I’ve been a “born again” Etsy seller for a few months now.
I saw “born again” because I started selling tablecloths on Etsy in about 2008, and that lasted for a few years. I enjoyed finding and selling tablecloths, but it was also time consuming because I was obsessed with rehabbing soiled cloths, which required weeks of stain removal and a good amount of hours in sunlight. In summer, this was easy. In winter? Not gonna happen. As my kids reached adolescence, time to rehab tablecloths dried up.
I reopened my Etsy shop under my new name – The Starburst Creative. Shipping is more expensive these days and I have had a couple of orders MIA thanks to the postal service, but I have replaced those items the same day that people reported the problem. I aim to please.
It has been fun to personalize consumer purchases, for I always include a little note into the package, thanking people for their purchase. The other day I sent an order to Iowa – my former home state – and it made me a little nostalgic. I loved Iowa (and South Dakota – my original home state!) this time of year during harvest season. The drier, cooler air, the dust from the combines, the colors of the prairie grasses . . . it was magical. Illinois has that as well, but I dunno . . . it’s just different and not as familiar to me. When I was a fairly new teacher and overcome by the stress of the job, I remember going home to my parents’ farm and just breathing in the air when I got out of the car. It was familiar and calming, and I felt the same way recently when I went back to Iowa to get my granddaughter for a week-long stay at my house. I was getting gas at Casey’s and I just took a moment to breathe the air. It was comforting and familiar. I suppose different places have scents that the brain always remembers, but that science will always fascinate me.
The science of smell is fascinating. I remember reading a study about how the sense of smell is more acute than any of the other senses, and it stuck with me. In college, I encountered an exam question where it asked which of the five senses depicted the most vivid memories, and I chose smell. It was wrong, and that wrong answer sticks with me as being something I would love to argue today. I smell the perfume that I wore as a sophomore in high school (Tatiana) and it brings back all the senses with it: sights and sound and feelings from the fall of 1990. It dredges up memories I thought I had forgotten. The most fascinating part of the human brain is the fact that I can smell that perfume even when it’s not with me. How is that even possible?
Anyway, back to my Etsy adventures . . .
My atomic cat coasters have been so popular that I am struggling to keep up with demand. Part of that struggle has to do with finding suppliers of tiles that are reputable and reliable. I got a “bum order” of coasters that resulted in dozens of them having flaws; the glaze did not seem to be of high quality, resulting in color gaps and just bad appearance overall. Luckily, I requested a replacement and received one, but it resulted in a lot of wasted time and effort before that point.
Such is life for an Etsy seller, I guess.
My newest obsession is bedazzling – as corny as that may sound. I bought a heat pen and a few rhinestones on a whim, and my mind quickly starting working overtime to think of what I could make with these supplies.
Naturally, my attention turned to Elvis – the king of bling.
I used the Phosphate font to do the HTV in glitter vinyl. I love this font because it has an open strip in the middle of the letters which just works perfectly to contain 16ss-size rhinestones. This first picture doesn’t capture the brightness of it. See below.
Cheesy? Maybe. But we all know that Elvis loved him some bling. I’m working on putting rhinestones on the rest of the designs this week.
So if you don’t hear from me for a while, you can assume I am hunched over my desk with my magnifying glasses on, bedazzling an Elvis bag.
