EtsyPaper Team Featured Member - Michelle Neuendorf

It's a new month, a new season, and EtsyPaper Team featured members are back! I am thrilled to feature Michelle Neuendorf of MichellenStamps. I absolutely LOVE her creative and beautiful cards. Read her feature and visit her shop and blog (links can be found below). Enjoy!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the featured members posts, our members have submitted questions they would like answered and our featured members choose five (so far we have over 50 questions!). Here we go...

Tell us a little about yourself :

My name is Michelle N. I am 39 years old, and a Wisconsin native. I've been happily married almost 18 years (wow, that sounds like a long time!), and have 3 kids: 15, 13 and 10(two girls and a boy). I am a Stay at Home Mom, and have been ever since my kids were born. I really love being at home, and am thankful that I can be.

Tell us about your shop:

* When did you open it?

I opened my shop in March of this year. I had heard of Etsy a while back, but had never really looked into it. When I make cards, I love having someone to share them with. I had been a demonstrator for a rubber stamp company for 6 years, so I had a venue for the cards I made. Once I quit that though, I still wanted to share what I made, so thought I would give Etsy a try. It sure has been a lot of fun too!

*What items/type of items do you sell?

Greeting cards are my favorite thing to make, so that is the majority of my shop. I have cards for many different occasions, but I leave most of them blank, so the sender can use them for whatever occasion they need.

I do have a small gift section as well, with some great notebooks with matching pens, acrylic post it note holders and ceramic tile coasters. I've just started adding some card sets and some Holiday gift tags and cards.

Getting to know you - 5 Questions

1. Name top (3-5) items (for crafting purposes) that you cannot live without.

If I had to choose just one thing, it would be my great cutting scissors. I love to cut certain elements of my cards out, and sometimes what I am cutting is very small. So a sharp pair of scissors is essential.

Which leads to item 2. I almost always raise the cut item up with foam dots. I love the extra dimension that gives to a card.

If you look through my shop, you will see that I also love ribbon. I think about 90% of the cards I make have ribbon on them. There are so many fun colors and patterns to choose from today!

One other thing that I must have, is loads and loads of patterned paper. I don't think I will ever run out of it, but I still keep buying more. It's so much fun!

2. When do you find/make time for your crafting?

I find it pretty had to craft when the kids are home. My ideal is to have more than an hour, and preferably 3-4 hours, where I can sit down and create. It always take me a little while to get started on that first card, but once I have that made, I can roll. When I demonstrated, I pretty much shut down for the summer. This year, I did back way off on my shop during the summer, but still tried to make a few cards a month. Now that the kids are back in school though, I will soon be in full swing. There are times when I spend the whole day at my stamp desk.

3. Do you have a special space for your crafting, or does the kitchen table do double duty?

When I first started rubber stamping, it was the kitchen table. But I always felt like I had to clean it up every time I used my stuff (we did need a place to eat after all). It wasn't too long though before I had my husband make me a spot in the basement. It was pretty basic at first, and still isn't overly fancy now, but I have a very nice sturdy desk, and lots of storage space. I love my stamp area! The best part is, I can walk away from the chaos without having to clean it up each time.

4. Do you remember the first item you made, and if so, do you still have it (or a picture of it)?

Oh yes, that is the beginning of my story :). I was pregnant with my second daughter, and went to a rubber stamp party (so that would be 14 years ago). I never considered myself artistic, but when I saw rubber stamping, I knew that was a craft I could do. After all who can't color in the lines. So I bought what I needed to make her birth announcements. That was right around when rubber stamping was becoming popular, and the line was, "Just think of all the money you will save by not buying cards!" Ha Ha Ha! I've invested so much money in my craft I could own a Hallmark store :) But, I love making cards just as much as I did in the beginning. Here is a picture of the announcement:
5. Are you a clean or messy crafter?

Like I said earlier, I have a nice stamp desk. It's at least 5 feet long and pretty wide. But it never fails that I end up with about 6 inches of cleared space while I am crafting. I get so busy creating, that I don't take time to put away what I am done with. So, the answer would be, I am a very messy crafter. Eventually, I can't stand it any longer, and I can no longer find what I need, so I have to stop and pick it all up before I start my next project.

Find her here:

SHOP - Michellenstamps

BLOG - Michellenstamps

NING - Michelle

It's YART SALE Time!

It's time for the 2nd annual Etsy "YART SALE" again and there has been quite a bit of talk about it (and plenty of questions from some of our newer members) in our team thread. Having participated in last year's "Yart Sale", I thought I might offer some good points on preparing your shop for a successful sale.

What is a "YART SALE"? That's simple. It is like a yard sale but for your art and crafts. It's a YART SALE!

I found out about it last year, decided to participate and I can say that I really did see an increase in both traffic & sales for the week. Not to mention that I gained a few long term/repeat customers from it as well. I was excited to find out that it was yart time again and decided to start early. I have already sold twelve yart items from my shop! There is a good bit of preparation for the sale but, the time and effort you put in will pay off. It's also a terrific way to destash and clean up your crafting space. There are plenty of customers out there specifically looking for your yart items so jump in and have a great sale!

Preparing for a YART SALE - BASICS:

• Create a YART SALE section in your shop. This will group all yart items together and make them easier for customers to find & shop.

• Edit YART item listings in your shop. Another way to make these items easy for customers to find and shop. I recommend adding "YART" or "YART SALE" in the listing title and in item tags. People actually do etsy searches for "YART".

• Adjust your price and shipping (if you decide to offer a discounted ship rate). Remember you are trying to entice the buyer. Customers love to feel like they are getting an extra special deal on items that would normally cost much more. Sometimes even a small discount on shipping can be the icing on the cake and a deciding factor in whether or not items will be leaving your shop through a sale.

• Add info about your Yart Sale and specials in your shop announcement. Let the buyer know what you have to offer (ex. types of items, discount percentage, shipping discounts, etc.)

• Create a special YART SALE banner and/or avatar. I don't do this one because I think adding YART into the item titles and tags are fine, but plenty of sellers do and it is just another good way to advertise the fact that you are participating in the yart sale. I think it works really well for those of you who like to visit the treasuries and forums a good bit.

• ADVERTISE! Be sure to add a blog post or several throughout the week on your personal/shop blog. Post about daily deals you are running, have a contest or giveaway, just talk about it. You may be surprised at how many people look at your blog and head over to your shop to see what you have going on.

• HAVE FUN WITH IT! Just have fun. Be creative with your sale. I think you'll find that once those sales start rolling in, you will try to find more and more items to add to your sale section. HAPPY YARTING:)

The OFFICIAL Yart sale dates are Wednesday, June 10th - Sunday, June 14th. I don't think four days is long enough which is why I started early,lol.

YART SALE LINKS:

• STORQUE ARTICLES
• ETSY FORUM POSTS