A Shining Front Page!

Making it to the front page of Etsy is every sellers goal. It's instant advertising and traffic to your shop and most of all it's a complete honor to be a part of a front page worthy showcase. I finally had the honor this morning thanks to JooJooLand's magical "Shining" treasury. Thank you so much for including me in your gorgeous design and for being an all around wonderful person. 

Three's a Charm

I am so thrilled to have my roses featured in three very cool, very different treasuries this week! Big thank yous to: WickedGems for featuring my coffin pendant in this very vampy treasury, JooJooLand for designing such an enchanting layout and including my pink rose ring, and last but not least, Danikamon for actually making a beautiful, glow-in-the-dark treasury!

Smile with JooJoo

It's always a nice surprise when an item gets featured in one of those glorious, twelve little boxes of a treasury. And even though I never expect to be featured in return by a seller I've showcased, it's an extra sweet treat when it happens. Like today. My Sapphire Rose Ring was featured in this beautiful, September Stars treasury thanks to the whimsical artist, JooJoo.

I recently discovered her charming shops while I was curating one of my treasuries and I've been an admiring fan ever since. Her first shop, JooJoo, contains delightful prints of her original paintings such as this "tiny pink birdie" pictured above. Her second shop, JooJooLand, ups the sweet factor a notch by taking her enchanting artwork into 3D with her hand sculpted jewelry pieces and miniature sculptures. The photographs of her products are also incredible works of art themselves and needless to say, they look wonderful in treasuries.  The bottom line, JooJoo makes me smile.

I know she will make you smile too, so enjoy her September Stars treasury and be sure to visit her sweet shops (oh, and wish her a happy birthday too!).

Prints: JooJoo.etsy.com
Mini sculptures and jewelry: JooJooLand.etsy.com
Visit her blog: www.JooJoo.me

Good Luck

Luck. Who couldn't use a little bit of it these days? Being born and raised in Las Vegas means growing up with all sorts of luck – both good and bad. There are lucky numbers, lucky charms, lucky pennies… And of course Lady Luck herself can be found in my hometown.  Luck is what fuels Vegas and the lure of fortune's offering is what makes people come back for more.  Including me. I may be heading there soon to visit family, but I'm not going to turn my nose at bringing a little good luck along.

Last night I luckily logged into Etsy right before a Treasury West spot became available. The first thought that popped into my head when I realized I had less than 16 minutes to come up with a design was, "What luck!" I then found this adorable golden kitty by JooJooLand. It's beautifully photographed and the colors are warm like the approaching autumn season. The rest of the treasury was based around this cute little guy and everything seemed to fall right into place. How lucky for me!

So here you go… Here are the 12 very lucky sellers from my latest treasury, Good Luck, and their beautiful creations: JooJooLand, ShySiren, cinnamonsticks, PsAndQs, LatigoMoon, wildcardpottery, ShiStudio, PunkyBunny300, F925, hybridtheory, Leelinau, JoyfulSpirit

The alternate items: arleebee, YaneShops, catondarlingandmoore, sewlutionsbyamo

Craftgawker

I recently discovered an amazing online showcase of handmade products called, Craftgawker. Craftgawker.com is a spin off from their wildly popular food site, Foodgawker.com. (WARNING: Visiting Foodgawker will make you silly with drool, so be sure you are sitting far enough away from your keyboard and computer to avoid liquidy contact. This is for your own protection.)

Craftgawker is interesting. The site has a clean and simple, elegant design that reads almost like a high-end magazine or catalog. And that's because their submission based content has a fairly stringent acceptance criteria. Submissions are moderated and only well designed, well balanced and well photographed images are included. All items must have direct links to content about the product (Etsy, Artfire, Flickr, blogs, etc).

Craftgawker not only allows a crafter to have another venue to showcase their handmade product, but the site also serves as an excellent source of inspiration and motivation to take better, well designed photographs – a very important part of having a handmade business. You may have noticed some appealing products down on the left hand side of this blog. That's the handy Craftgawker widget which is an easy, elegant way to spruce up your website while spreading a bit of handmade love. 

And one last thing to mention… I'm excited to share that my Sapphire Blue Rose Shimmer Ring made the cut! It's currently on the front page and I couldn't be more honored to have been accepted. Check it out… Craftgawker is another incredible tool that helps make handmade a special experience.

Snow White

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved Snow White. Yes, that little girl would be me. My father made a big production out of taking me to see it for the first time in the theater and I remember getting all dressed up for the special event.  If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, without hesitation I would tell you, "Snow White." I'm sure the fact that I look very similar to Snow has nothing to do with it. Honest.

Flash forward to present day. I still love Snow White and her seven little friends. I still collect vintage and vintage looking memorabilia and best of all - I now have my very own mini-me, er, I mean mini-Snow in my daughter.  Thankfully she loves her as much as I do (ok, I admit it, she might have been influenced just a little bit) and just like me her first movie in the theater will be none other than - you guessed it - Snow White.

The movie comes to theaters about every 10 years so for us to be able to experience it on the big screen is incredible. To add to my excitement, it's playing at the very special Disney theater in Hollywood, The El Capitan. The El Cap provides a live action pre-show before the movies with dancing Disney princesses and an elaborate, interactive exhibit after the movie. I’m in Snow heaven.

Here's my latest Treasury -- a tribute to the Fairest One of All – Etsy style! Enjoy these enchanting sellers:   PaisleyChainsaw, strangeling, lildecalshoppe, solocosmo, vol25, Laloca, TheNebulousKingdom, whitemagic, thelibrarian, WideEyedMusings, blueoctober, dinolover77

The alternates: inkpainter, blinkphoto, SalvageNation, MuddyFeet

THE END.

Coffee with Cream, Please

Mmmmm. Coffee... If you read my last post about waking up before the roosters, then you know I need copious amounts of it to start my day. In fact, my wonderful husband is out on a java run as I type this. What a good man.

I love the way coffee smells, the way it tastes and they way it looks as the cream swirls around changing it from a dark brown to the perfect tan color. No lattes for me. Just a good, strong, fresh brew with cream only, please (preferably served in a large, white paper cup with a green logo on it.)

So here are some sellers to start your day. They are sure to perk you up with their wonderfully, caffeinated products. Enjoy!

The featured sellers: JDWolfePottery, Isotope, MapleHillFarm, joojoo, IntuitiveProductions, FortuneCookieCafe, jackandbee, TracyChong, SofaGarden, ArtSpot, karley, retrokitsch

Altnerates: EnchantedlyYours, fyberknitics, JanAndJonJewelry, FlirtBags

6 a.m. on a Sunday

Even though I'm generally up at the crack of dawn most mornings, there is something about Sunday that makes waking up before the birds just plain wrong. The kiddo is sleeping. The husband is sleeping. Even the needy cat is snoozing away this morning. Yet here I am sitting on my computer.

I have no real explanation for my early rising. I certainly wasn't trying to catch a worm - or a treasury for that matter. In my pre-coffee haze I sat down at my computer and to my surprise, I had 13 whole minutes before a treasury opened up. Even though my eyes were blurry and mind scrambled, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to curate even at 6:00 a.m. 

So here it is… my early morning, pre-Venti-coffee-with-cream treasury. There is no theme or real rhyme or reason to it; I was just inspired by this sly little fox created by the whimsical artist, MissBrigette and worked the design around him. I'm pleased. Enjoy!

The sellers are: bagladymomma, thebrickkiln, fashionrefined, LuckyBluebirdArt, lesperancetile, thelittlefox, UnaOdd, chicallure, MissBrigette, kangas, KarenRadtke, signchick1

The alternates: TessaAnn, NinjaBowTique, MarsDesign, graphixoutpost

MissBrigette's (Brigette B.) blog: brigetteb.blogspot.com

Refresh Yourself

I love getting that email. You know the one – the email from a seller stating they have listed you in you in one of their Treasuries. As much as I love seeing my shop name in a Craftopolis list, I love getting a convo from a real, live person. And that's what happened today.

I missed the Treasury countdown this morning since I was off to the beach with my daughter to enjoy her very first visit with the sand and waves.  Now that we are home and she is zonked out from our fun-filled morning, I decided to check in on Etsy. To my delight, a convo from a seller named SHIHAR appeared in my inbox. Her Treasury, "Refresh Yourself," has a lovely assortment of breezy items that make me feel like I am still sitting under our umbrella making sand castles with my little one. She kindly included my Hand Sculpted Silver Rose Pendant from my MiaRosina shop in her design and I'm honored to be in the mix. 

Here is her Treasury and I invite you to visit her beautiful, exotic clothing line from Israel. Enjoy!  SHIHAR.etsy.com

Shiver me timbers! It's the FRONT PAGE again!!

Johnny and his pirate crew made the front page of Etsy! Woo hoo! It's my second FP in a week! Enjoy our scalawags one more time with this widget compliments of Craftcult.



I could kick myself for not realizing a little gem of knowledge that I know now. Alternates count. Up until just recently I would design my treasuries with only the 12 main boxes in mind. I thought the "alternate" side was just a helpful tool for your layout. No one really sees that side, so it doesn't count right? Wrong. It counts big time. Now I do a complete design by filling up all spaces with beautiful items that could easily jump into rotation if needed. Yo Ho, Yo Ho had two of the alternates make the front page because other items had sold out. So if you go to Craftopolis and you see that you've made it into a Treasury only to find that little "Alt" in the corner, remember there is still a good chance for your item. I'm also going to start listing the alternates in my seller links as well because they really are deserving.

Enjoy, mateys!