Th1rteen R3asons Why

Clearly I spend the vast majority of my free time working on Fable Bay. But when I have done all I can do, or am feeling burned out, I always love to turn to a good book. Lately, with the holiday season, I have not read in weeks! For me that's like an eternity. :P

Last night I picked up a book I've had sitting, collecting dust, for a couple months. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. This novel is written for young adults, but has a gripping tragic story that sets it apart from trendy bubblegum stories teen novels often take. This book is written about a very taboo topic, but it's gritty and intense and 100% suspenseful.



Hannah Baker is a teenager in a small to medium sized town, who faces struggles many teens do. She is subject to ridicule and degraded by her peers, has acquired an unearned reputation, and her life has fallen apart. Hannah chronicles on audio tape, her 13 reasons why she has decided to kill herself. The tapes are delivered to the 13 people who played leading roles in these events. In the days and weeks following her death these individuals will learn how their actions affected her world.

Our perspective is Clay, #9 on her list of 13. In Thirteen Reasons Why, we follow along as Clay travels the town listening to Hannah's explanation for her decision to commit suicide, and to learn the role he played in her decision.

I read this novel in 4 hours. I could not put it down. It's heart breaking and controversial subject is intense and very real. I recommend it to you, although I realize the topic is hardly cheery, I think most will enjoy it.

I love Etsy Treasuries!

I love the treasuries. The Treasury is an ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery of handpicked items. These treasuries give artisans a chance at exposure, and buyers the chance to explore the site and find absolutely stunning items which might otherwise be buried in Etsy's categories and difficult to find.

I have made a few, none really all that impressive, but this one I felt was note worthy, even if only for myself.:) stop by, check it out. you never know what you might find!

I named this one Wintertime Hothouse.

DRAWING WINNER!

jlangsam was the lucky winner in FableBay's Black Friday drawing! I plan to have more drawings in the future! It was a lot of fun, and hopefully brought some traffic to the page! Now that Black Friday is over, lots of work is still ahead of me to catch up on all the orders!:)

Give Away!

FableBay is having a drawing!

All buyers who purchase $50 or more will be placed in the drawing for a free necklace worth $45!

All purchases over $50, placed between November 22 to November 27 qualify! Purchase $100 or more and be entered TWICE! I will Notify the winning buyer Saturday November 28th. Happy Holidays!

Name Crazy

Coming up with new names for my items can seriously drive me crazy. It is so easy to just give the rundown of an item, but I hope a well planned name is more impressive. To me it certainly implies thought and consideration. But I must admit, I am not really verbally creative. I love making jewelry, but without my Thesaurus, my jewelry's names would be nothing more than an itemized list.

But thankfully, dictionary.com has become a handy tool I use quite often! From here I try to explore color synonyms, and sometimes I discover amazing little things about a word I didn't know before. Take my new necklace, Moss Winds Necklace, this necklace is so lovely and brilliantly colored, but I had no Idea how to convey that in a small phrase.

SO...dictionary.com:) Of course my first action was to search for synonyms for green, there are plenty to choose from, apple, aquamarine, beryl, bice, blue-green, chartreuse, fir, forest, grass, etc. So, there's the color synonym, but sometimes a one liner doesn't feel complete. This necklace is transparent and round and truly reminds me of a crystal ball, except it green, so oracle and crystal ball weren't really fit. So again I chose to punch in a related word looking for a nice synonym. Premonition, related to oracle, came up with some fancy possibilities and some not so fancy:) Like, prenotion, presage, presentiment, wind change, winds, etc. Winds caught my eye, so...

Moss Winds it is.



Ok, so it might not be as unique as coming up with something right outta my own head, but after naming 149 items, my mind doesn't mind taking a break. This little research project also gave me some useful terms to use for tagging also!

Getting Serious

Part of jewelry making depends on having the right equipment. For the last 6 months that I have been selling on Etsy, I have had a scarce budget and have improvised in order to make the items I am creating. Slowly over time, I have been picking up things here and there, but today I made a significant purchase, and really, it's silly, because it's not an overly expensive piece either! I bought a bench block, hammer, and earwire guide!

These items are going to seriously affect what I am going to be able to create! I am so excited. Today I experimented with copper wire, it's beautiful and versitile, but also much less expensive than sterling silver wire, so practicing with it is great, less pressure to make it perfect the first time;)





These experiments actually turned out kinda cool! What do you think? Are they list worthy? I am going to keep practicing for now. Maybe pretty soon I will be confident enough in them to list them on Etsy...

Time for a new Banner on Etsy...

I like to use my own photos to create eye catching and unique shop banners. But this can be challenging when Etsy stipulates that banners can only be 760 x 100 pixels. this is relatively small, and makes being creative a tad more challenging.



The above picture is one of my new items in my shop. this picture is unedited, but I love the design, background contrast, and think that retouching it can really make it a great focal for my shop.

first I modified the exposure, then cropped the file down to a similar size to which etsy allows.




Then I added my shops name and cropped it a final time to meet etys requirements:



What do you think of the new banner?

Like the earrings shown here? view them at my shop: Tarragon Earrings

Etsy FP

FableBay was on Etsy's front page last evening! I've been on the front page a few times, but it hasn't seemed to bring any sales. So I was super excited to see that my Scarlet earrings, which made it to front page, sold last night!

The collection is So Lovely too, created by CurlyGirlCrochet



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New Items...Sometimes take a while...

I have been working on getting new items in my store, and sometimes, what SEEM should be simple enough, isn't....or at least it's more complicated than you might anticipate.

My new earrings, Merlot, are hand formed and hammered sterling silver hoops, wire wrapped with grade AA Garnets. But wire wrapping is slightly more tricky than I thought it would be. I had the darnedest time not deforming the hoop, and evenly distributing the gemstones was another challenge too.

BUT after what seemed like 10 times as long as it should have taken, I have these gorgeous earrings to show!! I know with each new pair I make, it'll get easier and easier. Learning to do new things can be challenging, but in this case, it's worth it:).

Optomize Your Tagging to Increase Exposure

Timothy Adam Design has featured on of my items on his blog, in his Etsy Top 10 list!

Getting your shop name out there in cyberspace is more work than you would think, so being featured with an established blogger is an amazing opportunity, and I am glad to have gotten the chance.

Bringing traffic to your sight is vital for sales, and there are lots of great ways to increase your exposure! Direct traffic on Etsy is highly desired, as you know these shoppers have an account, and are usually familiar with the Etsy shopping procedure. But getting all these shoppers to your shop can be a bit challenging.

Tagging your items is probably one of the most simple ways to increase item exposure. Every tag you add increases the number of times your item will show up in a search, so be creative, and consider digging out a thesaurus!



These Neptune Earrings, for example, are quite simple, they are aqua blown glass beads on silver hoops. The most obvious tags might be: aqua, blown glass, hoop, silver. But Etsy allow for 14 tag lines, and using every line available to you is in your best interest, so think about ways your potential customers might search for earrings. These earrings aren't just aqua, they can also be considered teal or blue, or green. The hoops aren't just silver, they are in fact sterling silver. For this item I managed to list 30 tag word!

(jewelry, earrings, glass blown hollow, bead beaded hoop, sterling silver, bright aqua teal, neptune azure, striped dangle, customizable ring, cricle inch, feminine teen day, evening cocktail, fable fablebay, orbit globe blue)

Be creative, consider all the words that might describe your item, and don't forget that Etsy Admin uses genre terms to create their own lists to put on the front page. Dark, Romance, Rustic, Autumn, Modern and so on are all terms themes Etsy Admin have featured. So think outside the box when describing your item, and fill every tag line you can!

Featured

I still have no idea what has landed me on the front page, but in the last month I've been so lucky to be on Etsy's front page 3 times!! Check out the latest one!

Invisiblilty wearing off?

Fable Bay is finally, not quite so invisible! I am so excited to be included in one of Etsy's gift guides! How they found me, I have no clue. That's the problem with half of my attempts at being noticed. I have no idea how they came across my page, whether it was by seeing one of my posts in a forum, viewing an add of mine, or possibly by accident? All I know, I do not look a gift horse in the mouth! Or in this case, gift guide:)

check them out!

Momentary Lapse...

Trying to keep up with all the ways to promote Fable Bay could become a full time job! There are so many sites I have found lately, Indie Public, Found-Handmade, Craftcult, Craftopolis, byhand.me, UStrendy, craft-juice, mixxmade, facebook and twitter, just to name those on the top of my head. I spend more time each day logging in and updating those pages, than I actually spend creating or listing new pieces!

The part I am not sure about yet, is whether any of these pages are even bringing traffic to my page! But as I am still new, and virtually invisible, I am planning to keep it up for a bit longer. It might wear me out, but while I can, I guess I must.

Word of mouth seems to be my best bit of advertisement so far, but I need to keep people coming back. So I am really putting effort into my facebook page. It seems strange, as there are so many other avenues of visibility, but it's free, and everyone has a facebook page, so...

New!!

This past week was fantastic! It might seem silly to be so excited about having 3 sales, but since I've been waiting for weeks and weeks, this is a big step in the right direction!

I have also been feeling more creative lately. I knew this would eventually come, once I began to feel more confident selling my creations. I actually believe I have some items that are fabulous and can't wait for others to see them!

Today I listed my first none jewelry item. My mother is an excellent quilter and has been quilting for some time now, and has finally agreed to let me try to sell some of her work. We obviously fall from the same creative tree:)

FableBay.etsy.com

Well, it's been interesting, to say the least, trying to start up a business online. I have had such an amazing time creating new items! I have had some very productive days lately! That's for sure! I have been searching around on Etsy, for some great bead suppliers and have run across a few really awesome shops. And thanks to them, I have a few new things i really am excited about!!

Follow Me-I'm lost too

Blogging is a whole new idea to me, but ready or not here i come!

I recently opened up shop on Etsy. I make jewelry. I'm new, but I love it. Would I call it a calling? probably not, that's too big of a statement, i'm not changing the world here, but it does seem like this is where my life has been leading me.