I woke up

at about the same time as normal today except the Peanut stayed sleeping. So I took advantage and lounged in bed letting my mind wander and paying attention to the kicks and punches that the Bean was laying on me. She's got a lot of muscle going on, there were a few that nudged me a millimeter here and there as she tried to stretch out.

We're fast heading into the weekly Doctors appointments and it's getting harder and harder to keep the blood sugars under control. Gone are the mornings of eating my breakfast and sitting over a 1/4 cup of coffee, now I have to get up and walk for 15 minutes. I am so looking forward to just plain old eating without having to calculate how many carbs and how much fiber and protein is in any given serving that I am planning on consuming. I've gotten to the point where I have a rotation of foods to eat that I know are at or below recommended serving sizes so I don't have to think about it too much. The difficulty with that is an attack of food ennui, where I'm getting bored with food. Oh but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's small but getting bigger...

So as I was saying above, I was enjoying one of the rare mornings when I'm not woken up by the Peanut calling out from her own warm bed (since it's started to be colder at night the Peanut has stopped dinosaur stomping into our room to wake us up) to tell me she's hungry. I was letting my mind wander and it started to wander towards next year's craft fair season. Particularly what I'm going to need to gather together so that I can have a professional looking display. I'm hoping to do at least two shows next year which means that the husband and I will continue to build on our inventory over the course of the year.

In addition to the ornaments we're kicking around another collaboration idea and I have plans for a further use of the stamps I've been carving for the ornaments... now to just keep up the creative momentum as the time approaches for the Bean to make her appearance and after...

By the way, have you had a chance to see the new customization service I've added to PeanutButterPie?

I mentioned a little while ago that I was testing out ways to add a little something extra to our ornaments. I got it all figured out and the first customized piece was sent out to my Etsy Baby Shower recipient last week. She sent me a note letting me know it had arrived and gave the ornament a glowing review!

It's all in the learing curve

OK, so I've written and rewritten this post a few times. The first drafts were all very "woe is me" "everything sucks", you know, the I'm not happy kind of posts.

To be honest I felt a little despondent about the lack of sales at PeanutButterPie this weekend and to be very honest I just wanted to sulk a little bit. Fortunately for you, sulking isn't an activity that I indulge in for very long at any given time and once I was able to type out the "Oh Woes" and the "Alack a days" I got over it. Then I decided to focus on what I did to get ready for my sales event, what was successful and what wasn't. I also want to look at why and what I can do next time around.

Going into this sale weekend I did some groundwork for promoting by writing about the sale in my blog, on my facebook and facebook fanpage and adding my shop link to a few sites that were linking to sales over the weekend. I made use of Etsy on Sale and Etsy Coupons to put my sale on and to promote it as well. During the sale I tweeted*, I facebooked and participated in the Etsy forums and I visited and commented on my own blog lists in the hopes of bringing some more traffic to my shop. (*keep in mind that when I say tweeted I did not blast spam continuously over the course of the weekend but retweeted other artist's sales, carried on tweetversations, posted links to items of interest and posted about my families tradition of giving a new ornament to put on the tree every year in between linking to items in my shop)

To look at GA it all worked to one degree or another. This weekend I had a record number of page views and unique visits. If I compare this month with last months views in PeanutButterPie, my traffic was more than doubled with the bulk of visits made over last weekend. Looking at this last weekend compared to the weekend before, visits were up 80%. That's a big jump in visitors. Enormous, really. Monstrous. When you look at it that way it's something to be proud of.

So out of all the promotion steps I took what worked the best? According to GA the bulk of my page views were made from referring sites. These would be the visits that were made by clicking on the links to my sale on the Blogs that I mentioned above, twitter, facebook, my blog and the Etsy Apps Etsy on Sale and Etsy Coupons. The rest of of the traffic sources were made via what GA classifies as direct traffic which on Etsy could come from visitors clicking on their favourites, visiting treasuries or from the Etsy forums. Overall, the least productive steps I took involved my own blog posts. Traffic sources from this blog and others made up only 1% of all visits. Of course I still need to go into GA and look at the traffic on my blog and the number of clicks the links to the sale received. They could have been lumped into the direct traffic numbers on my shops analytics in which case they may not be as concerning as I think.

What I want to focus on for next time is focusing my promoting on my target market. The question is who is that?

Did you do a promotion this weekend? How did it go? What did you learn. Please feel free to share, if we pool our information and thoughts our next event can be even better right?

I'll Post Some Pictures

Later today of our tree. Our family decorating party was a lot of fun. The Peanut is now old enough that she was a huge help in putting the tree up. Once we had the lights put on she leaped into decorating. Before I knew it all the decorations were hung and all that was needed was to add the disco skeleton to the tree.

Today we'll put out our tiny village and train set and then we'll be going out to the family swim at the community pool in the hopes that the Peanut will tire herself out in the water and that I'll be able to enjoy a certain weightlessness that being in a large body of water while pregnant gives a person. I'm starting to see swollen ankles at the end of the day and also early in the day too. The Bean is on the move all the time with kicks and hiccups and rolling over.

And last but not least: My ornament sets sale continues until tomorrow Midnight. Save 15% off of the regular retail price of $60 USD. The rest of PeanutButterPie will go on sale later today, starting at 6PM Pacific Standard Time when you'll be able to save 10% to 15% off of the regular price on everything in the shop. If you're looking for unique one of a kind tree ornaments, want to add something extra to a gift for someone special or need the perfect host or hostess gift for that party you're invited to these ornaments fit the bill.

It's Tree Time and other stuff, And hey! Have you checked out my sale yet?

We'll be putting up our tree today, cleaning the living room, putting it together (we have an artificial tree) untangling lights, unpacking decorations and hanging them. It's going to keep us occupied for a good part of the day and there may even be some holiday music involved... the good stuff like The Pogues, The Raveonettes and Aimee Mann.

We've already put together a gingerbread creation this week so our holiday celebrations are well underway. This year we came across a village kit with 5 tiny buildings. We let the Peanut be in charge of decorating them. I'll be posting some pictures soon; before she starts to pick the gum drops and sprinkles off of the roofs and walls. Also on the to do this holiday list is a trip to the Bright Nights train, a ride on the carousel at Burnaby Village and the Lantern festival on the Solstice. Add in a little baking, some crafting with the Peanut and of course gift shopping and we've got a nice full holiday platter lined up.

I'm battling a minor cold with an irritated throat and sinus and various of aches and pains; although I'm pretty sure the aches and pains are from my not shoveling the sidewalks and driveways during the monster snowfall we had the other day. I say not shoveling because I generally pushed the snow off of the sidewalks with very little lifting of snow involved except for the huge pile of snow that is still sitting melting in the rain in our back yard. I know that I'm probably going to hear from some of you about how a pregnant women shouldn't be doing heavy labour like that but, BUT I was having fun, and it really wasn't that hard and AND it kept my blood sugars well under control all day long. The above mentioned aches are good ones and really are almost nearly gone and so is all that snow.

In between tree assembly and decorating I'll be checking in at PeanutButterPie to answer convo's and questions since my Black Friday Sale is still up and running. We've had a record number of visitors to the shop and I'm looking forward to seeing more customers over the rest of the weekend and all day Monday. In case you're just hearing about my sale, all ornament sets in my shop are 15% off of their regular retail price of $60.00 USD. If you haven't had a chance to come by and have a look now's a good time!

How are your holiday preparations coming along?

Black Friday Sale

I may have mentioned over the last week or so that I'll be putting some ornaments on sale for Black Friday. Well it's not quite Black Friday but my sale starts now! All of the ornament sets in PeanutButterPie are on sale for 15% off of the regular price.

The Sale price lasts through Monday (or as long as supplies last) when the rest of the ornaments will be on sale as well; making every item in PeanutButterPie discounted from 10% to 15% off of the regular prices. Happy Shopping!

Special Deal for Facebook Fans and other stuff

This week I'm ramping up the marketing for the sale that I'll be having in PeanutButterPie this coming weekend as part of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events that are happening over on Etsy. Other than offering free shipping over the last few years this is my first real sale on Etsy and I'm pretty excited about being able to offer some special deals over the weekend.

So far this morning I've sent an update to my facebook fans letting them know all the details of the sale this weekend as well as a special coupon code for them to use before the sale even starts. Are you a member of my fanpage? You can get in on the special deals available to fan members by adding my page to your favourites.

Yesterday I mentioned that I have been making some gift boxes for our ornaments. I also promised that I'd share some pictures of those boxes today. I'll be sharing some of those images today. While I was taking the photographs of the finished boxes I also thought it might be a good idea to share how I made my templates and boxes and where to find ready made templates. So I'll be creating a new tutorial over the course of this coming week. I know, nothing like loading myself down with a little extra work right? I think a tutorial will be a lot of help though and I love being able to share information like that.

So here are what my boxes look like now both in prefabrication stage and in all their finished glory. Of course I've already got plans to make the process even easier for me, it just requires a little leg work and finding a place to do the printing for me. It also means that I may have to go with white or white boxes instead of the lovely purple and blue that I've been making on my own but I'm using up stock from my paper stash that's been hiding in my cupboard over the last ten years so the limited number of coloured boxes was going to be a reality anyway.

Personalized and Customized

This morning I'm finishing a little product testing to see if we can personalize and customize our ornaments for the holiday season. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of offering a new service to our products.

We're also gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I'll be focusing on packaging this weekend I have a template for a small box that will fit our ornaments perfectly and still stay within the limits set by Canada Post's Slot of Doom. I'm going to build a few and see how well they'll work. I'll be making a special Facebook Fanpage member announcement on Monday. To get in on the secret surprise you can add my fanpage onto your favourites here.

Of course all of this is going to be happening while the snow starts to fall, I head to my latest Mat appointment and we start to decorate for the holiday season. What's going on for your weekend?

List Sheets and Leftovers

On my list of things to do today on top of doing and folding laundry is getting a list sheet finished for sending out to this gift shop we know and love. I started one a few weeks ago but I'm just not too keen on what I've put together and think I'll have to start over.

In the meantime I'm getting ready to start listing ornaments from the last soldering session. We're planning on having a Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale this year with the ornaments. I'll post a little more here in the next week with a link for a pre-sale event for my Facebook Fanpage followers. If you want to get in on the fun you can join the page here

Keep on keeping on

And just like that I feel like I'm lagging behind. Time to pull up the bootstraps; or given my inability to bend over to put socks on with out contorting my legs and torso into extreme positions maybe I'll slip on those mules I keep by the door to go and check the mail instead, and get back at it.

It's been a tough week around here emotionally and the ornament project has born the brunt of that. As much as I'd sometimes like to dump all our personal crap here and unburden myself I have to respect the desire for privacy that's floating around here. If I were the lead in the play that is our life I'd be sharing sharing sharing, but since I'm only a secondary character to the plot line at the moment it's really not my place to share. Suffice it to say that we are healing and moving towards a place for all of us that will be more stable and secure.

My job right now is to get back to the ornaments and that's on my to do list today. I'll be all up in the excel sheets creating a line sheet of the finished ornaments so that when we start contacting Brick and Mortar shops to carry them we have a proper package to market with. Anyone out there ever done a line sheet before? My plan is to cut and past from my Etsy inventory list since all the details are there already.

Once I've done with that; it's tweaking the Peanut's costume and gutting our second pumpkin so that we can give it a good carving.

Dancing the Spiral and getting lots done

is what I have on my weekend to do list.

Last night the husband and I had a productive evening at the table with copper foil tape and solder. When we were finished we had a nice tidy stack of ornaments ready for a final polish and some documentation. After the shoot last week I'm going to have to rethink how I'll be doing that this time around. One of my options is to move the studio set up to the kitchen table, I've been using the Peanut's table next to the living room window and the low height isn't working for me. If that doesn't work it's back to the drawing table.

In any case the ornaments look amazing and I can't wait to share them with you. So, in the next few days I'll be wielding the camera again.

On the list today is some paper mache with the Peanut. We've narrowed down our Halloween costume choice to a mighty pterosaur. Fortunately I have wings ready for the job, all I need to make is a beak and crest mask/hat and we'll be all set. Once that's on the go we'll also be carving the first of our two pumpkins to light tonight at the dinner table.

Tomorrow is the Annual Samhain Spiral Dance. I'll be going to honour those who have passed through the veil, to welcome the new ones who have come along and to celebrate the Pagan New Year. This celebration is one that I look forward to all year long.

I also want to mention a few giveaways that I've come across. First up is Mother Moon's All Hallows Eve Giveaway. Not even including the super secret items that will be a surprise to the winner; this giveaway has so many amazing things included that those secret items are just too tantalizing to resist. My favourite items (other than the candies which are on my no eating until the Bean gets here and then only in small amounts) are the bell charms and the fairy star.

And I can't mention giveaways without including Mrs. B's giveaways. Up for grabs today is Giveaway from Somnamblant!: "This giveaway is from Somnambulant!The winner will receive Somnambulant Skulls! This mixed media piece is so cute and creepy that you'll have to click on the link to see it for yourself. Also being given away on Mrs B's blog is The Way of the Horned God: The Way of the Horned God by Dancing Rabbit; a book geared towards young men who are seeking a Pagan path.

I'm off to get started on my to do list! What do you have lined up?

no pain no gain

Yesterday I sweated in the heat of our living room window while bending and squatting and kneeling in all sorts of non-pregnant friendly poses in order to photograph the next batch of ornaments for PeanutButterPie. I'll be honest. I was not comfortable in the very least. In fact I'm sure that the Peanut was starting to get a little worried about her Mama with all the moaning and gasping and grunting I was doing. It seems I'm going to have to find a new set up for my product shots or I'll be making a whine filled post each time I set up the tree and lights.

On the plus side I'm fairly pleased with the shots I got and I've started listing the new ornaments already.



In other news I was up bright and early at 4:30 this morning after sleeping fairly soundly most of the night with a seriously full bladder and a dancing bean. I'll be headed for a mid morning nap soon to head off the grumpies and make sure I'm rested and refreshed for the foiling and soldering marathon the Husband has planned for tonight; which means there's another photo shoot in my future

Work in Progress

While I'm waiting for the next batch of soldering and cleaned ornaments I'm also keeping busy making more to add to the queue. Today's batch are Solsticey in theme but will also look beautiful on any tree.

I used deep amethyst and sapphire colours today with the addition of interference gold and macro pearl pigments. I like the gold because of the richness it and the pearl has a feel of snowfall.

in the line up waiting for their turn for taping and soldering are now some Frosty Snowflake, Oak Leaf and Acorns, Hearts and now the Yule Suns. Over the weekend I did a little playing with some other ideas but I'm not sure that they worked the way I wanted them to. I'm setting them aside to revisit when I have a fresh eye.

What are you working on today?

Back to Business

Thankfully it's the kind of business that I love to do. I spent part of yesterday cleaning off the latest ornaments to come of the husband's soldering bench. The good news is that they look fantastic. The not so good news is that the cleaning solution we are using to clean off the rosin flux isn't as strong as we'd like, and cleaning takes a long long long long time. Since our other option is a little too toxic for me to handle with the Bean in her major brain growing stage, this part of the cleaning process will fall to the Husband. I'll be dong the polishing and getting ready for documenting and listing.

We've had a huge wave of views to the shop with the introduction of the line, and even had one of the ornaments included in a snowflake themed treasury! For my part, I've been tweeting about the ornaments and spreading the word about them through some Project Wonderful advertising and facebook. The next step is to get them out into the world; because as beautiful as they look in the listing photographs, they really knock your socks off in person.

It's the iridescent and interference pigments that do it, showing off those effects in a photograph is tricky in the best circumstances and almost impossible in others; especially for some of the lighter coloured ornaments. I'm summoning up the courage to approach a few brick and mortar stores with some of our treasures to see if they would like to carry some of them for the holiday season.

Decking our halls

As the 25th of November falls in the middle of the week this year, we are decorating our tree today. This is the first year Miranda will help with the decorating. I'm excited about sharing the experience with her and a little nervous about the aftermath.... What if helping to decorate the tree gives her the idea that she can pull on, yank, or knock over the tree at will? It's a very distinct possibility.

I've already started with the pro-active "tell the toddler what's expected" mantra and I'm hoping for the best. I'll keep you posted on how well that's working out. Or if it's a spectacular failure I'll post full descriptions and pictures.

One of our family traditions is to add a new ornament to the tree each year. Because we've decided to do our holidays handmade this year, the new ornament this year is one made by Funktionslust We ordered it last week and it arrived safely in the mail yesterday even prettier in person than it was in the shop. Funktionslust is a fairly new Etsy shop opened in May 2008 and is chock full of lovely glass pieces from abstract sun catchers to gorgeous pendants and earrings.

My personal favourites are Abstract Distraction no.3, Abstract Distraction no.1 and Mossy Pendant and her tree ornaments are little works of whimsy to add to your holiday decor. We'll be treasuring our blue tree ornament for years to come.