Like I said in my last blog entry, life is busy. I haven't had any time for new listings lately. But last week I received two orders for a total of 5 banners. One was for my original READ banner and the other was for personalized classroom words. So while I was cutting all those letters and scalloped squares out, I decided to make another banner to go along with the others that I have listed. I can see this in an elementary classroom art center or an art teacher's classroom.
Of course, I can make the banner say just about anything from the typical classroom signs, a teacher's name or the entire alphabet! And coming soon...... the chalkboard version! I'm really excited about this idea. I hope you will visit my shop, Ellie Marie Designs. Please feel free to contact me about a custom banner for your classroom.
Life just doesn't ever slow down, does it? The past several days have been a whirlwind of activities for me and my family. Here's a quick summery of what's been going on -
* Last Thursday, Hannah, Holly and I traveled about 2 hours east to help Gabriel move from a temporary room rental to his first apartment that he will share with his soon to be bride. It's a furnished apartment over a garage - a nice little one bedroom. So we just had a few boxes of personal items to carry up the steep but beautiful dark hardwood steps. The AC had just gotten turned on and it was literally 90 degrees in the little place. Had to cool off by going to the grocery store. We bought frozen pizzas and cooked them in the oven which didn't help with the heat. And we found out that "fully furnished" doesn't include a pizza cutter. So I cut the pizzas with a steak knife.
*John did not go with us because he had to travel to DC to pick up our Romanian friend, Marius, from the airport. He was supposed to arrive around 7 PM but the flight was delayed until after 11 PM. It was 2 AM before they arrived home.
* On Friday morning we left for yet another trip. We had to take Hannah to New York City to meet her team at the airport there to go on a two week mission trip Romania. So we spent the night with my former college roommate in New Jersey and left her house on Saturday. She lives about an hour away from the airport so that was incredibly convenient and we were blessed to spend some time with her. I was amazed at the amount of money we spent on tolls, round trip from VA to NJ to NY and back to VA - about $70.
*We got back on Saturday night and Sunday evening was the beginning of our church's Vacation Bible School. I'm teaching the 1st - 3rd graders.
*Come Friday morning I can breathe a short sigh of relief before getting serious about all the last minute details for Gabriel's rehearsal dinner and wedding. Soon I will post some pictures of some of the things that Sarah has asked me to make for the reception. Meanwhile, here's on order I'm working on this week for a fall wedding -
Etsy is home to over a million shop owners who sell handmade crafts, craft supplies and vintage items. Buying something can be as easy as clicking the "add to cart" button and checking out with Paypal or a credit card. But knowing a few handy tips may prevent unnecessary frustration for you and/or the shop owner.
#1 READ the description for the item that you want to buy. Make sure that you understand -
* Exactly what is being sold - the size, the quantity, the color
* How long it will take the seller to make and ship the item
* Where the item is shipping from - If you live in New Zealand, you won't get your package from Iowa in 3 days.
#2 LOOK for special instructions. Do you need to leave information for the seller? This generally applies to personalized items.
#3 ASK the seller a question! Etsy sellers do not mind hearing from potential customers. Perhaps they forgot to mention the size of an item or you want to know if they can make blue tags instead of white. Look for the "Ask a Question" button to the right of the price.
#4 BE specific. If you want blue tags, ask for the specific shade. "Can you make these in royal (sky, turquoise, navy, etc.) blue?"
#5 ORDER EARLY. We live in a world of making last minute decisions. Too many times I've had to turn a customer down because they ask me on Monday if I can make a stack of personalized tags and have them delivered in time for their baby shower on Friday. No, most likely not.
I hope you've found these tips helpful! I will be back to share some more. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments. And I hope you'll stop by my shop - Ellie Marie Designs .
What's my biggest selling item from Ellie Marie Designs? Amazingly it's these plain brown kraft tags. I started out with a set of 25. A potential customer sent me a message and asked if I could do 200. 200? What does anyone want with 200 plain brown tags? Doesn't matter really. I can do 200.
Three years and thousands of tags later, I'm still selling them. I've done several sizes from 1.5 - 5.5. The 3.5 is the most popular. And I've done anywhere from 25 to 2,000. They've gone all over the world from Hawaii to New Zealand.
So what do people do with these tags anyway? Mostly, they don't tell me. I know that some have been used for:
*Escort labels at weddings
*Price tags for brick and mortar stores
*Etsy sellers gift tags.
*DIY Christmas tags
*Yard sale price tags
*Fundraisers
Need some plain brown tags? Visit my shop! I can also make a custom listing for special sizes, quantities and even colors.
So I had these stacks and stacks of scrapbooking supplies and had to decide what to do with them. I did some research on Etsy and saw that people do sell 12 x 12 scrapbook pages. But how do they ship them? That route seemed too complicated for the beginning of my adventure.
I gathered my supplies and just started cutting, stamping and gluing and soon some festive little Christmas gift tags had been created. I listed about ten sets in my shop and I was a happy camper. I was so pleased to have almost half a page filled up. It took about two weeks to get my first sale. I was ecstatic!
Decorative gift tags are one of my favorite things to make. But I've realized that not everyone needs six or ten of the same tag. So recently I've bagged up an assortment of ten different tags in a grab bag. Each bag is different and it's a bit of a surprise what each customer will receive. There are baby shower tags, fall tags, teacher appreciation tags, Valentine's Day, wedding or bridal shower tags, birthday gift tags, etc. It's like an All Occasion gift tag supply.
Trying to decide what to sell in my Esty shop was not too hard. I am not really super talented in the area of arts and crafts. When I was about 16, I took a macrame class. I really enjoyed that and did quite well with it. Then I tried toll painting, decoupage, stenciling, cake decorating, cross stitch, sewing, plastic canvas and whatever else was new. It was always a colossal failure. It wasn't any good or it was too messy, too expensive. Some projects took too long and I lost interest.
Then scrapbooking came along. Someone compared it to making bulletin boards, but on a much smaller scale. Well. I'm a teacher. Bulletin boards I can do.
When we were in Romania, I started a scrapbooking ministry with the ladies there. They had seen my scrapbooks and I thought it would be fun to get the supplies and show them how to make them. It was a fun way to reach out and fellowship! When we left the country, I gave away a lot of my supplies. But I still had a bunch that we brought back to the US.
So when I considered what to sell on Ellie Marie Designs, I was inspired by the prophet Elisha in
the Old Testament. He asked the widow who was in great need of making
some money, "What do you have in the house?" What did I have in my house? Stacks of scrapbooking supplies.
Do you sell on Etsy? How did you decide what to sell?
My family and I were missionaries to Romania. And when we returned from the field, we found ourselves in Richmond, VA living on a single and insufficient income. So I started working too. I subbed in the public schools anywhere from one day a week to full time. John worked evenings, I worked days and somehow we managed to continue homeschooling our three children.
Then my oldest two, Gabriel and Hannah, graduated from high school the same year and went off to college. So now we not only had the added expense of two children in college but working outside the home became complicated. John's schedule had changed from permanent evenings to shift work. That made it impossible for me substitute without leaving our youngest, Holly, home alone for hours at a time.
I was discussing my dilemma with a friend at church who happens to have a very successful etsy shop selling adorable baby bows and headbands. So I started praying about what I could do at home and soon Ellie Marie Designs had begun.
