Etsy Success Holiday Boot Camp and Other Goals

I have decided to participate in Etsy's Holiday Boot Camp this fall in order to prepare myself and my little shop for the upcoming holiday season. It really is just what I need after keeping my shop in vacation mode all summer, and only just returning to it in the beginning of September.

I feel like I have so much to catch up on in terms of building inventory, re-photographing my existing work, organizing shipping supplies, making sure I have enough of all of my supplies, etc. All of the Boot Camper's receive an email from Danielle at Etsy each week with a checklist of different things we should work on accomplishing for the week. It has helped me to prioritize what needs to be done in the next few months and has been an awesome source of motivation. It is nice knowing that thousands of other Etsy shop owners are working on the same tasks I am each week!

I have already started to inventory my supplies, and noticed that I could really use something new to adorn each of my flowers with. I decided that filling each of my new flowers with tiny faceted gemstones would make for some absolutely gorgeous and luxurious flowers! So, I went ahead and ordered aquamarine, quartz, peridot, garnet, topaz, spinel, and citrine faceted beads. These little gems will be in each of the new flowers I create, so be on the lookout for these new pieces as they enter my shop! I listed the first one yesterday and it sold an hour after I listed it! The gemstones are a hit!

Each week I will keep all of you filled in on some of my new shop features and products as I continue to work my way through Etsy's Holiday Boot Camp! It has been an inspiring and motivating journey so far.

Marie Antoinette Fall/Winter 2010 Collection

Over the course of this Fall/Winter season, portraits of Marie Antoinette will inspire a majority of the flowers I create. After all, she was and is still recognized as a major fashion icon of her day. I have scoured the Internet as well as the database ARTstor (which I have access to through my university's library) for portraits of her to use as color inspiration.

Each of the gowns she wears in her portraits are so richly colored and to my surprise, many of them feature color palettes that are currently considered to be the hot colors for fall! I hope you all enjoy the great colors in this new collection as they are released throughout the next few months. Each flower that is part of this collection will have a "-Antoinette" at the end of the listing name in my Etsy shop. If you have a favorite portrait of Antoinette that you would like to suggest, please mention it in the comments!


Portrait of Marie Antoinette by Gautier D'Agoty, 1775. More pictures of the flower inspired by the portrait can be seen here.

Back After a Long Hiatus!

I have really neglected blogging for quite a while, but I am back and have hopes of posting regularly without anymore major breaks!

As inspiration, I am planning on purchasing 52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion by Tara Gentile of Thinking Big for Small Businesses. If you are also an aspiring blogger you may want to check her book out here: "52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion".