Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Upcoming June 2013 Holidays, Treasury Inspiration



More inspiration for making gorgeous Treasuries that will get Etsy and Etsy shoppers attention. A Full list of Daily holidays can be found here: http://familycrafts.about.com/library/spdays/bljundayslong.htm

Here is a recap of month and weekly celebrations!

Month Long Observances

  • Dairy Month
  • Great Outdoors Month
  • National Adopt-A-Cat Month
  • National Drive Safe Month
  • National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month
  • National Iced Tea Month
  • National Rose Month
  • National Safety Month
  • National Tennis Month
  • Potty Training Awareness Month
  • Turkey Lovers Month
  • Zoo and Aquarium Month
Week Long Observances
  • 1st Week - National Fishing Week
  • 2nd Week - National Clay Week
  • 4th Week - National Camping Week
Some great ideas to get your creating! Have fun and get to Page 1!! 

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Upcoming May Holidays Treasury Inspiration!!

As we all strive to get our Treasury on the Front Page, keep in mind Etsy loves popular holiday themes. I also have seen some quirky holiday themes. I found a great site with May's upcoming celebrations! : http://familycrafts.about.com/library/spdays/blmaydayslong.htm

Here is a a short list of themes we might use, you can click the link above for a day by day list as well!

Month Long Observances

  • May Is American Bike Month
  • Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
  • Asparagus Month
  • Asthma & Allergy Awareness Month
  • Better Hearing and Speech Month
  • Flower Month
  • National Bar-B-Que Month
  • National Egg Month
  • National Duckling Month
  • National Hamburger Month
  • National Mental Health Month
  • National Salad Month
  • National Photo Month
  • National Physical Fitness and Sports Month
  • National Strawberry Month
  • Older Americans Month
  • Transportation Month
Week Long Observances


  • 1st Week - National Postcard Week
  • 1st Week -Teacher Appreciation Week
  • 2nd Week - National Pet Week
  • 2nd Week - National Police Week
    Celebrate in whichever week has May 15th.
  • 2nd Week - Stuttering Awareness Week
  • Last Week - National Backyard Games Week
    Last full week before Memorial Day.

  • I know that I will be celebrating BAR-B-Q month FOR SURE!!

    Happy Treasury  Making!
    Bill
    PaganCellarJewelry

    Tuesday, April 2, 2013

    March Trend Challenge WINNER - Alex De Haro


    We had some AMAZING entries for this March Trend Challenge which you can see here: 

    But the lucky winner of this challenge has been Alex De Haro.  To see more of her amazing pieces of jewelry go here:  Modern Contemporary Jewelry

    This particular piece we featured here was the WINNING piece to our challenge.  One hot spring trend is geometric shapes and this necklace was a perfect fit.  

    Here is how Alex De Haro describes herself and her business, "Hi my name is Alex. I was born and live in Barcelona,Spain.

    I have always been fascinated by structures, spaces, nature and the essence of places and I realised at an early age that jewelry could be created to reflect almost all the forms that I could imagine at a relatively low material investment and with my own hands.

    When I was 19 my sole focus was to travel, get to know exotic places and experience thrilling adventures. And this is when I started my trips first to Colombia and Brazil, and then China, Mongolia, Russia as well as other places in Europe. These trips became rites of passage to self knowledge, which led me to open my perspective of the world at both a human and spiritual level.

    Architecture, sculpture, industrial design were all disciplines that I liked, but my travels and the fact that my parents are artisans -my father a silversmith, and my mother specialising in kiln glazed enamel works- provided me with direct contact with metals. All this created conditions that led me to the design and creation of jewelry as a way of life.

    In 1993, at the age of 23 I founded the family company Haro Bosch specialising in contemporary jewelry. In 2007, I went to live in Portugal and I founded the brand “Aro” in collaboration with the well known jewelry designer Cristina Costa. Two years later, I then returned to Barcelona and started my own company Alex de Haro. My work is sold all throughout Spain in the most important contemporary jewelry stores such as HipĆ³tesis, Onajoya, Pajaro Azul, El Espiritu de la Esquina and Istra. Apart from Portugal and Spain pieces have also been commercialized in Japan. I have participated in collective and individual contemporary jewelry exhibitions, of which the latest took place in Barcelos (Portugal, 2008) and Amber Art (Barcelona, 2011)."

    CONGRATS on winning our challenge!
    Your winning necklace at the top of this blog will now be BLASTED via Tweet bombs to over 50,000 twitter followers.
    We will set up tweet bombs and RT the items to our networks!   We will also Pin to our Team Pinterest Account the winning items!  http://pinterest.com/etsypromofrenzy/

    Etsy Tools for Sellers: Prototypes




    Etsy has a lot of tools to help us as sellers succeed.  We have forums and teams, shop stats, search ads, and the super informative Etsy Seller Handbook.  All of these are great tools (especially teams like PromoFrenzy).  One of my favorite things offered by Etsy is their prototypes.  I’m a member of five out of the 15 currently available, and while some haven’t really affected me one way or another, some have proved invaluable.

    What is an Etsy Prototype? Straight from the Etsy Prototype page:
     Prototypes are projects from Etsy Admin that explore different ways of using Etsy.  Each prototype is released with the goal of gathering data and observing how people use them.  Note: Given their nature, these projects may come and go at any time, and they may not always work as expected. Etsy offers limited support for prototypes.
    Basically, by joining an Etsy Prototype, you’re becoming a sort of beta tester, helping Etsy experiment with potential new features that they may or may not decide to roll out to everyone.  Some are by invitation only, some you have to apply to, and others still can just be signed up for with the click of a button.

    Over the holidays, I was lucky enough to be invited to join a shipping prototype that let me offer a variety of shipping speeds to my customers.  It was amazing, and once I got it set up, it was a huge time saver.  My customers could choose what speed worked for them without either of us having to jump through extra hoops, and, as a special little treat, items that would arrive on or before December 24th were surfaced to last minute shoppers.  I’m fairly certain being a member of this prototype was a huge contributor to my shops success at the end of last year. 

    I was so bummed when the decided to do away with the changes rather than roll them out, but that’s the nature of prototypes.  It was still really awesome; not only was I able to experiment with the potential changes, but I was also able to provide feedback and discuss improvements with Etsy admins.  I felt like I had some say in the future of such a great site.

    There are about 15 current prototypes on Etsy right now.  To learn more about each one, you can visit http://www.etsy.com/prototypes and scroll through the list.  The following are four of my favorite:
    I added this prototype last year, shortly after I joined Etsy, so I’m not 100% positive what the difference between shop stats with and without this might be.  I think the biggest difference is that on your shop stats page, down below the “Listing Favorites” section, there’s a “Treasuries” section that lists all the treasuries you’ve been featured in for whatever time period you’ve selected, and what items have been featured.

    This is one of my favorite prototypes, and it’s just invaluable for creating treasuries.  Once you’ve joined this prototype, you can add items to your treasury with one click, and it’s automatically saved.
    When I click on that link circled in red, I’ve given the option to add it to an existing treasury, or to create a new one:
     And then, whatever option I pick, it automatically saves the item to the assigned treasury, which is a huge help, because sometimes I forget to save, and wind up losing entire treasuries.


    This is another really awesome prototype.  I believe there’s currently a waiting list to join, but once you do, you can upload your digital products (up to 5 files per item, or 20MB, whichever comes first) and when a customer’s payment is processed, they get a link to download the item automatically.  It’s a huge time saver (once you’ve uploaded all your files), and while there’s still some drawbacks, it’s such a handy tool.  I can’t wait to see what else they do with it, and I’m hoping they’ll decide to roll it out to everyone.

    This is one I’ve only just joined, but I’m really excited about the concept.  I accept custom orders, in fact I love custom orders, but communicating that to potential customers has been a challenge from day one.  By joining this prototype, there’s now a very prominent button on every item page that says “Request Custom Order”

    that when clicked on, brings up a contact box

    Pretty cool, right?

    There are plenty of other great prototypes, all of which can be found at http://www.etsy.com/prototypes

    They're definitely worth checking out, and who knows, you might find something that makes your life a little easier.

    Happy sales to everyone!