Apron Thrift Girl

grammer/grammar

Just wanted to add a Full Disclosure to all who read Apron Thrift Girl. I've had quite a few people commenting and contacting me about words that I spell incorrectly or grammar that I have used poorly.

Oh dear!

Here are some things that you should know about me.

1) I completely suck at spelling. If I didn't have a spell check my spelling would be 50 times worse

2) I suck at grammar. I have to constantly look up wording to make sure that I have it written properly.

2 1/2) on that note I suck at math, PE, history (except for Tom Cruise's b-day which for some reason I remember forever) and basically any other subject that takes lots of focus.

3) I crawl out of bed between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. to write a blog so that I can help teach other's how to ReSell, inspire other's to buy second hand, to encourage you to live abundantly even if you have little money in your bank account and to share the fabulous world of thrifting with all of you. All. Without. Getting. Paid.

4) For those that can't spell correctly, the words are not highlighted in red in our minds like it is on the screen. If a word is not spelled correctly it's because my brain doesn't see it as wrong. I try all the little word tricks like Aura in Restaurant but some words don't have tricks and my memory simply can't remember it all. Plus it comes around to 1) again. I truly suck at spelling :-)

5) I love to write, adore to write but do at times mess up. And each error I go and fix because someone told me something was wrong, means that all my subscribers receive the post. Again.

So please forgive me for all past, current and future spelling errors, mistakes, crappy grammar and so on. And just know that I try to catch everyone but I miss some. Especially first thing in the morning when I'm typing words with tired hands and blurry eyes. I basically have one hour or so to get my photos ready, the words written, the post re-read 10 times looking for errors before my little boy wanders out of his room looking for his morning routine of a ten minute cuddle. I don't know about you but I prefer the hug from my boy to rereading my post another 5 times.

So there you go. A little more honesty about Selena Cate. And this post is probably full of errors because I'm tired and my husband keeps asking me why I'm not getting off the computer. :-)

Have a great thrifing weekend.

Etsy Shoppe Share

 Vera Neumann Napkin Set

Thank you for all of your suggestions last week for finding a name for sharing our Etsy stores with each other. I decided that I wanted to continue with the "share" part of the name so I went with Etsy Shoppe Share. Three of you suggested this; Monica, Amy and Jennifer Robin. I'll be contacting you for your addresses to send out your jeweler's loupes. Thank you!

I also thought I would answer an Etsy question each week to go with sharing our links. Also, in a similar style to ReSelling Tip Share. If you would like to sponsor a question, I will feature your store in the post with your banner, full links and a description of your store. I'll add more details next week.

Feel free to continue to ask any Etsy related questions. This weeks question is: How do I name my shop?

My suggestions for naming your shop or any business is first: Be Unique.

• If your name is unique you can buy the dot com and send people direction to your store using your name.
• Choose a name that is linked in with your blog if you are using your blog to direct traffic to your Etsy Store. For example ATG blog is named ATG on Etsy.
• Try to be original - think about whether you want to name a store that 15 other people have used across the country for different businesses.
• Try to name your business that reads clearly to the eyes and sounds lovely to your ears. I'm lousy with foreign languages and find that I fumble up French names dreadfully. I want to be able to pronounce your name correctly especially if I want to tell friends about it.
• Look at Etsy and write down all the store names that spark something in you. See if you can come up with names that create the same kind of spark in you.
• Ask friends what they think of the name. I spent 3 weeks writing to friends asking opinions about names before coming up with Flavorstitch. Cerys actually came up with Food Craft which got my mind on the idea of different craft names to go along with food. When I asked my friends about the Flavorstitch name they knew immediately that it was the right one. I have a couple pages in my notebook full of different names. My first one was Food Muse until I looked it up and realized that a hundred other people had the same name. Research, research and research.
• Decide your tone: silly, elegant, trendy, artsy, humorous etc..

Figgjo Flint - Danish Modern - Casserole

Etsy Shoppe Share (button will be made soon)

If you have any Etsy questions, leave them in the comments or click on the Contact button to ask me privately.

Make Share & Winners

I wanted to congratulate the winners for the Jeweler's Loupe:

Here are your random numbers:

35	3	13	

Timestamp: 2010-10-28 13:00:25 UTC

Kristen Little Faces Looking Up Holding Wonder Like a Cup

Rebecca Johnson

Alyssa Clever Penguin

Thanks for entering and taking part in the giveaway. I have a box of these loupes so I may do another giveaway before Christmas.

********************************

My usual crafting day on Monday afternoon didn't happen this week. We are in Operation House Clean before my mother-in-law arrives next Tuesday for a month.

I'm sorting and cleaning and organizing. And preparing for a booth for a Waldorf Winter Faire next month. So much to do.

Did you make something this week to share?

Make Share is very similar to Thrift Share where I begin a post with sharing something that I made and you all get to finish the post by linking up and sharing what you have made. There's a few guidelines -

• at least one item used in your project should to be 2nd hand.
• Link your Make Share post back to ATG.
• Post a Make Share item that you made on your blog or website.
• Link to your individual post on the item that you made using inlinkz below.
• If you participate with Make Share regularly, I'd love it if you'd add this button to your side bar

What is Beauty?

 
What is beauty?

A friend recently posted the well known Dove Evolution video on her facebook page which brought up the discussion of beauty and young girls. While I had seen this video before it didn't really impact me the way it did that day when I thought about my 10 1/2 year old daughter.

I have had to deal with comments from family and friends about the fact that Cerys doesn't watch any tv. I've been told that she'll have no idea of pop-culture and that I'm harming her by not showing her trendy and popular tv shows and movies. Or that she is just plum missing out.

What I didn't realize until this Dove Evolution discussion came about is that my daughter has a completely different idea of what beauty is. She has very limited exposure to typical beauty magazines because my house is filled with Martha, ReadyMade and Modernism. She's probably wondering why Martha never ages and in fact looks younger with each magazine though. Oh wait, no, that's what I keep thinking, not Cerys. She doesn't follow music trends as her favorite CD is the Mama Mia soundtrack which she tries to play on her cello from time to time. She knows of Hanna Montana but only because this girls face is on every shoe, backpack and t-shirt sold everywhere. Cerys thinks it's silly that her face is plastered on everything and doesn't quite get it.

Yesterday I did a marketing survey where they wanted my daughter's opinion about toys. We had to answer questions about American Girls, Barbie and Hanna Montana. One of the questions for Barbie and Hanna where whether they were girls my daughter wanted to be herself or to be friends with. Both times Cerys laughed aloud, shook her head and said firmly "no."

I asked her this morning on our drive to school, "what are three things that mean beauty to you?" She took her time answering but eventually "Trees, Rocks and Wolves" were her answers.

I've written before about raising a Thrifted kid but I can even go deeper by what it's like to raise a media free & thrifted kid. Her perception of the world is one that she has created by what she sees. She hasn't been influenced by marketing companies (well a little bit of American Girl but it was the stories that she first fell in love with) or by the trends of her school friends.

The only thing that I've ever seen her become interested in because of school are SillyBandz. And as someone who coveted those bracelets worn by Madonna in the 80's I can only support this enthusiastically. Cerys doesn't really collect anything normal. Her room is filled with vintage furs, bones, books and antlers.

The beauty a media free child sees are the people around her. Or the kindness that one shows to them.  Last weekend I was being silly and quacked like a duck startling the woman in front of us. She turned around wondering what it was. I laughed and told her I was just making a duck sound. When she looked at Cerys in her hat and braids and her mix matched clothing of plaids, polka dots and leg warmers, she told her that she looked beautiful. Then she thanked me for making a sound that would cause her to turn around to notice my daughter. Which of course warmed both Cerys and I to the core.

I'm not trying to preach and tell everyone to stop watching tv or to take away those little hand held video game thingies. I want to share with you that there are real positive sides to being media free that I didn't even realize until last week. We go media free because our school supports this and encourages it. Because I want my children's imagination to be as incredible as it can on it's own accord. Because I want the children to get lost in books and hopefully have a better attention span than I did. Or because I don't want them to see violent act after violent act as even a simple cartoon can portray. I just didn't realize that they would view the world so differently.

My daughter has no sense of dress style. She dresses as a 5th grader to play, to do flips, to do the splits and to climb trees. I beg her to cut her bangs and she says no, that she is proud of being a tomboy with messy hair. Yet even in her strange combinations of clothing, she has confidence and pride. There is no certain way to dress. There are no trends to really follow in a Waldorf school except to be dressed to play and to play hard.

The biggest reason that I send my daughter to a Waldorf school is exactly all of that.

By 5th grade I was an outcast in my school. I felt ugly and it only got worse. One of my saddest and most heartfelt post was this one where I titled it Growing Up Ugly. My heart swells to think of my daughter so at peace in her world. She feels beautiful because she doesn't know any different. In her world beauty is the trees that she can climb, the rocks that she can admire (and probably throw) and the wolves that she one day dreams of riding. (she wants to be a wolf rider when she grows up)

I'll add that it's been tough raising media free kids. It's all around us and the pressure is enormous. We have to be conscious of it in restaurants, stores, airports and at friend's homes. We have to be strong when it would be so easy to just turn on the tv just to get the kids to be quiet for 20 minutes.  We have to watch other kids with their heads in their phones, gaming machine (I really should know what these things are called-I think Nintendo makes them) and other electronics when we are out. Or observing the family of four sitting at restaurant being there together but all lost in their machines. Which reminds me a bit of this video. It's not easy to go against the flow of our culture. But I'll tell you personally it has been worth it.

I'd love to hear what your idea of beauty is?

Thrift Share Monday - a bicycle

Thrift Share Monday - my bicycle

A storm arrived in Sonoma County this weekend, our first proper one of the year. Saturday was dark and dismal but Keiran and I still ventured out to an estate sale in Mill Valley that advertised 100's of DVD's and Books. The local sales were not promising at all and despite the weather we made the 45 minute journey south into Marin County.

I did very well at the estate sale for my goal of finding inventory to ReSell. Keiran was fabulous and helped me bag DVD's as I looked through the stacks and stacks of them. We left the sale and went to a rummage sale nearby where we picked up a few items.

We stopped at another rummage sale in San Rafael on our drive home and found a bicycle.

Bicycle - San Rafael Rummage Sale

Remember my Top of my Wishlist post where I was dreaming of finding a bicycle? Well it's not really my dream bicycle but for $20 it will work for now. It's a Japanese bike from the late 1970's and is the brand Nishiki. Keiran actually pointed it out and once I saw the little basket I knew that I wanted it.

Once the sun comes out again, I'm planning to take it for a very long ride.

What did you find this weekend?

How to Sell on Etsy

Flavorstitch Etsy Banner

Lots of you have asked me about the trick to selling on Etsy. While I don't have the sure fire way that will ensure sale after sale on Etsy, I do have some hints and suggestions about selling there.

• Selling on Etsy like anything else helps with branding. Create a name that becomes your brand.
• Design a professional logo. I used Picnik for my first one until Home Grown Logos did the one above.
• Link your personal facebook page and/or your business page to Etsy.
• Trade or buy ad space on other blogs for your Etsy store
• Feed your store through your blog - links on sidebar and posts with shop updates
• Take clear photographs in natural light. Try to avoid flash photography as much as possible.
• Write creative and entertaining item descriptions. There are a few ways to sell an item, photo, price and words.
• Create Etsy Treasuries - I recently learned about these as two of my items were picked for a treasury. The person who created them emailed me to let me know that two of my items were chosen. Here is one that I was featured in yesterday - Mid Century Modern Drawer Liner. Treasuries are picked daily to be the front page of Etsy. I'm still learning my way about them but I plan on creating some soon.
• Use your Title words to be as descriptive as possible. Because I am catering to a certain audience within my niche I am using words like Retro, Mid Century Modern, Mod and yesterday I added Bauhaus for a Teapot that I am selling. Be accurate though because someone looking for Mid Century Modern will be disappointed to see a Victorian, rose covered tea pot that was described as MCM.
• List often and fill your store. I have a lovely problem right now where things are selling a little quicker than I can list. I have just 9 items for sale with 4 items having sold.
• Pricing? Well pricing is all over the place on Etsy. You'll have to play around with it. Perhaps start low (on Vintage items) and see how items sell. If they are flying out the store either keep doing what you're doing or raise them just a little to see if the sales continue.
• Place business cards with your store name up on Bulletin boards.

Here are some of my etsy item photos:

Take pictures from angles that you might not normally take them from. I tried to highlight the modern style handle of this German teapot.

These are not up in the shop yet. Again I tried to take the photo of these Swedish teacups from a different angle. 

If you can, treat your Etsy shop as a proper business that needs care and needs to be looked after. My other Etsy store for ATG has sat there all summer quietly. I haven't added to it and I haven't really touched it. I have had one or two sales in the last few months. I feel that if your Etsy store has just a few items and you aren't regularly listing new items then it can go off the radar. Etsy does have so many items that you can get lost there. Hopefully these suggestions listed above will help your store stand out and bring in the sales.

Do you have any tips that I didn't mention?

Since we have Thrift Share and Make Share what do you think about sharing Etsy links every week? You can link to a new item in your store or to your overall store? If you do like this idea, I need a name for it. Sell Share is goofy, Etsy Share is just not sounding right and Market Share is too close to the stock market. Give me your name suggestions and I'll pick a winner of the name that I like most and I'll send the person who suggested it a Jeweler's Loop. If you have an Etsy store, I'll also feature it when I do the first Share post. I can't wait to hear your suggestions.

Finding your ReSelling Thrift Niche

If someone asked me a few months ago about having a ReSelling Thrift Niche I probably wouldn't have thought much about it. I find that in this day and age of ReSelling, having a large variety of items to ReSell is what can make us successful. What I didn't realize for me is that by selling too much of everything would cause me to freeze up and not sell much of anything.

As of today I am a niche seller. I sell media which consists of books, DVD's, CD's and VHS tapes which I sell mostly on Amazon. I also sell vintage kitchen wares on Etsy. I'm also excited to report that I had my first Etsy sale yesterday when I sold these two sweet Mod chickens.

Mod Chicken Salt & Pepper Set

I need this narrow focus of concentrating on two niches. Even within my kitchen wares I'm really only sticking with items of very high quality or unique in design or just so kitschy that I love the piece.

4 Mid Century Modern Teak Napkin Rings

When I was taking this photograph yesterday, I found myself enjoying ReSelling again. I found the process of photography and writing up descriptions fun. The pressure has been removed because instead of having 25 boxes of inventory to list, I have 3 banker boxes of kitchen items that are heading to Etsy.

If you have a similar situation where you tend to buy everything and you find yourself facing boxes of unlisted & unresearched inventory week after week, then finding a niche may be something to think about and even try.

Here are some niches that you might consider:

• vintage magazine ads
• Hollywood Regency
• Mid Century Modern
• Industrial
• Vintage Ephemera
• Vintage toys
• Vintage Tools & Signs (think American Pickers)
• Children's Clothing
• Women's Clothing & Shoes 
• Vintage Christmas
• Jewelry

The thing about finding your ReSelling Thrift Niche is to make sure that you love what you are selling. When I first became a bookseller I was in heaven. I have loved books since I was a toddler and only survived high school by reading non-stop for four years. I too love the kitchen and especially love Mid Century Modern and Design.

 Do you have a ReSelling Niche already? Do you have one that you want to start selling?

Make Share - Halloween Felt Owl Ornament

Make Share - Halloween Felt Owl Ornament

Keiran and I found this sweet, little feathered Halloween Tree at TJ Maxx last week.

We went to the most horrible store a couple weeks ago that consisted of the most frightening, nightmare inducing decor ever. Heads hanging by hooks in tongues and little zombie babies. We left as quickly as possible and I spent an hour trying to get the images out of my head. Keiran of course was entranced and didn't understand why his mother kept putting her hand over his eyes. I'll never return there again, ever. Finding this tree reminded me that there are decorations out there to celebrate the coming of Autumn and not just to highlight the insanely scary and gruesome.

The tree was $7.99 and it was the only one we saw in the store. I had to have it.

I'm planning to make felt ornaments over the next couple of weeks leading up to Halloween. I want to make some ravens, a crescent moon, a cat and some more owls to decorate the tree. Maybe I'll sneak in a Jack Skellington face.

Did you make something this week to share?

Make Share is very similar to Thrift Share where I begin a post with sharing something that I made and you all get to finish the post by linking up and sharing what you have made. There's a few guidelines -

• at least one item used in your project should to be 2nd hand.
• Link your Make Share post back to ATG.
• Post a Make Share item that you made on your blog or website.
• Link to your individual post on the item that you made using inlinkz below.
• If you participate with Make Share regularly, I'd love it if you'd add this button to your side bar

Jeweler's Loop Giveaway

One of the best tools a Thrifter can use on the job is a Jeweler's Loop which is why I'm giving 3 away today. I carry mine with me everywhere whether I'm thrifting at yard sales, thrift stores or estate sales. I use it mostly when I'm looking for gold or sterling. I also use my loop when hunting for vintage designer jewelry such as Miriam Haskell.

If you would like to win one simply leave a comment. I'd love to hear how you will use the jeweler's loop while thrifting. Also, what's your favorite jewelry brand to scout for? It can be modern or vintage.

For extra entries you can do any of the following: (make sure to comment once for each item that you do)

• Become an ATG Facebook Fan
• Become a Flavorstitch Facebook Fan (if you adore food)
• Follow ATG on Twitter
• Post about the giveaway on your blog (please include a link and share it with me so that I can visit your blog)
• Follow Flavorstitch on Twitter (more food stuff)
• Stumble this post
• Post about the Giveaway on your Facebook page

Winner will be chosen next Tuesday. Good luck!

Thrift Share Monday - October 18th

Vintage Glitter 50¢

Friday morning thrifting consisted of a packed-house estate sale. Not only was it packed but the house was full of watch maker supplies, vintage craft supplies, vintage Christmas and anything else vintage that you can imagine. I was good to my word though in regards to Thursday's post. I normally would have researched things for hours to see what I could bring home and sell. Instead I focused on the books, items for myself and vintage kitchen gear for my new Flavorstitch Etsy store.

This book really intrigued me. It was $2.00 and although I didn't mean to, once I arrived home I must have spent 30 minutes pouring over the pages of old photographs. I rang my father that evening and asked him if any of our family members crossed the bridge once it had been opened. Most of my family lived in the Bay Area from the early part of last century up until now. I think that is why I feel so connect to the Bay Area. Although I've never officially lived here before, as a child I would visit every month to see my grandparents. Dave and I were married here. I feel connected to this amazing area.

My dad told me that my uncle was one of the first children to cross the bridge. All the kids sprinted ahead of the adults so that they could be the first to cross. My grandfather also walked across the bridge when it first opened. Apparently he was one of the first to drive across the Bay Bridge too when it opened. I am just fascinated by this.

2 Small Vintage Cabinets $3 each.

Vintage Label Moistener Machine $5. I just loved the style of this machine. Maybe it's the ReSeller in me who ships packages every day that is drawn to this. I may play around with it this week to see if it still works.

Keiran and I went out on Saturday morning to a Waldorf Rummage sale. They are my favorite kind of rummage sales. I bought some items for the Etsy store, some clothing for the children and some toys. It was a quiet weekend. I'm apparently still working out something in my body because I was so exhausted this weekend. In fact Dave had to wake me up this morning at 7:05 which is why the Thrift Share Monday post is so late today. Oops. I'm hoping once I can truly get on a new routine and rhythm, I'll feel better and my energy will come back.

Thank you for every comment left on Thursday's post. I've read every one of them and shared many with Dave. He was not only encouraged by them but I think he saw the strength in the fact that I wasn't alone. I tend to feel very unique in my ways but then I realize that no, there are many of us that struggle with wanting to do everything, every new craft and every new business that comes along. Let's support each other.

Now back to Thrift Share Monday, what did you find this weekend?