Introduce yourself: Hello! I am Wayne Balion from Saskatoon. I have a degree in Computer Engineering, my day job is web development/programming, and my craft is cross stitching. My awesome wife is very supportive of my craft, primarily assisting me at the various expos and shows that we attend to sell my products. What's your shop's name? StitchedPixelsEmbr What do you make/sell? How do you make it? I cross stitch video game and pop culture characters. I sell framed pieces that I’ve completed, as well as selling cross stitching starter packs, cross stitch patterns, and necklaces. I design all of the patterns myself and aim to stay as accurate to the original designs as possible. All of my finished pieces are hand-sewn and can take 20+ hours to complete. The starter packs are also hand-assembled and include everything (except scissors) for anyone to pick up and start cross stitching. I sew all of my designs at least once to verify my colour selections before selling them (either as a pattern or starter pack). How long has your Etsy shop been open? My shop has been open since May 2012 but has been more active in the last year or so. My early years had very few products available which I have been able to expand in recent years. How long have you been doing your craft? Hard to say… I want to say about 22 years, as I learned at a young age. I have been doing the current style/designs since 2012. How did you get started? I started cross stitching as a kid, either learning from summer camp or my grandmother (hard to remember… it was a long time ago). My early work was all traditional Ukrainian designs due to my heritage. I had a bit of a hiatus through high school but picked it up again near the end of my university degree. The idea to cross stitch video game characters came to me while I was working on sewing house rules for web comic artist Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots). Thinking of how video game sprite pixels would translate well to cross stitches, I designed my first pattern, Charizard, the same day I delivered the house rules to Danielle. After completing Charizard, I continued making Pokemon characters before branching out into other video game characters, mainly from Nintendo games. Where can people find you online? Website: http://www.stitchedpixels.ca Instagram: http://instagram.com/StitchedPixels Facebook: http://facebook.com/StitchedPixels Twitter: http://twitter.com/StitchedPixels What do you like about selling on Etsy? Etsy is a great place to have your products found on a global scale. I often thought about selling directly through my website but I find that people search for my kind of work a lot on Etsy. There is also the community of like-minded crafters that you can ask questions and/or get help with problems if needed. Even though I haven’t directly met anyone yet, I look forward to meeting other members of the Etsy Saskatchewan team! What brought you to Etsy? Trying to find an online marketplace for my items, Etsy came to mind and since it was (almost) free, I gave it a shot. What's been your best Etsy experience? Selling my items across the world. The first time I got an order from Australia, I nearly jumped in surprise. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been as surprised as it was a digital download of one of my patterns, but still very cool. Is there anything else you would like to share with us about your shop or yourself? I take commission requests, as there are such a variety of game characters I could make and sometimes I have a hard time choosing. Also, I can do custom starter packs for any of my patterns.
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Last year we had so much fun hosting the Etsy Made in Canada Market in Saskatoon we thought why not have twice as much fun this year! Both Saskatoon and Regina will have an Etsy Made in Canada Market this year. If you would like the opportunity to sell your handmade or vintage wares with us this year just fill out this application. To sell at the Made in Canada Markets you do need to have an Etsy shop, so if you don't already have one send us a message and we get you some free listings for you to get your shop started with.
Application Deadline is June 21 2015 Each month Etsy Team Saskatchewan will be featuring a different member, who will tell us a little bit about themselves and their shop. We love to promote and support each other and this is a great way to show everyone what you are all about and how creative Saskatchewan Etsy sellers are! If you are interested in having your shop featured, you can sign up in the team forums. You will also be given the Etsy Saskatchewan Featured Member badge to put on your website or blog. Now let's meet our first Featured Member.... Elisa from Playing By EarIntroduce yourself: My name is Elisa from Swift Current. I'm in my twenties and I have a passion for creating. I live with my amazing husband who encourages me and has encouraged me to take my creations public to share with others. So I opened up a shop on Etsy so I can share my creations with everyone! So far I specialize in handmade earrings, though I have plans to expand to necklaces, bracelets and rings, as well as handmade sewing creations as well as crocheted creations. What's your shop's name? My shop's name is PlayingByEar What do you make/sell? How do you make it? As of right now I solely make earrings, however I plan on expanding in the future. I use a variety of techniques to make my creations though the two that I use the most for earrings are beading and wire wrapping. I also sew and crochet so I hope to be able to expand my shop to include some of those creations as well! How long has your Etsy shop been open? My Etsy shop is still new seeing as I only opened it in November of 2014, though I didn't do much with it until January of 2015. How long have you been doing your craft? I have been creating things for as long as I can remember! More specifically, I have been making my earrings since I was in grade 8, so that would be 9 years ago. I took a break from creating when I went to Bible School and my time was more restricted, but it has been around 9 years since I started! How did you get started? I got a DIY necklace kit for my birthday in grade 8 and when I got around to putting it together I found that I really enjoyed it! I then went out to buy supplies to start making earrings and it took off from there! Where can people find you online? Right now, other than on Etsy, you can find me on Facebook and Pinterest What do you like about selling on Etsy? I love the community aspect of Etsy. You are selling alongside people who are as passionate about their creations as you are about yours and that's wonderful! It's also encouraging that these people can do what they love and find success from it! The teams are also a wonderful thing because you can use it to tell people about your shop as well as to help others and support them by checking out their shops as well! What brought you to Etsy? My cousin runs a shop on Etsy which has done really well so that's where I knew about Etsy from though I hadn't thought about joining Etsy myself until my husband encouraged me to try it out! What's been your best Etsy experience? My best Etsy experience was getting my first sale! I had been open for a couple of months and it had started off slower than I had hoped. When I saw that order notification it was a wave of excitement that ran through me. It was like a little bit of reassurance that I wasn't wasting my time and a lot of motivation to keep pressing on even when things got slow. It has certainly helped me to keep going with my shop and to keep up the work because it is something that I enjoy! Is there anything else you would like to share with us about your shop or yourself? One feature that I offer is customization! If there is something that you see in my shop that you like but you wish was in another color then send me a message! If there is a couple items that you like certain aspects of them but wish that you could combine two items into one, let me know and I will see what I can do! I will do my best to create something perfect for you! We will be hosting 3 Etsy 101 workshops on March 21st, one in Regina, Saskatoon and Swift Current. Not only are these great if you are new to selling your work on Etsy, but also if you already have a shop you want to improve. Each of the workshops will be run by one of our team leaders. Regina ~ Susie Gourlay of Knit Natural Saskatoon ~ Erin Pell of Glassy-Eyed Beads Swift Current ~ Elaine Robitaille of Tooaquarius To register RSVP on the Facebook event page for the city you would like to attend, or email us and we will get you on the list. Links to the Etsy 101 events page for each city Regina ~ Saskatoon ~ Swift Current It's easy to become overwhelmed with promoting yourself and your business, especially with all the social media outlets which are supposed to make your life easier. When I create a listing on my shop, I share it with Facebook and Twitter, pin it to Pinterest, upload the pictures to a online fibre community which I then link back to my listing. Share the listing with relevant groups within the community, post about it on Instagram and update my website. This takes a colossal amount of time and that's just for ONE listing. I really needed a quicker way to share my updates so that I could get back to creating. There are several programs and apps offered that will schedule posts for you or share on Pinterest, or tell you who to follow - or unfollow on Twitter. Etsy also has a page devoted to apps that will help. If you go into your "Shop Stats" and scroll down, to the right you will see a section for Education and Support and in this area, there is a lot of useful information. If you click on "Shop Apps", you will be taken to 10 pages worth of helpful tools to make your life easier. I also find it helps to keep an agenda or planner handy. I can keep track of my schedule, and see what is coming up a week or so in advance. I can also plan my week ahead of time in case things start piling up on me come Tuesday. Planners are also great because if a new idea comes to me, I can quickly jot it down and have all these things in one place. I used to grab little bits of paper to write down my plans or to-do lists but once I tucked them away in my purse, I forgot about them or they got lost in the shuffle and when I wanted to know what that great idea was - poof, it's gone. The notes I have left, I have pinned on my bulletin board above my desk. It also doesn't hurt to sit down and think of a few things to keep your Facebook page or Blog active. I found this list on Pinterest that might spark a few ideas for you. Most importantly - take time to relax. This will probably be the hardest part. You don't want your passion to become a burden. If you miss updating your shop with your newest product one day - it's ok.
~ "It doesn't matter how slowly you are going, as long as you don't stop" Confucius We are coming up to our first anniversary as a team and it is amazing how far we have come. In our first year we grew the team to over a 100 members, built up quite a following on our Facebook page, and put on a very successful Etsy Made in Canada Market. We are continuing to improve this year with a little help from an Etsy online promotion fellowship, so you should hopefully see an improvement in our online presence. Our newest online presence is Instagram where you can find us @Etsysk , and our brand spanking new website (which you are on right now). We will also be having more events this year and in more areas of Saskatchewan, so be sure to follow us, like us and sign up for our newsletter to keep up with everything that will be going on this year
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