Anthology

seriously, have you tried Etsy treasuries?

I know, I know, I'm addicted.  I am reminded of the days of making mix tapes and happy books - there's something about picking a theme and gathering an assortment that I love so much.  I need to come up with a system though - maybe for every 5 items I list in our Etsy shop, I get to make one treasury?  Perhaps that would get me motivated.  Because I think I have more treasuries than items in the shop.  This Etsy business is challenging.... Well, this Etsy business on top of owning a brick & mortar store is challenging.

Some of my ambivalence comes from the very reason that I opened a brick & mortar shop - I think everything is much better in person.  But I need to just get over that and acknowledge that some people don't have the time or opportunity to get to Anthology in person so I should give them something to look at online.  In the meantime, the assortment of treasuries is actually a good compliment to our Etsy shop.  Etsy only allows you to sell what you have made yourself (Sachi or me) or supplies, which means that many of the products in our store are not available online.  But I have supplemented with treasuries, which are a collection of things that I would have in the store if I could, all coordinated by color in a way that anyone who knows me will be unsurprised to see.  I think there is a definite trend to the treasuries that I have created; now I should work on diversifying the color a bit.  Well, they aren't ALL blue....

Anyway, the main thing is that I'm totally carried away with treasuries. My remaining problem is how to share those with you. I really thought I'd seen some people's blogs that showed the screen shot of the treasury.  How do they do that?  I don't know.  SO I'm going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, if one can call taking a digital picture and uploading it to the computer old-fashioned in any way.

 

Treasuries include: for Sachi on her birthday, the collector II, things I left behind, potluck o'clock, a midnight fairy mix for Kathy, for the gnomies,  meet me at the park, Robot & Co. parade

And our Etsy shop was just featured in a treasury by EKRA, who is participating in this cool treasury challenge from Curation Nation which is super super tempting, except I know that my sister would be really annoyed if I spent any more time making treasuries....

      

 

so charmed

I sure do LOVE Christmas.  I waited until after Thanksgiving to start playing the music and right now it is on shuffle along with non-Christmas music so hopefully it isn't intolerable for those of you who weren't thrilled to hear "Santa Baby" over the grocery store speakers.  But it is SO on! 

I have been working on presents for a while now and am in pretty good shape except for a few last-minute supply orders from etsy.com.  Have I said how much I love that site?  Well, I do.  It gets annoying when people equate Anthology with etsy as if etsy is the gold standard of crafting, but you can get some great supplies there.  I've been searching for bezels, cabachons, lockets... and if you know Sachi, shhhhh!  don't tell her!  (though I can keep enough of a secret, today anyway, that neither of these pictures is what she's getting).  This time of year is slightly agonizing for me because I usually have some present that I am really looking forward to giving to someone and I have to wait and try to keep it secret.  Not my strongest suit.  Let's just say that Sachi's present is almost finished and I think she will like it even if it isn't quite her usual style.  The Blurb book should be arriving in time too so I'm excited to see that.  Meanwhile, Lily's doll project is kind of at a standstill.  We'll see if I get some last minute inspiration to get that done in time.  I printed photos of various family members onto fabric, now I just have to convert those into doll faces.  And figure out what to do for the doll body.  Hmm.

Although there are plenty of other things to work on, lately I've been working on various jewelry projects.  I put together some charm bracelet kits for the store and also made some bracelets.  Since I can't show you Sachi's present, at least I can show you these two, which are the latest addition to the collection of jewelry for sale here at the store.  I do love stamping text on these Vintaj brass pieces, though I am told that I will love etching them even more.  Something to look forward to in the new year.