It Snows Outside and Almost Floods Indoors

It snowed yesterday and we're in for a week or more of temperatures below freezing. In Portland, with all the hills, that makes for dangerous driving conditions. I'm hoping to avoid driving until after the thaw.

Yesterday Mr. Cha Cha and I went out for a long walk in the woods near our home. It was lovely and serene. It was also a nice break from knitting, photographing, writing, and online promoting.

Selling on Etsy is totally fun! Even more so when you have a good sales day like I did on Friday--I sold seven items from my store! It was floating on air I was, you betcha!

Selling on Etsy is a lot of work! I thought the big learning curve was just in the setup of the store, creating the store banner and avatar, and getting Paypal interfaced with the shop. Well, that's just the beginning. For every product you make, there are a bunch of steps beyond the hand finishing of the item itself:

• You try to get five really good photos of your item so that someone will buy it without being able to touch it or try it on. For me that means taking a few dozen photos in varying lighting conditions and from varying angles, in the hope that there will be five worth using. Quite often I have to go back and do another photoshoot.
  
• Then you need to review your photos. I do this in Adobe Lightroom. Quite often I have over or under exposed the photos and this can be adjusted in Lightroom. I usually sit the item next to me on my desk so that I can adjust the photo to look as closely like the item as possible.
• Then you have to write the copy that will go along with the listing on Etsy. You need to describe the item very well so that you answer any potential questions that the buyer might have and you make the item sound interesting. Perhaps you might want to describe how the item was made or what makes it unique from its competition.
• Then you sign into Etsy and start the listing process which includes entering the title and description, classifying the item including adding up to 14 tags that describe it, uploading photos, entering the shipping charges, etc.

So much for stocking the store. Then you have to get out there and promote your shop so people navigate there to see your goods. This is the focus of my December learning.

Here are some decent photos of the lovely Valerie, she who was recently nameless, that I managed to get yesterday while she was trying on hats.

Valerie is an excellent model. She is patient, cheerful, and willing to work long hours without complaint.

The other thing about Valerie is that she has a decidedly wicked sense of humor. I love that in an assistant! She has such a good memory for jokes, unlike me.

After all the photographing yesterday afternoon, and then the long walk in the snow, I was ready for a nice hot bath after dinner.

The tub was almost full of nice hot water. The bottle of cold water and reading matter were at hand. Just before stepping into the tub, I reached to turn off the water spigots. No problem with the cold water one, but the hot water faucet would not turn off. It was liked stripped or something goofy.

I went running downstairs screaming for Mr. Cha Cha, came running back up, reached in the tub and pulled the plug so the water would drain out. All that lovely hot water, going down the drain while we figured out what to do. Well, not "we". Actually the Mister was the brainiac and ran downstairs to turn off the water coming out from the hot water tank.

Thank god he was home, or you can imagine what the water bill would have been!