Change in the air

I'm not afraid of change. Really, I'm not. Much.

OK, I like the newness, I like the novelty, but - I hate making the decision and doing the work to change.

But when a site I'm selling decides to make changes to its Privacy Policy that can result in spam for people on my own private email list unless I opt out, I make the change.

Etsy, I'm sorry. I've tried. I'm not selling much, and a lot of that is my own doing, but when you do things like automatically assume that your sellers want their email lists linked to their shops while at the same time prohibiting your own sellers from any sort of contact that might be construed as spam, well, it makes sellers want to run screaming. I can't imagine what it would do to new buyers, but I personally shy away from sites where I have to expose my contacts like that.

I like Facebook, I like hanging with my peeps in a virtual setting, I like communicating with people I know from wildly divergent places and in very different ways. I even kind of enjoy pushing my tie-dye there once in a while, and I like that it sometimes brings me a new look or a sale I might otherwise not have gotten. But to be honest, most of that happens off-Etsy anyway. Why would I want my customers' emails exposed to a whole other venue when I'm starting to do more off-Etsy business anyway?

So Etsy would like to be more of a social networking site. If I wanted to be on another social networking site that'd be fine - but I don't really. I signed up for Etsy to sell tie-dye, and that's it. As it is I'm lost in the number of tie-dye vendors already there, but I don't see how dragging my email contacts into Etsy is going to increase my sales. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone else's email list will send someone to my shop to buy something - which won't help the person they were harvested from.

In the last year I've sent out a lot of business cards with my Etsy shop address on them. A LOT. So it makes sense that I'll probably keep a token presence there for a while until the new Zibbet shop takes off. ANd now that I'm out of the old cards, my next batch will have both shop addresses on them.... with the Zibbet one first. Free to list up to 50 items - I usually have more like 30-35 - and no listing fees. Off to a rousing start already. So far I'm liking what I see over there - come and have a look-see, see what you think!

Randomness (and practice making lots of links)

Yep, the storm mostly missed us. We had enough fluffy stuff with ice under it for the girls to have a good time in the snow outside this morning during the late start for school, but it'll be gone by the weekend while once again, New York City and New England bear the brunt of it.

Been trying a medical experiment. While visiting grandparents over the holidays, I forgot to take my thyroid meds. I was ready to start up again, but I noticed I felt BETTER off the meds! I have no idea why this should be the case, but it IS the case. No more headaches, more energy, even lost a couple of pounds. I could get used to this. I'll have to come clean with my doctors at some point, I suppose....

I've also begun working my way diet-wise back to the way of eating that lost me 30 pounds of stubborn post-baby weight after my second child was born. In that case it was the Body Ecology Diet, which we were prescribed as a family to help starve out systemic candida in an effort primarily to help my older child with some behavioral issues. For the two months we did it whole-hog, I lost the weight, her behavior leveled off some, and with a child in a preschool we didn't get so much as a sniffle, in February and March while people around us were getting the flu right and left. Now I'm working on "going Paleo." Very similar in many ways: simple nonprocessed foods, avoid grains like the plague (I do some grains after I soak them for 8 hours, but not as many), good meat and lots of veggies, and no dairy (except for my homemade yogurt I'm not sure we could do without very easily, although I'm willing to try it for a couple of weeks....down the road....maybe....). I've already made adjustments in the menus and the cooking, but there wasn't that much to do since we already eat lots of meat and veg and cook in butter and bacon fat and coconut oil, much to the consternation of my doctor. LOL

Looking ahead now to planning the veggie garden. I hope we don't get the degree of heat we had this past summer. I personally was happy with 105F in the shade, but the garden was NOT. Even nightshades, which like hot weather, don't like it THAT hot; they have a temperature above which they basically shut down production, so our tomato and pepper yields were pretty lame. The okra wasn't even all that spectacular, and that thrives in the heat. The green beans shut down, and forget the cooler-weather stuff like lettuce. And the cukes were, well, pitiful. :-( At least the potatoes did OK, and for my first try at corn in many many years, the fact that we got enough ears to make a single meal plus a bit extra was an accomplishment. Usually the local critters get to it first! Looking to get a copy of this book by John Jeavons so help me plan ahead and make the most of our little plot(s) and pots. :-)

I've also been working on a few dye projects, including a custom tee, a lovely scarf, a cute toddler girl dress-and-leggings set, and some random kids' tees, all while embarking on a 14-week house-organizing binge with the help of some online friends and fellow parents at Baby Whisperer Forums, where I've been finding help and support with my kids since my almost-9YO was 3 months old and long before the other was even born. Can't recommend it highly enough for parents looking for answers with their little ones.

Thus end my random musings for the evening. We hope you enjoyed this installment. Perhaps sometime soon I'll be back to write up what I learned this evening about The Business of Art, so kindly sponsored by our city's arts center.

Weather or not....

Some random musings about yet another snowstorm that probably will leave us alone. Again.

I don't know how many more times we're gonna go thru the "impending storm of doom" scenario here in the DC area this year. Last year we got nailed pretty badly storm-wise, but this year every storm has managed to deal us a glancing blow at worst, assuming it shows up at all. Shopping for Winter clothes in, um, Winter has gotten to be nearly impossible. Went to Target a few days before Christmas
trying to get snow pants for the child who grew more than we thought she would and there were FOUR, count them, FOUR, pairs of snow pants in the place. FOUR. Had I needed to buy my kids swimsuits, though, I would have been in luck: FOUR RACKS of them in the girls' section alone. It wasn't even WINTER yet!!!

Needless to say, Target got rather a nasty letter from me, especially after we went to K-Mart and found rack upon rack of Winter wear for men, women, and children of all ages. Add to that some second-hand snow-wear donated by a friend with two older kids and we're set for a couple of years now, but why should I have to hunt down Winter clothing even before Winter? Also makes it hard to find clothing for dyeing when someone orders up a long-sleeved tee in mid-December - and there aren't any! :-( Sure, I can order one online, and probably for a bit less money, but if I want to get started today, that's a hassle and a delay I'd rather not deal with. Sometimes "today" is when I have the time.

So now we wait for the snow to start. Or not. Overnight tonight, perhaps. Or during the morning rush, if you believe another site. Or, as the meteorologists on the radio are predicting, early, mid, or late afternoon tomorrow. Nothing like a wide window of, well, whatever's in the window. :-)

Holiday Mayhem has ended!

And there was much rejoicing! (muffled "yaaay!" in background from the Knights of the round Table)

It's a new year, with some new projects in the works. First step: exploring going fully legal. Not just the "Get a temporary sales tax license for each craft show I do in Maryland" legal, but the whole shebang. For the paperwork-phobe that is me, this is a HUGE HUGE step. *gulp!*

To that end I'm hoping that our city's art center still has room in their Business of Art class this week for me. An hour and a half to learn about the paperwork required would be a great start. :-)

And now there's an uproar on Etsy about some really REALLY offensive greeting cards that Etsy won't take down, citing Free Speech and all that. I debated about linking to the cards but I really don't want to give the seller any more publicity - but there are potential buyers out there now who are boycotting Etsy over this, and if they're boycotting Etsy, they're not coming to my shop. :-( So I'm looking at Zibbet as a possible new place to sell.

Now to get some tie-dye in the laundry for washing out. What a colorful start to the new year!

Ho-Hum Holiday so far :-\

Well, here it is December and sales are at a complete and utter standstill. The economy has hit everyone hard, for sure, and handicrafts aren't on everyone's wish list or high priority list, not the way things like food and mortgage are. And to be fair, I'm still catching up from all the health stuff so I haven't been pimping the shop the way I probably should be in order to get results, and when I am online doing the social networking thing, the house is falling apart around my ears and the fridge empties out. I need a clone!

The coupon codes on Etsy have also been a complete bust. No hits on the Black Friday coupon, and nothing either on the one for the entire time up to Christmas. It's times like these when I just want to pack it in - and then I remember that I have a craft show already coming up in March at the same place the most recent - and pretty successful (comparatively LOL) one was, at Liberty High School - and I have something to look forward to. It'd just be nice - REALLY REALLY nice - to not have to wait 4 months for some cash flow. *sigh*

That said, it's early December so there's still tons of time to finish any custom order that DO come my way, so I suppose I'd best get busy trying to scare up some more work. :-)

Mixed bag

Finally got inspired to have a go at my tie-dye backlog this week. Yesterday with two kids off school and no way I was going out with them (or without them!) for Black Friday shopping, I brought a handful of things to my laundry room and tied 'em up for some practice.

Well.

• The rainbow with black lines for the stained glass effect came out with pale pale gray lines instead. Not at all the effect I was hoping for, but still saleable, even with some dye specks in the purple. It's a nightshirt and it's super-soft and pretty anyway.
• The girl's shirt with the swoops in pink and two shades of purple - one of the swoop lines came out lovely and swoop-y, while the one below it came out more scalloped. No clue how I managed it, but not sure if I can salvage it.
• The girls' shirt that was supposed to be crinkly blue and purple came out crinkly blue and blue - a pretty subtle pattern, but not so pretty that most girls I know of that age would count it among their favorites. It's now soaking in purple and magenta dye in a jar for some new crinkles and some actual purple.
• The pink and brown swirl girls' tee where I was trying to recreate one of my favorite shirts (which I let my kid wear and then it got stained so it's now ours for life LOL) came out streaked, plus the brown has halos of blue around it. A hotter temperature next time should keep the dye from having time to separate out like that before the reaction finishes, but this shirt probably isn't salvageable. :-(
• And the final girls' shirt was to be pink with a purple wedge at the bottom of the front, but it's really smaller than it should be to look good, plus it somehow ended up streaked with orange.

I got a couple other projects started and then shaved off the top of my first joint of my middle finger of my right hand using the mandoline slicer to slice potatoes. I was using it to save the wear and tear on my fingertips from using a knife. Took the bleeding over an hour to stop and I still have to go easy on it or it starts bleeding again. I'm scared half to death about MRSA infections so trying my best to let it heal up but it's in a spot that gets bumped and jiggled a lot. Ow ow ow ow owwwww. This is why hubby is cutting carrot sticks and cuke slices for snack/lunch this weekend. No blades for me for a while.

It's probably good to take a break after only one day of tie-dye bliss though or the children will no doubt be climbing the walls waiting for enough space to be cleared for the holiday decorations to go up: the lights, the Christmas tree, the Yule log, the whole nine yards, a bit at a time - once I get my blanks and clothing racks out of the living room, anyway. It was nice while it lasted, though, and I could easily get used to it. My 8YO advises against getting used to it though, because "You'll just be disappointed." Quite the optimist, that one. Wonder where she gets it? @_@ Of course, she is at the dining table making her button bracelets with no real demands on her time and energy other than that (for the moment at least). :-) Maybe I'll put a couple of those up in the Etsy shop and see how she fares.

Indecision.....

Been a little worried about some of the goings-on over at Etsy lately. I can't lie, it's making me nervous. Even back this summer people were wondering what Etsy would do to make the Holiday shopping season more complicated for its sellers, and they've delivered, not once but twice! A "Continue Shopping" button that first was sending people not to the shop to Continue Shopping but off to the Etsy Forums - so rather than fix it, they just made it go away so now buyers had no way to Continue Shopping and sellers were losing their minds trying to sort shipping for multiple items that had to be purchased singly. Then the coupon codes sellers have been asking for for YEARS now, there they are, handy-dandy - but only semi-functional. And not rolled out with time before holiday shopping to work out the bugs and features, but Thanksgiving Week, pretty much. I mean, really, come ON!

I passed when Artfire had their super-duper $6 a month Pro Shop deal and now I feel like an idiot. Now it's about $10 a month, but only thru the end of the calendar year, when it goes up to $16. Thing is, I don't think I can DO enough tie-dye any more, not with all the health stuff and the part-time employment and the one kid's medical screenings I've been trying to get her for the last 4 years (she'll be almost 9-1/2 before she gets the screening she should've had at 5! :-(), to make even $10 a month worthwhile. I'm trying to get my teaching certification renewed in an effort to contribute more fully to depleted family finances, and if I get that full-time teaching job, the dyeing is likely to go out the window pretty much, except maybe for summer shows.

But.....if I snag the $10 a month deal and it doesn't pan out, I can go to a Basic free account, but if things pick up and I want to go back to Pro, that becomes $16 a month, not the $10 that's possibly not worth it as it is. Just taking pictures and listing stuff is a huge hassle for me - I'm a mediocre photographer at best, and getting good pics takes literally hours of my time (see posts from way back in time and realize that I've not gotten much better :-(), so I've been avoiding it by doing mostly craft shows, which also hasn't been panning out all that well. I'd like to NOT flush away any more money on dyeing stuff. I'd like IT to start paying ME, but I don't have the time or money to make that initial investment, and my the time I do, the investment will cost me nearly double and will be again out of reach.

So Plan C is to investigate other selling options, but Artfire seems to be by far the best one out there for buyers and sellers. I just can't afford the shiny functional version, and I can't seem to find squat information on the basic plan so I have no clue if it would suit my needs or not. It does bother me that they seem to be hiding that information. :-(

My head hurts....