Etsy Love

I love Etsy chat and am quasi addicted to it. Etsy etiquette is to go into the chat room, say hello, then proceed to juggle conversation, seller shop surfing, posting surfed items in order to feature favorites of other artist shops and modestly (or shamelessly) promote yourself a tad while you're at it. Some chatters are virtual masters. Not I.

Here's the rub. I'm not much of a juggler. I constantly have as many tabs open in my browser as there are chatters in the room; genuinely enjoy getting to know and converse with the other sellers - resulting in chatty cathy syndrome; get lost in shops I'm surfing because I want to see every single thing they sell while reading descriptions, etc. and somehow, somewhere in this shatter fog, I completely forget the promo part altogether. It's only when someone else mentions their blog or twitter account and I happen to see the chat stream mention fly by that I'm jolted into recognition, "Hello. Genius. You have a twitter account. You have a blog. Wait, what are the link addys again? Crap." Then it's off to open even more tabs to copy the correct hyperlinks to post, find my way back to my buried chat tab in the sea of firefox tabs that surround me and post in time before the vibe is lost to another streaming conversation or fabulous item that flies by and disappears upward into item ether from the photo stream to the right. Heaven help me if someone happens to post a photo of one of our Mello items before I see it and my aging eyes struggle to see who it was before it and they disappear forever, amen. Any fly flittering about on my 3-D wall would literally die laughing. Who needs a fly swatter? Not I.

Oh and what about when someone leaves the room and they're one of my open tabs? Well, too bad they weren't there to see me giving them a nudge into the "wouldya look at that" spotlight. I'm little slow on the uptake once and again but better late than never. That last photo could turn into a sale. Ya never know...

So because the entire purpose of blogging is supposed to be about promoting Mel and by extension, my handiwork... Here's my new sewing machine hobby. See, I didn't lie about smaller and easier projects.

This phenomenal fabric came from the "garbage heap" of a local interior designer. Can you believe this gorgeous wool was going to be abandoned and left to waste away in a landfill? I think that's textile blasphemy. The price tag was a whopping $330 (a yard, I assume) to adorn your furniture with it. We didn't rescue enough to cover the couch, so I cut the four squares from the discarded sample and made them into two little hip pouches with high quality leather drawstring and added fat square wood beads for better pullability. A google search for similar items returned stash bags, backpacks, clutches, fanny packs, etc... This is none of the above and all of the above I s'pose. What do y'all think? Be kind. I'm remarkably sensitive to harsh criticism - but appreciate all forms of direction with loving purpose. :P