No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on March 11, 2020

I take a pause between projects to allow my brain to reset and start thinking about the next one.

I have three puppets I want to get done before April along with some furppets for Heliosphere. 

I also have some writing I need to get done. 

This along with Website stuff and social media things that will allow me to sell puppets and make some money.

The hard thing is staying on task when doing the social media stuff. There is so many interesting rabbit holes to fall down along with some really scary ones.

I am breaking down what I want to do and figuring out the time I need for each with a little padding for something taking longer than I thought. I underestimated the amount of time I needed for the last project by about a day. Forgot to allow for glue to dry fully and how long it would take me to build a prop. It is good information for the next time I do something like this.

I am grateful for the puppet community especially when they are being helpful.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 10, 2020

t can be difficult to get your product in front of the right eyes. 

There are a lot of online courses about how to get your art in front of an audience and how to use social media to boost your ‘brand’.

Then there are the almost hostage like gambits to make one spend money to make money which is can be a bit of a fallacy to totally useless.

One of these was launched on Etsy which has gone from handmade to manufactured in many cases and the ‘vintage’ label was a dubious one at best. They have a new offsite advertising program that is not optional for the shops of Etsy. “When a shopper clicks on one of those online ads for your products and purchases from your shop within 30 days, you’ll pay an advertising fee,” wrote Etsy. “You only pay an advertising fee when you make a sale — eliminating the risk you could pay for ads that don’t work for you.”

Why is this a bad thing? Seems great for more traffic headed for one’s products. Until you read the fine print where it starts to look like a serious cash grab off one’s sale.

“When this service launches, you will automatically be enrolled and you’ll see exactly how many sales you are getting from Off-site Ads on your dashboard. You will be charged later in April, but if you don’t want this additional traffic to your shop you can turn off Offisite ads at that time.”

You have to opt out rather than opt in.

What does this mean in terms of money? Well according to Etsy…

The offsite advertising fee depends on the revenue you’ve made on Etsy in the past 365 days:

• If you made less than $10,000 USD, you’ll be charged a 15% fee for an order attributed to an Offsite Ad on the the amount you made from your sale before the advertising fee was applied.
• If you made at least $10,000 USD, you’ll get a discounted fee of 12%. 

The offsite advertising fee for an order will never exceed $100 USD, regardless of the order total for an order attributed to an Offsite Ad.

If you’re a seller with a shop currency other than USD, your revenue total is calculated from your order amounts converted to USD with the currency exchange rates Etsy used at the time that the sale was processed.

We’ll take a look at your sales each month to determine your rate.

Esty is making another revenue stream on the backs of its site participants. 

I understand charging a fee for listing things on the site. That seems reasonable and under my control as to how I am going to spend my dollars.

This new ad policy rubs me the wrong way for so many reasons. First being that I have to find the button on the site to keep them from charging me an ad fee for something I may have done on my own.

Esty shop owners know they have to promote their shops to get sales. They spend money on various advertising means to get their site out there. But it is their choice to do so.

Esty is becoming another Amazon or Ebay and that is killing the idea that it was started out with.

So what is a crafter to do?

Well I started my own website www.nostringsattachedpuppets.com to sell my work. I know I have to rely on myself to get the word out about it and direct traffic to it.

That doesn’t work for everyone who do better in a group setting or a conglomerate. 

Well currently that would be Zibbet and Artfire being the best of the many sites. Indiemade is another one to look at.

Spotify is more of a shop on your own with fees spelled out.

Amazon has Amazon handmade which is more expensive than Etsy but it is Amazon so more eyes one would assume.

It is a tricky time to get your production in front of the audience that will buy from you. What works for one shop might not work for another.

I am still working on how to get my work in front of people who will buy my puppets. I do feel better about it than I did last year but I also know I have a lot of learn.

I am grateful for the sales I made so far.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 9, 2020

This morning I got up with Caroline, fed her breakfast, packed her lunch and sent her to school with a note so she doesn’t have to talk much.

I finished the mystery project and sent the photos off.

I tried to get some other stuff done but my brain was so tired, my hands were shaking, and my vision was off. 

I went up to bed and fell asleep quickly. I figured it would be another hour before I got up but I woke up about Noon and it took a bit to get myself back to normal.

I picked up my list and started going through what needs to be done next.

The larder is now stocked for the week and errands were run.

Later it will be cat boxes, hand washing, and fixing dinner.

I had to go down the aisle where there are usual Clorox wipes and the like, but the shelves were empty. They were restocking toilet paper and people were grabbing it up like it was going out of style. I did get toilet paper but it was on my list because we were almost out. People are acting rather paranoid if anyone sneezes or coughs. A number of people were wearing latex gloves while shopping. It seems extreme but then we hear about how this is spreading and it make you second guess yourself ever second of the day when out in public. 

I am grateful that my mother taught me the importance of hand washing to fight the common cold.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 8, 2020

This morning I woke up at 8 which yesterday was 7 because Daylight Savings Time is in effect again. 

It is known that I do not like DST and have never liked it. My body always feels out of balance and doesn’t really go back until we go back to standard time.

I got my secret project done and sent the proofs off. I am waiting for feedback and then I will do a final shoot on it. In between I have to fix something that the cats managed to smash overnight somehow. It was my own fault for not putting it away before I went to bed. I am quite proud of this.

The rest of the day is going to be cleaning and writing. Then onto two more puppets that I want to get done before the end of March with a possible third if I have the time.

Caroline is feeling better. Her voice has partially returned so she is staying silent for the most part allowing it time to rest. Her color is better too so the antibiotics must be doing their job. 

I have a weird idea that I may have to execute before Heliosphere. Still debating. I do need to find my bowler hat.

I am grateful for simplification.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 7, 2020

This will be a short- lived adjustment but Caroline is on vocal rest, so she is talking as little as possible. I have given her a white board and she can text me however we are communicating a lot the way we did before she learned to talk. It was an unwritten language that Caroline used to talk to me. I didn’t realize how little she was talking until it was pointed out by my mother because we were communicating without words. 

I remember years ago seeing a t-shirt at a convention that said, “Life is what happens when you have plans” and that is true. Adjusting to what life tosses at you is part of being an adult. We start to learn that as children, and we have our parents to cushion some of it until we can handle it better. As an adult one adjusts and tries to move forward. That phrase has almost become my mantra.

There are times that we have to adjust to things that we don’t want and it really doesn’t seem fair. I have adjusted to health issues both mine and the family’s. None of us want any of these but we have to deal with them as they come. Getting older can be a maze.

I adjust when materials I have been using for years in my artwork are no longer being made or are ‘improved’. There are some that I miss a lot and others I have found better materials which have made my life easier. Polar fleece is one of those things that have improved my ability to create puppets. Glues are my biggest problem. I use foam for the skulls and structure and put those together with glue. There were a couple I had down to the second of knowing when it would tack up and I could put things together and know they would stick. The new and improved version has a learning curve and even with that it does not stick the way the previous version. 

I am adjusting to the idea that Caroline will be off to college in a little over a year and she will be an adult in the eyes of the law. I had to adjust to her going to school when she was little. There were adjustments as she moved from elementary to middle to high school. 

I am grateful for ironing boards.

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