Currently I am working on a traditionally-pieced quilt (a sampler) for a wedding gift, in a less traditional palette. I will share my “adventures in traditional quilt making” on my next post.
Today, I am doing some clean up on my Textile Adventures page of my blog and wanted to remove this series of updates from 2013 on starting my tierneycreates Etsy shop (GETTING READ TO ETSY PART I AND PART II) and move then instead into a blog post.
I am considering making my tierneycreates Etsy shop inactive as I have not put a lot of energy into it and not sure if I want to keep renewing my listings (I have stopped renewing any currently expiring listings). I will share more about this in a future post, I am finding my heart is not completely into retail (especially since I work a busy and intense full-time job in the healthcare industry).
Getting Ready to Etsy: Part I – October 2013
My journey on my “Textile Adventure” takes me closer to my dream – a tierneycreates store on Etsy, the online handmade marketplace. This part of my journey feels scary as I have never sold my creations before. I have done a couple commission quilts but I have never sold to strangers. Of course those I sell to will no longer be “strangers”, the will be people who have a little bit of Tierney in their life or their friends life through owning one of my creations. This is very exciting. I have made quilts and other textile gifts for close friends and family over the years, and the thought of the opportunity to share what I love with an extended group is exciting. Of course I have to charge them to support the cost of materials and continued creations!
As a road map to my journey’s destination, I am reading a wonderful book: How to Sell Your Crafts Online by Derrick Sutton, St.. Martin’s Press, 2011.
I am going to start with offering two category of items: 1) my handmade mini kimonos; and 2) my international Barbie collection (which I can sell under the Vintage category of Etsy). Below are some photos of the kimonos which measure approximately 6 inches x 7 inches, are made from my cotton Asian fabric collection, and will come with a chopsticks and string for hanging.
Getting Ready to Etsy: Part II – November 2013
Here an update on my tierneycreates Etsy shop adventure:
My sister encouraged me to have my Etsy store up by Thanksgiving weekend. I was very excited about the original logo I designed until I tried to make it work as my Etsy store – “tierneycreates” logo. It did not work, like not at all! I have redesigned my logo in a “late-night-logo-session” (see below) and I have uploaded it to Etsy for my store banner – yah!
Now if I could just get my items posted onto the shop. What has been holding me back is PHOTOGRAPHY. I am coming to grips with the fact I suspect I am the world’s worse photographer. Even with the assistance of a guide on digital photography, I am still struggling. I want potential buyers to have a clear, true to life image of my store items. I have already re-photographed the kimonos twice. If I were to try to make my living off photography, I would starve to death.
The tierneycreates logo has been created
I needed a logo for my upcoming Etsy Store and for my tierneycreates business cards. It looks a while but I finally came up with a logo that I like.
Recovering from a “business card disaster”
A couple of months ago I tried to design tierneycreates business cards. I thought they looked awesome online as I ordered them from Vistaprint. I anxiously awaited my shipment in the mail. When they arrived, my excitement was quickly deflated – I had made a bad decision in regards to text color and backgound and except for the “tierneycreates” part, they were unreadable. So I was stuck with a box of 250 useless cards. I did give some to friends as a joke, asking them “now what’s wrong with this business card?” (Answer: you cannot read my name or any of the contact information!)
I am an avid recycler and I recently found a way to reuse my disaster – turn them into tags for products I sell at my Etsy store! They have been cropped, holes added, and turned into tags!
tierneycreates 
I’ve contemplated opening my own Etsy shop. The insight you have shared has been very helpful. One of my problems is that I’m having a hard time parting with my specimens.
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Etsy has excellent support for its sellers and info for people thinking about selling on Etsy – here is the link to their seller handbook https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook
It costs 20 cents to list an item and you have to renew that 20 cents every 4 months if the item does not sell (if you list multiples on one listing you are charged a 20 cent renewal each time an item on that listing sells). It is not a lot of money but if you have less expensive items after awhile any profit you could make it eaten up with the listing renewals if the item does not move (then when it finally does sell you have to pay Etsy a portion of the sale and credit card fees). I used to sell quilts on Etsy but people would contact me asking to negotiate the price of the quilt (and I was already listing it as low as I could with the cost of having paid the long arm quilter not to mention all the work that went into the quilt). But all that aside I have met some wonderful customers through Etsy, it is just I am not sure if I want all my off work time focused on another job and then crafting might stop being fun 🙂 Now if I were retired, I would totally be doing Etsy full time! And I would spend the time to really market my tierneycreates Etsy shop.
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And there is one more issue (and I will discuss this more in a future post) – how could I be working towards minimalism but trying to get people to buy more stuff 😉
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Wonderful information. I am retired but still not sure.
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I like how your re-cycled your business cards to become tags for your Etsy shop. There are only 24 hours of creativity per day…how do we best use them? I’ve been all over the place with crafting and sewing and over time, I am like you, I have made the decision to focus on quilts. My brain keeps bringing me new ideas! Yay!
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Thanks for you comments and yup this is true – our brains are out of control with creative ideas and this is a good thing😀
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