The first year on Etsy

Today exactly a year has passed from the moment my sister made the final clicks with her mouse to open our shop on Etsy. ISE Paper And Craft. These are some of the first products to have been listed and sold last season. The designs are still every bit as lovely and gorgeous as they were a year ago, and they are up again, for their second season at the shop with many many new things.
  

It has been a fun year and we have learned many things. But I still feel like a total beginner. Funny that.

I remember the time when having a one page full of listings was a goal that seemed to come by so hard and slow. Now we have filled 3 pages without barely noticing when THAT happened. A year ago I would have thought that we’d be kind of more settled in by now. Knowing exactly what we do and having developed a clientèle of sorts. But I must admit that we are still experimenting, growing, searching ourselves. And we are still looking for the right people too – I once naively believed that all it takes to just open up a shop and curious people will flock to the page to check it out. I know better now! Nevertheless – we are so very grateful to everyone who has made a purchase from our shop this first year. There have been 31 sales, 11 feedback ratings (all full stars !!!) and 22 people who have made that part happen (Thank you all, once more!). It is also worth noting, that since starting up with Etsy there have been some family and friends stepping in and making an order or two straight from the maker, and we are every bit as grateful to them!

Opening up an Etsy shop (or some other form of on-line business) is a common second or third step (as I understand) for many artisans and crafters. First you make things because you enjoy it, then you make some for friends and family, then you might find a craft shop willing to sell your work or attend some fairs. Then you’ll get more serious and build up an online presence as well. With us, it kind of all begun with Etsy. Of course there was the making of beautiful nature/flower photographs (my sisters hand-made photo card series) for years and years before. The habit of picking up little trinkets: acorns, chestnuts, twigs, moss, pebbles – you name it, has been with me as long as I can remember. I just never had a real purpose for it all. Making gift-wrappings, flower bouquets and postcards for our own purposes has been a pretty common concept as well. But never before had we thought of trying to sell any of it. The we stumbled upon Etsy. My sister got creative and I was infected. Soon there were postcards, acorns and pine cones up at the shop and we’ve been exploring new ways to channel things that come to us naturally in a way that becomes meaningful to other people.

  (Last post was about my sore throat and whether I should go acorn picking or not. The picture above is half of the answer to that question. The other half is the fact that my throat is STILL sore. Worth it? Yes? No? Who knows.)

Our shop got first sales during and after the Christmas season. Then there were comatose months of springs when nothing happened. At some point I decided to try out some ‘destash’ listings of my acorn and acorn cap supplies, as it seems that I wouldn’t be making any more acorn ornaments this year. That’s how I found out that there is actually a demand of sorts for acorn caps. I would have never thought of it a year ago. So I guess it was worth it to pick the acorns and caps pictured above after all – there’s part of me that is really delighted to collect this adorable plant material and ship it to people who know how to appreciate them and make use of them. (Stay tuned for new fresh 2014 listings).

This year has taught me how to appreciate entrepreneurs – especially the small ones. Not that we can really call ourselves that – ISE Paper and Craft is a tiny hobby venue and creative outlet, but it has offered us real business lessons and challenges. It has helped us to get better in touch with our creative and artistic sides. And it has totally broadened our horizons on the scope of human creativity, because thanks to having a shop we have seen so many unique and creative things from really talented artists and crafters on Etsy.

What will the next year bring? More lessons, I hope. And I definitely wouldn’t mind more sales either. 😉
Happy Birthday ISE Paper And Craft!
-Maarja

PS: There’s some special birthday love available to all of you – “birthday10” is the very coupon code you can use on checkout at Etsy to make use of our special 10% birthday discount. Can be used freely to purchase anything and as many times as you like. The code is valid until October 17th!

The Forest Series

You may have noticed, that we, here at ISE Paper and Craft, tend to go to the forest quite often. Whether it’s picking blueberries, mushrooms or pine cones – we like it out there. It’s like another, entirely different world out there. You may be in a really small, tiny one, and hear cars passing by on a nearby road, but once you are surrounded by those trees, the rest of the world is suddenly very, very far away.

Of course, in my case, being detached from the world is not only limited to spending time in natural surroundings. I’m quite often (read: most of the time) lost in my own thoughts and imagination or a book I’ve been reading recently.

The cards above are real pieces of the real forest mixed with some ink and imagination. The natural items are covered with clear varnish to keep them from crumbling and breaking. The drawings are done by hand, and the cardboard is made of recycled paper.

Which one is your favourite?
Do you like hiking and outdoors?
Have you ever eaten a wild mushroom you picked yourself?
In what type of surroundings do you feel most at peace?
How do you like our new WordPress theme? (too much pink?)

-Maarja

DIY – Silver pine cone ornaments

I’ve been up to painting some cones. I did one silver pine cone for our own tree last Christmas – I couldn’t stop admiring it! This year I gathered some more cones and tried to take some photos for a DIY post while making my first batch. Sorry for some of the photos being somewhat blurry – the photographing conditions are any good at my apartment only when it’s sunny and around noon! Here’s THE cone from last Christmas, already impatient for another December.

Now, here is what you do:

First you’ll need:
– clean pine cones
– silver acrylic paste
– silver tone eye screws (size as small as possible, but large enough to stay firmly in your cones)
– a paint brush
– pliers
– thread for hanging and scissors

It’s also a good idea to prepare a place where to hang your cones to dry once painted. I have one of those small round sock laundry hangers where I can dry my cones, acorns and other tiny painted hanging objects.

And you’ll also need somewhere to soak your cones:

1) Step One – Soak Your Cones.
I used the lid of a baking dish, I sometimes bake small cakes in it. You’ll see that couple of the cones already have an eye screw attached to them – if you want to make only one or two of these ornaments, you can skip the soaking part and fight your eye screws into a dry cone and then patiently paint every tip of each scale. I did that to a few test cones and realized that dry cones are really hard to get screws in plus it takes ages to paint each scale separately. So threw the cones into water to dry out an easier way. It took about an hour for my cones to soak up, but it may take longer for some other variety. I think it should be okay to leave them soaking overnight too, or throw them into water in the morning and then do your painting whenever you have time during the day.

2) Step Two – Screw The Screws.
When the cones had mostly closed (some cones my not close fully no matter how long they soak) I took them out of the water and dried off with a towel (choose one that won’t leave many fibres on the cones). Then I removed any remnants of twigs they might have had and screwed eye screws in their place. First with fingers and then final twists with pliers. It was a surprise how easy it was compared to dry cones.

3) Step Three – Attach Cords.
   
I had some leftover pieces of thread I used for drying, but if you don’t mind getting some paint on the cords by accident you can save time and put on the hanging cords at this step.

4) Step Four – The Silver Fun.

Now you’re ready to paint. Try to place your hanging rack nearby (I have a lamp just over the kitchen table with a handle to pull it down/push up, and since cones are not that heavy it’s a perfect place to hang my cones hanger), squeeze some paint out of the tube take the brush and pain. I found it easiest to begin with the tip of the cone, slowly retreating my fingers to the eye screw – which’d be my final handle. See that your cones are not dripping wet – too much water will dilute the paint and make it difficult to cover the cone. It might be more fun to spray paint the cones, if you wish. But you need a well ventilated room for that. Also, think through the safety of the painting process if you do this fun DIY with your kids!

5) Step Five – Let Them Dry.
   
So, now you’re almost there! Let your cones hang on the rack until the paint is dry and then you’ll have to wait another couple of days until the cones themselves dry and open up. Be sure to keep them out in the air and in a dry place! Of course, if you skipped the soaking part you’ll only have to wait for the paint do dry. If you wish to add a ribbon bow you can do it when the paint is dry but cones are still closed – easier to tie then.

And then, one day you’ll go check on your cones, and voilà:

___

Let me know if you tried these! How did they turn out? What kind of paint did you end up using, and did you add any ribbon?
-Maarja

The busy inactivity

You might have visited this blog and failed to find any new posts, or maybe wondered why no new update is popping up on your Facebook or reader feeds. Oh, ok, who am I kidding here – you probably did none of those things, but let me entertain myself with a mental image of thousands of disappointed readers impatiently refreshing their browsers again and again and again …

The thing is – we haven’t been lazy. We have been busy instead.

Some of these items can by found at A.G.A.N.. I’m very exited to have made our first acorn jewelry sales in local neighbourhood as well! There are also some new acorn earring/pendant listings up at Etsy:
1) Black Oak Bronze Hooks;
2) Black Oak Brass Nickel Free Hooks;
3) White Oak Brass Nickel Free Hooks;
4) Black Oak Bronze Chain Pendant.

My sister has been very busy and productive as well. A while back there was a post featuring one of her drawings, and I delighted to announce that it’s finally available as the most adorable post card ever. (You also can’t help but wonder, will it get hit by a falling apple or not!? Which is precisely why I love this drawing so much). She has also replaced one of her gorgeous dried flower arrangements, which got to travel all the way across the ocean to America, with an equally gorgeous fluffy heather bouquet:

Among other things – the acorn/chestnut season is just around the corner. First (light) brown chestnuts are already popping on the ground and I’ve seen first acorns on the side-walks as well. Meanwhile, I’m happy to send out what’s left of our last year’s crop. The prime pine cone season is more or less over, though. There is a lot of rain and moisture now – the best time to pick cones was probably in the spring and during the month-long drought we had this summer …

I’m going to the post office now, to send some acorn caps across the ocean.
If you got this far there’s only one thing I’ve left to tell you – thank you for reading and have a great day!

-Maarja

The Curious Case of There Not Being Enough Time

First – HAPPY BIRTHDAY KADRI!
It’s my sister’s big day and I intend to thoroughly celebrate how awesome she is (or at least give her a call). Among other things I’m so happy that two of her gorgeous hand-drawn card designs have been sent off into the world. Two cats and the full moon and Flower Greeting Cards. She hasn’t replaced them yet, but if you want something similar, she’d be happy to uncork her ink-pen and let the lines flow!

It’s funny how there’s never enough of time. And this realization is SO not original, that if you went to Google and did a search on “there’s never enough time”, you’d get over 9 million hits.

I remember so clearly, that when I was a little kid, ONE DAY felt like you could explore half a world during that time and have countless adventures along the way. Later, when I was still a kid, but went to school and had SUMMER holidays as a side effect, I thought less of a day, but I had high expectations of that magical time period called summer. Each spring it felt like the next school year was ages away and one summer would be enough to do anything (mostly ride bicycles, go swimming, tan, sneak about in the dark of the night, read books and try to get chores done as painlessly as possible). In any case – the concept of “next year” or “10 years from now” seemed SO alien, that it was better entirely left to grown-ups.

I’m sure there are kids out there who develop a responsible sense of time much earlier than I did. It took me several years of university to begin developing the feeling that years come and go and that a year is not really that long a time. And it took some years of parenting for the realization that summers are not made of magic ever-stretching and infinite fabric of time after all. It took me the several attempts to start jogging over the years, to finally succeed over 10 years later from the first attempt, and learn the true meaning of “long-term goals”. That long-term efforts need to be incorporated into the everyday as organic parts of it. Like teeth-brushing. Building habits with long-term side effects is almost like magic. Minutes can be like beads on a rosary or tiny good luck charms. Have some for brushing your teeth. Have some for happy exercise time. Some for saying good things you mean. Some for social marketing. Some for being creative. Some for learning a new word in the language you want to become fluent in. Whatever are your goals – try to find your matching daily minute charms.

The Etsy business is another wonderful new perspective on time. I find myself constantly cringing on how time consuming EVERYTHING is. It’s one thing to time the process of making your products, and set prices accordingly. It’s another matter entirely if you begin to count minutes and hours spent on all attempts to market what you have – liking, commenting, facebook, twitter, pinterest, tumblr, blogging, etc,, etc. And then there is the designing process, packing and posting, getting supplies. At one point you begin to realize, that each minute is worth gold. And then you realize that you really need to find out what does the acronym “ROI” (Return Of Investment) mean. You really need to know, that if you have a minute, what is the most profitable way to spend it? And the math is not even as simple as deciding that it is best to spend it on a tweet seen by 10 000 people (lets fantasize a bit, and pretend that I actually have followers) than on a blog post, for which you need tens of these minutes, and which has less followers. There’s this long term effect as well – a blog can be something more substantial, something that helps you communicate your identity and let people really relate to what it is that you are doing. A blog can be the basis for something more meaningful, long term and mutual. But it needs time to be built up and time to grow. So, where to spend that minute right now?

If you are me, you will stare at the dark clouds overhanging the houses, trees, streets, cars and people. At the branches swaying back and forth in a cold wind, which is way too autumn-like much too early. You shiver at the memory of it, make a cup of coffee you are not sure is really that good for you, but you need something warm and something to comfort you in this dismal (forgive me the exaggeration) weather, something to snap you out of the urge to make a warm and comfy blanket cocoon and stay there until the day has ended and there are no more minutes pending and you can safely say – tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll do great things and will know exactly what to use these minutes on. So you make some coffee instead, as you know that tomorrow never works and you have learned that sometimes it’s best to do something, anything instead of worrying whether this is the BEST thing to do. Because, you see, this minute you have is only here and now and if you’ve spent it on worrying then you have spent it on worrying and nothing else.

To think back – I really have been and still am the crown princess of hapless wanderers in time. But I am learning, and my minutes are as good as anyone gets. So are yours.

How do YOU use your time? Does it slip away through the cracks of your fingers like sand or water? Or do you know exactly when is time for what and seldom regret anything? Any secrets to share? 

And to end this post – here’s how I put my time to use on Sunday. Halloween inspired acorn ornaments. What do you think?

-Maarja

Beware, Christmas is near!

Well, it’s really not that bad yet. We have the change of seasons and Thanksgiving and Halloween and my birthday and many other important things to celebrate first. But we have begun our winter holiday preparations here at ISE Paper and Craft. I posted some most adorable collage/recycled Christmas cards (1,2) just today, and then I started working on the “Chestnut Rose” series.

These are super cute ornaments mixing natural items – chestnuts, and some not so natural materials like satin ribbon, glue and acrylic paste. The thing with these ornaments is, that they work as general autumn/thanksgiving decorations as well (especially the orange rose). Or what do you think? That they work super well on a Tree, that I know well – this was tested last year and I was totally in love with our Tree. (I had our pine cone and acorn ornaments up as well – we’ll work on listing some these too, in the near future!).

So, here’s a sneaky-peek. Which one’s your favorite?

-Maarja

Confessions of an amateur

This is an illustrated story of how a “Cute and Funny Planter’s Life Card” came to be.

In November 2013:

June, 2014:

I was going to talk about things like persistence and hard work here, and how I used to think that artists just create stuff magically and if your pen doesn’t accidentally doodle awe inspiring masterpieces the moment it randomly touches the paper you are probably not cut out to create anything ever, but then I thought better.

I would like to ask You (I’m still talking to our imaginary readers, as you can see), which one do you think did it? Or was it both?

 

-Maarja

There are two sides to advertising

Ever since I found myself facing the seemingly impossible task of reaching the right people (you know, the sort who like what we do and want to be our customers), I’ve begun to think differently about advertising. I’ve never liked ads. They are mostly loud and stupid in content on TV. They clutter streets with sub-messages (you know, be young forever, own lots of expensive brand goods, wear a lot of make-up and have insanely unrealistic body, etc., etc.), they try to manipulate me into buying stuff solely on the basis of having seen it’s brand-name somewhere or subconsciously thinking it makes me irresistible to the opposite sex. So much paper, time, effort is wasted on creating and spreading them, and you can’t really believe anything in them.

And now I’m the one on the other end. I know, I BELIEVE (for if I didn’t I should stop right now and stop wasting my energy) there are people out there, potential customers, who are our kind of people and who’d get a happy tingle inside when our cards or ornaments arrived in the mail. But it is so hard to reach them? How do I know who they are? Of course there are things like finding out the target group of people and finding the right channels to reach that group and so on. And I am slooowly working on it all. In the mean time I try to scream out as loud as I can right where I stand right now. In this process many people will have to look at things they could very well have done without looking at, and I am kind of sorry for all that unproductive screaming, but I so desperately want to be heard by someone. And these days, when I see a SMALL business advertising itself, I’m more sympathetic than annoyed. And when I’m happy with what they are offering – I’m more likely to go an extra mile by recommending them, because I want them to continue to be there and find their people. (Although, usually when that happens they are already popular and do not really need my help – I really wish I knew HOW that magic works…)

I also fully understand now what a “shameless plug” means.
Here’s our latest creation, behold the pair of arrogant cat-butts:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/192989052/arrogant-cat-butts-one-folded-card-black?ref=shop_home_feat_4

How do YOU feel about advertising?
Any difference whether it’s a big company or a small, local one?

Are you a successful seller or have a lot of followers on some sort of social media? (whats your secret?)

-Maarja

Horse Chestnuts – Simply Beautiful

Summer is almost here and it’s time to rummage through the boxes and cupboards. I found some horse chestnuts from last fall I hadn’t had the chance to make anything of. So these beauties are now up for sale as craft supplies. As this is a destash listing, the price is good too! Some extra acorns and acorn caps (both, black and white oak) are waiting to be listed as well, so stay tuned!

Chestnuts available here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/191313744/dried-horse-chestnuts-50pcs-picked-in?ref=shop_home_active_1

Meanwhile I go on trying to get my latest Planter’s Life card to look good on paper. I keep waiting to get better at this drawing/scanning/colouring business, but it seems to just get more complicated each time, as it always seems that the result could be just a little bit better in some unidentifiable way! 🙂

I have my windows open and it smells wonderfully of dust, rain and grass.
I wish you all a wonderful start of the Summer!

 

-Maarja