Almost 10 years later...

 Hello everyone ! 

Yes, as the title says it is hard to believe it's been almost 10 years since I penned my first blog on here and so much has changed since then , so I wanted to pop in and say hi and tell you what's been happening. 

It's certainly been a rollercoaster full of ups and downs, highs and lows but one thing has remained, although things have changed within my small business over the years, amazingly I am still here- a little less of a technophobe, a little bit calmer and a lot more confident than I was way back then!

It's been a difficult road at times, we have had to move house twice since I started the blog, there have been hard times financially and healthwise too, also a pandemic to contend with which was a very strange time indeed.

I made the decision to close down my original .com website due to Tictail closing down in 2019 and it not being financially viable for me at the time to set up again with the new owners, but I now have a brand new one with Big Cartel that launched earlier this year and I also set up another shop on Amazon in their Handmade section which has been around now for a few years. 

You may remember me debating on what way to take the business because originally I was a seller of vintage jewellery & accessories, creating a few items of handmade jewellery alongside that. Due to algorithm changes on the Etsy website awhile back, I made the decision to take vintage items off sale and concentrate on handmade only. When my website closed down, this left me with no outlet for my vintage, so I stopped buying. Now that I have my own .com website back again, I will be able to resume selling vintage jewellery again. This will be a work in progress, due to the cost of living crisis at the moment meaning I will have to wait awhile to invest in new stock, but I will be so happy to get back to my vintage again because I've missed it ! Regarding the craft & vintage fairs I was doing a lot of when I started- you learn by trial and error and for the past couple of years I only go on location during November and December . Some of the events I used to do regularly like Hancock & Smith, Twickenham Market and Twickenham Craft don't exist anymore, so I tend to do only a few at the end of the year in my local area.

I have updated my front page to provide you with the links to my shops and social media sites so you can catch up with me there, I use Facebook and Twitter (now X) daily to catch up with my chums and other small business owners so please do pop over and follow me there to keep up to date with my latest news!

I hops this post finds you all well and I hope to catch up with you soon. I will leave you with a photo of my lovely new cheeky Flapper business logo which I designed with the help of Inks Stickers & Art who you can find over on Twitter (x) Ciao for now ! Selena x

A Crafty Summer

Hello all...I can't believe my last blog was over 2 months ago!
That was on the day of my very first craft fair and I haven't looked back since- I won't say I have made my fortune and can now retire, but during the traditionally quieter summer months it has certainly given me a boost and also got me out of the house away from those pesky cat food conversations!
I wasn't sure if fairs would work for me and I was still debating on whether to concentrate on the Vintage side of my business or expand on the handmade front so I thought if I sold in person, I would see what was the most popular. Ironically, I have done equal amounts of both, so for now LovesVintage43 continues as it's original model- to sell vintage inspired handmade alongside antique,vintage and repaired or revamped old jewellery.
My learning curve on the technical side of things continues- I am now the proud owner of a smartphone which means I am able to use instagram and take card payments live- it amazes me that a little while ago I barely knew my way around a laptop, let alone blog, tweet and all the other things modern life entails!
I have lots of craft & Vintage Fairs upcoming and keep a list of all my events on my facebook page so if you fancy coming along to meet me in person and have a rummage through my wares, please do- here is the link to the list ... https://www.facebook.com/notes/lovesvintage43/lovesvintage43-fairs-events/692978067423279 I love meeting new people and having a chat about jewellery- or whatever!
I have been involved with a new local project which is a community venture that has been set up to provide  local people with an affordable selling space for their handmade or vintage items, it also supports local charities so it has been fun helping out promoting that and getting to know lots of clever and crafty local people to boot. If you happen to be interested in getting a stall there or popping along to see what it's all about, here is the facebook page link and all stallholder information and how to get there etc. is in the notes... https://www.facebook.com/TwickenhamCommunityMarket
So the summer is now over already and it has certainly been a productive one for me and soon I'm popping off on a little holiday somewhere hot and my poor old laptop can have a well earned rest.
 I'm already wondering whether or not there are going to be any bead shops there.....
I leave you with a pic of me looking relatively normal ( which means that for once I am not gurning or closing my eyes) at my stall at the Hancock & Smith Vintage, Retro & Craft Fair at the Star & Garter Ballroom in Putney which I did back in July

Going Doolalley

I have been neglecting my blog which I know ( in the world of t'internet et al) is an unforgivable crime ...I was finding it very difficult to prioritise which bits were more important than others and ended up running out of time each day to do everything!! Oh dear....
Anyway this is only a quick one ( here I go again!) to let you all know that I have decided to expand my handmade jewellery a bit more and to start doing Craft Fairs- selling is what I do and I have missed it...it's strange having a retail background and then working from home because you just don't see anyone from one day to the next. I am now best friends with my neighbour's cat- we have many in depth discussions about the textures of cat food with jelly as opposed to with gravy and other such intellectual matters. He probably thinks I am completely doolalley.
So my very first craft fair is at 1.30pm today , Saturday 5th July at St.Mary's Church Hall in Church Street, Twickenham. I am really looking forward to doing this and am praying for some good sales as even I , The Budget Queen of Hampton, cannot survive on around £10 per week- the internet is all very well, but there is no sense of urgency. I mean, you can bung something in your basket and sort of forget about it but when you are out shopping it's different as you don't know whether you will see that item again and are more likely to buy! Well, wish me luck everyone....
More blogs, more craft fairs and silliness to come soon, I promise :-)....

Etsy UK TV Advert

Great stuff I have found to help me along the way !

It amazes me how many clever bits and bobs I keep finding along the way that are designed to help people develop their online businesses, some of which have been invented by ordinary but clever mortals who know their way around a computer! Many of these things can help integrate your selling platform with your blog, your page, your online profiles etc. to help people find you more easily. Even Ebay now has buttons for Twitter, Pinterest and sharing on facebook...it's magic !
As I said in my last blog, I will share with you here the things I have found along the way so if you already know about all this social integration stuff, then please do skim through and if not please keep reading for some hopefully helpful hints for your new business.
I have a little shop on Etsy which I can Tweet , Pin and share to facebook from, and there is also an app available on facebook called My Etsy Theme Shop which allows you to have a tab linking directly to your Etsy store from your facebook page- it's brilliant. It is listed on facebook on the apps page and takes minutes to set up, you can choose from a selection of virtual shop colours and patterns, set up exclusive discount vouchers for your page fans and there are daily and bi-weekly competitions to win vouchers and to drive customers to your store by sending "likes" your way and by featuring your items . From the facebook apps list there is also a Twitter tab and a Pinterest tab so again, people can get access to both accounts from a tab which will appear on your facebook page- and very easy to install, taking just seconds ! From the other side, to help someone get to your facebook page from somewhere else, you can create facebook badges- I have one on here, you can create yours direct from my one where it says "Promote your page ", or alternatively  look under your activity log on facebook to create one !
Last week a couple of fellow crafters who are facebook page owners were complaining that they had been running giveaways and that as soon as the prizes had gone, so-called fans of the page had been un-liking ...very mean. Well, there is a little app that monitors who interacts with you the most, called "Top Fans" and it publishes a weekly report of the top 10 of your page fans and how they have interacted with you, so this great little tool could easily be used as a means of deciding prize winners if you want to run a competition !
Look for all these tabs on my facebook page- you can install the Etsy Theme Shop and Top Fans direct from my page if you like :-)
I think the piece de resistance (she says in a bad French accent)  has to be the Craft Cult mini Etsy Shop widget which you can see on the right here- another direct link that displays the wares of your Etsy shop, your feedback and likes for all to see on your blog ! You can get yours direct from mine here where it says "Get a widget" - all of these things I have found and recommended are free to use ! I think the Top Fans one gives you 6 months for free, but there are other similar apps for facebook as well as that one.
I am still learning from all of this and the sites which have yet to fulfil their true potential to me are tumblr, stumbleupon and Pinterest- I think mainly because they are a little newer and of course American- we take awhile to catch up here ( I am using all of them, but I am still not 100% au fait with how stumbleupon works to be perfectly honest !) I am still playing around with it, but as nobody I know has heard of it, I think I still have plenty of time to figure it out !
Pinterest is the most popular of the three I have just mentioned and I do enjoy using it- It is mostly used for images although you can post Etsy Treasuries, recipes and other content direct from websites -I just think of it as a virtual giant scrapbook or mood board and the good thing again is that you can "find your friends" and link up with your fellow facebook and Twitter users and other people whose boards you enjoy or businesses you wish to follow. If you are running it as a business profile, there is a Pinterest widget which you can install to your own website so people can Pin your items onto their Pinterest pages !
 tumblr is called a blog, but it is more for visual items- mini films, pictures and quotes and it does link into Twitter and you can also attach other widgets to it- I have the Craft Cult Etsy store mini widget installed there along with a couple of cute moving animals I found on another website...I couldn't resist them ! Only one other person I know in the UK is currently using tumblr- I think it is still fairly new, so is yet to become popular.
I found another freebie site that sellers of handmade and vintage items can post their item photographs with links to called Craftori...I have used it although the site is very slow to use and they do have very strict criteria about what is allowed and also the quality and style of your photographs...I have struggled a bit with it and had loads of my images removed so have given it a little break for awhile out of frustration. My advice would be, if you want to use Craftori, just choose between 3-5 of your best items with good clear photographs on a plain white background and you should be ok- you must remove the items when they sell as well.
Two more free sites to put your name to are Craftseekers.com which is a directory for handmade goods and also the UK Gift Directory, I spotted both of these on a friend's website and got my name down on both of them and then put the links to both on my website- honestly, there are so many things out there to help you get started and the more the merrier I say- as soon as I see something it has to be installed or listed straight away!
I will keep you updated on new things I have found as I blog along...for now I am doing some last minute jewellery makes and listings in time for Mother's Day next week. I wish I had more pairs of hands because I feel as if I can't work quickly enough!! 

Slowly but surely and the wonders of Social Networking sites

Greetings all !
I know it has been a little while since my last post , but now that everything is coming together I will be able to spend a little more time connecting with you and a little less time in some sort of aimless frenzy !
The trick is definitely the ability to prioritise when you are a one woman all singing all dancing show, but as well as that, I have learned that keeping in contact with people is all-important which is why I thought I would blog about "Social Networking Sites" this time.
It's not like the old days when shops were a bit snooty and distant and customers were a fly in their ointment that needed getting rid of as painlessly as possible after parting with their cash , these days being a friendly and accessible face of the business is invaluable to it's success. I learnt some of those principles whilst working behind a bar for several years - people like to see the same friendly face, have a chat and they REALLY like it if you remember them...transfer that to a retail environment and you have yourself a regular customer.
Whilst working on LovesVintage43 I have been like a sponge, absorbing everything and it's sort of like going back to my youth because I'm more in touch with what's going on in the world than I have been in years!  The first thing I did before even setting up the website was registered and set up pages with all of the Social media sites I could - I already had facebook so I set up a business page on there, but there are many others- some that have not become popular yet in the U.K. like Pinterest, tumblr and Stumble Upon. I have pages with all of them, and have posted some content on all, and do the rounds so that people know that I do exist! I have seen some Twitter accounts and tumblr pages which have had no content added in months- this gives such a bad impression to new visitors- better to remove the page than let people think you have been sucked into a black hole !
The one that has been the most successful and rewarding so far has been my facebook page because if you use it well, it can really get your name out there and connect you with many other like minded people, which is great because they know exactly what you are going through and can be very supportive and help promote your business too ! There are also special pages on facebook run by other business owners which are dedicated to helping you meet other small business owners and to get "likes" for your page . I have made new friends around the country and overseas through using these pages- if you are a business owner and you haven't yet set up a facebook page, you really must do it- do it now in fact!!- it takes 5 minutes.
It's a little overwhelming when you first set up all of these things, but once you know how they all work you can get your own little timetable running in your head as to when to link up with each one- the good thing is, some of them link together. What I'll do is close this now so I don't go on and on too long, but on my next blog I will give you some more details of what I have discovered with these invaluable tools and some handy tips and gadgets you can get to help you maximise the potential- I'm not claiming to be the Social Networking guru but I just love to pass on good ideas and I'd love it if it helped someone.
That's what I like about small business owners- they seem to care more about being a community of likeminded peeps rather than competitors and I must be an old hippie at heart because I like that a lot.

Great Organisational Skills?!...hmmm...

Greetings from not so sunny and rather soggy Hampton !

Since my last post I have been gearing up to the launch of my business website, so there have been quite a few things I have had to organise...lots of little itty-bitty things and things that I had not even thought of as well...so of course, there I was sailing along thinking " Oh, there's not much to do, I've got loads of time !" and then all of a sudden I'm having to be on the computer until 4.30 am. uploading photographs and editing things because I just didn't realise how long it would take to get done!
I have always been confident in my organisational skills, proudly declaring them on every CV and job application but I am starting to wonder. The problem is, being a former technophobe and now being irrevocably tied to the computer and all the delights it entails, I just plain keep getting sidetracked !
 What with having to log into Yahoo for my emails, Ebay, Ebid & Etsy to see if I have made any sales and Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to connect with my followers, there are a thousand and one ways to distract me away from the task at hand.
 I am subscribing to blogs, online classes, liking pages and networking my little socks off- and now blogging as well ! I am now also lusting after certain beads and findings that I was blissfully unaware of before, and am spending ages trawling the net trying (and failing) to find them all at a bargain price. What I need to do is knuckle down, get organised and get this website open !!! I'm going to break out the pro plus and make myself a strong coffee...I will see you anon when I no longer resemble the wild woman of Borneo...