Seahorses and postcards

I have hundreds and hundreds of vintage images and collages stored up on my computer.  I love combining graphics into something completely different.

I had a bunch of vintage postcards and this great seahorse compliments of The Graphics Fairy.  I combined the two in Photoshop and came up with this collage.

This is actually not done on a piece of reclaimed wood, we took our pine, painted it and distressed it.  I added the graphic I designed, sealed it in spar urethane and then sealed it again with outdoor polyurethane.

I think this would be awesome in a beach home, it has just the right shabby beach chic look.

Here is this little guy.

Website...why not, free trial!

I am not sure a website will help sales, but hey, anything to try and get the name out there, and it's free for 30 days, I just need to remember to cancel!

It looks nice, it is integrated with my Etsy site, and I think it looks nice, clean simple lines, and since I am clueless with website code, it will do for now.

So, here it is, let's see what happens!


http://thequirkyimage.patternbyetsy.com/

Custom crab shack sign

I really really love this one.  I am on the hunt for some more reclaimed wood.  I made a sign for our friends but it came out badly, so I decided to redeem myself and make another one.

Score!!!

I painted the reclaimed wood then added the crab and wording.  I was not happy with just the spray spar urethane, so I decided to try some semi gloss polyurethane.

Winner!

I really want to test these guys out in the elements so I can market some outdoor signs.  I sprayed it with a spray bottle and the water rolled right off, really cool ( now I am impatient to get ours out in the elements).

I love the one I made for us as well, and nothing like a little self promoting to try and get business moving.

First Etsy sale!

Well, we have been open for just over a month and we got our first Etsy sale!  Thank goodness, because the DH was driving me nuts over our lack of sales.

Granted we had 7 sales prior to this sale on Ebay and Craigslist, but for some reason I really wanted this sale.

I carefully wrapped up the sign and tied it with a pretty ribbon, I think it looks great.

Now we just need some more sales to get the momentum going!!

Still looking for Etsy sales!

Well, we have been making signs like crazy.  We now have a tote full of what we think are adorable signs.

Not a single Etsy sale.

We have a lot of lookers, lots of likes, lots of watchers on Ebay, but nothing.

I keep telling myself that they will do well in person, but there is nothing going on where we live, no shows, no fairs , nothing.

It is getting a little depressing.

We have 11 signs in a shop, but the weather is not great and not a lot of people are shopping.

I keep telling my husband to be patient, but it has been almost a month and now I am starting to feel bummed out,

We really want to make this our little business, and we have been putting in endless hours a day working on it.

So, here are some of our new designs, and keeping our fingers crossed that something sells soon!

Live and Learn SEO

Well, it has been almost 3 weeks, no sales on Etsy.  2 on Ebay, 4 on Craigslist.  Very discouraging.

Well, I reached out to a Facebook group and they steered me in the right direction, seems my items were not showing up on Etsy.

Who knew?

I spent about 36 hours learning about SEO, found a cool website to generate good tags/search terms.

Now I show up on the first or second page.

I redid my graphics shop ( www.groovygraphics.etsy.com) and I did get 2 sales since.

The easy part is creating the signs, the hard part comes after.  People don't realize the time in photographing, editing, posting, researching tagging, and checking in to see if your all hard works shows up in a search.

Luckily I only work weekends, because this has been a full time effort this past week.

Even the cat is exhausted.

Now I just hope all this hard work pays off!!

First sales today!

We are really pouring ourselves into getting noticed.  I have been on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest.

I have been listing on Etsy, giving out business cards, been on local forums and contacting local shops.

It has been exhausting.

On a whim, I listed some signs on Craigslist, then woot woot, I got a text.

Luckily my husband was home and we got our first 4 sales today, from a free non crafty site.

I will take it.

Hubby was beginning to wonder if we would ever sell anything, we think our ideas are cute, but you just never know.

So it has been a wonderful day, and hopefully it is the start of some more sales!