Happy Fourth Of July

I want to wish everyone a very Happy Fourth Of July! I hope everyone has fun plans to spend this holiday with their friends and family!

I’ll be camping this weekend, far away from computers and cell phones, so my Etsy shop is on vacation mode while I’m away. I’ll be sure to reply to messages and convos as soon as I get home though.

Thanks again!

 

Earth Day Update

Hello and Happy Earth Day! Hope everyone is remembering to be extra green today and that you’ll try to think of ways to be more green in general. One easy and rather pleasant way to green up your life is by using naturally made soaps instead of artificially manufactured detergents. Many of the so-called soaps you can buy at the store aren’t really soaps at all, they are a conglomeration of chemicals made to mimic soap. These chemicals are not only kind of icky to rub all over your skin, but they also don’t breakdown and can cause lasting damage in lakes, rivers and oceans.

This is the part where I start shamelessly promoting myself. I sell natural, handmade soap! Check out Skinfully Yours on Etsy.

We hand make our soaps using the tradtional cold process method, in small batches. We try to buy our supplies from small and independent businesses as much as possible in order to do our part in supporting other small businesses and also to ensure the high quality of our ingredients. The Other Alex and I personally make each batch and constantly monitor for quality in order to ensure we only sell the most wonderful soap possible.

This weekend we will be participating in a sale being put on by the Sacramento Etsy Team. There are 14 different shops participating and you can use the coupon code “WeLoveMom” all weekend long to receive special discounts at all participating Sac Etsy Shops.

Skinfully Yours is offering 10% off your total purchase price (before taxes and shipping) with the code “WeLoveMom” this weekend, April 23 and 24.

My jewelry shop is also participating in this sale. Ali C’s Creations is offering 25% off your total purchase price (before taxes and shipping) with the “WeLoveMom” coupon code, this Saturday and Sunday only!

 

Giveaways, Facebook, Sales and So On

Couponista Queen is holding a giveaway in honor of her Faebook page reaching 2000 fans! I’m helping to sponsor her giveaway, by offering up a pair of my handmade earrings as a prize to a randomly selected winner. Interested in winning something? Go by her page, “like” her, mention that I sent you, then head over to my Facebook page and if you haven’t done so already, “like” me and leave me a comment. You’ve gotta leave that comment in order to be entered in the drawing. There are lot’s of other sponsors, and she will have them all listed up on her page, you can enter each drawing by going to their pages and liking them and leaving a comment.

These are the earrings that I’ll be giving away. They are Swarovski briolettes that have been wire wrapped by hand using .925 sterling silver wire. The color is Erinite which flashes greens and teals depending on how the light hits it. Very pretty. The dangles are just over 1/2″ long from the bottom of the silver plated ear wires and would normally retail for over $11 in my shop.

Also, my 30% off sale has been extended to midnight tonight, so even if you don’t win  a free item, you can still take advantage of an amazing deal, just use coupon code BIC30SUN when you checkout in my Etsy shop.

 

 

 

24 Hour Sale, 30% My Entire Etsy Shop

Don’t forget! At midnight PST tonight until Midnight PST tomorrow night, my entire Etsy Shop will be 30%!! That’s right, for 24 hours you can buy anything in my shop for 30% off the regular price!

Come check it out, from Midnight tonight to Midnight tomorrow, just 24 hours, everything is 30% off the regular retail prices. Thanks for coming by!

 

Updates, Sale, Out of Town Etc

I’m still waiting to hear back from CASA about raising money for them. I’m still open to suggestions for other organizations to raise some money for. Let me know if you know of any awesome charities that could benefit from a little exposure and money.

Second thing. I will be working in Southern California on an archaeology project from April 15 to the 30th and I’m going to spend a few days with my family on the Central Coast. This means any orders made during that time will not be shipped until May 5th. So, if you need anything before then, please put your order in before Thursday the 14th so I can have time to get it shipped out before I go.

I applied to Heartsy.me to be a featured seller. For those who don’t know, they are a new website and what they do is offer really good deals on coupons to be spent in a given Etsy seller’s store. It’s very similar to Groupon. When I first heard about it I thought it seemed really interesting and I applied to be a featured artist. As I waited to hear back I started noticing that many of those being featured were offering deals of 60% and more off.

I price so that if I get a wholesale order I still make a small profit at 50% off, and it works out because a wholesaler is ordering mutliple items, all at the same time so I save time with packaging and shipping etc. This site is asking you to sell below wholesale and to do so one sale at a time. I have seen people offering 68% off which is crazy.

I’m an independent artist. Asking me to basically give my goods away is not only insulting it is dangerous to my future viability as an artist. I am working very hard and depending on my ability to build my business to be profitable in the future, but there is no way to ever become profitable if you fall into a rut of selling things for less than they cost before you’re making any profit at all.

So I started thinking. I bet people would love a deal. I know I like sales. I can’t afford to offer big sales on a regular basis or for long stretches of time, but I can certainly decide to offer occasional short term sales. So, this Sunday nigh (April 10) beginning at midnight PST, I will have a sale for 30% off everything in my store! This sale will continue on through Monday and end at midnight PST, Monday night. So basically, a 24 hour sale, everything is 30% off.  Sounds like a mighty good deal to me.

I will announce the coupon code you may use to take advantage of this sale in several places throughout the day on Sunday including here.

Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/AliCsCreations

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/AliCsCreations

There will be a notice in my shop announcement as well.

If any other awesome bloggers would like to share the news about my sale I’d sure appreciate it, and would of course be happy to return the favor in the future.

As always, thanks for reading and have a wonderful night!

 

If I Had More, I’d Give It All Away

I’d like to start out by talking about the tragedy in Japan. My heart absolutely goes out to all those whose lives have been affected. I made an announcement on March 11th that I would donate 10% of my sales to the Red Cross to help those in need. I know it isn’t much, but I don’t have much and this is what I was able to do. I raised $3.65 through sales, and rounded that up to an even $4. So one $4 donation. I hope that when combined with other small donations it can be used to help people. I think a lot of people don’t donate because they feel they have too little to make a difference. While it’s true, $4 doesn’t get you very far, if 100 people all donated $4 that would be $400, and you can really do something with $400.

After this experience I started thinking about other deserving organizations who could benefit from charitable donations. In my last post I talked about Stephanie, who sells on Etsy under the name Sumthing Purdyand has created a personal challenge for herself. She has challenged herself to create a pair of earrings every single day and to post them in her blog, every day. She is planning to sell them, and (I’m paraphrasing here, check out her blog for the whole story) to donate half of the money raised to a charity. She is letting fans vote between a selection of charities, which are all aimed at helping children.

Well, I’m less democratic, there will be no voting here, muah-ha-ha-ha. But i do have some really awesome organizations in mind that I would love to raise some money for. My plan is looking like this. I’m going to create a charm bracelet a week. Charm bracelets are my favorite because you can really personalize them to mean something for the person who wears it. So I’m going to pick some theme every week, make a bracelet according to that theme, then post it here. Then, each bracelet will be put up for sale in my Etsy shop. I will donate half of the proceeds from each sale to a pre-determined charitable organization. (Generally, I mark up my jewelry items to be about double the cost of materials, so half is equal to my profit. I’d love to donate 100% but I’m poor. So instead, I’ll keep that other half to reinvest in materials to make future good cause bracelets with.

If you see something else you would like from my shop that isn’t a part of this blog project, you can let me know in the notes to seller that you are a blog reader, and then I will donate 10% of the amount of that sale to the current charity. So that way, even if you aren’t super into my charm bracelets you can still contribute. You like where I’m going with this?

Right now I’m debating between several different organizations, but the one I’m currently favoring is CASA. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates and is an organization that provides adult mentors to children in the foster care system. A lot of the time children who get taken up into the system don’t have any adults who they can count on. Every adult they know is there to do a job, rather than there to be a friend. All these kids know are case workers, and social workers and parole officers and they often end up feeling like they have no control over decisions made for them. They feel like there is no one they can talk to or trust. CASA volunteers are appointed by judges to help these kids. They help to convey their needs and wishes in court, and they are there to listen to and talk with the children who are affected. I worked 3 years in a group home for kids who were diagnosed as severely emotionally disturbed and I saw first hand what a big difference it made for a kid to know there was someone on the “outside” who cared about them.

I’ve contacted CASA to get permission to raise money on their behalf in this way. As soon as I get a green light I will go ahead and start this whole thing rolling.

Do you have a favorite charity you’d like to see featured here? Let me know in the comments, I’ll be doing this for a whole year and still have 3 more charities to choose.

Thank you!

 

A New Personal Challenge

I follow several fellow Estians via Facebook and their blogs and one of my favorites is Stephanie over at Sumthing Purdy. I’ve actually featured Sumthing Purdy here on my blog in an earlier “Simple Promotions” post. She makes really fun and unique jewelry! She has issued herself a challenge to create a new pair of earrings everyday then to post them up on her blog. She is giving some away and selling the rest and is planning to donate some of the proceeds to charity.

I like this idea! So I’m going to give myself a similar challenge. I’m going to make one new item everyday, then post them up on here with a short description of materials and techniques used. I haven’t quite gotten all the specifics worked out but I think it will go something like this. I’ll make a new thing for my blog each day, the items made will be posted up for sale in my Etsy shop. Every 3 months I will do a give away to one of my readers/fans. I’m not sure what I’ll be giving away, or what format I’ll use to determine who wins, yet. As for the pieces put up for sale. I’ll be offering various sales and specials that you’ll only see if you read my blog. I’m also thinking I will donate a portion of the proceeds from the earrings that are sold to a charity. I’ll do a different charity for each 3 month block.

I’m kind of excited about the prospect. This should be a good motivator for me to do something creative everyday even when I don’t really feel like it. It’s also good motivation for me to write everyday.

So, for now until I get all my details fully worked out, you can check out a couple of mymore recent pieces, both available for sale in my Etsy shop.

And thank you again to Sumthing Purdy for the inspiration!