SEOhmygoodnessthisisgoingtotakeforever.

Yesterday, I started on a project I've been putting off for a while -- doing Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO) on my Etsy shop. It started out easily enough... Changing up my shop title, the names of my shop sections, and the welcome announcement. Just little re-writes here and there to take advantage of how Google and other search engines actually work. Go ahead and visit Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs and have a look-see.

But then I hit the hard part... re-writing all of my item titles and descriptions!

I currently have 70 items in my shop, and my method of presenting them is about as un-Google-friendly as you can get without doing it on purpose. Little did I realize that by trying to make myself stand out from the crowd with lyrical item names and short story snippets at the start of each description, I was actually lagging way behind the crowd. In fact, I was probably in an entirely different country from the crowd. Maybe a country with no Google.

I may continue to tweak things as I watch my site stats to see what actually works, but for now I'm working the title into the description, and placing the stories at the bottom of the listing -- I do not want to get rid of them entirely, because some people come to my shop specifically to read them. Check out Her Airship Sailed Through Time Steampunk Necklace to see the difference. Please let me know if you think the new format is too awkward or see room for improvement.

And now, a little apology in advance. Apparently the most important step in SEO is building lots of links to your store. Blog posts count towards this, even if they're your own blog, so I will be promoting my shop a little bit in every post from now on. I will try to keep it minimal, and make it an addition to what I'm already writing instead of the focus. I want to keep this blog interesting for those of you who've decided you like to know what's going on in my life. Please whack me upside the head if I go too far in the wrong direction.

A big week on Etsy

As promised, I listed all the new jewelry I made for Fall Festival! Shown above is Tribal Showgirl Sequin-o-Rama, for the tribal dancer with a little Vegas in her soul. For the budget-conscious steampunk, I have Waiting For A Key and The Sweetest Lady. Lastly, Celestial Goddess earrings can be tribal, steampunk, or just a beautiful accent to your Autumn wardrobe. I also renewed a lot of my budget steampunk line that had expired, so you may want to poke around the shop and see what old things are new again.

While I was busy getting all of these photographed and listed, the lovely and talented Mermaiden included me in her Once Upon A Stunning Autumn treasury, which has been getting a lot of views. One of Julie's treasuries was on the Front Page of Etsy this week, so clearly she knows her stuff!

Speaking of treasuries, I had to make one, too! Etsy's new You Might Like feature inspired it by showing me a couple of items along the same theme, making me think I want some green tea.

I also curated Manly Men Like FAETeam, Too! in support of this week's Gift Guide, which is of course themed around gifts for the men in your life.

This week's cool find is Untamed Menagerie, who has a lot jewelry that I'd like to get my hands on. Because, you know, I don't have enough jewelry.

My MZ Glass Prize

You may recall that back in October, I took 2nd Place in the MZ Glass Design Challenge. Well, I finally collected my prize winnings this past weekend! Margaret was clearing out some old beads, so my $300 credit went a long way! Doesn't the central beetle remind you of old trade beads? He's definitely going to be made into something tribal.

The 3d butterfly is a new design and I knew I had to have one. If you want one, too, you can visit MZ's Etsy shop, where you can also see the new bees and caterpillars!

And just because I like showing off, here's the winning necklace again:

Vending! Dancers! A Parade!

Here it is, the result of all of my crazy running around last week... my booth at the Fall Festival! Big props to Evan and Meghan who helped me with set-up and tear-down and were around throughout the day to keep me company.
Meghan was getting ready for her performance when she realized that she'd left her necklace at home. Oh no! What's a girl to do? Naturally, she came over to my booth and asked to borrow a necklace she'd had her eye on. After the show, she decided that said necklace had to be hers, so now Necromancer's Mirror has a new home!

Unfortunately, Meghan was my ONLY customer. Sales were down for everyone. Other than dismal sales, it was a fun event... a beautiful day, lots of my belly dance friends around, live music from the drum circle, and I took a couple of breaks to go watch the dancers on the community stage.
Of course, I had to go see Meghan and my other friends Jacque and Rosemary, performing under the wonderful name Vorpal Shimmy! Meghan and Rosemary did a beautiful sword performance to Endless Reverie by Azam Ali (currently my favorite song), and then all three of them did a very energetic skirt dance to a rap about Ganesh. A lot of my pictures came out blurry because of how fast they were moving, but I think this photo is beautiful.

You'd think that after a busy day of vending on Saturday, I'd spend Sunday relaxing... but then you'd be forgetting that I live in Arizona, and that we cram all of our fun events into the few months when the weather is actually nice! After visiting the MZ Glass Open House (I'll post my glass goodies tomorrow!) and eating a big lunch, I hastily put together a costume and headed downtown to meet a group of Tucson belly dancers for the All Souls Procession. The costume theme was aquatic, and as you can see, I embraced it whole-heartedly. Not only am I wearing water colors, but my belt has shells and my hat and necklace have fish.

The parade was a lot of fun. I've never walked in a parade, let alone danced one. I have no idea how long the Procession was... it didn't feel too long at the time (though my arms sure got tired!), but walking back to the car felt like it was about 100 miles. The parade terminated in a huge finale, complete with fire dancers and stilt walkers and aerial silks performers and live music and did I mention fire? It was hard to see through the crowd, but still very impressive.

And now it's back to life as usual... except that TusCon and workshops with Mahin are this weekend, and next weekend is Phoenix Faerie Festival... I guess busy is the new norm for me!

So Busy!

Sorry the blog has been so quiet, I've been very busy getting ready for Fall Festival this weekend. Hopefully I'll come back with much less jewelry than I'm leaving the house with. Honestly, I have way too much stock. I have no idea how I'm going to display it all!

I made a few new items for the show, a tribal necklace and a couple steampunk necklaces and some pretty earrings... Whatever doesn't sell will make it onto Etsy next week, so keep your eyes open!

Speaking of Etsy, the necklace above was featured in a beautiful Fantasy Wedding Treasury curated by the lovely and talented Mermaiden.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and don't forget to come to Fall Festival if you're in Phoenix!

Gift Guides!

Every Tuesday this month, I'll be posting gift guides over on the FAETeam blog. Click here to read the first one!

Posts on this blog will be short and sweet this week... I have a lot to do to prepare for vending in Phoenix this weekend!

One Thousand Posts! (Plus Etsy Stuff)

Woohoo! My thousandth blog post, at last! I thought about putting some animated confetti images in here, but they're really annoying... so let's just pretend I'm throwing confetti and beads. Thank you all for following my blog, reading it, and making the occasional witty, encouraging or insightful comment.

And now, Etsy! Unfortunately, the only item I got listed this week was Necromancer's Mirror, which was created for FAE Team's Hunter's Moon/Blood Moon Art Dare. You can see the first of a series of blog posts about the Dare here -- my teammates have really outdone themselves this month!

Speaking of FAE Team, our latest Exhibition is up! Moonlit Masquerade features a beautiful array of moon and mask themed items. Of course, my current favorite mask from FAE Team is this brand new, stunning Raven Queen mask by Beadmask.

This week's cool Etsy shop is EnchantedCrafter, the shop of fantasy artist Jessica Galbreth. I've seen prints of her work before, but this shop features mixed media collages with her work as well as some pretty fantasy jewelry.

Advancing to Advanced

I'm very excited about tonight because I will be taking my very first advanced-level belly dance class! Woohoo! I've spent the past year in Beginner and Intermediate classes, learning just how much I didn't already know (when I first went to Plaza de Anaya, I was convinced I was ready for Intermediate tribal classes... and ended up humbly stumbling my way through a Beginner class!). The past two months have been all review and I have to admit I've been very impatient to get back to learning new moves! Review and practice are important, but sometimes they're also a little boring ;) So I'll be continuing with Intermediate classes to get the all-important practice in, while Advanced class will feed my need for new knowledge.

Fall Festival!

If you live in or around Phoenix, please consider coming to Levant al Sonora's Fall Festival! Your $10 admission will get you access to a festival with 10 vendors (including me!), food and hookahs, a drum circle, and live performances from professional and amateur local belly dancers -- plus the Gala Show, featuring Princess Farhana! The event runs from noon to 9pm on Saturday, November 6th.

Come out to shop, dance, and support your local dance community! And your favorite belly dancing beader! I will have all my stock with me at the show, and I'm making lots of new things in preparation. I look forward to seeing you there.

Skulls!

Necromancer's Mirror is all done. I'll blog more about it when I do my weekly Etsy round-up!

I really want to do more bead embroidery now, though. I think it's finally time to start Wings of the Morrigan, which will be my first beaded collar. If I start now, I might finish it in time to wear it for the gem show!

One Meeeeeellion Beads!

I just got back from spending the weekend in San Diego, where Chris and I visited a couple of museums. Now, of course I expect to find beads in a museum... people have been making beads forever, so there's always some old beads made out of natural materials, maybe some Egyptian faience, some Victorian beaded purses, you never know. But at the Museum of Man, I found beads cleverly used to represent years.

But where are the one million beads? Guess they didn't fit on the board.
Oh. THERE they are! One million beads makes a nice little wall, don't you think?

(For all you beaders who are surely wondering, the beads were a size 6ish vintage-style white heart).

I'm wearing purple

I'm wearing purple today, in observance of GLAAD's Spirit Day. Unfortunately, I'm a cynic. I don't think that my purple fishnets and t-shirt are going to stop anyone from bullying anyone else. I don't think that it will make anyone who is being bullied say "Well, at least that person supports me." But I do think it's just one little way that I can show that I do care, and I want the world to know that I care.

Because I'm straight, I've never been bullied because of my sexuality. But I have been bullied for stupid physical characteristics beyond my control. I've been picked on because I couldn't afford the nice clothes that the cool kids wore. I've been teased because of things my brother did. I know all too well the pain of being ostracized for stupid things that don't matter, and that you can't change. All of those stupid, hurtful left me with little sense of self-worth for most of my teenage years. Even when you know, intellectually, that the opinions of small-minded people don't mean anything, they leave nagging doubts in the back of your mind.

The prevailing message right now for bullied gay teens (and I think ALL bullied children and teens should take it to heart) is that it gets better. It does. Honestly. It's never perfect. You'll still run into prejudiced adults who can't keep their mean thoughts to themselves. But you'll grow into your own wonderful person, you'll get past the teenage awkwardness and angst, and you'll be surrounded by people who love and care for you, and you'll find that you care less and less what the stupid jerks think. You might even find that some of the things that people teased you about become your greatest strengths -- I still wear cheap clothes, but I get compliments on my outfits all the time. You can't buy style, you can't buy taste, and you sure as hell can't buy tact.

So I'm wearing a very stylish purple outfit, culled from the clearance racks of Target. And I feel good about it. And my wish for all of you out there, who are being bullied, or who are still carrying the scars from the wounding words of your youth, is that you will take this moment to think about your strengths, and all you have to offer the world, and know that there are people out there who see the best in you and want the best for you. Hang in there.

OMG, cabs!

Remember when I said I was trying to put all of my beads and supplies away in a nice, organized fashion? Here's some photographic proof! My cabochon collection was spread all over the place -- some were in a divided plastic box, some were in the same hardware drawer system as my focal beads, some were just lying around in the baggies they came in. Not acceptable at all!

When I started this current quest for organization, I put a lot of my cabs into a flat box designed for storing craftbooking doo-dads or other small crafting supplies. I decided that was perfect, and JoAnn's is having a big storage sale this week, so I went out in search of more. They didn't have the exact same box, but they did have a little three-drawer unit, and that is where all of my cabs and rivolis will now be stored.

This isn't even all the cabs... the black and white ones will go in a separate drawer, because they wouldn't all fit in this one. And I know there are more cabs hiding around the house. And then there are the cabs that are already glued down to be embroidered around, or that I've been actively matching beads to for large projects.

Kitteh in a box!

It's a special Sunday blog post! Just wanted to share this picture of my big fluff-monster Topher squeezing himself into a shoebox. All boxes that come into this house immediately belong to the cat, whether or not he actually fits in them.

It's a wonderful week on Etsy!

I'm having a busy, productive week. Lots of jewelry being dreamed up, and some of it being brought to life. There are two brand-new items in my Etsy shop this week. Bombay Princess, pictured above, and Fractured Tribe, which I previewed in yesterday's post.

Both of these gorgeous new necklaces contain lampworked beads by artists whose work I love (and who happen to be great people, too!). I'm still very sad that JC discontinued her Mendhi series, so it's hard for me to let them go -- but let's face it, when would I ever wear a purple costume? I just know there's a dancer out there who will love Bombay Princess and wear her all the time!

Now that Etsy has changed Treasuries so that you can make one whenever you want and they last forever, I've been trying to make one a week. This week's collection is FAESteam which naturally features items from FAETeam with a steampunk theme. I'm really happy that I was able to find a lot of wonderful items in the $20 and under range, as well as some mid-range items and a couple of expensive but worth it items!

Etsy has also rolled out some new features where they recommend items and shops for you, so I've been finding lots of new goodies to "heart." I think I should share some of those in these posts, too, so it's not all about my shop and my team! This week's find is Stiletto Heights. Just look at how beautiful those prints are! I'll be buying at least one when my dance space is finally finished.

Operation: Buried in Beads

Operation: Buried in Beads began when I decided it was time to clean and organize my bead collection. I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of bead clutter that I had accumulated and joked on Facebook that it might be easier to use up all my beads than put them away. We all had a good laugh, but the truth is that I did have an awful lot of beautiful beads just sitting around, and it really seemed a shame. They needed to be made into jewelry.

So I've been quietly working on this goal, occasionally posting about it on Facebook. My latest Artbeads.com project (which I can't post yet because I need to mail it to someone and I don't want to spoil the surprise) kicked it off by not only using all of the things that I had just received from Artbeads, but also some nice stone beads, and then I put everything away right afterwards. This was followed by the two skull projects, and now today's two necklaces (which I'll talk more about in tomorrow's Etsy post).

The above necklace is one of two that I made today, and it serves as the perfect illustration for the importance of this personal challenge. The lampworked beads are from the first purchase that I ever made from MZ Glass, so they've been in my stash for years. They're accompanied by some glass from last year's NY trip and lava from the Rings & Things show in May. Old and new came together in a beautiful way, and I put a little dent in my pile of beads.

Thinkin' about skulls

The skull beads featured in my Disembodied Zombie Head Earrings came from a strand of skulls in various colors that I picked up at the Rings & Things bead show earlier this year.

Five more skulls, in red and dark gray with silver details, are going to be part of the current project I'm working on. Unusual colors, to be sure, but they go perfectly with a Tiger Iron cabochon that I've had for years, and I threw in a hematite cab, too, for good measure. The embroidery is coming along well, and I hope to make a lot more progress on it tonight. I've really missed bead embroidery, and this little project is just the start. I have some big and even huge embroidery ideas that I need to get started on soon.

I know it's a little late in the season to be breaking out the skulls, since Halloween is almost here, but I'm one of those girls who likes skulls year-round... so expect some more skully designs from me even as we move away from Autumn and into winter.

Dance Recap

I may go back and edit this post later to add a pic or two, but the pics from the workshops haven't been posted yet.

My dance weekend in Tempe was both invigorating and exhausting at the same time. There's nothing quite like a great show and 6 hours of workshops to really inspire a dancer, but by the same token there's nothing like excitement-fueled insomnia and 6 hours of workshops to wear a dancer out!

After my usual two hours of tribal class with Anaya Tribal, I went home with my awesome friend and classmate Meghan, who has generously offered up her sofa as my home-away-from-home for belly dance weekends (I say generous because I'm going to be up there for 3 weekends out of 5!). We had fun times talking about dance, costumes, jewelry, and all the things that make tribal dancers happy.

Friday was shopping with Meghan and Jen. We went to Beads Galore, where I picked up some great tribal beads. I guess I could have photographed those and used them on this post! We also went clothes shopping, where I picked up a couple of scarves, because being a dancer makes you a scarf addict. It's true.

Friday night was the super cool and amazing show! Many of Plaza de Anaya's teachers and the workshop instructors took to the stage, each doing what they do best. There was Egyptian style belly dance, ATS, ITS, Tribal Fusion, Bollywood, and fire-spinning-without-the-fire. I even got to see Helena Vlahos, who you may be familiar with even if you're not a dancer -- she holds the world record for flipping coins on her belly, and can do crazy things like line up a row of quarters on her abs and flip every other one. But for this show, she focused on good old fashioned belly dance.

And Saturday was workshops! Dance Therapeutics with Deb Rubin, focusing on the upper body, gave us some great yoga and stretches for warming up and taking good care of the spine and shoulder girdle. It reminded me how badly I really need to get back into yoga on a regular basis. Supah Saucy Spins and Kicks with Zafira featured Spanish-inspired choreography and lots of fun belly dance roleplay exercises, including a belly dance gang fight. Ooey-Gooey, Slow and Slinky with Jill Parker wasn't nearly as slow as I expected, but Jill taught us some great traveling moves inspired by vintage belly dance, two fun combos, and gave us some time to just play with gliding around the room with whatever traveling steps we wanted and then dropping into the combos.

Because I'm really used to workshops that cram too much info into my head, causing me to forget all the combos, I loved that Zafira and Jill both gave us the chance to take what we had physically learned and apply it creatively, and explore our personalities as dancers. All of the teachers and their assistants did a great job, and I'd happily take workshops with any of them again.

Now it's back to normal life as we know it... of course, there's a three hour Turkish Romany dance workshop I'm considering this weekend!

I feel like a winner!

I am pleased to announce that Beetles Are Lovely, Too won Second Place in the MZ Glass Design Challenge! If you'd like to see the other winners and read about the judging process, MZ blogged all about it. Spoiler alert: all of the winners used beetles! They must be MZ's most inspirational beads ;)

That was just one highlight of my awesome weekend... I'll post about the belly dance tomorrow!

Another Etsy Post

Two items listed this week. I took new photos of White Salamander and migrated it from my website. And I listed a brand-new pair of Disembodied Zombie Head Earrings, because it's the season for that sort of thing.

And speaking of the season, I couldn't just limit myself to making zombie skull earrings. I also had to curate a Creepy Eyeballs treasury, featuring eye-themed items from my FAE Teammates and other talented Etsy artists.

Which brings me to something cool that I didn't know about. FAE Team has this neat member list with an image from each member's store, so you can get an idea of what they make. What a cool way to browse the team!

And that's this week in Etsy!