Let the Madness Begin!

All of the stores in the malls are having giant post-holiday sales, and I figure I might as well too. I love a deal, so I know my customers will as well.

To that end, I have marked everything in my Etsy shop down by 20%, with the exception of all Christmas items which are 50% off! All of the prices have already been edited to reflect the discount, so the price you see is the price you pay. Custom orders placed during the sale period will also receive the discount. Sale ends January 8th at midnight Eastern time.

Here are just a few examples of the items you'll find:
There's lots more, too, including bath sets, purses and tote bags, and coffee cozies!

New Things and Back to the Old, Too

I've been branching out again...introducing my new hand-dyed laceweight yarns!

This one is Berry Bright

and this is Carousel, which has already sold

These yarns are 100% merino wool, 2 ply, and their softness and springiness is very pleasant. I can't wait to dye more, and to someday have the time and patience to use some to make one of those amazing "wedding ring" shawls I so admire!

In other news, I have lifted my self-imposed forum ban. I calmed down, recentered myself, and cautiously waded back in. (So far so good.) Another reason that I returned, though, is that during the ban I made absolutely no sales. When I went back, the sales returned too. Good to know, but it also tells me that I am not doing enough off-Etsy promotion. That's going to be one of my big goals for the next year.

On Frustration and Loyalty

I had a bit of a meltdown last night. As usual, I started browsing the forums, but rather than learning things and laughing at Etc section antics, I just got more and more disgusted and fed up. I ended up in a very dark mood. It seemed like all I was seeing were threads bitching and moaning about every little thing that wasn't going right, and a lot attacking Etsy for either not doing enough for users or even accusing them of knowingly, deliberately doing things to make sellers fail. That was really the last straw for me because it's just stupid... if we fail, so will Etsy as a whole.

This is not the Etsy I fell in love with. Yes, I know those kind of threads and those kind of people always have been and always will be present on Etsy and any other site, but last night and for a few nights previously, it seemed like they had taken over the joint. No more helpful, informative threads to help me learn new techniques or new aspects of being a small business owner, no more random odes to grilled cheese (or macaroni and cheese, or any other incarnation of cheese, thank you danamiller).

I wound up so frustrated that I decided to ban myself from the forums indefinitely. They have been a spectacular resource and promotional tool for me, but I just cannot stand them right now. I even got so fed up that I was considering moving some of my business to the new Artfire site. But then, with a gentle nudge from a good friend, I realized that moving my business was not the way to support the site I love. If I want to defend and support Etsy, I need to keep all of my business there rather than support their competitors.

So that's what I'm going to do. All of my items will remain on Etsy. I will continue to thank them for everything they do for us (and that's a hell of a lot), and I will continue to have patience with them regarding the things that are still in need of improvement (which is also a lot, but that's true of any site, in my experience). What I won't do is listen to all of the fighting and complaining and recriminations some users are spewing. They're entitled to their opinions, but I'm entitled to disagree and walk away, too.

For the few people who might notice my absence in the forums, I will be back eventually, I'm sure. As others have in the past, I just need a break.

Trying new things

I started out a knitter. Then I learned to crochet. After that, I took up dyeing superwash wool yarns. So, I've now taken the next step in my fibery journey: dyeing non-superwash wool roving! This is something I've wanted to try for a while, but after an early bad experience in which I attempted to dye a skein of non-superwash wool yarn and felted it into one big useless blob, I was a bit daunted. But I read lots of tutorials, and worked up my courage, and finally found a good deal on roving so I had to try it. The result:
The colors didn't turn out exactly as I'd intended, but I'm still very pleased with it. I'm not sure why the colors did that but I suspect it has something to do with the (lack of) superwash treatment on the yarn. My biggest moment of accomplishment, though, was when I took it out of the steamer and saw that it didn't felt!
So, hopefully soon I'll be offering rovings in my Etsy shop. The bit of roving shown in this post is only a quarter of the one pound lot I got (and that was huge, let me tell you!), So hopefully I'll have continued success and be able to share it with my customers.

The Next Investment

After finding myself on my last few bubble mailers, I finally decided that I had to pony up and buy some boxes. I've been buying the bubble mailers at an office supply store, one 12-pack at a time. I just figured out the price per mailer for the first time, and I am nauseated...$1.42! Further confirmation that boxes must be purchased from now on. And anyway, I prefer the look of shipping things out in boxes.

I looked around at a number of shipping supply websites, and the problem I had was that most had a high minimum order or the prices were too high, or some combination thereof. Finally, though, I stumbled across AM Shipping Supplies. They don't have minimum orders, and they manually calculate the shipping on each order so it's very accurate. I found the boxes I needed for just 24 cents apiece, and the shipping (FedEx, estimated to be about 2-3 days) was very reasonable too at a little more than $14. So now I'll be shipping my items out in nice new boxes that each cost me 39 cents rather than those ridiculous bubble mailers. I may even be able to lower my shipping prices (although I have to weigh things in these boxes, the weight may even things out).

I normally have trouble bringing myself to spend money on things like this (see the post about ordering my business cards), but this was easier, probably because it's such a great deal.

Long time no blog.

The detail-oriented among you will notice that I haven't blogged in quite a while. There could be many reasons for this.

Was I too busy? No, not really. I've been working on my shop a lot but not any more than I was when I started this blog.

Was I without internet access? Nope. And anyway that's what libraries are for, right?

Was I sick? No, not any more than usual anyway, and not enough to prevent me from blogging.

So what was it? A political protest? A long vacation because I really really needed one? Did I somehow get myself banned from my own blog? No, no, and not really but almost on the last one, seeing as it had been so long since my last visit here that I forgot my password.

The simple fact is that I have always found it hard to figure out what to write about, and for the past month I just had absolutely no motivation to blog. No topic in mind? Eh, okay, put it off a night. Repeat that a few dozen times, and here we are.

And that's the end of it, because I still have no clue what to write about but I still have the satisfaction of saying I wrote SOMETHING. Right now that's enough for me.

Craft Attack

I spent this past Saturday at Craft Attack at Independence Park in Charlotte, NC. There were over 80 booths filled with everything from jewelry to handspun yarns to plush monsters! I had a great time, and got to see a few friends.

Here I am (on the left) with Melissa of SnitchesGetStitches and Xiane. Oh, and Melissa's little robot-plushie friend...I didn't catch his name.

And here I am again, this time with Rob White, sometimes known as the Trollslayer. He's the Etsy admin most often in charge of the forums, and a stellar advocate for the Etsy community. In fact, I credit Rob with being the reason I'm on Etsy; I first met him at another craft fair this time last year, and his passionately zealous explanation of what Etsy was and what its community was like convinced me that I needed to become a part of this movement. He also happens to be married to the lovely Xiane (pictured above).

All in all it was a great day. I saw some Etsy sellers I already knew, met some new ones I'd previously only spoken to online, and an old friend met me there and brought her husband and adorable daughter. Hopefully next year I'll be vending, and you can come shop in my booth!

Featured Seller: dollcloset

Being a "fluffy" (read: plus-sized) chick, I know how hard it can be to find clothes to fit one's body. Now just imagine if you were 18 inches tall! That's why the world needs people like Christine of dollcloset.

Christine says, "I have been sewing for over eight years. I started making doll clothes as Christmas and birthday gifts for my little sisters and cousins." When she isn't sewing, she likes to ride her horse, Heidi, and do a number of different crafts. She is also a prolific reader.

Featured Seller: Zeba

I don't wear much jewelry, but I find it alluring nonetheless...maybe it's one of those "ooh, shiny..." raccoon-syndrome things. Whatever is behind it, this necklace is another of my favorites.



It's by Sholeh of the Etsy shop called Zeba, and the center part isn't metal set with stones as I first thought; it's actually a man made Bismuth hopper crystal. (I can't resist things that are pretty and science-y!)

Sholeh came to the US from Iran in 1977 to get a computer science degree and ended up staying here. When she's not working at her day job or her Etsy shop, Sholeh is helping her husband with their kitchen renovation; he's building new cabinets, and she is using her other talent to make some stained glass panels for the cabinet doors.

Featured Seller: Designs By Brie

Anyone with long hair and a collection of ornaments to wear in it/wrangle it with needs one of these:

I know I do, and I even had a similar one when I was a child.

Brie is a stay at home mom who started making these hair bow holders when an acquaintance was looking for one but couldn't find any under $40. Brie knew she could make the same item and help moms save some money, and also make a little extra cash for herself. She offers them in a couple of styles, and personalizes them with the child's name. She also has similar plaques with hooks for boys' gear.

"Real" business cards...finally!

I started out printing my own business cards. There's nothing wrong with that...except the price. Not only is printer ink expensive, but the perforated cardstock is absolutely ridiculous! So I looked around the internet and weighed my options. I finally settled on GotPrint. I ordered 1,500 cards altogether; 1,000 are business cards, and the other 500 I designed so that I could cut each one in half to make hangtags (it worked perfectly and this will be the subject of a future post). The 1,000 business cards are two-sided full-color glossy, and cost a mere $15.99! So, here they are:

Featured Seller: megbcrazy

This is another of my Pounce discoveries. I saw this plate and had to see more!

It's made by Megan, who is an undergrad in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University. When asked about how she got into making the plates she said, "I got the general idea for the plates from Mark Montano's book The Big-Ass Book of Crafts (which I bought almost solely for its title). When I had a hard time creating exactly what was in the book, I improvised. The process is pretty simple, and involves mostly spray paint and sealant. The hardest part, believe it or not, is finding clear glass plates. "

After college, Megan plans to get a MA or MFA and pursue a career in writing while teaching literature and writing at the college level. She isn't currently taking any art classes, but she would love to eventually get some sort of degree in art involving ceramics or textiles. That's a lot of schooling (and tuition), so go check out her Etsy store and give her a little "financial aid"!

Inaugural Giveaway Winner!

The drawing for a deluxe cotton bath set was held early this morning, and Bonnie in Florida is our winner! Congrats, Bonnie!

I hope to make these giveaways a regular thing here. The next one will likely be in October. What should I give away next? Any ideas?

Featured Seller: Tweedy Lane Designs

While browsing the other night I ran across this gorgeous barette:

It turns out that Bryn of Tweedy Lane Designs makes these barettes out of scraps from silk saris (she also makes beautiful bags). She says, "I love Indian saris because of the intricate designs and beautiful colors they use. And I love the barrettes because they are tiny wearable works of art." I couldn't agree more!

Giveaway: Deluxe Bath Set!

Here it is, my first-ever giveaway! You could win this all-cotton Deluxe Bath Set, which includes a rectangular wash cloth, seven smaller round face cloths, and a soap-sock, all in beautiful earthtones (valued at over $22).

All pieces are hand-crocheted from soft 100% cotton yarn. The cloths are soft enough for sensitive skin while the texture provides gentle exfoliation. The soap sock is great for full bars of soap, or for using up those little slivers that have become too small to easily hold on to.

The deadline to enter this giveaway is now past. I will announce the winner shortly. I will be holding more giveaways in the future, so please check back often. Thanks!

Featured Artist: HightowerBotanicals

This is another item I ran across using Etsy's Pounce feature. It grabbed me because when I was in gradeschool I walked to and from school most days and along my route were several trees that dropped piles of these seed pods.

Julee of Hightower Botanicals is the artist behind this pretty pendant. When asked about it she said, "This Maple tree seed pod is a favorite of mine because as a child I played with the seed pods by pulling them apart and sticking them on my nose! And also of course, throwing them off of high places so they'd spin down to the grown like a helicopter."

Julee grew up in Washington state before going to art school in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works as an artist's assistant and makes huge casted and fabricated sculptures in many materials. She sees her jewelry work as miniature sculpture and especially enjoys working with plants and herbs.

Featured Seller: xmissamyx

I've meant to start doing features on this blog for a while now, so here we go with number one!

I found this amethyst and peridot bracelet while Pouncing for undiscovered Etsy shops (meaning shops who have not yet made a sale).

It's from xmissamyx and is priced at $46. She's a recent graduate who has been making jewelry for three years now. When she's not making items for her Etsy shop, she works at a part-time job (which she loves), spends time with her pets (a ferret called Merlin and two gerbils called Flea & Squirrel), and teaches jewelry classes. She's also a fan of superheroes!

With beautiful jewelry and alluring photographs like these, she won't remain sale-less for long.

My tummy hurts.

I just ordered a thousand full-color glossy two-sided business cards and also a thousand glossy two-sided hangtags (which are actually 500 business cards that I will cut in half). The best part is, I got all of them for less than $50, including shipping, from www.gotprint.com.

So why am I feeling nauseated at the thought of spending the money? I'm excited to get them and I know I can't do business without them (in addition to the fact that they will save me buckets of expensive printer ink), but I have such a hard time spending money! I think it's a combination of not being used to having $50 to spend, and also the uncertainty of when or if I'm going to make more money. Business is going okay and ought to pick up even more in coming weeks and months, but every sale is still a surprise to me. I wonder how many other Etsy sellers feel like this, getting cold sweats at even the minor expenses?

Wow, was I wrong!

As mentioned in a previous post I've been working on building jenhintz.com. I did order Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS by Ian Lloyd. It was published in 2006 as opposed to the book I first learned HTML from (circa 1997), and the title really does say it all. I'm coming to understand just how messy and simply wrong most of the html I learned back then was. No wonder I could never build great pages!

This book teaches the new XHTML and CSS all as one entity, and it makes a ton of sense. It's written so that even a total beginner can follow it, but it's not too dumbed-down for those with some base knowledge (however misled we may have been). Each lesson is broken down into manageable bites of information, and there are plenty of examples both of the markup and of what the resulting webpage looks like.

If you want to make your own website but don't have approximately $400 for a program like Dreamweaver, I think this book is a great jumping-off point.

I am now a dotcom!

When I started my business I was happy to tell people that I was an LLC (being that my company is Jen Hintz LLC and I am the sole member thereof). Well, I am now a dotcom! A few days ago I purchased http://www.jenhintz.com and also http://www.jenhintz.net . If you don't have your own domain(s) yet, I suggest you not wait any longer. It's cheap, it's easy, and it's really fun even if all you do with them is forward them to your Etsy shop, or put up a few goofy pictures of your cat.

The one reality check I've had with all this excitement, though, is that my HTML knowledge is both rusty and outdated. I'm the type who insists on writing out the html code rather than using a program to do it for me. Call me old-school, but I just prefer to do it that way...maybe it's because that way I can control every last little detail, maybe I'm just hard-headed and self-torturing like that, I dunno. (The fact that all the really good website-building programs are and always have been far too expensive for me is a factor too.) Whatever the case, it appears that much of the html code I learned 10-12 years ago is what they call "deprecated" now, and anyway I'm having trouble remembering a lot of it. As for XML and XHTML and CSS, I'm not entirely sure they existed as mainstream languages when the books I learned my coding from were written.

And that, dear reader, is why my cool shiny new dotcom will just have to be pitiful until I get some new HTML books. I've done some looking around and obtained some recommendations, and I think the two I'm getting are as follows:
Dynamic HTML: The Definitive Guide by Danny Goodman (ISBN 978-0596527403)
Build Your Own Website the Right Way by Ian Lloyd (ISBN 978-0975240298)

Being Broke and Dirty Inspires New Venture

So I'm broke, about $7 to my name after I paid for the soap samples I ordered from HelloCrafty. I'm glad I ordered them when I did, because I'm almost out of my other soap. So, sitting around being broke and dirty, I'm trying to think of how to make some sales. Things have been really slow lately, and I decided that I should try putting some lower-priced items in my shop. The first thing that comes to mind is a set of crocheted cotton face cloths.

After I got them made and listed for sale, I thought about it some more (and thought about my soap purchase some more), and though "Hey, it'd be nice if soap sellers included a little face cloth with people's orders." What would be really nice would be if they bought them from me so that we could cross-promote a little. I started a thread in the Etsy forums, and was surprised at the number of responses I got. One of the first was from none other than HelloCrafty, from whom I'd ordered the soaps that inspired this.

I've also been contacted by over half a dozen more soapers. It looks like I posted that idea at exactly the right time, because a few have told me that they'll be finalizing their lines and packaging for the holidays in the next few weeks, and will order face cloths to coordinate with them. I really stumbled onto something here!

In the end, though, this is just another example of what I love about Etsy. Lots of people who do very different things, but eager to work together for everyone's benefit.

It's pretty...and I helped!

Not too long ago I began playing around with dyeing yarn. It's addictive, let me tell you, especially for someone as color-obsessed (and yarn-obsessed) as I am. I discovered three things. First, I love the process; second, I don't have nearly enough time to knit/crochet with all the yarn I dye; and third, I can't afford to dye all this yarn and keep it for myself. The obvious next step was to start selling it in my Etsy shop, so I began listing it.

Now let's flash back a bit further. I don't remember quite how I discovered her (Etsy's forums are a good guess), but I'd run across an artist who goes by the name TotusMel. She makes stunning needle-tatted jewelry and accessories, and I quickly added her to my list of favorite sellers.

Flash forward again. I wake up one morning to discover that I've sold my first skein of yarn, and whaddya know, it's TotusMel who bought it! Yes, I giggled, and although I will neither confirm nor deny it, I may or may not have squealed a little. She was even kind enough to later share pictures of the scarf she made with it (which you can read more about in her blog post here).

I must say that of all the great experiences I've had through Etsy, having another artist (particularly one so talented) make something so beautiful out of my materials is the biggest thrill.

(Thanks again to TotusMel for allowing me to use her photographs in this post. She retains all rights to them, so don't go getting any ideas.)

In the event of...

I started a business roughly six months ago. I'm a one-woman show, and that's the way I like it. But it has occurred to me that this might present a problem if anything were to happen that rendered me unable to run my business. I'm 26 so it's unlikely that I'm going to croak in the next ten minutes, but things happen and you just never know.

I looked into making a will, but right now I can't afford anything other than one handwritten on a sheet of notebook paper, and probably less than legally sound. I also don't have too terribly many assets. What's really important, though, are the intangibles: my passwords, where I hid my ATM card or my housekey, that sort of thing. The things that someone would need to know if they suddenly needed to take over or shut down (permanently or temporarily) my business.

So this is my task for myself. I'm going to put together an "In the event of..." package for my family. It'll have a list of my online presences and their accompanying login information, instructions for what to do with my Etsy shop and how to do it, and where to look for help if the instructions I've left are insufficient. I'm thinking that there will actually be two packets, one for if I am temporarily incapacitated, and another for if I am permanently incapacitated or deceased.

For all you other Etsians and small business owners of all kinds, especially if you're the sole member of your company, think about doing this, even if you have a real will. Not only will it help your family or whoever such responsibilities fall to, but think of your customers.

There now, that's a nice cheery topic for the first real post on this blog!

Thanks for visiting. I have an existing blog at http://jenhintz.blogspot.com but soon I will be splitting that blog off so that my personal blogging stays there and this blog is devoted entirely to business.