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!

I'm Bored

So I'm listing some new stuff over at CraftIsArt, a new site that I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with for long or not, we'll see.

Anyway, I've got some new collage pendants that I'm putting up today along with free shipping on everything in that shop and my Artfire shop. Since Etsy costs so much more to sell on, no free shipping over there. Yet. I am thinking about doing a summer special with free shipping, though.

Tiny Birds in Flight Collage Pendant


Little Brown Bunny Rabbit Collage Pendant


Little Brown Sparrow Collage Pendant


And Blue and Black Butterfly Collage Pendant

Cat Meds and Our Exciting Weekend and What's New on Artfire

My little experiment with search engine optimization (SEO) and linking to my Artfire listing actually worked and I got a google alert for that item and my blog post, so I'll link more. Later.

First off, Harri survived her vet visit. Just barely as far as she's concerned. She is a rather silent cat but she meowed (very pitiful meowing) all the way to the vet and all the way back home again. She did have the beginnings of a respiratory infection so we have amoxycillin to give her twice a day and also viralys (cat vitamins) for twice a day. Which she hates. All of it. Blecchhh.

And since she had the beginnings of a respiratory infection she couldn't get her shots so she'll go back in two weeks for those. Then two weeks after that Pepper goes in for her shots and probably an anal gland expression (major anal gland issues with her) and then we'll schedule the rest of them in one month intervals so that everybody gets a vet visit this year. And we will be continually broke for the rest of the year. Seriously, we had to pay the annual auto club renewal and another annual bill along with the vet bill and after buying some groceries we're done until next payday.

Silly Buddy, who I sometimes think is a little 'special', doesn't realize that the cat carrier is The Portal To Doom and he thinks it's a great place for napping.



Keith has a three day weekend and I'm allowing him to do whatever he wants all weekend. No working on floors, no fixing this or doing that. No nagging to get something done. We've got really nice weekend weather so yesterday he took his new train magazine out front and sat under the tree to read. Along with some beers. Then he took a nap. Today he will probably do something similar. It would be nice to go somewhere but since we spent all of our money on cats and bills and groceries, we'll be having a very quiet weekend.

And now for what's new on Artfire. Why am I pushing Artfire instead of my old friend Etsy? Because Etsy has some major issues with not being picked up by google and they aren't very forthcoming with solutions for their sellers. So, I'm hoping Artfire can become my new Etsy.

Anyway, here's what's new.

Blue Butterfly Refrain Collage Pendant

I really like the way this one came out with the 'refrain' part from some vintage sheet music.

And


Little Duck in the Pond Pendant

I think it's pretty cute but it looks a little blurry in the photo.

SEO and CIA and CSI and whatever the heck they are talking about!

So, today I find out from the Artfire forums that google is once again changing their whatever picks up on your shop listings, making it harder and harder for your products to make it into google search. One of the tips that Artfire admin had for us is to link back to your Artfire products on your blog with hypertext links. Well.

I haven't yet learned how to do hypertext links but am going to try today. I found an online tutorial and while I learn much better by being shown in real life how to do something I will attempt to follow the tutorial and see if I can figure out how to do this.

So here goes.

Here is a new listing on Artfire

Now lets see if it worked.

Well, son of a gun, it worked and it was way way easier than I thought it would be. The listing is for new pins that I've been working on made with paper and cardboard and resin. Fun and inexpensive to make and hopefully somebody somewhere will want to buy them. I got some great collage sheets from a shop on Artfire with retro robot and mechanical toy images and will be listing those as soon as they are all dry and ready to go.

So, bear with me because I'm going to post each day as to what's new in my shops. You don't have to read them if you don't want to, I'm just trying to get google to notice me. Because I need to make some money here.