On Wednesday night, our team went out to eat at Red Robin with Kathy Cano-Murillo a.k.a. Crafty Chica and Pattie Donham-Wilkinson a.k.a. Pattie Wack! We had a super fun time learning, sharing, and inspiring each other! It was really fun and I think that both Kathy and Pattie got as much out of the experience as the Etsy team members did! It's so nice to get together with creative people and just be ourselves! At one point, we even got shooshed. People need to lighten up! Toward the end of the night, it seemed like the waitresses were tired of us too!!! Ha ha...but we weren't tired of each other. We made Kathy and Patty honorary members, and they were indeed honored! We look forward to getting together in the future and letting our crafty ideas flow!
Tiffany of Dragon Fly Designs and Patty, our spotlight member at Team Crafty Night, getting ready to make bath goodies!
Every month we'd like to feature and put the spotlight on one of our members, this month it is our very own Patty Cappellutti, the vice president of the Central California Etsy Team as well as owner of the Knick Knack Patty Shak!
What artists/crafters inspire you? I’ve always been crafty, and was making earrings and selling them at work. Then I met Silvia Chenault our team President, and she told me about Etsy and gave me the encouragement and support to open my shop. At that time I was mostly making wine charms and my shop has evolved from there.
Some of Patty's sassy wine charms.
What was your most exciting sale that you ever made? My first sale on Etsy was my most exciting. It was very affirming that some person I didn’t know thought my crafting was good enough to pay money for.
What are your long term goals for your Etsy shop? (1 year +) I would love to double the volume of my sales. I always want it to be fresh and changing so I’m always looking for new inspirations
(Side note from Alexa: Patty is very innovative in her designs and phrases...how clever are these chalkboard glasses? Keep the fresh inspirations comin'!)
How did you get your shop name? I had been kicking around names for a few days and the receptionist where I worked walked into my office and just said “Knick Knack Patty Shak” and that was it!
Do you sell your work in local shops or out in the community? I have some of my stuff out at a local winery and am doing pretty good out there. I’ve also started booking myself in craft fairs and events all around central California. I’m hoping to make enough that I don’t have to work for someone else and I can stay home with my daughter.
What is one craft technique outside of what you sell in your shop that you love doing? My husband and I would both love to do screenprinting for our own personal use. We’re always coming up with slogans and sayings that fit where we are in our lives. This summer is “The Summer of Love”. We’ve been really hit hard by the economy. We may not have much money but we have lot’s of love!
How does being crafty affect those around you? I see my daughter thinking of things to make and sell for money. Right now she’s more motivated by the money than the love of the craft, but that may change eventually.
Hope you enjoyed this litle bio on Patty. Hop on over to her shop and check out her very original barware, charms, and other fun painted and etched finds!
The Treasury list is really easy to figure out once you figure out what’s going on.
1.Treasuries expire all the time.
2.When enough expire that the total number drops below 333, the treasury opens!
And it’s really easy to figure out approximately when that will be! Here’s what I do…
First sort the list by expiration (circled in green above). Make the little triangle point up so the treasuries ending soonest are on page 1.
Next, find out how many treasuries need to expire until the total reaches 333. Just subtract 333 from the total (circled in pink above).
Ok, so once 48 Treasuries expire, the Treasury will be about ready to open. (Really there will be one more until it opens, but I like to give myself time to get ready!)
Now to figure out exactly when that will be… just start from the top of your list and count down 48. (Hint: there are 20 Treasuries listed per page) so just click over to the correct page and see how much longer you have to wait!
Once that list gets to 332, this box will appear at the bottom:
The key is to type your super creative title QUICKLY, and click the create button before everyone else does.
It helps to type your title ahead of time, exactly how you want it, and copy it… that way when the box opens, you just have to paste it in!
TRUST ME on this one… your heart will be pounding so hard, and your head will be spinning so fast that you won’t be able to think straight, let alone get that title in there with no typos!
Ok so I have a Treasury space… now what??
Most Treasury spaces are reserved for 2 days. In order to get the most exposure possible, you want to get your items picked out and placed as quickly as possible to start promoting your collection.
Etsy has a tool all ready for us… it’s called Poster Sketch, and it’s ALWAYS available to everyone, current treasury owner or not.
It’s hard to find so here’s the URL: http://www.etsy.com/poster_sketch.php
The poster sketch tool looks like this:
When you find an item you may want to include in your treasury, just copy the listing # into the listing id box!
When you get your Treasury spot, you can just copy the IDs from the Poster Sketch into the spaces in the Treasury.
FYI: Poster Sketch gives you 16 spots, but there are only 12 spots featured at a time in a Treasury. You still need to fill all 16 because the extra 4 are alternates!
When choosing Treasury items consider the following:
·Does the picture look absolutely fabulous??
·Does the picture get cropped all funny in the Poster Sketch??
·Does the seller have 100% positive feedback?
·Has the seller made at least 1 sale?
·Does the picture look absolutely fabulous??
·Be sure you don’t feature one seller multiple times.
·Don’t feature ONLY items that have just been listed… it’s ok to go back a few pages in the search results to give old items exposure.
·Does the picture look absolutely fabulous??
·Pick items at several different price points.
·Are all of the photos simple and un-cluttered?
·Unless you’re working with a theme, keep the types of items you feature varied.
·Dream up an eye-catching creative title.
·PROMOTE PROMOTE PROMOTE! There are often threads in the forums to share your creations!
·When you feature a seller, send them a convo and let them know! They probably won’t find out about it otherwise.
On Wednesday night, our team went out to eat at Red Robin with Kathy Cano-Murillo a.k.a. Crafty Chica and Pattie Donham-Wilkinson a.k.a. Pattie Wack! We had a super fun time learning, sharing, and inspiring each other! It was really fun and I think that both Kathy and Pattie got as much out of the experience as the Etsy team members did! It's so nice to get together with creative people and just be ourselves! At one point, we even got shooshed. People need to lighten up! Toward the end of the night, it seemed like the waitresses were tired of us too!!! Ha ha...but we weren't tired of each other. We made Kathy and Patty honorary members, and they were indeed honored! We look forward to getting together in the future and letting our crafty ideas flow!
