Latest Project: New Beading Team Blog

Apparently, I don’t have enough on my plate. Juggling my day job, my freelance job, 4 Etsy shops, craft fairs and consignment deals, family and friends, etc., etc., must leave me with too much time on my hands. /Sarcasm ends here. So when Heather, the Captain of the Etsy Hearts Beads team on Etsy, asked me if I would be interested in becoming a team leader, I accepted with enthusiasm.

The team has been lacking in member participation, and as one of the more active members of the team, she seems to think that I can help to turn things around. Being a member of quite a few teams, 36 with my MegansBeadedDesigns shop ALONE, I have a variety of theories on what makes a team more involved and what leads one to stagnation. Because I am an active blogger, she put me in charge of the team blog. This is actually something I’m excited about, all sarcasm aside.

I decided to create the blog in Blogger, just because I haven’t used the platform before and wanted an excuse to try it out. I have to say that it’s kind of like going back to using the Microsoft Office programs after getting used to Adobe Creative Suite. (Oh, dear me! is my Geek showing?) Too much hand-holding, user-friendly crap–and not enough customization options. But I’ll get used to it. Blogger does allow JavaScript and more flexible monetizing options, so there are positives aspects to it. (I’m still a loyal fan of WordPress though!) It’ll just take me a little more getting used to.

I’ve barely launched the blog off the ground, but I am excited for everything I plan on doing with it. It will feature treasuries from our team, featured member interviews, tutorials, articles on beading, and other fun tidbits. I think it will grow into an important tool to promote our team and all of the members within. If you feel like sending some of your love our way feel free to drop by to leave a comment, or to sign up as a follower!

Local Etsy Team Show = BIG SUCCESS!

This last Saturday I was able to participate in my local Inland Northwest Etsy Team’s craft show. It was held at The Service Station, a local coffee shop on the north-end of Spokane. This event was by far the most fun I’ve had at a craft fair in a long time. It was a bit disorganized at first (a lot of vendors showed up at our assigned time at 7 a.m. only to discover that the room wasn’t ready for us and we weren’t sure where to set up!) But we eventually figured it out to the best of our ability and just kind of went with the flow of things. After the initial set-up, my experience with the show greatly improved. The general atmosphere became cheerful as the event started, especially as buyers began flowing through. There are many simple reasons of which may be attributed to this show’s success.

A Small, Cozy Venue
We had only 17 vendors, in a fairly small conference room. This meant no one’s booth got missed. Each person who came up to see the show saw each and every vendor there. (My grandfather tried to come see me at the much bigger show at SCC, but left because he couldn’t find me!)

All Handmade
It’s understandable that some craft fairs let commercial vendors leak through from time to time. After all, handmade Tupperware isn’t an easy thing to create (I’ve tried it once, very messy! *wink, wink*) However, sometimes it goes a little overboard. For example, the self-entitled “craft fair” I attended to at Mead H.S. the second week of November had everything from Avon, to Tupperware, to Cookie Lee jewelry. If commercial vendors are going to be allowed, then perhaps they should only allow those that sell what the crafters are unable to make themselves. I can’t even imagine the storm of complaints that would ensue if a commercial soap seller staked a prominent booth, so why allow it with jewelry? It’s not really a fair competition, and it can be a big turn-off to the customers coming through looking for unique handmade gifts.

Well Advertised

Glass Bead Earrings - $5

Many modes of advertisement were assessed to get the word out. We placed an ad online in the Inlander’s website, added our date and times to local event calendars, and placed a print ad in Whitworth University’s student newspaper. Those of us in the team Facebooked the event like crazy, and we passed out flyers that we made specifically for the event. The flyers were pretty and eye-catching, so that helped.

We were able to receive a small grant from Etsy to help fund the event and the video that we made of it. The grant definitely propped up the advertising budget, and therefore contributed to the overall success of the show.

Positive Energy
I think that a room filled with happy artists and loads of positive energy makes a big difference, sales or no. I’ve become all to familiar with being placed next to some super grumpy sellers who were obviously unhappy to have to sit there all day and complain about lack of customers. I understand griping if your expectations are let down, but please try to remain hopeful until the end of the show. Your attitude will rub off on the customers!

People won’t buy from grumpy sellers because they feel sorry for them. It just DOESN’T HAPPEN. They will, however, tend to look longer at booths where the artisan is friendly and pleasant, because they enjoy being in the midst of that pleasantness. A craft fair outing is supposed to be FUN! At this particular show, the positive energy was infectious. Everyone enjoyed being there and was having a great time, even if their goods weren’t flying off the shelves.

It probably helped that we were selling in a coffee shop and all of the vendors were able to maintain high levels of caffeine! (Oh, caramel macchiatos, how wonderful you are!)

These reasons and more have put this tiny show at the top of my list as a favorite for the season. I am hoping that we will be able to do it again next year, and with a bit of luck, it will be even more successful! As the season draws to a near close, I have but one final Christmas craft fair to attend to this coming Saturday, and then I can breathe a sigh of relief for awhile and focus on my online Etsy shops. Goodness knows they have been suffering from negligence lately!

Getting the Boot

Dear readers, I am quite sad today. No need for me to beat around the bush in telling you why: I got kicked off of one of my favorite Etsy teams.

I know, I know, it’s BRUTAL. The rules were pretty strict and ever-changing but I was doing my best to keep up with them and follow them (or so I thought.) Apparently, not good enough. I was treating the rules too much like guidelines rather than requirements, and I have received the punishment that I justly deserved.

This team was a treasury team, and like all good treasury teams, the rules and regulations were fierce. All for the best results for the team as a whole. When I had first joined anyone on the team could make a team treasury as long as if followed the basic guidelines (at least four members, no repeats, yada, yada…) Because all team treasuries were posted to an e-mail group that wound up in each member’s personal inbox, the overwhelming amount of e-mails eventually caused the rules to change to only 12 treasuries a day, and the members had to sign up ahead of time to gain the slots. If addition to these sign-up slots, each member has to make one non-slot treasury a month that will go on the chat message board, not the main one, and be posted on the team Etsy page.

So, trying to follow the new rules I signed up for a slot and posted my treasury for the day I signed up for. Oops! I didn’t look at how many people had already signed up, and my treasury caused the amount of e-mail to go overboard by 1 that day. I did get quite a lashing from that one, I must confess, and became scared to try to sign up for any slots thereafter. I just did my monthly treasury and occasionally made team treasuries that I didn’t e-mail out to the group.

‘Black AND Blue’ by chumaka

MyBabyandCompa… $24.00	MegansBeadedDe… $19.95	PetalMix $32.00
darshanpottery $28.00	pirategirl7626… $100.00	zaisy $9.99
creatureness $26.00	sevenannine $19.95	tracisallymaxx $6.99
WildRoseHerbs $9.95	JessMadeThis $3.75	outtamyshed $34.00

I tried to comment on the treasuries with the team tag on a daily basis (or, I guess I should say week-day basis because getting to these treasuries on the weekends was very unlikely, especially when I was working my weekend job.) Anyway, to make a long story short, I wasn’t commenting enough. I would miss days here and there because of other things (like being side-tracked by this blog I have come to love so much) and missed quite a few important treasuries. Me = not exactly the best team-player.

Finally, I got a message from the team captain telling me I had gotten the boot. I tried to go to the e-mail group to see if it was really true, and I had been kicked out of there as well. It’s all so shocking. This was by far one of my favorite teams. Besides the treasuries we have had a separate e-mail group for “chatting” and sharing what’s been going on in our lives. I knew this was an awesome team when one of the leaders suggested we all chip in to buy a new computer for our captain because of everything she had done for us. I gladly gave my $20 for the cause. I really felt like a part of something, and felt a swell of pride every time one of our treasuries was on the FP or when half of page 1 of the treasuries was our collections. This was a treasury team worth my time.

Time I didn’t have enough of apparently. I will now dutifully delete the team tag off of all of my items. one sad little item at a time. It’ll take me awhile and I hope the members aren’t peeved at me if I can’t get them all done today. At least now I can try to look at the positive side: it was bound to happen eventually. I simply did not have the time to be commenting on treasuries constantly throughout the day. My sometimes-when-I-feel-like-it approach was not good enough. Nor am I going to argue that it should have been accepted as anything otherwise. The captain of the team made a good decision by giving me the boot, and I respect her for it. Maybe now I can put forth more effort into some of the other awesome teams I’m a part of and have kind of been neglecting lately as well. You win some, you lose some.