August!! Unlikely, but nice if I did.

I still need to join Flickr and I also need to make a Facebook fan page, they may well be jobs for tomorrow. I think the main thing is just to stay focused and carry on making. I am also planning on making a couple of Etsy purchases, so at least then I'll have some feedback as well.

Tomorrow I will have some Jewellery to list, some Rune pendants definitely and maybe some knots as well.

Drunk & Disorderly

Yesterday was the last day of my NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), and what did I do? Miss a blog post!

This was entirely because we have two friends staying at the moment that have cycled from Lands End to John O Groats. They arrived yesterday so we stayed up late celebrating, hence the blog post title! So by the time I remembered I had to do the blog it was actually today already and I was far to drunk to do anything, let alone type a complete sentence suitable for my readers to read. I have spent today suffering and never want to drink wine again as long as I live.

Tomorrow I am getting up early to say goodbye to our friends when hubby takes them off down to the airport and as it's my day off my 'day job' the rest of the day will be spent tying knots, so I should have plenty to show you tomorrow.

Google Friend Connect

If I have any more widgets added to the sidebar of this blog, it'll be amazing! It's getting longer every day. Today i eventually worked out how to add a Google Friend Connect widget, so people can now follow the blog using that. I already follow a few this way:

• So much yarn, so little time
• Fuzzy dragons
• How to buy art online
• Black on grey on white

So, add yourself to my followers and I'll check you out too. I love reading people's blogs.

Friday To Do List

I know, it's Thursday and I've not done my favourites. Again. I ended up having to go in to work 4 hours earlier than I was meant to so didn't get a lot done today and had no time to compile my favourites. I did, however, compile a pretty impressive list of articles about sales and related issues on Etsy. I will put them in some sort of resources blog post at some point. One good thing about going in early today means I get tomorrow off. Woohoo! So I have compiled a To Do List for tomorrow:

• Start on my Thank You cards
• Make a cross knot & seed bead bracelet
• Do some more chain maille experimenting
• Do an Etsy Favourites & Folksy favourites blog posts
• Put my resource list into a sensible blog post
• Start a new ACEO for cards

I also have some bits coming through the post for my exciting new project so will get a look at those, and my lovely hubby has bought a load of craft stuff worth £100 for £20 off of someone advertising on a local website, so it'll be like Christmas when he comes home!

See you tomorrow.

Bracelet prototype

I was inspired by an idea after looking at my Chinese knot book to create a criss-cross knotted bracelet with rocailles (large seed beads) between the knots. I sat down this afternoon with a length of leather cord and a pile of blue translucent seed beads and made one. However, it turned out the cord wasn't long enough, so I only made half of one! It also turned out quite wide, so i'm not sure if it classes as a cuff or not. It was, however, very pretty so I will definitely be making a couple more to go in the Northern Dawn shop.

Tomorrow, I am working from 11am to 8pm, so will not have a lot of time for Northern Dawn work. I will add some photographs of my bracelet prototype though. I also have written myself a shopping list, which I may get on and purchase tomorrow and I will also get started on reading the Etsy Seller Handbook, which I discovered after reading about it on the Laura Baillie Designs blog. If I have time I may also start on my blogroll on the blog too.

NaBloPoMo

No I haven't gone bonkers and started writing in a foreign language!

NoBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month. All it means is I have signed up for adding to my blog everyday for the next month. Because the month can start whenever you like, mine started on 4th July, so will end on the 3rd August. Really every month should be NaBloPoMo, but it is sometimes hard to find time to blog, or to find something to blog about. Hopefully I'll manage and not bore all my readers to death.

Anyway, that's it for today - see you tomorrow.

Future Website Planning

Because Northern Dawn is a new venture for me a lot of its development and progress will be documented on this blog. It will be interesting for me to look back on and also may help others, who can (hopefully) get some ideas on how to start and develop a small craft business and (more likely) learn from my mistakes!

I make lists quite regularly. I have a small notepad by my bed that I will randomly write in whatever pops in my head - ideas for designs, a page for the website etc.

The most recent list involves plans for my websites. I currently have www.lauraspetportraits.co.uk which is for my Pet Portraits and has been running now for about 3 years. I also have my Pet Portraits blog at this URL. I'm not doing a lot with this as it ranks highly on Google and I don't want to muck about with it. I have recently got rid of many surplus pages so there's very little that needs done with it, other than the usual updating. The Pet Portraits blog will remain here as the work in progress blog and for any additional original Animal related art. Any other non-Animal artwork will be put on the Northern Dawn blog.

I also have www.laura-young.co.uk, which curently points at this blog and I have also just bought www.northerndawn.co.uk, which points at the moment to the Pet Portraits website, because I haven't done anything with it yet!

The Laura Young website is going to be turned into a 'gallery' site, containing simple galleries of my various creations - pet portraits, other art, jewellery, cards, maybe some photography. The won't be anything for sale on this site, though there will obviously be contact details if anyone's interested and links to where the items can be purchased from. This blog will be moved from this site to the Northern Dawn one, but there will be 'latest post' links from both this blog and the Pet Portraits blog on the homepage.

The Northern Dawn website is going to be my shop for everything I want to sell other than the Pet Portraits. It will be made with shopping cart software, so I can have recomendations for customers and maybe wishlists etc. Until I have set this up though, it will be a similar gallery style site to the Laura Young website with links to my Etsy shop and my Folksy shop for people who want to purchase. As well as finished products I am planning on providing kits for some items and also a project page and information pages about Jewellery & Card Making. This site will also be home to this blog, which will be updated with news and new makes.

All three websites will be designed to look similar so if people move from one to the other, they will know they're all connected. I am planning on a very simple, natural look using neutral colours, the same fonts and similar headers.

As well as my own websites I need to update my Facebook page and use that as a bit of an advertising tool and I am also going to look into Twitter, as this seems to be the 'thing' at the moment and is highly recomended on Etsy.

So, there you go. I will of course add updates to the blog as I go along. I will start working on all this towards the end of June.