Simply Shiny Life

Thought I would share a post from the ArtFire marketing dude today regarding traffic numbers for Artfire.

Visits                Dec.  184,068         Nov    62,151      196% increase
Uniques           Dec.     83,648        Nov    32,482       157% increase
Page views      Dec. 1,953,583      Nov     730,975    167% increase
% repeat visits Dec  57%               Nov      50%           7% increase in repeat traffic

Total members, buyers, basic and verified is 9,582 (working towards 10,000 trees!)

Total items listed 49,327

Total items sold  1495

Editor’s note: Sold to listed: 3%  Sold as a percentage of sellers: 15.6%

We continue to see solid growth in all areas, despite the economy.  Our focus for the next few months is improving and promoting the buying process and the handmade ethic.

Nice little bit of growth there. I’ve been very pleased with Artfire to date, both in support, functionality and the rate of improvement. 

If you would like to see how Artfire’s traffic ranks against other handmade selling venues, you can find its rank according to Alexa here

In a previous post, I provided a list of venues for artists, artistans and artisan crafters. This week I’m profiling another of those sites on my blog.

I asked Chris from MadeItMyself to tell us a bit more about the venue.

What is the site name and where can artisan sellers find you?
Well obviously the site url is www.madeitmyself.com, but we have several different pages set up for groups and as social networks on ning.com and indiepublic.com. Once in a while you can catch our admins on live chat there and clear up any questions you may have.

We also have a flickr group called the madeitmyself photo album, where you can find works from our artisans on the site. Here are the links.

http://www.indiepublic.com/group/madaboutmadeitmyself
http://madeitmyself.ning.com/
http://flickr.com/groups/860071@N25/

Tell us a little about your site’s history. What are its origins?
Madeitmyself was originally an idea set forth back in 2000, by, who is now, our current CEO. The idea was tinkered and toyed with in many different ways, but was not made an official business entity until 2006 when Oznola, L.L.C., MiM’s parent company, was formed.

Originally, the site was supposed to bridge the gap between other countries where handmade items that are sold for $0.50 there, are sold for $10.00 here. In short, we wanted to make a way to balance the economies in “poor” countries.

After many attempts and trials, our first public launch date was June, 05 2007. As you can see, we have conformed with today’s demand for online venues for the purpose of establishing a foundation for the site. There will be many changes to come in the future, however, that will set us far apart from the others.

Tell us about the site’s staff.
Madeitmyself.com is both operated and owned by only close family and friends. We try to run a fun and friendly environment that different generations can all enjoy. I personally stay active in our forums and external groups as often as I can spare it to take ideas and help our members. If I can’t, at least, check the site that day, I call for help from one of the other staff. I consider that to be a 24 hour job, and while we can’t always keep everyone happy… We do try non-stop.

My email (chris@oznola.com) is made available to our members and future members for any reason. A lot of times people just want to tell me about their day or see how I’m doing, which is cool with me .

What is your plan for the site? What are your goals?
Our plans and goals for the site are pretty straight forward… Do anything and everything to take the site to the top, while keeping our morals in tact. Many of the sites that started out as handmade only, and claim to be handmade only, are not. They’ve allowed resellers and mass production to run over the little guys’ businesses. I find it unfortunate that is what makes them so successful.

We consider MiM to be the little guy taking on the big guy, just as most of our members are on other websites. We’re still very young and we are privately funded. We don’t have millions of dollars at our disposal to instantly put up a program that will put everyone else to shame, and everyone that reads this will know who I am talking about.

Our promise to our patrons is: Someday MiM will be a successful international venue, as big as any of the others out there, but instead of simply taking our members money, we will give back to the site and the rest of the world.

MiM is meant to help a lot of people. I’m talking about Implementation of members ideas so they may further their business; Constant interactive admins and site support; Occasional free services, just because; International youth scholarship programs; Little league sponsorships; Buying our own user’s products and donating them to those that can use them for holidays and birthdays; Advertising on behalf of our members to boost sales; National MiM craft shows featuring our members; etc. etc.. The list does go on with our plans, but you get the idea for now .

Who is your target seller audience?
Our target seller audience consists of artisans and hobbyists around the world. This doesn’t include resellers.

Who is your target buyer audience?  How will you drive buyers to your venue?
Our target buyer audience is anyone and everyone. Since there is such a wide array of handmade products out there, there is, in turn, an equally wide array of buyers for those products. We just need to match them all up.

Our marketing plans are very extensive, but detailed plans is something I can’t discuss due to them being trade secrets. In fact, I may have already hinted at more than I should have lol.

In the most basic of words, without giving away too many details, we look to get our name out there by any means possible. Have you ever heard of a little site called eBay? Of course you have. We’d like Madeitmyself to be as much of a household name as they are. From there, we can have the luxury of worrying about who we’d like buying
on our site.

Is this an international, domestic US, Far East or European focused site?
As of right now, we are geared towards the domestic US, but we do plan on moving to a full blown international scale when we come out of our beta phase.

What differentiates this venue from other online selling venues? Why should artisan sellers consider utilizing this site as a resource instead of other, older sites or their own sites?
I think the biggest difference is our management team. We give more personal attention to our users and always try to see their side of things. We hold a higher moral standard than any of our competitors and I think that reflects on the site’s environment. People are always friendly in our forums and we always try to maintain a collective
positive attitude. I think most of our members would tell you the same thing.

But aside from that, one of the things we have implemented and will be fine tuning throughout beta, is the ability for our sellers to send electronic coupons to their buyers allowing for their own personal discounts and promotions any time they please.

And rather than featuring one person or none on the home page, we try to fit everyone in on a randomized schedule. Also, users have the option of showing their products on the home page for, typically, a small undetermined fee, but right now, everything is free.

Here’s a youtube link of one of the free services we do, and will continue to offer to our members:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpO98v5TX4g

We also have MadeIt(tm) magazine planned out for our members to showcase their products and themselves. You can find a link on our homepage to sign up for a free copy in advance. This won’t come for a while, but it’s definitely a perk to look forward to.

We are very young and we do have a lot of similarities with competitors. It will take some time for us to grow into our own before I can give more site
functionalities and services that do set us apart.

How have your structured your seller pricing?
Throughout our beta, everything is free. No listing, commission, or membership fees to deal with like our competitors…

When we do start charging, you’ll find that our fees are very minimal.

Listing fees per item:

$0.10 = 30 days
$0.15 = 60 days
$0.20 = 120 days

Commission fee is a flat rate of 3%.

We’re also going to be researching a way to implement a flat membership rate to allow unlimited listings and sales with no additional charges for the users that would prefer that option.

What else should we know?
One thing I did want to mention is our special “donation accounts”. Any certified, charitable, non-profit organization is welcome to apply for a donation account, which will allow users to donate money to their favorite organization. This is something that will continue to expand as the site grows and we can recruit more organizations. It is, and will remain, a free service simply to help the greater good.

Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade selling  venues with interviews from the site owners. You can find this site’s traffic rank according to Alexa here

It’s cold, dry and this January weather is making my skin suffer. It’s a perfect time to stock up on handmade soap, lotions, lip balm, etc.

Over the next weeks, I am going to profile several handmade bath and body studio owners from Artfire. And by the way, handmade bath and body items make wonderful Valentine’s gifts for your significant other.

Yasmina, from Mea Culpa Body and Bath is featured today.

ArtFire shop name: Mea Culpa Body and Bath : Natural way of life
Name: Yasmina
Location: Metro Detroit, MI

Where else can we find you and your work? 
My Etsy:MeaCulpaBodyandBath.etsy.com
My Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30829177@N04/
My Twitter:http://twitter.com/MeaCulpaBB
My Blog:http://mea-culpa-aromatherapycreations.blogspot.com/

What inspired you to begin creating bath and body products?
Well, that was a slow process for sure. First I started reading on eastern philosophy, energies, meditation, different levels of existence. Then, someone introduced Reiki to me. I wanted to help my kids, family and friends when they didn’t feel well. I was starting to get annoyed by the over the counter cough medicines, because they didn’t really seem to work! Then my Reiki teacher suggested I use Eucalyptus Oil for my kids’ stuffy noses – diffuse the oil in the house, put a few drops in their baths and make a spray to layer a mist over their bedding before they go to sleep. That worked like a charm! I could not believe that everything that my grandma did, all the traditional folk oils and salves actually worked. It was like just waking up. Then I started mimicking her recipes from what I have remembered and they did their job perfectly. That’s when I decided that I can do something for the general public too. My friends were not interested in what I had to offer them, so I decided to start selling online and allow people that care for this kind of products to use them.

Where did you start and how did you learn to make the products you are creating today?
I started experimenting with instructional recipes from the books that I bought. It didnt always go smoothly as I wanted though When I was certain that what I make is really helpful and good for everyone to use – I opened up a shop. I started with aromatherapy, but when I noticed that I didnt get that much attention, I added lotions with fragrance oils just for the pleasure of scent

What are your favorite scents?
Ohhhhh…..this is tough    I cant decide, I really can’t. I love the Dragons Blood scent, love anything citrusy, adore the Ylang Ylang and Rose and Jasmine and Sandalwood….ok, I gotta stop before I write down every single scent I have….lol

What are your favorite products to make?
The biggest joy is making the body butters, creams and lotion, experimenting with what I have and seeing the satisfaction on peoples faces when they try it. Its a wonderful and rewarding feeling.

What one product should EVERYONE have on hand during the cold, dry winter months?
Anything with Shea Butter and Mowrah Butter. From products with essential oils – anything that has Myrrh or Carrot Seed in and maybe Rose Floral Water. They are all awesome for dry and thirsty skin.

What inspires you?
Ahhh….the beauty of our planet, nature, our herbs that we underestimate so much!

What was your biggest handmade oops?
Oh, it had to be my shaving cream! I was just so happy when I saw it fluffy and thick and smelling good. I tried shaving with it and everything went so smooth. So, I leave it on the side for a few days and when the next shaving day came – my nice thick and fluffy shaving cream has turned into a watery mush! I wanted to just cry!

Why are handmade bath and body products better?
We do not use any chemicals, nothing that is not derived from nature. Thats the biggest difference. We care how our products will affect our customers and we want the best for them – the things that I would use I want everyone else to get the same!

What advice would you give to someone just starting out selling bath and body online?
I can just say – be careful! This is not only about you anymore. Test your products, when you are done making something – dont put it up for sale right away, wait to see how that product is going to be a week from now, two weeks from now etc….making body and bath products is a continuous learning, it never stops.

How do you spend time when you are NOT creating?
I have a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old to take care of too, homework, preparing food for them, making sure they don’t kill each other when arguing Its become tough though, but if you want to keep on doing what you love, you can manage it all. I just feel bad that I can’t pay that much attention to my dogs anymore, poor things are moving around the house looking at me like they want to say – “Hey, here I am!”

Do you have a newsletter for potential customers to join? Where can they sign up?
Yes, I do have a newsletter and the sign up box can be found at  my blog:
http://mea-culpa-aromatherapycreations.blogspot.com/

Thanks Yasmina! Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade bath and body sellers from ArtFire, including giveaways from the studio owners. 

It’s cold, dry and this January weather is making my skin suffer. It’s a perfect time to stock up on handmade soap, lotions, lip balm, etc.

Over the next weeks, I am going to profile several handmade bath and body studio owners. There will be giveaways too.  And by the way, handmade bath and body items make wonderful Valentine’s gifts for your significant other.

Today’s profile belongs to Patty from Happy Goat Soap . Patty is a funny, very talented member of the Artisan Beaders Street team, but she also has goats…and her goats contribute to some pretty wonderful soap.  Patty is offering a gift pack of three bars of soap to one lucky reader! To enter, visit Patty’s shop at http://www.gethappygoatsoap.com.  Then return here and let Patty know what your favorite soap is in her shop by commenting on this post. Please make sure to include your name and your email address.  We will randomly choose a winner on Friday, January 16th.  

Shop name: Happy Goat Soap
Name: Patty Woodland with help from Pricilla and Abigail the Nigerian Dwarf goats
Location: Superior, MT

Where else can we find you and Soaps from Happy Goats? 
I blog occasionally at brokenteepee.blogspot.com and Pricilla’s blog is http://www.pricillaspeaks.blogspot.com/  ….she is a feisty goat! I also post photos of my new soaps to my flickr 

What inspired you to begin creating bath and body products?
I had two beautiful goats giving lots of rich milk. Much more milk than my husband and I could use so I decided to try my hand at soap and cheese making. Both were successful and we eat the cheese and I sell the soap.

Where did you start and how did you learn to make the products you are creating today?
I did a lot of research before I started making the soap. I read several books and was all over the internet to learn how to work with different methods. My first batches were sent out to family and friends to critique and I finally settled on a formula that I think is wonderful.

What are your favorite scents?
My favorite is Frankinsence which is a heavy, sexy scent. I fell in love with it years ago and I still enjoy it. My husband loves citrusy scents.

What are your favorite products to make?
Right now I am only making cold process, goat’s milk soap but I hope to expand into goat’s milk lotions and body butters when I have more space and a bigger kitchen. My husband is currently building our house.

What one product should EVERYONE have on hand during the cold, dry winter months?
In my opinion – a rich, moisturizing body butter.

What inspires you?
The beauty I see everyday when I look out my window. Western Montana is one of the most amazing places I have seen in all my travels. I just love it here. In regards to my soapmaking? I am having a blast experimenting with new scents and scent combinations. I play with my essential oils and fragrance oils to try and create something new. Sometimes it works and other times….well, let’s not talk about that.

What was your biggest handmade oops?
I tried to make a honey and oatmeal soap. For some reason the science didn’t work and it just crystalized.

Why are handmade bath and body products better?
All of the natural glycerine is still in the bar. Plus I add lots of rich oils and butters to my formula so that the soap won’t be drying. And with goat’s milk soap you have the amino acids from the milk that are just wonderful for your skin.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out selling bath and body online?
Do your research, practice and send your bars out for testing before you sell.

How do you spend time when you are NOT creating?
I do have some health problems so I do have to limit my time creating. I have to work when I feel well and pace myself. When I don’t feel well, I sleep or just sit and listen to music.

What else should we know about you and your business?
Pricilla and Abigail say, “Maaaaa!”

Thanks Patty!  Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade bath and body sellers from ArtFire, including giveaways from the studio owners. 

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I was lucky enough to have some of my handmade hoop earrings featured in an etsy gift guide this week. It seems as though hoops never go out of style. A wardrobe staple for most of us. I’ve lost count of how many pairs I own. What about you?

The handmade sterling hoop earrings featured in my shop are available with an oxidized finish or just simply shiny. They are all made of 20 gauge sterling silver wire, hammered for texture, and then filed and tumbled for comfort. The larger ones are about 1 1/4 inches (3.2 cm) in diameter, while the petite ones are 3/4 inches (or 2 cm) in diameter.

All can be purchased at my etsy or artfire shops.
ShinyAdornments on etsy
ShinyAdornments on artfire

In a previous, I provided a list of venues for artists, artistans and artisan crafters. This week I’m profiling another of those sites on my blog.

I asked Sadie from Lollishops to tell us a bit more about her venue.

What is the site name and where can artisan sellers find you?
http://lollishops.com
http://lollishops.blogspot.com
http://lollishopping.ning.com/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lollishops/
http://www.myspace.com/lollishops
http://twitter.com/lollishops

Tell us a little about your site’s history. What are its origins?
From Lollishops’ Press page:
“When Sadie Lou Hartmann’s children were young, it just seemed like a nice thing to create beautiful scrapbooks for them. This naturally drifted into gifts, then mixed media art, then sharing about art on blogs, then, well, the rest is history … LolliShops history, that is.Sadie Hartmann is launching what appears to be the first major marketplace for women to sell their crafts and objets’d’arte owned and run by a woman. After spending time as a buyer and seller on other craft websites Ms. Hartmann couldn’t help but notice that feminine girly, cottage frou-frou crafters were treated like second-class citizens, shunted to the sidelines by slick, modern styles of crafting. That’s when Sadie’s vision for a business model based on support and sharing of art blossomed into form through a blog dedicated to her craft and her crafting friends. Today, this active hub is matched by a forum, where women share, inspire and inform each other’s growing online businesses.

Sadie Lou’s success as a social networker can be readily observed through her active blog and forum sites.

“I started blogging to keep in touch with friends and family and it just grew alongside my art. As a mother at home with a young family, I gained inspiration and got a good slice of appreciated adult conversation from my early blog. Now LolliShops has become a really sweet community, based on inspiration and sharing. We are really an on-line art family community,” observes Ms. Hartmann.”

Tell us about the site’s staff.
LolliShops hired velocity 7 to build LolliShops from scratch!
http://www.velocity7.com/
Jason: Lead Developer
Greg  Knaddison: Drupal consultant
Pam Biery: PR agent, officice manager
Marlisa: Site Designer (as per Owner’s suggestions/submissions)
Terry: Sadie’s Dad= support emails
Sadie Hartmann= Support emails, owner, designer, advertiser, CEO
Dan Hartmann: Sadie’s Husband,  CFO, Manager, Statistics, Projections

What is your plan for the site? What are your goals?
My plan for the site is for the vendors to continue growing together in success and in their relationships. The community aspect of LolliShops is one of the most important features that we will continue to develop and nurture through the private vendor’s forum, cross promotion and the cooperative advertising program we have going with Stampington.
http://www.stampington.com/

Our goals are to constantly be updating the site’s features and functions providing the very best shopping/selling experience we can.

Who is your target seller audience?
Women
20-60+ years old
Enjoying: Victoriana,Cottage Style, Shabby Chic, Antiques, Vintage, Artistic Supplies, Whimsy and Collectibles.
LolliShops is looking for experienced vendors that maintain their shops professionally and routinely. We are looking for vendors that put customer satisfaction first. We make sure our vendors take quality photographs, have detailed item descriptions, provide a way for buyers to contact them through emails and sell quality merchandise whether it be artistic creations/handmade, supplies or vintage. We also have an extremely strong sense of community and we take our community seriously–vendors do not have to be active in our vendor’s only forum but it is encouraged. We spend a lot of our time building one another up and supporting each other; we embrace being connected versus being competitive.

Who is your target buyer audience?
Women
20-60+ years old
Enjoying: Victoriana,Cottage Style, Shabby Chic, Antiques, Vintage, Artistic Supplies, Whimsy and Collectibles.

How will you drive buyers to your venue?
We have a two year contract with Stampington and have full page, co-op ads (featuring 30 different vendors), color ads coming out in several magazines next year. Starting with Somerset Life’s Winter 2009 Issue coming out Jan. 1st then we have Artful Blogging, Somerset Studio, Marie Vol. 1 (a special edition Marie Antoinette tribute magazine), Where Women Create and Somerset Life. We are also extremely active in most social networking websites, we have a large audience to our blog where we have free tutorials, featured sellers, contests and giveaways.

Is this an international, domestic US, Far East and European focused site?
Yes it is.

What differentiates this venue from other online selling venues?
That’s a good question. LolliShops does not want to be considered another handmade marketplace/Mall. The first, most noticeable difference is that we are a juried venue. Not everyone can sell here. We like the idea of fulfilling a niche market that caters to a specific kind of shopper looking for a very specific style of arts and crafts, supplies and vintage. We have popular artisans doing exclusive artistic lines or collections for LolliShops as well as vendors that are moving their entire online presence to LolliShops in order to narrow down their focus and see what LolliShops is capable of. Because we maintain a quality and a style, we are free to advertise in magazines that compliment our look.

LolliShops also doesn’t ignore the fact that we are made up of mostly women. This website is owned and operated by a woman who is also an artist with her own shop on LolliShops. This brings a unique spin to everything that goes into planning and developing the website. The web team responsible for programming and designing LolliShops is made up of women too! From the office manager, PR agent, ad designer and website layout designer–there is a strong feminine influence! Which brings me to my last point, LolliShops.com is all about the community. We are extremely focused on developing personal relationships in terms of vendors connecting with other vendors, vendors connecting with buyers and ME (Sadie) connecting with the vendors and the buyers.
I personally spend time every day in the private vendor forum answering questions, fielding requests and support and answering technical site questions. I am as hands on as I can be.

Why should artisan sellers consider utilizing this site as a resource instead of other, older sites or their own sites?
I feel like I have addressed this question a few time but in terms of utilizing their own websites, LolliShops has a program that is still in its development stages called “The Split”. For a small fee every month, vendors can list items directly off their website and then enter in a unique URL that brings the buyers from LolliShops directly to their own dot com for the business transaction.

It seems to be gaining in popularity as vendors create their own, personalized websites.

How have your structured your seller pricing?
We don’t feel we are in a position to release that information to the public at his time as it is in its Beta phase stages anyways and also, we feel that buyers don’t need to know what the vendors pay to sell in a particular venue. It’s almost like walking into a brick and mortar boutique and asking the owner how much they pay for rent. The fee structure is available upon request by emailing LolliShops.com or lollishops@gmail.com

What else should we know?
We will always be rolling out new features, upgrades and functions as LolliShops grows. We also take vendor and shopper requests and suggestions very seriously.

Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade selling  venues with interviews and giveaways from the site owners. You can find this site’s traffic rank according to Alexa here

A big thanks goes out to my top entrecard droppers for the last month! 

Entrecard is used to increase traffic to your blog. According to the site “Entrecard is a free blogging network that brings visitors to your blog. By joining our network, you can earn Entrecard credits which allow you to display an ad of your blog on other blog sites within our Network.”

I’ve been using it for several months now, and, well, so far so good. My increased surfing to drop cards has resulted in my finding some new regular blog reading stops;  as well as some new places for Project Wonderful ads. For more information about what it is and how to use it, visit this link

It’s cold, dry and this January weather is making my skin suffer. It’s a perfect time to stock up on handmade soap, lotions, lip balm, etc.

Over the next weeks, I am going to profile several handmade bath and body studio owners from Artfire. There will be giveaways too.  And by the way, handmade bath and body items make wonderful Valentine’s gifts for your significant other.

Amy, from Naturally Amy, is first. And, during January, Naturally Amy will be giving away Violets and Anise soap.  It is a blend of sweet violet and anise essential oil, swirled with ultramarines of blues and purples.  You can be one of four lucky winners simply by commenting on her blog.  You can also watch her Artfire shop for monthly soap specials!

ArtFire shop name: Naturally Amy : Herbal And Botanical Soap, Candles & Incense
Name: Amy Urato
Location: Marlborough, Massachusetts

Where else can we find you and your work?
My blog address is  http://www.naturallyamys.blogspot.com
My website which is a constant work in progress is: http://www.naturallyamys.com
My Artfire Studio: http://naturallyamy.artfire.com
My Etsy: naturallyamy
And I Twitter too: http://twitter.com/naturallyamy

What inspired you to begin creating bath and body products?
Being in my 40′s I was in pursuit of soap that would not dry my skin, I have extremely sensitive skin, and I wanted soap that would not leave me reaching for lotion.

I am a curious person and have always been interested in crafting so I went online to learn how to make soap.  My search brought me to The Dish, an online community of over 8,000 bath and body makers. I learned most of my technique there, as well as from reading anything soap related I could get my hands on.

Two years and over 150 batches later, I had found my passion and my recipe.  I wanted soap that I could formulate with the most natural and simplistic of ingredients.

I then lost my husband in 2007 to cancer, and I found myself a widow at age 44. A widow with a 5 year old. So to help bring in money I started selling at local craft fairs, and before I knew what hit me I had retail accounts and wholesale accounts.

Where did you start and how did you learn to make the products you are creating today?
I learned from my online community at the Dish mostly. This is the main website of The Dish, and by reading as much as I could on soap making and I had the benefit of being able to interact each day with some of the most successful and knowledgeable soap makers out there.

What are your favorite scents?
Lavender, Violet, Citruses and I love the scent of “unscented soap” just pure, clean soap.

What are your favorite products to make?
My swirled soap, and herbal infused oils.

What one product should EVERYONE have on hand during the cold, dry winter months?
Shea Butter. I use Fair Trade Abanga Karite butter. I use it in my soap and just straight up on my skin.

What inspires you?
I find my biggest motivation in my son Dante. I was widowed in 2007 when he was 5. I knew I made a great product and I knew I needed to find a means to support him. So I launched Naturally Amy. Nature is a constant motivator for me also. Living in New England, we have seasonal change. Summer to Autumn, Autumn to Winter and Winter to Spring. I draw my inspiration from the changing colors, scents and wildlife that each season brings.

What was your biggest handmade oops?
My first batch of honey soap. Honey is a natural heat accelerent to soap. When my soap was going through the natural saponification process, the added honey increased that heat and caused my soap to volcano out of the mold and across my table. That was a scary moment indeed!

Why are handmade bath and body products better?
I find that the reason my soap is better than anything store bought is because of the superfatting that is done with my soap. Each soap formula has a specific ratio of lye to soaping oils that when combined in exact proportion will create soap. Being a soap maker I can adjust the lye ratio to allow more unsaponified oils and butters to circulate through my soap. This simply means there are more skin loving oils and butters in my soap that are not converted and are available to fully moisturize your skin.

What advice would you give to someone just starting out selling bath and body online?
Know your product and it’s formulation inside and out. Know your ingredients. Learn your target market and make what you love. Never stop learning your craft.

How do you spend time when you are NOT creating?
I spin wool, knit and I read alot.

Do you have a newsletter for potential customers to join? Where can they sign up?
I am launching a newsletter in January of 2009, You can sign up by sending me a request at naturallyamy@gmail.com. I will have all sorts of interesting things in there as well as up and coming product info and specials.

What else should we know about you and your business?
I am an Indie Business, and woman owned. I am very concerned with the Earth that we live on, and everything from my recipes to my final packaging works to support and maintain the ecological balance of our planet.

Thanks Amy!  Stay tuned over the next weeks as I will be profiling more artisan handmade bath and body sellers from ArtFire, including giveaways from the studio owners.

Pricing your handmade art and craft items can be tricky. Are you taking into account ALL the time you spend to bring your items to sale ready condition? Does your time include photo taking and editing? What about the time you spend online marketing your goods? Do your materials include things like oxidation agents, or mold release or your tools? Are you adding extra for PayPal fees and selling venue fees?

Pricing is tough…some say the bane of their handmade existence. Here are a few tools to help. Some are free and some are available for sale

http://chris-parry.blogspot.com/2007/12/free-spreadsheet-for-pricing-your-work.html

http://www.beading-software.com/blog/free-stuff/jewelry-pricing-calculator-software/

http://www.enioken.com/jewelry/pricecalc.html

http://etsy.ppcalc.com/

What others do you recommend?