Sellers Bootcamp Week 3

This week I’ve learned how to use the Google Keyword Tool to more accurately describe my shop listings and blog posts to be found through search engines. There is a nice long article we’ve given to read about how to write for the internet to make our item descriptions and blog posts more palatable for the reader. I apologize now, because I haven’t finished reading it yet, so that means you’re stuck with my usual blabbering until I learn to do it right. I’ve been listing new items to my iCraft shop and updating some listings to reflect these newly learned techniques. A couple more days left in this week to learn more great stuff – can’t wait!

Meet Storybeader

A fellow Bootcamper! Here’s a little info about her and her craft:

Handmade coptic stitch journal with Japanese paper covers, lined

Lined journal pages

Tell us about yourself…bio 150-200 words
My name is Deborah Baroff. I was born and raised in New Jersey, lived in Florida, California and now Oklahoma, which has been my home for 29 years. I grew up in a close family, with lots of relatives visiting. My father was a sailor, for fun, so I grew up sailing. I love the water.

I received my BA in Humanities, and earned a Masters in Library Science. Yes, I’m a librarian, with an emphasis in special libraries. I’ve been working in a Museum in southwestern Oklahoma for the last 22 years. Needless to say, I’m love my job. I’m married, once divorced, with no children… except for my doggies. I love books and writing, gardens, visiting historic places and museums, and being on the computer. About three years ago, I decided I needed a creative outlet, so I started designing jewelry. I write a haiku for each necklace. My specialty is the treasure necklace. After attending a bookmaking class, I started sewing journals and sketchbooks, and believe this is my new creative direction.

Tell us about your shop.
My shop here is the Storybeader’s Workshop. I’ve put a lot of thought into the name. I am known as the storybeader on other sites, and didn’t want to loose my name recognition, so I decided to add workshop when I started sewing books. My blog, Stroll Through Storyland, fits both venues.

How did you get started?
Probably like a lot of other people, gift-giving.

What is your favorite item in you shop (attach link please)
I think it’s the first journal I made on my own. That always happens… maybe because I’m so excited about starting: http://icraft.ca/product-18750.php?forced=creator

What’s your favourite _____________ that you have ever made
It has to be my Turtle Treasure Necklace. I love turtles and fetishes and color. This necklace has all of that, and more. http://www.flickr.com/photos/storybeader/2247166448/in/set-72157604366499556/

What’s you most memorable sale.
Think I spoke about this earlier in the week, or maybe it was somewhere else… I had just posted a necklace on a different online selling venue. A woman saw it, and said she couldn’t live without it, in so many words. The sale took about 30 minutes, from being put online to being sold!

Where do you find inspiration for your designs?
Nature and color. The covers of my journals and sketchbooks have to be something I enjoy looking at, but I want them to be functional. Then, I do have a book of haiku floating around in my head….

Tell us about a favorite designer.
I’ve met a lot of great jewelry designers. One of my favorite, when I was just starting out, was Eni Oken. She first taught me wire wrapping, and if there’s anyone out there who wants to learn this technique, Eni has loads of lessons you can buy online and download. Very thorough and easy to understand.

What’s your favorite color.
Blue, no doubt about it. The color of water, turquoise, and the sky on a nice day!

What’s your favorite room at home? Why is it your favorite?
My living room, that really serves as my workshop and office. Lots of windows, the front door (and back door) are close by, my computer and tool room, bathroom and kitchen…. yes, I have a small house!

Do you have a (your product) tip you’d like to share with readers?
There’s a number of things I would tell a person sewing paper together; act deliberately and carefully; never underestimate how much paper you need to wrap your book covers, and sew with waxed thread.

What are your (upto 5) favorite blogs or website? (outside yours or icraft)? -
wow! that’s a hard one. I have so many. OK, I have a lot of etsyblogger teammates, so excuse me, my friends, but three favorites
1) Two Zany Zebras – Mama Z has the cutest stories about her family’s escapades.
2) Coffee Pot People – a sole sister, I love her sculpture and photographs
3) A Keeper’s Jackpot – she takes me hiking with her into the mountains
I’ve met a number of bloggers through EC that I love to read:
First Door on the Left ( my current political fix)
The Photographic Aspect (absolutely Beautiful photography)

What are your (upto 5) favorite magazine(s), and or book(s).
My favorite book from childhood is Charlotte’s Web.
One of my all time favorite authors is James Michener – I think the first book of his I read was The Source. I’m in a women’s book club now, and some favorite recent books are The Dollmaker, A Midwife’s Tale, and The Widow’s War.

What do you do to relax and unwind?
Walk. I’d rather walk in the woods with friends, or in a park. But I walk at the YMCA too.

Week 2 of Sellers Bootcamp

Well, I’ve now become quite proficient at Twitter using TweetDeck and SocialOomph. I’m adding about 30 new followers a day, I’m retweeting like crazy, I know how to schedule tweets for later, and I using hashtags and searches! If you don’t know what any of that means and you are trying to market your handcrafting business, then you’d better take part in the next Sellers Bootcamp on iCraft. It’s free, you can’t beat it with a stick!

I’ve written a 200 word ad about what my business is about and who it’s for (with a lot of help from Christine, our fearless leader!) and created a shorter blurb for quick conversations or limited ads. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the week

Thyme2Dream: Unusual Jewelry

Meet Thyme2Dream

Fairy Bower Moonlight Blue Ear Cuff Vine Wrap

Tell us about yourself:

I often refer to myself as a Daughter of the Southwind, which is my way of embracing the fact that I was born and raised in the heartland of the USA, Kansas. (People of the Southwind is the Native American meaning of the word Kansas). I spent much of my childhood wishing myself to far away places- real and imagined-and most of my heroes were fanciful characters from books like Lord of the Rings, Peter Pan, and The Chronicles of Narnia.

My husband Ian hails from Edinburgh Scotland and has recently joined me in my artistic ventures- he is the official Circlet Wizard at Thyme2dream. Ian and I also have a Celtic Folk-Rock band that plays local pubs and coffee houses.

Tell us about your shop.
Our main focus currently is creating “unusual jewelry for discerning fae and elven folk” . I am expanding my Elven Forest collection to include different themes and colours and have been focusing on adding more hair and headdress pieces to the groupings. Ear cuffs, ear vines and ear wraps continue to be a mainstay of my work, and I plan to continue adding new designs in those categories as well. Medieval, Renaissance and Fantasy Wedding jewelry is also a specialty of ours and we love doing custom and bespoke jewelry for all occasions.

How did you get started?
I have always been surrounded by creative people, but until recently I was mostly just an onlooker. My mum was a fiber artist, and when I was a teenager I spent summers traveling with her to craft and music festivals selling her work. My first husband was an illustrator, and I often worked for an artisan t-shirt company selling his and other artists’ shirts at fairs and festivals. When my three sons were small, most of my creativity was focused on being the best mother I could be.

I believe that the root of my artistic career really came about as a result of a restless need to do something with all the creative energy I was no longer using as my kids became more independent. I just suddenly had this consuming passion to make things…I played with polymer clay for awhile, got into beading, and then I discovered wire working and was totally hooked! I first started making sun catchers and trying my hand at wind chimes, etc but then one day 89 year old gran asked me if I could make a pair of ear cuffs for her. This appealed to me as well, I had never had pierced ears and loved dangly earrings. Basically, I started making the sort of jewelry that I loved, but could never find anywhere else and the results of that effort have evolved into a full time jewelry business.

What is your favorite item in your shop
Oh my goodness- they are all my babies I cant have one favorite!!

What’s your favourite _____________ that you have ever made
I love a challenge, and we have had some FUN with custom designs…last summer we were asked to create accessories for a costume to be used in a minature horse show – including a unicorn horn for the horse!! Blog post here:

http://thyme2dream.blogspot.com/2008/07/jadis-unicorn-another-fun-project-for.html

Around the same time a bunch of Wholigans- fans of The Who- asked us to create some special jewelry for them to wear to the VH1 concert taping in LA:

http://thyme2dream.blogspot.com/2008/07/wholigan-ism.html

While I prefer some of my fairy and elven themed jewelry in terms of design,these were certainly two of the most memorable projects we have worked on!!

Whats your most memorable sale.
I love selling internationally and am always delighted to add a new country to the list of places my jewelry has traveled, its one of the things my dad loves to brag about when he talks to people about my shop too. Most of my sales come from the US, Canada, UK and Australia, but I have lost count of the actual number of countries I have sold to.. this year I added some more remote places like Armenia and Slovenia to my list!

Where do you find inspiration for your designs?
When I make jewelry I sometimes start with a story I want to tell, and other times the beads & wire just make themselves into something I love and the story comes later! I delight in fanciful stories from literature, theater, music and I am fascinated by the process of trying to convey the enchantment from one genre (ie books or music) to another (jewelry). I am also fascinated by the ‘personalities’ that different cultures and traditions have given gemstones through the ages. In my more earthy pieces, I often create by combining crystals with specific meanings in mind. Sort of a blessing recipe for the person who will eventually wear them.

Artists who inspire me: Alphonse Mucha~ his artistic love affair with the actress Sarah Bernhardt, the jewelry he adorned his portrait models with, as well as the designs he actually had made into jewelry pieces in collaboration with French jeweler Georges Fouquet. I like to think I might be related to him somewhere back there- my maternal grandparents are from the same region of the Czech Republic where he was born.

I also love the work of Arthur Rackham (See blog post here: http://www.artfire.com/users/thyme2dream/blog/queen-mab-peter-pan-arthur-rackham-s-faery-world ) Maxfield Parrish, Rick Griffin and N C Wyeth.

Tell us about a favorite designer.
Alphonse Mucha was pure magic as an illustrator AND as a designer. On my first trip to Scotland I was delighted to find that there was a Mucha exhibit at the Edinburgh City Museum. I spent an entire afternoon in heaven wandering around the exhibit seeing his work live and in person!

What’s your favorite color .
Rainbow Very Happy

What’s your favorite room at home? Why is it your favorite?
My studio, which used to be called the schoolroom when I was still home schooling my boys. It is also known as the treehouse, since it is a second story sunroom- all windows with trees all around- I love being “outside” while Im inside working!

Do you have a tip you’d like to share with readers?
Just a very general tip that applies to everything- try to find something you love about everything you do and put your heart into it (basically Mary Poppins Spoonful of Sugar puts this philosophy in a musical nutshell Wink )

What are your (upto 5) favorite magazine(s), and or book(s).
Step by Step Wire (mag)
Bead Unique (mag)
Exquisite Beaded Jewelry by Linda Musante
The Stars:A New Way to See Them by H.A.Rey (YES he is the Curious George guy;-)
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by J M Barrie with Arthur Rackham’s illustrations

What do you do to relax and unwind?
Huh? Lol, okay I suppose sometimes I do actually take a bit of time off work…I baby-sit my adorable 8 month old grandson 2-3 days a week and we hang out and have a great time. I have a personal blog where I explore my spirituality, I play mandolin, guitar and Bouzouki (its like a big mandolin with a Celtic twist;-), I watch football (soccer) with my husband, I like to learn new things- I love all the earth sciences, astronomy, geology, weather, etc. There’s always something going on to pique my curiosity- Im definitely NEVER bored!!

iCraft Sellers Bootcamp

So, this is my first Sellers Bootcamp and wow! am I learning a lot! What is the Bootcamp? iCraft is an artisan selling forum like Etsy and Artfire. They hold the Bootcamp a few times a year to help independent sellers, like myself, learn how to use our marketing time wisely and how to network. It lasts for a month and we have daily assignments to complete. This week I had to create a personal bio, a professional bio, an advertisement blurb, and I learned how to use TweetDeck to consolidate my Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace updates.

Being a one-woman show, it’s difficult to find time to do the marketing necessary to getting my name out there. My passion is sewing, not networking, so this is very new to me. I’m going to try to take you along with me on my Bootcamp journey and feature some of the other campers over the next month. Hope you enjoy the ride!

Customer Appreciation Photos

Here are some photos sent to me from this past Halloween from my customers:

If you have any custom wear from Callidora’s, send me a photo and I’ll send you a coupon code good towards a future purchase. I love to see my work on those it was intended for. Since most of my orders are from the internet, I never get to see my clothes on my customers

Show your Callidora’s!

eCoupons for Photos!

If you purchased a costume or custom item from me over the past year, please send me a photo of you wearing your Callidora’s. I will send you an eCoupon for 10% off any future order. I would like to put the photos in my Gallery on my main website. Thank you for all for a successful Halloween season

Send your photos and feedback to tcollins@callidoras.com.

The Penelope Coat: Finally Finished!

Here are the photos of the finished coat. Remember, Erin didn’t want an exact replica. She wanted something with more a military feel to it. Let me know what you think of the finished project

Military style Penelope Coat

Back view

Back view

Sleeve detail

Epaulette and collar detail

Lined side seam pocket detail

Collar and faux pocket detail

The Penelope Coat: Construction

As promised, here are some photos from the construction phase:

The lining

with sleeve detail

Back piece

The back with trim detail

More to come soon!

Moving Down the Wait List

I am moving down the wait list for the Zuul dress. So, if you’ve been thinking about it, but haven’t mentioned it. Now’s the time. I will be going away next weekend and have a show the weekend after that. If you are in the Richmond area, get your order in and you might be able to save on shipping and pick up at my local craft show exhibit.