HAPPY HAPPY Saturday!  I hope you all have some fun plans for this weekend!  The weather people are saying rain in my area, but I’m not too worried.  I have a bachelorette party tonight and I think it will be fun no matter the weather! 

It’s Saturday again so you know what that means…a fabulous showcase of all the treasuries I created and the treasuries I was lucky enough to be featured in!

KimsCraftyApple (me) created this first treasury.  I ended up calling it Ahhh because I hadn’t thought of a name before the treasury opened up…oops!  TheApple’s Blue and Green Cluster Ring – Size 7 was featured in this treasury.

 

TheApple (also me) created this stunning treasury ‘Batik Beauty’.  My Quiltsy Team has been talking about doing a batik charm swap and that is what inspired this treasury.  KimsCraftyApple’s new Batik Saddle Bag Purse is featured!

  

 

 

 

Mirosalfarm, a fellow TeamWist member, created this fun treasury called ‘Behind the Cheddar Curtain’.  She featured all Wisconsin artists including my Spring Flowers – Pastel Quilt. 

 

 

 

 

DCHStudio featured my Mother-in-Law’s  Starry Nine in the Jungle Quilt in her C Honors Treasury.  Some other fabulous black and white items were also featured!

 

 

 

 

 

QuiltSewCover made this fabulous treasury called ‘Going Green’ and she actually featured KimsCraftyApple’s Natural Beauty Log Cabin Orphan Block Wristlet AND theApple’s Hemalyke Circle Bracelet!  Thank you so much!

 

 

 SFOQuilter made this bright and cheerful treasury called Starry Starry Night.  She featured my Snail in the Snail’s Tail Quilt AND my Tennis Shoe Kansas Windmill Quilt.

 

 

 

 

TrueBlue was created by KarolsVintageArt.  She featured my Teal Beauty Wristlet which I’m happy to say sold last night!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last treasury I’m going to share with you this fine Saturday is called ‘Ferris Wheels and Cotton Candy.’  I had a lot of fun creating this treasury…I found some really great items that reminded me of the summer fairs that are about to start up again soon.  TheApple’s Wrap Around Candy Drop Ring – Size 7.5 is featured amongst the other fabulous artists!

AND with that…another treasury Saturday concludes…tune in again next week to see what amazing curations were created!

Are you considering attending the upcoming Fabric Dyeing Workshop at Lapacek’s Orchard (June 20th, 2009) but are unsure about what you can do once you have all of this gorgeous hand-dyed fabric in your possession? I am about to show you LOTS of examples of quilts we’ve created using our hand-dyes!

Above is just a few of the fabrics that I dyed one morning with Diane. I took pictures of them because I was going to be using some of them in a quilt I was working on.

I really like to use a combination of commercial and hand-dyed fabrics in my work. I really think it adds another dimension to the piece. In the above ‘Where’s the Point – Firework’s’ Quilt I used a yellow and red fabric that I had hand-dyed.

In my Disappearing Dog Star Quilt many of the purples, pinks and teals are fabric that I hand-dyed.

The background of this Spring Flowers-Pastels is a piece of fabric that my mother-in-law, Diane hand-dyed (I’m not very good at pastels…Diane will show you that technique in a few weeks).

A fabulous piece of hand-dyed pink and orange hand-dye fabric inspired this beautiful Sunrise Curtain Quilt.

My sister-in-law, Karma, made this fabulous True Lover’s Knot quilt using a combination of hand-dyed fabric to compliment the fun swirly commercial print!

Hand Dyed Fabric works just FABULOUSLY for making Ricky Tims’ Convergence Quilts like the one pictured above.

All of the fabric in this gorgeous Montana Star quilt by Diane was hand-dyed…aren’t the colors so rich? Diane also made this stunning log cabin quilt…using ALL hand-dyed fabrics.

This Jungle Quilt was made by Diane for my daughter Cedi and she mixed hand-dyes with commercial print to create this perfect quilt that my daughter will cherish for years!

I hand-dyed extremely long strips of fabric to create this one of a kind woven quilt.

Click HERE for more examples of items made with our own hand-dyed fabric.

In a few days I’ll share with you some other projects hand-dyed fabric can be used for! In the meantime, stop by http://www.lapaceksorchard.com/ to sign up for our fabric dyeing workshop before all the spaces fill up!

If you want to see an amazing blog of a past student check out: http://www.dyecandy.blogspot.com/ and her etsy shop Dye Candy. She learned some basics from Barb and Diane and she's taken it to another level! I'm very impressed with her work and creativity!

Because I'm so cool I took a picture of my blog screen through a kaleidoscope...not the best...yet. Definitely some potential in this method.... A fellow quiltsy member, SojournQuilts recently interviewed me for her blog "What Shoes I Wear". She had some great questions and I'm amazed at how she put my answers together for her interview.

To read the fabulous interview: http://whatshoesiwear.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-kim-kims-crafty-apple.html
What is my shoe personality? http://whatshoesiwear.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-shoes-kim-wears.html
See which Items of mine she chose to feature: First one and the Second one

Thank you so much sojo for the wonderful opportunity be featured on your fabulous blog! Everyone should stay tuned to hear more about Sojo...I will be posting an interview with her in the near future.

I took a screen shot of the virtual lab. I have been to the labs for meetings with my quiltsy team and team etsybaby and for the Team etsyBABY virtual baby shower. This was my first ‘lecture’ through the virtual lab. I’m interested to hear what I need to improve upon in my listings!

The talk was given by Danielle and Sean on Thursday 5/28/09.

TITLES:

• Be accurate and specific.
  • Put the subcategory in your title (i.e. if you made a necklace…jewelry is the main category, necklace is the subcategory…put necklace in the title)
• Titles should be Short and Sweet…but not too short.
  • put a little whimsy/peronality in the title but don’ let it be too long
  • Three or four words is good
• Think about how the title will look in the different views
  • Gallery
  • List
• When thinking about Google…put the important information in the FRONT!

Helpful link:

http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/seller-how-to-optimizing-your-etsy-shop-for-search-engines-3835/

DESCRIPTIONS:

• Put the most important information up front to get buyers to click on it
• in google you see the first 160 characters in the description
• Buyers LOVE TO SEE
• descriptions broken up into short paragraphs or bullet points
• relevant info is scanned quickly and it’s easy to read
• DIMENSIONS
• lower in the description
• metric conversion is good
• Put what people are searching for in the beginning of the description
• TELL your story!
• Great to be found through search but how are you going to make them add that to their cart?
• emphasize HANDMADE
• tell the story BEHIND the item
• let them know you are a real person and they are buying directly from YOU
• link to other areas on etsy in your description
• EXAMPLES
• a matching piece of jewelry
• your profile for a person to learn more about you

TAGGING

• First tag is the main category: HANDMADE, VINTAGE (20 yrs +), SUPPLY
• Next tag: Main Category
• Subtags:
• use a better, more descriptive…not just yellow: butter yellow or Mustard yellow
• Where will item be used?
• Size: Small, medium, large, xl
• Style: Gothic, modern, feminine, sophisticated
• Motif: Owl, polk-a-dot, nature, landscape (www.thesaurus.com)
• Use ‘International’ if you ship international
• Add your shop name as a tag in just a few items in your shop
• TIPS:
• look through your descriptions
• key words haven’t used
• keyword tools out there (google and yahooo…can see what people are searching)

HELPFUL LINK:

http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/guidelines-tips-tagging-on-etsy-281/

RANDOM QUESTIONS: (these are the questions people in the forum had)

• Order of tags important? FIRST TAG is important, after that it’s not that important YET, but it’s good practice to put most important tags first
• Using all 14 tags is good for relevancy and searches.
• Tags, titles, descriptions, materials (order of relevancy importance) tags are weighted the highest!
• TITLES: not too short, not too long. Keep it accurate and interesting.
• FREE SHIPPING: Depends on the buyer your are looking for…free shipping not necessarily high on a search. Definitely a bonus for the buyer, but don’t put it up top
• Something that can be made in any color scheme…custom/personalize would be a good tag.

Miscellaneous info on the SHOP LOCAL: one of the big challenges is that we have high quality address data we have. Once they have that figured out they will warn us and then we can update our info. Once implemented, set it up so people can sort items so that items from sellers closest to them will show up first…neat!

check out www.etsyhacks.com for more tips/shortcuts

I stayed tuned for about 45 minutes….whatever happened after that I don’t have notes for…

SUMMARY posted in the STORQUE: http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/seller-workshop-recap-tags-titles-descriptions-and-most-rele-4090/?utm_source=etsy_success&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=etsy_success_060409/