Handmade The Hippie Way :)

Ok so since i've only had a little bit of info between the last two posts I want this one to be a bit more informational. What i'm currently working on right now is getting together my basics. Things like packaging, branding, financial needs, inventory etc. When I first started looking into all of this I had never realized the huge amount of things required to do a craft fair. It's amazing, I mean seriously, you actually create a small temporary store daily, and it takes alot to make things happen. Now i'm not trying to make you feel overwhelmed, I just want folks to realize that this is not as easy as it seems, well at least for me. Purely not having much inventory right now is making me freak out, and until today I was sweating being able to get supplies. Not because I couldn't afford them, but because they just weren't available. I was fortunate enough after trips to 7 different stores I scored! I managed to get my hands on 32 spankin new beautiful white towels :) Translated into 64 cut towels! So yeah safe to say i'm feeling less stressed.

Now, when I say packaging and branding i'm talking about what you put your items in and how you are marking your packaging or items with your brand. I had a pretty unimpressive packaging for awhile, I simply wrapped the items in tissue paper, put them inside a large zip loc bag with a card and a thank you and called it good, that's really lame. So, in an effort to make things cute, nice, and simple without alot of cost I try my best to do things myself. It wasn't until a few months ago that I even started putting labels on my products. I made those myself by buying colorfast printable fabric sheets and printing/cutting them myself, easy enough? Sure, anyone can do it if they can follow simple directions. I will probably post a tutorial on that if anyone is curious, comment to let me know. I also recently changed my packaging that I send to customers, I found that cello treat bags are perfect! I can fit 2 towels to a bag and then tie it up with some cute raffia ribbon. I started marking the outside of the bag with some labels that I bought from VistaPrint, I got them customized with my t-shirt logo and instead of having them as a return address label I put my shop name, slogan, shop url and email address. I believe I got the 140 for FREE deal where you only pay the shipping. So yeah there are ways you can brand your items for a reasonable price. and then I also use a thank you card with my info on it that I just simply printed out on my ink jet printer on cardstock, I generally hand write something on the back also. So there's a few DIY and non DIY ways to do some branding and packaging. There are also Etsy sellers that customize loads of different stuff from labels to banners for your shop to buttons, tags etc. it's out there if you look.

When I refer to financial needs of course you've got to have money for materials, because without them we have no product. But i'm more so referring to what you're willing to take as monetary compensation for your items at a craft fair. I know everyone takes cash, that's a given. But in today's age of technology alot of life is paid for with plastic, i'm talkin' credit and debit cards. It's up to you whether or not you choose to take checks, I personally won't be taking checks unless I know the person. Taking credit/debit cards these days has gotten to be pretty easy, you don't even have to have the machine hooked to a phone line. As mobile vendors we have to be prepared to face doing fairs in areas that don't have wi-fi or internet access. I say the easiest way is getting a good old fashioned knuckle buster with slips, and a propay account. I posted the links to both of those resources in the #1 post of this series. Now when it comes to storing those hard earnings you have the choice between a locked cash box or a vendor's apron. I personally chose a vendor's apron that way I don't always have to keep one eye on the cash box and can still give my customers my full attention. I bought a great vendor's apron from Mrs.Chainsaw on Etsy this happens to be the one I bought but she has alot of really great aprons in some awesome bold fabrics!

So there's a bit more information for you to chew on, in my next posting of the series I want to get a bit more into detail as to the list of things you may need while at the show/fair. Like a tool box, calculator, just misc. things you may not instantly think of. :)

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I can honestly say I haven't been to a craft fair/show in a very long time. Even just like a local swap meet or flea market, which i've always been a big fan of. There's just something about outdoor markets, temporary or permanent that I just can't get enough of :) My local Las Vegas etsy team Handmade in Vegas sponsored/organized a craft fair at the Mt Charleston Resort today. I had originally wanted to participate but it was shortly after that I found out about my hand/arm issues so I wasn't going to be able to get enough inventory by the time the fair. I still of course had an interest in going to check out what everyone had to offer, I love handmade items! I saw some really cool and amazing stuff, met alot of cool people, gathered and passed out alot of business cards and learned a few things.

The first person I met was CJ of Art Creations by CJ . She was super cool, helpful and gave me a few great suggestions. It was her first fair, but I did learn some things from her and she shared a few tips I hadn't thought about. Her art is amazing, she makes jewelry art sculptures. Now i'm not talking about jewelry you can wear, her pieces are COVERED in awesomely unique pieces of jewelry. First thing that came to mind after studying her pieces for a few minutes was that alot of the pieces looked like things I remember seeing in my grandmothers jewelry box. After talking to her for a few minutes I learned that she picks up her materials at anything from estate sales to thrift stores and all points in between. She rescues the "broken" and "unloved" pieces and turns them into some amazing works of art. She's even made a piece that hangs in Mayor of Las Vegas Oscar Goodman's office! She is definitely a very talented woman! I fell in love with her little lady bug and lizard, they were both so cute.






Now of course whenever I go somewhere that has jewelry, especially natural stone jewelry I naturally gravitate straight to it. I met Patricia of Rock My Beads, not only did I love her business name but her jewelry was beautiful! I had a great conversation with her, we both exchanged some great info and I know that i'll be purchasing some jewelry from her in the future! Check out her stuff, these are a few things I really loved!







Now if you like cute country style home decor and pillows with cute sayings this next gal is for you. She is Eva from Eva's Designs and she has some wonderful decor items. She had cute little items you can stick on shelves, pillows with adorable sayings, wall hangings, crocheted items,etc. she had a great variety of things. Her pillows were beautiful and very well made they also had some great sayings on them.





I met alot of other really great artists, asked alot of questions, learned alot of great things, got some good ideas for displays. Today was a productive day! I enjoyed being out in the fresh mountain air without the responsibility of kids :) Going to this show today really made me more excited about the show in October! I even wore my new shop tshirt I just got from VistaPrint :) Yeah that's me lookin goofy below! Not to mention it was some great advertisement for me, I handed out alot of cards but the shirt attracted it's fair share of attention, I think I may buy another and tie dye it. I'll be posting more informational stuff in the next post, so keep your eye out!

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I want to take a break from the craft fair series to talk about a few things i've learned recently. I figure why not share the wealth, teach others rather than being selfish :) Granted you can find all the same information i'm about to talk about on Google, but this makes it easy, all in one spot!

In the last week i've been spending alot of time working with my Google Analytics. Doing things like figuring out which days of the week are better for views, what times of the day are my best, keywords, landing pages etc. I can't take any credit for figuring that stuff out, i've either read about it in our Dteam Etsy thread, or found things via Google. One of the things i've found in my search to master GA I came across the official GA blog. Now this blog opened my eyes to a few new things, they have a series of posts called their "Back to Basics". Now I learned how to embed a code into my blog page to track my blog traffic in addition to my shop traffic. Before yesterday, I would have never thought about that!

The first and most recent post I read was called Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations. It teaches you the step by step on how to find out where people are "landing" in your shop, meaning what is the first page they're going to. It's incredibly helpful when trying to figure out what your more popular products are and how long on average people are spending there. Safe to say I jumped on that and added it to my dashboard reports :) I'm quite addicted to that particular thing now LOL.

The next post talks about saving things to your dashboard for quick access in the future. This is a pretty good time saving feature, instead of having to click 5 times, you'll only have to click once. Who doesn't like saving time?

The last one that I read that I really liked was the one that talked about how to set up GA on your blog. I hadn't blogged since may, and not once did it ever cross my mind to connect GA to my blog. Partially it was because my blog was covered in dust and cobwebs, and I didn't really have many followers. I figure now with doing more tutorial style stuff i.e. the craft fair series, and blogging more often it would be worth it to know where my traffic is coming from, and if i'm even getting traffic LOL

All of the posts are very informational and helpful, they take you through step by step so even those of you that aren't highly computer savvy could do it :)I hope this helps some of you. You can find the Google Analytics blog here

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So in the few weeks since finding out about the CSN Fall Fun Fest i've been really excited and working super hard to build up inventory. I'd found a partner to share a booth with, which is nice because the costs are pretty high. Considering it's a 3 day show it's not too awful, but just my share comes out to about $169 with $50 of it being refundable. So knocking it down to $119 out of pocket for a 3 day venue, which brings it to about $40 a day, not too bad when you break it down. Unfortunately last night my partner had emailed me to let me know she wouldn't be able to participate. Ugh, safe to say I was quite disappointed. Here I was sitting 10 days away from the application deadline, no way to afford the full cost on my own, nor the ability to fill an entire 10x10 space. So, determined to find myself a partner I referenced back to our Etsy local team blog, found some email addresses and proceeded to email away. I woke up this morning to a response to one of my emails saying that her partner had to back out also and that she was still hoping to do the show as well. Excited I wrote her back and now we can get on our way to getting our application turned in and work can resume as normal. :)

Thus far i've done alot of research for this, i've never done a craft fair before and it's safe to say I was feeling very overwhelmed not knowing what I needed to have/do prior to the event. If you've ever done a craft show before you know what i'm talking about. Not only do you need tons of inventory, but business cards, banners, tables, coverings, displays, a tool box with extras and needed supplies etc. The list is rather endless and at first glance highly overwhelming. I'll be posting more about the list in future posts. Thank god I have 3 months until the show (it's in late October) Otherwise I think I would tear my hair out and what ended up being left would go grey LOL.

So far i've gotten some great things, Vistaprint is a great resource if you keep an eye out for their free specials. So far i've purchased a custom tshirt, labels for branding, business cards, and a banner for my booth, all together it cost about $35 with shipping...yeah I said it...I got all that cool stuff for $35, it pays to bargain shop! I still have yet to purchase a knuckle buster and slips which i'm purchasing from Mr. Imprinter, they have a deal where you get the knuckle buster, slips and custom imprinter plate for about $21 including shipping. I will also be signing up for Propay to be able to process credit cards, it simply is a merchant account to accept credit/debit cards, and they offer the premium account to Etsy folks for $30/yr, simple enough. I don't want to have to lose sales not being able to accommodate credit/debit cards.

I don't want to put all of the info i've found into this post as i'm trying to do an entire series on prepping for a craft fair, so keep your eye out for future postings :) Don't sweat the petty things, only pet the sweaty things! LOL

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Recently I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist (and i'm right handed!) and pinched nerves in both sides of my neck. Safe to say it really makes things hard some days and definitely puts a damper on my crafting abilities, at least when it comes to crochet. Now until this point crochet was my bread and butter, it was all I did and all that I had listed in my Etsy shop. I about cried when the Dr. told me I needed to lay off the repetitive motions and wear a hand brace. So at that point I did my best to not have a poopy attitude about things and to find something else that I could do that would fit in with my shop aesthetics. Safe to say I found myself depressed and without ideas, until one night that I wasn't able to sleep. I had been asked to make a set of towels for my brother in-law's girlfriends birthday (whew say that 10 times fast) I had made this sort of towel prior to this, but hadn't listed any in my etsy shop. I'd given them as gifts or sold them to people I knew personally, i'd never really given it a thought to make and sell them on Etsy in addition to what I already had. So with some midnight inspiration and a trip to the fabric store a new line was born.



In my trip to the fabric store I went and perused the countless fabrics to get some ideas. It didn't come right away, it took a little bit of looking and thinking to come up with the final concept for this new line of towels. So after alot of pacing through the aisles of fabric I came to the conclusion that I would fabricate a line of towels with a Rainbow/Hippie/Retro theme. To me, this line screams me, from color, to print, to concept, even down to the very pattern fabricated to make the topper, there is a piece of me in each and every one of these towels. It took me a little more than a week on and off working for a couple hours here and there to finish the 18 towels. I finally photographed and listed the first few of the line just yesterday and will continue to list a few at a time until all 9 colors are up.

This has been the most challenging and pain-staking project to date, but with all of the blood sweat and tears they're done. I can now move on to other things, and continue to build my inventory over the next few months. I'll be participating in a craft fair at the end of October, so I have alot of work to do in order to get a beefed up inventory big enough to handle a 3 day festival. This is another big reason as to why I had to come up with another plan for things I could make and not damage myself any further. I hope to document my entire experience prior, during and after the craft fair since it's my first and I would love to share it with the world. Keep your eyes open for future blog postings on "the road to my first craft show" I intend on doing an entire series. :) For now I bid you farewell!

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Well I haven't posted since October, I think the blog got lost somewhere along the way. The shop has come a long way in the last 7 months, suffering the lows and reaping the benefits of the high moments. I had 5 sales in October, 3 in November, 2 in December, 4 in January, 5 in February, 1 in March and not one since then. Safe to say, I started feeling the dark clouds coming and really was beginning to feel discouraged.

Life has definitely become busy, and hasn't allowed me to spend the time with my shop that I would like to. I figured that was the reason sales tanked, views tanked, everything tanked. I thought for sure my lack of twittering, facebooking, promoting etc. probably had alot to do with it, until I was reading through our team thread this month. My long time friend and fellow D Lister Mishelle (PinkyCrafts made a post about SEO/google and it's relation to your shop intro. In order for google to pick up your shop you need to have a quick description of whats in your shop in the first couple of sentences. That way when people do a search on google it'll pick up your shop. For instance, I googled "crochet kitchen towels" and on google shopping one of my listings showed up as #6 on the first page :) *giddy* safe to say I was really happy. Alot of times people pay good money to get in the higher rankings of search engines, I have not spent a dime on advertising other than business cards. Til this point it's been through free social media, word of mouth, and repeat buyers.

So the biggest point being that a basic change such as re-doing my shop intro boosted my traffic and views :) Believe it or not the smallest things can have the biggest impact on your shop, not to mention life in general! I'm hoping to be listing some new stuff here soon pending the weather and wind cooperate LOL

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