We have had the honor of being featured on Jennifer White’s blog, Jennifer White’s Designs. Please take the time to check it out! I love her tag line, “Handmade happiness.”

I am referring to tagging your items for sale on Etsy. Last night I stumbled upon two threads in the forums about searching/tagging. “Can you find what you are looking for on Etsy?” and “Sellers: Could you please tag your items correctly?” I see that there are more threads related to this that have either recently been created or bumped up the list.

I find this interesting, because I changed my tags on five cutting boards yesterday and placed them in the “weddings” category. They usually reside in the woodworking category. I did this to market to those shopping in the wedding section, to make them aware that a cutting board would be an excellent wedding or housewarming gift! I also purchased a Wedding Showcase for this Sunday. I guess I see tagging as a marketing tool.

I think that Etsy makes the suggestions for tagging so confusing. And if Etsy is going to have these rules, then why aren’t they enforcing them? Many complaints have been made because high volume sellers/top sellers/sellers on the front page seem to be mistagged. You decide. Comment here.

The picture is of my broken iPhone, taken with my new iPhone.

I was a first generation iPhone user. I have had several issues with my iPhone, I even broke my screen. But nothing has deterred my fanaticism for the iPhone. A few days ago my volume down button quit working. It was stuck in the down position, keeping the speaker/volume icon open on the screen. This icon blocked my view of everything. That pesky speaker covered the screen while I texted, read emails, made calls, so I had to do something about it. I decided to attempt to open my iPhone and manually fix the button. I opened it. I didn’t fix it. I broke it, worse than it was broken before… I now couldn’t get my phone to close back up properly. I now couldn’t turn the phone or screen off, and I couldn’t put my SIM card back in the phone.

Sounds terrible, huh? Well, it was finally time to get the NEW iPhone 3G. No more excuses, I mean, my old phone was no longer functional, right? Perfect! On my break last night at work, I ran to the AT&T booth in the mall, and in less than 15 minutes spent over $250. Yikes! I got a handy little case that I really like too.

Now I am updating the software, syncing my contacts, downloading music, etc. I just LOVE my {NEW} iPhone. And the old phone? Sold on eBay in less than an hour for Buy It Now Price of $100. Very cool.

Blog feature: Oh, and I’d like to mention that Jozie at Jewelry by Jozie featured my Crochet Red Flower Necklace in her blog today. Please take the time to visit her blog and her Etsy shop.

Yesterday we sold a cutting board! It was our first cutting board sale on Etsy since before Christmas. This sale inspired me to list two new items. Michael created new cutting boards last week for a custom request/sale from a repeat customer. She only wanted one cutting board, but he made three. We intended to list the other two, but hadn’t gotten around to it.

When this sale came through, Michael got the email notification on his Blackberry Storm first, and texted me. I looked it up online from home on the laptop. That inspired me to pull out the poster board, camera, and new cutting boards. While Quinn was napping I photographed and listed these two new boards. I am very pleased with the photographs! One board is cherry with an ambrosia maple handle. The other board is cherry, with a beautiful knot and a mineral stained {by nature} curly maple handle. I think they are beautiful, but then again, I think ALL of my husband’s work is beautiful!

Last week we (Quinn and I) were in downtown Kingsport. We checked out a daycare, ate lunch, walked through the gallery, walked through the loft, and looked over blueprints at Urban Synergy.

Angela has a cat in the office with her, his name is Bagheera.Quinn was in total awe. Bagheera tolerated Quinn’s curiousness. Their interactions were so entertaining. I snapped a few photos with my iPhone.

Quinn has his one year check up today! Off to the doctor…

I was promoting our Etsy shop on Craig’s List. While I was there, I decided to check out some local listings. I was so excited to find a listing for alpaca yarn. The family business/farm was local and within about 3 miles from our apartment! June was very friendly when we spoke on the phone, and was more than happy to have our family over to meet the alpaca. I was very excited! I had never seen alpaca. I never met anyone who raise, shear, spin and sell their alpaca yarn! AND to have to opportunity to buy the yarn and make my own crochet creations! I was thrilled!

June’s daughter had the flu, so I, being the only one in my family having had the flu vaccination this year, went inside the house to check out the yarn, while June’s husband, Ed, took Michael and the boys out to the barn. Ed put the boys to work and had them feed the alpaca! They also met two llamas, a pig, and a goat… Oh, and three dogs!

The yarn was beautiful and so soft! June had three colors left in her stash: a white, brown, and black-brown… Natural colors from the coat of the alpaca, undyed! After ooooing and aaahing over June’s yarns and some creations she had, I accompanied June outside to find the boys. She pointed out which animals provided which color of yarn. She also has other colors of alpaca. She was anxious to get rid of her current stash, because they were going to be shearing again in late March/April.

I couldn’t wait to get home and begin crocheting! This is my first creation from it… Creamy Natural Mini Cowl / Capelet / Shrug with Flower Crochet Alpaca. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

We are enjoying meeting fellow crafters and artisans. Etsy is such a neat community of people with ecclectic talents. Melinda in her blog, Autumn Olive, featured our Center Cut Cutting Board, Mineral Stained Maple and Cherry Two-Handled. We appreciate the feature among talented Etsy sellers. Check out her blog post and her Etsy shop, after all, it’s about sharing the love–the love for all things handmade. Thanks, Melinda!

We have been featured in our second treasury and are so excited! Please, visit “Brrr Chilly Outside” leave a comment, and take the time to visit some of the other shops featured. A special thanks to Glenna, the curator of this treasury. Take the time to visit her Etsy shop as well, Vintage Embellishment.

I stumbled across this Etsy shop on Wednesday night! I am so VERY impressed. The Clay Press has established a beautiful shop in less than a week! Actually, based on the listing dates and shop opening date–in two days! All of the basic requirements are there: An eye-catching banner and avatar, a shop full of listings (18 items!), concise item descriptions, nice photography of her pendants, shop policies, and most importantly, BEAUTIFUL work! I’d like to see more in her profile, but in her shop announcement she explains that all of her pendants are handmade and patterns are from pressings of vintage glass and silver patterns. Such a cool idea! Preserving the past on wearable clay art! In each individual listing, she includes in the last picture the pendant with the item she used to press the pattern in the clay! Ingenious! The item pictured here is the Green Burst Pottery Pendant. I’d like to thank The Clay Press for the inspiration to share the Etsy love!

This award was given to me (us) by Linda. It is called a Lemonade Award. It is for blogs with great gratitude or attitude! Awe, shucks! Please take the time to visit Linda’s blog, surf around to all of the other blogs she nominated, and take a peek at her Etsy shop. Our first blog award! Yippeeee!