Wordless Wednesday: Duck!

After half a mile, you're probably safe!

Wordless Wednesday: The joy of weeds and wild flowers

I know the gardeners won't be pleased with me celebrating weeds and wild flowers, 

but the colours here are beautiful!

Wordless Wednesday: Roots

These fallen trees in a very old wood we visited are amazing.  The root systems are as tall as a man in diameter.  And the trees are still alive.  Nature is so resilient.

Wordless Wednesday: My summer project to improve my wire wrapping skills

What do you think?  Early days yet!

Handmade and the high street 2: Summer flowers and maxi dresses

The current vogue for maxi dresses and flower patterns has me drooling.  Soon it might even be warm enough to wear them!  Here's a selection of high street and handmade items to prove once again that the two go really well together.




I was spoilt for choice searching floral maxi dresses online, but this one from John Lewis with its really dramatic neckline and muted colours really took my eye.  Love the butterflies too.











This Paul Smith handbag from House of Fraser would be perfect with the dress (floral prints together are so cool!)  I think the bag is currently sold out but clicking on the image will take you to a selection of Paul Smith bags including similar floral ones.










You need a lovely pair of sandals to go with these, so to carry on the floral theme, here are some gorgeous ones from Roberto Vianni at Debenhams:

Don't they have a great gladiator feel about them too?  I still have a pair of beloved gladiators from Office, which must be about five years old now.  I think they've lasted so well because I can't walk outdoors in them so they have, ironically, lived in a drawer in my office!!


Here comes the handmade bit, and a shameless plug for my handmade jewellery this time.  Mookaite (or moukite or mookite) must be my favourite gemstone at the moment and it's been a big seller for me.  The contrasting deep reds and mustard yellows are the reason behind that, I think - you wouldn't think they'd go together, but they do.  Here's my take on this summer's trend - a long tassle necklace dangling from a central flower charm, matching earrings and a bag charm for that lovely handbag.  Simples, as the meerkats say :-)

Hope you've enjoyed this taste of handmade and the high street again.  Many thanks to John Lewis, House of Fraser and Debenhams for permission to reproduce their product images.  Do let me know what your favourite item is.

Spam getting so silly

Is it me, or are hoax emails getting very silly these days? I'm sure that people trying to get your personal and bank account details used to be much more sophisticated in their methods. Or perhaps it's just the folk spamming me who don't put a lot of effort in! Someone's told them I can be daft sometimes and they've really taken that message to heart. Well, I may be a little crazy most of the time, but not gullible enough to fall for most of these scams.

So just for the record, scammers please note the following.

I have no bank accounts in any other country, so I'm not going to respond to anything in French, German or any other language warning me that my account is about to be closed unless I reactivate it by clicking the link.
Nor am I interested in posing as a beneficiary of anyone I don't know who has died without making a will or leaving any family. You may well be right, for all I know, in stating that this is legal in the Netherlands, but I'm pretty sure it counts as fraud in the UK and prison food holds no attraction for me.

Being a lifelong liberal, the prospect of helping the Gadaffi family protect their assets in the UK, even for the substantial portion of the spoils that was offered, is just offensive to me. Similarly, the problems the super-rich encounter moving money around the world leave me cold and I'd rather help them pay more tax than launder their assets, thanks.

And finally, I know the world is becoming more informal all the time - heck, I spend as much time on Facebook as the next crafty woman - but if you're asking for my bank account details but only tell me your first name, then, call me old-fashioned, but I'm going to be quite suspicious right from the start. And if you really are the CEO of a major international bank, you should really get someone to run your emails through a spell check before they are sent. There is no 'j' in 'urgently'.

Do keep sending the messages, though. Some of them are really quite funny. I like a good LOL!

Good and bad for online sales

As my regular blog followers know, I think there's a lot of luck involved in successful online selling (see this blog post on luck if you missed it). However, looking at my stats now another financial year has ended, there seem to be some patterns in my sales and some things that I can't back up with hard evidence, but are serious 'hunches' and I wondered how many of you agree that these are good or bad for sales and views? Here goes, and remember each one is just my opinion or gut feeling.

A great eternal truth of shopping:owls a

re really popular

The recent sunny weather prompted these thoughts and my first proposition:

Sunny weather is bad for online selling. People are outside instead of in browsing the Internet. So bad weather is much better for views and sales.

Winter, autumn and spring are better than summer for sales and views. Even if it's a bad summer in the UK, there's still less Internet activity. This applies to Etsy too, even though it's a global marketplace.

August is the worst month, October is the best. It's either very organised Christmas shoppers who are attracted to my shops, or the change to autumn sends more people to online buying.

Weekdays are better than weekends for both views and sales. The exception is late Saturday night when some folks clearly go back to things they spotted online earlier, and being at the most relaxed and happy point of the week, decide they will, after all, treat themselves.

Evenings are better than daytimes - certainly for views.  But sales can happen at any time of the day or night.

Sales (as in discounts) and promotions are counter productive for smaller sellers without high numbers of returning/repeat customers. If your customers mostly find you online through searches (rather than being sellers on Folksy or Etsy themselves), then they are probably browsing your shop for the first time. That means they never knew what your non-sale prices were, and they probably don't care much if you've got 20% off today. In fact, if they like your product and it fits their needs, they may well have been prepared to pay the original price for it. 

Returning customers are different but if they think you might be having a sale, they may decide to wait for it, and in the meantime get distracted and buy elsewhere.  Better to offer your returning customers a discount for future purchases, then they may be attracted to buy whenever they see something they like, knowing they are making a saving.

And lastly, and most controversially...

Like marmite - love it or not, instant reaction

Hard selling and persuasion don't work.  At least, not for me with jewellery. Jewellery's not like double glazing - you don't need to be talked into the merits of getting it, you either like it enough to buy it, or you don't. 

Good pictures and descriptions help to reinforce that gut reaction you get when you see something you really like.  But they don't actually sell items. 'Wanting' and 'needing' feelings control whether people buy things, even so-called impulse buys, and you as a seller can't really influence much whether your potential buyer has those feelings.  Sure, you can tempt them.  So the main thing is to make sure those potential buyers can see your products... and that means focusing on listing and SEO. 

What do you think - agree or disagree?