Deep Deep Breaths or There's nothing quite as exhilerating as jumping in with very little prep

Oh boy; so I went and gone and done it.

An assortment of snowflake ornaments

The Peanut's school's PAC sent home a request for items for a silent auction that they hold as a fundraiser every year. Last year the husband and I attended the event for a short hour and a half before heading downtown to see The Watchmen (one of our all time favourite Canadian rock bands) perform at a grey cup party. While we were there, we bought the Peanut's art pieces that she made for the sale and also a few other gifts for family and friends. This year we have no other obligations and are excited to be there all night long.

The Bean's Peacock ornament I made for her last year

I've been playing with the idea of approaching them next year to have a table at the sale. It's well attended and the people who attend are there to spend some money, it's a fund raiser after all and also an amazing place to get holiday shopping done and dealt with. So I thought to get my feet wet I'd dip a toe in and offer a set of three ornaments for their silent auction and perhaps inquire about setting up a table for the following year. They replied with an invitation to set up a table this year and now I'm awash in excitement and panic in equal measure.

This Year's ornaments for the girls; the first of as many
as I can put together over the next few weeks

We have about 60 finished ornaments sitting in boxes that can be sold right away and about 60 more that can be soldered if need be. Is that enough? should I include other things? The Peacocks I created last year? I have 5 of them in various states of finished; read all done to still needing a first coat of paint. The felt trees I've been making this year? I can make about 3 or four a day if I don't embellish them with stitchery and beads.

What do I have on hand to display with? What do I need still? What should I build my banner with? Should I have one? Should I price individually or use signage since all my ornaments are the same price across the board? A Float how much change should I have on hand? Packaging, business cards, mailing list, artist bio..... on top of keeping up with the laundry, feeding the family and making sure the Peanut is picked up from school and the Bean isn't drawing on the couch with permanent marker (true story) and also dealing with her recent habit of getting up at 4, 4:30 and 5AM. I have one pretty full plate.

One of my intentions for this coming year is to take any reasonable opportunity and keep up any momentum that builds so that I keep moving forward. I could have politely declined the offer of the table. I could have stepped back and made plans for next year instead. Instead I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and accepted. I've been reading up on doing shows, I've got a list of display items I'd love to be able to put to use, some that I can only dream of and others that I have on hand and or can put together simply and elegantly (I hope).

So the roller coaster is starting up that first big hill, the trick will be to keep those cars on track after that first hill. Any good advice out there?

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!

Prep, prep and more prep.

Yesterday I started getting into sale prep mode. I sent out details of our sale this weekend as well as a special coupon code for my facebook fans to use before the sale even starts. If you'd like to get a head start on the rest of the shopping hoards this weekend you can click "like" on my fanpage here.

This morning I set up my sale using the Etsy On Sale Application. I'm so excited to put this application to use since it will makes putting on a sale so easy and nearly hassle free. I say nearly hassle free because I'll be writing up a shop announcement that will include a list of what all the items in PeanutButterPie are priced regularily today. I like to know what the regular price is when I'm shopping so it makes sense to me to share it with any customers who'll be stopping by this weekend. It helps that all my items are pretty much the same across the board and that I only have three different regular prices to list instead of hundreds.

I'll be trying to get a few more items listed over the course of the next few days so that my inventory is up and I also need to post shipping deadlines for the holiday season.

And on top of that I have some Etsy Features to work on, laundry to do, paper snowflakes to cut and glitter with the Peanut and some nesting instincts that I need to take care of since I'm in that stage of pregnancy. It's been very cold here over the last few days and after spending yesterday afternoon bundled up and still feeling cold while out and about I'm just pleased to have an excuse to stay inside.

Now tomorrow is another story. The Peanut and I have to be up and out the door to make it to an appointment by 9:00am. Then it's back home to more prep.

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.

Boxes

I'm making boxes and boxes and boxes. I created my own template based on one that I found on Mirkwood Designs. Because I want to package our ornaments into special boxes I used the template for the playing card box as a reference and then created my own template in InDesign. Last night I cut out a few and other than not realizing that my printer cut off a small section of one of the ends making the three boxes I made last night a little useless (until I attach prosthetic lids that is) they look fantastic.

I'll be wrapping our ornaments into tissue and sliding them into their boxes for mailing when they find homes. And the best part? The boxes are small enough that they'll fit into cushioned envelopes which means that I'll be able to keep shipping costs down. The other best part? I get to personalize the boxes with one of my hand carved stamps making them easily give-able as they are; instant gift wrapping! I have a few things to do to finish them off, stickers for sealing the one end for one and care inserts for the ornaments for inside. It's been a pretty good weekend so far.

I'll share pictures of the boxes tomorrow along with news of the Black Friday Pre-sale offer that I'm offering to my facebook fanpage followers click the link to favourite my page and get in on some early bird action; or you can wait until Black Friday when I put our ornament sets on sale, or Cyber Monday when the rest of the shop follows suit.

Just so I'm not posting without a pretty picture, here's one from my early morning walk yesterday. It would have made a great accompaniment with the word picture I posted yesterday but since a word picture is just that I'll share it here instead.

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

so much to do

I've been working on some custom orders of greeting cards for some friends and family this past little while and feel as though I'm neglecting my Photography and PeanutButterPie shops. I've been busy creating up a storm though. My goal this week has been to work on two cards a night and so far so good.

I was included in a wonderful treasury which was put together by Artmind last week; and I didn't have a chance to mention it here, although I did plaster the news all over my Facebook account and fan page as well as one or two tweets on twitter to get people to look at all the beautiful images I'd been surrounded by. It really was a fantastic mix of black, white and sepia toned photographs and it made my day brighter to have been included.

So I've been diving deep into the networking pool and driving traffic to my shops and raising the views and hearts on my photographs and cards. In the midst of all this I've been wrestling with the idea of venturing outside of Etsy with my stuff and onto other sites that sell. My one reservation is that I don't want to spread myself too thin and burn out. I'm stretched a bit thin as it is. Once the new year rolls around I'm going to revisit the idea again.

I know I said in the past that I'm not getting down about my lack of sales. I know they'll come. I really do and I'm being as patient as I can, but. But there's always a but and the but usually follows some sort of self doubt. Am I pricing too high? Are my shipping prices all wrong? Is my stuff sell-able? I'll blame it on the down in the dumpses I had last week, and try, try, try to focus on each view or heart as a step towards that first sale. I'm looking at the whole thing like climbing a ladder; a very, very tall kind of ladder that could, at any moment shrink down to a height that would allow me to see the top. Right now the top is shrouded in a thick bank of fluffy clouds. Above those clouds is a clear blue sky and the sun and the moon are sharing the sky.