A stray cat

A stray cat

A stray cat decided to have kittens in our shrubs. I have no idea why she picked us because our dog hates cats. Anyway they are the cutest little fluff balls, and my kids have named them smokey and the bandit. I called animal control to see if they could come get them, and find them a home. They said no it is not an emergency. Now these stray cats have been a problem in the neighborhood for years. People chase them away, because they eat the birds, squirrels, and generally climb all over your house and cars. The family who supposedly owned said cats denies this. So now I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I am severely allergic to cats, my dog severely dislikes them, but there they are innocent with no where to go. My kids love watching them play, and to avoid looking cruel, I give them some food, and fresh water everyday. My husband says they will never leave now, but the mom who I have never fed before has never left anyway. She has decided our bush is her home, and has been for a couple of years. I hope to find a solution, and a loving home before the kittens start having kittens. What should I do?

Gray Sea Glass Necklace

I'm very excited about this creation! Gray is considered to be one of the extremely rare colors when it comes to sea glass and this is my first Gray jewelry creation. I'll be adding it to my Etsy shop sometime today.

Gray Sea Glass Necklace

I had planned on adding Twitter for more exposure after the holidays, but a sick child at home gave me more time to promote, and create this week and after reading of Etsy members who have had some success using Twitter for their Etsy shop, I decided to see how tough it was to do.

Signing up for Twitter takes less than 5 minutes. Just some simple questions, a email confirmation and I was off. Now I have my shop linked to Twitter, so when I add an item to my shop, the whole community hears about it within the hour. Everytime I update my blog, the Twitter community hears about it.
So the results after one day...

My views on new items have gone up! Within minutes after setting my Twitter up and linkin it to my shop, my newest item in my shop was Twittered and my views shot up by 10 views. After adding the item to my shop and promoting the piece a few times, I only had 14 views after more than 24 hours. 2 minutes after the piece was Twittered, it shot up to 22 views (no, it hasn't sold, but it is getting viewed and anyone on Etsy knows that you can't sell your items if they don't get viewed) I added two new pieces yesterday and both had minimal views (6 or fewer) after the first half hour on Etsy and then when each was picked up by Twitter, the views more than doubled. So in the very short time it took me to sign up for and link my shop to Twitter, I have found a way to have new items viewed and bring potential new customers to my shop...all with a very minimal effort. It's a pretty cool promotional tool!

Steve Milton Riding Lawnmower

New riding lawnmower

Steve Milton riding lawnmower, that's what it is. My husband has been nagging me to get one of these. Our yard is kind of big, and fire ants galore. I finally gave in, and got him one, though he had to concede by saying it could be all his gifts for 2009. At 1,300 dollars that sounded reasonable to me. What big ticket item does your loved one want this year? Will you get it?

Treasures from the Sea Bracelet- Sea Glass

One of my latest bracelet creations using 5 beautifully frosted, deep green pieces of sea glass.

Treasures from the Sea Bracelet- Sea Glass

After months and months of shop owners imploring Etsy to allow shop stats, Etsy announced late last week they have teamed with Google Analytics to provide shop owners with statistics for their stores.

Google offers free stats with their Analytics program and set-up takes less than 10 minutes. It's great new tool for etsy shop owners who having been looking for stats on where and how people are viewing their shop.

More importantly, owners that advertise their Etsy shops can see the results of these ads and know which ads are worth their hard-earned dollars and which ads are missing the mark.

Most of my advertising is done through word of mouth at craft fairs and through Etsy's promotional forums and Analytics provides me with a breakdown of when my promoting on-site is most effective, how often someone clicks on my Etsy mini from my blogs or here at myLot, etc.

At least now, if I choose to advertise on the internet or in a craft magazine, I'll have daily stats letting me know if my advertising dollars have been well spent.
For those with etsy shops, log in & go to "your etsy" scroll down the page and you should find a link for "web analytics in the right hand column. Click there and you are on your way. There are also many great tutorials on the Etsy site, in the business forums on how to set-up and understand your stats.