My new Facebook page

Hello everyone, I'm back! I had a very busy month at my job with closing out the year and then also setting up new files for the new year. Things are starting to die down again so I am able to work on my Etsy shop.

I would like to thank everyone that purchased from my shop Karmic Kreations on Etsy, your business is very much appreciated:) I would also like to invite everyone to check out my new page on Facebook and if you like my jewelry then I hope you will "Like" my Facebook page. I will post updates on new items as well as sales and special promotions. And if I get enough people to "Like" my page I will conduct periodic contests and giveaways:) Hope you see you all there!

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Karmic-Kreations/149814725071628

PS, If you know anyone else that would be interested, can you please pass this information along to them? Thanks!:D Kim

Holiday Hustle

I feel like I've been slacking off on my blog updates. I always try to blog at least once a week but it has been hard with the Christmas rush. I still have cards to mail out and more presents to buy. We just barely put up our tree!

Tomorrow is the 2nd Christmas craft show with the local Etsy team. I have decided not to participate in this one. I think I am going to wait until February to participate in another craft fair.

I've been getting inquiries in my shop for Christmas related purchases. Customers requesting to change a stone color or alter an item. It has been fun working with them to create an item they are happy with. It makes me want to start doing more custom orders. I really enjoy the customer interaction.

One more week until Christmas, can you believe it?!

Birthday Time!

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Meeeeee, Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeeeee! That's all I wanted to say today! I had a great day, one of my better birthdays:)

My First Craft Show Experience and Other Stuff

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged, things have been so hectic with the holiday season. Last Saturday I participated in my first craft show with the local Etsy team. It was a great experience! I only made 1 sale but not very many people sold that day. Most of the people that showed up were more interested in seeing the antique train display upstairs and of course Santa. I learn A LOT and asked so many questions. When I first arrived I immediately noticed how professional other seller's tables look. I kind of wanted to bolt out the door with my little crappy looking card table, plastic green tablecloth, and trays of jewelry. But I made do and everyone there was so nice and the customers were very friendly and had nice compliments:D I lost out on a couple of sales because I didn't accept credit card but I did give them my business card. That is one thing I am looking into is a credit card reader. I read on the Etsy forums of a slick new card reader that you plug into your cell phone called SQUARE UP. Here is the website: https://squareup.com/ Right now it only runs on iPhone and Droid phones.

Overall I had a great time at the craft fair and would definitely do it again in the near future. There is another Christmas show coming up on the 18th which I am thinking about doing but not sure yet. I am more prepared now, I made my own necklace stand and bought a cheap ring display. I have attached a pic of the necklace display. I used an old canvas painting and painted it over with acrylic paint and then I added eyehooks on top to hold the necklaces.

Things are starting to pick up again in my Etsy shop. I had a great October but then things started to slow down for a couple of weeks as my attention focused more on the craft show. One thing that helps keep me motivated is using all the money I earn in my shop to buy goodies off Etsy. I get to buy stuff for myself and my family that I wouldn't have considered buying before I started selling. Also, I want to keep the energy flowing to support the handmade community. I am going to start reviewing some of my favorite items in future posts. Until next time!:D

My New Favorite Tool!

I stopped by JoAnne's on my lunch break earlier and found the best tool ever! It's a Fiskar's 1 inch circle hand punch. This is the PERFECT tool to punch paper images for my bottle cap pendants. And the punch is very smooth and clean, no snags or anything. Yay, no more tracing images around a quarter! I don't usually work with paper or scrapbooking so I didn't know this type of thing existed. There were other shapes and sizes available too. I only paid a little over 5 bucks for it with a 40% off coupon. Great deal!

Preparing for Show

Wow I can't believe it's the middle of November already! These last few months always seem to go by fast. Last blog entry I talked about attending the house party event. It was a nice experience and I learned a few things. I ended up selling 5 items within 2 hours and so did my sister but she made a lot more money than I did because she sold her items in sets. I admit I wasn't prepared and didn't bring my best stuff. I sold mostly my wire wrapped rings and got the most compliments on my bottle cap pendants. There were 4 other sellers there besides us and about 20 to 25 guests showed up. The host got her free coffeemaker but didn't give a presentation on it like I thought she was gonna do. Overall it was a good learning experience and we got to munch on desserts and drink coffee! I would definitely do something like this again in the future. I also highly recommend houseparty.com and think it is an excellent opportunity to get free gifts while throwing a themed party:)

The house party experience has given me the courage to sign up and participate in our local Etsy team Christmas craft show. There will be 2 events but I only signed up for the first one to see how it goes, there are about a dozen of us signed up so far. It will be on Saturday Nov. 27th so I only have 2 weeks to prepare, what was I thinking?! So I probably won't have much time to post new items in my shop and I'm sure it will suffer a little because of it. I'm nervous and excited about participating in the show. I'll be observing other sellers and taking a lot of mental notes because that is how I learn best. And then using what I learn to figure out a way I can incorporate that into what works best for me. Gotta go crank out those items, have a great weekend everyone!:)

Houseparty.com, ever heard of it?

Tomorrow afternoon I am attending one of those themed houseparty events. The host needed a jewelry seller and found me on Etsy through the "shop local" section. I'm not very familiar with these events but I've heard it was a lot of fun so I said yes but asked if I could bring my sister because I don't feel comfortable going by myself and she said yes the more the merrier. So hopefully I will get some exposure tomorrow afternoon. I'll post my experience to let you all know how it went.

The houseparty theme tomorrow is sponsored by Hamilton Beach and the host gets a free coffee maker set in exchange for demonstrating the coffeemaker. What a great incentive to throw a party! If any of you are interested in knowing more about these events the website is http://houseparty.com/