Neglected

So much for starting a decent blog and working had on my etsy store!

Thought I better do a quick post to say why I've been neglecting both!

Turns out im a medical mystery, been ill for most of the year and still waiting for a diagnosis. Being in lots of pain and feeling fatigued all the time means I haven't been able to do much at all, even my beloved crafting. I've come up with a few new designs but still have lots of new items I need to photograph before I can put them up for sale.

I have however spent many hours trawling through pinterest, which has its pros and cons. Pros are ive managed to get more followers, cons are I really need to declutter my pinterest, and set up some more boards to make it easier for myself and others to look through my pins.

Looking forward to feeling well enough to making some of the things that ive found on pinterest, so I can share them with you all.

Hopefully it wont be as long as it has been between this and my next blog post.

Chin up,

Michelle xxx

Time to start taking better photos

Just after I finished my last post yesterday the postman arrived with my pop up light tent.

 It comes in a neat little pouch and packs away nice and small; only problem was once it was up I couldn't work out how to put it back in the tiny little pouch, and there were no instructions. After about 10 minutes of trying I finally relented and found a really handy and simple video on YouTube by interfittv. Once I'd watched the video it took me about 5 seconds to fold it back up and pack it away.

I'm really hoping that once I get the hang of using it, I will be able to take great photos of my craft items for CleverleyCrafts on etsy. I think that having more professional looking photos should improve my chances of selling, but who knows? Cant help to try.

I'll let you know soon how I get on with the light tent.

Well that's if I get a chance to use it, as my cats seem to think that its a new house for them.

Blog soon,

Michelle x

The neat little pouch.

Nev checking out my new light tent.

Etsy

So I finally made the jump and opened CleverleyCrafts on Etsy.

CleverleyCrafts sells unique and one-off handmade jewellery and home decor items, all handmade by myself.

I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to open my store and upload each of my items for sale. The longest bit of the process was taking all the photos; turns out taking photos of small shiny objects is much harder than taking landscape shots and pictures of friends and family. Hopefully my next set of items (I have lots of new creations waiting to go into my store) that I put up for sale will be easier to photograph as I've pushed the boat out and bought myself a pop-up light box (waiting for it to arrive in the post, come on Mr Postman!).

So far my shop has had a decent amount of views in the month or so that its been open, and I've even managed to get a sale. I've started to realise that I'm not likely to get a torrent of sales straight off, and my aim now is to get a decent amount of followers who can help spread the word about my store and items. To help with this I'm building up my followers on Pinterest, and I have opened a Facebook page for CleverleyCrafts.

I'd love to hear what people think about my items, and I will always try to cater for custom or personalised orders.