EtsyBloggers Featured Member – Magdalene Knits & Jewels

 

This month’s featured member is Pamela, with 2 Etsy shops: Magdalene Knits & Magdalene Jewels.

You can read an interview with Pamela over at the EtsyBloggers page where she talks about her inspiration, creativity and gives some tips for Etsy lovers.  I can definitely relate to her love of knit & crochet – that’s a new shop for her, becoming a grandma has inspired her to make lots of baby items and my favorite one has got to be these Crocheted Moccasins:

I love how adorably tiny baby booties are, these are really, really precious!!

This Smoky Quartz Swarovski Crystal Necklace caught my eye over at her jewelry shop – definitely a departure from my usual bold picks, but I thought the sparkle and color were subtle and beautiful:

Pamela also blogs, and makes videos her Treasuries!  I’ve never seen a video of a Treasury before – put to music – she must have a lot of fun doing those.

Enjoy your visit with this creative team member!

Being a Team Player

Reality has thrown me for a loop since this summer and I’ve been struggling to keep up with all the things going on in life -- my online Etsy Team participation has definitely fallen by the wayside.  So, my next few blog posts will focus on the Etsy Teams that I’m a member of.

First of all, is the EcoEtsy Team’s winter promotion and “Green Gift Shopping Directory”:

 

Support indie handmade makers, and save the earth!  This is a great team full of passionate, creative folks.

Knit Gifts and Keeping Warm Wristers

One baby hat knit and gifted; a handful of fingerless mittens and a pair of wrist warmers made up, labeled and packed up to sell at Apotheca’s Artisan Fair this weekend.  I haven’t been this focused and determined to work on projects in a long time.  The more I have to do, the more I squeeze into my schedule.

Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating!  I’m thankful to you, my readers, your feedback, and for the chance to sit back and relax this year.  No company, no travelling, just the four of us and lots of time to play with yarn this week!

November Knitting

So far this month, finished some projects: a sweater and scarf for myself.  Pie slice gifted.  Started a new knitting project & hope to start a crochet one today to use up lace yarn that I still have about 500 yards of.  Details in Ravelry.

Later this week: work on projects to teach in December and get started on gift making.

Online Sharing & Marketing

Above is a picture I put up on Flickr.com back in 2009.  Recently, I received an email asking if it was “ok” to use this picture in an online magazine, talking writing (article here).  I agreed and have been very flattered at the request.

Not everyone who uses my pictures asks first, but [just about] everyone gives me credit & links back to my site as I’ve requested here in my blog.  How do I know?  Google analytics (Traffic Sources) can show me where readers have come from, and I’ve been able to see who’s used/referenced my pictures or tutorials.  Tracking them back to their website, translating pages and finding new crafty folks on the internet has been fun.  Sometimes it’s surprising where in the world the links are coming from.  Visitors to this site have come from over 120 countries/territories & that’s pretty exciting to me!

It would be nice if everyone asked first, but at least there are tools to make these discoveries yourself.

So… onto Marketing… Flickr.com has been a great tool that I find invaluable and easy to use.  Their Terms of Service don’t allow selling from your photo descriptions, but putting a shop link at your profile page is handy.  I’ve had people admire a product I’ve photographed and when they message me about it, I can direct them to where it’s available.  Flickr has a generous free amount of monthly photo storage – it’s worth the few clicks to store your photos online at this location.

What are your experiences with online sharing?

Sheep Shaped

Baked some delicious “sheep” cookies last week – recipe for Royal Icing (sort of) frosting & Sugar Cookie can be found at {the decorated cookie}.  If you like your shaped cookies to stay the shape you cut them in, this is the Sugar Cookie recipe to use! 

Much better looking than my attempt at “yarn” cookies a month ago.  Those can be seen at the CraftFail website, one of the funniest sites I’m privileged to contribute to.  The only one that makes me laugh harder is Cake Wrecks.   Do you have any favorite websites that make you laugh?