Mother's day sale. . .

I can't believe April is almost over already. 😮

I am glad it's finally spring like outside. 😎

Mother's day is right around the corner. 😇

There's a sale in my Etsy shop. 😉

15% off orders over $15

Plus Free Shipping over $60

Happy Shopping!!

what's up with THAT ??!??!

Ok so life's weirdness is getting to me in many ways.  I should start with I sprained my finger last week and it's still swollen and sore and slowing me down in the getting things done.  😢  It's mid April and they are talking "winter weather advisory" and blizzards, seriously WTF!?!?  Pinterest has changed format stuff, I looked at mine this morning and was like Whoa!?!  My Etsy shop stats have totally tanked this week, many many hours of absolute flat-line. 😕

I'll start with the thing that's actually making me smile, Pinterest, I went to check mine this morning and they have this cool new thing they are doing in the "header" space with my pinned photos.  I really like it, I think it looks cool as hell. 😊 Check it out !! 

This continuing winter weather is so not helpful. 😒  It's not just that I am sick of it, I actually need some good sunshiny days to get photos.  ~sigh~  I have new art I want to list but I can't until I can get decent photos.  I have enough trouble getting good photos without the grey rainy day background. 😖

Now for the most annoying thing and sadly no it's not the pain in my finger. 😡  This morning I decided to do something that is/has been recommended to/by other sellers, which is to just search your tags and see where you place and if you aren't placing well look at the listings that are and see what they are doing better/different than you.  So I tried it and of course I am nowhere but I did see several other shops I know and I clicked on a few of their listings from the front page to compare keywords. I did not click on PL ads I clicked on naturally placed listings from the front page and what I found was shocking to me and the exact opposite of what has always been recommended.  Even etsy's own articles on SEO and esty search placement say to use the whole title, use all 13 tag slots, make your title and tags match for max relevency, etc. Well instead I found front page items with only a handful of tags and short ass 4-5 word titles. 😕  I am super confused now, WTF?!?!   These are not new shops getting the new boost in spite of bad SEO, some of these are long standing successful shops, 1 of which I know used to have longer titles and use all their tags. 😩  So I guess I need to try another round of editing and see if this less SEO stuff works. 

OMG!?!?! I did it. . .

OMG!?  I agonized for weeks about whether or not to list my paintings for sale in my Etsy shop.  I mean I had a raging mental debate, I talked to my Momma, my husband, and my best friend about my fear of failure and rejection, the whole is it even good enough to sell, what if nobody ever buys them.  Do they look amateurish?  How do you price "Art"?  You know the whole world of insecurities that lives inside my head. 😑  

Well I did it I Jumped off that cliff last month.  I started with the spacescapes and battled my poor photography skills.  😕 After posting the first handful I asked in the forums for advice on listings art, I meant what to include in descriptions and keywords but all I got was pages full of you need better photos. 😡  That was sad and frustrating and in the end it just annoyed me into saying "screw it" I'm gonna do it my way anyway. 😜  

Yesterday I was vindicated!!  

I have sold my first painting!! 😮😁😇

I am shocked, surprised, humbled, blown away, thrilled beyond belief, over the moon happy.  I have sold many things I've made over the years, many things but I have never felt quite this proud.  It's really hard to explain but somehow selling that painting feels more personal than any of the wire art or jewelry or anything else.  

So I guess it's official. . . I am an artist. 😉

Trying something different. . .

I like trying new and different things some times, I mean I took up painting just for the fun of it. LOL  😃  I've been thinking about a few ideas for a while now, just crazy-ish things I wanted to try. 

I have a couple of "damaged" canvases, one was damaged in the package and one the cat knocked off the shelf and put a hole in. 😏 I didn't really want to just throw them away so I started thinking of ways to repair the tear/damage, obviously canvas is cloth so sewing. 😊  Hey I can sew, I can cross-stitch, I can embroider.  The more I thought about it the better the idea sounded (in my head) I contemplated what to do and how to best go about it for weeks. 

I decided on a flower meadow, so I started with a base layer of paint for the blue sky and green grass. I had to be careful not to make the tear in the corner worse and you can see the "dent" where it is when it was a plain canvas. I layered the painting, letting the first layer dry a bit before adding the next.

It's a bit hard to see in the photos but I'm actually super proud of the texture of my tree trunk.  Also nearly impossible to capture (at least with my lack of photography skills) there is sparkly glitter in those clouds. 😉

The leafing went fairly well, although the tree came out better than the bush, the bush kind of looks like a blob at this point. 😖

I used the flower to cover the tear and the attaching of the flower to stitch the hole up. 😁 It totally worked the tear is repaired and with the puffiness of the flowers you can't even see the dip/dent. I thought the flowers were a bit over-sized at first, but let's face it scale is not my forte`.  LOL  

I used some "holly" berries from some leftovers of Christmas wreath decorations and made it an "apple" tree. 😇  I think it's awesome it adds great texture and color. The rest of this is me mentally debating how much is enough and how much is too much.

I had to do something about that bush and the ribbon embroidery of leaves really seemed to do the trick, definition and texture at the same time and with 2 colors of leaves I think it really helped.  I also did a second vine of flowers along the hilltop to try to define the hills some so it didn't look so flat. 

My husband convinced me that the tree needed some leaves too. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm done with it or not, the tree may get some more fluffing, I'm also considering more flowers or maybe so "rain".  Not sure but it was late last night when I took the final photo so the lighting is bad, but you get the idea. 😛