Shop makeover Wednesday

My new ribbon shop, Ribbonzella, had only three sales and halted. I have great expectations from this shop, so it was obvious something is wrong with its setup (advertising and promotion will be held after shop makeover is done).

I did some research and asked people for advice, and finally came up a plan which includes:

1. Adding a second item image, showing the actual spool (people commented the primary images are brilliant, but don't show the details of the ribbon).
2. According to the advice given on Danielle's latest "Etsy success" email, I did the math to realize what minimum price I need in order to return my investment (it's easy with this shop, cause have all the ribbon is already at hand).
3. Changing the price for the majority of the items, mainly increasing the amount of ribbon from 3 to 5 meters.
4. Changing the banner to match my shop styling (will be done soon). Pitty, cause I like the current banner which my friend made for me..
   
5. Find more unique ribbon to add to the shop.
6. Notify my potential customers of these changes.

I thought I would take advantage of this, to show you guys how to improve your item iimages. I am a very poor graphic artist, so if I can do it withouht even using Photoshop, so can you!

I took photos of my ribbon spools, in natural daylight (on the roof, as usual) on white background. I got horrid images, since I had to use low exposure, or else the picture would turn out "burnt" from all the white.


I edit it in MS Photodraw, but you can use other tools, such as the wonderful free online editing tool Picnik). First, I turn the image into a square, since Etsy shops a square thumbnail, and I want it to show the entire spool. I crop it, to remove as much as possible of the dark background.

I place the item in the middle of the square, and fix the tinting, to make sure the color pallet is correct. I want the white to be as white as possible.

Now, I start fixing the brightness and contrast. My goal is to eliminate the dark background, and make the spool "pop out" of the screen. I increase contrast and carefully play with the brightness till I reach the point where further brightening will hide the details and change the actual color of my ribbon.

Now I use a faded erase tool, to get rid of the left over dark spots. The fading edges will eliminate deleting parts of the actual spool, and will leave a nice shade which helps to highlight the very bright item.

And here it is - a nice crisp item image. Who would have ever believed it used to look so bad to begin with?

Pink organza ribbon with red hearts available at 3.60$ for 5 meters (5.46 yards)

My main problem remains that shipping price makes the ribbons less attractive to the buyer, while I cannot reduce them without hurting myself. Any ideas to go around that will be most welcome.

Where is my blog giveaway winner?

I waited for two days, and still no word. I am giving it till tomorrow morning, and if I don't hear back from Audry, I will do another ruffle.

A little feel good clip - Good people along the way

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

And the blog giveaway winner is....

I need your address, please email me at


Thank you to all the participants. A new giveaway will be held next month. This is fun!

Animal magnetism

There comes a time in every woman's life when she realizes her shop is clean of hamsters. Yes, only one hamster magnet remained after the sale we had last week. I therefore spent the Passover holiday (or part of it..) hand sewing some new hamsters.

This little hamster is a Liberace fan

This little hamster enjoys ripe French cheese

And this little one, has seriously crazy eyes

Get them for your kitchen or office, or both. A hamster magnet a day, keeps the clutter away.

My First Blog Giveaway

Passover is here, and Easter too. Spring is showing its allusive face, time for a Blog Giveaway!

Pinky explains the rules on this little clip.

The giveaway includes an illustrated greeting card, a puppet postcard, a stickers page, and also (not seen in the clip) a coupon for my shop.

To join:

1) Comment on this thread.
2) Follow the blog.
3) Pinky will randomly choose a name out of the participants on Sunday evening (14.4.09) and I will announce the winner here.

Good luck!

New bug fixes module

We just released a new version, and sent out the "what's new on version blah" documents to our customers. Section 8 on this document stated the following "Bug fixes".

We got an email from one of our larger Israeli customers, with a list of questions regarding each section of the document. Question 8 was as follows "What does Bug Fixes do? And when will documentation be available for this module?".

Illustration with hamster and son.

פרויקט הפסח הסודי נחשף

כבכל שנה, התבקשתי להכין את מתנת הפסח לדודות של רותי. שלא כבכל שנה, רותי התחתנה עם דני, כך שהמתנה משניהם. ההנחיות שלי היו להכין משהו פרקטי (בשנים קודמות קיבלו הדודות תכשיטי אוכל מניאטורי ואוגרים מגנטיים).

בשיטוטי בחנות מלאכת היד חיפשתי השראה, וזו לא איחרה לבוא - פרקטי ומגניב, היר איי קאם! וכך התחלתי בעבודה (מאוחר מדי, כהרגלי). ראשית ביקשתי מהזוג תמונות, וקיבלתי. התיישבתי לצייר אותם עם שרפי (זה התחביב החדש שלי, ציור בשרפי - כמו שאני עושה בתמונות המוצר בחנות הסרטים שלי) על נייר.מאחר ודני יצא מאד דומה, אבל רותי יצאה בת מאה, ציירתי ראשים אלטרנטיביים, במטרה להדביק לה אחד מאוחר יותר.


הזהרה - התהליך המתואר מכאן והלאה נע בין השערורייתי למגוחך. ככה אני עובדת, כי אין לי הדרכה או הכשרה או סבלנות ולכן אני עושה מה שבא לי.

מאחר והתעצלתי לחבר את הסורק למחשב החדש, צילמתי את התמונה, העליתי אותה למחשב, והעליתי אותה לפיקניק כדי לסדר את איזון הלבן (זאת התוכנה הכי טובה שיש לי למטרה הזו). אחר כך פתחתי ב-MS Photodraw והברגתי לגברת ראש חדש.

עכשיו לשלב המגוחך באמת - פתחתי Paintbrush והתחלתי לצבוע. לא, אני לא צוחקת. יצא לא רע יחסית. אחר כך פתחתי שוב בפוטודרוו והוספתי טקסט. כעת הפכתי למראה, כפי שמיודענו ליאונרדו אהב לעשות. בנוסף בישלתי תוספתן.
כדי להמשיך את טרנד ה"חשבתי שרק באריטראה עובדים ככה" נאלצתי לנסוע לתל אביב לחברה שיש לה מדפסת, כי לי אין. כלומר יש, אבל היא לא עובדת כבר קרוב לחצי שנה. שם הודפסה הכבודה (פלוס התוספתן). אז דילגתי חזרה הביתה, ופתחתי קרש גיהוץ. אני שונאת לגהץ.

אין ברירה אלא להודות, שלמרות שאני מגהצת לא משהו, יצא פגז קומפוט! שלא לדבר על התוספתנים.

לסיום - עת לארוז. מאחר ומדובר במתנה לליל הסדר (אגב, במשפחה שלי לא נותנים מתנות לפסח כבר שנים. אני מתחילה להרגיש מוזר עם זה שאין מתנה לדודים למחר..) ופורים היה לא מזמן, חיפשתי את התיקים והארנקים למצות וארזתי יפה בצירוף מצה קטנה ריקה, שיוכלו לכתוב ברכה אישית לכל דודה.

וזהו - פרויקט הפסח הסודי הושלם בהצלחה. עד השנה הבאה, שלום ולהתראות וחג שמח וכשר לכולם!

Some blah and another international cooperation

Today I am feeling rather blah. I had an actual lump of blah stuck in my throat for several hours, but even now that it is gone, I am still sort of blah. My shop, for example, needs refreshing with some tasty new items, but I have no inspiration. Plus, I was commissioned to create Passover gifts for seven aunts, but didn't start working on them yet. I know what I am making, but keep procrastinating. Blah.

In the midst of all this blah, there is the beautiful result of yet another international cooperation with Dave from Craftiness. Dave and I already worked on a cross seas pen project, which was just for the two of us. This time, Dave the wood craftsman and me decided we will create a commercial product to sell on Dave's shop - a wooden hand painted kaleidescope!

First, Dave curved four maple wood eggs (made out of maple growing in Austin Texas, where he and his family lives) and shipped them to Israel for me to paint on. I hand painted the eggs, using ink and acrylic paint in the styles Dave and I worked out before hand (mainly, not too cute). It was a real challenge for me.

The front of the eggs - a sleeping woman, gazing at the stars, bear
and "מים רבים לא יכבו את האהבה" which means "Many waters cannot quench love" (Song of Songs, 8-7).

The back of the eggs

Finally, I shipped the eggs back to Dave to be turned into kaleidescope. Dave polished, glazed, and turned the eggs into unique pieces of art. As he wrote in his item description These eggs logged about 14,000 miles of travel so far, I cannot wait to see how much further they will travel.

The final result. The eggs are available for purchase here.

Etsy Israel Team pre Passover sale (and Orit)

I am just back from our first handmade gifts fair. It was a blast!

First of all, finally some members of the Etsy Israel Team got to get together and meet in real life (where there's no keyboard).

The place itself was wonderful. A very industrial little space in Florentine in south Tel Aviv, with naked walls and flooring, and a little yard as well. We each setup our stands at different corners of the space.

I setup my stand under a guitar

Odelia, whose boyfriend rents the place as a studio, had a very fitting setup on hanging shelves beneath the stairs to the gallery floor.

Man, those recycled plush dolls are so good looking.

Veek brought her wonderful knitted jewelry. I traded with her for a wonderful knitted and beaded necklace.

I also traded with Irina (moohahaha) whose jewelry is very elegant and lovely.

Orit created a lovely presentation, even though she is not on Etsy (yet) . It looked so good on the bare concrete wall.

Two dsiplays for the price of one - Shay closing a deal under Orit't display

We had lovely visitors, some nice sales, great trades, lots of cookies and crisps, a great sunny weather, and saw a lot of dogs. The bottom line is - the next sale will be held soon. So start saving up for some wonderful handmade gifts!