Monday Madness

Ahhhhh!!!!!  A lot of frustrated comments and remarks were heard throughout my house this past week.  Tonight, I am totally bummed, but I also feel a small sense of peace at the same time.  I decided today to close my Etsy shop.  Why?  Well...because I made children items, I had to make sure I was compliant with CPSC.  It is for safety reasons and I totally understand why we need to have safety precautions, however my little Etsy shop had to be compliant the same way Walmart or Toy R Us has to, and at the same level.  If I wanted to make and sell cute little baby plush toys...I had to pay for 3rd party testing?!  I won't even go into all of the paperwork and what not that was required for me to maintain on the variety of fabrics I have.  I have to provide proof of certification that my cotton fabric I bought from Joann's passed flammability regulations?!  Seriously?!  The other reason...NYS taxes.  There is a reason why our mom and pop stores here are becoming non-existent.  Totally ridiculous how they treat small businesses here.  I applaud all of the small businesses that are somehow making it work, I don't see how they are, but some of them are managing...against all odds, literally.

So, I have decided I can either sit here and wallow in my failure OR I can choose to see the positives out of all of this.

1.  I bet I'll probably be a whole lot nicer to my girls and hubby ;)  Did I mention it was a rough week?

2.  I can make some new fun outfits for my own girls.  They LOVED their Easter dresses I made.  I bet they would also love anything else I decided to make for them.  Plus, I'm always looking for new challenges :)  For those of you that have not seen my Easter dresses:

I made them using the Party Dress pattern from Lindsay Wilkes aka The Cottage Mama.  FYI:  You think these are cute, my hubby bought me Lindsay's book...I have lots of things I am looking forward to making for my girls! 

3.  I can finally make myself my cute lil handbag I've been drooling over for over a year now.  Goodbye diaperbag!

My fabric for my cute lil handbag!

4.  I just freed my day and night up tremendously with not having to promote myself on all of that social media.  I have more time now to sew and/or knit, blog, or to just chill out!

5.  I have developed a new sense of awe and appreciation for small business America.  Seriously...you guys inspire me :)

Stay tuned as I embark down a detour of my new and exciting journey and love of sewing!

Blessings,

Wednesday Wisdom

What a busy Wednesday! I'm just now getting a chance to sit down and write.  On Monday, I promised to share the results I received when I made a few quick changes to the titles of my products.

First, take a look at these stats:

Pretty sad right?  Now take a look at these:

Improvement right?!  I still have a ways to go to figuring out the SEO world, but I think I'm on my way! What did I do?  I tweaked my titles a bit.  For example, my rompers that I have been making for the Fourth of July, were originally titled "Fourth of July Baby Girl Romper".  I tweaked the title by adding a couple of tags and the new title is " Fourth of July Baby Romper, Patriotic, Baby Girl One Piece, Infant Romper". When I added a few of my tags into my titles, my views went from 35 views in 4 days to 133 views in 4 days!!!!  That's almost 4 times as many views in the same amount of time!  Crazy, right?!

Tip of the week:  Incorporate some of your tags into your titles.  (Not ALL of your tags, just a few).  I'm so excited about this.  Go ahead and try it.  What do you have to lose?  Share your results!  I'm excited to see everyone's results with this small simple change.

Stay tuned to Friday when I will feature another small shop!

Blessings,

Happy Monday!

What a busy week I had last week!  I received another order on my Etsy shop for my yoga headbands, completed another baby Fourth of July baby girl romper and matching crib shoes set

and made more yoga headbands using a different fabric design.

  All of that, in addition to homeschooling my girls and trying to get the garden started (which is still waiting to be planted, but at least we got it all weeded out and the compost mixed in...half of it)...I was one busy momma!  Hence my small hiatus last week from my blog.  Stay tuned to Wednesday where I plan on sharing what happened to my organic views one evening when I made a couple quick changes to my titles in my shop!

Blessings,

Happy Memorial Day!

First, I want to thank all of the families of those that have given the ultimate sacrifice for us. Without your loved one's sacrifice, I would not be able to enjoy all of the freedoms that I have today:  the freedom to worship my God, the freedom to homeschool my girls, and the freedom to pursue being an entrepreneur.  There are many more, too many to list, but thank you.


This past week was one of the most exciting ones at the Joyful Threader.  First, I experienced my first Etsy sale!  It was very exciting to hear the cha-ching!  I can't wait to hear more!  My first sale was my Fourth of July baby romper and matching crib shoes.

                                     

The second exciting thing that happened at the Joyful Threader was that my baby romper and crib shoes pictured above, were also featured in an Etsy Treasury!  You can check out the treasury here: Fourth of July Treasury

What exactly is an Etsy Treasury?  It is a collection of sixteen common-themed items from a variety of shops.  Instead of one shop promoting just their items, you now have sixteen different shops promoting the entire treasury!  Your items will organically reach new possible buyers...hopefully.  Unfortunately, unless you create your own treasury, it is difficult to get selected for someone else's treasury just because of the competition among the Etsy sellers.  How is it created?  Basically, a seller will post that they are going to create a treasury on a particular theme.  It could be something simple as purple items or something more specific - Fourth of July items.  Then all of the sellers (hundreds of sellers) that have something that fits that category will post a pic of it.  Out of the hundreds of pics that are submitted, only 16 are selected! 

Yes it was, indeed, a pretty big week at the Joyful Threader!  If you get a chance, take a look at the treasury. In honor of Memorial Day, I am offering a coupon of 15% off of your purchase of $20 or more.  The coupon code is MEMORIALDAY15 and it is good until midnight tonight.  A lot of the other Etsy shops are also offering coupons today (they usually list their coupon code in their shop announcements).  Most of all, enjoy this beautiful day!

Blessings,

This week's featured store is ChildrensCandyKC!  This is such a cute shop for head/hair accessories for babies and little girls.  I mean, how precious is this?

What I really liked about this shop was the variety they had.  They have special fancy ones for flower girls, really cute newborn ones, and some sporty looking ones.
Here is one of their beautiful flower girl headpieces:

They even have a selection of patriotic headbands which really caught my eye.

I absolutely love this one!  Just in time for the Fourth of July that is coming up!  (Would go lovely with my Fourth of July romper sets)

I really liked that they used children and babies so you, the buyer, could actually see them being worn (it also added to the cuteness factor).  The other really nice thing...their prices!  They are more than reasonable.  The other nice thing?  The processing time!  Only 2-3 days to handcraft the head pieces and then they are ready to be shipped (might be different for custom made items, which they also offer).  Please, show this shop some love and stop on by to see all of the other pieces they have to offer!  Let them know that I sent you too! 

I wish everyone a very happy and safe Memorial Day Weekend!  Remember the real meaning of this weekend and please say a prayer or two for the families of those that have given the ultimate sacrifice for us.

God Bless!

Hi!  Welcome to my blog Joyful Threader!  My name is Jessica.  I am a mom to four beautiful little girls and a wife to a wonderful and supportive husband.  A few months ago, I began sewing and knitting a variety of items for my niece's baby girl and my brother's baby son.  I was so proud and happy with the items I made, I just had to show them off to everyone I knew on and off of social media.  The overall response I got was "Jess, you should open up an Etsy store!"  I did!  See over there  ---->

It didn't take me long to realize that there really is a lot more to this then just opening a store.  It's like a whole other world!  Who knew so much went into beginning an online store?  Seriously!  Once I realized this, I did what any good student does, I bought a book.  Not just any book though...I went to my "go to" series of books whenever I want to learn something new...the "...for Dummies" series.  Yes, I bought the "Starting an Etsy Business for Dummies" book.  It's a great book!  If you haven't read it, you really should.  It talks about really basic things such as how to actually sign up for an Etsy account (the for dummies part I'm assuming), but it also talks about what to include in the About section, your store policies, SEO, shipping, how to handle returns, etc.  I'm still reading it actually because as I read I actually try to implement and/or tweak my own Etsy store. It's one of those books that you are going to want to highlight and bookmark pages so you can go back and reread them again and again.  (That concludes my free plug for the "Starting an Etsy Business for Dummies" book, you can thank me later).

Why start a blog?  Well, good question.  It's not like I don't have enough to do already with homeschooling my girls, shuttling them all over the place to extracurricular activities, being a wife, crafting at night, and working on my actual Etsy shop inbetween everything else.  All of this free time?  Why not?  Actually, it is recommended that you do secure a blog or a website early on with your shop name.  Hopefully, people will somehow magically find your blog among the millions of other blogs out there and actually take the time to read it, see your shop, actually click on your shop to peruse it and do I daresay...maybe "buy" something?  So...bottom line...you start a blog with your shop name in hopes of having yet another platform to gain and herd more traffic to your shop.  Honestly, I just want to document my own journey and perhaps help some other newbies out.   

Don't worry, I won't talk the entire time about the items I make.  After all, I do need to keep it interesting.  I plan on discussing/sharing a variety of topics (yes, there may be a post on something new I made for my shop) such as other platforms to sell handcrafted items on, SEO, maybe some tips I pick up myself along the way because I am new myself.  I also would like to showcase a specific shop each week from either Etsy or another platform.

There you have it!  My first post on my blog!  Stay tuned for Feature Friday, where I will showcase a shop from a fellow Etsian (aka another Etsy seller...see we even have a whole other language to become familiar with!) 

See you on Friday!