BESTeam finds

Annie Oliverio of Empty on the Inside has been creating art since she was a kid.  She opened her Etsy shop in March of 2011.  If you like greeting cards - check out her shop. She is busy stocking her shop with Christmas and holiday cards. 

Daffodils blank greeting card

 Annie started making the cards for her own use because she was having difficulty finding cards that she liked.  Incredibly, there are no mass produced or printed cards in her shop. Each card is a hand painted original

Hand painted greeting card - blank inside

  Every one is unique and special and anyone you give one to would feel special.  They are "empty on the inside" and therefore you can fill them with your own words. 

Handpainted sunflower greeting card

Faith of Stitchprincess sells one of a kind homemade clothing, aprons and photography.  Here is a sampling from her shop but it's worth a trip to visit her shop and see her other creations. 
Her specialties are dresses (casual and evening), skirts, aprons, purses, and small quilts. All of her products are hand or machine-sewn, with materials purchased from local fabric stores or vintage fabrics from her mother and grandmother. 
Faith's formal dresses are beautiful.  They are custom made in any fabric or size to your particular specifications. 

Royal blue apron

Formal gown with gathered bodice

Looking for some unique hair accessories?  Check out Danielle's shop called ChickyDs. Danielle always loved arts and crafting. She knew from middle school that she would pursue a career involving art. She went to school, studied Graphic Design and now works doing just that at a local newspaper.  Here are just two of her creations,  take a few moments and check out her other creations. 

Primary color dots loopy bow

Teal poly-satin flower ruffle headband

Tree of life necklace

Here are a couple of creations from Bluewhitewhere on Etsy. 
CC of Bluewhitewhre is an American (born & raised in upstate NY) expat who has lived in Bangkok, Thailand for 9 years.  She recently moved to Santiago, Chile with her husband.  She creates jewelry with an oriental flair.  Take a moment to visit her shop - you will be glad you did.


Here is a antiqued silver toned tree of life pendant with two round malachite stones and five little faceted golden crystal beads.

Turquoise and tiger eye necklace

Turquoise nuggets and shiny, faceted tigers eye create a feeling of the old Southwest in this updated, modern necklace. An asymmetrical necklace has little gold-tones balls to add a little sunlight sparkle. The necklace is about 17 inches long (43 cm). Fastens with a gold-tone lobster clasp

Etsy shops from the BESTeam

This is my very first BESTeam feature.  I just joined the BESTeam this week and have spent some time familiarizing myself with the many shops on the team.  If you are looking for a team which encourages marketing via blog posting this team would be a good choice.  There are some very talented members on the team and I have some shops that I would like to share with you.  One great thing about having an Etsy shop is that via your computer you meet shop owners from all over the world.

The first shop I would like to share is Riorita.  Irith of Riorita is a gold and silversmith from Tel Aviv, Israel.  How cool is that?  I would love to buy something made by hand in Israel.  Check out her shop to find unique handmade jewelry designs.  She likes to combine her jewelry with semi-precious stones, ancient glass and beach glass or pebbles from the Sea of Galilee.  Here is a beautiful sterling silver ring from Riorita with a gorgeous oval blue kyanite stone. 

Riorita's blog   /Facebook   /twitter

Sterling silver oval kyanite ring by Riorita on Etsy

My second shop to share is Las Flores Del Sur. Marisa of Las Flores Del Sur is from Montevideo, Uruguay.
This shop has an assortment of necklaces, bracelets and earrings with glass or acrylic beads.  Her seed and glass bead bracelets are beautiful.  Marisa has a second shop Flores Del Sur which carries handmade hair pins, hair clips, pins and brooches.  Check out this owl necklace from Las Flores Del Sur.

An owl in a starry night by Las Flores Del Sur

The final shop that I would like to share is Poison Garden on Etsy.  This shop carries neovictorian, gothic, steampunk jewelry and accessories.  The location for this shop is Lafayette, Indiana.  Every piece in the shop is unique.  Take a look at this unique necklace made with icy cracked glass beads, accented by glowing blue crystals.  Just beautiful!

Neo Victorian cracked glass necklace by Poison Garden

So here are just three of the many talented shops that belong to the BESTeam -- check them out!

Trading or Bartering On-Line

I have to admit, I'm not an expert on this subject.  I did my very first trade this week.  While we all are thrilled when we sell one of our listings and make some money, another way to do business and benefit is to trade. If you are limited with money, you can trade your artwork or creations for something of equal value.  There are teams or social groups on Etsy specifically for trade friendly shops. Here is one that has over 1000 members called Etsy Trade Team and here's another with over 2000 members called Etsy Trade-a-holics   Just search the teams on Etsy  with "trade"" to find other trade friendly teams on Etsy.  If you find something you'd like to have -- send the shop owner a message asking if she is interested in trading.  Don't feel bad if she says no.  It just might be that what you have is very nice but not what she is looking for or not her taste. 
So my trade came about when I received a convo or message from  DELdreamart on Etsy asking whether I was willing to trade.  I took a look at her shop and it just so happened that I was looking for someone to do just the kind of art work that she did.  Here is an artwork from her shop. 

Fairy Dancing by DELdreamart on Etsy

I have a friend who had written a children's book which had some mystical characters and I was looking for someone to do a artwork that illustrated some of the scenes in the book.  I asked her if she would do a special art work for me to give to my friend for her birthday.  We agreed on a value and in exchange for the artwork she picked two items from my shop.   Here are the two items from my shop that she chose:

So I sent her the descriptions from the book which included a young girl with long brown hair and blue gray eyes.  She lived in a cottage on a small farm.  There was a field with bluebells and heather and fairies and a  queen fairy.  So this is what she did for me.

 
She matted it nicely and I gave it to my friend and she loved it.  Overall this trade was quite the positive experience.  I might just join one of the trade friendly teams myself.  One good thing about doing a trade is that it shows as a sale on Etsy, and it is also a great way to build up positive feedback. 

You want to sell your creations on-line.........

Here is another post for those wishing to sell their creations on-line.  I have had my Etsy store for about two years now and I probably know 10% of what I need to know to run a successful ecommerce business.  If you'd like to take a look, visit my Angelsneverlastings Etsy shop.   There are a lot of skills you will need.  You will need to be creative, have patience, be disciplined, have time, and be organized.  Last week I listed a few of the sites available for selling on-line.  Here are the steps once you have chosen a site. 

1.  Create your handmade items.  Create something that is unique and different from what is already being done.  Spend some time checking out what others are doing so you can set yourself apart. 

2. Photograph your items.  Your customers can't touch your product so your photos need to touch them.         Take the clearest, sharpest photo possible. If you are like me, your first photos won't be great but with some practice, they will improve.  You don't need a fancy camera but you do need to know how to get the best photos with the camera you have.  Familiarize yourself with how your camera settings work and how to get the best results.  If your photos aren't great, you can edit them after with good results.  There are some free photo editing programs available. Gimp for Windows, Picasa,  picnik, are a few popular free photo editing programs.  There is also a wealth of photography how to information on the web.  Here are just a few that I found. http://smallobjectphotography.com/ 
http://pareandfocus.com/index.htm/point-and-shoot-challange-making-point-and-shoot-pictures-look-more-like-a-dslr/
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/macro-photography-for-beginners-part-1

3. Post your listing including uploading the photos, choosing the title,  writing a description, and deciding on the price.  Choose a title very carefully so your items will be seen.  You want to choose words by how you think someone will search for your item.  The first few words in the title and description are the most important.  You might be tempted to come up with a cute name for something but if it's not something that someone will search for it's not a good idea.  For instance, if you sell hair bows, if your title is frilly silly pretty ribbon bows, no one will be searching for frilly or silly - you might want to use bows as the first word in the title, then maybe children's, babies, after that you can use descriptive words like frilly or silly if you want.  Here's one of my Etsy listings as an example:   http://www.etsy.com/listing/78779781/wreath-grapevine-dried-flowers-pink 

4. Do social networking to get your product seen.  You need to work hard to be seen.  Join some of the many social networking sites.  Facebook, Stumbleupon, Twitter, are a few of the more popular social sites.  Joining these sites is only the beginning - then you need to learn how to use them effectively.  There is so much helpful information on the web.  Here are a few sites to help: http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/how-to-use-facebook-for-business-and-marketing-4765088.html  http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/how-to-use-twitter-for-e-commerce.aspx   http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/stumbleupon-guide/  Depending on which marketing site you choose, familiarize yourself with the social options available.  For instance, Etsy has "teams" you can join.  I believe Artfire has "Guilds". 

5.  Be patient!  If your items sell immediately that's great but most times it will take quite a while to be noticed.  Don't get discouraged.  The more items you list in your shop, the more opportunity there is to be seen.