Thursday, September 10, 2009

I Opened an Etsy Store!


So I finally decided to give Etsy a try. If you haven't heard of Etsy, it is an online site where handmade items can be bought and sold. I make so many cards these days, more than I can give away and I am tired of them sitting around here collecting dust. I already mail birthday and special occasion cards to my friends and family members and I also contribute cards to the Share a Card organization, but there are still too many left unsent. It only makes sense to try and sell them to somebody who would like to pass them on to someone in their life, right? Certainly people buy cards all the time, I am just hoping that maybe they will want to buy them from me!



I have no idea if this will be a successful venture or not, but I figured if I even recoup a small portion of the money I spend each month on papers and supplies it couldn't hurt!



Here is the link to my store. It is called none other than MyBucketOverfloweth! It is an appropriate name because my bucket actually does overflow with cards! Ha!!




I decided to additonally make some card sets to go into my Etsy store and I wanted to share with you the first set that I made. I tried to keep them clean and simple so the cost could stay down and it would appeal to the most people.



Here is the set that I call my Fall Four Pack!



Once again I used the adorable paper collection from Recollections that you can get from your local Michael's store. I just love how blue is an accent color for fall this year! I LOVE that!! Two cards are oriented landscape and two are portrait.


This card is called Fall Blessings and is made by paper piecing the Unity stamp tree stamp that came in the CKU Giggles set (which was sold only for a limited time). And yes, I individually cut out by hand each of the little circles for the middle tree! I made four sets of this card so that is a total of twenty little circles that I hand cut!! I know, call me CRAZY!!! The sentiment stamp is from Unity's Birdie Inspiration.


The next card is called Thankful Thoughts and it went together really nicely. I simply cut three equal squares to make a grid and them stamped the cute leaves stamp from Recollections where the fourth square would have gone. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps.



This third card was the most time consuming only because of the coloring involved. This adorable stamped image of squirrels and the sentiment are from The Greeting Farm set called Forest Friends. To color these I used my Prismacolor pencils blended with Gamsol. The layout for this card uses sketch SC244 at SCS


And finally the last card in the collection I call Happy Harvest. It is named after the SU sentiment I used that comes in the Loads of Love set. The die cut leave was made with my new Nestability die. I also embossed it and inked it and attached some cool fall fibers for an added touch!

So this whole set I am selling for $12 (plus shipping) which I think is a pretty good deal considering what you can spend at Hallmark for cards that are much plainer. I did get my first sale already when my neighbor and new friend Lisa bought a set from me! Thank you Lisa!!

Wish me luck! I would love to see this be an avenue to supplement my income and allow me to keep new products coming into my craftroom!

Have a wonderful Thursday and may your bucket overflow with new opportunities for you too!

6 comments:

Linda said...

Good Luck, Kelly!!
Your fall set of cards are quite lovely. 8)

Sheri Gilson said...

Good luck on your new venture Kelly!! Love the fall set!

Handmade Creations by Stephanie said...

What a great set Kelly!!!

Melyssa said...

Wow Kelly how exciting for you! Your cards are absolutely gorgeous! I know you'll do fabulous on Etsy!

Kelli said...

Fantastic! I wish you all the luck with it! My own etsy shop hasnt been fairing too well lately. I spend more time shopping on etsy than I do selling...LOL

Arlana 11426 said...

Kelly love your new set so cute and so fun!!!