Long time, no blog!

Wow...how long has it been since I last posted on here?

Well, to start off with, I have been away for the first two weeks of October.  I was in Wales for the first week, and I was travelling around the UK following Josh Groban on tour, who was amazing!  I managed to get my t-shirt signed along with a CD lyric book and picture.  I'm happy!! :)

So, I am back on Etsy - last week I re-opened my Etsy store and decided to gradually re-list each item one by one.  It's so cheap to do it, 20 cents is practically nothing in UK £ sterling!  Last week I was re-listing the Prehistoric items, this week it's Egypt and Middle East.

I am also in the middle of catching up with Etsy Holiday Bootcamp tasks - I'm a little concerned actually because I have had SO many views in my store yet nobody is buying anything.  Yesterday I had 40 views, and right now I'm on 20.

I'm trying to do everything I can to increase views - relisting definitely works, as does tweeting.  I may have said this before, but even though they advise you not to tweet too often about your own stuff you'll be considered as being "spammy" but so far, every time I tweet somebody looks at my Etsy store....

This week I am attempting to tweet about my own stuff, other things which might be interesting to people who follow me, and generally being a little more human rather than robotic.  The other thing is tags and descriptions of each item - I'm thinking I might go tweak them a little just to see if something happens!

In the meantime I still have some knitting and crochet to do in time for Christmas.  Speaking of which, I am going to promote some craft fairs which I have recently discovered, all in the Midlands - I thought it was worth blogging about!

1. Crafts for Christmas (www.ichf.co.uk) 3rd - 6th November at Birmingham NEC
2. Festive Gift Fair (www.festivegiftfair.co.uk) 17th-20th November at Birmingham NEC
3. Nottingham Bead and Craft Show (www.ukbeadfairs.co.uk) 20th November at Nottingham Gateway Hotel
4. The Guildhall Christmas Craft Fair (www.leicester.gov.uk/craftfair) in Leicester

I will NOT be exhibiting at any of these - I am nowhere near that kind of stage yet, although it is something I am thinking of doing at some point.  But I will be going along to have a look at the Festive Gift Fair at the NEC to do some Christmas shopping!  And also I will pop along to the one in Leicester as it's closest to me, easy to get to and....well, I want to see if I might want to exhibit there next week :)

Hey people - it's NOT too early to do your Christmas shopping!  I like to try and get everything done by November 30th or at the latest, the first weekend in December.  I usually end up buying many things throughout the year - if I see something which would suit somebody, but their Birthday has passed, I still buy it and save it up for Christmas.  I also buy the odd little thing here and there if I like the look of it but can't think of who to give it to - I buy a couple of cute things and put them away, think about who to give it to later.  Too many people hate Christmas because they avoid it until the last minute and rich around getting stressed about everything and don't put much thought into what they're buying for people.  Think about it NOW and at least you will have a little time to think about what you're giving as gifts :)

And of course....there is always my Etsy store if you're after some nice handmade jewellery ;)

Siobhan xx