Lots of new items!

Petunia Magpie now has 69 items online!

Newly added are Donald the Debonair Dragon, Gandolf Giraffe,  and Horace Hedgehog. Check all the new listings here.

Been busy making items. Hope to hit the 100 item mark by the 1 month anniversary date. [I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. LOL]


The photo shown above is a new marketing stream I'm trying. It was titled "Pincushions, Purses and Pachyderms". Made for Local Arts and Crafts category of a free online classified site. In the last 2 days the ad has been viewed 27 times and garnered an invitation to a local craft show (which I will be attending).

Still no sales. Am not giving up yet.

Published a treasury today for the Etsylvanians Team. Hoping it gets the shop a little more visibility.

Petunia Magpie is up to ten (10) followers.

Status Report - Day 12

Here's how Petunia Magpie's second week is turning out with regard to the numbers:



According to Etsy:  
Views:                   116
Shop favorites:         7
Listing favorites:    20
Top 3 items:

• Owl Hat for Children
• Chocolate & Teal Purse
• Pincushion Flower

Google Analytics (put in place on day 3):
Views:                  268
Top 3 items:

• Penelope Pachyderm
• Yo-Yo Mama Beach Bag
• Blue Variegated Treasure Bag

As you can see, there's a bit of discrepancy between the statistical methods. There are some metrics that can be analyzed, but measurements at this stage in the game don't provide a lot of feedback. Right now I just use view-counts to see what Customer's are looking at in the shop. After the site has grown (and with time) I'll be looking at Landing Pages, Exit Pages and relating how specific events effect viewer responses.

The Blue Seashell Purse has been featured in a Treasury List. See it HERE.

For now, it's Friday and I'm busy "making".

Y'all have a great weekend!

Click here to get your weekend started early. 

Have I mentioned...

Have I mentioned that I have another Etsy shop? And another blog?

The other shop is Tole You So and so is the blog. The blog started out as a way for me to share my projects. Quilting and painting mostly. But it took over my life for a while. Or did my life take over the blog? Hard to say. It just didn't have a lot to do with painting, which is the type of products that I sell in the shop. Tole You So blog has little snippets from my life and you're always welcome to browse over and check it out if you're really bored. Some of the posts are just silly. For the most part so am I. The blog actually does better than the shop. Probably because I don't promote the shop as much as Petunia Magpie. Hardly at all in fact. It's had three sales.

Today after a scrumptious breakfast [read more about that here], I worked on the Tole You So blog for a while. I've been concentrating my energies on creating products to sell and neglecting other things. Am a bit OCD that way.

Completed three items today and will probably upload them tomorrow afternoon/evening. Shhhhh.... Don't tell anyone and act surprised when they magically appear.


Hard to believe Petunia Magpie has been in business for a week now. I missed one of my scheduled "To Do" items today. I intend to create one treasury list every Monday and promote it through all channels available. [Facebook, Etsy, Pinterest, this blog, the other blog, word of mouth, begging on the street corner.]

Hello. Is anybody out there? [name that tune] Rabbit Hunting. My apologies. New website, blog, "stuff".

My love caught me before work and brought me a bag of fresh picked and washed strawberries this morning. I found this one near the top. Could be imagining things, but to me this looks like a heart. Out of all the strawberries picked - he found this one and gave it to me. We're either madly in love or I'm just mad in the true sense of the word.

Breakfast this morning was a mixture of fresh watermelon, apple and ... wait for it ... strawberries. Ahhh. But that's WAY too healthy for me. So what happened next? I added three teaspoonfuls of Cool Whip to the mixture. Behold: it was good!

So fresh and appealing. Temptation was not resisted once the photo was taken. Didn't even have time to take two pictures before the spoon hit my mouth. Yummy! Just what the Doctor ordered after looking at the blue-sky sunshine-y day that this is shaping up to be. Patriotic too now that its up on the screen. I got a late breakfast this morning. Kept getting interrupted.

<--- LOOK! In the middle! Is that another strawberry heart? lol


I took another photo that you guys might be interested in even though small game season hasn't started yet. Doesn't that look like bunny ears?

Sure would be nice if some of you fellows would start hunting rabbits again. They are over-running this community. People are complaining about losing their fresh veggies. No one I know can afford that to happen.

Gosh. Had to light the citronella candle to fend off the little buggies. Such are the trials and tribulations of those who choose to work outside.

It's been a week since I last posted. Almost a month since I was posting regularly. So much has been happening in my life that it's hard to get a minute to sit down and follow one of my passions: writing to you. For those who read me on a regular basis: thanks for coming back. I promise to make this blog a priority and put it on the schedule for at least two posts a week. That's all I can commit to at this time.

Why? Well. A few different reasons.

First, I've been making things like crazy. Trying to build up an inventory so I can make some money. Lucky for me from working retail I know a few things that are fairly easy to make and sell well.

This is a picture of my morning worktable. Two items ready to get photographed, photo edited, descriptions written and "social-media"-a'd. LOL Seriously - is there a word for that? One of the Etsy Teams is called Shameless Advertising. How appropriate is that!?!

After a bit of discussion, a lawn sale was suggested. My table and umbrella will be moving to the side yard by the driveway and a Yard Sale sign will be posted. Once the stock is ready for sale. Weather permitting. Probably only on Saturday and Sunday. Don't want to sit out there for too long.

By the mid-end of July I should have enough stock to make a showing of sorts and start attending local craft shows. There is a big one toward the end of Summer (before school starts again) a bit further away than I'd usually travel, but well attended. That will probably make or break me. I'll keep you updated.

I decided to open another shop on Etsy and separate out my painting and work with textiles. The shop opened last Monday and is already being well received. Fear not, I won't forget about ToleYouSo. The new shop is:

Click the picture to go to the shop. It is named  after my little sister - was her nickname. May she rest in peace. She was a lot of fun. One of those people that can make a friend in the first five minutes you meet her. She is on the telephone in almost every photograph I have of her. That girl sure could talk! Pretty girl too. With a sense of fashion and all-around good taste. She should have been an interior decorator for the rich and famous. She had impeccible taste. She passed from cancer back in 2000 at the ripe old age of forty.

Ten percent of the proceeds will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure for all their good works.

In an effort to promote the products on that site I also have a Petunia Magpie Blog, Petunia Magpie Facebook page and Pinterest Petunia Magpie.

Folks interested in making money by selling products on Etsy may want to check out the blog. It  shares the history of the site, experiences and what works or doesn't work. Right now everything is in the start-up phase.

Time to get back to making products.

Click here for a Monday Memory. Petunia Magpie loved this show when she was little.

The trivia question "Is there anybody out there..." is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.

First Week at Etsy

A full week at Etsy and the statistics are holding steady. There were seventy-five page views this first week and I hope to have at least the same (ideally double) for the next week. It's a lot of work though.

The plus side is that I now have six followers. These shop owners/individuals have a total of 2,306 followers. What that means is that every time I add something new to the shop, all the followers can see it in their item feeds. Great easy way to get a little more exposure.

There are now forty-three items online and several more "in the works". Looks like I'll be able to reach my goal of fifty items by the end of the week with no problem.

To all the Dads out there: Happy Father's Day!

The Best Laid Plans...

I had every intention of publishing a post EVERY day. But there just aren't enough hours in the day. Chores and family obligations kept me from blogging yesterday. My revised blogging plan will be a target of three posts per week. Sometimes more if I can squeeze it in. I hope y'all will bear with me.

It's been one of those days folks, so I'm just going to give you a status report and head on over to talk to Mr. Sandman.

There are now thirty one items in the Petunia Magpie shop. There have been fifty-seven views; two people have "favorited" the shop; fourteen items have been "favorited" and one of my products is in a treasury list. For five days those are okay statistics. As far as statistics go, those numbers are too low to even start to analyze. For now it's just nice to see that it's being visited on a daily basis.

Getting Social

Nowadays you hear people everywhere talk about "getting social". Most people have Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter accounts. Many people have blogs. Some pages are for fun or information or simply as a means of keeping up to date with what's going on all around us. All of these accounts are ways you can leverage your interactions with others to promote the sale of your product.

As one of the first steps to getting social, I spent the better part of today

Day Two

Yesterday after I published this blog, I went into Petunia Magpie's shop too look at the statistics and was shocked to see that a mere two hours after posting without really promoting anything there had been ten shop views and one person had added an item to their "favorites".

Today I want to make sure I talk a little about SEO tags and statistics.

First, a progress report.

The weather this morning has been rainy and cool enough for a sweater and warm fuzzy socks. I get my warm fuzzy socks from Mast General Store. Their buy three get one free promotion is always a fantastic bargain when you're in the market for a good pair of socks. The grey, gloomy day didn't slow me down. Once the dog was walked I got to work editing photographs and writing copy. Between 6:00 a.m.

Rainy Monday To-Do List

 

Lest you think I've forgotten all about this blog let me assure you: I have not. Simply been busy painting and "to-do"-ing.  This is my original take on the traditional Unicorn Hex sign. It measures sixteen inches in diameter and one-half inch thick. The white base layer is two coats of twenty-year exterior latex house paint. The design itself is painted with a mixture of acrylic and acrylic enamel. Some fine detail has been worked with Liquid Leaf "Classic Gold". A dual coat of clear varnish was applied to seal the design and protect the design from "the elements". Counting drying times this took about three days to complete. A bit long when the sale price is only $65. Not counting drying time there are a good eight hours into this design. That's less than $10 per hour. Hmmmm....

 

You know what they say though. It's not like work if you love what you're doing. Folks, I'm truly blessed to love what I'm doing.

Especially on a rainy Monday morning with a hot cup of coffee warming my hands pondering current projects.

 

What else have I been "to-do"-ing?

 

Current projects nearing completion are:

 

Wildflower Circle Cheese Box Lid (the bottom is basically plain)

 

Wine Gift Boxes

 

And.... (are you ready for this?)... an Etsy shop! Petunia Magpie. Named in memory of my sister Deborah. It's mostly purses, toys and quilts with a few clothing items thrown in for good measure. I'm also donating 10% of all sales to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure that helps fund cancer research.

 

Here's a link to the shop and to the shop blog where you can read more about what's going on over there. If you're a new entrepreneur you may find the "shop talk" interesting. It's a chronicle of selling items on Etsy. From the 'soft' opening day through the first year (and perhaps beyond) including what qualifies me, imho, to give advise on E-commerce and Customer Service. Short version of that: years of experience.

 

As always - would love to hear from y'all. 'Till next time...

 

Click here for a Monday Memory.

 

I DID IT!

I opened a new Etsy shop! I'm so excited!

Can you guess the shop's name?

Pet Peeve

Several years ago while living in North Carolina I was shocked to see a Basset Hound in the cab of a black pickup truck. Not that there's anything wrong with dogs being in a vehicle. The problem was the temperature. The outside temperature had already climbed to over eighty degrees. The owner of the truck had left the window cracked several inches to allow air to flow into the truck, but the poor Basset Hound was in obvious distress. When I looked at her she was panting and drooling at the same time. I had just pulled into the parking lot and had my trusty water bottle with me. I dug around in my car and located a paper plate to put water in/on for the dog & slid the plate in the window of the truck. It wasn't much but the dog lapped greedily at it. I was glad to be able to help at least that much. I waited about ten minutes for the owner to show up. When no one was forthcoming, I went inside the store (Lowes) and had Customer Service page the truck's owner. No one showed up, but the Customer Service person had announced "Will the owner of the pick-up truck with the Basset Hound please report to...." Lowes has the best employees! I gave it a few minutes and went back outside - the pickup was gone. However, I had placed a small flyer under the windshield of the truck letting them know that it was too hot to leave their dog that way. Not everyone knows how hot it gets inside a car on a hot Summer day -- even with the windows cracked temperatures can rise 40 degrees in the first 15-30 minutes. That can be fatal for a dog.

Folks, please pass along this information. Our pets are just like members of our families. Let's do what we can to educate others about the dangers of hot cars. You may even save a life!