Gift Guide!!!!

Etsy has gift guides where they feature different sellers' work as suggestions for gifts!

Guess What?! 

My custom couple is on the front page of the Personalized Gift Guide!!

http://www.etsy.com/gift-guides/personalized-gifts/256

I just took this picture yesterday. Its really encouraging because I have been working on taking pictures that stand out. I guess this one stood out enough that I landed in a gift guide. Which, for the non-etsians out there, is a big deal!

I am learning the value of having really good photographs on etsy. I read an interesting article from a seller who makes a full time living on etsy. She said that "on etsy, your photos are your items." In other words, that's all people have to go on, so you have to make them eye catching, interesting, vivid and unique.

It takes a lot of work for me to get a half way decent photo. I am not a natural photographer. In fact, I flat out failed two classes in college, as in f-a-i-l-e-d, F's: Goddess Traditions and Photography.

I think I have an pretty good eye. So my biggest challenge is getting good, consistent lighting that shows the colors of the dolls and allows me to get them in focus without a flash, which reflects of the shellac finish. I built a little light box in an effort to address this challenge.  Also,  I've been experimenting with different backgrounds to help them stand out from the crowd of other peg dolls for sale on etsy.

I've had very little success, but I think I am getting closer to understanding what I need to do and what I want, though.

All of this experimenting is good but makes my shop look a little schizophrenic. The goal is to develop a standard method of photographing my peeps so that all my pics match and appear to belong together.

I think I am coming up against the limitations of my cheap, old digital camera and my knowledge. I admit I've been day dreaming about one of these. ( Ha! Maybe after a few hundred more dolls:)

And maybe I should have made a little more effort in my photog course. Or a lot.

Scenes...

I've received several new orders for my dolls lately. I am officially making a profit!  I keep setting deadlines and limits for what I can accomplish before Christmas and realizing that, no wait, I CAN take another order; I can do it, I'll get it done in time. At some point there has to be a limit to the orders I can finish before 25th. But for now, I am pushing that limit. I hate to miss any opportunity to make a sale right now:)

Oh, and my shop was mentioned in a children's toys feature this week on http://theamberlily.com/.  ( really exciting!)

In order to get them all done, I am working during the day, too. I have always painted at night after the children go to bed. Now I set up at the kitchen table right after breakfast with coffee, computer tuned to Pandora, paint, dolls, and camera.

Meanwhile, something has to give:

 

at least its folded....

The children still manage to entertain themselves.

Elijah wishing he could climb inside the light box to take picture with the peeps.

 

she keeps me laughing

Another Hat

I am really tired of looking at the balloons. But life has been a bit too overwhelming to blog lately.

Gabe started his new job about 2 weeks ago. He works from 9-9 most days and has only had one day off since he started. So, its just me, the kids and the little wooden people. It has been going much better than I expected. For the most part, there has been realitive peace about the whole situation. We miss him, of course. I am learning to adjust to not having a break when Daddy gets home at 5pm. The children are adjusting, too. We go up to the restaurant to visit him once every day. Even Adah knows the place now and starts chanting "Daaa-deeee, Daaa-dee" when we pull into the parking lot.

Meanwhile, Elijah insisted that I knit a hat for him since I made Adah one. Well, of course!  We took a hilarious trip to the craft store where, after much deliberation, he choose the yarn for the hat. He requested that it have a ball on top and that it be "a crazy hat". I could manage the ball, but the crazy, well, I didn't know what to do with that. I told him he would have to bring the crazy to the hat.

Knitting for Elijah is much more rewarding than knitting for Adah. He's said many times, "You made this hat for meeee?! Thaaaank yoooou!"  And he wears it all day long.

Awwww.... thank you, buddy, thank you.

Hot Air Balloon Festival

Every year, the small city where my parents live, Anderson, SC, hosts a hot air balloon festival. Elijah and I experienced it last year and were so excited to see it again this year.

It is such an amazing sight to see so many hot air balloons inflate and take flight at once. There were 25 at this year's event.  The children loved the breathtaking spectacle of colors: each balloon brightly and uniquely patterned; and of sounds: the roar of the fire as it fills the balloons, the cheers from the onlooking crowds as they take flight. Each part of the event is so neat to witness- the balloons slowly fill, and growing into massive rainbow orbs, gradually swelling off the ground, until the balloon handlers have to wrestle to keep it on the Earth for a few last moments until at last it is released, giddy (I imagine) passengers aboard, hover low initially, sometimes passing just overhead, then quickly climb into the sky and float away!

This is a bit picture heavy... I couldn't help myself:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My First Paid Order

I am so happy to report that I am having a bit of success at selling my silly little painted people.

A friend who saw pics on of them on facebook ordered 36 dolls to match her entire family! And I just took another order for a custom family from someone who found me on etsy! Yippee!

Its not a flood of work, but it is a beginning and certainly enough to give me confidence to go on.

My first customers have not given my pictures to work with, just a few descriptive phrases, so there is a lot of guesswork involved and I hope that I've done well for them.

 Here are some pictures of the first of the customs:

 S plays golf

 P plays guitar, CS loves cooking, C love bikes and horse, L likes bugs.

the two cooks:

B. the hunter and S. likes to read

 R. loved motorcycles and M. (all I got for her was: brown, olive, cactus- so this what I did)