Yay I made the front page!

That's right, my Infatuation treasury made the front page!

I'm so excited!

I have a lot of ideas in store for my Etsy shops, so keep checking back for new items.

Infatuation.

Yep, that's right. I've finally snagged myself another treasury. I'm so excited! Take a look:


Clicking the picture will open the treasury in a new tab or window.

I'm hoping for it to get a bit of notice so that it has a chance of reaching the front page. I would definitely love that kind of publicity.

Update: I got another treasury on Treasury West! Take a look:


Clicking the picture will open the treasury in a new tab or window.

Yay tumbler! And a fancy dog toy.

Yay, my long awaited package from Progress Machine finally came yesterday! The delay was due to an error with my order and the fact that it was made over the weekend and UPS decided to reschedule my delivery. Nothing bad on their part, just want to mention that. Anyways, I got my pound of stainless steel tumbling shot and my rawhide hammer (which Cleo thinks is her new chew toy...) and I can't be happier.

I immediately went downstairs to try and locate my tumbler barrel, which I somehow lost. Hubby found it for me and I grabbed all the silver I had that needed tumbling and popped it in with a bit of shot. Added some Dawn and water and was good to go! ....Or so I thought. An hour later I opened up the barrel and all of my jewelry was black and greasy and the color of the steel shot. My tumbler barrel was also really dirty on the inside. So I had to rinse everything off, tumble for a half hour with a degreaser, then rinse again, tumble for another half hour with a degreaser, and then finally I could tumble it again with the Dawn. Too much work, but at least everything is nice and shiny now!

My office/studio space is almost complete. I just need to move the rest of my supplies down here, hang up a corkboard or two and it will be complete! Oh, and I need a chair. Preferably a comfortable one, spinny, with wheels. The rest of that will have to wait until I recover from making my last tuition payment (finally!).

I'm trying to think of more tutorials or other Etsy-related how-tos, but I'm out of ideas! Is there anything you'd like to see? Comment on this post with your ideas on what you would like me to show you next!

Only you can save us now.

Forgive me if I start to ramble, I really had no intent behind this post when I started it. It's just what's on my mind right now, with no real cohesiveness to it.

I'm still waiting for this "holiday rush" I keep hearing about on Etsy. Everyone else seems to be pretty busy, especially the soap sellers. Everyone wants soap for the holidays. I wish I had the money to buy all my presents on Etsy, or to make them all myself. Mostly what I need is money to pay my bills, that's the most important thing right now. Not to get any more into debt than I already am. But, that's a side-effect of investing in your own handmade capitalist venture. You need to spend money in order to make money. And I have made money selling on Etsy. A lot, in fact. In the last 8 months that I've been selling I've had 52 sales, one of those being a wholesale order for 28 pieces. All those profits though, went to buying more supplies to improve my business or tools or paying off credit cards that I used to start up my business in the first place. And there's still so much more that I need to make to "get out of the red".

Etsy just seems so slow for me lately. I was hoping that will the sudden drop in gas prices, people would start spending a little bit more. Especially now that it's the holiday season, people are doing a lot of shopping online for their Christmas and other holiday gifts. Trickle-down theory, I suppose. But I guess it's working the other way and people are tightening their belts even more, because of the recession we're in, because of the Bailout Plan. It makes it so much harder for all of us on Etsy, and anyone else who sells handmade.

Now that I've broached the subject of economics, I might as well touch on politics as well. Usually I stay clear of political topics when I'm talking about my business. I don't like to mix the two. But I will say this. To all those people out there who are bashing either candidate - use that energy to CHANGE it. Your vote CAN and WILL make a difference. But not if you don't use that right to vote. Don't just sit there and whinge about it when you can DO SOMETHING. I want to encourage everyone to get out there and make a difference. Please, for the sake of this country, help us.

It's just a flesh wound. Oh, and Ikea!

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Hubby and I are going to the Palisades mall to get his iPod fixed, hopefully he can because his warranty just expired... And then we are going to go to Ikea to buy things for my new studio that I am moving into in our basement. Speaking of which, does anyone know how to keep spiders away? I don't mind them, but not in my stuff!

And the best part of tomorrow? My mom is going to take us to see Spamalot at Eisenhower Hall! I can't wait!

Right now though, Hubby and I are trying to figure out where part of his package that he mailed out went to. The person who received it said that there was something missing from the package, a tool kit. I don't see why this kind of thing could be dangerous, I buy my tools online all the time. It was just a little pouch with a bunch of small screw drivers, tweezers, and a razor blade. Hopefully the post office can make this right. It seems like every time he ships something through the Postal system something goes terribly awry.

Well, I need to get some rest for tomorrow, I've got a big day ahead of me.

How to upload your Etsy items to Google Base

Another tutorial, folks.

I've heard a lot of talk about Google Base. If you're not familiar with it, it's a way to upload your item data to Google's search engine that makes it easier for people to find your items in Google Search. Your items may not come up in the regular Google Search, but in the shopping links on the top of the normal search page. There are two ways you can add your items to Google Base. One at a time or through a data feed. What I am going to cover today is how to add your Etsy items to Google Base via Data Feed.

First off, go to Let's Ets (http://letsets.com).
This is where you will produce your data feed.

Type your Etsy username into the box, and click Fetch My Items.



Make sure all of your listings appear correctly.


Click Download Bulk File to download your XML file. Your Etsy name will be the file name. Mine is "paysonwinters.xml"


Now, go to Google Base. (http://base.google.com)

Sign in to your Google account if you haven't already done so.

Click Data Feed on the right hand side. This will bring you to the My Items section. CLick on the Data Feeds tab.


In the upper left hand corner, click the button that says New Data Feed.


You will now need to register your data feed. Choose your target country and your item type. Then you will need to type the XML filename with the extension included. Mine is "paysonwinters.xml". After you are done click Register Data Feed.


You will be taken back to the Data Feeds section where you will be able to manually upload your XML file. Remember, the file name must match the name that you have just registered.

After you upload your file, Google Base will process your items and make them searchable.

Another point I'd like to make (I know I had mentioned it above), is that your items will still show up in the normal Google Search, but Google Base is designed to input them into the "Shopping Results".

For example, I searched Google for "Pebble Stacking Rings" WITH the quotes and this is what I got:



Last Updated: 10/13/08: I realized that some of my screen captures were wrong, so I moved them about a bit, made everything flow a bit more cohesively. I also added a screen cap of my own Google results.

Inspiring people inspiring inspiring people.

A few days ago, on Etsy I came across CoffeePotPeople who had mentioned that my avatar was an inspiration to her. So I sent her a message with the details of the organization to which she replied that she was going to write a blog post about. I figured she would just mention it in passing or something, like "Oh hey check this out blah blah blah" but when she messaged me this morning with the link to her blog post I was blown away. This woman is truly amazing, and I'm so glad that such a simple thing as a forum avatar has inspired her to write a truly beautiful blog entry.

You can read her entry here.

Top Secret Mailers!

Eee, I found a tutorial for making your own bubble mailers! 27things has this wonderful tutorial on how to make your own bubble mailers. I finally have a use for all this cardstock and bubble wrap that is just sitting around. Anyways, my first few weren't that successful, but here are the really pretty ones that I made:





Oh, and the best part: The back is SILVER. Yay for shiny things!

I can't wait to get an Etsy order so I can send someone one of these mailers.