Creations In Glass Blog

Wow, we finally decided to do it.  We've been debating about getting a pool for years, and we are closing on our loan today to build the pool.  We decided to do it, because the kids love the water, and man it is so darned hot here, that we need a way to cool off and spend time outside.  I grew up with a pool, so I'm used to the maintenance and upkeep, but man have things changed!

Here are our pool designs so far: 

This first pic shows the top view. Features include pebble tec, salt water, in ground floor cleaning, lagoon entry, spa, seating in the pool, and a sunken kitchen/bar area covered by the tahitian palapa, and swim up bar.

Pool1

This second pictures would show what it looks like from inside the sunken kitchen area looking towards the house.

Pool2

The third view looking towards the shallow end.

Pool3

The fourth view looking from the gate area towards the deep end. 

Pool4

It will have a cool deck, and fencing all around. We hope to install a sink, refrigerator and possibly a tv in the outdoor kitchen area, as well as a charcoal barbeque.

My next post will show the property before any digging is started! 

I got really lucky Friday afternoon around 5:30pm our time.  As you can see by my last post, our yellow stained glass butterfly has made it to the Etsy Front Page via the 4 scrolling Knock Out Images. 

I received a convo from a friend to let me know that we had a piece in a front page treasury!  I was shocked because we haven't had much treasury exposure lately.  It has been kind of disheartening since I had spent well over a month photo-editing all of our images.

Here is the front page treasury with our SAILBOAT fused glass plate and our yellow butterfly in the corner as one of the knockout images

creationsinglass_frontpage6-20

Sara from Etsy Teams picked out this treasury, and I want to say thank you!  I am the founder of the Creative Glass Guild of Etsy street team, and you can visit our team website here: http://www.cgge.org to see lots of great glass in different styles!  We also have blog updates, articles and member spotlights :)

Please visit Sara's blog here and show her some love: http://girlscantell.typepad.com/

YES!  I am so excited and pleased to see one our images/pieces on Etsy's front page.  As far as I know, we've only been in a front page treasury 2 times.  I've been told numerous times that photos are so uber important on Etsy for exposure and selection into treasuries, gift guides etc.  So, I embarked on a month long, self taught photo editing adventure, more on that in future posts! 

So, the image is a little yellow butterfly suncatcher and it is featured on the front page as part of a series of 4 scrolling images in the upper right hand corner.  The images are called Knock Out Images from what I can tell.  Here is some more info on how they are chosen etc.  http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5641253&page=1 

They are clickable directly to the listing in your shop.  I noticed this because I was checking the majaba heart-o-tron site to monitor item hearts and views, and I had 3 new hearts in one day on that piece.  WOW!  So, I thought maybe it was featured in a front page treasury.  Then I saw it!

Here is the screen shot!  I was playing with Flickr photo editing tools, and accidentally included an extra black arrow mid page, ignore that one!

My butterfly on Etsy's front page!

So, this has resulted in 4 new hearts on that piece, and almost 30 new views to that piece just today.  It is really exciting and great exposure.  Here are my before & after pics of the image before and after editing in photo shop to make it a pure white background or knockout image!  I cropped it square, 6 in X 6 in and basically adjusted curves and used the magic wand tool to outline my piece and then adjusted the curves again in the background to make it pure white.  Here is a link to the tutorial I used:  http://theswitchboards.com/articles_professionalphotos.html

There are easier and more efficient ways to do this, I'm told, so here are a few other helpful photo-editing links:

http://lapellaart.blogspot.com/2007/11/product-shots-for-not-so-dumb.html

http://www.graphic-design-employment.com/photoshop-clipping-paths.html

I plan on posting more before and after pics in my upcoming blog entries.  Stay tuned and I'd love to hear from you!

Kris

Here is my next chart!  It was inspired by Loosewirestudio.etsy.com

She has always been very helpful in the forums and I think is one of the pioneers for plotting all things Etsy...Check out her Etsy charts here:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/loosewirestudio/sets/72157603401715031/

Here is mine:

My biggest peaks in transactions were prior to Christmas 07 & prior to Mother's Day 07.

cig_summary_salestracking

These were pretty easy to make, I just downloaded my CSV files from Etsy from the Billing page and made a tab for each month, I used auto filter and sorted by transaction type, then created a separate tab to summarize the data by month and type, then plotted with a line graph.  If it's too complicated for you, http://Loosewirestudio.etsy.com is selling a super cheap version.

You can get more complete stats etc from these 2 Etsy sellers:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5418829

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5903349

Wow, this question is always asked on Etsy...What is the best day of week to list, what is the best time of day to list, etc.

With the capability to download the csv files from your sold items, I was able to create a summary chart of all my sales since I started selling on Etsy (June 2006).  I have almost 2 years of data summarized in this little chart.  I formatted the cell to include the day of week and then sorted by day of week.  Then I quickly created a summary table, where I summed up all sales for a particular day of week (DOW) and then plotted in a bar graph.  I'm working on creating more charts and would love to hear how my sales data compares to yours...

It looks like Wednesday was my best day as far as quantity of sales (also as far as total $ earned).

Cig_sales_dow

The community of crafters and artists on ETSY---your place to buy and sell handmade are having a site wide YART SALE!  Like a Yard Sale but for Arts & Crafts.  It is from JUNE 11-20th and participating shops will be posting YART SALE in their listings, tags, titles, avatars, banners etc. to let you know that they are participants!

We have  special YART SALE section in our shop creationsinglass.etsy.com of already marked down pieces, no need to await a revised invoice!

Yartsale

For more information visit this thread~

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5653370

Creations in Glass on Etsy Top 100 List 

I just found out about this new page from some of my Creative Glass Guild of Etsy team members.  I figured it couldn't hurt to get more exposure for free!

From what I can tell it is a ranking system of hits to and from your link on their ranked list!  I sent them a link to my banner and they place it on their site and they give me links to post on mine.  Check it out!

banner cig

<!-- data banner code begin --> <!-- data banner code end -->

So, we finally decided to pay for advertising to see if it pans out...We've been experimenting with ProjectWonderful, see previous posts, but decided to try out advertising on the CelebrationBoutique.

We took out a bronze ad, which is $29 for a year...not bad, hopefully it gets lots of exposure and brings some people in for a look-see.  Here is the ad:

Bronze ad cb

Because we joined we were included in their Mother's Day Showcase, see below:

Mothersdayshowcase_CB

If you are interested in this chance to advertise, it is by invitation only...I guess it is juried but I haven't heard of anyone being rejected...  You can find more information here:

http://www.celebratewithstyle.com/site/celebration-boutique

I just wish there was a way to track how many clicks the ad was getting, and if any sales came from it...

Post your comments here if you have any critiques, suggestions, experience etc.!

What a nice day!  We've had the pleasure of 4 sold items!  Because Etsy doesn't give us stats, I can't tell you what worked.  But, our strategy for Mother's Day has been to try out ads via Project Wonderful and to try a few other venues, increased posting in the Etsy forums, and a Mother's Day showcase feature on Etsy.  One of our sales was from a brand new Etsy buyer, just joined the same day they purchased from us...maybe they came from one of my ads!

Here is our new ad, that we are placing all over cyber space:

Fish closeup ad

We've spent about $12 so far, and have 10-12 ads up, and have received about 118 clicks last time I checked.

We also just purchased ad space in the Celebration Boutique, what a cool site!  We'll be featured in their Mother's Day Showcase as well.  We had to apply to be included because it is by "invitation only"...not sure if they accept everyone that applies, but we'll see if this pans out for us, it was $29 for a year...

Do you have other tips or strategies?  Post them here!!!!