Win this Gorgeous Sunflower Card

This coming week will mark one month of my Artfire Shop and as such I have created my first ever competition.

I would like ideas for more card categories/occasions/ideas so I would like you to email or comment as per details above with your suggestions. Can you think of a particular event you buy cards for? Is there a particular person in your life who likes a particular hobby? If you were to say "Christmas" what sort of cards do you like to buy? What about multipacks ideas? You catch the drift.

Every suggestion counts as one entry and I will list them in number order getting my mum to randomly pick a number at 9am on Wednesday GMT (this should cover midnight Tuesday at the various American time zones)
In order to gain an entry into this competition, you will either need to email me at butterflycrafts@ymail.com or if you are on AF, send me a personal message (this would be preferable).
So here is the card:


Sunday 26 April 2009 | 4 Comments

Chantilly Lace

In my last post I wrote about Alisuns and now it is the turn of Chantilly Lace!

Chantilly Lace is a big romantic at heart, combining her love of vintage with those 'special moments' for her inspiration with her craft feeling that vintage pieces have a story to tell. Chantilly Lace works with pearls, lace and fabrics to give them a new lease of life so that they can continue on their journey.

My favourite pieces are here:


Wednesday 15 April 2009 | 1 Comment

Alisuns

As I said in my blog yesterday, I am going to blog about my two customers so far! So today it is the turn of Alisuns:

Alisuns make custom crafted jewelry and pledges that everything in her shop is hand crafted. She works in gemstone and Swarovski, with gold filled or sterling silver wire and enjoys the look of the fine metals and crystals, and uses them almost exclusively. Currently there is a 15% off sale until the 10th May (US Mother's Day). Visit Alisuns store on Artfire at:

My favourite items are:






Monday 13 April 2009 | 0 Comments

A bad day turned good!

So, i Ihave been an Artfire member for about 2 weeks now and i've enjoyed every minute of it! I love making things as you may well have guessed by now and I have constantly been thinking of ways that I can promote my shop on Artfire and continue to make handmade cards suitable for people to purchase.

As I said in my last post, I came up with 5 things to work on for promotion. Well, I have been joining in the forums on Artfire and I went to a card workshop on Saturday which I will discuss in another post. I also emailed my contacts telling them about my shop. I got support from some but then, one was rather unexpected. I got an email hoping I was well but that my cards would probably never sell because they look too handmade, are too expensive and people prefer to just go into a store and pick one up. I was so upset, I posted a thread on the Artfire forum and everyone was just so kind to me saying my cards are great. Anyway, the best thing happened, two separate people bought three of my cards!!!!! I was so happy I could've cried! I have got them all packaged up and ready to send once the holiday weekend is over and as a huge thank you to them, I will blog about them this week and thier stores to show my appreciation.

So tomorrow I need to get restocking my store with cards. Someone suggested making some mothers day cards so that is my plan. But just for info, the images with this post are what I have just sold. - Yay me!



Sunday 12 April 2009 | 0 Comments

Sew little time

Last week I took a day off work to go to a card making workshop, so indulgent on a work day I know! I go to card workshops as often as I can, I think its so important to learn new things and refresh abilities. This workshop focused on "other occasions" and we looked at Wedding cards, new baby and a very cute get well soon. The wedding card used Iris folding, something that I really enjoy so it was good to do it again. I think the card is really pretty:

The class made me really think about what 'other' occasions I could make cards for and that is something I will be working on over the next few weeks - i have a great idea for a New Home card and will post when I have made it.

But that's not what I want to talk about now. Being at the workshop made me realise that it is difficult trying to hold down a "day job" with wanting to turn a hobby into something a bit more. I am new to Art Fire (AF) and I see my store here "Butterfly-Crafts" as my way of beginning my dream. However, what I hadn't realised was just how addictive it can be.

I am always logging on trying to see what other people are up to, joining in with the forums to learn new ways of promoting and just checking in with other artisans. There has been a lot of discussion in the forums about promoting and I have really learnt this week that there is a lot of promoting required to just get your name out there and your craft recognised. It has really dawned on me that there is a whole world of online promotion and networking that I knew nothing about and I am learning fast. I am trying to digest it all and come up with a sort of strategy as to what to do next, a big AF to-do list if you will. So far I have identified 5 key tasks for the next couple of weeks, in reverse order:

5) Create a Facebook fan page

4) Blog more frequently and get to grips with how to blog so that I can join the Crazy marketing train on AF.

3) Stay involved with the AF communities and forums

2) Email all of my friends to shout out that I have created a store and try to encourage free promotion.

1) Keep being creative!!!

I think number 1 is the most important really and to get back on track to what I was going to post about is, I am trying to find all those little gaps of time in which I can be crafty. I am currently working on a cross stitch sampler card which I am stitching in my lunch breaks, it may only be a short sharp burst of crafting but with 'sew' little time......I find every little helps.

Tuesday 7 April 2009 | 2 Comments