Weekly Inspiration

Fox die cuts, originally uploaded by tiffzippy.

Submit your photos for consideration as a Weekly Inspiration by adding them to the Flickr Group.

Social Marketing for Handmade Business

Sister Diane from Craftypod leads a class on Social Marketing. It's almost 2 hours long so grab a cup of coffee or cocoa and sit back to watch, it's full of great information on using social media tools like Twitter, blogs, and Facebook. She explains it in pretty straightforward non-technical language.


Social Marketing for Handmade Businesses by Sister Diane from I Heart Art: Portland on Vimeo.

Note: The video is pretty high quality so run it fullscreen if you can to see the presentation screen better.

Get Interviewed

I'm looking for volunteers to be interviewed for the blog about how you run your business and advice you would give to other handmade business owners. Please contact me if you're interested. I hope to make this a regular feature every couple weeks.

Quick Tip #28 - Edit Express

6.Here's another great new tool using Etsy's API from Craftopolis. It lets you do a number of bulk editing tasks like change prices or titles.

Weekly Inspiration

Autumn Delight!, originally uploaded by la Naváa.

Submit your photos for consideration as a Weekly Inspiration by adding them to the Flickr Group.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines

It's that time of year, holiday shopping season. Here are the holiday shipping deadlines for the 3 major US shipping companies:

• USPS Holiday Calendar
• FedEx Last Days to Ship
• UPS Holiday Calendar (.PDF)

Holiday Photo Props

As the holidays approach it's worthwhile to take some seasonal photos of your products. Whether it's holiday items like ornaments or cards or just your usual items a few props can make your product listings or advertising a little more fitting for the season. Here are a few ideas for simple props you can get at your local dollar store this time of year.

• Mini artificial tree, those between 6-12 inches would work well for draping jewelry on.
• Artificial wreath. The image for this post is of one of my platypus ornaments displayed with a 6 inch wreath laying on it's side.
• Silk poinsettas as a backdrop.
• Plain glass ball ornaments. I'd stay away from too many colors and highly decorated ones, solid colors will distract less from your own items.
• Wide metallic ribbon.
• Gift boxes.

And a few natural items that you might be able to find for free out on a walk:

• Pine cones
• Branches
• Evergreen boughs (be careful of pitch getting on your items or your backdrop if it needs to be reused)

Do you have any ideas? Go ahead and share them in the comments.