I'm just mad about saffron...

Happy Monday, loyal blog readers and friends!

Paper Dolls has been working on the financials for our business plan and enlisting the help of a lawyer friend of ours who has been very kindly willing to flex his pro bono muscles for some crafty girls in need. Thanks Mike! All that staring at spreadsheets has gotten me feeling a little down and I needed a boost. So, I cleaned up my room and bathroom this weekend while listening to some booty-shaking music and dancing around in my pajamas! Both rooms in my house have a lot of yellow patterns, objects and accents. How can you not smile when you see the perfect pair of yellow shoes, a cheery yellow floral bedspread or soft lemon satin ribbons? So, off we go, a tour of 2 of my favorite rooms in my apartment.
A maize montage of photos, frames, a butter dish I picked up at Anthropologie on clearance, vases, an antique bird, my own painting and an earring organizer from Urban Outfitters. The shelves are from Ikea, of course!

A papaya photo board that hangs above my desk. I covered an old painting with upholstery fabric, wrapped satin ribbons around it and added photos of family, friends and loved ones.



A lemon lighting fixture I crafted with my Dad about 5 years ago. I picked up these plastic, geometric shades, added a light bulb on a wire and asked my super-handy father to fashion a structure out of conduit to screw into the ceiling. The orange doesn't exactly match my room anymore but I love it so much I can't seem to part with it!

My buttercup bedspread - I love, love, love it! I love my bed! Its over 100 degrees in Las Vegas right now and I still won't take my bedspread off. Its a cute yellow and grey floral quilt that goes so well with my grey ruffles waterfall curtains.

Golden Gerbera daisies sprinkled amongst lime and ivory flowers add the perfect amount of cheer and warmth to the area above the towel rack in my bathroom. I picked up the yellow flower hook at Pier 1 at the beginning of the summer for about $8!

More mustard Gerberas cover the push pins I used to hold these porcelain plaques on the wall of my bathroom. They invite you to clean, soak and splash in the sunshine glow of mellow yellow.

Thanks for coming on my tour - enjoy your week! Look for a blog from Ruth on Wednesday.

To Etsy Or Not To Etsy... That Is The Question.

Hello and Happy Tuesday to all of our faithful readers! We hope you enjoyed your long 4th of July weekends!

Ruth, Gracie and I have been doing quite a bit of soul searching lately, regarding our Etsy Shop - asking ourselves: Why haven't we sold anything yet?, Are our prices too high?, Does anyone know we exist?, etc. We see other Etsy sellers posting amazing, exciting statistics about their shops - even one who has reached her 1,000th sale. While we are so happy for her and think its great, we know we could reach 1 million sales! So, what to do?

Well, I did some research today and I will share a few of the Etsy tips that I discovered and that Paper Dolls will be implementing - these are things that came up many times from multiple sources. We hope they are helpful! If you have any other tips for how to make money on Etsy, please share!

1. Be different - Make your products a reflection of yourself, find a niche and don't try to cater to everyone.
2. Your Photos Can Make or Break Your Shop - The photographs of your items should be professional and editorial - they should look artsy and show your personality.
   
3. The Art Of Listing - Your Item titles are very important - make them short and sweet but descriptive. Use all of your tags when you can. 50 - 100 items at a time is ideal on your shop - most people will only browse through 2 - 3 pages (and see 40 - 60 of your products). Relist, relist, relist - Etsy's search function shows most recently listed items first.
4. Get Involved - Become a part of the Etsy community by reading the Etsy blog and being active on the comment threads and forums - you get your questions answered and gain exposure with your peers - BONUS!
5. Use your tools! Read Etsy's Seller Handbook, Your Shop 101 and again, use the forum - almost all of your questions can be answered there.

I hope that is helpful - I just added about 20 new items to our shop this evening - take a look and leave us a comment. You have no idea how excited we get when a new comment pops up - we text each other IMMEDIATELY!