Selling Your Work

Ok, so you're crafty.

You love to create things within your craft and you often get compliments on your work. Your family and friends love what you make and often boast about it to others. All the talk has you interested in selling your work, but you have no idea if you're ready for it.

This is often a decision that most artists face when they are first confronted with the idea of selling their work. You definitely want to make sure your work is good enough to sell, but you don't want to wait until it's "perfect" to start selling either.

So when do you start selling? 

Whitney Smith of Whitney Smith Pottery wrote a great article on her blog about when to start selling your work. In her article she says, "Don't sell mediocre work just because you can. And I'm going to add an addendum to that statement: Don't wait until your work is perfect before you start selling."

This couldn't be more correct. Whitney touches on something I often think about when perusing Etsy, and that is the fact that there is a fair amount of work being sold that looks like beginners work.

Now, I'm not saying that the ideas are unsound in any way, this is not the case. Finding the right time to start selling and developing your craft is key before selling your work. Visit Whitney Smith's blog for the entire article.

Taking Care of Your Hands

If you're a regular crocheter or knitter then you know how important it can be to take care of your hands. Stitching for long hours every day can take it's toll on your muscles and joints, and for us unlucky ones it can develop into carpal tunnel or something else.

Regular breaks and stretches can help to alleviate any pain and even prevent pain from occurring. Even if you don't have a medical condition that affects your hands, stretching is vital to keeping your hands feeling good and the blood circulating.

Listen to Your Doctor

Now, I do have to say that these stretches are in no way a treatment or diagnosis if you are feeling pain. If you have already been diagnosed with carpal, or another health issue, please make sure you are doing what your doctor has told you.

This wrist exercise is something that was shown to me in occupational therapy. They really helped a lot. They told me to do them every morning and night. Now the key is to only give it a LIGHT stretch, not as far as it will go. Pull the thumb down until you feel it stretch lightly, and hold it for about 10-20 seconds.

Stretches


Here are a few more stretches that you can do every day. Try taking breaks between your stitching and do a few stretches. They don't have to be hard or take up a lot of your time either, just a few seconds a piece.

Picture Afghans on the Way

So my newest love, and hopefully items in the shop, are picture afghans! I absolutely love love love them. This is my first attemp at creating my very own from my own pattern so I'm really excited about it! Here is my progress on my first one and I've added the little pic of what it's supposed to be. Yes, I'm a HUGE Twilight fan and I can't wait to finish this one! It's 35% done and I can really see it coming together nicely!
Wanna try this sort of thing for yourself? There is a master of Crochet by Numbers named Todd Paschall and he will give you your first pattern for free. Visit his website for more info and tutorials.

There are also some awesome ladies who've adopted this method and created some free patterns of their own. Visit Totallee's Free Patterns for some Harry Potter and another Edward pattern. Also visit Tracy's Crochet for her Edward pattern.

Stitching for Charity

So I've always been a giving person and I love to create more for others than for myself! I've added a Charity page to the blog so that others can see what charity work I'm donating to and my progress. Of course I will be posting picks within the blog as well so you'll be able to see what I'm up to, but you'll be able to find more info on the Charity page. To get to the Charity page there is a link in the linkbar at the very top of the blog. Check it out for the charity that I'm going to work on right now! :) Are you participating in the charity as well? Feel free to send me pics of your work and I'll be happy to post them to the blog!

Crochet Pattern Terms of Use Change

Hey there everyone!

I've been super busy working on some new patterns for everyone and some new products to list in the store. While I've been doing this I've decided to go ahead and give permission to allow sales from items made using my patterns.

You still should never redistribute my patterns in any way, even modified versions without my permission.

You can sell whatever you make from my pattern as long as you give credit of the pattern to me, 7polkadots at http://7polkadots.etsy.com/  Two Little C's at http://twolittlecs.etsy.com. This includes both free and pay-to-use patterns.

Hopefully this will be helpful and better. Thanks for using my patterns and talk to you again soon! :)

Yarn Yarn Yarn

Today I spent a good portion of the day pulling out what yarn I had left from our shed. I hadn't crocheted in so long due to my carpal tunnel and I had even given away a good portion of what I had. After pulling out what I thought would be a few skeins I realized I had much more than I thought. I am glad that I'll some yarn to produce and some to use for pattern testing, but man I wasn't expecting it be this much. I really plan on getting away from my love for acrylic and going a more natural route with cotton and maybe even wool (if I can find a brand I'm satisfied with). Until then I will continue to create with what I have in order to offer customers a more affordable alternative. So I'm gonna get started on a few progects and we'll see if I can't update you guys without giving away too much! :D

FREE PATTERN: Baby Doll and Basinette Bag

Ok, so I decided that I would list some of my fave patterns that I used to sell on Etsy again, and I will be getting to that soon. Until then I also thought it would be a good idea to share some of the other patterns with everyone! These are my Baby Doll and Convertable Baby Bassinet Bag patterns. These are patterns I created early on and I do plan on creating some new ones hopefully soon. I really hope you all enjoy these patterns for your personal use. Please do not use these patterns to make items for resale or in any way make a profit without my express written permission. Also please don't post any of these patterns to your blog but you can link to this bog if you like. If you have any questions regarding anything that you see here, the patterns, or if you would like limited permissions, please email me at etsy7polkadots@aol.com.

Click on the links below to download

Starting Over

Ok, so it's been a long time since I added anything to this blog and there is of course a huge reason for that. I'm actually going to re-opening my store and so here is my huge update. Previously my store was centered around crochet toys, which I really do miss, but all that crocheting created a huge problem for me. Over a year ago, all the crocheting I was doing took a toll on my hands and I actually had developed carpal tunnel. Not good for a crochet artist, I know! While spending 3 days a week in occupational therapy I realized that in order to be a succesful shop (atleast as succesful as I ultimately would like to be in my craft) I wouldn't be able to crochet everything in my shop in a volume that was going to be beneficial for my business. Especially with the pain I was experiencing, I knew that there was no way for me to be able to crochet enough. With that in mind I had decided to take some time to help my hands recover and stopped selling. I really needed to not only allow me hands to get to place where I could craft again, but I also wanted to think of new and exciting products that I create and still stay true to the style I wanted my shop to have. Now, almost a year after this experience, I'm in a commpletely different place in my life. It's hard to believe how much can change in just one year. First, I'm expecting my second child, and my husband and I couldn't be more excited. This has opened my eyes to what I really want in life, and that is my dream of owning my own successful business. Ever since I was younger, owning my own business and working for myself has something I have always wanted. I believe that I've come too far to just give up now. Bringing a life into the world makes you think not only of what you want for your children, but what you want for yourself. I realize now that I was most happy when I was creating and selling my work. Never do I want to give up on that, and that's not what I want to portray to my children. So with that being said, and the decision made, I've decided to re-open my shop. I've thought long and hard about what else I wanted to put in my shop. Starting from scratch isn't always easy and it took me a long time to think of what I wanted to do. Crochet has always been a love of mine and I definitely don't want to give up on that, especially considering how much I've worked to perfect my skill. I feel that I can still crochet in moderation and create things that hopefully won't have such a huge impact on my joints like many of my toys did. So then came the idea of what else I might create to supplement the crochet but stay true to what I love to create. I sometimes like to think of myself as a jack-of-all-trades and can do a lot of things, but I wanted to stay within my style. Ever since I had my daughter in 2007 I realized that I loved to create not only childrens items, but things of whimsy and youthful creativity that put a smile on your face. Before I had decided to sell my crochet, I thought of selling painted items. I've always enjoyed buying little wooden trinkets from the thrift store and craft store and painting them up as gifts for others. Though my painting isn't at a level I would like it to be I think that I can get it there with some practice and persistence. I've always painted these things occasionally, so if I keep at it I know that I will get better. I also have a love for miniature things and doll houses, so I want to create some sort of play toys with wooden object that will be portable. I definitely don't want to go too far into detail with this but it will definitely fit the 7polkadots style. Also, I'm going to be expanding into another obsession of mine, and that's Twilight! I know I'm an adult but I love the Twilight novels and the movies and I know how much of a fanatic I can be so I want to be able to share that with my fellow Twi-hards, LOL! Trust me, it's going to be amazing! In preparation for my re-opening, I wanted to be sure that I'm doing everything all out. I went to my local library and found an amazing book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Selling Your Crafts. Now I don't generally read those Idiot's Guide's or those Books for Dummies, but this book is amazing. Most books I had found previously about selling your crafts were 20 years old or more and weren't really relevant to todays advances. Many of them only talked about writing a business plan, getting licenses, and selling at craft shows. As we all know today, the internet is ahuge commerce of venues and commerce. This book is actually brand new (published 2010) and talks about Etsy (even give syou step by step instructions on how it works), other online venues, and what to do if you want to be a casual seller or an active seller. There is an amazing amount of info in this book that is so easy to understand and has helped me so much. I'm beginning to sound like a commercial so all I'm gonna say is if you want to know more about this book visit http://www.craftchannels.com/ for more info and even resources. So since I'm starting over I have so much to do now. At the time of writing this entry you might be able to see that my blog is completely bare, and that's because I'm in the process of creating a whole new look for the shop so that means a new blog look as well. I've partly started it already so it's definitely a work in progress. I'll be getting everything set up soon and hopefully I'll be able to create enough items to put in my shop soon and have a GRAND Re-Opening Sale! I'm very excited and I only hope I can get things going before the Christmas season completely takes off, but we'll see! I hope to keep the blog updated better than I have in the past and can keep you interested enough to come back often and have fun! Thanks for stopping by and reading this rediculously long entry, but I was just so excited I couldn't contain myself! Come back soon for more info! :) -Chassity O.