And now I'm in the etsy gift guide!

Yippee. It's been a couple years now since I really got into etsy and I knew that there was always a possibility that I might make a gift guide and here it is:

I'm very excited and can't wait to see what my stats will be for tomorrow. I've gotten two sales so far today and I'm not sure if they're from the exposure or just luck. Oh well, just happy to be recognized.

Wow Etsy, thank you!

I've been selling on etsy for over a year now and I've been having a blast. Lots of nice people and with having a shop I'm constantly trying to think of new things to fill my shop. I recently started working with faux typewriter keys (I just can't justify using the real things, it would be like killing an elephant just for their tusks) and they've been a hit:

In the past week I've been on the front page of etsy TWICE!!!

Now, for most people the above sentence sounds nice but what does it really mean. It means that out of 600,000 etsy sellers there are only 12 positions on the front page. Most of these treasuries are only on there for a half hour at a time. So a precious few make it onto the front page if ever. There are forum after forum posts with people lamenting that they are never chosen and so for me, and for most any etsy seller being on the front is a huge honor and not something that happens often. In fact here's a chart showing what being on the front does for your views:

So an average day for me without being on the front page gets me around 70 - 100 views, whereas being on the front for a half hour I get between 400 - 600 views! Out of that exposure I've gotten 6 custom orders that I'm working on and I've had some pretty steady sales too!

Not going to quit my day job, cause I love it, but it's fun. For me, etsy is the ultimate video game.

I-WANT-FALL!

Okay Summer, it was fun. We hung out, I got a tan, you kept the pool warm for everyone and it was great, but now it's time for fall. I love fall. I love the crispness in the air, I love not having a fan on all the time or air conditioning. I love sweaters and honey crisp apples. I still feel a little gypped from last year when fall didn't come till 12/2 - oh yes, I remember the day. So this year, please, please leave summer. I know that you are planning on making this weekend tortuous with record heat, but serious. The door's over there. Let me miss you this year.
That is all.

Back to Normal... Almost

So Princess Jenn and her PIT daughter Carly are gone. I had really wanted a pic of the three of us but it turns out that even though we posed, the pic never happened. It sucks but then I just have to fly back to get a pic. I did get a couple of them together:


Carly never did warm up to me or Dan, she sort of looked at us as competition of her mother's time and love. She did love the dogs and the evil cat Duncan who kept swatting at her and got her good a couple times, but like Tina and Ike, she kept going back for the abuse.


Since Jenn arrived a week ago we've had fire after fire and none seem to be slowing or stopping. On Sunday my brother and two of his kids came over for a swim. This was the pic from my backyard:

Probably not the smartest thing to have kids swim but when it's so hot and there' not much else to do and you have two overly active kids that you need to ware out there aren't many free options available.
So on Saturday we had our movie night. Lots of people, lots of food and I think people had fun. Got a lot of compliments so that made me feel good. Unfortunately I started feeling like crap Sat and it took a lot of effort for me to make it through. We ended up having 45 people over. I really need to get a couple long tables to help make serving food easier. We borrowed enough chairs for everyone to be able to sit and enjoy and we're really lucky that we've never had a mosquito problem.