Etsy Shop Open Again

For the ebay girls, you've seen it all already, but I reopened my etsy store (link on the left sidebar) with some unsolds from ebay. Their fees are less than half ebays, so could lower prices a bit, just need people to see the stuff now--that is my biggest concern with etsy, I don't think it is very easy to find things, but maybe I just need more practice. That was a good days work as they say! Below is a picture I got off the graphics fairy site, just thought it was pretty.

Doing Business

Thank you for all the suggestions for internet shops, I've tried lots of different things over the past couple weeks and think Ebay has me whether I like their rules or not! I spent a whole day setting up a picturetrail page and hated the results and it took forever and then I realized I'd need to buy some expensive advertising to get anyone to see it and cancelled the whole thing. I reopened an Etsy store, but haven't had time to fill it up, will try to do that this week and get a link put in here. I unravelled the mysteries of Pinterest, but have to admit I still do not get the point of that site, and I can't even find the pages I made unless I sign in to my account. Where do they go, I wonder?

So, back to ebay and the crazy fees, the one that has me so annoyed is they are now charging the final value fee on shipping. So, I can either lose money or charge my customers extra, neither choice do I like. I used to get a power seller discount on my fees, but they've taken that away too unless I cave in and buy my shipping labels through ebay, guarantee everything ships within 24 hours, and instantly refund money for any reason whatsoever. I am one little person selling one of a kind antiques, not some big box seller of electronics, which I am beginning to think is all they want on their site, but they have the customers, so not much choice, since I hate doing shows. I don't know how the show people do it, getting up at the crack of dawn and loading and unloading heavy furniture and packing up fragile and valuable items that I know I'd drop and break just from the exhaustion of the show. Almost everyone I know who does shows still sit there with smiles on their faces--I'd be such a grouch!

I got into my fall mood despite the unrelenting heat and have a new idea with some Shaker labels that are from the witch's herb garden, lots of those tins coming soon. For something completely different, here is my little farm collection.

Being Eeyore

I've decided I am having a 100 Acre Wood week, forcing myself to work like Rabbit, when I'd really rather be Pooh eating a jar of hunny, and sighing a lot like Eeyore, "What's the use?" I think it is the long hot dry spell of weather and slow sales just saps my ambition. It is with low enthusiasm that I will be sending out my Salem Hallows Eve collection today. It is rather nice, I think, all dry black milk paints, but still I remain in an "Oh, bother." state of mind. Will work on correcting that!

Travels Through Iowa

Our big vacation turned into a little one, but nice nonetheless. We went all over Iowa, starting with a day of horseback riding at the Shenandoah Stables in Galena. This was for Grace, the horse crazy girl. She's never ridden on a big horse by herself, so was thrilled to get to do so. The stable owners said she is a natural. Anna is too, James and I, not so much. We were groaning for days after! Anna's vacation wish was to go swimming at a hotel, so off to Decorah for that. We picked Decorah because it is very close to Burr Oak, where there is a little Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. It is one of the least known of her homes. The family lived there for a year and worked at a hotel. Their only son died at 9 months of age at that time and baby Grace was born there. The tiny room the family of 5 lived in was about the size of my bathroom. Can't think how they did it!

Of course, we stopped at every little town along the way for antiques, and some scary shops we found. I have never seen so much crap in my life! It was like the most agonizing day of bad yard sales ever. One good shop was in a garage of all places, in Decorah (photo below). We went over to the Mississippi and explored McGregor, which is a gorgeous river town frozen in time, sadly the antique shops were numerous, but pretty awful. We stopped in Le Claire too, another gorgeous town where the American Pickers shop is, not much else though.

Vacation highlights for me always involve food, so skinny people who don't eat, look away now! In Decorah, out in the middle of a beautiful park is Dolce Vita, and the four of us were making yummy sounds the entire time. Started with the best salad I have ever had. Grace hardly ever eats lettuce, but after one bite, she took half mine. Though we went in for Italian food, the special was filet mignon and we all got it, it was perfect, followed by a blueberry crumble of heavenly design. That made the whole trip worthwhile!

4th of July Antique Show

Spent the hot day at the antique sales, of which there are many in my neighborhood. These pictures are from the Hanson's Grove show, everyone has such beautiful displays. I came away with much emptier hands than usual, between the slow sales and ebay taking most of my profits, I had to be frugal. I've been wasting time trying to find different sales venues, I think I am going to load up a picturetrail page and see if that works, figure I can have lower prices if I don't have to pay those fees that just keep going up and up. Just when I think they can't add another ridiculous rule to hurt business, they do...

I think I'll go get started on my witchly wares, try a little voodoo perhaps!
P.S. Do any of you have Pinterest suggestions or helpful hints? I just "pinned" my first board, can't seem to get the pins to appear on different boards and honestly, the whole site is just SO MUCH STUFF, I don't know how people actually use it.
Also broke down and did a Facebook page, though I generally think of Facebook as the work of Satan. Now there is just the problem of getting people to actually see the pages I set up!