Donna Burkholder

Donna Burkholder on TAFA

Donna sells beautiful quilt patterns and kits that she designs in her Etsy shop.  She also dyes fabric, also available for purchase!

Savvy Seller Café: Market Yourself For Free! Part I

Dot Vase - Felted Wool $156 USD by papaververt.etsy.com

Sometimes the best marketing opportunities don’t cost a penny.  This is good news for artists on a budget aka yours truly.  Today’s online communities offer more opportunities than ever before!  Are you taking advantage? Here’s a handy checklist to add to your marketing toolbox. 

1. Start a Facebook Fan Page

This is quite possibly the most effective free marketing opportunity I’ve used. If you need help setting up your page, talk to another TAFA member who’s done it already or ask a friend to show you the ropes. It’s reasonably straight forward, so don’t be intimidated.

2. Create a Blog Using Blogger

Start your own blog for free on Blogger! In fact, the blog you’re reading right now is a perfect example.  You don’t have to be very tech savvy or know html to make it look great.  If you haven’t started blogging yet, I recommend reading “Blogging All-In-One For Dummies” by Susan Gunelius. I just started my blog a few months ago and already I'm hooked.

3. Use Twitter

I resisted Twitter for a long time, but I finally signed up a few days ago. Essentially a micro-blogging tool, Twitter inspires conversation and relationship building. You can add links to your blog, shop or anything else you want to pass on. Simple and effective, it’s definitely worth a try! I'm a proud newbie @ChristineMFord.

4. Write for Popular Blogs

For a blog to be successful, frequent posts with great content are needed to build and keep up readership. Many popular blogs need guest writers to accomplish this.  If you decide to try guest writing, make sure that backlinks to your own website, blog or shop is allowed.

5. Comment on Other Blogs

When you follow or comment on other blogs, many will return the favor giving you more traffic and exposure.  When appropriate, leave a link for your website, blog or shop. Be very careful not to create spam.  If you leave a link be sure that it is relevant and useful.

This is just a small list of ideas to get you started. Check back next week for even more ideas!

What’s your favorite free online marketing strategy? Leave us a comment!

Creatively yours,

Christine Marie Ford

Last Week: 4 Reasons To Sell Your Work Online

Next Week: Market Yourself for Free! Part II

Visit me online!

Official Site: http://christinemarieford.com
Shop Online: http://christinemarieford.etsy.com
Blog: http://www.christinemarieford.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/christinemarieford

Facebook Apps: an artisan learning social media

Jwrobel

By Jess Wrobel

This all started because I wanted to have both of my Etsy shops on my Facebook page.  The Etsy  App only allows you to have one.  So, the research, trial and error began!  In the end it was much easier to pull off than I ever would have thought.  And if I can do it, you can, too.

The more I learn about Facebook, the more impressed I am.  The flexibility of creating a user friendly interactive web presence is right at your fingertips.  Let's start with my initial project of getting both my Etsy shops on my FB page.

1.  Log in to your FB account and click on Edit Page>Apps>Search for and then Choose the Static Iframe Tab App.

2.  Follow the instructions for installing the application.  They walk you through each of the steps.  Once the App is installed, you can start customizing your Facebook Page. From there everything is easy as pie.

3.  Look at the screen shot of my broodbaby tab below, and you'll see a table of contents across the top of the opened tab. Click on Edit Tab Content and you see a screen like the second image.

4.  Notice that when you are in Edit Tab Content you have the option of selecting HTML, URL, or FBML. I used HTML and then went to my Etsy account to get the code for an Etsy Mini. Copy that code, come back to FB, and paste that code in at the top of the Edit Tab Content Box. There is some preexisting code when you first open the window, so just make sure you don't erase that. Click on Save. That will bring back to the page shown in the first screen shot.

5.  To add an additional tab, now, click on +Add More Tab.  I repeated the previous process to get my second Etsy shop, JwrobelStudio, on its own tab.

Another option in using this tab is to click on URL instead of HTML. This will take you to a screen where all you have to do is write in a web address. For the screen shot below, I just used the URL for an Etsy shop, but it could just as easily be the URL for my own website or blog or professional group I'm part of.

As I hope you can see, the possibilities for this application are endless and it's not just for Etsy people. In addition to both my Etsy shops, I've included tabs for specific collections on my own website and one for purchasing Gift Certificates. On my agenda of additional tabs to add are one for my Little Burd charitable program and I'm also toying with vendor/artist features. You could also promote special or seasonal collections, fundraisers, tutorials, or what's in the works that your customers should keep an eye out for.

Really, in this social media marketing world it is all about generating engaging content. And, unlike the name "Static FBML", there is nothing static about it. It is a tool that allows you keep things fresh quickly and easily.

Questions?  Ask and we'll try to answer them...

Using Acrylic Inks for Fabric Painting

My latest art quilt, a little different?

By Barbara Harms/Asian Art And Quilts

I promised to share my impressions of the new acrylic inks when I got a chance to use them. They arrived in the mail and Hot Dog was I excited! I played around with them for a bit and decided I was ready to jump into a real piece.

This quilt was the result of my experimentation with the new acrylic inks. When I saw the results, I knew these would be a fun new addition to my tool chest of art mediums to work with.

I’ll give you my impressions, but if anyone else has had some experience, jump in with your comments

I loved how the ink flowed on, when applied as a wet on wet wash, making unique shapes and designs. I liked the resulting piece of silk so much that initially, I thought I’d just make a whole cloth abstract quilt with the fabric so I wouldn't cover any of it up. Just make a wholecloth abstract art quilt.

Once I really got going, I couldn’t rein myself in. I started silk painting items to applique . First the big snarled tree, it fit. Then what goes with an old gnarled tree? Certainly not bluebirds and butterflies. Well I thought and thought… CROWS! Of course or Ravens. SO it took on a life of its own.

I must say I loved working with the inks. I mixed & matched them with my beloved Pebeo Seta paints. It worked fine, they’re both acrylics. The inks are very good for finer detailing I found. It was a good combination and I’m hooked! The inks dry faster. You can easily reapply more color over dried ink. They will bleed when applied onto dry fabric around them, but seem fine when reapplying over painted areas.

Give them a try, but remember that you still might need acrylic fabric paints to partner with them. Depending on your purpose.

I am already finding the, very useful. Hope this was helpful. If you want more info or want to ask more detailed questions check with me on my blog:

http://asianartandquilts.com/

Curating your interests: Scoop It and Pinterest

One of the reasons we come together as a group, as we do in our TAFA Team, for example, is that there is more potential for being found when you are part of something larger than yourself.  As Etsy sellers, we wear many hats:  we have to make or buy whatever we sell, photograph it, load it up to our shops, and then engage in the time consuming job of getting the word out, marketing in to the world in the hopes that it will sell.

Once it sells, we have to pack it, ship it, leave feedback, and keep records.  Some of it fun, some of it quite tedious.

Of these, the most daunting to many of us it the marketing angle.  Etsy has successfully built in several community stragies, Teams being one of them, but the most popular are the Treasuries, curated images by Etsy members.  Normally, one picks a theme and then fills it up with items that go with that theme.  It might be an activity, a place, a color or a mood.  

This treasury was made by one of our team members awhile ago, using red as the theme:

If the treasury is breathtakingly beautiful, it might make it to the front page on Etsy where there would be more chances of selling the items that are shown on the treasury.

This concept has become so well-liked that there are many websites now based solely on the idea of curating content that has already been published.  I'll give two examples here:  Scoop It and Pinterest, both which are still in beta.  You need to request access in order to set up an account.

Pinterest

Most of us have had a bulletin board where we pin ideas or things we want to keep track of.  This is the idea behind Pinterest.  Create boards of specific interests and pin content to the boards.  See something you like on someone else's board?  You can bring it over to your board and pin it there, too.  Visually dynamic, great images might get re-pinned (and seen with their links) over and over again.  

I did a test using the keyword textile to see what would pop up:

Screen Print of Pinterest

Do you see that stack of textiles, smack in the middle?  That is one of TAFA's members, The Loaded Trunk.  Pinned images and text are also tagged so that keywords can be searched.  Pinterest encourages people to pin things that are not necessarily self-promoting.  Potential uses might be inspiration for future projects, designers use it to keep track of looks they like or potential sources they may use in the future, etc.

Scoop It

The concept here is to let the site crawl the web for relevant information for your topic.  You can create as many as you want, and then enter key words and you can select what you like to add it to your topic.  It ends up looking like news articles.  I tested it with three topics, funding for creative entrepreneurs, folklore in Brazil, and TAFA Art Quilts.  All brought up interesting links.  Here is what the Art Quilt topic looks like:

Scoop It Screen Print

You can also add widgets of your topics on to your blogs and sites:

I did a search using TAFA quilt as the tag.  I thought it was interesting that members who have TAFA on their blogs, popped up as results.  All their posts would pop up and one could pick the best ones to include them in the selection.  And, Scoop It has a gadget that you can install on your search bar so that when you see something online, you can post it immediately to your topic of choice.  I couldn't get the gadget to work on my computer, but I found that if it was saved as a bookmark, it works from there.  I can see all kinds of applications for this.  Basically, it can be a bookmarker for one's interests that can also be shared with the public.  

Scoop It allows you to connect with others on the site.  You can sign in using facebook on both Scoop It and Pinterest, thus transferring the connections you have there over to your new hub.

There are many other sites like this, that use the curating model to build and share content in new ways.  They all have great potential.  For me, the issue is TIME.  Who has time to run around and really use any of these tools, along with all the other social media sites that already demand so much?  And, even remembering all of them and what they do can seem daunting at times.

Like anything else, I think that it helps to explore these sites, see how they operate and if you like it, spend some time on it.  Then, make a part of your day or week dedicated to keeping up on the ones that you think will really benefit your business.  I, for example, have chosen not to make Twitter a priority in my life.  I prefer facebook.  So, I am there with automatic posts that are synched to it, but do not invest in building it.  We each have to choose which tools work best for us.  But, within each of these hubs, look for the community you already have to make that time worthwhile for you.

If you are active in two or three places and do your networking there, your community will help make you more visible.  That is why we stick together.  That is why we have a TAFA Team.

Have you tried in curating sites?  What is your experience?  Share some of your thoughts on this so that we can all learn and benefit from your insights.

Fabric Painting: Something Different To Try

Fun with fabric paints- posted by AsianArtAndQuilts

I’m sure there are a lot of art quilters on TAFA who use fabric painting as part of their process in making an art quilt. I love silk painting for many of mine.

I’m sure we’ve all tried many brands of paint and have our favorites, I generally use Pebeo Setacolor, I like the thickness of it and there is always their Thickener if I want more concise control.
One inconvenience is the how most fabric paints bleed onto the surrounding area of dry fabric. I know gutta resists are designed to contain that bleeding paint problem. But when I want to paint, well, I want to do just that, paint & now! I’m far too lazy and impatient to have to carefully apply lines of gutta.
Now a lot of you wonderful artists, who do such a beautiful job using the gutta resists, don’t be offended by my rash statement. Please feel free to school me on the fine points of this method.

But I just read about a product, that I can’t wait to try. It’s called Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Water-Resistant Artists Ink. It is applied like fabric paint, but it doesn’t bleed into the surrounding dry fabric. Yet if applied to wet fabric it will blend, allowing shading and so forth. It can also be used to create those beautiful watercolor effects if diluted.

There are plenty of colors to choose from, 38 in all. They are intermixable. I’m assuming the colors right out of the bottle will be very vibrant.

Yet, when you want to create subtler colors and varying tones, you can acheive those by diluting the paint to the degree you want. They can be diluted as much as needed, to create lighter colors & a consistency more like a watercolor. You can do washes with them, as you would with watercolor, and add additional layers of color.

You heat set with your iron. They claim to have a high degree of colorfastness, and are more like the nature of a dye, with little effect on the hand of the fabric.

I’ve ordered some and can’t wait til they arrive. I’m itching to “play” with them, and see if they’re as good as they sound. I’ll let you know how they work out. If anyone out there has had any experience with these, please share your thoughts, tips, impressions with us. I’m really curious to find out what other artists think of this product.

You can read the entire article on my blog http://asianartandquilts.com/

Priming the Creative Pump

  

Sometimes the well runs a little dry when it comes to ideas, and I find that's usually when I haven't been working much.  Because when I'm working, there always seems to be no shortage of ideas that I can't get to because I'm too busy . . . well, working.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a continual fountain of ideas --

a library of sketchbooks to mine for gold, for instance, or a gigantic rolodex with an index card containing every great idea we've ever thought of but didn't take time to write down and therefore forgot?

I'd like to come up with a way to record those fleeting ideas that wouldn't result in piles of paper scraps bearing unintelligible scribbles in a shorthand so abbreviated that even I have absolutely no idea what it was originally intended to represent.

I think it's helpful to do a little something creative every day.  Because even when I'm not actively working on a project, if I flip the "creative switch" for a second or two I notice it's like throwing a drop of oil on the gears, keeping them ready to move should I provide them the opportunity.

And when I can't bring myself to actually DO something creative, it seems to be equally effective for me to look at other people's creative efforts.

The more art I absorb, of any kind,
the more my mind

seems willing to produce.

Charles Horton Cooley said,

"The mind is not a hermit's cell, 

but a place of hospitality and intercourse."

And yes, there is plenty of coming and going in my head . . . 

I guess I just need to up my hospitality a little

in hopes that my ideas will be tempted to 

sit down, relax awhile and maybe talk to each other.  

Susan M. Hinckley

Small Works in Wool  

  

Idea Cupcakes

Truth be told, there's really nothing new under the sun.

Without thinking too hard, it's probably easy to guess the origins of this piece:

Persons of Interest, Susan M. Hinckley,  2006, Collection of J. Greening

Do you see it?

Well, while exercising on the elliptical one day (sweating like a pig), suddenly The Brady Bunch came on TV. Ahhh, now  you can easily see how "Persons of Interest" was born.

 The secret of creativity is knowing 

how to hide your sources.

-- Albert Einstein


And then there are occasional cases of flat-out stealing ideas,

(which everyone does whether intentionally or not).

I save lots of things that I like, and put them in files or on the fridge or on my bulletin boards in hopes that a little bit of wonderfulness will rub off on my creations.

...if we had to think up everything from scratch,

we wouldn't get a whole lot done, would we?

Scratch cake is great when you have time, but thank goodness for cake mixes because they taste great and they're easy and economical too.

... to make good things, you have to make a lot of things (think of them as idea cupcakes).

And the way to have a lot of good ideas is to have a lot of all kinds of ideas and then throw the not-so-good ones away.

So feel free to beg, borrow and steal.

Take someone's idea and stretch it in your own new direction.

(I don't think the Brady Bunch will even mind 
when they find out what I've done.)

 Susan M. Hinckley
Small Works in Wool

How to Control the Appearance of Your Etsy mini

The Etsy mini is a wonderful tool that Etsy provides for its users.  Both buyers and sellers can use it to promote their favorite items.  Sellers use it to show off their shop items.  The Etsy mini is code that can be posted in any blog or website.  We use it promote our TAFA Team members and to post ads on the sidebar of our main site, TAFA: The Textile and Fiber Art List.  Every TAFA member who has an Etsy shop also has the Etsy mini on their member profiles.  The mini is also what we used to build our Gallery of Shops on this blog (See the category tabs under our banner).

Most Etsy sellers know how to grab the code.  For those who don't, Timothy Adam created a tutorial in the following video:

Timothy has made a huge contribution to the Etsy community over the years with his blog, Handmadeology.  Loaded with tutorials, reviews and tips, it's a great resource for Etsy sellers.  He's come a long way since this first video on Etsy minis!

The video shows how to grab the mini code and paste it to your blog.  It doesn't go into how the mini looks or what items can be chosen for it.   This is how you control the appearance of your Etsy mini:

Items for Sale

When you go to "Your Etsy", the backbones of your Etsy shop, the default view is a list of the items that are for sale in your shop.   The following images are screen shots.  Click on them and you will get a full-size view which will help you see the content.

 "Currently for Sale", default view of Your Etsy

Notice the stars to the right of each item.  If you click on those stars, they turn green and become featured items in your shop.  The Etsy mini will automatically pull the last items you listed as the images shown in the mini, unless you click on these stars.  Once you do that, the mini will show your featured items.

Featured Listings

Next, you will want to choose the order in which these featured items are listed in your mini.  If you don't, the mini will default to when they were listed, most recent being displayed first.  The sidebar has a section of links related to how the shop is set up.  The first has to do with the items in the shop.  Under Items, look for Featured Listings.  Click on that and a list of items shows up.  Those are the ones that have the green stars. 

Featured Listings in an Etsy Shop

Notice that there is a group of four items at the top, separated from the rest.  Those four show up at the top of the Etsy shop and are also the first four in the Etsy mini.  I normally keep at least 16 featured items so I have a long list of items with green stars.  

At the far right, there is an arrow with an up and down box.  Click on that to move the item up or down.  It's a slow process and I don't know why Etsy doesn't use the same process as it does when we select the order in which images appear on our listings or in treasuries.  At any rate, this is how it is done now and hopefully, some day they will make it easier.

Final View of Your Etsy Mini

I choose to keep 16 items featured because that is the largest mini that is likely to be used on other sites.  Here is what my mini looks like in my TAFA Member Profile:

If you go to my profile, you will see it live.  If someone clicks on one of the items, it takes them to that item in the shop.  If they click on Etsy, it takes them to Etsy's home page.  If they click on rayela, they go to my shop.  (Tricky how close Etsy places their link to our shops...)

Again, the first four items at the top of this mini are the same ones that show up at the top of my shop.  It is very important to keep at least four featured items so that the four gallery sized spots are filled.  Often people forget and if there are less than four, the shop looks unorganized.  If one of the mini items sells, the next one on the featured items list takes its place.  It's a good idea to have at least six featured items.  As I sell both things that I make and vintage cultural textiles, I try to keep two of each in the first four.  You might want to organize things by color, type or price.

Advertising with Your Etsy Mini

If you use the Etsy mini to advertise your shop, that first item is especially important as it is the one that will show up if one gallery size image is used.  Make it a good one and change it often.  We have ads on our TAFA site and accept both images and the Etsy minis.  Here is what mine looks like at the time of this post:

 Etsy mini ads on TAFA's sidebar.

I hope this tutorial has helped you understand how to maximize your Etsy mini's performance.  If you have any questions, please leave a comment and check the box to receive emails on new comments as we will answer here.

Explore our Gallery of Shops on this blog to see how our Team members use their Etsy minis.  These are a block of four gallery sized minis.   We hope that you will also see something that is a must-have and shop from them!

Interested in supporting TAFA with your Etsy mini as an ad?  Visit our Sponsor page for rates.

If you found this tutorial helpful, share it on facebook, email it to your friends and blog about it.  I did it because I searched for something similar to share with some of our TAFA Team members but didn't find anything how to control your Etsy Mini's Appearance.  Now you know how to do it!

Variations on a leaf, a knitting design.

 

by Catherine Bayar

There is a saying that "variety is the spice of life". When I'm designing knitwear, variety means experimenting with color, texture and pattern. When I like how a pattern turns out the first time, I'll try that same motif in not only other yarns, but other sizes. Varying the knit gauge can completely reinvent that motif, letting me create several garments quickly, since I only have to remember how to knit that one pattern. 

Shrugs are simple to knit - just a rectangle and two sleeves, which have the leaf on the cuffs, though I  added a smaller dot pattern above just to keep things interesting.

See how the leaf motif changes when I stripe the yarns, even though the gauge is the same.

The shape is the same as the first shrug too, but adding contrasting sleeves makes it appear completely different.

In this version, the gauge goes way overscale - only two repeats cover the entire torso from hip to shoulder.

The sleeves have yet to be completed, but using the flow of the motif gives the front edge of this sweater a lovely wavy cut-away finish.

Taking the scale small produces a delicate effect, quite distinct from the chunkier patterns above.

The garment here has a vintage fitted look, by starting with medium needles at the bottom and going smaller as the garment progresses to the shoulders.

Finally, why only use the pattern vertically, when horizontal works as well?

In the case of this Mobius wrap, circling the body with these flowing shapes creates yet another take on leafy variety.  All these garments will be posted to my Etsy site, just as soon as I can get my niece to model them for me. Though I can still think of more variations of this pattern, it's time to turn a new leaf!

Catherine Bayar is spending the winter dreaming up ways to translate traditional Turkish handcrafts into modern works of art…read more here

The truth about my inspiration... how felting comes to life-

First step: Bringing the felting materials together, letting them speak.

by Ariane Mariane

In every questionnaire I answered in my artistic life, this question is asked: what inspires you?

My first answer (and the fastest) is the classical one -> everything surrounding me: my kid, nature, people, internet art, magazines…. And, it’s true. I need this stimulation but it’s only half of the truth. In fact, most of my inspirations come from my materials and my work in progress. 

Seems silly? Let me try to explain.

My fantasy runs wild all day long, but when I come to my atelier suddenly everything has disappeared in my head: a big hole with nothing in it. The only thing I know (because I work in series) is what kind of garment or accessory I’m going to create: that means that, I know whether it’ll be a vest, hat, dress, jacket…

So, I start looking around, touching fabrics, wool, fibers and all these beautiful treasures I once bought because I had great projects for them (that, of course, I absolutely can’t remember).

Sometimes it’s a color. At other times it’s a fabric which finally inspires me. I put it on my working table, add other colors and fabrics which “feel” right with the first one and start cutting fabrics or laying out wool.

 Fabric and wool: first step for my felting project.

And then, out of the blue, ideas are exploding again in my head - my fingers are acting wild, trying to flow as fast as my spirit.

But felting is a long process, demanding a lot of time and patience. While my hands bravely lay down fiber after fiber, other ideas come up, stimulated by other colors or fabrics surrounding me or former ideas coming up again. This is influencing my doing and changing the initial intention continuously. 

 Felting ideas coming together on the work table.

Once the “background” (normally 1 layer of fabric(s)+ two layers of wool) is done, I have generally changed my project 2-5 times and have still 2/ 3 ideas in mind. So, I step back and look at my work. This is the decisive moment – the final “drawing” abruptly becomes evident… I end up “understanding” what I’m creating. 

 Once I stepped back, it became clear that this one “needed” a peacock.

So, my fingers get busy a second time… sometimes I wonder if I breathe in these magic moments (surely I do because it often takes more than 1 hour to finalize). But then: voila -there it is – I did it again!  A one of a kind, unique design, making me always a bit proud and giving me immense pleasure. 

Felted Peacock by Ariane Mariane

Ever since I understood how it works and allowed myself to let things go the way it happens, creating became a fabulous experience. It nearly feels like a trance and I admit that I’m addicted to it!!!

Just to conclude on the question above - the most honest answer is: “I don’t know where my inspiration comes from”.