Originally uploaded by 李妻四 | 貴乓

I really enjoy this image of pandas and coffee.

I set up an ArtFire account, you can see the large banner on my side bar. The link on that banner goes to my shop, where I've got everything 10% off for the month to celebrate my shop opening.

ArtFire is still in beta, I'm an early adopter though not too early. I was a fairly early adopter of Etsy too, that was still in beta when I started there as well.  Like the other there are a few quirks that will get ironed out as time goes on, but so far I like it.

I don't plan on giving up my etsy shop, I've got 200+ sales there and usually do well with it. The fees on etsy are still by far cheaper than they are on eBay and I like the no auction format. It's steady. It's safe.

ArtFire is as of yet untested waters I've made 4 sales there so far. Which isnt' bad for a week or so of being there, but when I started on etsy I had an inital boom of sales then things tapered off.

What I like about ArtFire is their democratic RANDOM ordering of items on the front page you can see the most recent items, the oldest items or random items. Which is really cool. But it can be chaotic and less attractive than perhaps possible. The search function WORKS, and works well. Also the items show up in google. ROCK ON!

It's takes me less than 5 minutes to list an item on ArtFire, multi loading pics goes fast on my cable internet. The one trouble I've run into is that I have to write all new descriptions of my product. they use Google base so that the items show up in Google and some weird words are blocked from the descriptions. I had to read the forums to learn more about it, but really I need to learn to work with it. The ability to show up in google's search listing is something I've relied on my blog and facebook for in the past. So to have my work show up automatically, can in theory, really drive views and sales.

The shops can be greatly customized to really personalize it. I've seen some really great looking shops.

I'm debating a paid account. If I buy one soon I'll be locked in at their introductory rate of $12. Which would be great. But to equal the percentage of fees that I get with etsy I'd have to sell a minimum of $200 in product a month. (A rough estimate gave me a fee % of 6% for etsy- factoring in listing fee and 3.5% final value fee.) For my lower priced items thats 20 to 25 sales a month. Lately my sales have been much lower.

Another great thing is that you can use google cart for check out too. Which really can open the shop up for a whole new set of shoppers. Also because you can ad HTML you can ad widgits, which means you can put your etsy site on artfire. That seems very much in the spirit of DIY but rather counter intuitive for a business. But then crafty handmade stuff has never made sense from a standard business model…

I'm not totally head over heals in love yet, but so far I'm liking what I see and love the ease of use and searchability of the site.

Stack of hedgehogs
Originally uploaded by lessherger

I had some leather covers left in the basement, actually I have a ton of them, so I stitched up some book blocks and made some hedgehogs. Great paper, thick writing paper in a variety of styles, mostly cream colored though. Sturdy leather covers, roomy pockets in teh back, satin place markers and a snug elastic to hold it all shut. You can find them on my artfire account and my etsy account

All items in my artfire account at 10% for the month of June, celebrating the opening of my new shop there.

Watecolor box holder
Originally uploaded by free[k]hand

I've blogged about free{k}hand's work before. You can read more about his on his blog here, also you can see the image of his itty bitty watercolor box here

100% recycled Upcycled Notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger

Just slightly different from the other covers.

100% recycled Upcycled Notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger

Love that retro computer paper, love it! It scream 1984 to me like nothing else!

100% recycled Upcycled Notebooks
Originally uploaded by lessherger

Aw yeah new stuff, different from my usual stuff, limited edition, check it out!
cardboard that fold up into display boxes about 5×5 inches. He thought I might like to play with them to see what I could get out of them for books. I only have 5 of the forms. I was able to chop them up to get 1 books each form (3 sides each books). I used the remaining side to reinforce the back cover.

I used some scraps left over from cutting my jotters to size to make the interior. It’s the retro computer paper.

Okay for those of your reading this who are also on twitter, follow me, then the first 5 people to DM me their address and name I'll mail them a free jotter notebook. WOOT! Fun right? Thing is you need to follow me on twitter to do it!

Okay I've written ever so briefly about this before but I'm on it again. Sara of GIRLSCANTELL website and etsy shop and I are collaborating on some some pocket sized journals. Yeah, if I say so myself AWESOME!

Sara creates these fantastic designs based on diagrams. Essentially she draws something then diagrams it. They are super cool and fantastic. I'm not alone in my love of anatomic diagrams, as she has one of the human heart and it's superb.

What we did was exchange some items- and I've snet her some uncut untrimmed cover material. She then printed on them with a variety of silkscreens and in a variety of colors and mailed them back to me.

Sometimes in the next few weeks I'll pair the covers with fantastic papers and stitch them into great jotters. Pricing will be determined later and we'll both have them up in our etsy shops.

I love collaborations like this. I love to see what other people do with my jotters. I know that they are great bases for expression as many of mine have doodles and decorations on the covers. It's just great seeing what someone else does with the same materials.

some pictures below:

The opened envelope!

brains! This will make 2 small jotters!

Vintage typewriter goodness!

littlecrab
Originally uploaded by inkmutt

great drawing of a crab by inkmutt on flickr. love the colors and how the sand is rendered.