In March Be On The Look Out For.......

COMING SOON!!

With A Fabulous Giveaway!!!

Congrats To The Team!!!

I wanted to send congratulations to all the members of The Egg Team as we were awarded one of Etsy's team grants for the month of February.

For more info about Team Grants see this Etsy Blog post: http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/team-tip-etsy-team-grants-1656/

For the Team Grant application see here:

http://team.etsy.com/grantsApp.html

Thank you soo much etsy and Morgan for selecting our team.

We will be using the grant to help advertise the team and get some promotional items together, as well as a team graphic and banner design. If you know of any etsy sellers who do this kind of work or if you are one please feel free to contact us and let us know what you do and pricing. Our team is still small but we will be making orders of at least 20 to 25 pieces depending on what the items are and the input from out members.

This is very exciting!

Make Beaded Bouquet Tutorial By Creative Home Arts

Bead A Bouquet Tutorial From Creative Home Arts

Beaded Floral Centerpiece

Customize your centerpiece

By: Sharon M. Reinhart

Bead and arrange dimensional paper flowers to create a springy new accent for a table or desk. An inexpensive mini watering can, some pink cardstock, and a few simple supplies are all you need. Create in colors to match your home décor.

Finished size: 7 1/2" tall Centerpiece (2 1/4" Flower Heads)

Skill: 1 Time: 1 Cost: 2

You will need:


• Mini gold watering tin
• One 2 1/2" craft foam ball*
• Pink cardstock*
• Multi-layered flower rubber stamp*
• Brown ink*
• Metallic thread* - #7730
• Beading needle
• Seed beads* - pink & tan iridescent
• One yd. light pink sheer dot ribbon*
• 1" circle punch
• Straight pin
• Foam mat
• Five wooden skewers
• Craft knife & mat
• White craft glue*
• Foam mounting tape
• Double sided tape
• Cellophane tape
• Optional: Office paper shredder
Ruler, scissors

• See photo for details and placement.

STEP 1: Stamp flowers. Ink flower stamp with brown ink. Stamp image onto smooth side of pink cardstock five times.


STEP 2: Cut flowers. Trim around each stamped flower. To create pop-up effect, use a craft knife to cut around inner pointed petal up to rounded petal, and following stamped lines. Use this technique on two flowers.

STEP 3: Make stitching holes. Place flower right-side up on a foam mat. Use a straight pin to pierce one hole at outside end of straight line in each rounded petal. Pierce another hole at opposite end, just inside center of flower.

STEP 4: Stitch flower centers. Cut 24" of thread. Thread onto beading needle. Do not tie a knot. Using a single thickness of thread, insert needle through one pierced hole in center of flower from back to front. Pull thread through until approximately 1/4" - 1/2" remains on back of flower. Secure end of thread with tape. Re-pierce any holes covered by tape. Pick up one seed bead on end of needle. Insert needle through same hole to return to back of flower. Continue until every center hole has been stitched with a bead. Stitch one pop-up flower with pink beads and the other with tan beads. For remaining flowers, stitch one with pink beads and two with tan beads.

STEP 5: Stitch lines in flowers. Continue to stitch straight lines on pop-up flowers, stitching twice on each line. For remaining flowers, stitch lines from outer hole to inside hole two times, insert needle through outer hole once more (back to front), pick up seed bead on end of needle, and return to back of flower through same hole. Continue until complete.

STEP 6: Curl flowers. Use skewer or fingers to curl pop-up petals slightly forward and outside petals slightly backward.

STEP 7: Assemble flowers. Punch or die cut ten 1" circles. Adhere one circle on back of each flower over top of stitching. Attach skewer to center back using double-sided tape or white glue. Apply a strip of foam mounting tape vertically on each side of skewer. Adhere remaining circles on top with textured side out to sandwich skewer between them.

STEP 8: Attach ribbon. Cut five 3 1/2" lengths of ribbon, tie in a knot around skewer at base of each flower, and trim ribbon ends at a slant. Cut three 4" lengths of ribbon, tie in a knot around watering can handle, and trim ends at a slant.

STEP 9: Assemble in watering can. Push foam ball into watering can. Excess will be trimmed by edge of watering can as ball is pushed in, ensuring a snug fit inside watering can. Determine placement of flower picks. Trim skewers as needed. Insert flower picks into foam. Cut several 1/4" strips from pink cardstock using scissors, or if available, run through an office paper shredder. Crumple strips in hands. Adhere on top of foam with white craft glue.


  *The following products were used in this project: Bazzill Basics color pinkini • Blue Moon Seed Beads • Clearsnap Colorbox Fluid Chalk inkpad • Crafter’s Pick The Ultimate glue • Lizzie Anne Designs “Jolies Fleur” rubber stamp set • Michael's ribbon • STYROFOAM Brand Foam • Wonderfil metallic thread.

Important Parts of the Sales Process

Recently I placed orders with two vendors on Etsy. I sent my payment through PayPal immediately. I did not hear back from either of the vendors for quite a while. I found this very puzzling because as soon as I get a sale, I like to send a Thank you immediately. I tell my customer when I will ship the product and when they should expect its arrival, that I appreciate their business. I let them know that if they wish to contact me for any reason, I will be glad to help them if I can. I consider this not only good business practice but also a practice to alleviate what is called "Buyer's Remorse". Of course, on Etsy we generally are not concerned with high priced expenditures that create true Buyer's Remorse...like homes or automobiles or even televisions, computers or home appliances. For purchases that require a great outlay of cash, the buyer will almost always have second thoughts about spending the money, or question the item itself... i.e., "Did I choose the right product, did I get the best deal''? and so on.

On the level in which we each do business on Etsy, buyer's remorse most likely will not be occur over the amount of money the customer has spent. In my case it was simply asking myself if I made a good choice of vendor because they did not seem to appreciate my business. As we all know, there are plenty of other vendors from which to choose from on Etsy or the internet in general. The competition is stiff and it's a dog eat dog business out there! Because the competition is so stiff, we as vendors must ask ourselves, what is going to separate me from the next guy? The simple answer is great customer service!

How do you give customer service that will separate you from the pack? Simply stated, act like every sale is your first sale! Do you remember the excitement you felt when you made the first one? You couldn't wait to say Thanks and ship out as soon as possible. You couldn’t wait to hear back that they received the merchandise. Then with great pleasure, you checked the rating the customer gave you, and sent a follow up Thank you note for that as well. You asked them if they were happy and satisfied with the product and service and hopefully they said yes. If they did not say yes... well we can cover customer complaints and resolutions in a different post because that is a whole topic in itself!

Another thing to remember in the sales process is that it is much easier to make a repeat customer out of a first time satisfied customer. A repeat customer is much easier to come by than a first time buyer. It takes more time and effort as well as advertising dollars to create a first time buyer. The repeat buyer hopefully has confidence, not only in the quality of your product but in your customer service skills. They feel relaxed and good about buying from you again if the first time was a pleasurable experience.

So everyone, go sell and remember to say to your customer, Thank you, I appreciate your business, not only once, but in each step of the sales process.

Come Shop With The Etsy Goodie Goodies Team Members

reducereuserepurpose


babazoobee

DormouseDesigns

Zulamay

Soapaddicts

TheCreativeCavaran

Sugarshoxcrafts

silverWARES

LavanderDreams

sewsicora

SewSassyCreations

ExpressionsByCheree

vintagetreasurehntr

IFeltYourBeads

Under Construction

Please bare with us while we set up our blog. In the meantime check out the thread that started it all http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6411611