I Won the Vesties Treasury Challege!

The Vintage Etsy Society Team (AKA Vesties Team) does a contest/challenge every week for Etsy treasuries. You have to include at least six Vesties' items, one item from the winner of the past week's challenge, and follow the weekly challenge theme. I enter frequently, but for the first time, this week I won! The theme was "Refresh, renew, and revive."

Here is my winning treasury:

'Reconnect in 2012' by jillhannah

Write a letter, make a phone call, send a carrier pigeon! Just get in touch with old friends in 2012. ALL VESTIES!

Remington No.3 Manu... housewarming10... $350.00	Vintage Country Bel... VintageWolfy $145.00	Vintage US Mail Box Rustical $55.00	Vintage Metal Addre... SummerHolidayV... $10.50
Vintage Postmark St... LuccaBalesVint... $9.50	antique boston penc... littlepart $20.00	Antique nibs. Insta... MademoiselleCh... $24.95	Vintage Rolodex, Fi... ShopMichL $10.99
50% Off Mid Century... TheWishingWard... $17.50	Brass Letters Door ... VintageLancast... $36.00	Vintage rotary phon... clcort $32.00	SALE-Vintage Match ... ChestnutHillVi... $15.40
Vintage Ostrich Fea... TheeLetterQ $9.00	Vintage Tiny Addres... SitDownSetDown $6.00	Set of 20 rare anti... SimonEtCie $5.50	Vintage Post Office... CampyClassics $24.95

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

ShopMichL had been the previous week's winner and was therefor the one who selected my treasury. She said:

"I chose this winning treasury because not only is it gorgeous - not only is it 100% Vesties - but its creator's take on the theme of renew, refresh, revive really struck a chord in me. Long distance friendships and family relationshipsare sadly a big part of my life. I would love to live in the midst of EVERYONE I love, but nope - I'm way over here in a distant city. I miss them, all the time, a lot. This treasury is a reminder to reach out."

All the 46 entries I was up against can be seen here:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/tags/ttchallenge52

Now, for this week, I get to be in a gazillion treasuries! The rules for this week's contest (and a few of my photos) can be found on the Vesties blog here:

http://vintageetsysociety.blogspot.com/2012/01/treasury-challenge-53-week-of-january.html

It's only been two days and there are already 20 entries. I've been busting my butt to keep up with them all, commenting and posting them on my Facebook page and Twitter.

You can see all of the entries for this week, which each contain one item from my shop, here:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/tags/ttchallenge53

I don't know how I'm going to choose the "best" since there are so many amazing ones already! This is too much fun!

Inspect a Gadget

As you probably haven't noticed, I added a "Follow me on Twitter" button to the right column of my blog. It's a Blogger gadget by GetRank with 135 little graphics to choose from.
One hundred and thirty-five.
You can't see them all sitting out on a nice clean webpage, but rather have to scroll and update individually, so I probably only saw half of them. But they're cute. I could change it every day and not get through them all until the leaves that are finally greening the trees start falling off again. I have a lot of higher priorities vying for daily slots, but in theory.
To get the gadget, go to the "Page Elements" tab of your blog (look for "Layout" and/or "Customize" depending on where you are in Blogger-land)
Click "Add a Gadget"In the bar that says (search for gadgets) type "twitter" or "follow" (either way it's the top result).
Click "Twitter Follow Me Button"
(I'm not showing this screen. It should be pretty obvious and this post is already so image-heavy your computer will think it's downloading porn.)

Finally!

"Title" is what is says above the icon on your blog, so change, delete, or ignore that as you so choose.
"Height" shouldn't be messed with unless you know what you're doing.
"Twitter Username" is, fascinatingly enough, your Twitter Username.
"Style" lists the 135 icon choices. By number. Every time you change numbers, youhave to click "Update" to see the icon in the preview box. I chose style 120, so that's one less you have to preview to see.
When you're done, hit save and voila! It's on your blog!

If you use this gadget, please comment with a link to your blog and the style number you chose. It'll be fun to see what other people do!

You Little Twit

I'm trying to be a good little Twitter Twit again. Because someone told me to.

Yesterday I went to four (was it four? four sounds right...) estate sales. The best thing I got was the complete first season of Full House on DVD for $2. It's for my sister, who loved that show when we were growing up. She currently lives in Portland and doesn't read my blog so yapping about it in here won't ruin the surprise when the good people of the United States Postal Service deliver it to her door.

Full House for my sister, and a four-volume 1911 printing of Half Hours with the Best Humorous Authors for myself (the condition isn't good enough to sell, or that's what I keep saying so I have an excuse to keep it...I payed $5).

I'm trying to research this percolator thingy so I can actually list it:
This spring blue purse, too, but I don't know what it's called and i have woefully little information:

Twitter Stuff

Twitter and I get along fine but aren't BFFs. It's useful for sending out links to fabulous things and good entertainment when I'm looking for totally new random things to stimulate my brain, or that strange extremely limited yet personal contact without the immediacy of a chatroom or the length and intimacy of a blog.

I like people who know how to use Twitter. It's much like Blogland in you can frequently tell who's comfortable with the medium and who's just on there and confused because the universe is currently tweeting its brains out and they think they should be in on the action.

But thanks to the "should," all these major and minor news outlets are now publishing direct Twitter addresses, making a quick marketing message to the right person at the right place an extremely easy way to work towards some great free press. I need to get my act together fast and start sending http://offthewallgreetings.etsy.com/ stuff to appropriate people at RedEye and a number of other venues. Unlike the ol' press release which was a bigger pain to both produce and read, just tweeting my shop with a potential story hook-line (still "making it" in Chicago during the bad economy) is much more likely to be seen and responded to. Happy writers and editors, happy me.

There are a number places now that are trying to make directories of Twitterers by things like topic and zip code. I tend to sign up for them when they come floating around my Twittersphere and then forget that they exist. I don't know about anybody else.

Latest thing to float my way: the TweeterGetter pyramid scheme. I signed up for that one, too. Sign up and automatically follow the last five people through whom you signed up (ie me, my friend I got hooked by, her friend, etc.). Then the idea is it gets sent on and keeps multiplying, like those chain letters with the post cards or stickers or recipes that I never got more than one or two back when I was little but frequently sent on anyway. I ignore the email versions and things involving money or Bernie Madoff.

Join my happy commune.