February 17, 2011

50 Sites To Help Promote Your Etsy Shop

I was given this link.
Please note
that many of these places are full-fledged online communities - destinations in themselves - and will require an account be setup to be able to use these to help promote your Etsy shop.
It's not one-click easy. It's 50 different destination ideas for you. :)

50 Sites To Help Promote Your Etsy Shop

Side notes: Twitter has been my best source of increased views, so far. That might be because I very rarely use Facebook / Google to promote, but I don't know. (I just optimized my shops last week, and still haven't optimized over half of my items).

Etsy Treasuries I have been featured in

Here are some wonderful Etsy Treasuries - or galleries of handcrafted items picked by other Etsy members - which I have been featured in. Enjoy browsing through all of the great merchandise from these creative souls!

Treasury One

Treasury Two

Treasury Three

Treasury Four

Treasury Five

Treasury Six

Treasury Seven

Treasury Eight

Treasury Nine

Treasury Ten

Treasury Eleven

Treasury Twelve

Treasury Thirteen

Treasury Fourteen

Treasury Fifteen

Treasury Sixteen

Treasury Seventeen

Treasury Eighteen

Treasury Nineteen

Treasury Twenty

Isn't it amazing? The generosity of others... :)

Blogs Who Feature Etsians

Here's a blog post that will showcase a few fellow bloggers who feature Etsians, or denizens of Etsy, on their pages. :)

I'd like to get in to this one:

Handcrafted Handpainted Haven

I need better product photos though! :)

Here's another.

Heart Handmade

Maybe I'll try to get in to that one too.

Gorgeous Murano beads

This shop on Etsy has the most beautiful handmade glass beads I have found yet.

On working with dentalium...

Here are my musings on working with dentalium (aka tusk shell, tooth shell).

First of all, I bought far more shells then I needed! I've wanted them for a long time though. I'm used to my very bad math, and more is better! Everything arrived and I was just blown away! So many shells, so little time. I spent the next 4 hours cleaning / sterilizing them, then I laid them on a towel to dry. Note to self: do not do this in front of door. I stepped over the pile of shells for 2 weeks...

I have been packaging them (after pulling out the tiny ones and the junk) in resale bags of 100. I graded & packaged 27 bags the first day! That's exuberance. :)

I looked up the species. I believe it's here. An octagonal shape, translucent white dentalium from The Philippines. They are much more ridged then the 'precious dentalium' from the US pacific coast. Still, they're the real deal, so onward with work!

Today I began the work in earnest.

First I had to de-grain some braintan mule deer I did in 2008, to use for spacers and ties. That is hard work but it's fun. The leather comes out so soft and fluffy!
I selected 80 shells from the resale pile and decided to make a 10-row Ponca style choker from them.

I snipped the tips off with a guillotine cutter. It was easier then trimming parakeet nails.

Now for the 'de silting'. Almost every one of them was jam packed with Phillipine sand! How aggravating. So I took a pin and removed the sand from every one of them. This took an hour and 20 minutes (for 80 shells). 2 exploded. Not fun!
Then it was time to match up the rows and start sewing. Because the tops were so rough and small, I decided against filing/sanding them. Instead I used rugged beading wire and 2 thicknesses of waxed nylon thread. That's 3 stringing materials on a needle through a little hole...

Amazingly, I didn't poke myself at all. Usually that needle (a cutting point) will impale me at least once. I bleed and cry like a 3 year old when this happens. Seriously. It HURTS. I got lucky though and all of that needling only resulted in lots more length loss to the shells... no bloody fingers.

Having a shell snap in half while you're trying to pass the needle through it is VERY annoying. Luckily I had a giant pile of shells nearby to replace the exploded ones quickly.

Almost every one of them lost some length when the thread passed through tthe hole. So this ended up much more bracelet size then choker size, and most of my careful row matching for size ended up being for naught.
I wanted to rip my hair out with exasperation...
Finally, after almost 3 and a half hours, the choker was finished! It looks very nice.
Here is the thread which provided the inspiration.

I used double-shaved, de-grained braintan; the Ponca used *much* thicker, stiffer harness leather.

The ties on my choker are actually tied in to the necklace, not just slip loop knotted on to the first and last rows. Additionally I have sewn covers on to the first and last rows, so my knots are not exposed. It makes for a much softer (and more attractive to a contemporary user, as this is intended for) wearing experience.

What a hand-killer though. Every stitch was done with a needle awl - the old way... not a single stitch would pass through the leather unaided. Mule deer are the thickest-skinned North American deer - elk are elk, and moose are moose! - and I am using skin from about a foot in front of the rump, from a mature buck, unframed. I should have used white-tail doe belly! :)

Now I know why dentalium stuff costs so much. The earrings are going to have to wait. Man what a PITA.

Blog Central

My blog's now open for pleasure and business.

My Etsy shops are here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/featherjewels
(for all of your feather needs)


http://www.etsy.com/shop/rfamilyjools
(for all of your inexpensive fashion jewelry needs)

My Facebook Fan Page

Hi everyone! Here is my brand-new Facebook fan page. I published it just to get it out the door, so to speak. Please become a fan and I will reciprocate!

Feather Jewels Fan Page On Facebook.


The “lots of beads” picture above, is taken from the back of my door, where I have like 30 hanks of beads hanging, just waiting to be put in to projects. That is very inspiring to me, to see all of that color, just waiting to be utilized.