2/25/10

UglyShyla


Style? A bit darker and 'goth' may be an alright term to use. UglyShyla.

I think I may have come across her Myspace first. From there I saw her pictures, found her dolls, which I fell in LOVE with, and decided to do some more efficient stalking. Ugly Shyla. Shes really not at all ugly. Depending which networking sites you prefer, you can find her on facebook, find her dolls on facebook, or twitter. If you dont like either of those, how about her personal site? Or her other personal site.

Finally, both of her stores on Etsy. Execution Style Clothing, as well as the Ugly Shyla shop itself. Wow that was a good deal of linking!!

Conjoined twin necklaces are for sale in her Esty shop. There are so many different styles, it makes it hard to pick out a favorite!



While the jewelry is amazing, what really impresses me are the dolls. So much character and detail in every single one. No two are alike.
If your focus is more on art, you can always pick up a print as well.

2/24/10

Lipstick Prophets

Here is a link to a post about a massive giveaway these folks are doing.
LP blog

If you haven't checked them out yet, well, they rock.

Heres their actual shop
Lipstickprophets[DOT]com


This is my favorite thing they carry. Just because I grew up in New York. I spent the first 19 years of my life there before coming to Texas. While I love it here, I miss home. This shirt reminds me of that.

They also carry a ton of other clothes, at fairy affordable prices actually. Graphic tees. Hand striped shirts. Knee pad leggings. Hoodies with some foul language (ok thats just FUN. hehe).

2/22/10

Amazing Accessories

As I've said before, Twitter is a remarkable way to meet new people and network for your shop. There are some gals I've come across who I've been following on there who create some amazing accessory pieces. Here are just a few.


Dreadful Things by Raven is a shop that specializes in a Gothic style. I love the bone jewelry, but she also creates artwork and some nifty wooden purses.




Liaison by Kat Swank has some of the most gorgeous head bands and other accessories I've seen recently. It's almost as if the more that gets piled on to one piece, the better the piece gets!

2/20/10

Lee Mcqueen 05

Taking a look back.... 05? Yeah.

2/13/10

Using Twitter to sell your products

There are so many people out there who have a Twitter account, or want to set one up, but have no idea how to successfully use it to get followers or sell your product.

The first thing you have to keep in mind is that Twitter was made for social networking. Not for advertising or selling products. The most simple way to put it would be saying to take your Myspace or Facebook page, and take away EVERY part of it except the "status update" section. You have 140 characters to say something of interest. That's less characters than you have for a text message!
Many people use programs (google) 'twitter tools' in order to mass follow and unfollow people. While they seem successful in gaining followers, I wouldn't recommend this personally. How many of those people are actually interested in your product?

How do you find people to follow?
If you sell on Etsy, there are many threads in the forums you can search for 'twitter' in order to find some people who probably will follow you back. Start a thread under the "promotions" section. Add your link to your business cards. Put a notice up on your myspace or facebook with a link. Many people do "link love" on their facebook pages where they'll let you add your own links onto their pages. These are the easiest ways.

There is also a search option on twitter you can use to your advantage. Type in a term relating to your product and do a search to find others tweeting about it. If you sell baked goods, search for terms like 'cook' or 'recipe'. If you make your own clothing, try searching for 'fashion' or 'shopping'. Pick some relative words and see what you can find.

Most others WILL look to see who is following them, and look at your page. How do you get them to follow you back and stick around? SAY SOMETHING INTERESTING!!!
We all want to promote our shops as much as possible. But nothing is more annoying than looking at a page and seeing nothing but updates that say "I just listed ____!", and seeing that repeat. If I see someone updates their status more times in a day than can fit on one page, I probably won't follow them.
Vary your tweets. Sure, post one about that new necklace you just finished and put up on Artfire for sale. The next tweet could be a nifty quote you found that particular day. Maybe a random odd thought you had. Something interesting you may be doing. Others like to see a real person behind the profile, not just someone trying to sell-sell-sell.

@someone else. If you see someone on your page post something, find a few to click! Mention them! Typing the @ symbol before their name or using the "reply" button on their post you can look at their link, and maybe say "hey thats a cool ___ you just listed!" or "I just checked your shop out and fell in LOVE with ___".. Interact with your followers. Interact with others who don't sell also. Don't overdo it, but making conversation or commenting on someone else will have them sticking around a bit longer.

Stick your shop URL in your profile section under settings/more info URL. That way everyone who views your page can see it and click, without it screaming at them in each post. You can change your background to be a photo of one(or many) of your products. Add a picture of yourself or your product. I personally prefer seeing one of the person behind the profile. You're letting others see a real person.

When you get a new follower, please don't make the mistake of sending them a direct message or anything saying "Hey thank you for the follow! Come look at my shop!". If they're following you, chances are they have already checked out your profile as well as any links on it.

On the right hand side there are options. If you start to follow enough people you can add "lists". That way you can separate your real life friends from others with shops to whatever else you'd like to add. I personally like viewing tweets this way, and use 'friends' 'read daily' 'bath and body' 'cloth/clothing/knit', as well as many others. The link listed @___(insert your username here) will lead you to the page where you can see others who mentioned you in their tweets. If someone else has, acknowledge them and say thanks! You can 'favorite' others tweets you may want to come back to, and there's a section to view and send direct messages to others.

Since this is long enough I'll stop here and my next installment will be on how to use certain other twitter tools from different websites to your advantage.

2/12/10

Alexander McQueen



If anyone hasn't heard the news yet, Alexander McQueen was found dead yesterday. All the reports I've read have stated suicide. This was a tragic loss for the fashion industry. He was a designing genius.

FirstView is showing his Spring/Summer collection for free right now. Just a peak at what you can find there.







You'll be missed by all

2/9/10

My favorite Trashion Blog-Outsapop

If I had to pick one blog addiction, OutsaPop would have to be it. I have a thing for recycling products, and not only does this girl from Finland write about her own ideas, she finds everything from runway designs to other average gals doing the same thing. Zipper necklaces, inspirational photos, diy projects to try, celebrities wearing your clothes, this has it all.

2/8/10


It's about time I got a camera that actually works. Up until this, I was either borrowing one from a friend or trying to use my camera that had a busted screen-and no viewfinder. The big joke was "point-click and hope you get something in the screen!". That's no fun so I'm glad to finally have this beauty!

One of the first things it was used for was to photograph all these new scarves and scraps I've been working on. Upcycled tee shirt scarves. I suppose you could do this with new jersey material, but I really enjoy recycling. A tee shirt that no one will ever wear because it has a hole or tear in it, or maybe had paint or dye drip down the front. The material is still usable, just not so great in its original form. I've been collecting tee shirts and now my evenings are filled with mixing and matching colors, cutting strips of fabric and looping them to create some awesome scarves.


After making a few, I still needed something to do with the leftover scraps of fabric. After all, I'm not using new fabric for a reason! I love the idea of trashion. Upcycle. Recycle. Being able to make use out of things that are still good instead of sending them to the landfill. The perfect solution seemed to be to cut different sized circle pieces and sew them together. Add a few buttons to the center and you've got cute little flowers. Glue a small clip onto the back it turns them into a matching accessory for your scarves! Or make some matching ones and clip them onto shoes, purses, shirts, and headbands.
I'm no good at tutorials, so if you're interested in seeing how it's done you can check out youtube to find a video tut. I saw it on Instructables, but since they've taken the tutorial down. The next best one I could find is this one on craftster. Necklace tutorial on craftster