On with the Etsy Shop Makeover series. This thing is never ending! Being not entirely happy with my shop banner it has changed yet once again. This was the one I was using:
And it has changed to this banner:
I just can't make up my mind on my banner. For some reason when it is uploaded it looks a bit blurry, which drives me batty.
I have been working hard on my Secret Swap item for the AREtsy exchange. It is looking pretty spiffy. Really, I want to show you...but it's a SECRET!
This weekend is the first Meet and Greet for the Arkansas Etsy Street Team. I am very excited about it. It will be in my home, which is a tad crazy of me...but you only live once! The group is full of wonderful ladies (no men yet!) and I just love getting to know each one of them. Being new to the state still and still having made no real connections with anyone near us, I am really looking forward to meeting the AREtsy Gals! My sister will be here and so will my step-mom, so there will never be a dull moment!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Meet and Greet
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
So THERE!
Took this one of Daisy the other day. She was sleeping with her tongue out, but woke up when I grabbed the camera. Got love my little "Crack Rat". Had to share. ♥
Monday, January 28, 2008
Hand Spinning Show & Tell
Below are my recent attempts at hand spinning. I am really showing signs of improvement and am excited about each new yarn. The first one I used some merino roving. Thick to thin in many places and pretty springy in the tightly spun places.
Next came the Purple Eyed Monster Roving I had hand painted. The roving was white, blue, green and maroon. It was very tricky to spin. I was not as happy with the end outcome. I still have close to three ounces of this painted roving, so hopefully my next spin will do it more justice.
I love this one! Winter Green. This yarn is a blend of Merino natural roving and a hand painted batch of merino roving. I really love its consistency and the look. There are only a few spots where the yarn is thick.
This roving was an absolute dream to spin. The roving is from a farm in Vermont and is Blue Faced Leicester. The roving was a piece of cake to keep the consistency and the end product is very nice.
This is by far my favorite to date. When I first started painting yarn, I painted a skein named Sanjaya (yes named after that ever so annoying person on that one singing show) This yarn is hand painted roving in a multitude of colors. It reminds me of my Sanjaya yarn, but hand spun. Love, love, love this one!!!
Winner of the New AREtsy Banner Contest
Friday, January 18, 2008
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BANNER 5
Monday, January 14, 2008
Etsy members are full of extraordinary, extremely talented artists. AREtsy Street Team decided they wanted to see how many of these members could ban together and upload their photos. Flickr, a partner with Yahoo, is an awesome website, where members can upload photos and share with the world all their pictures. What better place to see all the wonderful pictures from Etsy members than Flickr. AREtsy has put out a challenge to each and every Etsy member. They want to see One Million Pictures of your art and crafts. Yes ONE MILLION!
The Flickr group is called Etsy Artsist Rule: One Million Picture Pool. It can be found here: http://flickr.com/groups/etsy1millionpicpool/
The group is open to any and hopefully all Etsy members.
To have such a challenge put out of 1,000,000 pictures uploaded would be enough, right? Not so! There is also a side challenge AREtsy has issued to all Etsy Street Teams, who dare to take the challenge. They are asking all Street Teams to ban together for this cause. AREtsy has issued a friendly challenge to see which Etsy Street Team can bring the most photos to the picture pool. If your team wants to be a part of the challenge all they have to do is to send a message to their members explaining these rules:
*Join the Etsy Artists Rule: One Million Picture Pool
*Have all their members add their street team name in the picture tag along with their Etsy Shop Name.
*Post a message on this forum:
With their Street Team name, so we know who to check to track.
The challenge was officially started at 2:57 EST on January 12, 2008. At 5:31 EST Flickr broke. They claim it was a server issue problem. We are sure Etsy bombarding them with almost 2,000 photos in such a short time couldn't have had anything to do with it. That’s right within the first two and a half hours they had 1,998 pictures uploaded into the group’s database. Proving Etsy Artists do rule.
At 10:35 EST, after a 5 hour “Massage” Flickr came back up and the race was on once again. Within the first ten minutes the count was already up to 2,065 with 120 members.
Over the night, there were 1,000 plus photos uploaded. This brought the total count up to 3,149. Can you believe it? By 9:00 AM EST the ball was rolling again. By Sunday evening, the count hit 5,000. Sunday did bring in more massages for Flickr…the one Saturday night must have been so great, they rushed out to get another one.
At the time of this posting, the count was up to 6,401 with 307 members and 12 Street Teams in the side challenge. Whoooohoooo!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Etsy One Million Challenge Update
Well, the challenge started off with a bang! Then, BOOM!!! Flickr went down. They can say whatever they want, I just know our little group broke Flickr. There server couldn't handle the massive uploading of wonderful Etsy users into the group.
When the site went down we had 90 members and 1,998 pictures uploaded! It was an awesome start to a fun challenge.
How long do you think it will take for Etsy Members to upload One Million Photos in the group's database?
Etsy One Million Challenge!
Lets see how fast we can get 1 million photos pooled!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Yet Another Before and After
Above is my original banner (I was never 100% happy with)
This was phase 2 of banner makeover
The Banner above is my new banner. It may change again!
Etsy Avatar: before (above) & after (below)
My avatar was inspired from my Hot Pink Yarn Makeover:
Before (above) & After (below)
Berfore and After-Happy Day
Just plain awful screen shots of before and after. BUT you can sorta see, in the big pic, of how dramatically this changed how the yarn looks. Much nicer now.
I attended a workshop yesterday, put on by EtsyLabs. It was all about updating your shop and how to take better pictures. This is my Happy Day Yarn. CHECK IT!!!
I am now working on Berries N Cream. Hopefully, I can get better screen shots!
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Cupid Lost his Cookies in my Dye Room
Yes it's true. Cupid has thrown up all over my yarn. With Valentine's Day being a little more than a month away, what better than a bunch of Love Themed Colors. I was a crazy dyeing lady today! I hand painted three skeins of yarn, solid red, solid pink, and red and pink together. Also, I did three sets of roving...one 5 ounces in shades of pink and white, the other two one ounce samplers of pink and white. The one laying across the yarns in the pic below is my favorite. It looks like cotton candy.
Enough with the Cupid Puke. I had a wild hair and I knit up the yarn I spun. It turned out pretty nifty. It was a small amount, so I used size 19 needles and cast on only 6 stitches.
I think I may make a cell phone case out of it, just to keep it as my first hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit project. Hopefully first of many more to come! With more consistency and less over spinning. I see a spinning wheel in my near future.
Lastly, I did get some Valentine's Day Roving up for sale on Etsy. It was so hard, I really wanted to keep it to spin myself...but I have to make money some how! CLICK HERE if you want to check it out.
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