Market weekend. . .

 

The time has finally arrived, I am back to doing events. 😎

I am pretty sure I'm crazy for scheduling Saturday & Sunday of the same weekend, at least the Sunday event doesn't start as early as the Saturday version.  I have been planning for this for a month so I am fairly certain that I have thought through all the things I might need. Honestly, I'm probably overpacking and overthinking the whole thing but I should be prepared.  😇  

It took some Tetris but I got it all in there, canopy, racks, shelves tables, table covers, tote of supplies, tote of trees, tote of rings and tools, jewelry and displays, sandbags, crate of art, chair, etc.

Stop the Spam !!

 

In the last week I have had a resurgence of spammy comments on my instagram posts, literally seconds after I post I get this. . .

I find these really annoying because they are from profiles with literally no posts, no followers of their own, just spammily directing to some other profile that charges $$ to re-post and promote your stuff. 

I am all for people's freedom and whatever but in my opinion these are actually a TOS violation and I am reporting them as the spam they are.  I get it, some people have come up with a business model to make money off of other people's work and desperation. . . ok but find another sucker.   😐  I find it really rude when I get a whole wall of spammy crap comments and the assholes don't even bother to actually like the content they are too busy trying to make a buck off of me.  

I will continue to report everyone of these and if instagram doesn't act fast enough I block the accounts and delete the comments.  I do not pay for these types of promotions and never will, even if I thought it was a legit thing.  I hate paying for ads of any kind.  Many of these accounts to "promote" art/artists will post anything, literally they don't care there are no standards at all.  Some of them have a bunch of weird random stuff, gross/disturbing not my kind of art is not even the bad part, that would be the obviously crazy magical hair growth and infringement and basic snake-oil salesmen tactics. 😒  

It just makes me feel slimey and in need of a shower. 

Summer fun. . .

Ok so this is not really about summer and the fun part was kind of sarcastic. 😏  I am multiple days into working on the facebook pixel connection and setting up the facebook "shop" but in spite of following directions and doing everything right I am having doubts about it working right.  😕  I have always had the shopping template, I previously had the "shop" tab that showed to me and wanted to be set up.  However, since I created the pixel and put it in goimagine things have started changing, not at all surprising really but some of the changes like my shop tab disappearing were not what I expected. 😟 Last week before I started trying to set it up, the shop was clearly visible.

I had prompts and instructions, then I started setting things up and found it to be many steps with many built in delays

waiting for pixel. . .

waiting for updates. . .
waiting for I don't know what. . . now waiting for facebook to crawl all my items I guess

I thought I was doing it right, I thought it was going well yesterday. Then today I go to do the next step and find more delays and more waiting on ? the stars to align. 😅  And noticed that my shop tab is gone, which seemed strange since I was actually in the middle of setting it up, finally. 

After some clicking around in the commerce manager I found a shop setting and prompts to finish. It only shows 3 of the 43 products (so far) but they were all necklaces so I did the suggested "create a collection" thing.

I found a pixel setting that I think should help and speed things along, hopefully, when I found it was off so I turned it on.  Now I'll have to go back to the waiting and see what happens. 😉

Coming Soon. . .

 to a Farmer's market near home   😄

also to a facebook page for all to see  😁

RainbowMaille back in business. . . I have activated and re-created lots of listings on both etsy and goimagine.com I'm not finished yet there are more to come. 😉

I have also been setting up for facebook pixel to sync the facebook page to my goimagine catalog, creating a "shop" on the facebook page that will direct to goimagine for checkout, so that goimagine gets the transaction fees for charity. 😇  It's not complete yet I am waiting on facebook but once it's done I think it will be pretty cool.

My preparation and booth planning is almost done, which is good since markets start in less than 2 weeks. 

Re-Opening plan. . .

I guess this post is technically late as my re-opening plans are already well under way.  😅

• I have been fully vaccinated
• I have scheduled events
• I have edited listings
• I have begun re-activating listings
• I have lots of stuff ready for booth set ups

So I am on-track if not a bit ahead for once.  😁  I plan to finish up a few new wire trees and re-stock some barrettes, but I think the hardest part will be selecting which paintings to take.

It's Official. . .

It is official, I have been accepted and selected to vend at the Russiaville Farmer's Market this summer. ~yay~ 😁 🙌

I am excited about this, but there is a lot to figure out beforehand.  I have an easy up shade but it doesn't have walls and normally we'd rope and stake to the ground but as this is in a paved lot. . .😕 now I need weights of some kind for each leg, 25lbs minimum.  There are a lot of possibilities for weighing down the pop-up but whatever I use also needs to be small, compact, and easy to carry so I can fit it in the car with the rest of the stuff and load/unload myself.  

I am now sure that I will not be taking all the art, as 4 crates takes up too much space in my car and with no wall or rack there is no "up" display space. 😌  I really want to take my corner rack but I don't think it fits in my car, I suppose I could use the husband's truck but I hate driving it.  I am also concerned about booth layout and space, I think both of my tables are too big. I need one to be smaller than the other if I want to make and L shape that still fits inside my tent.  

The good news is since this is a monthly market I have several opportunities to change things around and find what works best.  😎

Planning to get back to work. . .

Ok, so the simple truth is I never really stopped "working" on my business, as a small business owner you never really stop. 😏  

In the months I've been closed I have R&D'd and tested new ideas, new chain patterns, gotten new marketing materials, worked on my social accounts in preparation for launching bigger and better, built my insta-following, researched and chosen markets and events for when I'm fully vaccinated.  

Speaking of which, only a couple more weeks until my second shot and a couple of weeks after that and I'll be out doing events!!! 😁  Excited but nervous, trying to make sure I have everything ready for the booths, also trying to decide what all to display at each event. I have too much stuff to properly display it all in a 10'x10' booth especially outside, so I am I planning on taking a limited selection of paintings, and focusing the display more on the jewelry and wire trees.  At least that is the current plan, these are recurring markets so if at/after the first time there is interest/demand for art I can change up what I take.  I can also allow studio appointments if people want to come see all the art and shop that way. 😇