Seasonal Products

Finally got some Holiday switch plates listed. Hoping to get some more up today. (Click on the images for more information)

Christmas


Halloween


These are all available in different styles (e.g., outlet plate, double light plate, gfci, etc.) and room sets can be made. Just contact me for more information shadesdujour@gmail.com

I'm still here!

Many of you who I "run" with on various social networks have probably noticed my recent absence. After piling my plate so high I finally hit a breaking point and had to let some things go. One of the major things I did not have time for was networking (twitter/plurk, posting in the forums, etc.) I even hit a point that I was having to debate whether or not to close down some of my online shops. After much consideration I decided to close down my physical booth here in town...as they were getting larger, the manager was encouraging me to stay up at the booth during the open hours and that was just not possible, or profitable enough to do. We closed down the booth 2 weeks ago...and still have not had a chance to unload the cars lol. School started back up last Monday and I have to say I'm actually pretty excited about this semester. I have already met *normal* people my age, which I did not think was possible in Amarillo--no offense =) My classes are pretty interesting as well and I think they will really help me decide what I want to do with myself. I'm taking a yoga class M-W-F and Intro. to Mass Comm., Human Relations, and Intro. to Business on Tues-Thur. I also have an interview Monday morning for the Web Editor position for the school paper *fingers crossed* So once again I have my plate piled high, but I think if I can manage my time well I will be fine.

-AJ

P.S. I wanted to apologize to all of the Artfire Sneakers. I truly wish I could have kept up with the ambushes. If anyone would like to take over and try to revive AFS feel free to e-mail me to discuss it shadesdujour@gmail.com Camels near Iowa Park, TX taken on one of our monthly trips to check on the booth in Fort Worth.
P.S.S. I am trying to use my facebook more if anyone wants to friend me http://www.facebook.com/3zArt?ref=name

Artfire Ambush Tonight 8pm CST/9pm EST

Come Join the Artfire Sneakers on our Ambush tonight at 8pm CST/9pm EST! http://AFSneakers.ning.com Every Tuesday at 8pm CST an "Un-sub"(the person who's studio we will be "ambushing") will be announced on the main page of the ning and then everyone who is able to will go and purchase from their studio and/or promote them (you do not have to be a member of the ning, or even Artfire, to participate--see all the ways you can participate on the main page of the ning). We hope that our efforts will help encourage sellers that may be discouraged with their lack of sales, and get them some exposure. The un-sub will be announced on the main page of the ning in a little over 2 hours!! PLEASE DO NOT VOLUNTEER TO BE SNUCK UP ON!! If anyone has any questions just let me know =) -AJ, 3zArt

Joy, Respect, and Harmony

Being 3 words I try to live by myself, I just fell in love with this bracelet by JewelryByJanzia. The clasp, charms, and chain are all made with silver plated affirmation. Also if you spend $50 or more in her Artfire Studio she offers free shipping(however if you spend under $50 her shipping prices are very, very reasonable)!!! A few words from Janzia's Bio, I first became interested in making jewelry when I commented on liking a pair of my neighbors earrings and she told me that her daughter had made them. I was amazed by the idea that you could make your own earrings and a little seed was planted. The next time I went to my local library I checked out every book I could on jewelry making. I read everything I could on the subject but wasn't really spurred to action until I went to a jewelry party (not the handcrafted kind but a company sponsored one). I loved everything I saw but after reading so much about it I kept thinking to myself I could make that. I figured by this point it was time to stop thinking about it and start doing something. I went home and scoured all my books once again and then made my first piece which I gave to my mom for her birthday. After that there was no stopping me. Run by her studio and pick you up a lovely bracelet today, or grab a last minute Mother's Day gift!

Funky Finds Spring Fling

Thanks to a wonderful friend of mine I get to attend the Funky Finds Spring Fling this Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas!!! This will be the first official craft show I will be a part of (all the others have been other kind of shows that have just allowed me to set up) and its supposed to be huge!! It will be this Saturday the 25th at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth from 10am-6pm (get directions here). I'm so excited!! Not only are we going down there for the show, but my mom FINALLY sold our house down there!!! So hopefully we will finally get to move out of this tiny rental house that My Mom, My Grandma, My Stepdad, animals, and I have all been crammed in (we're getting in each others hair a bit). I'm putting all of my shops on Vacation mode on Wednesday and not sure when I'll be back as we have a lot of business to take care of in the DFW area, including thrift & fabric shopping...yes!!! Then chances are we'll take the round about way back and go through Oklahoma so we can hit up a casino. Even though I'll be working the whole time I cannot wait to go on my mini "vacation". Wish me lots of luck everyone and if you're in DFW come by and visit us!!! -3z

Help Make an AF Artisan's Day!

Come join us on AF Sneakers! We will "Ambush" a different Artfire Seller every Tuesday at 8pm CST (starting tonight!!!) After chatting with some friends about wanting to purchase from Artfire sellers that had yet to receive any sales, but still remained positive, we decided to get a group together to try and bring sales and exposure to different Artfire sellers each week. Every Tuesday at 8pm CST the "Un-sub" will be announced and then everyone who is able to will go and purchase from their studio (you do not have to be a member of the ning or Artfire to participate--see all the ways you can participate on AFSneakers). We hope that our efforts will help encourage sellers that may be discouraged with their lack of sales. I've set up a ning as a hangout for us its http://AFSneakers.ning.com you do NOT have to join the ning or Artfire to participate, you can just purchase from/promote the "Un-Sub"(selected Artisan) once they are announced at 8pm CST/ 9pm EST. They will be announced on the AFSneakers main page & forum so make sure to check in!! If you have any questions or comments about it feel free to post here =) -AJ

Flea Market 2

I went and set up our flea market booth today and have to say I am now very excited about it! The manager is so cool. She told me as long as it isn't extremely loud or hazardous I can work while I am up there, so I've got the booth set up where 2/3 is items for sale and 1/3 is work area & checkout counter. This is going to take SO much stress off for me. I'm going to be there from 9-6 Thursdays-Saturdays and now I will actually be able to work on the orders from the booth...yay! I'm going to take the laptop up there Thursday and see if I can mooch some wifi off one of the neighbors, if that works I will be set! On top of all of that...our house is somewhat clean! Not only do I have storage for all of my finished and discontinued products, but I'm also getting rid of some of this crap that has just been piling up. Anyway wish me luck! As I said I'll be up there Thurs-Saturday so if anyone e-mails me or tries to contact me elsewhere during that time, my response will be more delayed than normal. Hope everyone is having a good week so far...sheesh it feels like its already Thursday! Here's some of my new sushi light plates before I go:





-3z

Howdy!

Sorry about the lack of blogging lately.  I had a "show" Friday and Saturday and have been a bit overwhelmed all week.  Finally have a moment to stop and breathe today!  The show went really well.  It was actually "Amarillo's Largest Garage Sale" but so far its been the best I've been able to find locally that had reasonable booth rental fees.  I dunno if its bad taste or not to share your "numbers" but I'm excited so I'm going to!  We sold $441 worth of product!!!  I also handed out TONS of business cards and according to my Google Analytics people have actually been visiting.  Yay!  Now just to wait to see if they start buying...

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I'm also participating in the 'Artfire Stimulus Package'.  I have some amazingly low prices on mouse pads and switch plates AND have taken half off on the shipping.  To find other sellers participating just search Artfire for 'Artfire Stimulus Package'.  I will try to keep 10 items in my Artfire Stimulus Package category for the entire month of March!  Here are some of my ASP items:

3zArt

Buy Handmade

-3z

Congrats!

Congratulations to my gift certificate giveaway winner, Jinx1764!!!!  Thank you so much to everyone for entering!  Make sure to stay tuned for my next giveaway/contest!

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You may have noticed this "Rapid Cart" thing on the right hand column of my blog.  It is Artfire's newest feature and it is FANTASTIC!!  It allows buyers to purchase & checkout directly from my blog without even having to register on Artfire!  All verified members can create their own Rapid Cart's for their blogs too (In "My Artfire" on the Left index under "Promote").

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I have lots & lots of new switch plates available in my Artfire & Etsy stores and should be adding 3 more today.  Here's some of my St. Patrick's Day switch plates:

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

-3z

Finally starting on my New Year's resolution...

As I said a few posts back my New Year's resolution was to do my pilates 3-4 times a week. Well I FINALLY started doing them about 2 weeks ago and have really been feeling a lot better. I haven't been craving junk food as much as I used to (oddly enough I've been getting chocolate cravings...before I started dieting I never craved sweets). I like Denise Austin's Pilates for Everybody DVD....she gets a bit annoying so I've started muting it and just playing music. You can only hear, "Girdle of strength....let me see those smiling faces..." so many times. Another really odd thing is I have been waking up starving in the mornings. Usually I don't eat my breakfast until about noon. I like a few hours to just drink coffee and chill and really don't like food with my coffee. I've cut back to 2 cups of coffee a day and then the rest of the day I drink tea. I haven't really lost any weight but I feel better and I can see some results. I'm not too concerned with a number anyway...just want to take care of myself and feel good about my body, inside and out.

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I was approved for 1000 Markets the other day and have been trying to get that shop set up. I also have been setting up Artfire Studios for my Mom and Grandmother, and trying to get mine stocked while not completely neglecting my Etsy shop. My plate is a little full =)

I'm still on my never ending task of retaking product pictures. I need to get some more backdrops for my lightbox but am scared to go to any craft shop as I always spend too much money. I did have a red piece of foam lying around and was able to get this awesome picture:

Which reminds me! If you have decora switch plates I will be adding lots more in the near future! Every time I have to make a toggle or outlet switch plate I've been making a decora out of the same pattern. Well I am starting to ramble and really need to get to work. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!

-3z

P.S. If you have a moment please stop by and check out this week's featured product for the Artfire Decor Guild!  Thanks =)

Tips on Selling in a New Venue (Artfire)

Happy Saturday everyone =)  As you probably have seen I have been trying to promote Artfire and recruit new sellers.  I have been so ecstatic with everything on Artfire and want to share that joy with everyone else, but there are quite a few recurring questions/comments that I wanted to address to prepare everyone who takes the plunge & joins Artfire.  So here we go (please note..some of the things I say may sound harsh & I want you to know they are not directed at any one person, these are things I have learned the hard way & want to pass on).

∙Artfire IS in Beta( Definition of Beta ) so expect glitches and try not to get discouraged when you encounter them.  To show their appreciation to the first 5,000 members that join Artfire as a verified seller while its in Beta they are offering $7/month for life (that's no relisting fees, no final value fees, just $7.00 a month--period).  After that it goes up to $20.00 a month so I suggest "getting in on the ground floor".  On Etsy many of us are paying anywhere from $20-$100 a month in fees and personally I think we're being treated like crap there.

∙You can't just list 2 items and wait for them to sell before deciding to use a new venue(I know this may work for some but overall its not going to work).  If you really want to succeed you have to put your all into every endeavour you take on.  Think of it this way, the more items you list, the more diverse the keywords are that lead buyers to your shop.

∙If you DO start off on Artfire with the basic account don't just list 1 item and be done with it.  Make sure you upload an avatar, banner, write a bio, welcome note, and policies.  I don't know about you but I'm not buying from anyone that can't take the time to put in a little info about their craft/studio.

∙Take advantage of everything the site has to offer.  Artfire automatically submits your products to google base, all you have to do is list them in your studio(that is just 1 example of the many tools Artfire has and there are many more on the way)!

∙Be active in the fora(Chatterbox).  Not only can you learn from the questions other members are asking, but you can get your name out there as well.

∙You are going to have to be patient and willing to put your time and energy into it!  I know we all want sales right away, and need them, but its just not going to happen without some effort put into it.  You have to promote yourself and get your name out there.  True sites do advertise for you/the marketplace but you have to do the majority of that promoting yourself.

∙Don't be intimidated by international shipping!  If the item is under 4lbs you can ship it USPS First Class International.  Next time you go to the PO pick up a stack of the green customs forms so you can fill them out at home & have them ready to take with you to the PO (you can print First Class International postage online through certain sites and put the packages in a blue drop box, however I recommend checking with your Post Master before doing so, our PM requires we hand the package over to a Postal Worker directly).  I bought a generic kitchen scale for $10 to get estimates for all of my products' weights.  Then use the USPS International shipping calculator to get estimates.  There are limits on what you can ship where so you will need to educate yourself on the info, see HERE.  It requires quite a bit of research on your behalf, but if you are able to ship your items and don't mind having to drive the packages to the PO I say go for it!  Think of how many buyers that will open up your shop to!  I recommend making a note in your policies stating that you are not responsible for any customs fees that may be required once the item is delivered and that you will not lie about the value of your products on the customs form.  You can also use your google analytics (you can set that up in Artfire under My Artfire::My Studio Stats) to see what different countries people are looking at your studio from.

∙Don't renew, create!  Renewing is a silly thing that was created on Etsy, you are much better using that time, and money if you're on Etsy, creating new products and then listing those.  Or if you are not ready to create more items, use that time to promote outside the marketplace you are selling on.  When you are browsing categories on Artfire it shows the items in a random order.  Search is based on relevance, not when the item was listed.  

∙Join social networks!  Not only is it a great way to meet new people, it can be a great way to promote if you do it correctly(The #1 no-no is to sign up and only promote your items, you will lose followers very quickly if that's all you do).  My 2 favorites are twitter and plurk, but there are many more out there.

∙"Bring optimism, anything else is counter productive."  (Wonderful advice from NCTeddyBearLady)

Well there are many, many more tips & tricks.  I will try to post more as I think of them and feel free to comment with your tips as well.  I may not be the most successful online handmade vendor, but I have done pretty decent in my opinion.  I haven't made a fortune on Artfire but I have sold enough to pay my $7/month and made a little profit on top of that.  Sorry if this turned into more of a rant than list of tips =)

AND if you decide to join Artfire as a verified member I would LOOOVE for you to use me (3zArt) as a referral Register on ArtFire.com   Best of luck to everyone!!

-3z

Get your act together!

Get your act together, that was my theme for the day....and I failed very miserably lol!  Luckily the day is not yet over so I can still make up for some of it.  Days when the PO are closed I always seem to have trouble (more than normal) getting motivated.  

I did create a flickr group for snapshots of the Artfire Item of the Hour to help people see if they made it.  Kind of had a "Duh" moment while I was google searching for a list of the items that had already made item of the hour.  I really need some people from different countries to join and help me add the items that make it while I am sleeping (also people here to help add items while I'm out).  I've set it up to where everyone can add photos but please only add Items of the Hour.  You can check out/join the group here: http://flickr.com/groups/artfireioth/

Just moved one of my favorite lampshades from Etsy over to Artfire. This one: I'm trying to get back into posting more often so I'm going to try and keep them short 'n' sweet =)

-3z

Some blog with your coffee?

Good morning friends!  First day of the rest of my life...blah blah blah =) anyone else say that every morning?  Only on my second cup of coffee so this blog post may not be as emoticon filled haha.  Well for starters I have to say that I absolutely love Psych and I woke up chuckling about the part where the victims name was Kenny Loggins and Shawn said, "So he's not alright?" *snort*  A little 'serious' stuff...finally finished all of my tax stuff, just gotta figure out what I do with it now! Really happy only ended up losing about $600 last year (I didn't calculate in my car payments for the time I had the biz or my laptop), not bad for my first year of working for myself. I also decided a few days ago that I'm going to take this semester online. Last semester I had to commute 30mins there and 30mins back, almost everything I learned was something I read in one of the books or looked up online, and we took our tests online.....so I decided this semester I will save my gas & time and just do it on my own schedule at home (which will help the biz a lot b/c its unpredictable).

Well I need to start working. I'm trying to add some more items to the free online marketplaces and link back to my Artfire shop to help bring in some more traffic. Which reminds me, if you haven't already check out www.foundhandmade.com its no longer free but if you have a little extra to spend promoting its a kind of cool site (and you can change out the items in your blocks as often as you want). I'm giving the 5 blocks for $20 a try this month, I'll let everyone know how it goes! New item: Zebra Double Light Plate Cover If you have a moment stop by and enter in the Artfire Fun Cute & Whimsical Guild's first giveaway HERE. I'm the sponsor! The winner gets 1 free switch plate from my shop!

And please stop by and show this week's featured product for my guild, Artfire Décor,  some love

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I almost forgot to say!! Artfire is now offering market hubs! They show up on your listings and link back to sites you have accounts with (Etsy, blogger, flickr, etc.). Here's a snapshot of what mine looks like:(To access your hub go to "My Artfire" and on the left hand menu, under 'Promote' you will see "Market Hub")

I hope everyone has a wonderful, safe weekend!!!

-3zArt

Warning: This is a promo post!

I am determined to hit 10 sales on my Artfire shop today(and hopeful my determination gets 20)!  To help try and reach that goal I am offering a Buy 2 Get 1 free sale on ALL of my switch plates!  You can mix & match or buy 3 of the same switch plate (if you are wanting to purchase multiple quantities of the same switch plate please let me know so I can make a listing for you).  You can access my Artfire shop here: http://3zArt.Artfire.com  Here are a few of my newly listed switch plates on Artfire:

Things have been crazy...sorry for neglecting!

I guess I should say things have been crazIER!  Been doing pretty well with sales lately and have a lot more motivation.  I think that extreme decline in sales for 10 days in December helped bring back the motivation when I finally started making sales again.  I actually worked from 8 to almost 6 nonstop (well there were a few twitter breaks but they were very short!) and now I don't know what to do with myself!  Usually in the evenings I'm still finishing up work but other than making new product (which I don't really need to do right now as I made new product today) there isn't anything that HAS to be done.  Maybe this free time will help me to quit neglecting my blog :) 

More serious news, my stepdad had to go in for a triple bypass last week .  My mom was staying at the hospital with him the entire week so on top of the normal work stuff I was running around taking care of her errands.  I wanted to help of course & didn't mind it at all but I have to say by about Saturday afternoon my head was ready to explode!  He got to check out yesterday and is at home now.  He has to go back in for another surgery on his leg as soon as he is well enough for it, then hopefully after that he will be surgery free.

and in the midst of all of this I decided to start an Artfire guild!  The turn out has been very good and I must admit I am very, very excited about it!!  I've started a blog for the guild if you'd like to check it out: http://ArtfireDecorGuild.Blogspot.com and if you sell décor products on Artfire and are interested in joining you can do so HERE.  

Two last things, I got the most fantastic fabric in the post today and of course made switch plates out of it as soon as it arrived!  Here is the outcome: 

Hot Pink Zebra Print....wowzas!!  I'm very excited about it, I think this one is about to top my best sellers list!  I'll take new pictures tomorrow when it is actually light outside so the colors will be true and everyone can see how hot pink it really is! I also have a new creation....my Original Photography Switch Plates!  I have many photos from when I lived in Hawaii that I've been pondering what to do with other than just selling the prints and I think I may have figured it out (well atleast one thing to do with them).  Here is the first of the collection: That's all for now =)-3zArt

Happy New Year & ArtFire Guild

Happy New Year everyone! I've heard people talking about it all day so I don't really have much to say about it. I will share my resolution though, do my pilates atleast 3 times a week! Nothing to extreme(and I can't say diet because I have been for the past few months) but something I need to be doing. With all of the excitement of the ArtFire guilds opening I decided to create one myself! There is still a lot of set up being done but it is still very exciting! I created the ArtFire Decor Guild. If you sell Decor on ArtFire feel free to join HERE. (you may also join if you are not a Decor seller just please note that the only items & sellers we will promote will need to be Decor). I've also got a thread going if you would like to join in or just give it a little bump to maybe help bring in new members :) You can get to it HERE. Everyone have a safe & fun night! See you next year!! -3z

Driving Slow on Sunday Morning..

Actually not driving at all, I'm trying to stay in on Sundays, and its now Sunday afternoon so I guess none of that works but I didn't have a title. So I woke up at about 11:30 and remembered I'm supposed to be on "Newspaper Watch" (you may remember the newspaper bandit, if not: Click Here) So I run out the front door in my bathrobe and there is a duck!! LOL Never a dull Sunday in this house....anyway I followed him around with my camera (freezing my butt off) and trying to feed him bread. He stuck around for about an hour and then I guess he finally got fed up with me and flew away.

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As you may have noticed I have started listing products on my blog. I will try and keep it my 5 top sellers so feel free to purchase directly from my blog and pay through Paypal (and save me some fees). Love those paypal buy now & donate buttons! Well I'm going to stop now & just make this a short 'n' sweet post since my last was soooo long. A mutts comic strip: Have a great day everyone!

-3z

I'm back :)

Before I delve into everything about my trip....I got a 4.0 for this past semester!!!!! Yaaay I'm so happy all my hard work paid off! Also...Art Fire now has Shop Windows!! If you haven't started your Art Fire account yet you need to hurry and do it while there are still $7 accounts left! Sign up HERE! Make sure you get a verified account...its only $7/month and you get unlimited listing (and a lot of other cool stuff).

http://3zArt.ArtFire.com

You may have noticed I've been neglecting the blog a bit much lately. Sheesh my last post was Thursday, Dec. 11th! Well thankfully my Christmas rush finally came in this past weekend, I guess everyone is like me and waits until the last minute to do their Christmas shopping. Monday was my Birthday and my mom was planning on taking me on a mini vacation. I tried as hard as I could to get all of my orders packed up Sunday but they just kept coming in so that evening I finally had to put my shop on vacation. Then Monday came around and it still took me until 2:00pm to finish packing them up, so we didn't leave for my trip until almost 3. Luckily its only a 4 hour drive from here to Albuquerque...ha....ha! We checked the weather forcast before we left and it wasn't supposed to get below freezing until after 9pm and there was only 30% chance of LIGHT snow. Well we are driving for about hour and the snow starts coming down pretty good. Drive about another hour and the roads are completely covered in snow and ice, and the left lane is so covered in snow there basically is no left lane. So we still have about 120 or so miles to go and are in a line of traffic on in the right hand lane averaging about 30. On top of that the stupid semi's keep passing everyone in the non-existent left lane and swerving towards all of the other cars almost forcing them off the road. Happy Birthday AJ! Finally get to Albuquerque and our hotel. Roads are too bad to go to the casino and the casino won't come pick us up :( Luckily there was a Japanese restaurant right by the hotel so we got to have a nice dinner (and lots of sake). Here is a sushi cake my mom ordered. It was beautiful, but not really for me. I don't really like fish....I'm very particular about the texture of my food, but I really want to like sushi so I always try it and we always order some. I also got some shrimp tempura rolls. They were awesome and this place actually made them where you could fit the piece in your mouth! Usually they are gigantic. Oh I also forgot my real camera...that should have been a sign that something was wrong with the trip! Tuesday morning came and the roads had cleared up enough to go to the casino yaaayyy!!! Took forever for my mom to get up and out of bed but we were finally on our way! We were going to drive around and look for another hotel (cheaper...we had gotten our first night using some reward points) as the weather hadn't cleared up enough to make the trip back, but once the casino was in sight we just had to go in! We went and signed up for our player's cards and they gave us a voucher to stay in the resort for $100--SOLD! The room was beautiful!!! The picture is when we were driving up to the casino (you can kind of see the casino on the left hand side of the pic). We didn't win a whole bunch of money but we didn't spend too much either. I managed to play on $20 for about 4 hours. We also had dinner and drinks for under $30 and were the only people in the restaurant/bar so that was kind of cool. We had to check out Wednesday so I was up & playing slots at 8 that morning! Mom joined me at about 10 and we ended up staying until almost 3 whoops :) We did manage to rack up enough Player's card points that we had a free meal before we left. We really wanted to put our points towards playing some bingo but it was getting way too late. The drive back was pretty good, except my Ebay vacation settings weren't working for some reason so I kept making sales the entire trip and was stressing out about all of that on the way home. Now time to get my motivation back and get some work done! I'm going to try and take lots of new product pics today and get new items posted on my Art Fire and then try and start editing all of my Ebay listings....they are such a mess!

-3zArt

Product Pictures

So I got some really great advice from a friend on Twitter and will be redoing most of my switch plate photos today, in between studying for my History final of course. Here is a sample of what my new pictures will be looking like: Now I just need to figure out how to take better pictures of my mouse pads. They are especially tricky because a lot of the time the background I am using can look like a border. I actually had used some of those clear gems as a background for a few mouse pads and had someone on Ebay message me asking if I would make the mouse pad without the "bubble border" lol. I think today I am going to move some of my lamp shades from Etsy to Artfire. I really like them being on Etsy because they get a lot of views and are put in a lot of treasuries, but I think on ArtFire maybe they will actually sell and it will show some variety in my shop. Yeah I'm going for it :) I also raised all of my prices on Ebay. The fees were getting ridiculous so I am going to make sure if I sell something it is going to be worthwhile. I may have said this in my post last night but when I was doing numbers for my kiosk I figured out if I sold $7000 of product on Ebay I'd probably pay about $2000 in fees (if not more). Craaaazy!

-3zArt

The future is scary!

I didn't do my pilates. Surprise, surprise. So while at the mall with my mother yesterday we decided to go for the kiosk idea. Sadly the mall manager was out so I have to wait until Monday to contact her. I have been toying with the idea for quite some time. Actually started back a few years ago when I was wanting to buy dog accessories/clothing at wholesale and resale it in my kiosk. That was when the whole Paris Hilton Chihuahua on the arm was "in". Now that I make and sell my own products I am a lot more excited about the idea and more determined to make it happen. Its not going to be cheap, that's for sure, but I've been toying with the numbers and its looking promising! I really have enjoyed selling online but I kinda feel like I've reached my "peak". I don't think my sales are going to start dropping but without paying tons more on top of what I already pay, I don't think my sales are going to go up. So I have decided that now is the time to take a step forward with my business. It is very scary but it is a risk I have to take. I will be working on my business plan and then going over it with possible investors. I know I don't have the experience that many business investors are looking for, but I think that what I sell will be so intriguing and my determination and planning should impress them. The wonderful thing about selling switch plates is that you can't go to Wal-Mart and get them. True, the do have about 5 available but that's no where close to my inventory! I basically have no competition other than online. It is also wonderful that my inventory appeals to people of all age ranges. Those wanting to decorate their homes to kids being dropped off at the mall with $20 bucks. Anyway I am very, very excited! It's going to be a very difficult first few months but I am hopeful that after a year I will have enough to move up from the kiosk to an actual shop in the mall. I would love to have an actual shop because I could actually be able to make product in the back! That's all for now...I will update everyone with what happens!!

-3zArt