To learn more about Keara’s business and Etsy.com, read Shawn Cyr’s article, Those arts and crafts projects could add up to dollars online.  This might spark your creativity and give you ideas for expanding your crafting interests and even make some money with them.

There also are workshops and tutorials at Etsy.com.

What have been your experiences with Etsy.com?  I’d enjoy hearing about your craft business utilizing Etsy.

(Image: sxc.hu)

Post from: Blisstree

Do You Utilize Etsy.com for your Crafts?

Image:sxc.hu

Quilters might follow the traditional patterns exactly or develop variations from them as my daughter does. 

 You could use floral designs in: 

• Rug hooking (My husband’s grandmother made lovely hooked rugs with floral patterns.)
• Crocheting & knitting  (My mother-in-law used flowers in some of her crocheted afghans.)
• Painting & sketching (I’ve always enjoyed painting flowers, in fields and meadows, as well as in vases.  I’ve often used them in notecard designs, too.)
• Latch hooking (My cousin has made vibrant hangings with flowers enhancing them.)
• Tole work and painting on metal (Flowers greatly enhance this type of work.)
• Leatherwork (My brother-in-law and his wife often tool floral patterns into their wares.)

How do you use floral designs in your work?

Post from: Blisstree

Floral Designs in Arts & Crafts

Image:sxc.hu

Here are 5 reasons they can be important:

1.  Helps you gain name recognition
2.  Lets the public know when you’re exhibiting at a show.
3.  Announces an award or type of recognition you’ve received.
4.  Informs the public about new classes/workshops you teach.
5.  Provides information about a unique trip you took related to your craft work.

 How have you used media releases to inform the general public about your arts and crafts involvement?

Post from: Blisstree

5 Reasons for Crafters’ Media Releases

Image: sxc.hu

Some craftspeople start out with a blog, as my daughter has at Meandering Threads and then may develop a web site where they offer items for sale.  Perhaps you simply enjoy sharing your crafting heritage, as I do at Tales of the Trails End Quilters.  Here I relate stories about the quilters in my family.

Blogging gives crafters a place where others can view your work (especially if you use photos) and get to know you.  It opens the door to happenings in the crafting world…or quilting world in my daughter’s case.

Your blog/web site, may not be at the top of search engines, at least initially, but you have a place where other crafters and your customers can learn more about you and what you’re doing…whether it’s making and selling items, teaching workshops, designing unique pieces, writing books, producing  related items such as note cards, pictures, puzzles, or selling fabric and other supplies.

Why don’t you let me know about your blog or web site and how it has helped and inspired you. Often, blogs simply are fun to maintain and keep us in touch with other artists, crafters, quilters and fabric divas.

Post from: Blisstree

A Web Site or Blog for your Crafting

“I’ve always considered myself a PR pro,” comments crafts business expert, Barbara Brabec, in her current e-newsletter bulletin, “but what I was particularly good at in years past was getting print publicity. 

       Yes, for many years Barbara has been considered a pro at helping crafts people promote their enterprises and has written several books on the subject.  Many of us have discovered, as Barbara has, that the PR field is a whole “different ball game” now that we can contact people all over the world through the web.  However,  Barbara has been adept at adapting her advice to help crafts people in this Internet age, as you’ll see when you visit her web site.

Also, the nature of our quilting and fabric arts businesses may change as the Internet opens up many possibilities, even when we have basically a business with customers coming into our shop or provide services away from our home office.

*We may produce an e-newsletter instead of a printed one mailed to customers.

For instance, the owner of a local quilt fabric shop asked my daughter for her e-mail.  She said she was going to send an e-newsletter instead of one by postal mail, simply because the cost was less (almost negligible), it was quicker, and reached her customers faster.  She would have a few printed newsletters in her shop for customers without e-mail to pick up.  But she wouldn’t send them out that way after a specific date.

*E-mail becomes a common method of corresponding with our customers.

*Orders will come to us via e-mail rather than, or as well as, the post office if we’re a mail order business.

*Customers/clients will find you via a blog and/or web site, even if you have a physical shop.

If you’ve operated a home business during both eras, what are some ways you’ve had to change?  Do share with us.

Post from: Blisstree

Promotion for Quilting Businesses Has Changed with the Internet