Yeah, just what I need – one more place to have to keep up with. LOL

This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

Yeah I know, I’ve been less than great about keeping up around here.  Sorry. I just tend to get in moods – some weeks I’ll post every day, multiple times a day… Others you may not hear from me for an entire week.  That’s just the way I roll (ha ha).

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Ever since that game came out, my husband has wanted them to make and sell a Sackboy plush of some kind, since he would most certainly buy one. Well, they have not done so yet (to our knowledge), or if they have the quality is less than stellar.

However, there is a knitting designer in England who knitted up a Sackboy and created a pattern for it, and it is in an English knitting magazine (also sold in the U.S.).   We now have the pattern in hand, and he has asked (begged? LOL) for me to knit one up for him.

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Who knew?  I went ahead and signed up for that Christi Friesen steampunk gryphon class I mentioned the other day, the night before it was slated to start.  Then on Saturday after I dropped off my daughter at her grandmother’s house for her monthly overnight stay, I went to the craft store to pick up some more polymer clay in the colors I needed for the project but did not already have.  By the time I went to bed that night I’d gotten the project done to the point where the first file in the class instruction ended, so now I’m waiting for the next file, and waiting for the other items that I’ll need to complete the project to come in the mail.

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There is an online class being held by Christi Friesen, on how to create the Steampunk look with polymer clay in the style she is famous for.  I came across it several weeks ago and have been hemming and hawing over it, whether to sign up or not (it costs $40 and runs for six weeks).  It starts January 9, so there is still time for me to sign up for it, but I’d be a little behind while waiting for some of the supplies.

I really like her style, it seems so easy yet looks so complicated, but I don’t know how often I’d use the Steampunk style if at all.  I don’t know, it may be fun to join just to learn how to do it and if I like it I can run with it…

Anyway, below are some of her books if you want to take a peek at some of what she does, and below that is the link to her website for even closer views of her work.

Christi Friesen’s website.

(NOT a sponsored post!)

Edited 3/6/2017 to fix bad links.

So I’ve been seeing on several blogs that there is this new website called Art Fire where artisans who make handmade items can put their products up for sale for one monthly fee. Right now for the first 5000 artisans who sign up, it will only be $7/mo for life – as long as they remain a member and their payments do not lapse. After the first 5000 I think it goes up to $20 a month.

I am kind of on the fence about this, mainly because I have very little product to sell. Right now if I were to set up a shop on Etsy, I think it is .20 per listing (for 4 months?) and something like 3.5% of the sale – if it sells. I think I figured, just based on the listing price alone, to get my money’s worth at Art Fire, I would have to list at least 35 items. Obviously this does not take into consideration the fees that are charged at Etsy, but considering I have only had two sales of my current product at my ecommerce store, I am just basing my comparison on the same lack of sales (what great confidence I have, eh?).

So for now, since I do not even have an Etsy store yet, and don’t yet have enough product to list 35 items at Art Fire to make it worth the $7, I will be carefully watching their site to observe the number of accounts remaining… if it starts to drop like wildfire I may just buck up and pay the $7 to reserve myself a spot at that price, as it is certainly better than being left in the cold and having to pay $20 a month later on if I miss the boat. But for now I will just bide my time and try to build up some inventory.

(please note this is not a sponsored post – I just wanted to pass the info along to any crafty blogger looking for another place to sell their wares)

I have a bunch of polymer clay sitting around from when I did sculpting (of dragons, primarily, if you’re curious) a few years ago.  Once the kiddo was born, my interest in it kind of waned because it was a bit of a challenge to try juggling work, caring for her in the evenings and trying to do any kind of sculpting with her in the room, especially once she became mobile.  Now that she’s a bit older and can either be entertained by a DVD or with playdoh, I have been contemplating pulling out my stash of clay and trying my hand at making beads.

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I figured, with the upcoming month of October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, that my first feature will be for my awareness bracelets.

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Starting tomorrow, I am going to start a small featurette for my jewelry store to try to ramp up some business over there.  I will feature one item from the store either every Friday, or every other Friday, and offer a discount on that item.  How steep of a discount, I haven’t yet decided.  Maybe as much as 25% off, but likely no more than that.

I haven’t really added anything recent since, oh, June I think.  Most of that is because while I thought I had a pretty decent idea with my “summer drink” series, I only received minimal feed back on the few things I did put together, and absolutely zero nibbles in sales.  That kind of does a lot to squash any of my own enthusiasm for adding additional pieces to the series.

In addition to the fact that I haven’t had the money to get some more supplies for some new ideas I’ve had rolling around in my head, I need to do some sales in order to cover that expense.

A couple of things I will note before I start that tomorrow, though:

1) I am not set up to do international sales.  I might consider selling to people in Canada, but my store isn’t set up for those either, I don’t think, at least not yet.  So if you’re international, sorry.  I’m just not prepared to do international sales right now.

2) Paypal is the payment option right now.  I believe it is set up so that you can either use your Paypal account, or when it takes you to Paypal’s site, you can enter your credit card (securely, of course) and not have to sign into PayPal completely.  However, if you chose to use your Paypal account, please make sure that your account is completely confirmed.  Otherwise it will NOT let you use your account, it will deny the transaction.   Confirmed accounts only via that method!  Otherwise, just a credit card will be fine.

That’s about it I think.  Feel free to hop over to my site and take a look at what I have in the meantime.  I think for now I am going to fiddle around with making some little thumbnails in preparation for the featurette tomorrow.