The Island of Misfit Adults

Papa Spook caught this for me under a log out in our bayou. I like to somewhat identify the bugs I sell, but I have no idea what this little bugger is. It's a red centipede. There are over 8,000 species of centipede, only 3,000 of which are described, and all I've got to go on is that it's red.
Go me.
I feel as if Grandmother Spook would give me a very hard time for selling this ring- she's terrified of centipedes and millipedes. You can't win them all, I guess- sorry grandmaw. I think he's cute, in a deceptively fast, aggressive, toxic and prehistoric kind of way.
I've got another one still alive if anyone is interested in a custom piece.

I also have an unidentified spider, and apologize for the crappy picture:

What the EFF is this thing!? About the size of a penny, He's lightning-fast and can climb up the sides of the glass jar. Tan-brown legs with a black body, distinctive tanish-white markings on abdomen. He's still alive, and most often curls up as shown in the photo.

Thursday

My Favorite Etsy Tips

A few of my 'real life' friends have joined Etsy in the last few months, and one asked me for promotion tips. I shared with her the following:

Encircle and Etsy Love
-Use the ever-loving hell out of your 'circles'. The more circles you're in, the more your name and shop and product are on the 'activity' page. Same goes for just general 'etsy lovin' - hearting items and faving shops.

Know your roots
-Search Etsy for local items and spread the love so that they (the local sellers) know you exist. Give specials to local customers and offer local pick up instead of shipping for those who are close enough.
-Attend craft fairs and farmers markets.
-Promote at the mall with free samples, and give everyone a business card. (This was specific for my friend, who sells cookies, but would work for people with similar goods)

More items means more sales
- You probably hate hearing it as much as I do. Yeah, it's really time-consuming to make, photograph, list and promote everything by yourself, but the more you have the more 'serious' you look. I am not a good example of this.

Drown yourself in social networking
Use twitter and FB, share the love there like you would on Etsy.

Geeky Computer Nonsense
-Tagging and SEO are really important. If you think you've got your tags right, try searching for your own items with keywords that pertain to your shop. If you're on the first page, you did it right. If you're not , google some tips on Etsy tagging and SEO for Etsy to improve your ranking in Etsy search and other search engines.
-use Adwords, Analytics and Craftopolis.
-'crawl' your page on all the search engines you can- this makes it more visible in search engines. Yahoo is the only search engine that charges to add your site to it's directory.
-Blog.

I know you asked specifically for promotional tips, but I shared with you everything I do/know/ or think I should do/know.

Here's my most important nugget of advice, and I can feel your eyes rolling all the way from here but really hear me out:
Don't feel like you have to be perfect and don't obsess over not making sales fast enough. You have to really nurture an Etsy shop to get it off the ground, and sometimes even with countless hours of self-motivated hard work (the hardest kind of hard work, you know) you may have virtually nothing to show for it at the end of the day. There is no failing here, there is only learning.

Cheers,
Kacie.

Etsy Tips from around the web:

How arists and crafters can make more money

Running Your Etsy Business

Getting Traffic to Your Etsy Shop: Seasonal Color Merchandising

8 Tips For Getting LOADS of Etsy Sales | Handmadeology

Etsy Shop SEO Tip of The Week – Week 2 {Etsy SEO Basics – Free PDF Download from Etsy}

Etsy SEO Guide - Tips from Sellers | Handmade Marketing

The Daily Etsian: The Etsy SEO Problem

20 Ways How to Drive Traffic to your Etsy Sho

The Technium: 1,000 True Fans

Pikaland’s 9 Tips to be More Creative | The Etsy Blog

Seller How-To: Tag-o-rama With Descriptive Keywords | The Etsy Blog

Sellers Assisting Sellers

The Etsy Blog | Discover How-To's, Interviews With Makers, and Curated Shops

Using Twitter to Promote your Handmade Products

» Etsy :: SEO optimization really pays off!! » Untangling The Web

Preparing an Effective Etsy Listing

Etsy Sellers: What is your favorite way to promote your shop?

Tools For Etsy - Buyers, Sellers, and Developers. Hearts, Views, Front Page Treasury Lists

The Etsy Seller Handbook: All Our How-To’s About Selling | The Etsy Blog

» Etsy :: SEO optimization really pays off!! » Untangling The Web

Sunday

Happy New Years, don't get Herpes!

There was this (really hot) guy in highschool that my mom always called "Sir-Herpes-alot"

don't be that guy.

Tuesday

First Recipe Card- Swiss Roll

click for full view

This is my first in a series of little recipe cards for y'all c: It's good and it's easy! You can nix the cocoa powder and make a vanilla version!

Sunday

Poincare Kaleidoscope 1

Saturday

Christmas Fuckery with my BFF

We tried to make a Gingerbread house from a kit.
We failed.

Snow Blob wishes you a happy holiday season

After carefully icing all the sides, Kate ( <- BFF) stuck the house proudly together and admired her results. Just as she started to say how surprised she was that it worked, the side closest to me fell over, bounced oddly off my lap, and landed on the floor in several pieces. We just stared at each other for a few mortified seconds before collapsing into possibly the most hearty fit of giggles I have ever been a part of.

She broke another wall about 5 minutes later, after we had decided we'd just fake it by only taking a picture from the front to disguise or missing back patio. It wasn't as funny the second time, but making super fucked up iced gingerbread cookies, dicking around with icing and marshmallows, and laughing at our utter and complete ineptitude was way more fun than making a lame ass gingerbread house anyways.

Friday

Oh,Home - 7 craft tutorials of cozy,home-y goodness

In a little less than 8 months the Spook family will be moving into our very own first house! I need FURNITURE! I need like.... shit to put on my walls, and shit to sit on...and spice racks and shit!

I've made colour palletes via colourlovers.com to help me plan for the big move!
This first palette is the basic color scheme for my house, with the exclusion of the last wine-red color, which is just a kitchen thing: