Come See Me on Artfire!

So, Artfire has been around for a few years, and I've tried it out a few times without a whole lot of luck, spending most of my efforts on my Etsy shop. Now, my Etsy shop has been fairly successful, but lately I'm spending so much money on listing and renewing fees in the struggle to get the sales that I'm not making any profit at all. I just spent about $5.00 in renewal fees the other day to get my Halloween gift boxes back up front in the search. Did I get a sale from it? Yes, but that $5.00 really cut into the profits on that sale, so was it worth it? Mmm...maybe not so much.

Well, when I found out that Artfire was coming out of beta mode with a new front page and a special deal for everyone who signed up by the end of September with a $5.95 per month fee for a Pro shop with all the perks and privileges of said Pro shop, I just couldn't resist. $5.95 a month for unlimited listings, no final sales fee, submission to google shopping and The Find, global editing, and lots of other features is well worth giving it another go. My Etsy bill for September alone is well over $80.00. Yes, I may get more sales on Etsy, but the sales I do get on Artfire are going to cost me a whole lot less, meaning more money in my pocket.

So, new shops on Artfire! One for my jewelry and gift boxes, and one for supplies.

And, since it is way cheaper to sell on Artfire, I'm taking the chance of double listing all my Etsy stuff so that everything is on both Etsy and Artfire. I just have to check my email frequently and remove any sold stuff from the other site. I did get one sale on Artfire the other day and actually remembered to go remove it from Etsy.

Another thing I really like about the new front page on Artfire is that you can make a 'collection', much like a treasury on Etsy, with your favorites or a specific theme, and your collection can be submitted by you for front page consideration. In the effort to reduce the rampant favoritism on Etsy with the same sellers being promoted on the front page Artfire has a program that will not let you include a seller in your collection who has already been featured recently. How about that? Why can't Etsy do the same thing? Because they don't care, that's why.

Anyway, come on over to Artfire and check out my shops!

Soft Summer Breezes and Vomiting Cats

It smells like poop outside today. Ah, the lovely summer breezes wafting through the dairy farms and freshly fertilized fields on their way to Bakersfield!

Today is payday and since we have direct deposit I've already paid the bills except for the electric bill which isn't here yet and after we buy some food and household necessities we'll be broke again. We had nothing in the house for dinner last night so we went over to Los Hermanos for some Mexican food. We love Los Hermanos, it's a cross between Taco Bell and a real sit down Mexican restaurant. You order at the counter but they bring your food on real plates with real silverware and it doesn't cost much more than Taco Bell but tastes a WHOLE lot better.

And now I'm trying to figure out cheap meals for the next two weeks so I can make my cheap grocery list. Scrambled eggs for dinner will be on the menu, along with bean burritos. Maybe some sweet and sour chicken too, that's fairly cheap to make and actually has a vegetable or two in the recipe.

They've been showing that Publishers Clearing House commercial where you could win (fat chance of that!) $5000.00 a week for life. Which would be really nice. I always wonder how they can give away so much money, is selling magazine subscriptions really that lucrative? Maybe I should enter, because SOMEBODY has to win, right? And it might as well be me, right? Like that would ever happen.

And yesterday was the day of vomiting cats. I don't know what was up with that, if it was the cheap Boots and Barkley cat food from Target or what, but it seemed like EVERY cat in the house was hacking and gagging and leaving little presents for us all over the house. All over our already crappy carpet. Then late last night, and I'm so glad I was still up to catch it, Lucy vomited all over, and I mean ALL OVER the top of the entertainment center. ALL OVER it. She likes to lay up top there and if I hadn't been there to wipe it all up, it would have been up there forever, because how often do I climb up on a ladder to clean in places that I can't see? Not often.

We threw away the cheap Target cat food just in case that was the problem.

Oh, I do have some new beach glass pendants in the shop.

I did some with wiring and some with a bail. I found some really good glass glue at Michaels, like a super glue where if you get it on your fingers better not touch anything or you'll be permanently attached, either that or lose your fingerprints trying to detach yourself.



I've pretty much decided to just concentrate on the one Etsy shop for now. I tried the second shop for artwork and did get some sales, but I'm going to close that one after all the listings expire and just have everything in one shop. I'm going to close the Artfire shop, too, even the top sellers over there don't sell much. Yes, you get your listings uploaded to google shopping, but what good is that when nobody is buying those listings? There is a new site that is free to list, efreeme, but if it's like all the other start ups, not much will happen there, either. I think that if anyone is going to buy handmade, they are going to go to Etsy first, even if half the crap on Etsy is not handmade and is exactly that, crap. I might give efreeme a try, since right now they are paying you $5.00 if you list 20 items. I'm sure a lot of sellers are listing their 20 items just to get the $5.00 these days.