Yes, yes, I know, I promised frequency with this blog and its been sitting. Well, it hasn't been sitting because I haven't been working, I can promise you that. So instead of me waxing poetic today, I'll be posting a progress report. More of my ramblings to come, I'm sure.
One of the biggest hang-ups I've had with getting the website off the ground has been nice looking pictures for the products. If the pictures from my camera phone are fuzzy, small, and off-color, then people viewing the site won't get an accurate idea of what the item looks like. Description alone may not be enough. Plus, its a lot of work, taking the pictures, emailing them to myself, resizing and de-fuzzy-ing, then uploading them to photobucket, then putting them on the site... waaaay too complicated. But at Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, my aunt offered to give me her old digital camera! The screen is broken but the camera and viewfinder still work, so as long as I'm just using it as a regular old camera, then I'm golden! I should be getting that tomorrow at the Winter Stroll. Beautiful pictures, here I come!
Next issue I've been having is packaging for my body scrubs. I tested some of my products on my family last year for Christmas, and everyone had the best stuff to say about the sugar and salt scrubs. The only issue is I got the containers out of a kit, and for the past year I've been trying to find the perfect containers for the stuff. Its been a hard battle with the stores, especially since it needed to be perfect, you know? (Insert eye-rolling at my stubbornness here.) But at Wal-Mart yesterday, trying to find peanut oil for my stepdad to deep fry our turkey in (you heard me right), I found these beautiful glass jars with secure lids that hold about two cups of stuff, it looks like. They're slightly bigger than I wanted, but I'm sick of being picky. They're perfect! They were cheap too, less than two bucks a pop and real glass, so I bought all of them. Now I have seven. I've seen other Wal-Marts carry them, and dollar stores too, just in the past they've only had one or two in stock. Plus, just below where I found these beauties, I saw little glass cups with plastic secure lids, for cooking and such, that hold exactly a cup of stuff. They were slightly cheaper than the jars. I could offer two sizes! They had a lot more of the cooking cups, too.
The only concern I have with glass is that its a bath product, I would hate for it to slip somewhere, break, and someone get hurt. I'd prefer glass over plastic though, its easier to recycle and you can reuse the jars for anything, since glass doesn't hold taste and smell like plastic does. So I was thinking - you know those rubber-ish mats you can buy to put under rugs and sheets and dinner place mats? Buy some of those (cheap at the dollar store), cut to fit the bottom of the container, and glue them into place. Voila! Instant no-slip! Am I a genius or what?
I also plan on working on the website today too. I've been researching new recipes and some cool tips for a brand new section of the site. I hope to get a lot of work done with this rainy Black Friday, since I did a lot of my shopping yesterday and the day before!
Hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving. Happy creating!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
BigCartel
Hi everyone, just a quick follow-up post to the one I just made about an hour ago. If you haven't read it, scroll down and read that one first.
Just to get things up and running, and maybe get some money rolling in to help finance the rest of the shop, I registered the name The Green Canopy with both Etsy and BigCartel. I'm using BigCartel more right now, just because they cater to smaller shops, and a basic shop is completely free - no charges for listing items and no percentage comes out of your sale to go to them, like with Etsy. You can upgrade your account and get different features, which is how they make money and sustain their site. (I suggest BigCartel to anyone wanting to sell things online but uneasy about using eBay or Etsy!)
I threw some pictures up on the site and typed up some product descriptions. Like I said, its really only there temporarily, but go check it out! The Green Canopy on BigCartel
Just to get things up and running, and maybe get some money rolling in to help finance the rest of the shop, I registered the name The Green Canopy with both Etsy and BigCartel. I'm using BigCartel more right now, just because they cater to smaller shops, and a basic shop is completely free - no charges for listing items and no percentage comes out of your sale to go to them, like with Etsy. You can upgrade your account and get different features, which is how they make money and sustain their site. (I suggest BigCartel to anyone wanting to sell things online but uneasy about using eBay or Etsy!)
I threw some pictures up on the site and typed up some product descriptions. Like I said, its really only there temporarily, but go check it out! The Green Canopy on BigCartel
The Green Canopy
I was going to talk about something else entirely today, but I was working this morning and something exciting has happened that I had to share! So this topic, which I was going to hold off on til later, is being posted now.
Names!
Every store, every site, every catalogue, every company... every anything has a name. The better the name, the more attracted the guest will be to learn more. When you're selling something, your name is the first thing a potential customer knows about you. If you were walking through a mall and saw a store called The Smelly Foot, would you want to shop there? No Way! But good stores give you a name that is either an explanation of what you'll find inside (which is a good reason to stay away from The Smelly Foot) or leaves you asking the question, "I wonder what they sell in there." Hot Topic is a good example. Its creative and inviting and makes you think that whatever's inside, its going to be cool. Yankee Candle is another good one.
A physical store also has a storefront to invite customers in. When dealing with online stores, websites, Etsy shops, etc., the only thing you really have to go on is the name. Coming up with the perfect name is a big step, and this morning, I think I did it.
It started with me doodling names on a piece of paper, just willing something to hit me. Its tough, because the name has to be good. It has to get the concept across, but at the same time not be lame. It needs to be something I won't be embarassed telling people when they ask. This is what I came up with this morning:
First: Black Spiral. It just sort of popped into my head, and I instantly hated it. Its not a bad name for, say, a rock band. Or an evil ritual. That's just it - it sounds evil. I don't want to make that impression. So I tried to make it sound less bad... and thought of Golden Spiral - which is just as bad, just not evil. Its too goody goody, it sounds like the Golden Compass, and it makes me think of Gryffindors bouncing around in their tower. I don't want the name to be evil, but I don't want to give that impression either! A name I was going with for a while was Memory Lane, and I don't exactly remember where I came up with it. I liked it at first, it was cute, it sounded like a brand name for something. Its lost its appeal to me though, as most of the names do. I never planned on having Gazing Skyward as the shop name, just the working-blog name, so I didn't even consider that as an option.
There was one, however, that I thought of this morning that I did like: The Green Canopy. I actually thought of it while staring at the decorations in the gym (green paper trees; the theme of the book fair is SAFARI), but thinking about it, it works. The green part can be a representation of the "green" and "organic" approach and feel I'm trying to utilize in the shop. And then there's the word Canopy. You can think of a canopy, like a tent, that you have parties under or hide from the hot sun under. Or a canopy of a circus, the big top, a place of fun and excitement. Or, the one that first came to mind, a canopy of leaves in a forest - helped along by the adjective "green". A canopy of leaves is relaxing, soothing, with its filtered light and filtered sound. Its practically magical. The Druids of the Celtic people thought groves of oak trees, with their green canopies covering them, were places of serious magic. So overall, the name The Green Canopy conjures thoughts and feelings of fun, relaxation, oneness, and magic. I think I can get behind that for a shop name. Now, to see if its taken!
Well, the website names are all available; I tried www.thegreencanopy.com, www.thegreencanopy.org, www.greencanopy.com, and www.greencanopy.org. So any way, I get a domain name. Yay! I tried google, and the only things that came up were pictures of forest canopies. A good start... And its available on Etsy too, and gmail has greencanopy taken but not thegreencanopy, and its available for blogger too! Last check, and one of the most important: Yahoo. If its not available there, then I can't buid the website right away, and that screws up the entire plan. So, lets check. Cross your fingers!
Aaaaaaaaand......
Its good! We're good! The Green Canopy is all registered under all the sites I need (so far). I haven't picked a name so far that's had everything unregistered everywhere. I think this is a good sign.
Names!
Every store, every site, every catalogue, every company... every anything has a name. The better the name, the more attracted the guest will be to learn more. When you're selling something, your name is the first thing a potential customer knows about you. If you were walking through a mall and saw a store called The Smelly Foot, would you want to shop there? No Way! But good stores give you a name that is either an explanation of what you'll find inside (which is a good reason to stay away from The Smelly Foot) or leaves you asking the question, "I wonder what they sell in there." Hot Topic is a good example. Its creative and inviting and makes you think that whatever's inside, its going to be cool. Yankee Candle is another good one.
A physical store also has a storefront to invite customers in. When dealing with online stores, websites, Etsy shops, etc., the only thing you really have to go on is the name. Coming up with the perfect name is a big step, and this morning, I think I did it.
It started with me doodling names on a piece of paper, just willing something to hit me. Its tough, because the name has to be good. It has to get the concept across, but at the same time not be lame. It needs to be something I won't be embarassed telling people when they ask. This is what I came up with this morning:
First: Black Spiral. It just sort of popped into my head, and I instantly hated it. Its not a bad name for, say, a rock band. Or an evil ritual. That's just it - it sounds evil. I don't want to make that impression. So I tried to make it sound less bad... and thought of Golden Spiral - which is just as bad, just not evil. Its too goody goody, it sounds like the Golden Compass, and it makes me think of Gryffindors bouncing around in their tower. I don't want the name to be evil, but I don't want to give that impression either! A name I was going with for a while was Memory Lane, and I don't exactly remember where I came up with it. I liked it at first, it was cute, it sounded like a brand name for something. Its lost its appeal to me though, as most of the names do. I never planned on having Gazing Skyward as the shop name, just the working-blog name, so I didn't even consider that as an option.
There was one, however, that I thought of this morning that I did like: The Green Canopy. I actually thought of it while staring at the decorations in the gym (green paper trees; the theme of the book fair is SAFARI), but thinking about it, it works. The green part can be a representation of the "green" and "organic" approach and feel I'm trying to utilize in the shop. And then there's the word Canopy. You can think of a canopy, like a tent, that you have parties under or hide from the hot sun under. Or a canopy of a circus, the big top, a place of fun and excitement. Or, the one that first came to mind, a canopy of leaves in a forest - helped along by the adjective "green". A canopy of leaves is relaxing, soothing, with its filtered light and filtered sound. Its practically magical. The Druids of the Celtic people thought groves of oak trees, with their green canopies covering them, were places of serious magic. So overall, the name The Green Canopy conjures thoughts and feelings of fun, relaxation, oneness, and magic. I think I can get behind that for a shop name. Now, to see if its taken!
Well, the website names are all available; I tried www.thegreencanopy.com, www.thegreencanopy.org, www.greencanopy.com, and www.greencanopy.org. So any way, I get a domain name. Yay! I tried google, and the only things that came up were pictures of forest canopies. A good start... And its available on Etsy too, and gmail has greencanopy taken but not thegreencanopy, and its available for blogger too! Last check, and one of the most important: Yahoo. If its not available there, then I can't buid the website right away, and that screws up the entire plan. So, lets check. Cross your fingers!
Aaaaaaaaand......
Its good! We're good! The Green Canopy is all registered under all the sites I need (so far). I haven't picked a name so far that's had everything unregistered everywhere. I think this is a good sign.
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