Really LARGE Bag

I tried my hand at a very large bag, the largest I've ever made.   It has lots of pockets and storage.   As with all of my new design I tinker.  I'm still tinkering with this one - it may be a while before this one gets to Etsy.  I'm still in the R&D stage of this purse.   The Etsy application is still coming along, but not a lot was accomplished on this in the last few days.   My husband had to many other chores to do around the house.
We should have more about it in the next few days.  Stay Tuned - I think it will be worth it.

Ladybugs (Again)

In case you haven't noticed I have a "thing" about Ladybugs.  I've included a couple of pics of my newest creation.  I had a request for a "big bag" and I've been working most of the night in trying to create one.  We will see how this turns out!   All I can say is it will be the biggest bag I've ever made.   I get excited about making new stuff.

My husband has been working on the Zetsy program and continues to make progress.  Some new insights came tday about Oauth.   If you don't what that is or what it means to you check out the Etsy site today as it will tell you what this means for you.

New Tree Skirts and Screen Shots of Zetsy

Two post in 48 hours. That equals the entire summer output.

The very crude opening screen is shown to the left. Not very pretty is it? It is functional however. At the moment one can pull down all of a public shops items including the pictures associated with the item. I have a screen shot example of that output. It is essentially a grid of information. My husband is now working on a method of "saving" heart information and tracking that over time. Another possibility is to be able to upload changes across a description or tag. I don't know how many times I've had to manually change tags. It is possible this could work with this program. This program is a bit different approach from most of the applications which are out there which are web based. There are pro's and con's for this type of approach. Still a whole lot of work to go before this could be released. In the meantime it might up help us get organized ??!!






Enough of the boring programming work of my husbands.  I spent way too much time at the fabric stores today.  I have been working on all kinds of new stuff. My latest is working on Christmas tree skirts. I have some examples posted here. Despite the very warm temps it is time for me to try to get a jump on Christmas items. Not sure when I will get these up on Etsy

Its September ! A new Etsy utility in the planning stage

Its been since June since I've posted to the blog.  It certainly does not seem that long.   It has been a very busy summer.  My husband has been working on looking at the new API for Etsy.  What does this do and what can it do for you?   There are many tools out there that we've summarized in the past.  Most, if not all, are based on the v1 Etsy API.   This will be going away soon and replaced with the next version.   There are many new features with the new version.  My husband has been working on understanding this.  His first goal is to construct a program which will allow you to download and store all of the Etsy information in an ACCESS database.   I intend to show some screen shots and give updates on how this program is progressing.  By having this information downloaded it will be easier to post this information in other places or to print it out.   Long term changes could be quickly uploaded to your site.   The intention will be to release this sometime in the future.  He has prior experience in scientific programming but this is major upgrade in his experience.   The progress of this is a true unknown.   He was pretty frustrated a couple of weeks ago trying to figure out json strings (??? - whatever that is) but he now is able to download our sites information and store it.   The next step is to create nice-looking grids to display all of this information.  One of the first things that could be accomplished is a quick graph of views over time for a given item.  Lots of ideas.  With both of ujs having full time plus jobs all of this takes time.  We do need some time off!   My husband spent the afternoon watching the Notre Dame game.   There is hope for decent season.
      I do have some new bags and I'll be posting these soon too.   My next posting will be sooner than 2 months

Its June already ?

I've been taking a bit of a breather.  Too much yard work, to many plants to get into the ground, too many weeds to pull, and too much time finding new fabric and coming up with new designs.   I also had some out of town trips to make to check on a family member.  That took a couple of weekends a way.   I have been really busy and soon you will see the fruits of my work.  I have several new styles and fabrics and they should be loaded onto my websites soon.   The blog has been kind of quiet in this time as I have not really had much to say.   I hope you like my new styles.

Catch-up and an Entirely New Handbag

Its been a while since I've written anything. It is spring and between cleaning up the yard, the day job (the one that pays the college bills!), buying fabric, creating a display, and having a show, I've been pretty busy! I've been busy lately creating a new style. I've seen this concept in several places so I thought I would take a stab at it. Its a purse which can have different style outside flaps to it. This gives both me the designer, and you the customer, a lot of options and flexibility. You can see the basic bag's picture here.  It has two side pockets, either one large enough for a cell phone.  I still have not made the cover flap for it.   More to come soon.

I spent a lot of time for my second show in late April. It was $45 for the booth - not cheap! I made a whole display and racks to hold my handbags. I took a day off from work to get it all done. Unfortunately, the traffic at the show was very poor and I only made a couple of small sales. Certainly not enough to cover my investment. Oh well, the next show will be a lot easier since I now have all the stuff I need. I did gat a few more names for my newsletter. The first one has still yet to go out. My day job keeps interfering with my creative job. Until I sell A LOT MORE, I think I better keep being the accountant. Creativity in that job though can get me in big trouble!
I've been buying too much fabric lately. I have more ideas and creativity than the time to get it done. I need to somehow secure more help from the family on some of this. I don't have a lot of luck with that one sometimes.
On the internet side things remain extremely slow. My husband created an ArtFire site a few weeks ago. So far it has not been worth the $12 / month fee to keep. I don't think my husband nor I anticipated how difficult getting noticed by search engines would be. You can not sell anything if no one knows you exist! We'll keep working on it.   I'm going to try to do a bit better on the social media side of this business.  We'll see if that really happens.   I'm always glad to hear comments - they help keep me motivated!

Blog Silence = Many new bags for Spring

My blog writing has frankly been pathetic. Sorry for my few faithfull readers.   My Etsy sales for the year also remain a pathetic zero.  I guess the good news is I've had a lot more blog entries this year than sales.  If I quit this though I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory.  I' ve made a couple of new styles and I really like my bags for Spring.   I've I have over 60 bags now on Etsy and my own web site.  Our own web site is up and running and we've loaded lots of bags into Google Merchant.   There has been alot of discussion on the forums about searches.  Some say that the searches are no longer linking well with Etsy.  I don't know what to think.  My husband who understand this stuff more than I do, doesn't really know.  He has tried keying on the word handmade fabric handbags and has linked this many times over.  If you type this into Google however you will never find us.  If one cannot find your handbags one will never even have an opportunity to but one.

     My first craft show a few weeks ago was a good learning experience but was not a good venue.   It was more of a school bazaar.  Perhaps a good thing came from it, I did get invited to one coming up here in two weeks.  My husband also had the idea of a newletter.  He now has a sign-up working here.    We're going to add coupons for those newsletters when he figures that part of Zen Cart out.  You can be one of the first to sign-up!     

   The upcoming show has me going full time at night trying to get more bags done.   I'm also in the midst of creating a display for it.  I've got the wood, now I need the time.   My husband has been collecting a list of handbag web sites to compare and learn.   Some are VERY good.  An idea born from this is "handbag" parties.  I  have been to jewelry parties, candle parties, basket partied, but never a handbag party.  It is something I am toying with.
    Our first tax filing as a LLC is done and our personal returns are completed.   A pleasant surprise was a nice refund based on all of our college tuition payments we made last year.   I'm not telling the kids though because I'm sure we would hear about how much money they "saved" us and how much of that refund should go to them!  The reality is the refund is being put back into savings for the next years tuition payments.  August is coming up real soon and I'm sure the tuition payments will be going up as well.