Great Marketing Blog

I have recently come across this really great Marketing Blog, Handmadeology and it's just a wealth of information! Do check it out, I have found it very usefull http://www.handmadeology.com/

Soap Giveaway!

We're running a soap giveaway, one full sized bar of your choice!

Your Target Market

I came across a great blog article from the Makery Blog that talks about finding your Target Market. It's really important to Market to the right people, otherwise you're just "spinning your wheels". That's a bad thing. Check it out, very informative. http://www.makeryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/TargetMarketEbook.pdf

Nice write up

We had a really nice review done on our Captain Gregg's Choice soap, please check out the Blog "why we love Green" here's a link, enjoy!
http://www.whywelovegreen.com/2012/01/goats-milk-soap-deltamoonsoap.html

(the link works now, don't know what happened!)

Cool Site

I came across this cool site today that specializes in things being reused, I am all for that! They have some cute things like the bag pictured here

that is made from non-biodegradable juice boxes, great use for them, they don't end up in land-fills that way and plus it's just cute! Here's the link for ya http://www.reuseit.com

Best Friends Helping Best Friends Fight Canine Cancer

A dear friend of mine is participating in a k9 Cancer Walk to raise money for the Morris Animal Foundation. Please support her by making a donation if you can as well as passing this message on. Here's her message, you can donate from the link as well http://support.morrisanimalfoundation.org/site/TR/Events/CCC?px=1071651&pg=personal&fr_id=1220

Thanks so much!

Discovery Du Jour

This one is a free website where you can upload photos and edit them, things like removing the background etc. I just found it so haven't played around with it yet myself. Here ya go:
Http://FotoFuze.com

Bath Time for Baby Sloths | Too Cute

Advertising

This can never be said enough, you have to do self promotion. Just having an on-line shop/website, or even a brick and mortar store isn't enough, you have to do something to draw the folks to you!
I am always looking for effective ways of doing that, here's one I just discovered, it's called Blogads. You can choose which blogs to advertise on and you of course get the stats and all that on how active the blog is. I am running my first promotion today, on a blog called the Graphics Fairy.Here's the link,http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ you can see it's a pretty active Blog, which is what you want, better chance of being seen! It's only going for a few days on this campaign, I'll let you know how many hots I get from it!

Picnic

I just discovered this cool photo editing site, you may already have heard of it, it's called Picnic, and it's free. http://www.picnik.com/app#/home/welcome
I think it has a lot of great things you can do with it, and it's especially helpful for making ads that you publish on other sites and blogs. Here's a 125 x 125 ad I just created this morning, it was really easy! Check it out!

New Design

I've been working with a graphic designer on Etsy and the banner she made came out so good, I used it on the website as well as my Etsy Shop and just had her do coordinating Business cards. I am almost ready to order them, how nice to have that ready before I'm on "empty". Anyhow her Etsy Shop is called Studio Sub, here's the link for you http://www.etsy.com/shop/studiosub?ref=ss_profile
Very easy to work with and I just love her work.
Here's the card (drum roll please)

Pinterest

If you haven't seen it yet, it's like an on-line pin up board, where you can create your own, or peek at others "pins". You can share inspiration, quotes, things you want to buy.....the list goes on and on. It's addicting, I warn you! You need an invitation to join, use this link
http://pinterest.com/
I was looking to see if Etsy is aware of it, and they are! So now when you look at a listing on Etsy and want to share it, you just hit the "PIN" button on the Etsy listing page for that item! I thought that was way cool! Do check it out if you haven't already!

Sweet Customers

I was greeted today at my return to the Vallejo Kaiser Farmers Market after the two week break for the holiday by a very sweet customer, who brought ME something sweet! This just proves that I have the most wonderful customers on the planet!

The final version

I've been trying to decide if the "stripes" in the Murray bar, should be Mica, which is more colorful (it's what they use in lipstick to give it color/shimmer) or something more natural like Kaolin Clay. The clay won! I just really didn't want to add artificial color to that line and I am still able to achieve the stripe with the clay. It's going to be added to the permanant line now!

Alternative to Resolutions

I came across this article in the Etsy Blog and really enjoyed the idea, make it a choice to do more things you enjoy, rather than do stuff that's "good for you". Here's the link if you'd like to read it too, it's a short read.
http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/hold-those-resolutions/