Today’s guest post is by Jeanne Heuer. I met Jeanne when I began working in libraries. She’s since retired (boo hoo for me!), but we stay in contact, mostly through Facebook. The fabulous thing is, she and her husband are artists as well as bloggers. Jeanne’s newest field trip, besides an amazing trip to China, is starting an Etsy store to sell her creations.
Jeanne’s extremely talented. She made the nesting boxes in the photos above for me more than ten years ago. She was my Secret Santa at work. Those boxes were the best Secret Santa gift I’ve ever received. They’re cuter than all get out, yes, but they also tell a story. They are absolutely my favorite thing to unpack and put out at Christmas and now they’re my son’s favorite Christmas decoration, too.
Heuers on the Hill
My friend Terra finds and takes field trips everywhere. When I told her I was going to try opening a shop on ETSY her immediate response was, ‘What a great field trip, will you share it on my blog?’
So I looked up field trip and found this:
Field Trip n. A group excursion for the purpose of firsthand observation.
So I guess you’re the group and I am going to take you on a trip to my shop.
But first a short field trip to the past. Art has been a part of my life forever. I got my BA in art with a minor in education and taught art to Jr.Sr high school kids for 5 years (that certainly was a Field Trip). After that I returned to school and got an M.A. in art. Then followed my husband to Green Bay and started a job at the Brown County Library, another great Field Trip in my life. Mostly I helped people find books and information but parlayed my art degree into marketing, advertising and display.
Jump thirty years, I retired but kept doing art. Now unless you want to just pile stuff in a corner you have to find a way to get your work out to the people. I tried galleries, had some success but galleries take 50 –60%. So you take a pittance for your work or you hike up the price which, in my case, drives down sales.
Then I read about ETSY, an e-commerce website for handmade or vintage items.
Pros: good reputation Cons: little to no advertising
lots of traffic lots of listings (you can get lost in the crowd)
low percentage you control it all
you control it all
Setting up a shop on ETSY is definitely a trip into unknown territory. Maybe if I was a previous Ebay seller I would have known this but…I didn’t realize I had to have all my ducks in a row before beginning, and I mean ALL my ducks, measured, weighed and quacking. So before you start,
Know what you are calling your shop (your name can have no spaces!)
A logo, a banner. Here’s mine.
Have all copy ready (about you, about your shop, about your work)
Pictures of your work (numerous views, details)
Measurements, materials, postage, payment details, ….yikes!
But I did it and went live in July. With little to no advertising I have been favorited on two pieces and have gotten a little traffic. Oh, and one sale. There are still things I haven’t figured out like how to create a Facebook page and link but I will work on that in between creating more work. The latest pieces due to arrive this week are Tooth Fairy boxes designed for boys and adventurous girls. So pull on your cyber shoes and take a Field Trip to HEUERSontheHILL.
The Heuers on the Hill Etsy store.
Read more of Jeanne and her husband’s work on their blog Another Stir of the Spoon. Jeanne is a librarian, a teacher, a fiber artist. Curt is an artist, a professor, and a potter. They both love cooking, eating, reading, gardening, birding and living in Wisconsin.
Terra, thanks so much for featuring my Field Trip to ETSY. I am sorry my banner didn’t come through in the post but if people follow the link they’ll get all the pertinent info. Hey and there are now 5 tooth fairy boxes. And I forgot about those Christmas boxes, what a fun remembrance. PS: I have since figured out the FB linkage.
You’re welcome, Jeanne. Thank YOU for writing a post!
That is so neat! I have absolutely no crafting abilities, so seeing people that can is really neat! Thanks so much for sharing!
I think Etsy is the neatest idea, being able to sell your hand crafted items to a larger audience. I need to shop there more. I do like browsing it 🙂 What a fun journey, thanks for sharing!
I need to buy more, too. I think that’s where I’ll go for holiday shopping this year. I’ll stay home and shop in my PJs!
That toothfairy box is so cute!
I love that it’s not it’s not your typical Tooth Fairy style, that there’s something for my little Wild Thing 🙂
Hey Terra, great post. Hi Jeanne. Your boxes are really cute. I just recently opened my Etsy store so I know exactly what you mean. There are so many ducks to get in a row first. I only opened with about 25 items, but am working on a lot more to get in the store. They recommend 100 items. You get more traffic at that level.
Wishing you great success on your new adventure. Thanks for the Field Trip.
I love the boxes! My Mother in law has great talent and I think would do great selling on Etsy but it is so involved I think she would just rather try to sell elsewhere. Thanks for the info!
Aren’t they great? I’m thinking they’d be perfect Christmas gifts…but now they’ll have to be gifts for people who don’t read the blog 😉 Darn it!
Terra, I LOVE this theme (as a matter of fact, I’d had plans to change my blog over to this one in a week or so). Jeanne, I love your style. It’s like a hip folk-art if that makes sense, and fits my personality perfectly.
It was hard for me to change. I really liked the other theme, but clearly it wasn’t speaking to readers like it spoke to me, so I adapted. I do like the new one though!
These are so cute! I also am a novice on the Etsy store. Love it though! Love that other crafters have some amazing things as well.
I have never shopped in Etsy as I am not a crafty one. I like the box a lot for honest. I would like to have a visit sometimes.