Some Myths about Amish Built Furniture

Let me start out by saying that there are many fine Amish craftsmen building furniture. Some are actually building their furniture pieces without the use of power tools, but some are using the same tools that I am. The main difference between our building process is the power source. My power tools all plug into the wall socket and run off of electricity. Amish power is a little different since they don't believe in the use of electricity. Many Amish shops, at least the ones in my area, have a diesel engine to power their machines. This process is similar to the water wheel systems of days gone bye. A belt and pulley system is powered by the diesel engine to create the power needed to operate a machine. Their table saw will run off of this belt system the same as mine does off of electricity, the only difference is where the machine gets it's power from.
As a woodworker and furniture builder, I do get a little offended when I hear the term " Amish built furniture." A craftsman is a craftsman, no matter what his color or creed. People misinterpret the term "Amish built" to mean that it's better built, and it is better built than some, but not all. Quality built furniture comes from many different places, not just the Amish.

At Last.....It Works

We have an all-in -one printer. It prints and is supposed to scan. Back around Thanksgiving, the scan program stopped working. My computer told me that it couldn't communicate with the scanner. I was a little confused by this since the printer worked fine yet. Since there is only one cable that connects the printer to the computer, how could it communicate on one operation and not the other. O.K. we will get a new cable, that should fix things. Wrong! Now that we've been without our scanner for about 2 months it up and decides to work. Just like that, right out of the blue it works. Beats me what was wrong but as long as it is going to work, we'll be glad to use it. I guess these electronic things made by man are a little human after all. Our scanner was on winter vacation!!!! Another human trait this scanner seems to have, GOOD HELP is HARD TO FIND!!!

New ways to Advertise my ETSY shop

This week I discovered 2 new ways to advertise my ETSY shop. ESellerads.com takes your etsy- mini and explodes it to include all of your listings in a slide show type format. You can then link this to your blog or other locations used for promotion. The best part about ESellerads is it's FREE. My other discovery was Project Wonderful. On Project Wonderful you choose a location for your ad and bid on this spot, so much a day. Some of these ads are only pennies a day on sites that get hundred's of views a day. Project Wonderful has a system of graphs so you can keep track of what is going on with your ad. You can place as many ads as you want, on as many sites as you want, just bid and pay. You can design your ad to be text only or a combination of picture and text. Each different site owner will decide what size ads can be placed on their site, so what can be listed on one site might not be allowed on another.
Both of these are affordable ways to say " Here I am and this is what I make. Come take a look." It's to early for me to tell how well these work but I can tell you that traffic on my etsy site has increased since I started using them.
I also found another way to promote. I joined the World Wide Etsy Sellers. Met some nice people doing the same thing I'm doing. Making a product and promoting it. We promote our own items, re-tweet other members posts, and visit other shops and promote their items. It's afun way to meet people and sell at the same time. Check them out on twitter @wwes.

ESeller ads for ETSY

Broken Promises

February is Black History month. And although I know that the black people have been mistreated and abused for many generations, it always reminds me of what the American government did to the true Native Americans. The American Indian was chased from their land, hunted like animals, and called savages all because they were fighting for their right to live their way, as they had for generations. Because the Indian lived a nomadic life style and not the way the white settlers lived, they were classified as uneducated. Because they were'nt Christians, they were considered heathens. Because they worshipped the earth and took only what was needed for survival, they were considered ignorant. And yet, still today we judge people by material worth, by color, and by religious beliefs instead of by what they can and will do. The picture at the right is of Chief Red Cloud. Although he never attended school, nor was he in the military, he was a great leader and a true warrior. He told his people to stop fighting when he realized that the white man's army was to big to defeat. He could see that the Indian's way of life was over because the white man kept coming no matter how many were killed. Surrender wasn't pleasant, but surrender he did.
The verse on the picture says " They made us many Promises, more than I can remember. They kept but one- They Promised to take our land... and they took it." To me, this is a sad part of our country's history. When will we learn that just because someone looks different than you do, or beleives differently that they are not wrong. I was taught as a child that in America everyone was equal. As I get older I see that this is just another broken promise.

Follow Friday on Twitter

It's Friday, so that means go to Twitter and join in on Follow Friday. Twitter is great everyday, but Fridays are a follow and be followed dream come true. Twitter is a great place to meet new people and promote your products. Your message goes out to millions. As your friend base grows so does your ability to gather important information about your part of the internet world. It's simple, it's fun, and it's FREE. For me, twitter has been a very important tool for shameless self promotion. Post a tweet and see what happens, how easy is that? Oh well, it's time to post this on twitter and rejoin the follow Friday fun.
Well, I'm back. I've been on twitter about 4 hours. Promoting my products as well as promoting for friends. I've also followed some new people and had some follow me. It's been another fun Friday at the computer. There is still time to sign up for our newsletter. Just fill out the form on the right to become a member and receive special offers from Old Time Country Crafts only available to our members.

More Promotion

I just read a question on another site that I just couldn't believe. This person couldn't believe that people weren't buying her products. Then this person said that they didn't think they had to self promote their site, that people should just flock there and buy.
I think all of us are a little overwhelmed by the web at first, post and millions will see. The trick to getting seen is all in being found on the web. The other thing is most of us small home craft businesses do not become overnight successes online, in fact I don't know anyone who has. I know quite a few who are doing a good deal of online business, but they are working hard on their promotion 3 to 4 hours a day, everyday. Nobody cares about your business like you do so it's a job that only you can do. It's not bragging when you talk about your products, it's promotion.
Self promotion, we all do it when we talk to friends and family, now it's time to do it online to get others to go to our sites to have a look. The simple truth is that people can't buy from you if they don't know where you are or how to find you. It's up to you to tell people what you have to sell and where to go to find you. Then your descriptions and pictures have to do the rest because you won't even know that anyone is there and looking.

Baby it's COLD OUTSIDE

I have been working on our spring and summer craft show route. Today I'm having trouble getting started because it's 13 degrees below zero! I'm finding it difficult to even think about doing anything outside. I know it won't be below zero during the outdoor show season, at least I hope it won't be, but it's just a little tough today. You just gotta love Mother Nature.
I have lots of projects in some sort of state-of-completion. I'm considering a website of our own to go along with our etsy shop. I want to be able to personalize the new site a little more than I can on etsy. Another project in the works is us moving to a better and easier location. This new location is a little bigger, just one level, and has an attached work area for my shop. I will be able to build some bigger furniture items again that I just don't have room to build now. There's always something to do around here, no need to worry about being bored.
Our spring newsletter is almost ready to be sent. I think our members will be surprised at what I have listed at a special price solely for those on our e-mail list. You still have time to sign-up. The form is there on the right side of this blog.

Building a List and why is it important to me?

List building. Everybody wants to sell me a list. Wouldn't a list be better if it was all people who wanted to be there? I get 100 e-mails everyday that I don't open because they're just junk mail. Why would I buy a list of names who never heard of me and don't want to hear from me.
So my solution is to build my own list, (probably the hard way), a list of people who like my products and want to know when I have something new. I display a sign up sheet at craft shows and add those names to my list. People who make purchases from me online are added to the list. I can't add a sign-up sheet on my website so I will add it here and ask you to please sign up. I won't waste your time sending you e-mails everyday. I will only send you mail a few times a year just to remind you what we have. The only perk I can offer you is that by joining my e-mail list you will receive special discount offers that are only for people on my list. The list members will also be sent a schedule of shows that we will be attending.
2010 can only be as good for me as I am willing to try to make it. Our first step in 2010 will be to move to a better location with more room to make things happen. Next will be to add new items that we just didn't have room for in our current location. We will be doing a full schedule of events from April thru December. Hopefully meet some new friends and see some old friends too. My list will be another fun way for me to stay in touch while hopefully making a few sales.

New Markets

I'm always looking for another way to sell my products. I have sold face to face at craft shows for years. I have been selling online for a year now but I will admit I'm still learning the ropes in that market arena. I have done a little bit of wholesale business in the past and I'm looking into that market again. Selling wholesale is like having a business partner, I handle the manufacturing and design and they handle the selling. And the best part is they have already bought the items from me and they now assume the risk of making sales. I have to sell for less on wholesale but once again, they are taking the risk of getting sales. So as always, the wholesale option is worth looking into. I will still keep my website at OldTimeCountryCrafts.etsy.com and I will still keep going to craft shows, but I will keep looking into the wholesale markets as another possibility.
So if you are in the wholesale business or you sell your products to a wholesale market, send an e-mail to j0720@netzero.net and I'll check into it to see if it will work for me.

Moving

We have been looking for a place with a little more room and a little more convenient. I guess we have found it. This building is an old air force facility on 10 acres. We will remodel half the building for our house and the other half will be for business. No more stairs to climb and a large shop area to build in. And hopefully the best part is it's closer to where we have had some of our most successful shows. We feel this will be a good location for us and an easier home to maintain and enjoy. We will spend the next 2 or 3 months working on the building and moving a little at a time. We hope to be settled in by May when our summer shows start but time will tell. This is just another one of lifes little adventures and it promises to be fun. And I like fun and adventures.

Planning the Year ahead

Looking ahead while looking back can give you a bad stiff neck. That's what I have now, a really bad stiff neck. What to add to our inventory, what do we eliminate, where to go, and where not. Oh how I wish these decisions were simple. With the money situation being so tight, how will the craft market be this year? Will people be shopping or just looking for bargains? Nobody knows for sure what the answers are so we, like all the rest of us crafters, will do our best to create and sell to the public.
I think I'm going to try and re-introduce some items that I haven't had out for a few years. I used to sell alot of shelf units of different sizes and designs. These sales died off so I stopped making them and taking them to shows. Maybe it's time to see if I can revive this part of my market. I won't know unless I try so what the heck.
Time to get back to work on the spring and summer items. Our first show is in March and it will be here before I know it. Time sure flies when you're having fun.

Looking ahead in 2010

It's a new year and time to look forward and try to improve a few things. Business is slow right now so I have time to think. Maybe that's good and maybe it's not but I'm going to try anyway. We will be going back to Sylvan Beach this summer, at The Marketplace at the Blue Lagoon. It was a good location and sales were good. New people every week-end so it was like being in a different location each week. Some shows we did last fall we will do again and some will have to be replaced, but that's normal every year. To some this might sound strange to be planning summer and fall events already, but now is the time to start booking so there are no open dates.
We have both been working on new ideas. Some are coming together fine while others are proving to be more difficult. Our first show is in March so we have a little time to work out the kinks. We need to post new items in our Etsy shop but our scanner is not working right. The scanner and the computer aren't communicating at the moment.

Check out our shop at OldTimeCountryCrafts.etsy.com and let us know what you would like to see us make.