Embroidered Jewelry, Tea Towels and Aprons

I'm holding a sale at DotDotStitch! FREE SHIPPING until Monday, July 6, 2009 on everything in the shop. Item prices haven't been raised. The shipping costs have simply been changed to $0.

Happy 4th of July!

Etsy's Featured Seller - LoveLeeSoaps

If you're like me, you love to read the interviews with Etsy's featured sellers. The story doesn't end there though. How about post-interviews with those sellers to learn about their time in the spotlight? Here's an interview with the creator of cute - LoveLeeSoaps, featured December 10, 2008.

What do you think are the reasons your shop was chosen to be featured?
I am not exactly sure why I was chosen. My feature was just before Christmas and my soaps make a great gifts and stocking stuffer for all ages. I am always updating my shop, listing new items, and promote in the forums from time to time.

What was your reaction to hearing that you'd been chosen?
I read the message 3 times just to make sure I understood before I completely freaked out. I screamed so loud I probably woke the neighbors up.

Since you couldn't run to the forums to tell us, who was the first person you told?
I told my dad, boyfriend, then I ran and woke my mom up to tell her.

How much time did you have before your feature and what did you do to prepare?
I had a exactly a month to prepare before the interview was posted. Three days before I was notified I was actually contacted by a large company that asked if I could prepare 900 Peppermint Christmas soaps for them. I of course said yes in a heartbeat! I had never had an order this large and I was completely unprepared. Thank goodness my mom said she would help as much as possible. I immediately thought supplies.
I ordered 500 pounds of soap that was dropped off by a semi truck down our quiet little dead end street. It was the quickest month of my life. It went by so fast and the day was here!

What affect did the feature have on your shop during your time? Since then?
The feature made my shop crazy! I was sitting in the computer staring and refreshing in complete shock. I was selling soaps by the second and re-listing in quantities of 25 at a time. My mom was in another room printing orders as they came in and would bring a huge stack and set them next to me each hour. I sold around 1850 soaps in the 3 days the interview was up. Since then my shop has not been near what it was during the feature but it has been steady and keeping me busy.

Anything else you'd like to share about your experience?
It was a lot of fun and I could have never prepared enough for it. By far the most hectic week of my life. In the middle of it all my 3 year old niece decided to cut
her hair, the floor had about an inch of soap and we were practically soap skating though the house, we had 2 microwaves melting soap at a time, and during all of this I had to study and take college finals! It was the most scary and exciting thing I have ever been though. In the end it was all worth it. I have so many wonderful customers. I am also so thankful that I had so much support and help from my family and Etsy community.



Congratulations to LoveLeeSoaps!

Read more of my interviews with Featured Sellers here.

I've been Funky Found

Do you read Funky Finds? You should! They feature amazing indie artists and crafters. I'm thrilled to be one of their recent finds. Check it out!

Sale at Gajillionaire

Gajillionaire's gettin' married. To celebrate, he's having a sale in his shop. This is the perfect opportunity to pick up one of his stunning flower photographs or one of his fun and bright paintings.

We can't all marry a gajillionaire, but we can help him spoil his lucky bride by picking up a few pieces of his art. Sounds like a win/win, huh?


Congrats B!

DotDotStitch on Trunkt!

Yikes! All of this SEO stuff on etsy has kicked my tush into gear. I wrote yesterday about creating an online portfolio using weebly.com. My intention was to have a separate site just to showcase my embroidered jewelery - past and present, to use to submit to blogs, magazines, whatever.

Well, the first "whatever" was Trunkt. I applied yesterday, with a link to my weebly site and was accepted! I've applied with my pincushions twice before and was rejected. I'm very excited. I want to paste this everywhere.....

So I suppose there isn't much use for my weebly site anymore. I'll now use Trunkt as my online portfolio for my embroidered jewelry.

I might link up the photos on weebly to DotDotStitch on etsy. I have full control over my meta tags, keywords, descriptions, etc over there. Maybe it'll give me one more place to show up in google eventually.

I'm not sure if the link up is weebly legal though. The TOS says something about not using the site as a forwarding service to somewhere else. I don't think this is what they're referring to. I wrote to them for clarification though.

Back to Trunkt. Yay! Here's hoping it brings some business my way.

Ribbon Embroidered Pendants and Online Portfolio

I've been busy - stitching up some pendants for the shop and creating an online portfolio.

First the pendants - I had some for sale a while back in my dottyral shop. They've all either sold or are off on consignment. These are quite different. So far, I've only made ribbon roses. I love them! They'll be up for sale soon. I just can't decide which one to re-make for myself. I'm thinking either the grey or ivory. Yeah, I'm a neutral kind of girl when it comes to accessories. Which one would you choose?


About the online portfolio - I've been thinking about submitting my new embroidery to some magazines. I understand that physical press kits aren't necessary anymore. A link to a nice portfolio should do the trick. So that's what I've done (well in the process of doing). I may eventually link to my etsy shop. Not sure about that yet. I used weebly.com. Free and so easy!

Note to Self: Buy Needles in Bulk

This is getting ridiculous. Obviously I'm doing something that shouldn't be done. The one on the left snapped so is now in the trash. Does it make me a bad person because I'll keep using the other two until they snap too? Tell me I'm not alone.

Jewelry Displays for Craft Show

I've been busy lately creating some displays for my wrist cuffs and pincushion rings. I don't do a lot of craft shows. When I do, my displays are less than professional. I really want everything to look nicer for my next show. Want to see what I came up with?

The ones in the back are for the cuffs. For each one, I covered two boxes in black wrapping paper and cut holes in them. Then I slipped white shipping tubes into the holes.

The ring boxes are again boxes covered in black wrapping paper. Then I covered paper towel rolls (cut down) with white paper. Both were easy and inexpensive.

Here they are with my cuffs and pincushion rings.....

Next was a banner. I did a show recently with tarabu. She had a great banner and told me just how to make one like hers. Here it is.....

Each black rectangle is a half piece of felt. I cut the letters from white felt then embroidered some daisies and french knots.

Up next will be a display for my embroidered towels. I've got it all mapped out in my mind. I have dowels and two pieces of wood for the bases. All I need is a length of 2x2 wood. My husband said he'd do it for me. I'm thinking of attempting it myself. I'll just need to cut the 2x2 a few times and drill a bunch of holes. Dare I?

Etsy's Featured Seller - mocowhandknits

If you're like me, you love to read the interviews with Etsy's featured sellers. The story doesn't end there though. How about post-interviews with those sellers to learn about their time in the spotlight? Here's an interview with the creative and talented moocowhandknits, featured November 14, 2008.

What do you think are the reasons your shop was chosen to be featured?
I honestly have no idea. I do know though, that I was in LOADS of treasuries during the summer last year, and made it on to the front page a lot - I think this had a lot to do with changing the style of my photos and moving away from toys and baby things, into more clothing for women. I guess I caught the eye of someone in admin from there :)

What was your reaction to hearing that you'd been chosen?
oh my god LOL even remembering it makes me go all funny :D It was about 11.30 at night I think when I got the convo from admin (we're 5 or 6 hours ahead of EST here in the UK). My hands were shaking and all I could do was laugh (in a slightly hysterical manner) and say 'ohmygod' a lot :D I couldn't string a sentence together for about an hour afterwards, and I didn't sleep a wink all night, it was GREAT!

Since you couldn't run to the forums to tell us, who was the first person you told?
Mr moo was sitting next to me at the time, so obviously he knew, and I told my mum the next day. I then told some of my best etsy friends (who are also friends outside etsy). After about a week I told the guys in the UK chat thread, as admin didn't tell me not to say anything. I couldn't have kept it a secret, I was so excited.

How much time did you have before your feature and what did you do to prepare?
I had three weeks to prepare, but I had just sold about 4 quite large custom orders, which meant I didn't have a lot of time to make new things. I didn't really do anything to the shop except inactivate most of the items in the final week, as I was a bit worried that I'd have no stock left :D Luckily, I cleared all my custom work before the weekend that I was featured, but I didn't have any stock made up which was a pity. I thought it was more important to please my customers that had already bought something.

What affect did the feature have on your shop during your time? Since then?
was amazingly lucky to be chosen about 6 weeks before christmas, so maybe I had more traffic from christmas shoppers - whether it was that or not, it was a truly amazing weekend. What surprised me the most was all the lovely convos I got from all sorts of people, saying well done and complimenting my work. People were so kind. As most of my items were made to order, it took me about a month to catch up, and all my customers were very understanding - the visibility lasted a good two months or so, so my sales were still very good right up until January.

Anything else you'd like to share about your experience?
ummm, apart from thanks to etsy of course (I sent a very gushing email to the poor admin who chose me LOL) I think the important thing to remember for anyone coveting being a featured seller, is that featured sellerdom doesn't last forever, you just go back to being a normal seller afterwards, and we're all just normal people. There is no conspiracy theory by etsy admin, we don't all live in NY and we don't all bribe etsy with cupcakes :D I did it with cookies (KIDDING KIDDING!!)




Links you'd like to share?
I currently dont sell anywhere but etsy, having tried and discarded a few other sites, nor do I blog, but you can find me on flickr as moocowhandknits, where I put up sneaky peeks of works in progress, and other random photos of my life. I also have a group on flickr called 'I think I'll give this to moo' where people give me photos of things they think I'll like, mostly cake, but also things that look like other things, sheep, wool and (sometimes) dishy men :D It's a public group so come on in :D

Congratulations to moocowhandknits!

Read more of my interviews with Featured Sellers here.

I've joined FaceBook

I've finally joined the FaceBook crowd. I've been resisting for a while, but decided to take the plunge.

I had two main reasons to create a business page on FaceBook....

1. No guilt promotion. Promoting is a difficult thing. I try to be very careful where I do it and not to over-do it. With a business page on FaceBook, there's no need to worry. Anyone that signs up as a fan has done so to hear about my shops.

2. I've been very bad about sending out newsletters. I decided to make this my newsletter. My fans (that sounds odd) will hear about what's new and I'll also offer to them exclusive discounts from time to time. I very rarely ever have sales, so this way I can offer a little something to those that have shown an interest in my creations.

So, if you want to become a fan, you'll find me at http://artist.to/DotDotStitch.

If you're an etsy buyer, please see this page on my blog. I'm compiling a list of etsy sellers with FaceBook pages. Each FaceBook link is accompanied by the shop's etsy mini. This way you can scroll through the pages, seeing a few items from each seller, then fan the ones that interest you.

Sellers, if you'd like to be listed, just leave a comment there with all of your info.

Hope to see you on FaceBook!

Etsy's Featured Seller - chickprint

If you're like me, you love to read the interviews with Etsy's featured sellers. The story doesn't end there though. How about post-interviews with those sellers to learn about their time in the spotlight? Here's an interview with the creator of amazing cards - chickprint, featured November 3, 2008.

What do you think are the reasons your shop was chosen to be featured?
I had people convo’g me asking the same question, but I honestly still don’t have an answer as to why I was featured. At the time my sales where not high but I had had some exposure through some well known design blogs like Design Sponge, Apartment Therapy, Babble, etc. My store opened in August of last year, and I believe my Etsy feature came out in November. A lot of my clients have said they love the simplicity of the cards, they are modern but with a little nostalgia and maybe that is what attracted Etsy to my shop. Either way, there is so much awesome work out there from other Etsy vendors that I was floored that they had picked my shop to feature.

What was your reaction to hearing that you'd been chosen?
Big smile and a lot of anxiety, as I had made this one of my goals when I opened up my shop--I just never thought the store would get that kind of attention so quickly or even at all. I was on cloud 9 that day. All the hard work and weekend hours away from my kids trying to set up the shop had paid off.

Since you couldn't run to the forums to tell us, who was the first person you told?
My husband, Marcos, and then I emailed everyone I knew….

How much time did you have before your feature and what did you do to prepare?
I had about a week before the feature was posted. All of my cards are made to order so all I could do was make sure I had enough materials to work with. I am a stay-at-home mom of two toddler girls, so what worried me the most was having enough hours in the day to fulfill the orders (I work mostly at night after my daughters have gone to bed).

What affect did the feature have on your shop during your time? Since then?
I was bombarded with convos and orders. I was overwhelmed. I am a one-woman show… I design, print, cut and ship everything myself, and as most people know, answering convos/emails alone can take a good chunk of your time, so it was an insane two weeks for me—there was very little time for sleep!

Since then?
The insanity lasted two weeks but orders continued to come in as the feature went up right before the holidays, so the timing was perfect. Things have calmed down since to a pace I find more enjoyable—allowing me time to focus on new designs. Business comes in waves and advertising has been key to keeping the shop active. Blogs like these are tremendously helpful too, so I am also very thankful to all the bloggers out there who help promote independent Artist!

Anything else you'd like to share about your experience?
The feature on Etsy was a highlight, but being on Etsy alone has been phenomenal for someone like me who only has so many hours in the day to dedicate to my studio and never mind not knowing where to start when it came to opening up a “shop”. There was so much to consider, the overall style I wanted to convey through my cards, branding, packaging, etc. Right now it’s nice to be a bit under the radar as it’s allowing me the time to test the waters and hopefully as I build up I can take my business to the next level.



Any links you'd like to share?
I love http://www.designspongeonline.com/. It features a lot of local Brooklyn designers in all aspects of design.

Chick Print recently joined twitter: http://twitter.com/chickprint

I also have a flicker account I started where I will be uploading inspirational ideas I’d like to share through Twitter. The most recent was a photographic jaunt with my kids through Brooklyn looking for street art. My kids love art but are not fond of enclosed museums…so this was a great way to involve the kids in a little local culture and something other parents can do too. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chickprint/sets/72157618935648687/

Congratulations to chickprint!

Read more of my interviews with Featured Sellers here.

More Machine Embroidery

I'm still plugging along with the new machine. I decided to buy some cheapy handkerchiefs to do a little practicing of monograms. I made these for my guys...

My husband showed one to his co-workers. The guys liked them, so I made one for each of them with their own initials. The girls in the office saw those, so guess what? I need to buy some girlie hankies. I think I'll buy some nicer ones to monogram for my Dad for Father's Day too.

Then I tried to fix my puckering problem that I mentioned a few days ago. Thanks to Lynn's advice NOT to hoop my fabric, everything worked out perfectly. These were done on linen. I love them!

My plan was to make wrist cuffs out of them, keeping one for myself, but I forgot to shorten one. My wrists are smaller than the size I usually make. Darn it. So these are going into my DotDotStitch shop - the first machine-embroidered goodies that I'm putting up for sale. I'll have to make one for myself in the next batch. The trouble is that I'm still not sure which design I want. Hmmmmm.