So one of the things I want to start
doing this year is promoting other doll peeps who I find interesting.
I kind of feel like I am walking into mucky waters with this one
because while I want to give notice to those people who I find
interesting, I don't want to insult others by not mentioning them
first, third, or even at all. So I will just put down the “cone of
safety” on each of these posts. LOL! These posts are in no way to
insult anyone, they are made to encourage purchasing of awesome
dollie items I find and possibly help a handmade artist in the
meanwhile. :-) And now that the cone of safety is on * insert cone of
safety sliding sound here * let the awesomeness commence.
If you go over to the ArtFire forums expect to hear a lot of this. {source}
Warning, I’m about to rant, rave, and vent my feelings about the recent knowledge about the Artfire basic accounts being closed. I don’t care about my account being closed really, but I do care about the horribly snarky people over there who talk like their poo doesn’t smell. You have been warned.
Ok, so as some of you know, I’m desperately waiting for the day to come where I will be called mommy. And during that wait I like to read mommy blogs and read their stories about how they raise their children…I consider it studying and note-taking while I am waiting. Anyway, through one of these blogs I found my way to another mommy blog called Darlybird, where the lass/mommy who writes the blog decided last year to make a dollhouse for her little girls. She first showed off the doll house which I really liked the look of. She did pretty good considering she’s not a collector and she made a lot of stuff by hand by getting creative. She then got some questions about how she made her dollhouse and decide to post how she came to make her house. In one of her posts it kind of made me giggle how she came across “something called Re-ment” and she fell in love. Remember when we all had that fall in love moment with Re-ment? I know I do. But yeah, she found them on Ebay and went to town with it. She also did some shopping in thrift stores, dollar stores, and craft stores and created some very interesting pieces and interesting rooms. I wanted to share her posts with you all, so feel free the click the links below to learn how she made the house in the picture above.
In the first post about the dollhouse the mommy blogger mentioned that you could also make a “dollhouse” for your son too, and it got me to thinking. How would you make a “dollhouse” for your son? I was thinking you could make a military headquarters for them to play in, or a really neat car garage to play in. But then again, I wouldn’t be against making an actual dollhouse for them, just with less pinks and focusing on more blues. Maybe making a Ken doll or G.I. Joe a bachelor pad. I think it would be fun and inventive to try to turn this around for a boy.
So the mommy of Darlybird mentions in her last post about the dollhouse that she didn’t want her daughters to play with Barbie, but when she was pregnant with her second daughter she came across the highly controversial Pregnant Midge doll all that changed. She thought it would be fitting for her daughter to have the doll since she was pregnant and it would be a nice teaching aid showing her little one how her new sibling would come into the world, in Barbie terms of course. She didn’t want her girls to play with Barbie because she worried about image issues and the lack of clothing Barbie tends to be “not” wearing. So her and her hubby came up with an idea, to buy all their Barbie clothing from Etsy. I think this is a great idea. It helps to support the handmade movement, you will get better quality items, and you get more conservative and nicer looking items for your dolls. I think if I have girls I will go this way too while also making them clothes for their dolls too.
So yeah, just wanted to share Darlybird’s dollhouse with you. I think she did a great job and was very crafty and creative with it. She wishes she could make another one this year because it was so fun. I was thinking instead of making a new one maybe she could have modeled it. Freshen things up or change things around or add to it. I mean, I don’t see a closet in the house, and we all know Barbie has a wardrobe that would make Mariah Carey’s wardrobe look like…well mine. LOL! She could go all out purchasing new clothing for her daughter’s dolls and making a fancy walk-in closet for them. She could also consider adding a garage to the house. And the top of the house looks naked. I bet it would look nice with a rooftop garden or patio. So much potential there. I really hope I have a girl or two who's into dolls. But heck, even if she’s into G.I. Joe we are SO making a dollhouse together. LOL! Ok, talk to you all soon. Bye for now.
Hey guys, I don’t really have much of a blog for you today. I’ve been busy sleeping, making horrible smelling gluten-free cupcakes and frosting from the package, and making a new shop logo I am actually happy with for once. Now I just need to update some things in my policies, take some pictures, upload descriptions, and I’m in business baby! I hope to have more details on that very soon. But I do have two things for you lovely peeps. First an awesomely done stop motion doll video with my fave cover of Raidohead’s “Creep”. Have a look.
One lonely doll's desperate attempt to be accepted.
Next up is a poll. If you want to just skip the lengthy babble that follows and just vote in the poll, feel free to. It’s pretty self explanatory. All others interested in what I have to say please continue to read. I’ve been hesitating putting this poll up for one reason or another, but I really want to know what you guys think. I have accounts made on both Etsy and Artfire, but I don’t know which to open shop up at. I know Etsy has the traffic and Artfire is SLOWLY up and coming. But either way I’d have to market myself to get any traffic at my shop, so it’s not really a traffic thing for me when it comes to the doll items. But I also want to make human items too. In this case I think the traffic Etsy has would play a big part in me selling those items. I’ve been checking both sites’ page rankings and while Etsy is 100 something Artfire is like 1000 something I believe. Not really good when trying to sell in a big market.
Now my reason for wanting to use Artfire is because listing is free. I’d kind of like to make some money before trying out Etsy. But if the traffic isn’t there then I won’t make money anyway. However, on Etsy to keep being seen you have to constantly relist or just list every day an item or two. I could do the daily listing but I don’t want to do the relisting. That is just to expensive for me in the end. I’m willing to put a few bucks investment into Etsy to try it out. I know my products will stay listed for 4 months and that’s plenty of time to promote and have deals to sell. I just worry if I don’t make any money on what I am trying to sell that my shop will flop, but I guess that’s the risk you take when you attempt this kind of thing. I honestly thought I had everything figured out, but after certain things I’ve read about both places I’m still up in the air. *sigh*
When I think of Etsy and Artfire I see Artfire as being Myspace and Etsy as being Facebook. For those of you who don’t understand, Artfire allows you to make your own shop up and use colors and backgrounds and you can even have a music player with your own music playing on your shop page. You can have pictures of your dog, cat, Aunt Mae in your shop as well on your bio. Now this is just all gaudy to me. Really gaudy and not professional at all, kind of like Myspace that let’s you put up any backgrounds, music, pictures, etc. that you want…one of the reasons I closed mine. Now Etsy on the other hand is all business all the way. Same uniformed look for the most part, allowing you some customization in the forum of a profile picture and banner. Very similar to Facebook. I like the organized look of it and the cleanness of it. I truthfully like everything about Etsy, except a few things.
Your items aren’t listed in search engines, you have to do it yourself from what I read. Now here’s the thing, I don’t tend to use search engines to shop for handmade. I tend to go to Etsy and sometimes Artfire directly and search for items that way. So does SEO really matter in this count? Do a lot of people search through Google for a handmade Blythe dress or fingerless gloves? The way people talk it seems so, but I just don’t feel that’s the case. Artfire does list items in search engines, even for basic accounts, but of course pro accounts get more acknowledgement. Etsy doesn’t do that at all, so it makes me wonder if that would affect my sales.
Another thing that bothers me about Etsy is lack of customer support. I’ve heard it can take days to weeks for you to hear back from Etsy when you have a problem. I don’t like that. I want help when a problem arises, not when it’s convenient to Etsy. I mean you are giving them a cut of your sales so they should be very forthcoming with the help. I’ve even heard cases where you won’t get a response at all. Ummm…how is this good business?
Another thing about Etsy is they are seriously lacking in the sellers tools that Artfire and other sites already have. That doesn’t work for me. I like the things that Artfire has to offer for sellers, but of course that is if you become pro. At this point both sites are even for me on that case, and I did think about becoming pro, but I just don’t like their attitude that if you are basic you are not considered one of the team really, and more of just a moocher. Which makes me like Etsy more on that count again because no matter what, if you sell or buy on there you can participate on everything the site has to offer. It makes for a nicer community to me. So I am on the fence about which to go to. I know I should just do both, which I was thinking do Artfire first and then slowly move to Etsy and then decide. But then again I could just bit the bullet and jump into Etsy feet first and just really promote and work up my shop there. So that is where you come in lovely readers. If you have gotten this far, thankies for reading or just jumping ahead to take my poll.
I like the poll. It’s kind of cute. I may try more interesting polls in the future. But back on topic now. Taking any and all suggestions or stories of experience if you’d like to share. Thankies in advance and I will talk to you all soon. Having a bad tummy day so I want to lay down and ride it out. *sigh* I need to get out of this house and have some fun, maybe that will get me out of my funk. Bye for now peeps, and have a great start to a wonderful week!
Hey guys and gals, I am still in the process of checking my email, and one of the emails I get is from Etsy. Well in the one email I just opened it had a link to a very unique item of jewelry.
Looks like fancy bangles right? Look again. They are teacups. Teacups that have been formed into bangles/bracelets. Abigail MaryRose Clark of Stay Gold MaryRose on Etsy forms your regular teacup into a wearable form of art. You can either purchase one she has already made or send in your teacup to her and she will make it into a bracelet. It’s kind of cool, but also kind of odd. I know I could never own one of them. I’d break it in a heartbeat. I’m one of those buffalos in a china store kind of gals. I do wonder what kind of woman is delicate enough and has the kind of life that they can wear something so fine around their wrist. This isn’t trying to insult anyone, just really curious. I couldn’t do. That sucker would break in no time. Unless something is put on it to make it strong, but it doesn’t look like it. Hummm. Click on the picture if you’d like to be taken to the sale page. Well I just wanted to share that with you. Back to my email. It worked itself up from 26 to 246. It’s gonna take a while. :-)
I was looking around Etsy the other day and I found my into a shop that was selling a very interesting item.
For the super duper low price of $1,500 you could own your very own Jeteson’s replica space car.
As you can see it’s resemblance is quite remarkable. Now it doesn’t move on it’s on. Meaning no motor, no pedals, no nothing. You’d have to have someone push you around. So it’s really pointless to have because the joy of having bragging rights that you own the Jetson’s car. But hey, that’s worth the price of admission right there, am I right? :-) It’s amazing what you can find on Etsy these days. It makes me wonder what other interesting things I may find on there. You can learn about a lot of interesting things on Regretsy, but it’s usually stuff that they deem bad…and well I have to admit, they aren’t wrong on over half the stuff. You should really check the site out. Warning, some of the stuff on there is adult. When I looked this morning there was a cap with an adult toy screen printed on it. So umm…yeah. This may not be a site to look at around the kids or at work. But enjoy and be sure to share if you find anything cool on there. Talk to you later.
Ok, so I noticed it yesterday and I still can’t get used to it. Has anyone noticed the new layout of Etsy shops? Is anyone else a little “backwards” when they look at it? I mean I just can’t get used to all the info being on the left. It just seems so weird after it being on the right for so long. Anyone else a little weirded out by that or am I on this island all alone? Please don’t let me be on it all by myself. The odds of me finding a Wilson are slim to nil. :-D
Ok, my curious mind had to post and ask. I’m off again. Yes I am up at 4:45 in the morning. A recent event has thrown off my sleeping in a bad way and well…yeah. *sigh* Later peeps.
But yeah, she found them on 
She didn’t want her girls to play with Barbie because she worried about image issues and the lack of clothing Barbie tends to be “not” wearing. So her and her hubby came up with an idea, to buy all their Barbie clothing from Etsy. I think this is a great idea. It helps to support the handmade movement, you will get better quality items, and you get more conservative and nicer looking items for your dolls. I think if I have girls I will go this way too while also making them clothes for their dolls too.
I’ve been hesitating putting this poll up for one reason or another, but I really want to know what you guys think. I have accounts made on both Etsy and Artfire, but I don’t know which to open shop up at. I know Etsy has the traffic and Artfire is SLOWLY up and coming. But either way I’d have to market myself to get any traffic at my shop, so it’s not really a traffic thing for me when it comes to the doll items. But I also want to make human items too. In this case I think the traffic Etsy has would play a big part in me selling those items. I’ve been checking both sites’ page rankings and while Etsy is 100 something Artfire is like 1000 something I believe. Not really good when trying to sell in a big market.
