Making the connection...

Last night I had the great opportunity to meet Chad Dickerson, Etsy CEO. That kind of sounds weird right? When do we ever meet CEOs? Especially, of a business that so greatly impacts my daily life. It was a surreal moment to tell him that Etsy has been a launch pad for my creative business and that definitely includes my book, Stitched Gifts. I gave him a Stitched Gifts postcard and felt so very proud.

Last nights event was held at the Tenement Museum (one of my favorite places to take out of town guests) to highlight their new exhibition Shop Life, all about small businesses on the LES. New York is a mecca for entrepreneurship, then and today. The room was packed with Etsy sellers all running small business in NY, probably from their small NY apartments, like me! It was amazing to hear just how many Etsy sellers there are in New York City alone- I can't remember the exact number, but I'll find it for you.  It blew my mind.

Working from home I often feel disconnected from the world around me. I left the event feeling more connected to other makers, and to the work we do here in this city, which welcomes all of us determined creative weirdos with open arms. Thank you, New York! Thank you Etsy!!

Martha Stewart Etsy Show...

I was a lucky lady last (you like what I did there?) Monday when I went to an all Etsy Martha Stewart show taping. The show airs tomorrow, April 26th at 10 am on the Hallmark channel. Tune in, you may see my arm or something as they panel the audience, but probably not. I was sitting to the very far right, third row- no man's land for the camera pans.



The audience was made up of all Etsy sellers in a sea of bright, colorful outfits. We were all asked to bring something from our shops. At one point Martha was walking around the audience at the floor level and everyone was holding up their wares hoping to be spotted- wish I had stopped to take a picture of that!

I brought a wedding embroidery piece I just finished and sitting next to me was Virginia, who brought some prints...



One of my favorites parts of a MS taping (this is my 2nd, and last. Did you know the show is ending?) is the audience prep with the hilarious Joey Kola. Here he's telling us we have goodies to look forward to, lots of free stuff, hence the double wink...

And besides a fun all Etsy show, they took everyone in the audience's photo with their item, and gave us lots of crafty stuff. I got a polymer clay book by Jessica Partain, who was featured on the show making insanely cute miniature clay food jewelry, a few polymer clays too, MS paints, giant MS stencils, and some MS paint related items.

It's always nice to be in the midst of my crafty community, say hi to old friends I only see at craft shows, and to see the behind the scenes of the MS show....



If you have the Hallmark channel check out the Etsy show (April 26th at 10 am)...

Saved From the Fire // Cici's Necklace

Cici's Necklace, originally uploaded by miniature.rhino.

I treasure objects with stories.... Etsy has a new feature about this called, Saved From the Fire, and today they featured my story about my mom's necklace and even used it as the lead image. Really proud that I get to share this story...

My mother made this necklace when she was in high school and she gave it to me when I was in elementary school. I'd keep it in my pocket wrapped around my hand and hold it. I wear it sometimes now and think of my mom walking to school with my aunts along broken side walks, riding her bike with friends to the Santa Monica Pier, or skate boarding while strumming her ukulele down my grandparent's street. It's a connection to my mom and a place I think of as home.

check out the full story here featuring Melissa Dixon (remember taxidermy!) and Joanne of Shaving Kit Supplies (awesome old stuff and funny lady).

a Giveaway and Contest

the oh so kind ladies at 100 Layer Cake and i have teamed up for a little giveaway. we want to join creative forces with you! really. i wanted to enter the Martha Stewart + Etsy handmade wedding details contest with one of my custom heart samplers that would be used in an actual real life wedding. so 100 layer cake is helping me find all you brides to be that would like to use a little embroidered heart in their weddings.

to enter just head on over here, and leave a comment about how you could use this in your wedding. maybe you have a unique names or a good story too. we wanna hear it! and if you know any brides point them on over thrrr!

many thanks to all you who enter and 100 Layer Cake for helping to spread the word!

thank you etsy....

for the new category, Natural History! in the gift guides. so many wonderful things to pursue! ...so excited about it....it is dangerous. and thanks for featuring my cabinet of curiosity in this awesome new category. (side note: the "hot list" sounds so funny to me...)

mail love and other stuff...

these past few weeks have brought me some amazing mail- one of my favorite things. so many, many thanks to these kind friends..

Chad ~ Mon Petit Fantome...

mr. Mon Petit Fantome, (who jeremy calls the Kevin Bacon of the etsy world because there seems to be three degrees between him and any etsy shop- he's just that nice!) sent me some mix CD's and this lovely little print he used for a note..

Alyssa ~ BrooklynRehab

I got a set of Alyssa's Uninvited Guests Doilies that came awhile back in the smartest packaging. these little doilies were wrapped in a gingham paper, like a table cloth. so good. i put them up in a little corner and you can see Chad's bear there close by in the second picture too...

Nicola,
is one of my great friends from school. she makes a-ma-zing baklava from an old family recipe. It's seriously delicious and insanely good. how amazing is it to get fresh, homemade baklava in the mail?!! **i'm pushing her to make an etsy store and pretty soon there should be one up.
any one interested?!**

she also sent me these tiny, vintage books which upon seeing i literally screamed in delight...

toni,
also a friend from school, sent me a curious new friend, but how the hell did she get the rhino in that little box? ha! so fun to receive. the package also had a vintage embroidery hoop, and a small, vintage glass bottle. the bug liked it too...

other wise this weekend has been spent lazily working. heres what i've been making of late:
new little/big constellations. here's a 5" Orion...chad, alyssa, nicola and toni thanks for all the mail love!!!

newnew team meeting with etsy!...

....was really interesting. I went to my first meeting with the new new etsy team- lots of people and lots of worth while information was shared. We were luck enough to have Maria Thomas, etsy's Chief Operating Officer and Sarah Hicks, Vice President, Product Management at etsy and Matt from the Community & Labs there as well.

It was great to hear them talk about their work with etsy and they took time to answer questions and asked alot themselves. They all seemed so dedicated and passionate about their work and truly inspired by the work their doing.
I was impressed by their dedication- they are visiting team meetings up and down the east coast to talk with sellers, ask them questions, hear their concerns and address them. So glad I was there to hear it.

I thought this might be of interest to others...They are working to improve many things on a list that Maria joked was always "119" items long. Mainly the top priorities are registration, search and checkout. Creating an easier registration process, would ultimately bring more people to etsy. Search is a real issue with etsy for me. It is often irrelevant. Items that are inappropriately tagged, or items that come up on the top of searches because they are recently listed are for the most part not what interest me as a buyer, so I'll spend so much time sifting through useless listings.

There were many things discussed as possibilities for the future, there were just so many things they'd like to improve upon. A few mentioned were:

-changing the initial search tool on the front page, from the drop down menu to something more intuitive. For example, when I first made a shop and wanted to show my mother, she could not figure out the drop down menu. From what I heard at the meeting is a real concern.
-creating a different type of Favorites system. Makiing sub categories, like wish lists, and even registries. I'd love this!!!
-incentives for adding favorities/hearting, like a recently hearted page akin to the just sold pages
-in house statistics were mentioned
-in house check out system was mentioned. Right now buyers are turned over at checkout to Paypal, which complicates both the checkout process and ability to offer discounts, coupons and gift certificates. Easing this process would make it easier for the buyer to make a purchase and for sellers to offer rewards to customers.

This was just some of the things discussed. I just felt really empowered by the meeting their goals were clear- to grow etsy and to grow all our businesses. They believed in etsy and it made me happy to hear. I work so hard on my shop and it felt really good to see the CEO and VP working just as hard.

Read more here...

CNN!

I'm honored and so excited to be featured in a CNN article, by Jen Haley, called Turn Your Skills or Your Stuff Into Extra Cash. Etsy and I are all over it and I'm so glad to share my love for etsy with the world. Many thanks to Jen for the feature! Please check it out!

50th sale...

Thanks bricks! It was the 13th Book and Letter Hybrid on the 13th of January and the buyer thought that it would bring her luck. I hope she like the little something I added....

updates...

...finally! to my etsy shop. i've listed a new batch of books for mailing with some Valentiney imagery and some new Samplers.
its so hard for me to keep up with my shop. working full time and making on my off time leaves little time for eating and sleeping. i recently "met" Amy of the etsy shop ameliamae, and she described it as needing to find a balance between work and etsy. i'm not there yet. slowly, slowly but for now a little update to the shop... and a thanks to Amy! here's one of her lovely pieces...

tomorrow!

if you're in the New York area you should go to this. you can do all your holiday shopping while supporting small local businesses from etsy. i just joined the NewNew etsy team and this is their first headlining event. i'll be there volunteering, so come say Hi.

And many thanks to Upstate Fancy of the etsy store PeperSprouts who wrote a really nice mention of me on her blog. i love the title "How Old Was this Tree". Thank you!

i found my etsy front page....!

this is the first time I made it to the front page so i'm excited about it. Thanks to the Etsy Front Pagers, who catalog all the FPs on flickr. What a great resource to sellers who miss their 2mins of glory. Thanks to Torque for including me in her treasury! Yokoo is up there too and i've been wanting one of her crazy thick cowls to get lost in during this bitter cold in ny. Look at all that red too, nice...

its about time....

i did this... and now that thats done, you should (if you haven't already) do it too! to all my friends and family out there, or kind strangers... hint, hint, nudge, nudge...i've been wanting one of these beautiful bowls by Ninainvorm so bad. imagine waking up in the morning and having some cereal in these...so nice (and handmade!) i think its the colors and shapes that get me. check out her shop and blog