Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Another shop?

I am tossing around the idea of filling up another shop on etsy. I already have a shop since I totally forgot about one I had already created when I decided to do the design items. I really want to have one place for all of my items that focus on the difficult stuff--for the pregancy and infant loss items. I'm thinking it would have various memorial designs for jewelry, the BoH jewelry, sympathy, thinking of you, and thank you cards, as well as announcements for birth and bereavement and even for when little troopers leave the hospital.

Mostly, it will be a matter of moving certain listings and listing things that I've already designed. That's not the hard part. Once again, the hard part is coming up with a name. I want it to be something that expresses the comfort I hope the items will brings or the fact that the items will be celebrating special lives. I thought of a few options, but for some reason, they just don' t seem quite right.

In Joy and Sorrow
Tender Expressions
Rembembrance

I would LOVE any input you all might have. I don't want it to bee cheesy, but I do want it to make a point.

For Your Convenience

Actually it mostly for mine, but I have gone back and added labels to all of my posts for the last year. You never know when you might want to find all things Christmas!

I Never Shared This

I never really shared this, but I had my feature post at the etsy greetings blog a few weeks ago. Each person on the street team gets a feature of their shop periodically, and it can be a great resource for anyone who is into buying handmade cards. My blurb just says a little about how I got into making cards in the first place and why I keep doing it.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Nee a little pick-me-up?


So this isn't really crafty, but I thought I'd share. I love the Mentha Lip Shines from Bath & Body Works. Imagine my surprise when I found out they now have a whole line of mentha goodies including body wash. Talk about invigorating! Anyway, it's still on special now and I also happen to have a coupon for a freebie with a $10 purchase.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Some new designs

I just wanted to share some new photo card designs I finished today.







I came a cross a great site recently with all sorts of color schemes that you can browse. It has helped me to be able to see how colors work together before I start playing. That's how I branced out from my usual colors on the new birth announcement design. Sometimes I can't quite envision how colors will work together.

And the winners are...

I cut up all the comments and put the strips into a big mason jar. Then my four-year-old son pulled out the winners in the order that I posted the items. Sooo...

the earrings will go to this poster:

Madame Rubies said...
I am loving all of the color choices in your crafts. They are bright and happy. :) I am glad I was lead here by the giveaway!heathertruett@gmail.com
12:02 AM

the notecards will go to:

Roses Are Red, Violets are Violet said...
I love all things "crafty"And artsy and suchThe joy of creatingNice things you can touchWhether scrapping or sewingPhotography, tooLooks like I share thiscraft passion with you!
3:15 PM

and the custom felt flower goodie will go to:

Nanette said...
Very cute gifts. Count me in.
2:22 PM

And many thanks to everyone who dropped by to visit, left encouraging comments, and signed up for my newsletter! It has been a fun week, and you're welcome back any time!!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

For my fellow etsy sellers...

...B over at A Journey of Stitches has started an etsy reference linky on her blog. Anyone can post their shop link, so get on over there. I'm sure it will make for good browsing, too.

Wow!

I am overwhelmed at the number of visitors yesterday and today. Welcome to everyone, stay a while if you like, and definitely come back!

Today, I've been updating some of my photos. Some of the ones I had up of my cards just weren't cutting it. Here are some I haven't posted yet.










I took the opportunity to use one of the displays I got for a steal recently to update some of my pendant photos, too.




I got so many different displays from this awesome etsyseller including the earring display in yesterday's post. I only wish I had found the shop sooner. She had so many things to choose from at great prices.

Thanks again to everyone who has stopped in for a visit. If you haven't entered the drawing, be sure you do!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Here it is!

I guess it's better late than never, so here is my giveaway for the week!

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket


You can click the button to see who else is playing along!

I'll be giving away 3 prizes. The first is a pair of my aqua sparkle earrings:



























The second prize will be a set of flowerful thank you notes. This set includes 4 notecards that are blank on the outside and white envelopes. Two of the cards have the glittery flower design with green at the bottom and two have the orange at the bottom.

















The third prize is a custom felt flower hair clip or pin. You choose the colors and stitching design, and I'll mount your flower creation on either an alligator hair clip or a pin back. Here are some samples:





Here are the details:

To enter the giveaway simply post a comment on this post about anything related to my blog (scrapbooking, photography, my crafty shops, etc.) any time before noon EST on Friday.

I will draw 3 names from everyone who comments and post the results by Saturday morning.


I just wanted to remind you all, too, that if you like what you see in the giveaway, you can sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar. This will make sure you receive updates on my crafty shops and special offers!

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Who doesn't like free stuff?

I know I do, so I decided to join in on the bloggy giveaway started over at Rocks in My Dryer. Be sure to check back tommorrow to see what I have up my sleeve

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Playing around

I've been playing around with different things, yet not accomplishing all that much. Last week there was an adventure to Archivers to check out the clearance paper bins. You see, unlike some scrapbookers, the people who buy cards don't care if the paper used on them is the latest and greatest or not. I'm starting to care less and less about my scrapbook pages anyway, and so the adventure began. I ended up with a big ol' stack of patterns I never got to see in real life when they came out, some patterns I forgot I liked, and a few patterns that I would never have bought for scrapbooking. And they were all at a great price. Now I just have to sit down and actually make some cards!

I was excited to find a few stamps there as well. I picked up a Heidi Swapp birthday stamp, a Rhonna Farrer star stamp, and a great new greeting stamp by Inkadinkadoo. They have this great line with various sentiment and picture stamps and decorative ring stamps that go outside of these. All of them can be mixed and matched. I ended up settling on the Thank You set, but I would love to get some more.

I have had several chances to actually get out my camera, even thought the battery did finally die right about the time I was going to retake some of my card pics the other day. Mostly I have lots of pics of the little guy being himself, but I did snap one photo this weekend that I've been experimenting with. Sometimes I'm so focused on the little guy that I forget the other cool stuff all around.




















I also came across this fun site for helping with colors. I think it may have been through StumbleUpon (which is whole other post in and of itself). Usually I pull color schemes from a main paper or pattern, but sometimes it's good to be able to visualize schemes without a base pattern. Especially if you want to use only cardstock. The color schemer gallery has been especially useful since I have been working on creating my own digital papers to use in my photo card designs. I love stripes, but sometimes I can't visualize how various colors will work together, and it can be a lot of work changing colors of tiny stripes one by one after you decide the color scheme doesn't work. I haven't completed a lot of designs, but I did make one that I used for a birth announcement. You'll have to tell me what you think.


I'm headed out some time today to go to my sister's. That means I need to get a stack of stuff together in case I decide to play with her cricut while I'm there!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

A Bit Discouraging

Before I started listing stuff in my etsy shop, I did searches to see how many similar items were being listed. Of course, this was back in March. So I finally decided on some items to focus on. If you did the same searches today, you will find many listings for similar items, and many of them are listed at lower prices. I just don't understand how people can be making enough to make it worthwhile after fees and packaging and supplies. It blows my mind, and it's a bit discouraging.



The more I do this whole online thing, the more I think digging in locally would be much more successful. That's a whole other ballgame, though. There's almost an overload online. There are so many similar things, and almost everything imaginable has been done. Whereas, I know so much of this has never been seen locally. Now that I've made this realization, I just have to figure out what it means for me.



While I'm here, I'll share a few of the items I've been listing today.



a cheery cherry birthday card






a bright and fuzzy in my thoughts card



a new set of felt flower hair ties

Friday, July 06, 2007

I forgot how much...

...I enjoy the design end of things. I have always loved playing around with graphic design, and sometimes I wish I hadn't changed my major away from that in college. Several weeks ago, I started a second shop on Etsy just on a whim. I noticed other shops had banners for sale, and I like to play, so I thought it would be fun.

That was the beginning of Designs by Crystal. Now I keep coming up with new ideas for things I'd like to offer. I am constantly stumbling upon inspiration for more banners, but my favorite thing to design is the photo card. It's not quite digital scrapbooking, but it balances right on the edge. I simply enjoy turning photos into something extraordinary that also serve a purpose. Needless to say, my second shop would overtake my first if I would let it. For now, I just enjoy sharing my love of design with others. Here's a sampling of what I've been up to lately.



Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Not much to see here.

We've been busy doing the summer thing lately, so my crafty adventures have been less frequent. That, and I am out of adhesive, so nothing remotely scrappy will happen until I can get a refill (which I can't seem to remember whenever I'm out).

I did get a chance this morning to play around with my camera a bit. It was nice and quiet and fun. Take a peek!