Cheers!

It's time for a GIVE-AWAY! Yay! The crowd goes wild! I am giving away a pair of 'Shimmer' earrings to thank all my fans, followers and friends, for being so supportive of wing by sea. Seriously if it wasn't for all of you, it would not have been half the fun.

These are the earrings you could win! Sterling silver earwires, with a dangling sterling silver ball, beneath which shimmying strands of sterling silver chain sway. I hope you love them, I think they would be perfect for celebrating in!

How to enter:

Well it's super simple!

All you need to do to enter is visit either of my shops and come back here and let me know your favorite piece of jewellery! I'd love to know what you all love ;)

wing by sea on Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/shop/wingbysea

wing by sea on MadeIt - http://www.madeit.com.au/wingbysea

For a second entry, tweet my giveaway - include @wingbysea in your tweet, and come back here and let me know you did!

The winner will be chosen by a random number generator on Saturday the 25th, entries close at 9pm (Sydney, Australia time!). Please ensure to leave some way to contact you, or check back here Saturday the 25th to see who won!

Thank you and good luck!

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

but wait there's more!

Well after my little foray into washi tape and the adorableness of Little Paper Lane, I thought I'd bring to you today some more washi tape goodness with a V-Day theme. See below for some lovely locally made bunting by Paper Klip Design on Etsy. I also found this gorgeous blog - "i love pretty things" - with a fab interview from the owner of Little Paper Lane! So get over there and have a read, plus you'll get a tempting sneak peek of the storefront with it's ever-changing always eye-catching displays. Obssessed? Who me?



Party bunting by Paper Klip Design

*want!*

Black t-shirt fabric crocheted rug

How absolutely gorgeous, this rug would be perfect for in front of my new fireplace! Check out lots of other stunning up-cycled, re-cycled, custom crocheted rugs by EKRA here.

Giveaway time!

You'll have to be quick, but today there is a great giveaway of a $30 voucher for my Etsy shop! Just visit Calico & Co, a gorgeous blog full of lots of inspiration, created by the lovely Amanda Fuller. I'm helping celebrate their first birthday!
 So whether it's something for yourself, or great timing to choose a present for your mother, sister, cousin or friend, scoot over there right now and enter!

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mmm coffee...

I don't know why I try to fight it. Is it really that bad? Surely just one latte a day won't hurt.

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spring it on!

It's Wednesday! And the first day of Spring, down here in the southern hemisphere anyway. Browsing my favourites for something lovely to share today, these three caught my eye. The soft reddish pink and sky blue colour combination are classic, and perfect for spring. I can see this print being added to my collection, it would be a lovely addition to some of our own beach pool and sea urchin photos. The blue wire magazine rack is just adorable, and would get all my magazines off the dining room table, for a while at least! And as the weather warms up, time for bangles again! Enjoy!

Surf Lounge (4 x 4 print) by pugly pixel

Blue Magazine Rack from Fishbone Deco

 

Turquoise cuff by the shag bag

wishlist wednesday - stamp me happy

Although a passionate jewellery devotee, just about any craft has the ability to turn my head. This sweet collection of handmade stamps - all sourced from Etsy - was inspired by my toddler, we are always looking for new fun things to do together and one of his favourite crafty activities is stamping. While browsing I realised that stamps could be really useful for your crafty biz too! For example the "handle with care" or the yarn and knitting needles. Any of these stamps would be great for making your own gift tags or decorating your packages before popping them in the post. Get stamp happy!

1. Baby Barn Owl - Hand carved rubber stamp by skullandcrossbuns by skullandcrossbuns

2. Yarn and Knitting Needles Hand Carved Rubber Stamp by winemakerssister

3. Matryoshka hand carved rubber stamps - set of 3 by MemiTheRainbow

4. Handle With Care Handcarved Rubber Stamp by kirkus

5. Hector Hedgehog and Baby Eloise Bird Rubber Stamp - Hand Carved by Corrabelle

6. VW Van Stamp - Hand-carved, Mounted by stampified

the yellow party!

Soon it will be time to celebrate the little man turning three years old! The theme this year is yellow - chosen by the birthday boy himself. Everything must be yellow! I browsed Etsy to find a selection of items to inspire me with my party planning and gift shopping. Enjoy!

1. Giggleberry bunting
2. Sweet Estelle cupcake liners
3. Billy Mac t-shirt
4. Paper By Forget Me Not goodie bags
5. Pocket Carnival art print
6. John W Golden art print
7. Paper By Forget Me Not bee notelets

black. say no more.

All Australian, all on Etsy.
From top left, clockwise:

1. Gretchen Mist

2. Aunty Cookie

3. Joie De Tea

4. Inner Earth Soaps

5. Voodoo Rabbit

6. Moonmum

sweet sets

Sometimes I just want a simple little earring, just a cute little drop, preferably in sterling silver so it won't irritate my ears. After a recent custom order of exactly the same sort of thing I got to thinking perhaps I'm not the only one! I also love matching sets - so I had the idea of listing sweet little sets of earrings, I think they are fun, I hope you think so too! The first set is available now in my Etsy shop.

this is me thinking out loud

Now this post is a work in progress. I have had these helpful tips for starting out on Etsy rattling around in my head for a while now, and recently shared them with a couple of people new to selling on Etsy. I called them my Eight Etsy P's, for fairly obvious reasons! To get the ball rolling I thought I'd post them as is for now, and work on polishing them up as I find the time.

Things to consider before starting up a shop on Etsy:

1. Product, haha, of course, but really just 21 items fills a page, and one page is a good starting point. Then you want to aim at adding or relisting an item per day, to start with.
2. Photos - take the time to get these right. Use all five slots if you can, no less than four. Develop a system so shooting new product is relatively easy. Crop your pics to a ratio of 155x125, especially for your first pic. Try to have two or three pics that you can swap around as your 'first pic'. Show the scale of the item. If you can't fill all five slots (and I need to do this myself...) use one slot to show off your packaging.
3. Packaging! Including business cards, how will you say 'thank you' (ie, write it at bottom of packing slip, buy some plain gift tags in bulk and write it on there, etc etc), will you offer 'gift wrap' as all inclusive? What will it be? Don't rely on customers letting you know if it's a gift or not, some will, some won't. Just decide what you will do and go with it.
4. Postage. have this nailed so you know what to be charging when you do your first listing.
5. Profile - fill out the profile page of your shop - something i'm bad at, but people like to know there is a person behind the shop.
6. Policies - Check out what other big busy shops say here, there are a lot of things to consider.
7. Payment - how will people be able to pay you? decide and then stick to your guns. Make it clear in your policies and/or listings what their options are. This way if someone buys your item then wants to send you a jar of pennies you can refer them to your Policies page where you state what their payment options are. If they don't want to pay that way, that's fine, you can cancel the sale if needs be.
8. Promotion - how are you going to promote yourself once you start listing things? there's lots of great ideas out there, but double check them to make sure they are legit! I'm not great at promotion at all, but if I ever get the time there have been so many good threads in the forums to go back and read!

Now I'm not saying I've got these 8 points nailed, when I started I had a list of only 4 P's, the first four. There will always be room for improvement. But I thought they were useful points for consideration as a guide to what you may need to get started on Etsy, or other online selling venues. I'm also missing some important points too I think - SEO (search engine optimization) being one of them! Anyway I hope this develops into a useful set of tips for anyone new to Etsy or considering starting an Etsy shop!

stretchy!

I was admiring some of my semi-precious beads recently and was inspired to do something simple, with silver accents, to feature the lovely colours and finishes. I have also been thinking a great deal about bracelet fastenings, there never seems to be one easy and popular solution to the difficulty of putting on your own bracelet. This lovely bundle of stretchy bracelets were the result of my meanderings. There's something quite lovely about holding a handful of gorgeous stones!

my first giveaway!

Well this is a bit exciting, I'm having my first giveaway! It is being hosted on the Team Bacon! blog, "Six Degrees of Etsy Bacon". Team Bacon! is one of the newest teams on Etsy, a quirky crafty creative and talented mob united by their love of Bacon! There are all sorts of interesting features on the blog, so after entering to win a pair of my Atlantis earrings, have a poke around - apart from some awesome recipes and great market sellers tips, there's an interview with Rob White from the Etsy Admin team!

Happy Easter!

I love receiving packages from Helena of Little Mo and Friends! I wanted to share this little bit of bunny goodness with you and wish everyone a Happy Easter! (And don't forget to go check out Helena's little shop on Etsy!)

And this is what I bought - a beautiful postcard to brighten someone's day!

weird light

Check out what the light was doing yesterday afternoon when I was taking shots of some new earrings. It was getting late in the afternoon and the sun was creeping over the piece of timber I use for my background, and it was giving foggy effects to the shots. Really weird! But kind of pretty I thought?

 

a taste of things to come

This little pouch idea has been rattling around in my head for months! This afternoon, when that listless late afternoon feeling started to take hold, I sat down and wrote a list of things I wanted to get done. And voila, it finally got done. This won't be the final colour way, because this test run was knocked up out of scraps. That is still to be finalised. What do you think?

wishlist wednesday - i love a rainy day!

I love a grey and rainswept day! It was all blustery blues and drops here and there. The beach is beautiful on days like today, with the sand like the seats in an enormous theatre and the sea and sky the play. My wishlist wednesday picks are all about celebrating the relief that a cool change brings!

Bamboo Satin Scarf by Rainbow Revolution

New Year Blue Speckled Mouse by benconservato

Rainy Day gift cards by Red Letter Studio

Ocean and Sky Graphite Pencils by Miss Isa

wishlist wednesday - shoes!

I'm in the mood for shoe shopping! I've been noticing some lovely flats on Etsy lately - my favourite stype of shoe, closely followed by winter boots - and thought I'd collect them here for your viewing pleasure.

I'll start with these sweet Ballerina Flats by The Generation . They look so comfortable, and I love the edge detailing.



The next pair are something of a work of art, I noticed these ages ago, they are such a fantastic design. Technically not a flat, but flat enough for me. Here we have the Low Cherry Wedge by Mohops.

Last selection for today - a stunning pair of Flats by Smartfish. I want a pair in every colour. I love the detailing of the innersole, the combination of cork and blue bamboo fabric.

don't forget...

What do you forget? Do you write yourself little notes? I love post it notes, I'm forever opening my handbag to find a little flurry of them with all sorts of things written on them. This week I wanted to remember to make a pair of earrings I thought up while I was at work one day. This is my terrible little sketch...


... which resulted in these earrings. As soon as I drew it I knew it was wrong, but that was okay because as long as I had the note I knew what to do. I'm calling them Comet.

wishlist wednesday

I noticed these colours crop up recently in my favourites - a lovely grassy green and amber orange tones, and I think there is something so appealing about them! They seem optimistic, but with a sense of humour. More jewellery loveliness for my wishlist today, yes I am addicted thank you very much. Chelsea Hotel earrings by Leaves of Glass, Facet resin bangle in Amber by Milkwood Design, and a cute collection of vintage lucite clip ons from Mean Old Bags.