Drum Roll Please...

And the winner of the 100 Followers Giveaway is...

SHAR MARTINEZ!

Congratulations girly :) You have won a TON of exposure for your blog, some awesome prints to decorate your home with, and a surprise grab bag with some cute clay goodies from me. 

Thanks to everyone who participated. You guys rock! But of course, no one ever walks away without anything from such an awesome giveaway. Use coupon code AWA20 in my Etsy shop to receive 20% off your entire purchase! 

You can either click on the mini "My Etsy Shop" on the right to get there or just click here.

Change Can Be A WONDERFUL Thing!

Good morning everybody! Yep, I'm up and at them at 7:00 am which is pretty unusual for me. So as I always say, "If you can't sleep, get up and do something". 

My something this morning was reflecting on how my blog and Etsy shop has grown over the few months. I'm almost at 100 followers on here! UNBELIEVABLE!!!

 I love and appreciate all of you for sticking with me through the changes with this blog. I first started out as 'ChibiLolita's All Kinds of Cute' mainly promoting my shop. Then I changed it to 'Crazy Beautiful Unique' because I wanted to talk and share more with my readers than shop updates. Yeah, I still post stuff about my shop and Etsy in general, but I also talk about my life, my goals, and just craziness in general. Thank you again for sticking around and reading my posts. 

I'm thinking of doing a giveaway when I reach 100 followers! So exciting! If you want to contribute anything, that would be awesome. You can contact me at cawinchell06@gmail.com 

Making changes to my Etsy shop has brought about a multitude of sweet people opening their arms to embrace me and my items. My first shop concept was jewelry. I made beaded jewelry, earrings and necklaces mainly, trying to make a name for myself. Well, that was really hard. You see, everyone and their Mom sells jewelry on Etsy. Lol! And if a customer is loyal and comfortable with a certain seller, there's no way they will jump from that train to mine. So, I thought about it for months as to what exactly had to change. This is what I came up with:

1. Items offered in shop

2. Shop name

3. The way the photos look

4. More promotion

I went from making ordinary beaded jewelry to creating jewelry from polymer clay that completely reflects me. My shop named changed from 'ChibiLolita's All Kinds of Cute' to 'A Girl and Her Clay'. The new name is easier to find, easier to understand, and just makes plain sense. I changed the background for my photos from colorful paper to plain, white paper. This allows all the attention to be drawn to the item.

See?

       

As for promotion, I opened up a Twitter account, created a business page for my shop on Facebook, and opened up a Pinterest account. Now when I post a new item, I can let my followers know on Twitter and Facebook and also 'pin' a picture of it on Pinterest. The results have been wonderful! I still have much work to do, but the changes I've made so far have worked out. 

I'm Over the Moon!

If you own an online shop, you that feedback means everything. When you get generic but good feedback, you're happy. When you get kind, personalized, positive feedback, you're smiling from ear to ear. But, when one of your customers blogs about the items they received from your shop and how excited they are, you are over the moon...

...or at least hop around like a happy bunny!

This happened to me yesterday from one of my favorite customers named Amy who blogs over at My Little One-Room Schoolhouse . She ordered a few items from my shop during the 50% off sale (which ends tomorrow) and then asked for a custom made item. I've never done a custom order, but I was excited to get started. She wanted a chibi (mini) version of Lil' Red, the mascot for Nebraska football, as a pendant for her daughter. This is how it turned out:



She said her daughter was super excited and happy to receive it, which made me super excited and happy :) If you want to read the rest of her blog post, click on the following link.
http://littleoneroomschoolhouse.blogspot.com/2012/08/is-that-really-made-from-clay.html

I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did! And while you're there, show Amy some love. She is really humble, sweet, and friendly. It's been fun getting to know her through our little "talks" on Etsy. Lol! Let me know what you think about the post and her blog :)

My Insomnia Spurs Creativity

Cute Cupcake with Bow Cell Phone Charm - $3.50

https://www.etsy.com/listing/106733296/cute-cupcake-with-bow-cell-phone-charm

Among the various health issues that I have to contend with, insomnia is probably the worst. I love sleep! But most of the time I can only sleep during the day and not at night. I've tried not taking naps at all and it still doesn't work. The medicine I'm on for my Tourette's will make me drowsy, but sometimes fails to put me to sleep for the whole night.

Spring Rose Ring (available in 9 colors) - $5.50

https://www.etsy.com/listing/106733503/spring-rose-ring

So I've learned over time that instead of getting frustrated because I woke up at 2:30 am and can't get back to sleep, get my butt up and go to the craft table! Lol! I'll have ideas just pour out of me that I  really believe wouldn't happen otherwise. Most of the new items for my Etsy shop were created at 2:30 in the morning in a quiet house with no distractions. You'll find some of them throughout this post.

Pumpkin Stud Earrings - $4.00

https://www.etsy.com/listing/106790587/pumpkin-stud-earrings

If you deal with insomnia like me and find you can't sleep one night, get up and get creating! If you're not into crafts, you could read a book, write out the dinner menu for the week, plan out what you're going to do for the day, etc. Let me know what you do when you just can't sleep :)

Alice in Wonderland Cupcake Charm - $8.00

https://www.etsy.com/listing/106788563/alice-in-wonderland-cupcake-charm

AMAZING 50% Off Sale Going On Now!!!

Ahh, it feels great to be home after the vacation and trying to get back to the old routine. We had a blast in Florida! I have plenty of pictures to share with you, so look forward to some of them tomorrow :)

Now, about this AMAZING 50% off sale going on! Who's having it? Where is it? Look no further than right here folks. I'm having a 50% off sale on select items in my Etsy shop! Some items are as low as $2.00. Consider it "a back to school/I want that cool necklace" sale. Lol! Oh, and the shipping is cheap too. No matter how much you buy, you only pay $1.95 for shipping! Also, my shop has direct checkout now, so no worries if you do not have a PayPal account :)

Here are just a few things up for grabs in the shop:

50% OFF - Hello Kitty Inspired Bow Necklace - $5.00

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103486318/50-off-hello-kitty-inspired-bow-necklace

50% OFF - Creamy Creamsicle Cell Phone Charms - $2.50 each

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103489482/50-off-creamy-creamsicle-cell-phone

50% OFF - Cute Purple Bow Ring - $2.00

https://www.etsy.com/listing/104829185/50-off-cute-purple-bow-ring

50% OFF - Best Friends Rainbow Necklaces - $6.75

https://www.etsy.com/listing/103484047/50-off-best-friends-rainbow-necklaces

50% OFF - Cute Colorful Heart Dangle Earrings - $3.75

https://www.etsy.com/listing/94167224/50-off-cute-colorful-heart-dangle

Bye Bye Chibi Lolita...

Hello everyone! Yes, I have completely changed my blog AGAIN. But I have a really valid reason for doing it this time, I promise.

Recently I've been worrying, stressing, and fighting with myself over my Etsy shop. I loved the items that are there, but they just don't seem like they fit together. You can't just throw a bunch of cute handmade items together and think they will eventually mesh together. So, I finally did what I started fretting over 2 months ago - changed the name of my Etsy shop ChibiLolita.

I love that name! It was the very first name I came up with when I decided to open a shop. But, I don't think it was the best name to pick. I love the Japanese culture and wanted to pay homage to it by naming my shop ChibiLolita, which means "small girl". In the end, I think this name hurt me since most of the shoppers on Etsy have no idea what ChibiLolita even means. 

As you guys know, lately I've been doing a lot of creating with polymer clay - it's my new "craft love". I've decided to dedicate my whole Etsy shop to my clay creations to create a cohesive atmosphere in my shop. You ready for the name? A GIRL AND HER CLAY! Pretty simple name, but it's easy to recognize, understand, remember, and from a glance you can tell what will be in my shop.

Since I changed the name of my Etsy shop, that meant I had to change my Facebook page, my twitter username and last but not least, my blog name. I had a blog previously on WordPress called "CrazyBeautifulUnique" where I just talked about whatever. I want to do that with this blog also. I'm not associating this blog with my Etsy shop like I did with "Chibi Lolita's All Kinds of Cute". This blog will be about me, my life, my crafts, my cooking, my stories, my whatever I want to talk about. That freedom feels so amazing!

I hope you guys will still follow me, leave comments, and have a good time while you're here. Let's continue to grow together :)