The Ad, The Look, The Feel...The New

So....this is the ad that I submitted to Kim at the Faerie Magazine. She is the one that I originally wanted to advertise with but everything went haywire last year with her company after the sad passing of her mother. I have decided to spend my remaining advertising budget dollars with her in the hopes that she can get out a quality product. As this IS my target audience in the end I decided it is where I needed to be. I did look into advertising on-line with various newspapers across Alberta and BC but nothing just seemed to be working right. As well, I did look into advertising with a Canadian garden magazine but unfortunately they were all way out of my league as far as budgets go (1/8 b&w page ran over $5000.00!!!). 

I guess, I am asking everyone for their thoughts and opinions on the new look but in the end...the ad is already sent and the deadline has come and gone so I will be unable to make any further changes. I did make an arrangement with Kim for my second ad to be 50% off so if through suggestions, I can certainly change the look or feel come the next time around. The previous ad that Alyssa made for me was fantastic and showed everything that I made at the time which is how I needed people to know that I my company was out there. This new ad is more sleek, clean and hopefully mysterious enough that people will either scan the QR code or look up the website address due to the vagueness of the whole thing. 

Under the suggestions of all of us, Larry, Matthew and Brandi the stump island photo was developed (well, Matthew disagreed with the whole stump idea as he noted that I am not in the business of selling stumps...I commented back with...well not yet!!). The look we were hoping to achieve was one that showed a faerie door and perhaps if you looked you might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a faerie in amongst the flowers and grasses. I think Schonee did an amazing job of capturing a mystical playground for the faeries. 

With the company ever evolving and changing, this ad will allow me to add and subtract products without changing the look and feel of the new backgrounds. The stump island photo is now on every banner for all 6 of my e-commerce sites as well as the website, Facebook and my blog page. All printed material is in the process of being changed over as well. We stayed with the original company colours of eggplant purple and green which means none of my packaging products will need to be changed which helped with expenses. 

Thanks for reading and please respond if you have any suggestions...

Faerie Amma (Emmanuelle)   :)

A Whole New Look!

Well after a very intense week of going back and forth through e-mails....the Enchanted Pathways Faerie Nursery has a new look.

A massive thank you goes out to Schonee with Sirens Designs Fantasy Art Sirens Designs at Etsy for all of her patience and fantastic artistic ability.

I have now managed to update my e-commerce and other internet sites Etsy, ArtFire, Zaybia, Zibbet, Storenvy, Craft Cafe, Facebook and hopefully today....this page :)

This new design will also become all of my printed matter as well including magnets, banners, business cards, sticky notes...you name it :)

Valentine's Day - Faerie Prince Conor

With all of the new changes to Facebook....I am now having to do my free giveaway through a third-party source :(

But I would still love it if you entered :)

Just visit my Facebook page and follow the easy directions. Just below my banner photo there is a wee little box titled Prince Conor. All you need to do is click on that box and you will be redirected to a page hosted by Rafflecopter. Easy Peasy :)


But in the meantime.....please check out my latest YouTube video of wee Prince Conor. A massive thank you goes out The McDades for use of the music (again) :)

Faerie Prince Conor

Keeping Up With The Times

It's not like I'm not doing anything or having anything to blog about or even post....I don't think that I have actually taken more than a day off from being here in the nursery since the New Year.

I have spent most of my time putting on a watermark on all of the photos that I have posted. As well as retaking photos so everyone is done on the same backgrounds. I can't believe how time consuming this project has become. With each faerie having 5 photos that need to either be retaken or they are just fine and all need to be watermarked.

Next is trying to figure out all of this whole marketing idea. As advertising in magazines (to this point anyways) has proved to have zero return on the dollar. So....I am thinking I am going to do the research and take up a few offers that I have been given. It seems that you can advertise with big name newspapers on-line for minimal cost. This will allow me to diversify and have an on-line presence for a longer period of time over putting a bunch of money into a magazine ad that is posted only once!

I have been working on the Clay Potters. Trying to keep up with everyone that wants to be a character, which may I add, I have had a wonderful response from family, friends and complete strangers. I have formulated lots of ideas in my head on what I want on certain pages of the book, the rest will just have to come naturally as I play :)

I am now working with a new graphic designer hoping to revamp all of my printed materials. As this just started this week, I don't really have anything to show you yet but as it comes available I will share.

In other news, I now have an active presence on 5 new e-commerce websites. There seems to have been lots of changes made over in the office of Etsy and they are now charging to have your items showing up on the first couple of pages.

After lots and lots and lots of research, I have opted to try out a few 'new kids' to the e-commerce block along with a few that have been around for a few years but just didn't catch the wave that Etsy did. I am sure with all of the new changes more and more of the little guys will emerge and become successful.

So......with that all being said... you can now find my wee little faeries at:

Etsy
Art Fire
Craft Cafe
Zaybia
Zibbet
Storenvy

Each of these sites will feature different faeries so there is no over lapping as well.

Other new news....Facebook!! It seems that now that they have to actually pay dividends out there has been some very not so good changes done to the rules on how to play on Facebook.

1. You can only use 20% of your banner for words/advertising??
2. You can no longer do a free giveaway of your own products without using a third-party to collect the data and declare a winner.
3. Only 20% of those people who 'follow' you will see a post.

What this means to me....

1. I will have to change my banner...that's an easy change for me...thank goodness.
2. I have had to repost my Valentine's Day free give away of Faerie Prince Conor and sign up to use Rafflecopter. The problem with this, is that unless I want to pay a monthly fee of $7.00 to Rafflecopter, I will never know who enter, how many people entered or if anyone entered at all. As well, this takes away from me being able to hand write all entries only rose petals and make the draw personally. Now all what I will get is an e-mail informing me who to send Prince Conor to. How utterly SAD is that?
3. Even when I make a post on my own Faerie Nursery Facebook page...it doesn't show up in my own personal news feed. I am even subscribed to my own company page and I still don't get to see my own postings? How utterly STUPID is that! Oh...but there is a catch....for $4.00 a posting, I can have my post seen by all 500+ people that have opted to subscribe to follow me!! Yeah, like that is ever going to happen!!

So in the meantime...I will play the game and follow the rules of Facebook and patiently wait for the next best social media site to come along so we can all say...OMG do you remember using FB!!

So...thank you all for reading..this was a wonderful break from doing research and putting watermarks on umpteen photos...and you let me RANT.

I love you all....

Faerie Amma

The Clay Potters....arghhhhhh

Okay, after what is this now....4 prototypes, I still can't just get the look I want for the faerie boys!

My biggest problem seems to be the body part itself. I have tried large beads (you know the ones that used to be used for macramé), seed pods that hubby dearest drilled arm and legs wholes for, smaller beads arghhhhhhh.

For their arms and legs I have tried moss covered wire, paper wrapped wire, just plain old think wire and finally I used yarn to wrap them with....now I have incredible hulks lol. So.....that at least was an easy fix...I am just using yarn like floss and I can say that I love the way it looks...plus this will allow me to actually have boys that are of different colours.

Belts? Should they have belts? I have awesome natural dyed hemp cording that looks awesome but when I tie it around their waists...well it doesn't look so good as it does in my head! Insert another arghhhhhh here :)

Hair? How impossible could this type of decision be?? I have lots of different styles of acorn caps or even using the plastic parts from all of the flowers (but mind you....can't figure out what to use to cover up the hole at the top...still working on this). I have tried yarn, floss, the inside plastic stuff from the flowers (you know...its what makes flowers look bulky...usually clear with lots of little tentacle like things coming from the centre), to even using natural moss. How could boy heads be this hard (ahhh just answered my own question there...sorry...oops to any men reading this blog...lol)? On some of the bodies that I have made, no hair looks awesome...so I think the whole head dilemma will have to wait till the body is finalized.

I also went as far as picking out material that I could use as a wee little shirt and cropped pants....but but but...their legs were soooo spindly looking that I gave up that idea as well. Perhaps with the new wire wrapping technique, I should revisit this idea.

 
I don't think that I have allowed myself or my work table get this frustrated and messy in a long time!!

So here I sit with little boys all around me and not one that I could say...that's it...that's the type I want to use. Insert another arghhhhhh here :)

Back to the drawing board...AGAIN!