Archive for March, 2008

I think I’ve officially dropped the ball on NaBloPoMo. I’m pretty sure there’s an 11th commandment that reads something like, “Thou shalt not fail to update thy blogeth on a regularth basisth… ththth,” and I’ve spent the past few days pretty much ignoring it. Well, forgive me, dear Internets, for I have sinned. Ah well, there’s always April!

Yesterday Susan and I met up for another round of thrift shopping. The shopping itself wasn’t very productive for me (it’s usually hit-or-miss, anyhow)–I picked up a vintage wool overcoat in light blue (perfect for photo shoots), a vase for my office (it’s daffy season!), and a shirt for myself. The conversation and company, however, made it well worth the trip. We also enjoyed a tasty dinner at Olive Garden.

Now I’m excited because I have two custom orders in progress. The first is a custom doodle, almost finished, and the second is product photography for another talented Etsy artist. I can’t wait to get started on that, because I think it will be an excellent opportunity to get creative and learn how to better take direction from a client… when it comes to photography, I’m usually the one directing.

Finally, big thanks to Holly of decor8 for including my “alphabet soup” poster in her Real Simple article, “Affordable Art Round-up for Kids.” I’m flattered to be amongst so many talented artists and designers!

I’ve made it over halfway through March without saying “I’m running on empty,” but then, I missed two or three or six blog entries at the beginning there. So is it bad that I’m still running on empty? Urgh.

I just finished the first draft of a custom doodle, which was enjoyable, as usual. I also worked on a new gift certificate graphic for Calobee Doodles–the idea I came up with at 4:30 this morning, when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep because of a certain obnoxious little kitty… *cough*PIPPEN*cough*

It’s been a slow month, so I’ve been brainstorming ways to improve my shops. A few things I’ve considered:

• Re-evaluate my pricing (you can still take my poll… hint hint) and make adjustments as necessary;
• revise my shop information, item descriptions, and images (working on this now);
• advertise. Not necessarily the broad-scope Google Adwords type, but something smaller and more targeted… maybe on a few arts/craft sites and blogs. I’m going to continue to explore other, less direct methods of advertising, such as donating prints to giveaways or The Sampler;
• and finally, list more often. This involves, you know, creating things… and you’d think that would be the easy part, but no… I’m backwards like that.

So, business owners, enlighten me: what do you do to ensure your shop doesn’t stagnate?

It must be my lucky day! I won not just one prize, but two! Both from the Moo egg hunt, which most of you are probably familiar with by now, but if you’re not, here’s the crash course: Moo.com, printers of those ingenious mini cards, hosted an egg hunt around the world. Forty eggs were hidden in various sites on the Web, and several more were distributed (in the form of stickers) to major cities in the U.S., Canada, Europe, China, and more! Moo posted clues and hints at their blog and on Flickr each day, and the first people to decipher the clues and report the eggs’ locations were guaranteed a prize. For the benefit of those of us who are not that quick, several other winners were chosen at random to receive various prizes from different sponsors, including Flickr, Etsy, Moo, Picnik, Timbuk2, etc.

Well, I wasn’t first to find an egg, but apparently I was one of the other random winners in two different drawings. I’m thinking I should go out and buy myself a lottery ticket tonight!

The spoils: a Flickr Pro account and a Picnik Pro account. The Flickr account extends my current pro service for a year, so it won’t expire until 2010. And I’d never heard of Picnik until now, but it looks like a handy Web site for quick, on-the-go image editing, right in your browser (no Photoshop required). It also integrates with Flickr and other similar photo-hosting services for convenient access to edit your photos wherever you are. And with the Picnik Firefox Add-on, I can take screen shots of full pages and save them to my Flickr account in two clicks. No more “print screen” for me! The technology is impressive, and I’m having fun playing with my new “toy.”

To the right is a Picnik’d version of the waiting hour 2–cross-processed with rounded-corners. Nifty!

Moo is also having a special mini-challenge: write a poem about Moo or the egg hunt and be entered to win a prize! Here is my contribution (limerick style for St. Patty’s Day, of course):

There once was a comp’ny called Moo
Who’s egg-hunt was known by a few
They hid eggs ’round the world
With bright colors unfurled
But alas, I found none–oh, boohoo!

In the spirit of the egg hunt, there is also a secret message to the Moo team hidden in the poem. It’s not hard to find if you look closely.

It was a busy, productive weekend, which is exactly the kind of weekend I like best. I made these fabric thumbtacks, Tim and I spent some time in the kitchen making meals for the week (the fridge is packed full), I doodled a bit (see my pretty new desktop?), had dinner with Sarah and Ian, and hung out with Danielle.

One thing I didn’t do that I wanted to was set up another photo shoot, but that’s OK. Thankfully Danielle is in the area often, so it’s not hard to find a few hours here and there. The days are getting longer, too, which helps tremendously, because I can schedule shoots after work instead of restricting myself to weekends.

I also spent a bit of money, which is something I’ve been trying to avoid doing lately, especially where sales have been slower than usual… but I couldn’t resist a bit of retail therapy. In the spirit of NaBloPoMo, a list:

• I loved the fabric thumbtacks so much that I bought a bunch of supplies to make more, along with some super-strong magnets so I can try those as well.
• I won an eBay auction for 6 vintage cups and saucers with the same pattern I found on my favorite thrifted platters. Liz (Madeinlowell) pointed out that my platters are Temporama, which was a very popular dishware set in the 50’s. I did a search out of curiosity, and wound up bidding on a few auctions. I’m going to try to incorporate the cups into a photo shoot or two (at least then I can say they were a business expense!)
• Also from the ‘Bay, a wireless remote flash trigger, so I can use my studio strobes with my camera. The Pentax K10D is inconvenient in one giant glaring aspect, and that is the lack of a PC socket for additional flash units. At some point I’d like to get a real hot shoe flash, but this trigger will work in the interim.

Also: Stay tuned for a contest! Someone’s Etsy anniversary is coming up…

No photos today, but we did do a little shopping at the craft stores in town! I picked up some cloth button forms and a pack of coordinating quilter’s fabric (half price!) to make these cute fabric-covered thumbtacks. I found the tutorial from How About Orange via Design Sponge. I love projects like this because they’re relatively inexpensive, simple, quick, and the results speak for themselves! If, unlike me, you’re sitting on bags of scrap fabric, this would be a fun way to use it up. And I have plenty left over to collage or make more buttons. I think next time I’m going to put magnets on the back.