January 2, 2012? Did I Put Up the Wrong Calendar?

What on earth? Have I put up the wrong calendar? Has my computer all of a sudden gotten a glitch and forgotten how to keep time? What is happening?

January 2, 2012 ~ This exact date means a lot to me and my little nursery.  It is a day that I have just let slip under the keyboard as one that needs to be remembered one day, but not now.

But today, December 27, 2013 ~ This exact date means a lot to me and my little nursery. It is a day that I will now mark on all of my calendars, paper and digital, a day that honestly, I didn't think I would ever see!

On January 2, 2012, I opened my business page on Facebook for Enchanted Pathways Faerie Nursery. I have learned so much in these short two years. I have met some wonderful people, some of whom I now call great friends, some of whom I have actually met in person.

There are always little things that as a shop owner you watch for as your own check list to see if you are doing things the right way.

As we all know, Facebook itself these past few years has gone through some major transformations, the number one being going public with its shares. Now as a business person, if I want you, as a follower, as a reader, as a potential purchaser of my products, I now have to put Facebook into my Marketing Budget Line which was never an issue before. On average, I have under 200 views for a posting that has no photo attachments and no links. If I do attach photos or a forwarding link, I'm lucky if I get 50 views for that posting. Now I know that through Google Analytics, there is a better day to post, even a better time of day to be posting....but doesn't that take away the....I have something I want to tell you now effect?? And, I'm sorry, I'm just not one that is going to be told when it is the best time to be posting...when I want to tell you something, I'm going to tell you as it us taking place, not at the optimal time of day.

So back to why today, December 27, 2013 is so important to me, both as Faerie Amma and as Emmanuelle.....I reached a milestone of 1000 followers/viewers to my Facebook page today.

As promised, Ms. Cheryl Nixon will have her choice of any one of my Faeries from the Northern Line. The Faerie will be carefully packaged and sent off on behalf of the Faerie Nursery to say Thank You!

I wished I could give something to each and everyone of you for following me, commenting on my postings and liking my photos. Please know, that I appreciate each like and each comment. It is nice to know that I'm not alone out there in the massive World Wide Web!

So here's looking to the next milestone of 1500....where another giveaway will be done to celebrate that follower.

Thank You again.

A new YouTube video featuring 'Me'

As a tradition, okay this is only my 2nd time submitting something for the Fort Smith's Annual Festival of Trees, I have made a YouTube video of what I entered and it features ME!

This idea came to me in a dream one night. When I woke up I was able to draw a sketch of what I really wanted. Yes it was bizarre but it was fun. After a major shopping spree and my husbands most invaluable help, I was able to bring the dream to reality.

I have had a few invaluable points made to me about marketing my little nursery and they all seem to have included that "I" must become a part of that company. I have always kept myself at a distance, not for any particular reason but I have never allowed myself to be really photographed when I wasn't in makeup and dressed up as Faerie Amma.

So, I did post on Facebook with a few photos of me 'working' in the nursery playing with flower heads. Well, it's what I do. My husband was playing with the camera and took a few shots of me and I was brave enough to post them on Facebook. That was a first for me.

As the great advice goes, people need to fall in love me (and Faerie Amma) and what I do before they can fall in love with my company. If I allow myself to be seen as more of who is behind the creations then hopefully my family, friends and followers will learn a bit more about me.

I titled this years submission "Your enchanted home away from home." Now I understand that this is definitely not your normal Christmas Tree entry but I work in a Faerie Nursery. I shouldn't be part of the norm. I should be different. I should be whimsical. I should just be me.

I hope you all enjoy the video (next time I will at least have brushed my hair and put a bit of makeup on...lol).

Fort Smith Trade Show 2013

Here are the photos from very first Fort Smith Trade Show 2013. My booth was sponsored by the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) through the Investment, Tourism and Industry division (ITI).

I had helping me with the Toonie Tattoos made with Faerie Dust...Miss Georgina and Miss Malinda (who wasn't feeling that well and joined us later on in the day).

A massive thank you to my hubby who manned the table while Georgina and I managed to do 72 tattoos that day.

It was wonderful to be recognized as the Faerie Lady :)   Lots of visitors to the booth said hello from the Christmas Craft Fairs that I did in 2012.

We had a fantastic response to the all of the branding from the table cloth, banners, aprons all the way down to the icon appearing on all of the tags.

It was a great success with tons of sales. Thank you Fort Smithers and all of our out-of-town guests that came by.

 

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 :)

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

Sitting on the Fence Post

You know how when you are just teetering on the edge of life and you just don't know if you have what it takes to take the next big leap? Well I have been teetering with my company for the last few months. I have put all of my ducks in a row and just kind of sat there, contemplating the next step. As I work full time, I must admit that my little Faerie Nursery somedays just takes the back burner.

Well over the past two weeks, I have managed to get myself together, have a few brainstorming sessions with great people and in the end making the decision to jump!

So, I jumped. Here I am now, dangling off the edge, with one wee little finger still hanging on for dear life. I don't know about you, but even when you have surrounded yourself with wonderful friends, family and supporters, it is still hard to say...okay, you are going to be okay and everything will work out just fine.

I have applied for two grants for small businesses here in the Northwest Territories. The first one being for small tools and supplies. Now with this grants, like all grant, I had to come up with a business plan that catered to this specific grant. In the end, I decided to commit to making 80 Faerie Suites (50 small doors and 30 large door {these sets include a magical wooden door, trinket chest filled with goodies and a flower petal faerie}{I already had almost 80 doors cut and in the stages of completion}); 50 Seed Pod Faeries (I already have 15 done so I figured that wasn't unrealistic); 25 Teacup Nurseries (as this is still in the experimental stage, they shouldn't be too hard to make, as well each nursery will come with a matching flower petal faerie); and then 200 hundred flower petal faeries (I have over 50 already in made). Now as I am only one person and each of these creations are lovingly hand made, I figured that I could handle this amount of production. The second grant was for marketing and this is the big one. I was hoping to have everything it takes to have a full trade-show booth; store displays, all printed materials, designer and webpage master time and to top it all off, advertising in the local newspaper and possibly a national magazine.

Well today, I found out that both of the grants have been approved! (Actually the small tools and supplies one was approved and signed off last week). So, now here I sit. Pretty scared, pretty nervous and feeling pretty overwhelmed to tell you the truth.

Today, I have taken that leap of faith. That next step. That saying so-long fence post, I don't need you anymore.

So I hope that each and everyone of you, will join me on this journey. As I said in my Facebook post earlier today when I found out my second grant had been approved...

WORLD....HEAR ME ROAR!!

Art in the Park

Well this will be my first official showing since deciding to go from a home crafter of Enchanted Pathways to making a go of it as an actual business.

With the new name change to The Enchanted Pathways Faerie Nursery (legal registered for GST purposes is still Enchanted Pathways); a brand new website; Facebook business page; Etsy store front; a Twitter account; banner and faerie and introducing my new icon.

This icon was a concept of mine that Alyssa brought to life. A true artistic blend of beauty, practicality and simplicity. Everything a memorable icon requires. This icon will become the symbol of the Faerie Nursery. It will be included on everything from business cards, labels, web buttons, letterhead all the way to banners.

As this icon is actually one of my Seed Pod Babies it only seemed appropriate that she represent me, represent the company as a whole. She is the beginning. She is what each faerie starts out as, a flower petal baby.

I hope you like her  :)

The company logo....done :)

So, this is the design I have finally chosen to represent my company.

I have attached two files. This first one is for the wine glass charms and will be printed on 80lb white card stock. The second file will be for the jewelry, again printed on the 80lb white card stock.

I am also having both designs done as an embossing plate for future use :)

3 in 1!!

A triple wammy at the post office today :)

I will update all three parcels on this one post (laziness, perhaps.....it is almost my bed time!).

Parcel #1.... from megacharms (ebay). As this vender sells their items in bulk I thought to save money this would work perfectly. I order two sets of 25 of both the beehive and the pear charms. The beehives are exactly the same as from my previous order (different vendor). The pears on the other hand are just weeeeeee tiny things. Not sure at this stage of the game if they will be usable for the wine glass charms or not.

Beehives....

The Pear.....now I have attached a picture of the new 'baby' pears and then one with the original pear for a comparison. As you can see, they are very tiny!

The next parcel was the Eggplant ribbon from balsacircle (ebay). As expected it is quite a bit darker than the Plum ribbon but in all fairness the Plum ribbon is sheer. When held together in the sunlight the outer edge of the Plum ribbon is really close to the same shade as the Eggplant. Final decision, I love the Eggplant ribbon and it goes fantastically with the sheer Plum ribbon...so I will buy both!! Now as I haven't been able to find the Eggplant ribbon in anything else but a double sided satin, I might go and try to get a wider size (this one is 1/16 of an inch). I have only attached photos of the two styles of ribbon together, as the Eggplant remains to look almost black when photographed.

The final parcel that came in today was....the scrapbooking paper from mch1069 (ebay). I am really pleased with it (though I wished it was not a matte finish). I did go ahead and order the last two sets that were available (prior to this parcel arriving) as the colour and style are now out of print. I think that the paper will make a wonderful addition to the whole marketing scheme as it does have both the Eggplant (and Plum) and Antique Gold colourings on it. 

All in all....a wonderful day to check the mail. I must say that with the exception for the size of the wee little pear charms I am thoroughly happy with all of my purchases. 

Embosser

I have been in contact with a Canadian company.....Scrappin Great Deals in order to purchase an embosser/cutter.

We are now in discussions on what machine will best suit the needs of the company now and down the road.

As labelling presentation is the majority of the marketing plan, the importance of my products looking handmade vs. homemade must be a foremost priority.