etsy!

I’m finally and officially announcing (drumroll please) my new(ish) etsy store! You can find it here.

I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember, but until this past December I’d never made anything to sell. I gave everything away as gifts. For the small area in which I live, there are a lot of local arts and crafters, and several times during the year the are places where we can gather to showcase our labors of love. Two of those are held in December for the holiday season – a 6 week-long store where we can leave our items to be tended by a shopkeeper,  and a week-long showcase held in the courthouse where the crafters interact with the shoppers and browsers. This season I finally got the opportunity to participate in the week-long fair and in the last 2 weeks of the store. It was fun, I made some money, and organized some trading among the crafters (and scored some extra Christmas gifts to give).

Then I started thinking about etsy. I had never bought anything from there, but had heard a lot of good things about it. I’m not new to online selling, I list about 200 auctions a week on eBay, but it’s a little daunting to sell something you’ve made with your hands, and head, and heart, to people you don’t know (or even to people you DO know). I mean I really have no self-confidence anyway, so, ya know.

I have received a ton of encouragement from my friends online and offline.  At the beginning of the year my dear friend Brian asked his readers what word would define their 2009. Mine is create.

This past year, Brian and the lovely Ana recently welcomed the adorable Sienna into their family and married. I wanted to show them my love and support for their family and made them a 3 heart suncatcher and heart necklace (for Ana). I received lots of support from him, and from his readers, and even a custom order! That was a real kick-start for me to finally get in gear and open the store.

Let me just say that listing is not nearly as much fun as creating.

Last week I listed 15 items. My 1st etsy buyer was my dear friend Tuli! (thank you again!) And I sold 2 items from my store to someone locally (and received another custom order).

Tonight I listed 14 (is that all?) more items (I think). (Seriously? All that work for just 14 items?) I have at least 100 more handmade jewelry pieces ready to list. I’m guessing that’s gonna take awhile. I have listed all the suncatchers I’ve made, but since that’s my favorite thing to make (and I have so many ideas for them) I’ll be making lots more.

Here is a sampling of some of the items I listed tonight (my lighting completely sucks):

 

To celebrate me finally getting this thing done and opening the etsy store I’m offering a 20% discount on any purchase until the end of February 2009. I won’t be advertising this discount on etsy, but feel free to spread the word. Please spread the word! (please!) Cause that’s what it is – a word-of-mouth discount. 20%! Plus I’ll always offer free US shipping on all my items. Cause seriously, who doesn’t like free shipping? From what I can find out, the way the discount is given is to either send a special invoice with the discount subtracted, or refund the discounted amount after the Paypal payment is used. Either way is fine with me. 20%! Free shipping! Just enter FEBWOM or FEBRUARY or GIVE ME THE FREAKING DISCOUNT in the payment or convo.

So go forth and buy! Or look. Or buy! No pressure. Really. Please?

Don’t forget – 20% off and FREE SHIPPING

And I promise I’ll be posting soon and it won’t be about etsy.

 

(20% off and free shipping)