100 Followers

Ok OK , I know I am not there yet... But they have been steadily growing, and I would like your input... What should I do when I reach 100 followers on this blog?

It will be a major milestone for me, as I am not much of a writer, but I love the community that I have met through posting my thoughts over the past few months.

Etsy Search

Since I started on Etsy 4 years ago, there has been an ongoing complaint about the quality of the search functionality. I could write for hours about the logistics and frustrations of it, but instead, I am keeping it short, not complaining, and sharing something that I found very funny.

Whats wrong with this picture:











HAHA! The scarf shown is from Baby Ette, it is a great shop, and you should totally check it out, just not at all what I was searching for.

Adding Labels to your blog

I noticed lately in reading a lot of blogs, that some used labels. A label is basically a way of categorizing past blog posts. I think this is FANTASTIC. especially since so many of the blogs I read have themed days.

If you post Sandwich Saturdays, with a new sandwich recipe every weekend, you can label them, so that I can click the label and see only those posts rather than having to go back through 5 weeks worth of pages.

This is good because it allows you to get traffic to past posts. If you look at your blog stats, I am willing to bet that once a particular post is no longer the most recent, it stops getting hits, but that doesn't mean it isn't still good.

Now some blogs are able to go above and beyond and create buttons for their labels, A great example can be found at Bubby and Bean Which if you dont already read and follow, YOU SHOULD.

This quick tutorial however is to show you how to simply add labels to your blogspot blog, easily, quickly, and for FREE!

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Step 1: go to your dashboard, and click the design link. This will bring up your page layout.










Step 2: Your page may not look the same as mine, but you will have an area designated to gadgets. You want to add a new one.














Step 3: In the list of pre-made gadgets that Blogger provides you with scroll down too labels. The button looks like this:





Once added your labels will display in the position you selected in step 1.

Step 4: now that you have a way to display your labels you need to add some to your blogs.













To add labels to past posts, just go to edit posts click edit on the entry that you would like to add a label to, add the label, and save, you keep the publish date the same so that it doesn't move your post chronologically.













Thats it you are finished! start Labeling away!!!!

When it comes to photography I am a bit naive. I think of a camera a lot like a computer. Anyone can use one, but the things we are able to do with one are very different. Using that analogy, I am not a programmer, but rather the guy that can login and check e-mail.


I know how to frame a picture from set design class in college, the rule of thirds, and all that jazz. What I knew almost nothing about were things like aperture, lens size, white balance, depth of field, and the 300 other settings on the Cannon Rebel.

So I wanted to share a bit that I discovered and went overboard with. The 50 mm lens. I thought it was specifically used for depth of field pictures, while it is fantastic for that it is not its primary purpose. The 50 mm lens allows you to take photos from a realistic distance and fit everything into it.

So here is the overboard part. Once I learned about taking depth of field pictures I started doing a bunch of it. It allows you to focus on one part of the photo and blur out the rest. Enjoy!

shipping

Since re-opening my etsy shop at few weeks ago, I have had 2 sales. That may not sound like a lot but since I only posted 4 items, technically I sold 50% of my inventory in 2 weeks!! (I like the way the latter sounds better)

I realized after selling that I was not at all prepared to ship. All the materials that I used to use over a year ago, I no longer had. so I had to go buy them.

I hadn't bought the shipping materials before, it was just stuff that we had available in the house. I use. bubble wrap, packing tape, recycled cardboard, and craft paper. I was able to find it all and get the package out the door!

which reminds me of a popular discussion I would love feedback on.

"Do you care about the packaging when you buy from Etsy, or just that it arrives?"

if you are a fellow seller

"Is there anything special you do to make your packaging personalized and unique?"

I am considering ways of doing this, and will keep you posted on what I come up with as well.