Demolition Derby

Like garage sales? Doing any sort of home improvement project? Check out a demolition sale.

Bring a flashlight, cash, and tools. If there are any specific things you need for your house, measure them ahead of time. Think curtain rods, doors, shelves, mantles, sinks, bathtubs, etc. Get an entire 1960s kitchen, depression-era door chimes, and an almost-new washer/dryer all for bargain prices.

In Chicago, there are two more good-looking demolition sales this weekend by Demo Pro, my current favorite of the Chicagoland demolition sales companies. Man-in-charge Terry is honest and just a generally good human being whose mission is to see quality pieces of a landfill-bound house go to people who can use them at a fair price. Last Saturday there was a house with gorgeous carved wood banisters, beveled leaded glass windows, and a huge fireplace mantle that all went to waste because I didn't have a truck and so few people showed up to the sale. So even though it means more competition for my scavenging, sharing this secret is worth it to see Terry get the business and 100-year-old ornate crown molding find new life.

Please, No Autographs

I'm in the Storque! That's Etsy's blog/news thingy.
"Etsy Finds Decor: Romantic Curiosities"
They featured my vintage brass floral drawer knobs, And someone already bought them! My shop is exploding with views and hearts and another potential purchase.

I feel so famous!

They like me! They really like me!

In the last 48 hours, I've sold five cards to four people. Three poop cards, two "olive ewe" cards. Holy crap. I'm not featured anywhere on Etsy or Etsy Greetings, so where the hell is all this coming from? It's pretty exciting. Am I being secret whatevered? It's like as soon as I re-list the cards, they sell again. I guess now's the time to buy valentines and people seem to like mine. And/or because I keep re-listing them, they're at the top of the pile and my prices are low enough now that they've become impulse items. Either way, sweet. Now if I can just figure out what I'm doing wrong with my camera and get some non-terrible photos of all my other valentines, I'll really be in business.

personal pricing logic of the undead

Doing a bit better as of fairly late last night. I got all of my packages ready for shipping and was perhaps a bit overzealous with the goodies and general package decorating (I'll post a photo if my friend lets me steal his camera before we head to the post office this morning), but I feel a lot better just knowing I could do what had to get done. Being useless is frustrating.

As a result of Mr. Migraine I'd left up my Black Friday-Cyber Monday sale an extra four days with the quick note at the top of my Etsy shop that I was in Migraineland and shipping might be delayed but that meant the sale got extended because I was too dead to take it down. Today, I was going through to bump all of my prices back up and remove the "25 PERCENT OFF" from my titles when I decided perhaps I'm better off leaving most of my cards at $3. I know I personally am more likely to buy from a shop with $3 cards, since I don't like to buy just one at a time and almost $10 when you figure in postage is much more daunting than $8. In fact, I might even buy three cards at $3 each when I would be loathe to buy any from the shop that's selling for $4. Hopefully I'm not the only one thinking like this right now. Also hopefully I have cards that people want and find. That's the huge first part of it. The price just seals the deal. So pretty pretty please if you have a friend you think would like my shop, send them the link, and hopefully this afternoon I'll still feel better enough to work on general whoring (AKA marketing).

Holy Sales, Batman!

QUICK "Black Friday" update before I go out and brave the live shopping world myself with my brother and his fabulous girlfriend (something in the past my family has avoided but I've always kind of wanted to do, just because it's there and entertaining in a sick, crazy way):

Lots of places will be pricing items below cost today. I used to work at Circuit City, and we could see what the cost to the store was of an item (they estimated in labor and crap, too). The day after Thanksgiving, one of the managers made a big deal out of showing us a bunch of the "doorbusters" and other random sale items that were selling for significantly less than the cost to the store. So why did the store choose to "lose" money on these items? These were not things that had been sitting on the shelves, where any sale would be making more money than the $0 they were currently pulling in (like I talked about last entry). For the Circuit City model (and many other stores like it), they pull you in with some main big fabulous deal that really is a deal, but then count on you buying accessories like batteries, remote controls, blank CDs, software, etc. where they charge way more than cost and make up for the loss on the initial item and then some.
Can you do that? I'm not doing it so much in my shop. I'm going with the "everything on sale, things that already exist can go to any price because they already exist and things that would need to be made can go very close to cost and no matter what it's good to get people into my store and buying because if I can get them hooked on my product while it's cheap then later when it's not on sale they'll come crawling back because my wallpaper envelopes are made out of crack and I use really nice papers that are laced with heroin*" method myself, but if you think creatively, I'm sure there are ways of using the Circuit City method in your shop, too. Or the drug dealer method. That works, too.

Now where are those leftover cinnamon rolls?

*no actual drugs in any of my products, I'm afraid, but if you're a paper or texture nerd like me, they are fairly addictive.

Photos (items for sale on Etsy):
grey gardens ava bag by cookoorikoo
brass mushroom earrings by carolinableu

Angry Head, Crafty Heart

My head is misbehaving. I was supposed to have a table at the Handmade Market today, and while I tried really hard to go, I couldn't stay vertical long enough or deal with the sun without too much pain to function. I've been like this more or less since Wednesday, and it's not good. I'm having trouble keeping up with life. I want to be a real person, and when I'm feeling ok I do all these real person things and get frustrated by my own hesitancy to do more and make specific plans with hard deadlines and wonder if I'm just being a big fat chicken-butt. But then my normal daily mild migraine morphs back into Evil Death Migraine and I'm useless. I try to be productive and do productive things, but I can't think straight and I screw up my work stuff and can't concentrate long or hard enough to do the things I need to, anyway.

So no Handmade Market today. And I have all these cute envelopes and mini-cards I want to list on Etsy, but right now I'm just not up to it. I'm only even on the computer because I put it on my nightstand so I could use it from my bed, and I keep having to close my eyes and type blind because the glare is bothering me, but lying around doing nothing all day was getting old.

Let's be businessy about this: anybody who is interested in some of my new screw email or thank you cards (they're just like the screw email ones, but in a different font and they say "thank you") with wallpaper envelopes, if you comment or convo me or email me, I will send you a grab bag at $1 a card/envelope set instead of the normal $2 each (plus shipping). You can request color schemes, florals, paisley, plaid, stripes, etc. if you want. You just have to be nice and know that they may get mailed tomorrow and they may not get mailed for a week and I just can't deal with lighting my lightbox and photoing and whatnot to make an Etsy listing, so you're getting them on the super-cheap.

Sorry I'm so fussy. Constant blinding pain makes me fussy.

Why isn't my acupuncture appointment until Wednesday?

*Photo Light and Time by sevenbridges available on Etsy, and such a wonderful illustration for a migraine

Googly Over Myself

I photographed assorted googly eyes on a few different wallpaper samples I had and came up with this as my new blog background. I'm pretty damn pleased with myself. I also sold two cards to two people on Friday (marking my 50th and 51st sales!), and my shop finally looks somewhat cohesive and full. Considering the migraines have been nasty again lately, I'm doing pretty well in Etsyland.

I need to live closer to a 24-hour bakery. Wait, no, I really don't.