Last night I got two sales, and which meant I hit the big 2-0! Twenty sales, it was wonderful! I’ve had a great week on Etsy, I hope it continues! I’m going to do everything exactly the same tonight in the hope that it’ll bring more sales. I’ll sit here with a bottle of Belgian beer, wearing my purple knitted headband, listening to the Fleet Foxes. Nothing wrong with a little superstition!

Anyway, this post isn’t about much. I just wanted to write a little and post a couple of pictures. The first picture is of an origami cat that Mike made and put on my desk. I drew a little face on him.

The second picture is of a new bag – I’m going to keep it for myself… because I need a bag and it’s about time I kept one! Needs to be ironed because it’s a little crinkly, but I just wanted to show it off here. If you like it, then stay tuned because I’ll be making another one soon and listing it on my Etsy shop.

I have to get to the post office, but before I do, I’ll leave you with my latest addition to the shop. It’s a frosty moonstone pendant, made with – well, moonstone, and also iolite, blue topaz and sterling silver. It matches the Midnight Frost earrings I made last week, so I decided to unimaginatively called it the Midnight Frost Pendant.

Check out this persuasive bit of writing, taken from the item description I did yesterday: “Forget the summer heat and wear this – it’ll help you remember the cooler, frostier times. Brr!” Haha! Oh, man. I never cease to amaze myself. But anyway, it is very pretty. Moonstone has to be one of my favorite gemstones. Hope you like it, here are the pictures!

Scarlet Pendant – made with garnet, tourmaline and oxidized sterling silver

I spent a decent chunk of the day re-photographing my jewelry. The background I’ve settled on is a piece of walnut wood that my husband carved out for me (it actually says ‘Steph’ on the other side!) – I love the colour and the texture of it. I never did manage to find that lovely smooth piece of Californian driftwood that I was looking for the other day, but I’m happy with this piece of walnut. A few people advised me against the white wicker background for my jewelry, and I had to agree with them – the earrings were lost on that background. But I’m happy, the wood looks good. It would be nice to have some more props to make my backgrounds look more impressive, but I just don’t have anything like that. At least now my shots are all consistent and in clear focus, so that’s good enough for me right now.

Tomorrow I’ll be working on a custom order for one of my Yellow Bird Bags (they have been the most popular of all my bags so far!) and a little matching zipper pouch. I’ve been thinking about stocking little zipper pouches in my shop as a cheaper alternative to my bags. They’d be relatively quick and easy to make and I could perhaps sell them around $8 – $10? Not sure yet.

I just know that I need to keep experimenting and not give up. It’s hard work opening an online shop from nothing. Sometimes I feel like I’m never going to be able to compete with the big established Etsy sellers, and I’ll feel like giving up – and then I’ll get a random sale for something and I’ll go back to thinking that I can take them all on and RAWR, they’d better watch out!

Including my sales on Folksy, on average I’ve had one or two sales a week. It’s been exactly two months since I started Owl on the Sill, and I know you can’t just expect to be making lots of sales immediately when you have a limited number of items to start out with. Since last weekend, I’ve been selling jewelry too, and have sold a pair of lovely prehnite earrings already. I think I’m doing okay. It hasn’t been a I’m-taking-over-Etsy sort of start, but I never thought it would be. (Although you do see people who started not long ago, already with hundreds of sales – how does that happen?). I’m trying my best to promote my shop and not be pushy.

In particular, I’ve had a great time on Twitter and also in the Etsy chat rooms. I’ve met a lot of talented people, and it’s been nice getting to know people who are pretty much in the same boat as I am. One thing to note is that you just can’t expect people to want to follow you on Twitter if all you do is post links to your items! Most of my tweets are just my own personal nonsense, although I suppose I have been banging on about my treasuries lately, but that was just my own silly excitement. I’ll calm down soon, I promise!

I’ve been finding out about all these other social networks aside from Twitter that I should be signing up for to spread the word. It’s so much effort though – so many usernames and passwords! But I’ve realised that if it’s a pain in the arse, it’s probably worth it. So I suppose I’ll try and tackle that stuff tomorrow.

It seems as though patience is the most important thing. I’m not good at being patient, so this is difficult for me. But I’m hoping that if I stick with it, sales will improve. I look at my items and I love them, and I think they look good, I think my shop looks good – so it gives me confidence. Not everyone is going to like your things, but that’s okay. I know someone will eventually come along and just love something of mine, and will just have to have it! I just need to get those sort of people looking at my shop!

Anyway, you can see the new photography of my jewelry at my Etsy shop – any feedback would be appreciated! Also, I’ll be listing at least three more pairs of earrings, a bag and maybe some zipper pouches this week, so stay tuned! One final thing – if you made it to this point and haven’t fallen asleep yet, maybe you should consider following my blog by clicking on the little Google Friend Connect box in the sidebar! :p And now, bed time. Night all!

The day started off with a string of unsuccessful attempts to find a particular type of fabric online here in the UK. So, I decided to check Etsy. I was doubtful that I’d be buying anything though – not because the fabric is more expensive because it’s usually considerably cheaper than I could find in the UK, but because sellers tend to charge huge amounts if you come under the doomed ‘Everywhere Else’ category for shipping.

I’m sure they have their own reasons, whatever they are, but I think charging $14 to ship one yard of fabric is ridiculous. I’m sure the reason probably has something to do with the off-chance that your customer turns out to be in somewhere like… Mongolia. I wouldn’t know what the shipping would be for one yard of fabric to Mongolia, but it seems a little unfair to penalize everyone else who isn’t in Mongolia. I live in the UK and from my own experience of shipping items to the US and assuming the cost isn’t too dissimilar for shipping items in the other direction, I’d say it probably wouldn’t cost more than $3 at the most. Perhaps it’s my own fault for coming under the ‘Everywhere Else’ category and I should just deal with it! But it is frustrating, especially as choice for fabric within the UK is so much more limited than in the US.

I always try to make my shipping costs as low as I possibly can – my shipping costs from the UK to the US are quite often lower than other sellers in the US who are shipping items within the US. I mean, it’d nice to pile on a little extra for the ol’ Paypal account, but I wouldn’t dream of doing it. But I’m sure most sellers with successful shops don’t have the time to calculate shipping costs for individual items going to individual countries, but hey, why not make a little exception for the UK? Yes, we’re an ocean apart, US Etsy sellers, but we’re still cheap to ship to! And we have that special relationship, don’t we? (We still love the US, even after the DVD faux pas, but I’ll say no more on the matter… heh).

Anyway, going back to my original reason for posting: I wanted to say thanks to Fabric Supplies on Etsy for having wonderful prices, fair shipping charges (even for us wretched souls who are Everywhere Else), and extremely fast shipping. They work hard! I’ve ordered some gorgeous fabric that I can’t wait to bagify!

[On a side note, I'd like to thank Amy Perotti and Lady Arwen for clicking on the little Google Friend Connect box in the sidebar further down on the right. This is a very new blog, so I'd be so grateful for anyone who would be kind enough to take pity on me and add their little photo to the box!]

After staying up until 5am a couple of nights ago working on a bag for a customer, I finally finished it! (Sometimes when I start something, I just can’t stop until it’s done). Here are a couple of pictures!

The yellow polka dot lining was a bit of an experiment. It took me a long time to decide on whether or not it would go well with the outer patterned fabric. Usually I consider myself to have a pretty good grasp of what works and what doesn’t, but in this case I stared the pieces of fabric side by side for so long that it stopped looking like fabric altogether… I hate it when that happens, it’s really not helpful when you’re just trying to get things done and your brain goes into meltdown. You know how when you focus on anything for too long and suddenly it seems like the most ridiculous thing in the world? Like saying a word over and over, like ‘jelly’. Jelly. Jelly. Jell- enough!

Anyway, I knew they would probably look good together, but it was only when I was actually sewing the lining to the bag that I realized they make a really awesome even-better-than-expected combination! I am so pleased with how it came out. Sometimes I guess you have to be a little brave and not always take the safe choice!

[ Above: Favorite Hobo Bag, available at my Etsy shop. ]