Viewing Etsy Purchases by Seller -- Why is This Not an Option?

Little side-gripe here, but I think a long overdue request of Etsy.  I think that buyers should be able to pull up purchases, by seller.  Why is this not a thing?  I can go into my purchases and do a search,  but not by seller, only by keyword in the item's listing title.  Big help.

Being a designer/artist who uses tons of imagery and illustration who has been purchasing artwork for over 15 years, the amount purchased is huge.  This means that I have indeed bought images twice, and even three times without realizing it.  To ask buyers to scroll through 150 pages of purchases is cruel.

Now when I find something I like, I have to go to my purchases tab and do a search using a keyword from the description/title of the art I am considering buying to make sure I haven't bought it before.  WHY???

Or, how about this, you add it to your cart and the software tells you you have purchased it before and when you did so.  How's that for a novel idea? 

Come on Etsy. Be a help to your buyers!

The Annoyance of AI Art

 Where to begin?  Okay, I cannot stand AI art.

It's just 'off'.

Being a jewelry designer and artist, the bulk of the items I make my pieces with use beautiful old images and illustrations from eras gone by or new beautiful artwork of living artists.  I showcase their work and give them credit in the listing or buy licenses in order to use it in items in my Etsy store (just so you know).

Then along came AI.  I cannot seem to get away from it.  Even artists that I have been buying from for years have seemingly succumbed to the attraction of letting the computer fill in the holes, or worse, let the computer do it all!  LOL

I am going to show some of the images so that you can understand what I'm talking about in case you don't already see it yourself.

At first this image looked beautiful to me.  I loved the colors, the details on the bird and of course, the flowers.  But look closer.

Look at the bird's feet, or lack thereof.  look at the leaves on the bush, take a long look at the petals on the flowers.  They are nothing more than suggestions of things.  Like they have been put into a blender and then haphazardly blotted onto the picture, just to give us the vibe of what the artist wanted to get across.  I cannot stand it, and it is everywhere.  For me, it's a deal-killer.  It's a deal-killer because I make jewelry and jewelry components highlighting the beautiful imagery.  I want people to look at the images as focal pieces because they are so pretty.  But this....no.  The more I look at the image above, the more I dislike it.

The pretty teacup stack!  Or at least I thought so initially.  And like a fool, I bought the clipart before taking a really close look at it.

I love the seemingly pretty detail on the teacups above, but again look closely.  Look at those cup handles!  Are you kidding me?  How could this be used as the focus for anything without making somebody think something is wrong.  Ugh.

And lastly in this discussion.  The headless fish...

This is a legit sample.  How did this ever pass muster with this artist?  I have bought quite a bit of her artwork to used and loved it.  I do suspect there was some AI involvement in the other stuff I purchased, but the work was very well polished and pretty.  What happened?  Sigh.

So, I guess the purpose of this post is to let people know, beware of what you are buying, look at it very closely before pushing that purchase button.   Maybe by lack of sales these folks will get the hint.

I do wish that there would have to be a disclaimer from sites like Etsy that require sellers to disclose that AI was used in the creation of the piece.  Sure would save me bunches of time and not even click on the image in the first place.

It certainly makes me appreciate the older vintage stuff that is out there.

PS I guess the clap-back response would be to say, make your own, but it's a bad defense for poorly made artwork that is put up for sale and like I said, I love showcasing nice artwork in my jewelry.  Also, in a nod to the people peddling this stuff, they are not being misleading, there are many images that show the errors.  Hence my suggestion to look very closely before buying any of it.

Hello Again!

Hold on, this a long post made up from several drafts that were never published.  There is so much to unpack!

In late 2022 I sold my house in Texas.  I had been wanting to do it for some time, but never took the plunge.  I finally got up the nerve to contact a realtor and let it go.  It sold in a week.  The market was still really hot down there thankfully and I got much more than I thought I would.  The big part is invested, the smaller has gone to some small fix-it type stuff that was put on hold.  That doesn't mean mama didn't get a goodie!  I took the big step forward and purchased......a......large 60 Watt Aeon Mira 7 CO2 laser.  OMG.  I still can't believe I did it!  It was supposed to arrive in January 2023 until I got hurt (as detailed in my next paragraph).

So, most of my self-promises regarding my new downstairs crafts room turned into not happening.  Laugh out loud!  But, I get back up on that horse and keep on going.  Shortly after the first paragraph of this post, I stepped onto my granddaughters Mermaid Barbie car (while my hands were full of boxes and I did not see it), and slammed onto my knee.  I was positive it was broken, but hey!  it wasn't.  I was out of work for 2.5 weeks recovering with a giant hematoma underneath my knee cap.  To this day, it is still there, slowly, very slowly resorbing and with luck it will be completely gone in another year or so.

So finally, in April 2023, my beautiful Aeon Mira 7 arrived.  And boy did that take some planning.  I had to hire 2 Men and a Truck for an hour to move it into the house, it weighed about 400 pounds!  She, "Jaxonista", is a beaut.

Fast-forward to today, May 2024 and I've been using my laser for over a year.  The thing is absolutely amazing and I feel as though every time I use it, I discover something else I can do with it.  Along with the  laser I bought a T-shirt press, dye sublimation printer, oodles and oodles of acrylic, leather, wood, rubber, mylar stencil material, the list goes on and on.  I have made so much and I get giddy just thinking about all of the new things I can make with it.  Obviously there are some things that cannot be cut with a CO2 laser.  Craft foam, anything PVC, including shrink plastic, and vinyl to name a few.  So the electronic die-cutter, my KNK Max Air, is used to cut those.  But, I find that I RARELY use it and the couple of times I went upstairs to cut some shrink plastic, I had to remember how I did it!  Scary!   Especially considering I had used that thing constantly since 2012.

I really cut off a lot of the detail from the original drafts I had typed because the time sequences and verb tenses were off and would have required too much editing.  

I have made tons of wood jewelry, acrylic jewelry, polymer clay jewelry (using stamps I cut from rubber), you name it.  It's so damned cool! 

I really hope I can do more to keep this blog going with more consistent updates.  Ta ta for now.

Happy 2023!

 Where has the time gone?  To the past, that's where!  My hope is that 2023 brings new opportunities and much happiness for all of us, for the world in general.  It's what we need.

In hindsight, 2022 wasn't such a great year.  My creativity sat at an all-time low along with my motivation and that is just plain sad.  In my last post, dated 7/2022, I mentioned how stagnant things had become and how I felt like I was trying to do too much and that was pretty much right on target.  I feel like that at the onset of the pandemic, and an influx of extra money, I spent feverishly (stimulating the economy which was the goal), buying so many things that I had put off purchasing, so much so that it was overwhelming, and still is.  I joined multiple monthly bead subscriptions, clay subscriptions, Skillshare, etc.  It got to where all I'd do is unpack stuff and put it up to use sometime later, which to be frank never happened.  Or watch videos on how-to while never putting the how-to to work in practice.  What a freaking waste!  My answer was to cancel the monthly subscriptions and take stock.  That lasted for over a year.  I pared down to one clay subscription, while still keeping Skillshare (which I have found to be such a welcome and useful resource and I highly recommend to any who seek training in many subjects).  But even Skillshare, with the classes I signed up for, took a ton of time to complete and I was signing up for so many of them! But, what happened is I filled up my little 12x12 crafts room.  Everything is in tubs/containers, but they are stacked, double-stacked, etc.  It's really become quite an unbearable situation and I find that when I go there, I get mind-blocked and can't wait to leave.  Seriously, things were so much easier when my only medium was shrink plastic and that was my sole focus; I was a truly well-oiled machine.  Design, print, cut, bake, assemble, list, sell, mail, do it all over again!  I dabble in everything now, which is great, but accessing my supplies has become arduous and limiting.  I walk away constantly.

The past 2-3 years, I have not made any resolutions (or I prefer to call them self-promises).  This year, I did.  I began a healthy eating plan in August and have removed 23 pounds since then, that promise will be carried into the New Year with hopes that by April, another 23 pounds will be gone.

My next promise is to stop spending so much money on things I'm not going to use any time soon and to spend more time SAVING it.  I think the pandemic spurred fear into all of us with supply chain issues and everyone camped at home looking for something to do with all of their free time; buying up every bottle of paint and brick of polymer clay.  LOL. Only recently have polymer clay supplies returned to their former abundance.  It has also created an entire population of polymer clay jewelry designers who, for those who have worked with polymer clay for a long time (I am not a long-time polymer clay artist so I think I'm included in the newbie classification), is not all that welcome.  I never really gave it much thought, but I have seen several posts by seasoned, long-term artists who lament the influx of quickie earring and necklace makers who don't spend much time making their designs...  I guess I would be considered one of the new comers...

Promise three is to seriously knuckle-under and get my crafts room squared away.  My daughter would call me hoarder of sorts.  But really it's in the crafts vein, and that would be true.  It is also a multi-pronged issue.  There are several things working that are keeping me from moving forward.  Number one, the room I wish to move everything into is full of junk.  We live in a very big house where all of the rooms are not used.  As a result, they have turned into storage areas for this and that.  So the room I wish to move into, is full of this and that and it needs to be cleared out before I can even begin to move it.  This leads into a long list of things that must be done BEFORE I can use the room, and it is going to take time.  My hope is that by June, I'll be in the room.  It may not be completely finished, but it will be functional.  The room is great for crafts because it has only one door and one window, leaving me lots of wall space.  Our downstairs has 9 foot ceilings and allows for cabinets that are taller than normal.  my hope is to have at least two of the walls equipped with tall cabinets (second hand cupboards) to hold so much of my stuff and keep it dust-free at the same time.  I'm not sure about the under cabinets.  I love the popular drawer units at Ikea for their quality and versatility, but I would also love to have base cupboards like you'd see in a kitchen.  I know that I want the 'counters' in the room to be 30" deep which allows room to have items sitting at the wall while still allowing enough table top work space.  I may upload my diagram as a rough-in of what I want.  I'll go more into that later.

Promise four is to stop complaining so much.  I have tuned into a lamenting complainer and it's grating.  How did I ever become such a griper?  Does this come with age? It's energy sapping and negative and just plain bad.  I have already put turning this around into practice and when I find myself drifting to that, I consciously stop myself and turn my thoughts to something positive.  It is going to take time to turn the trend of being so critical, but I know it can be accomplished.  Looking on the bright side feels good and it's uplifting, why is it so easy to do the opposite?

Promise five, pare down into reasonable chunks the things I'd like to do/learn.  I have overwhelmed myself with 'all of the things I'm going to do' and it has been debilitating and fruitless.  Too much of everything and in the end, nothing is accomplished.  This leads to promise six...

Promise six and this is not a MUST but a TRY TO.  Learn how to use my Olympus Pen camera I bought during the pandemic.  LOL. It's a nifty little digital SLR and I need to give it the attention it deserves.

Okay, so that's it.  Have a happy new year.  365 opportunities for something better.

The Grip of Artistic Block

I’m not really sure what has happened in the past year, but my motivation and lack of focus has brought this locomotive to a near-standstill.  I could site multiple reasons for this:  New grand baby in the house, a small health scare, overly cramped crafts room, COVID-19, being fed-up with poor quality shrink plastic, dismay with Etsy, etc.  But I’ve never gone so long in-between making items and getting them listed.  Initially, I blamed the photography, because that is what I thought it was, but it clearly is not the picture taking.  I have been in this holding pattern for a year, no, closer to two years.  This year, my sales on Etsy have topped $190.  That is what I used to net in a week!  LOL. And the thing is, I don’t seem to care.  What does that mean?  Am I out of love with making jewelry?  Am I trying to do too many different types of media? Has my motor died?  I just don’t understand it.  It’s bewildering and I miss just making stuff and getting it listed for any who might like it.  My idle time was spent feverishly sketching ideas on paper and giving it a go when the opportunity arose to sit and make it.  I think possibly it may be that I have branched out into trying new media like polymer clay, recycled tin, and cardboard, but even then I don’t know.  I feel like I make something and then don’t list it because I feel like nobody will like it.  Isn’t that weird?  I never used to care; just list it and keep on creating!

Forgive me if I’ve bellowed about this in any of my other posts, I’m just really quite out of sorts right now and trying to find some direction.  Putting it in writing might help me get there.

Perhaps I should force my own hand and make myself list at least one new item on Etsy by the end of next week.  Just because.  Even if it is a simple pair of shrink plastic earrings or a simple cuff bracelet.

We shall see!

Polymer Clay, There is So Much to Learn

So, I have been making shrink plastic jewelry for decades now.  I'm a master of the craft, self-taught.  I can make just about anything I put my mind to with regards to that medium.  But now I've found recycled tin, cardboard, and polymer clay...  Unfortunately, I have not been able to dedicate the time to these new mediums like I did the plastic.  I have a new granddaughter who lives with me so much of my after-work and weekend hours are spent around her.  Which I love, don't get me wrong, but it really puts a kink into spending as much time as is needed to learn new mediums and to continue to develop skills.

To be fair, the tin is pretty much done.  I can place the images of my choosing onto it, and I can cut it and shape it so that's a done deal, same goes for the recycled paper stuff.  Both of these mediums can be very tricky and following the processes to the letter is an absolute requirement in order to have the results I am looking for, but are so worth the time involved.  However, the clay, that is a whole new ballgame.

Polymer clay is so insanely versatile that you never ever stop learning or thinking of things to do with it.  You simply do not.  There are so many techniques, styles, etc.  It seems every day I see something new that I'd like to try.  I have come across some absolutely stellar tutorials provided by clay artists and they have been worth every single penny spent to get them, which can get pricey.  If you are really lucky you may even have the opportunity to take a class with an artist in-person.  Because each time I buy one of these tutorials, there are one or two nuggets of knowledge that are worth their weight in gold.  Unfortunately, some of the tutorials I've bought are super rudimentary and not worth even the $5 or $10 spent to get them, but I guess how many brilliant nuggets are you going to get for next to nothing?  And if you are just starting out, even these 'beginner tutorials' might have some value.

I've noticed something though, it seems that polymer clay has sort of slowed down.  Many of the tutorials I've purchased are older (by years and even a decade or two), or the publications I've purchased are almost 10 years old and I've purchased them in print used or in digital format because the magazines are no longer in print or even in business anymore.  Another thing I've noticed is that Sculpey is having a very hard time getting their clay made since the beginning of the pandemic.  In fact, it's gotten steadily worse and I think it is due to hoarding by clay artists and enthusiasts.  I can hardly find Premo! or Souffle anywhere.  When I do find it, it is in colors that I can't use.  Sparkle, opal, glow in the dark, etc.  Seriously, man, it's getting really bad.  In a way, I wish Sculpey would just produce black, white, ecru, translucent, ultramarine, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow and produce a mixing chart so that you could make any color in the rainbow from scratch.  Oh yeah, add to that bronze, 14 K gold, and gold.  I'm not kidding.  I go to JoAnns and find 4 bars of white and ecru and pumpkin in the souffle.  Then I go to Hobby Lobby and find poppy seed in Souffle and 3 unusable colors in the Premo!  Meanwhile, Sculpey III is fully stocked which any jewelry maker knows won't work for jewelry making.  Even the new kid on the block, Papa's clay has dwindling supplies.  Although I got lucky and bought about $60 worth at an online retailer that apparently had not yet been discovered.  Score one for me!

I've watched multiple videos of people using Papa's Clay and it reminds me of Kato Clay, which I've had mixed results using.  Oh btw, Kato and Fimo seem to both be a little easier to get.  Anyway, Papa's Clay is crumbly.  You need to hold it in your palms for a minute to warm it up and then you can run it through your pasta machine without the crumbles, or so that is what I have seen in the videos.  It makes me wonder if that would work for Kato as well.  I have had Kato Clay, and even after running through my pasta machine no less than 20 times, it is still crumbly!  I have thrown it away before because of that.  The good news is Kato now sells, in one pound chunks, a new clay softener AND, drumroll, please.....A super-black clay to turn all of your scraps into usable black clay.  No more muddy and unusable leftovers with weird colors! Fimo I don't care for because if you get it wet, it starts to get pasty and gross whereas the Premo! is truly water repellant and takes image transfers well.

Speaking of image transfers, there are many image transfer papers that work that I've tried.  There are some at PolymerclayTV for a reasonable price and there are some others that use T-shirt transfer paper that works well.  You can even use nail decals that can be purchased for pennies on Wish.  I love working with images so these are a big one for me.  You can also do transfers using water or heat, just do a search online and you'll find multiple videos for both.

I've really been trying to concentrate more on textures and surface techniques with the goal to make the charm look like it is kiln-fired clay or porcelain with glaze, and these are not so easy to come across.    Well, I guess the textures are, but the surface techniques using paint, ink, alcohol, waxes, sealers, etc are not easily found, and let me tell you, some of the clay I have seen is crazy amazing and leaves me wondering:  How'd they do that?  Apparently, sadly,  nobody wants to share what they've learned (because they have worked hard to figure it out).  Can you blame them?  No.  So I keep looking for clues and keys and any hints of how the spectacular surface effects are procured.  This is where my time constraints and lack of available clay seriously hinder me.

So here is my advice.  If you see a result in any medium you like, dig, dig deep, and maybe even ask a question of the artist to see if they can help or steer you in the right direction.  Watch videos, read articles, purchase tutorials, and purchase books and magazines.  Take notes.  Take a chance, buy some things you think *might* work, and give them a try.  Use things you already have and see what happens.  Truly some of the best techniques were discovered through happenstance and giving something a go.  This is most likely where I'm headed for the kiln-fired look I've seen on some pieces.  Some of it is simply amazing and looks like kiln-fired clay.  Don't ask me why I'm stuck on that look.  Most likely because it is what I would wear and that is the best place to start.  Make jewelry you yourself would wear.  That way, if you don't sell it you can still wear it!

Inkjet Printers and Ink Refills with Almost No Ink in Them

 Waaaay back in the day (late 1980s and 1990s), when you bought a new inkjet printer, it came with ink cartridges that were full, there was no such thing as a 'starter' ink cartridge.  They were full cartridges and generally, they lasted a good long while before you needed to buy a new replacement set.  Unfortunately, in the late 80's and early 90's, the color cartridges were combined, so that if one color: cyan, magenta, or yellow, ran low, you would have to replace them all.  But in the mid 90's to mid-2000's or is that the mid-2010s?, they finally got smart and started making color inkjet printers with individual color cartridges.  This meant you weren't wasting ink, AND, each individual refill cartridge was much cheaper (back in the 90's it was about $9 for an individual brand-name cartridge).  These cartridges were also full, at first.  There was no "regular" size and "XXL" size.  Just one size that was full.  Fast-forward to the later 2000's to the present day, and the printers come with cartridges with almost no ink in them.  I am not kidding.  I don't even think they are 1/8 full.  What's worse, the 'regular' size replacement cartridges, are probably only 1/2 full when purchased.  If you want a cartridge completely filled, you must buy the XXL size and they are very pricey.  I have a Canon inkjet and I love it, I have used Canon printers for a very long time.  But, the inks don't last and replacements are ridiculous.  A regular size ink set will set you back $60 which wouldn't be so bad if the ink lasted, but I can print 10-15 color pages and the ink is GONE.  Being fed up with it I finally bought some after-market cartridges.  Two FULL XXL sets for $55.  And the cartridges are CLEAR so that you can actually see how much ink is in them (they are full to the brim).  Now I know why Canon's name-brand cartridges are black.  So that you cannot see a thing.

Epson has some awesome Ecotank printers.  You pour an entire bottle of ink for each color and can print until the print head falls off!  I think there is another brand that has done something similar.

I bought my ink yesterday from Amazon and it was delivered today.  The brand is EZink and their reviews were over 1100 5 stars so the ink has got to be decent.  I hope it is and I hope it lasts longer than 2 weeks.

That's it for today's gripe.

In other news, I have been digging into polymer clay the past few months and have completely ignored my Etsy store.  I have made less than $500 so far this year compared to $4500 by this time last year and right now I don't care.  I am not liking Etsy much and don't feel like giving them 20% of my profits.

-Peace-out

Processing Images for Online Listings

I’m not sure if I’ve touched on this subject yet, I probably have since photographing my items in preparation for listings strikes a real nerve with me.  Several years ago, taking pictures of my items never seemed tedious.  Now I can’t say the same.  I don’t know what changed, I really don’t.  I used to take tons of pictures of each of my items and I would list up to 10 items at a time!  Sometimes even more than that. I can honestly say that over the past 4-5 months, I have not listed one new item in my Etsy shop.  I have items that sell with regularity generating decent income and I’ve been so busy, I haven’t felt the pressure to get all of the new stuff I’ve made listed.  Well, that’s part of it.  Another part of it is finding the right camera for the job.  My iPhone does fine, but it lacks some of the finer details of a digital SLR and my digital SLR is 10 years old and lacks many of the newer features, like LED bulbs for white balance choices, etc.  Another even bigger part, perhaps the biggest, was losing the imaging software I had been using since the beginning...Google Picasa.  Google stopped supporting this incredibly powerful photo editing software in 2017.  I was stunned.  Now, it still worked, but when I got my new PC, shortly after Google pulled the plug, and installed it, it never seemed to work right.  The large folder list down the left side was gone, when I would import folders, they never showed up in the list, and once I imported an image and tried to rotate it during editing, it wouldn’t work.  I got so frustrated I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software and it got even more messed up.  I have Photoshop Elements and access to other software, but none compare to the incredibly simple, yet powerful Picasa.  None of them.  It seems every time I took pictures of my items, then tried to edit them, it became a headache-inducing experience.  So much so, that I would just give up.  I have owned several versions of ACDSee, many years ago, of course, and read that it was the closest software out there to Picasa.  I didn’t want to buy it again.  Microsoft Photo on Windows 10 has got to be the absolute WORST photo editing software out there.  And here is something that I know.  Several years ago, with Windows 7 or maybe it was XP, Microsoft offered an included photo editing suite that  was extremely similar to Picasa.  I know I remember it.  It catalogued your images and offered peppy photo editing options along with many special effects, just like Picasa.  I’ll have to look it up, I know that it came with older versions of Windows OS.  I have about 300 items that should be added to my shop, they have piled up over the months, neglected because of my unhappiness with my camera, my lighting, and my photo editing software.  So tonight, after taking lots of pictures of my items, I headed back to my computer to edit.  It all came back full force.  I scrounged around and played with Adobe Elements, pass.  Microsoft Photo, double pass.  Then back to Picasa with abysmal results.  I decided to give the uninstall and reinstall another shot before throwing in the towel to frustration.  Lo and behold it freaking worked!  It re-catalogued all of my images and edits them perfectly.  I feel like a new person, like Christmas came early.  My god I cannot believe how much easier it is to edit my photos for listings.  So very thankful that it worked.  I don’t know what happened with the Picasa that was on my computer, I don’t know how it got so corrupted, but now that’s immaterial.  Picasa, I’ve missed you!

Woo hoo! Faux Tin and Faux Lithograph Jewelry are Finally Here!

Yes, that's right!  So excited to share some of my latest creations.  I am now working in recycled tin, recycled cardboard, and copper and brass jewelry.  Primarily recycled tin though.  I am absolutely loving it.  I keep finding new methods to use with the metal, new textures, new shapes, colors, images, all of it!

After having worked exclusively in shrink plastic for close to 20 years, I have found a new love.  So exciting!

Materials are readily available, I can go garage sale-ing or to thrift shops and walk out with an armful of tin boxes.  All waiting to be turned into something gorgeous.  Tin does require more attention than the shrink plastic in that it has to be cut down, trimmed, panels cut out, shapes cut, edges sanded and in most cases, I have to apply imagery.  That's me, all about the illustrations.  That process in itself is quite time-consuming, but gosh is it worth it!  I've inserted several pictures of some of the items I have made.  Can you tell I'm proud?

I have many listed on my Etsy store site.  Go have a look if you are interested.  My items are unique,  very well made, they are competitively priced, and gift-boxing and shipping are free!

See?  Busy, and this is just the tip of what I've made so far.  Stay tuned for more and have a great weekend!

Buh bye, Weebly...

So, that was an exhaustive experiment that netted me zip, zero, zilch.  To the tune of $35/month for ten months...

Not sure where I am going to go from here.  Weebly was an absolute bust.  I didn't have Google do a crawl until a few months ago, but that never worked either (very confusing) and I think partly because my fauxshowart.com URL was still somehow tied to my Etsy account when I was using Etsy Pattern (which was also a major fail).

So here I sit, trying to figure out my next move.  I have considered offering items for sale through Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.  Much more casual, no middleman, but there would be a trust issue buying from an independent seller.  I'm just so tired of Etsy and their constant money grab.

I guess my next look will be at the more art-related sites, Aftcray, Artfire, and the like.

Fast-forward to July 2019...

....I didn't care for Aftcray, Artfire, etc. Perhaps it was because at the time I had over 300 items in my Etsy shop and even though there was a good importing tool, it would have taken centuries to get it all set up and readjusted.

So I'm still only on Etsy, but I have done something different.  I pretty much let all of my items expire and I currently only have about 40 listed (few are of shrink plastic, more on that later).  I know I have probably covered this in an earlier post, but three years ago, during the summer months, I was grossing $250/week at my little shop.  Life was good.  Then Etsy re-vamped their Etsy Search, and sales plummeted in May of 2017.  They never did recover.  From there it has gotten only worse and let's face it, when little money is coming in, the drive to spend all of those hours taking photographs, editing photographs, measuring each piece of jewelry, and writing out listings, loses its polish.  I have more fun just making them, but then I look over and have a HUGE pile of finished items, none of them listed.  Argh!

I am also on to new things.  I am currently burying myself with recycled tin and cardboard jewelry.  I absolutely love working with these mediums, almost as much as my beloved shrink plastic.  There is more to it than the shrink plastic because I have to prepare the used tin metal and cardboard before I can even use them, they need to be cut up, sanded, textured, cut out, I then have to apply faux lithographs (a whole other involved step, a secret method, so don't ask...sorry!), and/or decide how I wish to further cut up a piece of recycled tin for use as-is without lithography.  It's a much bigger undertaking, but the good part is, the applied images are pretty much water repellant, and the jewelry is metal, which is more sturdy than the shrink plastic.

Also, the quality of shrink plastic is horrible.  Yes, I'll come across pockets of good stuff, then it goes bad and I'm on the search again.  It's funny.  I have amassed an absolutely enormous hoard of good plastic (at least 2000 sheets of it) not to mention about another 1000 sheets of both gold and silver (no longer made).  I use it when it strikes my fancy, but I have zero intentions of further replacing it.  Until a quality supplier comes along and stays, this woman is done searching.

Maybe I Should Change the Name of My Blog?

Since it isn't strictly shrunk plastic, perhaps "Shrunken Treasure" wasn't the best choice...

I have been dabbling in all sorts of media lately and I'm loving it.   My history with shrink plastic is verrrrrry looooooong indeed.  Close to 20 years.  Sadly, the heyday of inkjet printable shrink plastic is behind us.  Shrinky Dinks was sold off over two years ago and so many who had thrown their hats into the inkjet printable shrink plastic ring have long since pulled them out leaving few choices for shrinky dink artists like me.  In the interest of the love of vintage illustration and jewelry, I have embarked on a journey to try new things!

My first stop is printed metals.  Tin, copper, brass, aluminum, steel, whatever.  The result has been nothing short of amazing and there are many ways in which to get an image onto metal.  The process is much more time-consuming, but the outcome, jewelry that is actually metal, is superior to shrink plastic in that it is much more resilient.  I have had many in the past comment about how they aren't "into plastic jewelry".  Those people are missing the point;  shrink plastic is fun, it's beautiful, lightweight, and the level of care I give my jewelry is quite wonderful.  But, it is plastic and as such, can be broken.  Shrink plastic is not for everyone.  What I love about printed metal or faux tin or whatever you want to call it, is that it is much more water resilient and won't break.  Now, metal can be bent, but it is just more permanent than it's plastic counterpart.  Also, it is still very lightweight and easy to wear so that doesn't get lost with the switch to printed metal.

My second stop is printed polymer clay.  Again, lots of ways to get an image onto the clay.   A plus is it's ready availability (all crafts stores carry it).  The transferred images look good.  My only dislike is that it can be heavier.  Not a lot, but it is heavier and it's thicker so that clean crisp look I get from plastic and tin can't be duplicated.  However, I will say some of the illustrative jewelry I've seen has been great none the less.

All of that being said, there is just so much to try that it has left my head spinning.  I am always trying and making new things.  My Etsy store has suffered for it.  I now only have about 25 active listings as opposed to my usual 275+,  but I'm okay with that.  For now.  I'd really like to establish new additions to my line-up and not have them simply limited to shrink plastic jewelry.  I believe that mixed media is where it's at and where I'd like to grow my business.  We'll see!

Utter Confusion about SEO

Where do I begin?  I opened my store, fauxshowart.com in January 2018.  No traffic, nothing.  To be fair, I didn't really do much with it until the past couple of months with regard to SEO and asking Google to crawl my website.  I didn't have my SEO set up properly and honestly, I still don't think that I do.  The directions provided by Weebly are obtuse which surprises me since they are a web building company and I feel the instructions should be ironclad and precise.  Maybe I'm just thick.  The places where they tell you to enter your SEO, are not the same sections (they don't have the same names in the page builder), so it's really puzzling and highly frustrating.

Google and other search engines like Bing now require you enter a verification tag so that they know you are the owner of a URL.  This makes sense to me as you do not want someone to make requests for a site that is not theirs.

In order to be put into Google Analytics and or Search Console, you are given a clump of data that must be pasted into the head of each page of your site.  This allows for tracking and analytical information gathering.  Easy, right?  Wrong.  Here is why.  I had an Etsy Pattern site for about 14 months.  For the site, I paid for my own URL.  fauxshowart.com   Well, when I closed Pattern and opened a Weebly site, I had to get a 'key' from Etsy that I carried to Weebly so that I could retain my store's URL, which I renewed for a year.  Great, right?  Maybe not.  I asked that Google Search 'crawl' my site to catalog it only to find 11 broken links.  They were links to items that were no longer available, in other words, sold, on my Etsy site.  What Google Search did was crawl my old Etsy Pattern website, which is no longer active.  How is that even possible?

What's worse, the name in Google Analytics is Faux Show Art - Etsy.  ???  I'm completely confused and really quite upset about the entire thing.  It can take Google a long time to crawl your site.

I'm going to have to dive into this again and probably even call Weebly support to help me muddle through all of it.

It's this type of thing that keeps people bound to entities like Etsy and it's unfortunate.  Etsy is as expensive as Ebay, they are no longer about cottage makers and artists.  They allow mass-produced items to be sold on their platform and I want nothing more than to be free from that.

Later

Testing Plastic

I'm a hoarder.  A hoarder of shrink plastic.  I come across a batch of good plastic, I buy all that I can of it.  A mother lode is worth every penny, so save them up for when you come across it.  What exactly is good shrink plastic?  Good shrink plastic has many connotations; good color reproduction, nice surface, nice edges, good stiffness, good thickness, relatively even shrink (lays back down flat, shrinks evenly top to bottom and side to side.  In today's plastic, these qualities are a rarity and are not come by often.

Because I have been making shrink plastic jewelry for so long, I have a ton of the older vintage stuff.  Cases of it in fact, and no, I'm not interested in selling it.  I have had people ask and because I use it, I sadly have to say no to them.  However, that does not mean that you don't sometimes come across plastic that is really good.  It's out there, but only by chance.

Most plastic made today is labeled with a lot#  for easy identification.  It didn't used to be that way though.  It was always a crap-shoot and the best you could do is buy bulk from the same supplier at the same time in order to get all of a good batch.

I seek perfection because I make jewelry, which unfortunately requires a certain level of quality.  If I buy plastic that stretches badly and distorts the finished item, I have to return what is left for a refund and try my luck elsewhere.  I have been doing this a lot the past 4-5 years as the quality and number of suppliers have dwindled.  Unfortunate.

So what do I do when I order a pack or two from online?  I run a test of course!  I have a pre-set template in my cutter software (multiple squares and/or circles of different sizes).  I print this onto one sheet of the plastic, cut them out with my cutter, and bake them looking for any big issues.  If there are, I return what is left.  That is all.  Now that is not to say it can't be a little off.  You can still use plastic that is a little off, generally without any problems.  Or, you can decide to design items that do not have to be perfectly symmetrical.  This also works well and also fuels creativity in thinking outside of the box.

Yes, most packages are 5-6 sheets, some only have 3 sheets.  Sometimes you can buy bulk in 50-100 sheets.  It is still worth the effort, at least it is to me.  I get quite a few pieces of jewelry from the remaining 5 sheets and this makes it worth it.  Below are pictures of what I do. I keep it until I get the next package or when the packages of the same lot run out.  The images are from a couple of different batches from the past.  You can see the squares are tilted, but in the other the circles are perfect.  You just never know until you test it.

My family thinks I'm nuts, but that is how Ms. Faux Show Art rolls.  Hope this gives you some direction in where you want to go. 

Happy shrinking!

In the Salt Mines

Yes.  I've been busy.  Even in this terrible, unforgiving heat.  This summer has been awful.   Up and down swings from highs of 90+ to highs of 78 and overnight lows in the 80s and 70s which is pretty unheard of in Michigan.  I don't like it, not one bit.  Oh, I realize the snow will be here soon, but if this overly hot summer is any indicator, it may not get cold until December.

I refuse to let the heat stop me though.  I've continued designing and making new items that I love.  I recently got into making 'halves' bracelets.  Or halved-cuffs if you will.  I put the seam straight down the middle and I like it!  It opens the door to all new types of looks and plays on the idea of opposites or sides.  On top of that, they fit every size wrist and forearm for super easy wearability!

Also, this allows you to make some mighty large pieces.  If you are a shrink plastic jewelry designer, you know that the plastic does not shrink to 40% its original size, as some brands advertise, it's more like 20%, which means a ton of shrinkage.  You can have a piece that measures 5"x 5", and it ends up 1 3/4" x 1 3/4" or a little smaller.  Okay, so maybe not 20%, but you get the idea.  This can make for a very small bracelet.  While I do like petite and delicate, I like bracelets you can SEE and FEEL even more. :)

I have also been getting into more bold and graphic imagery.  It just feels so right to me at the moment.  I have worn several of my pieces and get compliments regularly, a definite good sign!
My love of shrink plastic will never end.  I always have so many ideas and so little time to play and execute them due to the constraints of a full-time job and a house that must be maintained.  I have some of my latest shown below.

After this huge storm of bracelets, I have just two days ago changed gears and gotten into earrings and necklaces to mix it up.  These look fabulous on!  Only the beginning in this direction, more beauties to come soon!

While I'd love to list these on Etsy, where I have been actively selling for almost 4 years, my wish is to list them on my Weebly site, but I'm having issues with that and I'm not sure Google is cataloging any of it so that when people search, they find me.  Who knows?  Also, I think the user Weebly user's instruction manual that is provided is weak and at times quite obtuse leaving a new online store owner shrugging her shoulders when it comes to REALLY understanding SEO.  I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake by going to Weebly and not Shopify.  I think the website choices at Shopify far outnumber those offered by Weebly, but Weebly layouts and store set-up were rated the easiest by many so that is what I did.  We'll see!

Etsy's Rate Increase

I guess it was bound to happen.  Etsy has just recently upped the ante and increased the cost of doing business on their platform.  Once the whole "Pattern" thing flopped, they had to try another tack.

A little background first.  Etsy Pattern came out over two years ago.  The idea was to give sellers an "independent" website using their own custom URL (which buyers would need to purchase).  Mine was www.fauxshowart.com.  Nice, huh? The only problem was, you were locked into overly structured, pre-determined layouts, and, when customers tried to check out, they were re-directed back to Etsy, causing all kinds of mayhem.  I paid $14.95/month for 14 months and made 1 (one) sale.  LOL, I dumped Pattern last November and signed-up for a Weebly site at $35/month.  I have yet to make one sale, but I'm not giving up just yet as I know there are things I could be doing, but haven't gotten myself together enough to dig in and figure all of it out.  I really need to start working on that.

On my Etsy store, since pretty much the beginning, I signed up for internal Etsy Ads.  These can cost anywhere from $1/day up to $10/day, depending on what you choose.  The idea is that when a potential buyer does a search, your items will be given the advantage of being sprinkled in with the first items that are listed. Why not?  Right? I chose $1 to be spread over all of my items (about 250 items).

Later, Etsy added Google Shopping ads.  These can cost anywhere from $50/month up to a whole lot more.  I chose the $50 route.  When people do searches and then click on the "Shopping" button from Google, your items will be given a place on the list.  On this, you are billed on a per Click basis.  The drawback to this, and it's kind-of devious, is that a competitor can do a Google search and unscrupulously repeatedly click on one or two items, and blow through your budget for the day.  Now, my hope is that there really isn't someone out there who feels so threatened by your work that they do this, but I have read that it does happen.  These fees were fine while sales were rockin', but when the bottom fell out, I felt nothing but the pain in my bottom line.

I have several items that sell well as most Etsy retailers and online retailers can identify with.  These items are really your bread and butter and carry you through.  In my case, they were the bulk of my income.  When the trend for one design dies, however, the gravy train stops and you must reassess and come up with another amazingly wonderful idea!  But, when the bottom falls out, and you gross $75 in one week, and Etsy takes $35-50 of it, it stinks.  I have had weeks where I gross only $45 and have $10.75 deposited on Monday.  How is that for a slap in the face?  I dumped Google Shopping and the Etsy Ads.  I'll take my chances.

I'm not going to go into the Etsy "search algorithm manipulation" stuff too deep, but I do agree that I have experienced such incredibly acute and abrupt changes in item "favorites" shop "favorites" and sales that I do believe there is merit in seller's rancor over Etsy stacking the deck or at least rearranging it unfairly.  That is all.

First, Etsy is raising their 3.5% to 5%, that is a whopping increase.
Second, they are now going to charge 5% on your shipping charges!!!!  No lie.
Third, they have added a "Plus" feature that will cost $19.95/month and a "Super" feature that will cost even more (to be disclosed in January 2019).

Etsy says the fees will help them advertise Etsy on TV nationally to bring buyers in to let them know that Etsy even exists.  My hope, deep down is that this works and helps all of us who sell through Etsy, but the 5% on shipping is just plain wrong.  I make no money on shipping fees.  I wonder if it is an attempt to push sellers into including shipping in the cost of the item so that you can claim "free shipping" even though it isn't free, the fees have just been rolled into the price of the item?  Lawsy.

I need to re-vamp my Weebly site and get Google and Bing to "crawl" it.  I would love to be independent of Etsy or any other similar selling platform.  There are definite pluses to these platforms, but if you are not a big-time seller and more the cottage jewelry maker, the fees can kill you.

Know Your Audience, Check the Weather

This past weekend I did another crafts show.  It cost me $20 and a Saturday of my time.   I forced my daughter to help me...She wasn't having any of it and was quite annoyed.

It was in a rural community that my sister is a school teacher in.  A really cute typical midwestern town.  However, when it comes to selling more unusual items, like shrink plastic jewelry, and odder designs, it doesn't really resonate well.  I made a total of $77.  It would have been $87, but I undercharged for one item...  We ate the rest of the profits in gas and shaved ice! LOL

First, "know your audience", is spot-on.  Had I made some earrings that were of John Deere tractors, and the local school mascot, it would have generated more interest which would have led to more sales.  It's that easy.  No, I'm not being catty, it's true.  These were farmers.

Second, "check the weather".  It was HOT, flaming hot.  It was humid, and 88 degrees F.  We both ended up with sunburns and packed up by 3PM.  It was far too hot, this also added to slow sales and was probably the biggest factor in few sales.  People would come under the tent and comment about the sweat burning their eyes.  So yeah, it was too hot for a crafts show.  What we should have done was get there, pack up the canopy which had been put in place the night before, and leave.  We would have been ahead of things.

To put a positive spin on it I'll say this.  We didn't lose anything other than 7 hours of a very hot Saturday.  We made enough to pay for everything else.

Final thoughts:  If you know the weather is going to be bad; too hot, too cold, high winds, or rain.  Don't go.   If your items are something that may not be too well received by the demographic, don't expect to sell much, and, make some items that may interest the demographic, local teams, colleges, etc.

A New Beginning for Faux Show Art

Yes.  I just opened up my very own storefront on the internet.  Come see me!  Faux Show Art   It will most likely take me 20 years to be noticed, laugh out loud.  I am an idiot when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  Meta Tags, Meta Description, Meta Title, the list goes on.

I bought my space through Weebly, which was the best fit for me.  Shopify was a close runner-up and I also liked that they mailed me a free chip reader for my phone, everyone else wants 50-75 dollars for one.  But, after reading reviews, Weebly came in at the top for what I was looking for and the set-up was easy.  I imported all of my Etsy listings in a snap.  When I tried to do that with Shopify, it was somewhat nightmarish because the formatting didn't import right.

There are a ton of apps that you can add to your Weebly package, but beware, many of them want additional money every month and my efforts were to keep costs down.  Etsy takes a lot of my money overall and the way they mess around with their own internal algorithms is disturbing.  For example about a year ago, on Etsy, I was getting between 20-30 favorites a day and business was never better.  Then overnight, literally, crickets...  I was not the only seller screaming bloody murder, there were tons of us.  Etsy came back with some lame excuse about how they were better serving buyers and all I could think was:  Okay, I was receiving tons of favorites and sales were booming, you updated your algorithm, then it was gone!  So, whatever customers were finding me before, were lost in the ether.  This is not helping customers find what they are looking for.  Many suspected the move to do this by Etsy was to coax sellers into paying for additional advertising through Etsy.  Additional money for Google Ad Words, IntraEtsy Ads, etcetera.  Let's face it, the day Etsy said it was okay to sell mass-produced goods, their sparkle faded for me.

I had talked about getting off of Etsy as my sole outlet but never did it.  I paid for Weebly for four months before finally flipping the switch and opening my store.  I had a Pattern site (provided by Etsy to the tune of $15/month) for 15 months and made ONE sale.  I pray it is not that way for Weebly.  That would stink.

I am offering all of the same items in my Faux Show Art store, but I am doing so at a 10% discount over Etsy, so if you see something on Etsy that you like, head over to Faux Show Art and save some coin!

Peace!

Etsy's Unfair Seller Rating System

I'm lucky.  I'm lucky in that the overwhelming majority of people who buy my jewelry love it and take a minute to tell me so.  For that, I am truly grateful.

However, even the most wonderful 5 star rating with a kind word, does little to salve that loathesome negative review...

In a nutshell, negative reviews hurt.  I take them very personally.  This is because I put my all into the items I make.  I want them to be perfect.  I want my customers to love them as much as I do.  I want to have happy people wearing my hand made items.

I mean, if you buy something, and it isn't what you like or thought it would be, you contact the seller and ask to return it.  Right?  I know that I do.  And, it takes a lot for me to leave less than 5 stars.  I don't take away a star if the item is lost, or late because of the post office.  Even if it takes the seller 4 days after I order it to get it in the mail.  I mean, if it's just what I ordered, I don't usually leave anything negative.  But that's just me and I am a seller, so I know how it feels I guess.

I will say this right now:  Etsy's star system stinks!  It is so vague and can have such a devastating effect on a business from just one 1-star review.  And this 1-star review can be left by someone who is having an awful day, or just being plain vindictive.

 I think there should be a few categories. Delivery/Timeliness, Honesty in the Listing, Seller Communication, Presentation.  And, if the review is 1 up to 3 stars, the reviewer must elaborate on WHY they feel this way for EACH category.  This helps sellers to make changes and also keeps the review legitimate.

I know this will never happen, because I think customers would be like "that is too much time to do".  But if you leave someone 2 stars, you should have to elaborate on it.

My Etsy Negative Review Story:

• This takes me back to the very first, and only, thank God, 1-star review I have ever received.  I believe it was from the 4th or 5th item I sold!  Not only was it 1-star, it was absolutely scathing.  It was so full of venom  I was dumbstruck into paralysis for a short minute.  I wanted to cry.  I was so injured that someone would say such horrible things about a necklace that was so carefully and expertly finished and really very pretty.
• 
  
• When I regained my composure, I called my big sister and read it to her.  Her reaction?  "oh my gosh!  Listen to what she said!  She sounds like a shrink plastic jewelry maker who is doing her best to put you out of business!  She sounds like a competitor".  And after reading the review again and again, I realized that every biting insult this person dished out to me sounded like insults the buyer herself might have heard from potential buyers of her own shrink plastic jewelry at crafts shows.  Yes,. the criticism was that pointed.  "it is cardboard" "the bead is not ceramic".  etc.  Everything she said was not true.  Everything.
• 
  
• They tell you to never respond to negative feedback and carry on.  I'll tell you, if someone gives me a 1-star or 2-star review, I will have a response.  It is that simple.  However, I won't make my response a personal one with regard to the buyer.  My response to the review made me look the way I felt; like I had just had the wind knocked out of me and was seriously injured, that I was never contacted by the buyer asking for a refund, that after multiple attempts to reach the buyer and offering a full refund, she never responded and decided to keep the necklace, and that down the list, for every thrust of her knife, I had an answer. Which was, the item is shrink plastic, the bead is ceramic, and that I and my shop are not going anywhere, etc.
• 
  
• I even had a customer who, shortly after my awful review, mentioned how suspicious the review sounded.  Yay truth!  Yay other honest customers!
• 
  
• In the end, I realized that this particular customer had an address that was in the very same city as a super-huge shrink plastic jewelry maker on Etsy.  Call it coincidence, but I don't think so.
• 
  
• Anyway, that is my horrible review story, I had to share it!

Observation of another Etsy seller who was slammed

• I remember browsing other shrink plastic jewelry shops and coming across one in particular.  She make shrink plastic pins and bracelets but also made resin jewelry.  Well, apparently, some of her resin had bubbles in it and apparently, the bubbles weren't small.  The buyer purchased several items, about 5 I think and for each one, she left 2 stars.  Even though the problem was with only one item.  I felt so sorry for the seller.  All of those 2 star reviews knocked her rating way way down.  It was so unfair.  I realize the upset of the buyer with the bad resin work, fair enough.  But to take away stars from every item when it wasn't deserved was just plain mean.

Oh, and one more small story...

I have had people in the past give me 4 stars because they felt a stud earring was too small (hey, it's a stud), or that an earring is not long or big enough.  This is after having an insanely clear and very detailed description with explicit measurements  in the "details" section of the listing, along with 8+ images of the earrings which included a photo of the item on a life-size mannequin and a photo of the item compared in size to a US Quarter Dollar!

People don't read sometimes and the seller pays for it.

Getting tired,
have a great day!

The Trouble With ETSY...

When I first took my show to Etsy, it was still promoting the 'handmade' cottage industry that had been so underrepresented by all other online venues.  It was where Grandma Evans could make a few extra bucks selling her hand crocheted slippers that she made in her spare time.  Or where Uncle Bill could sell his happy-faced hand whittled figurines.  Those days are gone for Etsy.  It took a few years, but Etsy's thirst for money has allowed all kinds of 'production partners' in the mass production of goods sold there.

Hey, I'm not knocking the dabbler-turned-full-time Etsy makers.  Ones who may hire family members or help/seasonal help to piece together and sew clothing or jewelry.  I'm knocking the full-out selling of mass produced items from other places with unfair labor practices, we all know who they are.  The items are "hand made", by a worker in a sweatshop. I also have a problem with sellers who design items and have them mass-produced in factories i.e. enamel pins and other media, and call them hand made.  Yes, the design is original art (kudos), but, it is NOT handmade by you or someone in your small shop.  Cafe Press and Zazzle come to mind.  Etsy no longer has seller/store spotlights, which used to give props to shops and shop owners showcasing their ideas/wares/practices.  No longer do they allow sellers to create 'collections' of items.  Just nothing that once made Etsy more unique.

On top of all of the new commercialization stuff, Etsy seems to constantly be changing their 'search algorithms'.  Any time a change occurs, you can hear the sellers scream bloody murder wondering why they used to get a bunch favorites on their items every day or have 10+ sales a day and see it tank overnight.  Only to be told by Etsy 'we are making changes to more accurately direct shoppers to what they are looking for'...which is false.

I pay $1/day for Etsy ads (ads inside of Etsy that are supposed to help get me noticed) and up to $30/month for Google shopping.  In a month, that is $60.  For a little fish like me, that is a lot of money, $14/week.  Add to that Etsy fees for listing ($0.20/per item every 4 months), 3.0% from each sale and 3.5% + $0.25 per sale to a credit card and it comes out to almost 10% of every single sale.  Steep.

To follow and track the changes in minute detail was never something I aspired to since I am a small time side-seller who is not about to give up her day job.  Good money+benefits means I'm not moving to Etsy full time.  Thank you.  But other sellers do, and man are they sharp.  When they dissect the reality of what Etsy is doing to what Etsy says they are doing is so disappointing and disheartening.  Many times over the past year I have contemplated moving myself off of Etsy altogether.  Fear of the unknown and comfort have kept me on Etsy, but this coming new year, 2018, I'm taking the plunge and going my own way.  Independent of Amazon, Etsy, Artfire, etc.

I took my Pattern site domain (which was sponsored through Etsy, and man what a laugh that has been), and I've transferred it to my very own independent presence on the internet.  The site is sponsored through Weebly, but it is mine, and Weebly doesn't promote products, shops, owners, etc.  you are simply on your own to do it your way.  Good luck.  I'll take it.

Let me break down the Pattern experience for you.  I started by paying $15/year for my domain name, plus $15/month for my Pattern site.  Since April 2016 through December 2017, it generated 4 sales worth $101 total...  It's like Pattern 'floated' on top of my Etsy store.  True, I had my own domain, but it was an exact duplicate of what ETSY was, and when a buyer put an item it the cart, they were redirected to my ETSY store to pay, which was confusing and stupid.  Really strange and totally not worth it.  I would not suggest Pattern to anyone.  If you want to sell on Etsy, keep it an Etsy shop and don't add Pattern to the mix.

I am still working on my Weebly store, it has a long way to go and I think the template I picked is quite ugly LOL  Yes, I have a lot of work to do!  But , the import of items to Weebly was very easy and details and whatnot transferred over well.  I tried a Shopify store months ago and the transfer happened, but I was forced to re-type tons of stuff.  I let that entire idea die :)

So, I figure another month or so and my fauxshowart.com store will be alive and well.  It will probably take a century to generate my first sale, but it's a chance I'm willing to take and it gives me comfort knowing my items, being found in a Google or Bing search, are not going to be affected by Etsy meddling with search algorithms within their domain.  I kept saying I wasn't going to list one more item to Etsy, but I just listed 15 items this weekend and I need to stop doing it.  I need to walk away.  Yes, my store will remain open, but new items will not be added.

Have a good day!

UV Resin, is it any good?

So I just started dabbling in UV resin.  It's cool.  It's really cool.  I have watched zillions of videos and knew I had to try this.  I generally use really nice 2 part resin, which, by the way, looks wonderful if done CORRECTLY.  But, it takes a full 12-24 hours to get hard and several days to get really hard and it has to be 75-85 degrees to cure nicely.  UV resin does not.  It takes, quite literally, 10 minutes or less to harden to a crystal clear, hard finish.  For antsy-pants people like me, it's a WIN!

To try it out, I had to buy a UV light and resin ($100).  You know I had to buy a really nice 54W UV light (with a large stage for multiple items) along with two large bottles of resin.  Because why?  I must own tools and things for my crafts-loving heart!  I bought mine at epoxyjewelry.com.  A word of warning though, I did NOT shop around, like a dummy, and paid $75 for the light.  I found the exact same light for $36 with free shipping on ebay...I am my own worst enemy!  I would also like to add that the only shipping choice at epoxyjewelry was 3-day priority at $21.  I received my items ONE WEEK LATER...  Yes.  I  bought it early on a Thursday, it did not ship to me until the following Monday, which is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE  for an item purchased at a priority shipping rate (as I said, they offered no other shipping options).  As a seller, holding an item for days when a customer has paid for priority/express shipping is essentially theft (of time).  Plain and simple.  Okay, rant over.

The resin seems to be pretty good.  I paid $12.50/2oz bottle and I bought 2.  They also offer an 8 oz bottle for $33 which is a really good price and comparable to the 2-part epoxy resin.  There are other brands of UV resin out there and I will list them below.

I specialize in shrink plastic jewelry www.fauxshowart.etsy.com  check me out!  So my items are printed using a standard inkjet printer.  Nothing fancy.  I have read where the resin does not work well on inkjet ink and some sellers offer a sealer of sorts that you apply before applying the resin.  I thought 'no thanks' to that.  But the tales of troublesome inkjet/UV resin combining may be somewhat true.  I was so excited to try this on some Christmas themed items I had recently made.  My first try was a cool retro-inspired candle.  I squeezed out some resin, moved it to the edges of the candle using a toothpick and placed it into the UV oven.  The top hardened, but the resin sitting on the surface of the candle stayed liquid.  It NEVER hardened, even after 30 minutes under the lights and after so long, even the ink started to get slimy :(    So the hardened shell would slide around across the top of the shrinky dink.  I was so utterly disappointed, the 'dink was ruined as the surface was permanently sticky and gross (after I took the hardened shell off).  I then did a test on a clear (semi-translucent) shrinky dink and it hardened in less than 3 minutes.  My conclusion was well, it doesn't work on the opaque shrinky dinks.  Also, I put the shrinky dink back under the light to see if the remaining slick of resin would harden up. It never did, it stayed gross.  This may have something to do with the ink after all.

Here is my blonde moment:  The UV light has mirrored panels throughout the inside of it for maximum reflection of the UV light.  The idea being that the more reflected UV light, the faster the cure, be it gel nails, or UV resin.  The surfaces of the oven/light were all covered in that clear blue protective plastic and I did NOT remove it first.  Duh, gurl!  Yeah, pretty bad!  In my defense, there were absolutely NO instructions or set up information that came with the light (another negative ding to epoxyjewelry.com).  To remove the plastic covering, I had to remove all six of the UV bulbs (easy pop outs/ins) and then wedge my fat little hand in and try to using my nails to scrape at the edges of the mirrored panels in order to get a bit of the edge loose in order to pull it off.  This task was daunting.  There were no pull tabs to make removal simple.  I cannot help but feel there should have been some sort of info that came with the UV light, but I received none from epoxyjewelry.com which I think is pretty shabby.

I decided to give it another go.  This time, I applied the UV resin to an item that was first 'sealed' using clear acrylic spray paint (this is how I seal/protect all of my shrinky dink jewelry).  In 5 minutes, the resin was hard, it was prefect.  Winner!  I have not had many more chances to use the resin as I am crazy-busy prepping items for the Christmas season.  I hope to soon add some more information with regards to the resin.

In addition I bought, for $14 from Amazon, a pair of the UV light protective goggles that came bundled with a TaoTronics TT-FL002 UV flashlight (it has a big light area). You can use these to quickly harden the resin with your flashlight.  This does work!  I put the goggles/glasses on whenever I look at the UV light.  Protect your eyes!

Oh, and also, I have two big, hairy dogs.  Hair and resin DO NOT WORK WELL TOGETHER.  This UV resin is nice in that you can use a heat source to heat out the bubbles like you would regular resin, but do NOT use any type of fan and stay out of a drafty area if you have animals.  I ruined a couple of other pieces because lint/animal fuzz found it's way onto the surface of a couple of my other items and in a very short time.

Some other brands of UV resin are as follows:

Solarez on Amazon -- It says it is UV curable resin and the price is amazing good.

 
 
 
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"UV Resin" in a bottle with a green leaf covered label, there is no brand name listed, but I see it everywhere.  This

particular sample was listed on Etsy

10g  $5.28

15g

25g

60g

100g

200g  $30.36

Lisa Pavelka--found in most crafts stores.  Very expensive but quickly accessible.

1oz=$9.74

And others.  The Solarez seems like such an amazing deal.  a quart for $35.05 seems crazy.  I'd have to start with

the smallest size and try it to see if it is as good.