Red Panda Jewelry on Art Fire

This week I’m highlighting Red Panda Jewelry on Art Fire.  The pieces created are stunning, and I cannot imagine the amount of work needed to create each piece.  If you’re looking for a unique piece, check out Red Panda’s shop!

A piece I love:

Weekly Art Fire Product – I need new soap…

Think I’ll be getting some new soap from Soap Deli.  This one in particular looks perfect!

You should check out Soap Deli’s store on Art Fire for some great products!!

Holding a Contest!!

**  This contest is now closed.  Congrats to Ingrid!  **

Infinite Vision runs a shop on Art Fire and is allowing ten blogs to hold a contest to give away one of their 8×10 photographs!  The photography in this shop is beautiful!  I’m a geek at heart, so I especially love the prints of the circuit boards… yes, I will be hanging one of these in our home office!

To enter, go to Infinite Vision’s store now, pick your favorite 8×10 print, and then come back and comment with a link to your favorite!  If you win, you will win the print that you have chosen.  It’s that easy!

I will be running this for one week, so next Monday (January 26th) at 7PM PST I will be putting all of the comment numbers into a randomizer tool to pick the winner.  I will announce the winner on the blog and will e-mail the winner directly.

Good Luck!!

Back From Vegas – Back To Creating!

I’ve been in Vegas at the large Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for my day job.  Great show, just too much to do in a very short period of time.  Compound that with the fact that I’m in Vegas, and I am now in need of a recovery day (today!).  Walking around a trade show and going to meetings with 100K other people can really take a toll on the body!

In celebration of returning from Vegas, I am posting some pictures of my latest creation made out of red leather/suede.  It’s got a lining that is ‘explosive’ and beautiful.  So soft, I just want to hold it all of the time!

Contributor on Art Fire!

I’m very honored that Art Fire has added me as a contributor.  They have posted my first of two articles (which will continue to grow) on how to use Google Analytics with your Art Fire Account.  I really enjoy writing up these types of tutorials and am happy to see them help the Art Fire community!

Would love to hear your feedback on these articles and any topics you would like to see covered in future articles.

I am going on a trip for my ‘day job’, so will not be online as much over the next few days.

Google Analytics Overview – Round One

Hi everyone!  So, I’ve noticed that a lot of people have asked about using Google Analytics once it is set-up on your Art Fire site (or other sites).  So, I thought I’d do a round one overview of some of the great high level features you can use starting… now!

Using an Analytics account from a blog I used to run I’ve captured screen shots to walk you through some of the key areas (or what I think are key):

1.  Google Analytics Home Page – Here you will be given a months worth of data shown at a very high level.

1. You will see number of visits in graph format by day
2. You will see the overall numbers for the entire length of time chosen (one month here)
3. You will see Unique visitors and a map that shows where they came from by country (highlighted on the map)
4. You will see a graph showing how users found you and a list of top content pages viewed

2.  Let’s dig a little deeper – You can narrow down data to a day or group of days by clicking on the arrow next to the dates shown in the upper right, click on one day or create a span and click ‘Apply’:

3.  Once you have the date(s) you want, you can start digging into the data.

4.  Let’s start with Visitors-Overview:  Here you will get a great snapshot of your visitors, overall visits and unique views, along with the browser they were using and connection speed.  To explore some more, click on anything that is hyperlinked and you’ll be taken deeper into the numbers:

5.  Next is the Map Overlay:  Here you can see users by country, city, subcontinent region:

To get to the city layout, click on the drop down above the country list (right now it is set to country/territory) and pick cities:

Click on a city name, and you will see detailed stats for that region:

6.  Next we will check out the Visits Trending section, starting with Visits:

This area gives you a look at your visits by day, and the average # of visits per day:

Next take a look at the Absolute Unique Visits (this only captures an ip address once so you get a real feel for the number of people checking out your site):

Next lets see how many Page Views there were (this gives you a good idea of how much content is being looked at):

7.  Let’s see how people got to you by looking at the Traffic Sources section:

First is the overview section which will show you visits, a graph that shows high level sources (search engine, referral link, direct) and top traffic sources and keywords:

Then… I like to look at Referring Site, Search Engines and Keywords (Keywords is especially powerful if you are or are planning to run an ad campaign… it will help you really narrow down which key words are being used to find your site.  For my ad campaigns, I choose to buy keywords that aren’t appearing here so that I can broaden my market, as I’m already being found easily through Google Search on the keywords here):

Referring Sites:

Search Engines:

Keywords:

I will end this first high level overview of Google Analytics here.  I hope this gives you a good idea of what type of information you can begin getting, right now!  It is so helpful to know how many people are finding you, what part of the world/country is coming to your site, and it is especially great to know how people are getting to your site so you can get smart about marketing campaigns, etc.

I will go more in depth next time, and will also do some very specific write ups on the AdWords component, which really helps you see how succesful the specific parts of your campaign are doing.

Feel free to leave a comment with any questions or feedback you may have.

Fun and Funky Red Flower Pouch

Of course, I love this pouch.  I was going to take a break from sewing this week and focus on getting my website up and running, but I just couldn’t stay away from the machine for an entire week.  So I grabbed this great funky fabric and made a fun little pouch.  The funky screenprint and brigh colors make me smile!

I just listed it on my Artfire store, and if you purchase this pouch, there is a free gift included.

Here are some pictures:

Also, the poll showed that the majority would like to see how I make the flat make-up bags, so will be working on the tutorial and posting it in the next week.

Happy New Year!!

Art Fire – Google Analytics Integration

I’m so excited to see that Art Fire has quickly implemented Google Analytics and has made it easy for us sellers to integrate.  The stats they have been providing are good, Google Analytics will make it even better.  The other good news, all sellers (validated and not validated) have been given these tools, for FREE!  This makes me even more happy (well, I pay $7/month, but that covers my listing an selling goals).

Here is an overview of the integration process for sellers:

1. You will need to sign up for a Google Analytics Account here
2. Click on ‘Sign Up Now   
3. If you need an entirely new Google Account, Click on ‘Sign Up Now’ otherwise, sign into your existing Google Account to attach Google Analytics
4. If you are creating a new Google Account, fill in the required information
5. After setting up your Google Account go to Google Analytics and click, Access Analytics
6. You will then see your main analytics page
7. On the main analytics page you will see your Google analytics number:  UA-#######-# (I’ve deleted mine out, but it is right after your bolded url.
8. Copy this number and paste it into the field that Art Fire has provided in the ‘My Stats’ section
9. Done!
10. Give Google about 24 hours to start tracking and filling in stats

I hope you’ve found this tutorial helpful.  I just did the integration, so will see stats in Google soon!  I can’t wait.

Feel free to leave a comment with any questions.

Artfire Series – Listing A New Item

As promised, I will be highlighting my experience getting started on Art Fire.  Here is an in depth look at the listing process, which I find much easier than other venues, so far.

Here is a set of screen shots showing the one page listing process:

1.  Enter product title, price and upload pictures (simutaneously!):

2.  Enter shipping (you can save shipping profiles for easy loading), description, story behind product and categorize:

3.  Add your store category, materials used, tags and date/time that you wish to have the product automatically reduced in price:

4.  Save product and watch it appear on the front page of Art Fire!

This process is much more simple than others.  I like having one page instead of 2 or 3 or 4.  I like that photos can upload at the same time, and I like the automatic settings for price reductions.

Some things that need to be improved (being subjective here) and Art Fire has said they will:

1. Once pictures are uploaded need a way to easily move the position they are in (first, second, third, etc.).  Right now you need to re-upload to the position you want the picture in.
2. There should be a drop down here that allows you to put this product wherever you want in your store (instead of chronologically).
3. There should be a check box or drop down that allows you to make this product a featured product in the store.

These are the main things I’ve been wanting on this page, I’m sure you have others… feel free to list them in the comments section.  Would love to hear about your experience setting up shop on Art Fire.

Happy Holidays!

Orchid and Butterfly Shoulder Bag

Well, I started creating again after a week off.  I made this cute shoulder bag that I’d use when traveling or just out for a day of shopping.  I padded the shoulder strap with fleece so it’s really comfy to carry.  The main bag is heavily interfaced so it will stand on it’s own.  I love this fabric, and think it really looks great in this new pattern!

I just listed it on Art Fire.  I’m finding that the more I use Art Fire, the more I really like it.  The features are great and really make it easy to list, track and sell products.

I hope you’re all having a great holiday!  I’m enjoying my week off from the day job (which maeans I have more time to create for this job!).

New Shoulder Bag: