MARKETING 2009

All right, I have been an internet "seller" for exactly three months today. I just learned that there is no limit to the clever marketing techniques out there. I am so pleased to have made the acquaintance of this clever lady on Etsy. She honored me with a fantastic trade during the Trade N Stay event that I blogged about last weekend. I received TWO spectacular hand knitted and beaded, delicate mohair lace scarves. WELL....wait till you see what she thought up and it all came about through a bet she had with another seller.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=26004154

Please check it out...it is amazingly simple but oh so effective....she had over 1000 hits on it in just a couple minutes over 24 hours and it continues to draw attention. That was the bet...she bet that it WOULD NOT get that kind of attention and her friend bet that it would.

Of course it has me going,"WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!!!"

Thanks for stopping by...I have lots more to share just too darned tired to share it tonite...

TRADE-A-HOLICS SPRING TRADE N STAY

This is my very first exposure to this type of team event on ETSY and it soooo much FUN FUN FUN! I was a little late getting started today and yesterday, still sufferings a bad case of the "worn outs" from hustling to post eleven new items before the whole thing started. My friend who encouraged me to finally open a shop had just raved about these trades she was making and how she loved them. As usual, I was the procrastinator for fear I would do something wrong. Well, I'm a believer now. It is a great way to familiarize myself with other vendors and their wares. It is a super way to meet other Etsians and make friends. AND most of all...I am getting some dynamite trades to use in my work and for gifts.

Alot of people just won't trade with me because they cannot use what I make...but likewise, I have had offers for trades from people that I cannot find a use for their products either. I have learned not to take any of this personally, just politely decline the trade at this time, leaving the door open for the possibility in the future.

My experience with ETSY in the two and a half months I have been selling with them is that they are a great gathering of artists! The company, I believe it is connected to Ebay, offers real genuine assistance to all of us if we care to use the tools they provide.

I had planned on expanding out to other venues for selling. I even have unopened shops on Artfire and 1000 Markets. Etsy activity has kept me sooooo occupied, I just cannot find the time to even set up in the other venues.

Then my ability to multi-task and versatility factors have sunk way LOW since I took on the obligations of a FULL TIME CAREGIVER to my mother who is now being tended by hospice...but still remains my sole responsibility in the home. I don't believe how much I have "AGED" in the past seven years of service to her. My primary care physician, who I have had for over twenty years, explains to me all the time how caregivers end up in worse shape than their wards. He has watched my health deteriorate steadily since the onset of this new role of mine.

Then there is the "only child" factor.....AND that my only family aside from my mother, which is my children and grandchildren, are all located 2200 miles from here (Tucson,AZ) in Fayetteville, NC. I have seen my daughter and her family only once since moving back here, for 10 days.....my son and family, not at all.

Well, I really got off topic and into moaning and misery so think I will call it quits for tonight. I came on here because the ETSY site is shut down for maintenance for four hours or so. Guess I will do something I havent done in a long while and go play QWERTY on POGO Games...LOL!!

Goodnight from the desert............

What A Day This has Been

Here it is May 22nd in the great southwestern desert and our high temperature yesterday was 70 degrees....I died and went to heaven it was so beautiful!! Besides the great "heat stoppage" we also had a steady, light, soaking kind of rain that only happens in February or March around here. No micro burst, no blowing dust storm, no horrendous lightning or roaring thunder just a cool, calm winter rain.

So after the last of the misty rain fell, I was able to pack up my remaining items that demand photos for my Etsy shop and got some dynamite shots outside in the clean, crisp, moist air. The temperature at that point...5 pm...was 62 degrees. We had ten days of 100+ temps just a couple days ago so I revelled in the coolness.
Even got a couple drops of water on a pomagranate in a couple shots. Hope you can see it in the image above. WATER...IN THE DESERT...UNHEARD OF!!

After taking 144 pix, I came in for the fun part >EDITING< d r a g

I ended up with enough left to use in my shop after discovering my photographic skills weren't quite as perky as I thought. Now I have yet to POST them. Checked my shop and lo and behold another bracelet had sold whilst I was slaving behind the lens....woo hoo.

I must thank Carol, my one and only "follower" for her generous comments on my nonsense here...I really appreciate the input.

Off to post at 12:40am zzzzzzzzzzz

She's Fit and Feisty

Thanks for your comments...the little girl is back to herself and not even noticing that anything happened. She is back to HER schedule rousting me at 2:30 am to "play" until oh....8 or 9 am!!! Ya gotta LUV EM!! Then the little bugger sleeps all day while I work away. She is my angel and muse and I wuv her bunches.....

I tried to change some layout and formatting on here. Guess that is a lifetime of experimentation. The header is probably WAY TOO LARGE. I'll figure it out eventually, I hope.

Spent today doing what I least enjoy.....grocery shopping, getting gas,and picking up prescriptions. Asked the checkout at Costco pharmacy why they waited until we had 100+degree days to do parking lot reassembly and construction. Now we must walk what seems like 5 miles just from the car to the store avoiding all the fenced "hard hat" areas. No surprise....it was the local politicians' doing.

I just love living in a suburb of Mexico....with the same corruption and chaos. Having been BORN here in Tucson, I know for a fact that in my nigh onto 60 years association with the city, county and state governments it has been a steady trend downhill as the population grew. A community of over one million residents with the mentality of a one horse hitching post!!!

I am sooooo grateful to my wonderful mobile mechanic who upgraded my AC on the "hoop dee" to the new kind with no freon but that "new" cheaper stuff running through it.
I spent two entire summers with no AC at all and I just couldn't take it one more year. The blast furnace effect with the windows down just wasn't cutting it anymore.
You know that saying: "BUT it's a DRY HEAT"??? Well, mama...HOT is HOT, DRY or NOT!!!!

I should be crocheting with beads right now, or sleeping like my little muse in front of me....no, here I am expounding on reality.

Have a big bunch o' birthday busyness to ship off to NC by saturday so it makes it to my precious daughter for her 35th year on this molten rock. She will celebrate on May 20th, for the sixth year without me. [:<

That's it for this post...be back with more chilling thrills when I get a notion...adios