I've Been Reading

The mail was an utter disappointment and so I simply continued tatting a pair of ankle corsets. I engaged in no creative thought and as such have nothing creative to share. You'd think given that I would not bother writing anything this morning, but that is not my way. I function on habit and if I do not want to upset the precious balance I have set over the last few years I must stick with it. So again, I will just talk about something else.

I mentioned a few times that I was participating in the One Book, One Twitter event. Today begins the second week of the discussion schedule. You see, rather that schedule the actual reading which everyone seemed to agree was going to be rather difficult, they scheduled the discussion of the chapters so that folks wouldn't be unleashing tirades of spoilers upon their slower reading brethren. While I have not contributed much to the discussion, I have been following it and it is quite entertaining. Honestly my favorite so far are those that are over thinking every detail. I mean, sure it is possible that Mr. Gaiman was that hopelessly detailed and that every little thing means something deep, but I rather think that it is more what it seems with just a few things baked in for subtext.

Just in case I didn't say before, we are reading American Gods, which I have read before. I read the book as soon as it was out, so I have forgotten much of the details and it is almost as if I am reading it for the first time with a healthy dose of deja vu. In fact I am becoming so engrossed in the story that I'm at least halfway through at this point and it's killing me not to answer some of the discussion questions or comments with the truth revealed further in...I just keep wanting to shout, 'just wait!' I don't do that though, I just keep reading. What is wonderful about this whole thing is I think I needed a bit of a distraction from the days habits. Sure it's slowing my tatting down, but maybe that's a good thing for a while. It's almost like a vacation without going anywhere.

So in a repeat of yesterday, I shall tat, hope for a better haul at the mail box and I shall read. Also, if you are reading American Gods with us, stop by the Wunderkammer today as I curated it as a tribute to one of my favorite moments in the book so far.

One Book, One Twitter

It was a Spring weekend, the sun was out, the birds were singing, the urge to clean and renovate was entirely too strong to ignore. There was an impromptu out of town shopping trip that yielded $5 bookshelves, free comic book day and yard work. It was also one of those times Murphy warned you about when not one but several items were sold from my etsy store and all of them are custom meaning of course that my work is already laid out before my for the week...yes, the whole week.

So instead of talking about tatting I shall use this moment to tell you about One Book, One Twitter. You can read all about the origins of this social undertaking here on Wired. Basically it is a twitter wide book club...now I'm not usually one for book clubs for so many reasons, but when I caught wind of the event all the books in the running were ones I would actually read or re-read. So I followed @b1t2010 and started actually using the hash tag #1b1t to recruit a few people in my corner of twitter to join in. Now the book has been chosen, American Gods by Neil Gaiman which I will quite enjoy re-reading and the start date is set as 5-5-10.

So what I'm trying to say here is if you use the twitter and are fond of reading books like Gaiman's, join in. I'm not certain what sort of discourse will arise and as I haven't discussed a book with other people that wasn't found in a comic book store or the children's department in ages I'm not sure how much talking about it I'll do. It will be interesting to see how many people finally do join in and see what else this social media is good for.

As you can see from the articles I linked to, they are still hashing out all the details. It seems like it should be rather laid back and trust me the book is a fascinatingly quick read despite the sheer size. I find Gaiman's ability to weave a realistic world out of myth, reality and pure fiction to be utterly breathtaking. So that's my take on it and I'm off to tat my fingers off on these custom orders and I will start reading on Wednesday...hopefully.

Whirl Wind

Well, that was one heck of a day. My Grandfather who had been staying with us left early in the morning, so by 7 it already seemed late. Then I fretted on twitter that my last few listing were not showing up in a search...it was relevancy Thursday. The day chosen by etsy to etsy out a new search engine on the site. What happened then was odd and fortuitous...etsy responded. Yep, Anda took the time to test some searches for me and give me some tips on the search. I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, I am an apologetic defender of the site, I have seen it through dozens of changes and growing pains and I don't plan on leaving. That said, every so often I wonder if the deserve my loyalty...they do.

That wasn't all Anda did for me that morning, she also posted my Shoe jewelry to the Etsy fan page. I thought, 'well, that's nice'. Then a while later I went to check it out...dude. They have nearly 100,000 fans and there stands over 40 comments on the post of my piece. The final tally of views to my etsy shop from this single post, 3500. My average daily views currently stand somewhere in the 175 range and even when I was on the front page for an hour the views only hit 1600 or so. Better yet, I actually got sales, many of them. All of this because I whined just a bit out of frustration.

It would have been a perfect day, but I had the mother of all headaches most of it, sapping the joy from the events. Oh right...event(s). There was one more. Through the power of the facebook post, as well as a few twitter friends, my fan page broke through the 300 mark that I had set for a giveaway. I get a bit jealous about others with many more fans, but I take pride in knowing mine are not etsy sellers there to acquire reciprocal fanning and most have found me in a pleasantly organic fashion. In short, I am proud that most of my fans are actually fans. So to thank them I will be giving away a piece, starting a little later today there will be a giveaway post that fans can post on to enter to win. I'll keep it open until Monday when I will choose a winner or two...we'll see.

The Mad Hatter piece is also now listed and I think I might be done with Wonderland...though honestly if I can think of anything for the Cheshire Cat or the Caterpillar...I might go back. I'll probably be playing catch up all weekend to get things remade. Though I'm kind of getting addicted to having new pieces to show off. I feel like a kid stuck in a class of perpetual show and tell and I must have something to show. This might be a problem...I'll just take a deep breath and see you all again on Monday.

Half The Story

I hate to ramble two days in a row, but I fear that is exactly what I'm gonna do. Let's see...I did have a potentially horrible situation arise yesterday, but I don't want to go into too many details as it resolved itself in my satisfaction. Something that had appeared to be blatant theft seems now to be more of a coincidence coupled with an honest mistake. I am glad that I did not over react, but I did confront the situation and I am glad that I did. There are far too many incidents that do turn our to be that blatant design theft that I feared and to any of you that have suffered that, I feel your pain.

I also had another no sales day in the etsy shop. No I'm not crying in my coffee. Some days it rains and some days the sun shines. I've just gotten so used to the recent sales volume that these hiccups along the way send me into a bit of a panic. Of course I then I think about how my sales journey began, how few sales occurred and how excited I was about each and every little one and I calm down and get back to work. Sometimes we have to remember where we've been to get where we're going.

And that last sentence is the clever sort of thing I was trying to think of yesterday as I made my 10,000th tweet on the twitter. It's okay, you can mock that one all you like. I do love the twitter and believe it or not the experience has been rewarding. I've met lovely people both as friends and customers, I've won stuff, I've given away stuff, but I do know that I can sometimes twitter my day away. Lucky for me, I can do that and tat at the same time.

You'll notice I added a picture today that I haven't talked about. It's just a bracelet I made yesterday that I haven't done up in a while and thought I'd add a picture to the post. The design was originally created for a wedding bracelet in white and each picot held a swarovski crystal. Actually telling you about it now makes me want to remake the bracelet the way that I did for that. Hmm, maybe later, the wedding section is a bit bare.

Fringe

Well, the great twitter experiment to get fans to pick the wunderkammer there failed miserably. There were a couple of people that gave it a go, but perhaps my timing was poor. I'm taking another tact and giving it another go. Head to the wunderkammer to see the details for the newest version of the great Wunderkammer experiment. If it works, it will be an ongoing feature, if not...we'll try to forget that I tried this at all.

I finished up the arm band yesterday and used facebook to debut the pictures. I did end up putting fringe along the whole piece. I took a photo of it as a necklace first and I wasn't certain it would make a good arm band, but after biting the bullet and changing out of my warm clothes for a photo shoot, I decided that it does indeed work as a convertible piece. It might be listed as early as today. I'm still wavering on the price. It's not a particularly complex pattern, but the extra steps, like the fringe and the ribbon make it more time consuming than it might appear.

You can see the other photos on my fan page on facebook or you can wait until I list the piece and they will all of course be there. I've got to get back to the task of remaking now that I've gotten a few new things made. I think I'll use my new gray to make another arm band with black ribbons after this one has been listed a while. I like to see if it has any chance of selling before I start making more and I imagine this one might need to find a niche audience since it's not exactly every day wear.

One more quick thing. I was excited this morning to discover that my brand new facebook fan page, less than a week old has already acquired over 100 fans including one celebrity...no really, there is one, go look. Also, the etsy store is just a few hearts from getting 5000. Of course those go back and forth so much that it might take another week or so before that occurs...it's still pretty cool.

Deep Purple

Have I got a surprise for you. Yep, I have a picture...oh, wait...I have two pictures. I know, I know, you can hardly contain your excitement. The first here is my slave bracelet pattern made with my brand spanking new hand dyed thread I've been speaking of. Now, I'm not normally a fan of variegation in thread. I'm a solid colors sort of gal, so the offer of hand dyed thread made me a little leery over those "natural" color variations. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the subtle color variation with this thread. It seems to give the piece and depth rather than the rainbow color effect that I am not so fond of.

I was going to start a brand new design with the new thread as well, but as I also mentioned, it's way more costly than the off the rack thread. I decided rather than fair an experiment with it, that I would bust out the good old black thread to work out a new design. This one was prompted by a comment by Kersti...the tatting queen. She said arm band on twitter when I asked what I should make. I thought it would be easy after a sample of arm sizes also from my twitter friends, but the design proved elusive. I wanted a little, you know luxe, fancy, indulgent, but I couldn't settle on an elaborate thick design or a thin band. Of course there's also the question of how to close the piece so that's it's easy to wear.

What I finally did was settle on a pattern. After combing through vintage books for inspiration, I found a frankly horrible looking edging with potential. How anyone wants to tat with stretched out, uneven images like this beckoning them is really beyond me. I took the basic design and tweaked it a bit for a much more stable and less stretchy structure and yes I am adding the fringe. I think I am going to fringe every other motif rather than all of them, but I'm still in the planning stages here. I also noted that many of the fiber based arm bands currently for sale are marketed as convertible pieces, meaning that you can wear them multiple ways, as necklaces or bracelets for example. This led me to an idea for a ribbon closure idea that may have the ribbon running the length of the design. Again, planning stages, so it could go either way.

Gave Away

I had a rather long and productive day yesterday, but not for tatting I'm afraid and it's a shame because I have an enormous to do list in that arena right now. I didn't mention this yesterday because I had already written the blog post when it occurred, but I had a fine little event on the twitter. I was feeling unfocused so I thought I would do a quick giveaway to give me something to make. I asked my twitter friends...or followers if you prefer, to tell me why they deserved a free piece of my tatting and to please amuse me. It started slow, but after a few minutes people were coming out of the wood works with stories and, well...amusing the crap out of me. I left the contest open for only a brief time, declared a winner and then decided to offer all those who played a free pendant. So if you ever want to win random free tatting, you must follow me on the twitter and listen to me drive all day. Yeah, I don't know how soon I'll do it again though. The winner chose to apply the dollar amount I offered to a mask, so that has already been sent away to her. So, I now have a mask to remake and several pendants or various colors to create. All this and I am still working on a bracelet ordered in a custom length two days ago.

What did I do instead of tatting, you ask? I cleaned. I know I lead a glamorous life and you are all terribly jealous. I also did some book keeping, my favorite, and realized that while September was a terrible sales month at least it was leaps and bounds over August. Still, I wish I knew what made July sizzle so much for me so that I could recreate those conditions. Of course it could just be seasonal...yeah, I have no idea. After over three years of this, I still have only the most tenuous grip on sales trends. I really should do some research, start advertising and try out all this SEO business people keep blathering on about, but I just can't seem to get motivated to do all that. I think I've said it before, but I know I can only grow so much and then no further. I can't outsource my labor and I can only tat so fast before I'm neglecting my stay at home mother duties, so I guess, yeah, I'm ignoring all that stuff I just mentioned.

One last this for Friday though. I got a little package in the mail yesterday. I knew the package was coming, but I had no idea what it was going to contain. Thread, my friends. Hand dyed thread in a dark gray, a plumy purple and a deep wine shade. They were made just because I complained about wanting dark colors. My most favorite is the gray and while the purple is a gorgeous shade, I still want darker. Anyway, I think I have now acquired a source for some additional colors and for that I say thank you! I'm gonna tat up some pieces in the new colors when I get some time and then I'll know for sure whether these are perfect. I'm just tickled that someone took so much time and effort just for me, without me asking. I'll out her later if it's okay with her. Maybe Monday will have something new to share.

A New Day

First, I want to say thanks for the 'there, there's' and reminding me that I was lucky just to have my pieces chosen to be in a magazine. I know that really, but I think I blew it out of proportion in my head which is of course a sure sign that one will be disappointed in the end.

So that disappointed started a chain reaction of annoyances probably fueled by house buying stress, that made my morning miserable. No matter how much I got done, I didn't feel accomplished at all. I managed to finish two mask, do laundry, dishes and scrub the kitchen floor, yet I was looking for the next thing that needed to be done. I got happier when the mailman arrived. I got my crystal order which I didn't expect yet and a pair of free Coraline t-shirts from a twitter friend. So' yay!' for the mailman.

We also got a call from out real estate agent in the afternoon. We had been hoping the current home owners would sell us their refrigerator because it matched the steel appliances unlike out blindingly white one, but no...they decided against it, though they did try to sell us a pair of beds for $2200. Yeah, we're cool without those. Anyway, the second bank did finally produce a written approval and now everyone is working to get this thing closed as quickly as possible. I don't mind telling you that I'm weirded out by all the things happening without us. Banks talking to agents talking to other banks and the loan guys and we're just sitting here waiting for someone to actually ask us for money and our signatures. Meanwhile, I'm cleaning in anticipation of our move out inspection and worrying about who needs an address change and when do I actually get to do that.

Now that I have my crystals, I can start working on the embellished masks. Though I've got a pair of ankle corsets on the needle right now and a couple of quadra bracelets to remake as well. I do find it odd that I seem to have more work now than I did when I had more orders. Well, back to it then.

PokeFan

Remember a while back, I made a brightly colored bracelet for a twitter friend to match her brightly colored nails. You remember right? Anyway, She is quite the fiber lover herself always knitting or crocheting some brightly colored bit or bob and the before my bracelet even got to her she was making something very special for my daughter. You see, not only does the woman love her fiber, but she is also a pokemon fan...a big one. Well, my 5 year old daughter is as well. I go as far as to say a bit obsessed really, so when she spied a pokeball hat my twitter friend was making on my computer she began to chant 'want'. After I shared my daughter reaction a second hat was selflessly made and sent to her. It arrived yesterday and her reaction was priceless.
That is pure joy right there, plain and simple. So thank you so much Patience aka @millarca of the twitter. It IS much loved...in fact her little sister has a fledgling interest in the pokemon and had to try on the hat for a moment as well. I think this piece is going to get a lot of wear.

The children did spend a good chunk of the afternoon with their Grandparents, so I got to clean and vacuum and finish up the choker I was working on. So today, I'm seriously back on the masks. I feel the time before Halloween slipping away and I can't sell the things if I haven't got any made to sell. So that and setting up the Wunderkammer are on the to do list today. Oh, and bills and more cleaning...wow, I really DO lead a charmed life.

Rainbow Bright

With yesterdays little rant, I didn't share my tatting adventures from Tuesday. I was twitter stalking while making a custom mask. One of my lovely twitter friends shared a picture of her new manicure. A bright and multicolored hand and I was inspired. I dug through my collection of patterns for just the right one and made a bracelet. The pattern was an adaption of a cross pattern by Dianna Stevens. It was one collected before I started designing my own pieces, but it is perfect for the three bright colors I wanted to use.

I got straight to work on the bracelet and took pictures with my laptop during the process. It went very quickly and was done just a couple of hours later. I'm sending it to her this week as a little present. I might make another up to sell later, though I'm pretty busy with the remaking sold pieces.
One more thing for the day, my SALE. This is the last day of my anniversary sale, since I'm leaving for Monterey tomorrow. This is definitely the last sale I'll do until perhaps the holidays, so take advantage of it. If something you want has been recently sold and isn't listed, just let me know & I'll list a custom piece for you. I want you to be able to take advantage of this rare discount. I'm not closing the store while I'm gone since it's just a weekend. I'll just be shipping any orders out on Monday or Tuesday instead. Thanks for all your purchases during the sale too. I really appreciate the business and thanks to my customers we'll have a nice, comfortable anniversary trip with the family.

July

Wow, July, huh? I'm been caught up in so many different things recently that time is just flying by. That, however, is not necessarily a good thing. It occurred to me only this morning that we're going on day four without a sale in the etsy shop. I know, many of you are cursing me for that complaint, but it's not so much a complaint as it is surprise at not having noticed sooner. I have gotten back to tatting up sold pieces. I finished up a Voodoo mask and started a pair of barefoot sandals yesterday. I should finish up those and then I'll get on something with yarn. It might be hot as Hades here, but its fall on the flip side of the planet so it's not that crazy of an idea.

I know I have mentioned that I love the Internet. Sure, it's full of creepy people and bizarre gossip, but where else could I mention a problem and receive helpful and well thought out support from people on the other side of the country. So, thank you Internet for allowing me to connect with other people. Between my blogs and twitter I feel like I have a great network of people to call upon and as a stay at home mom, I really need other adults during the daytime. I do have a great husband and a helpful family near me that I would never trade, but boy does the Internet fill in the blanks.

Not much else to share, I'm afraid. Since the store is slow, I've decided to put off the new corset purchase. We're going to Monterey on our annual anniversary trip and I think affording that is more important that buying something that's just meant to skinny me up a bit. I'm still wearing this one about 23 hours a day. Sleeping in it is easy and comfortable and though I think this size has done all it can do, wearing it will at least maintain until I get the smaller one. I'm certain to share when I get the next one and start the tightening process once again.

What A Week

Boy, the Internet is a strange place to live sometimes. Like so many others, I spent a big chunk of time glued to twitter yesterday whilst dramas real and imagined played out at the speed of sound. I did manage to get a few more pendant listings up, which means today I'll list just four more from the fair batch and then I'm all done. I've also spent a lot more time knitting than tatting the last few days. I guess I just can't seem to get back into my normal routine with all the extraneous events. Speaking of which, my husbands birthday is tomorrow, so if you know him, wish him a good one.

I know I'm rambling a bit today, I've got no cohesive thoughts to share, just an amalgamation of stuff, like this next story. Yesterday I asked the twitterverse why they were following me as I have had a bout of followers that I don't understand, they aren't friends of a friend or etsy sellers and I didn't get why or how they found me. This morning I saw a response from one of them, then they unfollowed me. I went to their twitter stream and I saw that they called someone so damn cocky at about the same time. Now, I have no ides if that was directed at me, but I got all defensive over it. I obsessed about it really for a good half hour. I wasn't even on the twitter when the response came in, so I couldn't react to it...yeah I know I shouldn't worry about it, but I live in the internet and I do like it when people like me.

What else...yes, I have found the perfect collaborator for the wunderkammers redesign and thanks so much to all of you who offered your kind help. I'm gonna keep it all on the down low until it's closer to fruition, but suffice it to say, it should look amazing. The project wonderful ad spot is also up and running and has made me a whole 3 cents so far. No, I didn't think it was going to make me rich, but it is amazing how well it just seems to run itself. I might even throw one up here one day. I do kind of like the idea of giving people really affordable advertising for their etsy or other micro businesses.

I do have another question to ask you all. I know some of you have used places like cafe press to sell merchandise. Do you have an opinion of any of the other similar companies, good or bad? I do still want to set something like that up for the wunderkammer and thought I'd cull your vast knowledge for information before I make a false step. Again, I'm not in any rush to get started on it, just doing a little groundwork first. I almost said legwork, but that seems ridiculous as I am clearly sitting down and don't plan on moving any time soon. So that's it for this week. Here's hoping no more icons die, Iran finds a little peace and the Transformers movie I'm seeing tomorrow doesn't suck.

Twitter Fail

I've got nothing for you this morning. Really, absolutely nothing. It is merely my insistence that I write Monday through Friday that has me sitting in front of the computer right now while my mind races about trying to pull any little interesting fact from my mushy brain. My tasks yesterday, devoid of any sales, were more of the same. A couple of hair clips and then I asked the twitterverse what colors I should use & they of course provided answers. I, in turn, made things in the requested colors...oh, right, the twitterverse...something DID happen yesterday.

There was a significant uproar over on the twitter regarding the way that we see replies to other people. You used to have the choice to see replies to people you didn't follow from people you do or not. Basically, half conversations that oftentimes lead to organic discovery of new friends. This option was replaced with, well no option. You can no longer see them, even if you want to. Apparently there was a technological problem with the option, it was not scaling and we were told that was going to break soon anyway. Explanations did not stop myself and probably thousands of others from being annoyed and then working out a way around the problem.

This crazy twitter event took most of my morning after which I began to tat again and let it all go. Once my opinion is known, there's not much else I can do about it right? It is after all, a free service that I do enjoy using, so I'm pretty much over it. I'll keep annoying people with my reply fix that many others came up independently of each other, but that's about it.

Unless I am presented with a different project I will continue to tat pendant and bracelets for Maker Faire and I will continue to wait for word back about the house we put in an offer on. We were asked to sign a few more papers last night, so we're hopeful that indicates that they are, at the very least, considering our offer, but honestly we have no idea. I admit, I'm a little tense about, well everything as of late. I can hardly wait to be on the other side of all these events right now, but I have no idea how far into the future that would take me, so I wait.

Fashion Review?

I have never been known as a "fashionista". No, I have my own sense of self and style that rarely coincides with the current trends. When it does, I tend to buy out the items I like from the trend and wear them long after it has died. Though I also enjoy, let's say extreme pieces, I am usually found in a pair of jeans and comfortable shirt. As a stay at home mother, this is as far as I am willing to dress down though. I refuse to wear sweats or spend the day in pajamas, but I digress.

Through twitter, I have become acquainted with a handful lovely fashion blogging ladies. They are pleasant, fun and above all I would never use the word snob to describe a one of them. I often feel like a bit of a shlub seeing their daily outfit pictures, but that's fine. Though a practice on twitter deemed "followfriday" where people recommend others to follow, my connection with them has expanded to a connection with a few emerging designers. It is through this that I became acquainted with the woman behind Spun. I caught wind of a special sale of her organic cotton fitted tee and I decided that I could always use another black shirt. I shared the link to the sale and had a lovely conversation with her. Days later I participated in a little Earth Day contest she held and won a tank top as well.

Well, the shirt is here and I do adore it. It might look like a simple tee shirt, but it is more than that. It is an affordable, socially responsible, well fitted and comfortable tee shirt from a small company with a heart. So, if you have ever wanted to try and dress a little more "green", but the price outweighed the benefit, check out her line of clothes. They are simple, versatile and of a quality that appears to be far above their price points.

Okay, I know, first a music review, now I'm taking on clothing lines. It might be a little silly coming from me, but I just thought I'd share my findings. I've got a lot of tatting to do for this Maker Faire business, but I hope to get around to trying my newest idea for the shoe jewelry. Since listing the prototype pair, it has gotten very little interest, so maybe I jumped the gun a bit getting excited about the idea. I still want to get it to a final design before I abandon it though. Sometimes I just have to sit on my hands and wait no matter how impatient I am.

Holy Crap People

I was walking along, minding my business when out of the clear blue sky...okay I'm getting ahead of myself. This weekend I noticed a lot of traffic coming from StyleHive. If you don't know what that is, it is a social shopping site. People see something they like and bookmark for others to see, they in turn can save the bookmark as well. I've been lucky to have several of my pieces bookmarked there, but nothing like this. My In Bloom Ankle Corsets got so many saves over the weekend that they are currently not only featured on the front page of the site, but the top save.

As you might imagine this kept me feeling pretty good all weekend long. Let's face it, we all love attention from out crafting peers, but to be noticed by the fashion community is an extreme step forward. It's much harder to impress people who have no idea how much hard work goes into a piece.

Then this morning I received a message over at etsy from someone who saw my stuff of twitter. I thought, that's nice, I have quite a few great friends over there so I assumed they had tweeted something, but no. This was much bigger. Someone had tweeted the link from StyleHive to MrsKutcher, otherwise known as Demi Moore, who then retweeted it to her followers. This is awsome not only because Demi Moore was looking at my feet, but because the woman has almost 500,000 followers.Did my weekend StyleHive fame result in tons of sales? Nope. Did Demi Moore's tweet make me the next big thing? I doubt it. I am however sitting here verbally vomitting all over my computer screen with excitement.

You Put What In Your Nose?

I hope that you weren't expecting much from me today either. I spent most of yesterday in a bit of a haze, but as I twittered away the morning to avoid doing anything else something amusing happened. Very often my youngest, who will be two this week, gets into my supplies. Occasionally she will sit behind me on the couch and stab me with tatting needle or attempt to crochet my shirt and when I'm distracted she will grab for the baggies of beads that are in my little crafting jar. As soon as I hear one of those baggies, I get all freaked out and grab them away. I am super paranoid about her swallowing a Swarovski crystal and it somehow allowing its lead content to seep into her system. Well after getting the "harmful" beads away from her, she grabbed a baggie of plastic beads, I shrugged thinking at least she'll be entertained right?

Next thing I know, she is complaining about her nose hurting and since we're all sick or allergy ridden right now, I held a tissue to her nose and told her to blow. She did and when a slightly blood tinged mucus emerged it dawned on me that she had shoved a bead in her nose. Great. She proceeded to sneeze a few times eventually shooting said bead into the tissue.

Since my computer was right in front of me, I tweeted this event and what followed was actually a little mind boggling. Everyone began to confess stories of their children or themselves and suddenly there was a sprawling conversation about beads and corn kernels in noses and pebbles in ears. Not only did these stories serve to amuse, but they also demonstrated why twitter probably isn't just a fad. We all identified with a common experience and for a brief time complete strangers where interacting in a non judgmental candid conversation. I felt better because I wasn't a bad mother, turns out kids ARE just crazy like that. No, I'm not best friends now with all those people I talked with, but it was nice to have such immediate reactions to events.

I spent the rest of the day trying to avoid work and only completed a pair of barefoot sandals. I did talk to another of my new twitter friends about a custom project which I'll share more about as I feel a bit better and start actually working on it. I find that I lack creativity when I can't breath and/or move without my head hurting. Here's hoping for a short Spring...again.

What Else Do You Want, Blood?

Well, I found something to be annoyed at this week. It's not really something new, but I did get a message this morning that got me thinking about it again, overexposure. You see, my online presence is directly related to my etsy experience. Before I discovered etsy as an outlet for my developing craft of tatting, I had no online presence. I used the Internet for games and music and as an endless source of information. I was a lurker that rarely if ever engaged others. That all changed when I first discovered the etsy forums and joined the plague of locusts on their seemingly never ending conquest of social sites.

I ran with the locusts to MySpace and Indiepublic, I applied and was rejected from Trunkt...twice. I started a blog, joined, never listed anything and left Lollishops and landed in the Twitterverse. I have all but abandoned both MySpace and Indiepublic, in fact the only things I maintain now are my Etsy shop, my blog and Twitter and you know what I'm done. I've left the cloud of locusts. I am now flying alone. As I've stated before, I'm just not that social, so stop asking me to join you on another Ning site or random networking site. I'm giving you all I've got already.

This also means that I have no intention of starting a facebook page, joining ArtFire or any of the half dozen other new selling venues. Sometimes I envy the youth of some of my crafting peers and their endless energy for social networking and maintaining multiple storefronts. I, however, have two small children and a craft that is a bit on the time consuming side. I wish that I could build up a lot of inventory to spread around, but unless I want to further neglect my real life, it isn't happening. My eggs shall remain comfortable in their little Etsy basket. There may come a day when I give in and get a facebook page, and who's to say that there won't be another place that I like even more than twitter one day in the future, but for now I'm spent.

All The Cool Kids

I might have mentioned this before, but I was a geek, nerd, outcast, social reject, etc., you get the point. As as child I tried very hard to get noticed by the popular kids. When it became obvious to me that I was working toward an unobtainable goal, I gave up and simply tried to be me. I never, however, let go of the desire to one day be more than them and to be able to show them that success whatever it may be. I just can't completely let go of that insecurity and I still find myself on the outside looking in.

On the twitter, along with following my actual friends and contemporaries, I have chosen to follow who I think are the cool kids. The other day one of them asked all those strangers follwing her why we were stalking her. I replied that I try to follow the cool kids and live vicariously through them. I am still that geek, hoping that they will turn around, notice me and realize that we would get on famously. More often than not, I still go unnoticed my those I deem cool and even though I know that it shouldn't bother me that people I have never met and will probably never meet don't pay attention to me, it brings back those juvenile high school feelings of rejection.

Every once in a while something will happen to make me question my invisible geek status. Usually that thing will be a comment left on a blog feature of my work. A comment like this, "I've loved her work for ages." or "I've been a fan of her work for sometime.". They always make me stop and audibly utter, "Really?". Then I sit and wonder if there are in fact people who think that I am one of the cool kids? Are there people out there who wish that I would turn around and notice them, 'cause that's really weird to me. Sure I get the occasional odd follow on twitter from someone I don't know, I assume that they are just randomly picking people by their avatars, but is it possible that a few are, dare I saw, fans?

I have not accepted this scenario at all, though I do entertain it from time to time. When I imagine that it is all true I get a little sad that even if it is, I doubt that Internet fame is something I could lord over my childhood cool kids. I can never go back and redo my childhood, though I don't think I would even if it were possible. That rejected kid I was developed a great, albeit strange sense of humor and relatively healthy sense of self. It is that kid that bonded over a similar past with the rejected kid that was my future husband. I know I'll never be that cool kid nor friends with the cool kids I live vicariously through on twitter and really that's fine.

Tweet

Now, I know I've babbled on about Twitter before, but as I've decided it's my new best friend I thought I'd share what I've learned about using the site. If you haven't checked it out at all, they call it a micro blogging site, but it really feels more like a giant, unruly forum. You can spend hours watching half conversations, uncovering drama and actually conversing with hundreds of people at the same time. In the last few weeks, I have read more interesting blogs and found more like minded people than I ever did at more traditional networking sites like myspace.

I am not a social person. I do not like wasting time talking to people I have nothing in common with. I do not like putting on a happy face to get in the good graces of people I don't know. With Twitter, I can follow whoever I like, block whoever I don't and generally spend my time talking to like minded people and actually enjoy networking for once. I also do not like marketing, it's just not my thing. I do not like to advertise, I do not like beating people over the head with my listing. I do however, want to be noticed and again Twitter is great for non invasive exposure.

Here's what I've learned. First, get an avatar & write a really good and accurate profile complete with a link to your store or blog. Then find people you know from other spaces, people you like then start posting. Simple thing work best, status updates, new projects, listings, what you're having for lunch, things you want to buy, etc. Make sure you respond to other posts and try engaging people with questions. Once you're comfortable communicating in 140 character statements, start looking for more people to follow. Look through other peoples follower lists for people that you find interesting and people who might like your work. When you add them to your following list, they get an email. The first thing most people do is check out your profile to see whether they want to follow you back or not.

This is passive advertising. Don't go wild adding hundreds at a time though. That makes it look like all you're trying to do is sell something. Use twitter to make a few connections, click on links, and try not to let it take over your day. You will inevitably get followed by some strange or creepy people, if they're extra creepy, just block them otherwise just don't follow them back, eventually they'll go away. If you decide this is the place for you, you might want to get a dashboard widget so you aren't constantly refreshing your web page. I use Tweetdeck, but there are at least a dozen of them. It allows me to literally tweet all day long in the background of my computer without leaving my browser open. This may or may not be a good thing.

I'm certain that Twitter isn't for everyone, but its been great for me. It satisfies my need to read a little drama, exposes me and my work to new audiences without effort and allows me casual interaction with many new people. I follow tons of etsians, but I also follow news sources, fake new sources, comic book creators, actors, bloggers, fashion mavens and scrunches of other people that I think are cool. They don't all follow me back and that's fine too. I've gotten a few sales, bought a few things myself and just this morning I got a wonderful blog mention at The Coveted blog that I never would have gotten had I not followed it author on Twitter.

I do wish a few more of my tatting friends were there sharing projects, so if you want to check it out, go ahead and follow me. I'll try not to lead you down a bad road, but don't blame me if you get addicted.

Marketing Genius

I've made it a habit of late to simply follow anyone who follows me on twitter at least until they do something annoying enough to get me to unfollow them. Recently I begun following a bloke who apparently specializes in craft businesses. Right after I followed him back, he sent a direct message asking me what my most pressing marketing question was. I thought about it for a bit and then realized that I really don't want to market myself at all.

I know that probably seem anti productive, but at this point I really don't want to bother. When I first started selling, sure I was jumping up and down and screaming look at me in as many ways as I could think of, but now I just want to maintain. I started the blog because I was told it was a good marketing tool, but honestly I just do it now because I like to write about my experiences and I couldn't care less if I'm getting more traffic or not. I started on twitter for the same reason and I certainly use it to announce that I just listed something or posted something, but I like it better for the interaction with like minded folk than as a ploy to get customers.

I don't post ads anywhere unless it's part of a team ad and I've really lost interest in expanding my store fronts to other venues. I don't sell at fairs or shows or any brick and mortar stores. I find I have enough business to justify my continued creations and I am sufficiently busy especially given that I have two small kids to take care of as well. Do I still want to be famous? Damn skippy, I do, but I'm content to keep making interesting pieces and waiting to be discovered. So my marketing plan is as little marketing as possible. I know, genius, right?