Finding My Stride

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Remember a while back I mentioned I was going to be linked to on a big blog?  Well Tuesday, a link to my Fancy Burp Cloth tutorial was on Sew, Mama, Sew!  If you’re not already a Sew, Mama, Sew devotee, get your booty over there and take a look.  The tutorial was part of a roundup by the lovely Shannon of luvinthemommyhood, another great blog.  If you sew, definitely take a look at all the wonderful projects on that post – I can’t wait to try some out.

I feel much less stressed about getting products ready for next weekend’s Irvington Halloween Festival than I did when preparing for my first fair.  Part of the reason I’m more relaxed is that I have all the first-time stuff done – signs, tags, sign up sheets, etc. – and I really just have to focus on sewing.  I also have a better idea of what selling at a craft fair is all about, so I don’t have that big fear of the unknown.

Most importantly, I’m finally finding a rhythm to working at home with two kiddos around.  I typically cut and pin fabric at the island in my kitchen, which is nice and big and high enough that I don’t have to stoop over.  This means I can set Bridget up with a craft project at the kitchen table, let Graham empty out the cabinets, and get a good amount of cutting ready.  That way, when they go down for their naps, I’m ready to sew like crazy.  I’ve also been trying to get in a good hour of sewing right after they go to bed at night.


The administrative and computer stuff is easier to squeeze in here and there.  I can usually work on my inventory spreadsheets and accounting stuff in short bits throughout the day when the kids are playing.  I’ve started writing blog posts at night and setting them to publish in the mornings.  This week, I got all of my Etsy listings ready on Sunday night – that way I have been able to list stuff twice a day with a couple of clicks.

(If you're an Etsy seller and don't know how to get your listings ready in advance, here's a great forum thread on how to do it!)

Luckily I have an amazing husband who is always up for entertaining the kids when he’s home.  Saturdays and Sundays (and some evenings) I work really hard in my sewing room.  I usually save photo shoots for those days, too, so I know I can get all the pictures done at once.

I’m not saying I’m great at time management – my kids probably watch more cartoons than they should, and the poor hubs probably forgets what I look like – but I am for sure improving.  One thing I’m really working on is shutting the computer and staying away from the fabric from about 5 pm until the kids go to bed.  We have always made it a point to sit down for dinner, so it just makes it less stressful if I’m not trying to squeeze in work at the same time.

What do you guys do to manage family time and business time?  Finish your listings in the shower?  Hand sew while vacuuming with your feet?  Do share!

Managing an Etsy Shop and a Blog While on Vacation

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I spent last week on a cruise to the Bahamas, and boy oh boy am I finding it tough to get back to work.  The head cold I brought home with me isn't helping much.  I don't get sick very often so when I do I'm a pretty big baby about it.

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you guys how I handled the shop and the blog while I was away.  I think it's a bad idea to broadcast across the internet that my house will be vacant for a week, so I didn't really mention it before we left.  I'm sure an industrious fabric thief could have figured out that I was gone and ransacked my stash, but why make it easier? 

I managed to completely avoid the internet (partially due to the fact that I haven't bought that smart phone yet), but I didn't completely abandon things either.  It did take some advance planning - I was SUPER busy the couple days before our trip.

I typically post twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.  We left for our trip on Sunday and came back Friday evening, so I wrote two blog posts ahead of time - a book review and a tutorial on embellishing a wooden tray.  Then, I set Blogger to publish the posts Tuesday and Thursday, like so:

• After finishing your post, click "Post Options" at the bottom left of the editing window.
• On the right side under "Post date and time", click the "Scheduled at" radio button.
• Enter the date and time you want the post to publish
• Click the orange "Publish Post" button.

There you go, easy as pie!  I will admit, when I wrote the first one I was afraid to click the "Publish Post" button.  I ended up going back and publishing it when I wrote the second one.  A good way to check and see if the posts are scheduled correctly is to go the "Edit Posts" section (where all of your posts and drafts are listed) - the ones you scheduled will have a scheduled to post date instead of saying "draft".

Once I took care of the blog, I moved on to getting my shop in order.  I added a line to the very beginning of my shop announcement (at the top of every Etsy shop) that stated I'd be away from the shop from October 3rd through the 8th.  I added a similar note to the message to buyers that is automatically sent by Etsy after every purchase.  You can edit both of these in Your Etsy under Shop Appearance.

I also didn't want to completely abandon renewing items.  I recently read about the Statsy Clockbot in this Etsy forums post, and it's AWESOME!  You schedule listings from your shop to renew on a date you specify, down to the time.  It even has a pop up list of all your listings (with thumbnails!), making it super simple.  Typically I list new items or renew twice a day, but while I was on vacation I just scheduled one renewal a day at my peak traffic time (9 am).  It was so easy and fast.

Now that I've tried out all these automating tools, I think I'll take advantage of them more often.  I typically have the most time to sit down at the computer after the kids go to bed, so I'm thinking I should plan on writing blog posts at that time and just scheduling them to post later.  I'm pretty sure I'm late to the scheduling blog posts party, but I'm totally on the bandwagon now.

This post got a little out of hand - thanks for sticking with me!  Here's the obligatory taking-a-picture-of-ourselves-on-vacation shot for you!

PS - If you're looking for a good book, I read The Lonely Polygamist while we were gone and it was really really good.  I must have read a review of it somewhere (probably People magazine) because evidently I requested it from the library, and as luck would have it it showed up right before we left.  Loved it.

Custom orders, big blog mention, and Twitter

Tweet I have so much new stuff to share with you guys, I don't even know where to start!

Let's see... I'm up to 8 Etsy sales, which is so great.  Two of those were custom orders, plus one was adding some embroidery to an existing item.  I didn't realize that custom orders would be such a big part of sales on Etsy - is this always the case?  I think custom orders are fun, so I don't mind.  Sometimes someone else's ideas will trigger a new idea for me, plus I get to make someone exactly what they want.

Oh, and I was mentioned on another BIG blog on Friday -  Prudent Baby!  I love this blog.  I just discovered it a few months back and spent a whole evening looking through the project archives.  I don't know if I was behind on blog reading, but I totally didn't catch the link to one of my bunnies when it came through my blog reader.  I was looking at my Etsy store on Saturday and saw that one bunny had an obscene number of views, and I couldn't figure out why.  Thanks to the people on the super-helpful Etsy forums, I tracked the views through Google Analytics and found out all that traffic was from Prudent Baby.  Crazy, right?

And speaking of Google Analytics, I was just introduced to Craftopolis thanks to the Etsy forums.  This site is so great!  You can log into Analytics and Etsy, and it produces a calendar with daily info on views, purchases, and new shop hearts.  It is so addictive!  Also, you can search to see which treasuries your stuff has been in, plus what tags people used to find your products.  I know all this information will be useful when I know how to actually do something with it!

I'm finally on Twitter, too.  I find Twitter a little... I don't know, excessive maybe?  I guess I felt the same way about Facebook a few years back, so I'm sure I'll come around.  I know it's pretty essential to business these days.  You can follow me @bobalooKids if you'd like.  I'm thinking I need to hunt down a "Follow me on Twitter" button for the blog similar to my "Like bobaloo! on Facebook" button - does anyone know if that exists?  I'm also reading the book Twitterville, which was recommended by a friend.  I'm hoping it helps me get the most out of Twitter.

I'll save the rest of the new stuff for later this week.  Tomorrow is my baby girl's first day of preschool, so I think this afternoon we're going to do something fun to celebrate.  And on a completely unrelated note, go read The Help if you haven't read it yet.  It's SO GOOD!

Open Up Shop?

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I know it seems like you just heard this whole song and dance about a month ago, but I have a super busy week this week!  Again, a kiddo's birthday party (a space theme - that's the back of the invitation) and craft night fall a few days apart, and again, I have stuff to sew for the Irvington Iris Tea Room.  You'd think I could spread this stuff out, right?

I am throwing around the idea of going ahead and opening up the Etsy store sometime this week.  According to Google Analytics, the blog has had around 850 visitors and 1200 page views over the past month or so.  While this is kinda unbelievable to me (in a good way!), I really feel like I missed some exposure by not opening the shop earlier.  Also, my empty shop has had 180 views and I'm sure only about 100 of those were my mom.  But realistically, is opening the shop a week and a half early even going to matter?

As a side note, if you have a new blog, try and get featured on a big blog.  I have no doubt in my mind that this mad surge in blog visitors is due to one link on One Pretty Thing.  I have GOT to find a way to get on more blogs if this is the result!

My big hurdle to opening the shop is the product pictures.  I think I mentioned this before, but on Etsy you can post up to five pictures with each listing.  I currently have 80-ish items made, which means FOUR HUNDRED pictures.  It makes me throw up a little just to think of that number and I really like photography.  I had yet another photo shoot on my kitchen table on Sunday and I'm still not thrilled with the results.  It was kind of gloomy that day and I think I just didn't have enough natural light.  Here's the most recent setup - it's one of those big cardboard science-fair poster things set up in my bay window.

I think I probably just need to use the darn pictures and stop being so picky.

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot!  I bought a domain name - bobalookids.com is now mine!  Right now it redirects to this blog.  I followed this advice and it worked like a charm.  I'll post more about it soon!