Friday, February 22, 2013

Treasure Treasuries

Do you wonder why I push treasury making so much? Treasuries give you exposure in many ways:

1. To Etsy sellers. Many Etsy sellers are also Etsy buyers because they want to support other Etsy sellers.

2. To Etsy buyers. Treasuries that Etsy admin likes are put on the front page--a new one every hour--so when people go to etsy.com your item may be the first thing they see! I have had 3 items in front-page treasuries. My views were very high those days. I think I even got one sale from them. (You can see if you have been on the front page by entering your username under "search for member" here: www.craftcult.com/vault.php)

People can also search for treasuries as collections for one-stop buying. For example, they can search for a woodland wedding treasury to find an already put-together collection of great items they may like for their wedding. It beats browsing through hundreds or thousands of items that result from a regular Etsy search!

3. To other sites. People post treasuries on their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, Pinterest boards, and blogs. That's a lot of potential customers being exposed to your shop!

Thanks, everyone, for making this month the best in team treasuries! Keep it up!

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Featured Seller: Linda from D.A. Decor

This week's featured seller is Linda from D.A. Decor: Best Vintage Arts and Crafts Shop.


In my childhood I was a bookworm and I stayed home playing hooky a large part of my elementary school years so I could read books. My love for literature influenced my decision to major in English, and I have especially always loved old books because my dad was an elementary school teacher who never threw a book away, including his mother's old books. This passion for old books has influenced me a lot in my Etsy business. I decided to start selling old vintage prints when I saw them being sold on Ebay. You have to be skilled at ripping apart old books, which sometimes can be frustrating when they are tightly bound.


I learned how to make paper fan flowers when I was asked to help my niece, Rachel, fold paper fan flowers for her wedding. My husband, Matt, and my three kids sat for about two hours and folded a lot of them. Rachel then used them as a beautiful backdrop for her wedding. I realized they would be a lot more beautiful with flowers, and so I experimented attaching mulberry and silk flowers to them. For Christmas, my daughter wanted me to make Christmas fan flowers, and so I made a lot of them with old Christmas storybook illustrations. I used faux vintage buttons with a lot of bling on them, and I attached each one with ribbons. They turned out beautiful!


I started my shop on Etsy because some health problems I encountered made me quit my other job as a substitute teacher. It's been a blessing to develop my talents. The gospel has influenced my work on Etsy because I use vintage Christian art prints a lot. I especially love the vintage pictures of Christ that I sell. I feel like there are so many forces out there in the world influencing people to not believe in Christ. I hope that by selling these vintage prints I may some day help bring a customer closer to Christ. Plus, a lot of my illustrations of vintage hymns by Masha and others are of popular gospel themes. My favorite Masha print has "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" written on the top in gold and a sunbeam hitting a beautiful blond boy. I loved it so much when I got the book I didn't list it. Instead, I gave it to my sister, Diane, who taught me the gospel and shared with me her love of Jesus when I was young.

Check out D.A. Decor for more vintage book illustrations and flowers!