Friday, May 30, 2008

It's time again for anther feature...


theshadowcat! theshadowcat is a seller from the UK who creates these darling felt animals. This one is named Po Po. Isn't she the sweetest little monkey you've ever seen?
In addition to the felt animals, you'll also find some illustrations and some vintage items.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Summer is fast approaching...

and with each new season, it's time to put out some fun new decorations!


Here is a fireworks garland Sister K just listed. It's actually three separate strands that you can display all at once, or as one long garland.

Can't you just picture it hanging from a fireplace mantle; across the back of an island in your kitchen; along a window sill; from our chandelier; draped over a curtain rod? I could go on and on!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The un-cooperative model

First she decides modeling isn't for her and tries to leave...


Then I try to keep her fingers occupied by giving her various things like a pony tail holder...



That won't quite do to have that in the picture and while I'm frantically thinking of how to distract her, she decides to try taking the camera out of my hands (she's bracing herself before she makes her "grab")...


So, I guess for now, we'll resort to using feet instead of hands in our pictures...

Monday, May 19, 2008

Getting organized

This week is all about getting organized on the able mabel front. Both of our work areas could be declared federal disaster areas! We don't even know what we have where or where exactly to find things. We had a little pow-wow via the phone this morning to plan out our week and talk about where to start. Nothing got figured out for sure, but hey, it was fun chatting!

First things first...

This afternoon JB is going to scoot on over here thru the rain and we're going to continue planning our church Christmas sale. I know Christmas is still months away, but the sooner we start the less madness (we're hoping) we'll have at the end. We're trying to brainstorm how to raise more money and have other activities besides just the crafts.

Because it's dreary and rainy, I'll leave you with a picture of our lonely, only pillow left in our shop. We need to make more, don't you think? I mean, what good is one pillow anyway?

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Doing a little sewing


We had a customer who wanted a pouch made for using the same fabric in this pouch pictured. I had gotten this piece from Target (I've blogged about it before) off the clearance rack, I was crossing my fingers we had some left. We had just enough to make her one.

I went over to JB's this afternoon since that is where we do all our sewing. I ended up doing the whole thing from start to finish. First time I've done it all. Usually I cut out and iron and JB does the actual sewing. Okay, I admit it, it was very basic sewing. Still, I was nervous.

I promise, every single sewing machine must know when I sit down in front of it because it always jams. Reason #1 I don't usually sew. Today was no different. I literally got three stitches done and it jammed! JB had booby-trapped it by not loading the bobbin right! After that rough start, the rest went smoothly! All it needs is a button and it's ready to be listed.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Trying to find...

some motivation to get some cleaning done today. Specifically my office. I have this stack of misc stuff take care of that has been sitting on my desk for weeks now. I keep moving it around the desk when I dust. It hasn't taken care of itself yet, so I suppose I should tackle it. It's a rainy, dreary day and all I feel like doing is curling up on the couch and reading a book. My kids are all napping so the house is quiet. Maybe if I'm fast I'll have time to do both before the kids get home from school.




Here's a picture of sister M's necklace that we just relisted. Jewelry gets buried so quickly on Etsy because there are so many jewelry makers. She has sold a couple necklaces though.


Friday, May 9, 2008

Life is good!

Oh happy day! It's absolutely gorgeous out today!! This afternoon I'm going to lace up my tennies and head out on a walk/run.


It's been a record setting week for able mabel! We've had at least one sale everyday this week! When we started able mabel, we talked about getting to this point and thinking it would be a good goal for us. We'll see if it will continue or if this week will be the only time it happens. Because I know that's a very real possibility, I'm enjoying the ride while it lasts!


We still have so much to photograph and list. I was looking at the light switch cover section of our store and thinking it could use some fresh product. Maybe I'll take some pictures of those this afternoon.


Leaving you with a bright and cheerful picture, our newest pouch...

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Corny sense of humor

We get our quirky sense of humor from our father! This is just a taste of it....

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Ramblings



Leading off with our newest listing...This is a collage that JB just finished and I'm loving it. I think we'll try to do some more similar to it.




Etsy is deadsville today, or seems like it anyway. I'm not sure if Wednesdays are always like it or what. We've made sales on Monday and Tuesday this week....



(I guess the tote was technically Sunday but who's counting.) It would be nice to keep up the trend but everytime we start thinking that, it doesn't happen. What the heck....positive thinking can't hurt! We do have a custom order that we just listed today, but this customer (her third order from us!! Thank you, thank you to her!!) usually takes a day or two to pay, so we can't count on that for today. (not complaining, just saying.)

Thanks for the comments on the last post. I will try to add some props and take more pictures. Stay tuned, I'll post them when I'm done. Slight problem...I don't think I have any flowers around here at this given moment....

After much talking, I finally made my hillbilly light box. I haven't used it yet because I don't have the right lamps. Although, maybe if I scrounged around enough between my house and JB's I'd probably find something that would work. I'm excited to try it out. If you noticed (I shouldn't even point this out...), but since I don't have a white backdrop, I've been using two sheet of white foam board. I'm not sure why they look like they're different colors in my pictures. If I had Photoshop, I could blur that line, but I don't so I can't. All you photo-smart people out there would just die at my set up! I won't even tell you about it!

The natives are getting restless....Later!



Monday, May 5, 2008

Views

Every item on Etsy has a view counter attached to it. As a seller I love the feature because I like to know how many people are actually looking at our product.

The number of views something gets doesn't necessarily mean that the item is going to sell faster. Although it seems like the more people who view it, the more likely the right buyer will come along.

This particular item had less than 20 views before it sold on Friday. Hardly anyone looked at it.



















This one, on the other hand is sitting at 249 views and 40 hearts. Still for sale.

I know this has been featured in a gift guide on Etsy and such but as I watch the views go higher and higher it makes me a little nervous.


I should clarify something here....When something gets renewed on Etsy, the amount of views carries over from the original listing. I did, at one point renew this one, but then Etsy had a malfunction and all the views in our shop got reset back to 1. This one actually has had much more views than 249
.


While I know all it takes is the right buyer, I wonder if when potential buyers look at it if they wonder if something is wrong with it because it hasn't sold and so many people have viewed it.


I would like to see Etsy make the number of views something only the seller sees. Only Nosy Rosy's like myself like to check out the number of views for other sellers and do we really need to see them?