Starting an E-Commerce Craft Business in 2012

Well, I have to say that I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t really expect it to be this hard either. I ran out of my start-up money very quick and my plan to use E-bay as a gateway to funnel customers to my website has not worked yet and I’m losing money once you consider the cut that E-bay is taking with their insertion fees and final value fees. Then you have Pay-pal taking their cut too. Yeah, I probably could make money on E-bay, but not at the prices that I want to offer my products at.  All the more reason I want customers to find my website. Once they find my site they will see all the products I have and get charged a low shipping rate instead of buying from multiple different people on e-bay too. I didn’t realize how many online craft retailers their already were out there until I started one. Alot of competition means low rankings on search engines for my tiny little start-up.

It is sad to realize that money really does control a lot. The only way, it seems, anyone will find my website is if I spend massive amounts of money on advertising. I truly hope I am wrong.

I’m still excited and I am not going to let it get me down. After all, some day, when people find my website, I will be selling products that I love to good people that get to buy them at low-low prices. I’ll get the chance to prove myself by giving great customer service on top of it and they’ll get to watch my store grow, knowing that they were part of that growth. Some day….Some day.

Vintage Distressed Valentine’s Card

  When I was making this card, I was thinking about giving it to my boyfriend for Valentine’s Day, but I was so excited about it that I showed it to him instead lol. So, now I have it for sale at my Etsy Shop.

I had alot of fun using distressing techniques and my imagination to make this card. I very rarely plan out my cards before I make them. Sometimes it means I waste paper and time, but other times I am very pleased with the outcome. I’ve never used feathers on my cards and I really like how it turned out with the angel wings.

I’ll let you in on a secret…the angel wings and the inside purple paper of the key hole are actually re-purposed paint chips! Yeah, those free ones that you get at the store when you’re deciding what color you want to paint your room! I like the matte look and feel of them. The only thing I would caution about is, the one with the angel wings started to smoke a little when I was embossing on it. I think I got the paint chip a little too hot. I don’t plan on using paint chips on my projects on a regular basis because then I would feel like I’m stealing them, but these ones happened to have the perfect colors I was looking for and I had them within arms reach.

Hope you like it. I will be selling some of the products used on this card in my shop when it opens. I am furiously working on it. I hope to have it opened this week.

Some products used:

•Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder
•Tim Holtz Distress Ink
•Tim Holtz Mini Mister
•Various Tim Holtz Stamps ( I think they’re from Regal Flourish, Urban Grunge, and Purely Random)<< LOVE how all his stamps work together!
•Purple Perfect Pearls
•White feathers from Wal-Mart
•Small Metal Key from Michael’s
•Small metal keyhole brad from Oriental Trading Co. (not really a fan of them, since this stuff is cheap quality, but they had these brads and I love them).