Coloring book Giveaway

This blog seem to take a turn into random thoughts, dreams and feelings, and I feel like I haven't wrote anything coherent here in ages...

Anyway, here is a proof that I'm still sane and that I'm doing other stuff aside of think, dream and feel. I've been working on a small coloring book, which is something I've been wanting to do for a while. Now that it's done I decided to raffle one of those to everyone who reads my blog.

So if you want to win this lovely package of a coloring book and 5 cool color Crayola crayons, please visit my store and tell me what's your favorite thing in there.

Also, if you buy anything from my store, you automatically win one of those little books.

I'm going to raffle the book on April 6th.

Enjoy!

A story and a giveaway

I had so much stuff to do today! between a website I'm designing, a huge project Ned volunteered us to do and needs to be finished in a week, another website for a friend's band, packing some Etsy packages, making stuff for the shop, and a Special order for Ned's Mom and wanting to draw at least a couple of drawings today - the day seemed too short from when it was starting.

I decided to start with Ned's mom order, it the most fun project out of the bunch, and I could do it at a coffee shop and just tuned out from all the stress for a bit, before I dive in. A friend of her's just became a grandmother, and Ned's mom wanted a painting made specially for the new granddaughter.

The granddaughter have 5 different names, one of them is Rose, and one of them is Yael, which in Hebrew means a Capra, an animal sort of like a dear, so I decided to draw a Capra and some roses and write all the names on the drawings. Ned went home to do some phone calls, and I went to Blackbird Paurlor to work on the new painting.

It took about an hour and a half, then I put it aside on the chair next to mine, and started working on a second drawing for the day, feeling really great, that at least on of my tasks for the day is already done.

2 minutes later, a woman who got up from the table close to where I was sitting knocked a whole full bottle of water on the painting! the watercolor and pen all swirled together making a puddle of gray water that was dripping on the floor. The woman apologized a million times, and asked if I was going to sell the painting, offering to pay for it, but I felt like I just wanted her to get out of there. I blotched the painting with some paper and left it to dry till Ned got there. Still hoping to fix it, but after it was dry it was obvious that it just won't do.

The part that got destroyed the most was the names, they got totally smeared and became half not legible.

I tried to paint over it later at home, while working on a second painting for the granddaughter.


And so, I decided to give the blotch version, that i rather like now as a free givaway and a reminder to all of us that sometimes, we mess up and that's just how life goes.

For a chance to win this painting, leave a comment to this post and tell me about the last time you messed up, so I don't feel like I'm the only klutz in town...

I will raffle the winner on November 1st.

Rockabilly blog winner!

Remember a couple of weeks ago, I announced a rockabilly special blog raffle?!well it's time ot see who won it.

Only 12 people signed up for this raffle, which surprised me, because this is the biggest gift I ever offered on raffle, I wonder if it means that it doesn't matter what you offer as a prize on a raffle, or that this was simply not to everyone's taste.

At any rate - thanks for all participants, and congratulations to Cabootique who is the winner!

Stay tune! I'm going to announce the next raffle in the beginning of next week.

Rockabilly Blog Give-a-way!

I'm doing a store cleaning and sadly parting with some old pieces that somehow never sold. I'm storing some of the art work and toys for later use, but looking at those two items together - they looked too nice to just put in a box and be forgotten for a while.

So, I decided to celebrate summer (though NY feels like winter now more then summer) and the beginning of car races season with 2 rockabilly inspired item give away! I can't wait to take a big ride, watch the race, talk to some cool people and feel my horizon expended. This can be a really hot father day's present, if your father's into cars, chicks and playing cards (and if so, you have a very cool father indeed).

If you want to win this awesome prize, all you need to do is visit my store and let me know, in a comment, what is your favorite item by me.

Happy rockabilly summer!

Raffle will be held on June 1st. and the winner will be announced in the blog. Please leave an e-mail so I can contact you if you won.

And the winner is...

Happy mother's day everyone! I hope you all had fun, it was a bit of a strange day for me, since I don't talk to my mom and I don't have any kids of my own, the whole notion of motherhood doesn't really imply a lot of good things to me and having everyone around me talk about what they are getting for their moms or their visited to home or different brunch plans made me feel sort of left out.

Ned and I did celebrate Non-Mother day by sleeping in late and having morning sex, which I guess, at least for me, is more fun then getting a painting to hang on the fridge!

I hope you all enjoyed it and had fun, if you did anything special or you had a rotten time and hated it, I'd love ot hear about it.

And so, without father a due, the winners for the mother's day print raffle.

The 2 lucky winners are Janil and Aik. I hope you'll enjoy the prints! happy mother's day!

Shopping Spree 01 - Julie Scheffer

My first shopping spree item arrived today! Horay!

One of the things I've learned (yet again) from this experience is that I really really really HATE to shop, online or offline it doesn't matter. It's OK when I'm buying art or craft supply, groceries or even cloths and props for shoots, but when it's something for myself, I have to think a 100 times before "do I really want this?" and "is this going to be useful?" and "is this a waste of money?" On a whole, not a bad habit, but when being pressed to shop, it's very annoying. Last month I gave a 200$ gift certificate to a friend because spending the money before the expiration date was too stressful.

But when I saw those, I knew I wanted them right away!



The artist that make those is called Julie Scheffer. She is listed on Etsy since 2007, but I think she only started selling at the end of April. she makes really nice ceramics and the coolest thing is that since I bought those she already made another sale.

I made my order on April 30, and the package got to me in May 6th, so basically a week long delivery time, which is pretty cool. I got an Email from Julie a day after I placed the order telling me it will be shipped in the next couple of days, which was very nice.

The cups were packed really well in bubble wrap and tape and the package contained a business card with a hand written thank you on the back side and... an extra cup! the listing was for 2 and I got 3! how cool is that?! They are beautiful, all made it safely and looks even better in reality then they did in the photos.

The price was 19$ and shipping was 5$ - which to me seem very affordable - there is something about 19$ that is really appealing to me somehow, I know it's "almost 20" but somehow the fact that it's less then 20$ makes it easier for me to spend money. Since I send pottery, I was amazed at the low price of shipping for this, more about that - in a sec.



I recommend everyone on checking Julie's beautiful shop and buy everything! (there are only 4 other listings so it won't take that much time...)

A couple of things that Julie and actually everyone can learn from this transaction:

The first thing, which I'm actually really bad at is how important a personal e-mail is upon receiving a new order. I don't buy often on Etsy and getting the e-mail, even if it's a simple "thanks for the order, package will be out on Saturday" line makes the buyer know that there is actually a person on the other side, it makes you feel like that person is professional and nice for letting you know. I often, as a seller, feels like I don't want to pile the buyers with junk mail and I don't write those e-mails and simply send out the package, as a buyer, waiting for a week without hearing from the seller would be really annoying. I would not treat this simple "Thanks, package will be out on a couple of days" massage as junk mail at all.



As suspected, the price of shipping, especially for 3 cups instead of 2, was not 5$ - not even close! by the postal stamp it was 13.65! I feel so bad for Julie! she charged 24$ for the whole thing, shipping included, and out of that, had to pay almost 14 for shipping! that means that she made about 3.5$ per cup - before expenses. That's really isn't enough for the work she put into it and it really sucks!

What can be done?

Julie send her package using Priority mail, it's great, but it's expensive. The cheapest way I found to send stuff is USPS first class mail. Sometimes with Priority over a certain price, it evens out, but still first class is cheaper. I'm not quite sure how it added up to 13.65, but each cup weigh 9 oz. so the whole package, with box was about 2 pounds with the box. On Priority mail - that's about 12.40, but on first class, that's 8.12 - a third less! when you start making more sales this becomes a big difference. If Julie would use First class (even with insurance which for this price range is about 1.60$) she'd still be making 4.5$ per cup instead of 3.5$.

Freebe

I LOVED getting the extra cup! usually I'm not a huge freebe fan, especially when those are cheap and irrelevant gift, but giving a third anything for free is cool, especially because she already know I love her cups (cause I just bought 2 of them) I don't know if Julie intend to give a 3rd cup with every 2 cup purchase or if this was on account of me being her first sale, but it was super cool.

However, at first, it made me feel a little uncomfortable - it seem to me like a really huge gift. I actually checked the listing again after opening the package to try and figure out whether I didn't notice and order 3 cups instead of 2. But it was a wonderful and huge gift.

A while ago, I took part in 2 truck shows for Christmas, I had a bowl full of mini notebooks and a bowl full of inspiration cards - both those were freebe gift, through both shows, people took a lot of cards, but not even one book was taken, I think people felt like it was too much for a freebe to take a notebook and didn't want to appere greedy. The extra cup, though making me feel really happy and very special, also made me feel a bit imposing, like I got something I didn't deserve.
This made me feel especially bad because of the high shipping price. Julie should have made 9.5$ for each cup, but after the extra cup and extra shipping - she only made 3.5$ - about a 3rd of what I wanted to pay for them (and even at 9.5$ though are cheap!).

If I were Julie, I would reconsider her freebe policy, there are a lot of small things she could make and give as a giveaway which would be smaller and still cool and won't make shipping more expensive. Like maybe a small ceramic tags for instance maybe on a leather lace that can be worn as a nacklace or a key chain, or a small ceramic plant marker or even book mark.

I'm still really happy I got a 3rd cup! it's really really cool!

What Else

Since julie already made 2 sales in her short Etsy experience I'm sure she'll go on doing well! A couple of other things she can do to generate some more views and sales:

Built an inventory
Right now there are only 4 listings in the store - 2 cup sets like mine, and 2 nesting bowl sets (which are really cool!) it still feels like the store is pretty empty, I like stores with 20 items or more - it makes me feel like there's a veriety to choose from.

Have a larger veriety of items
There are a lot of items ones can make with the basic "cup" shape - make a hole in the bottom and sell them as planters, make them taller to be used at toothbrosh holder or pencil holder, get a cork lid and sell them as a sugar bowl or honey jar and so on. The bowls can work as soap dish, pasta strainer (if you poke holes in it), a larger bowl can be used as a fruite bowl or salad bowl or to store anything in really.
A lot of times somebody doesn't like a style for kitchen but would love this style for office or bathroom - it's good to spread out.

Also, the listings only allow buyers to get sets - the cups comes in twos, the bowls in either 4 or 6. It might be a good idea to make listings with just one items in then.

Good Luck Julie! I hope your store makes a million sales!

And the winner is....

A couple of weeks ago I announced a blog freebe raffle, the winner would get one of my hand painted rabbit prints.

I got back from LA a couple of days ago and feeling a bit under the weather, but I held the raffle yesterday and I'm proud to announce the winner is Tatertot374.

Congratulation to the winner! and thanks everyone else for your awesome ideas, I already tried a couple of them - the frog cup, which was Blanche idea, sold a couple of days ago, and i already made a second set. And yesterday I also tried a Raccoon, cause i couldn't find a good enough image of a skunk, as Nichola suggested.

Don't be too sad if you didn't win, this was so much fun I'm already working on a new print and will announce a new freebe give away in the next couple of days!

Spring Rabbit print

I'm so sick of this winter, and though it feels much nicer today and I actually wore a skirt and not the jeans I wore every single day this winter, it doesn't quite feel like spring yet. So this is my attempt at spreading some spring cheers and hopefully the weather will take the hint and do something about making it all warm, green and nice already.

A limited edition "long awaited spring" print. There are 22 of those and they will be send for free to anyone who would buy something from my etsy store, as long as supply lasts! to get those, you don't have to do anything, just buy something from my shop and get a free hand painted print. Each of them is a little different in colors then the other and all printed on a cool old mechanic book with a lot of charts and texts.

Actually, only 21 of those would be send to buyers. I'm going to raffle one of those!

If you want to participate, all you need to do is visit my shop's hand painted dishes section and tell me in a comment to this entry what is the next animal you think I should draw on a tea set. If any good ideas will come up, I promise to try and incorporate them in the next couple of weeks.

Don't forget to leave an e-mail so I can let you know if you won!

I'm going to hold the raffle after I get back from LA, so probably the 17th or 18th of April.

Friends Forever!

A wonderful buyer from my etsy store wrote and asked me to make an original painting for her, as a Christmas present for her best friend - they are friends for over 30 years! I really like her request, a drawing of birds in green and blue and the words "friends forever".

At the same time I got an e-mail from a cool store in Brooklyn asking for prints for a charity show for a bunny shelter (how can you not donate money \ art to a bunny shelter?!) and I decided to use the draft sketch I made for the painting as an image for a gocco print.

I finish the prints today on watercolor paper, sketch paper and old book paper, they are beautiful and very colorful! I painted each of those by hand, in different colors.

So, a bunch are going to be sold at the Fact and Fancy art show or, you can have one, absolutly free with perches of anything from my shop, if you use the secret password "SAVEtheBUNNIES" in the massage to the seller section.