Thursday, March 12, 2009

Display

As a proud member of the Etsy Austin street team, I have been working hard to prepare for our festivities during South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the most popular weeks in the capital city-- and a must-do event for anyone interested in independent films or up-and-coming bands. With so many people converging in our beautiful city, our team will have a tent set up at Hill Country Weavers on South Congress Avenue. We'll be selling the fruits of our artistic endeavors, demonstrating craft techniques, and giving out promotional items from noon to 7 pm on Saturday, March 14; Sunday, March 15; Friday, March 20; and Saturday, March 21. With lots of our Etsy Austin team members participating in these festivities, and the need to fit many of us in the small space of your typical vendor tent, we each took on the challenge of designing our product displays to fit on the footprint of an 11" by 17" piece of paper.

To show off my jewelry, I had to visualize my display with some height. I sketched out my idea noting the dimensions and showed my husband. After a trip to the nearby home improvement store for some boards, screws, spray paint, and hooks, he took the task to heart and turned my sketch into a budget-friendly, space-constrained display for my handmade wares. While this setup maximizes height, the boards open up to a width of 11 inches and they are 17 inches across, neatly fitting within the required table space. The hooks can be arranged and re-arranged to suit the products I have left after each day's sales. I've included some of my best-selling jewelry on the display--each tagged on a business card--including my "Yarnballs" earrings, bright orange "Tangelo" earrings, and lots of mini pottery shard necklaces.

If you're in Austin either of these weekends in March, I hope you'll stop by our tent at Hill Country Weavers to say hello, see our goodies in person, do a little shopping with us, and maybe even watch one of our members give a craft demonstration. If you can't make it, please check out our goodies at http://www.EtsyAustin.com or shop online with me at http://polishedtwo.etsy.com for pottery shard jewelry and whimsical accessory designs.















Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tees

As a proud member of the Etsy Austin street team, I am excited to tease you with some information about our activities during South by Southwest (SXSW), the highly anticipated event of the year in the heart of Texas. Members of the team have been working our tails off to recycle our friends' cast-off T-shirts into messenger bags that we're screenprinting and stuffing full of awesome crafty goodies including earrings, brooches, postcards, soaps and lots of other samples of the wares we artfully design and sell at http://www.etsyaustin.com/.

Not only will we be handing out over 300 of these handcrafted messenger bags-- we will also have a booth set up at Hill Country Weavers on South Congress Avenue where we'll demonstrate some of our favorite crafts, such as finger-knitting a pretty scarf (no needles!). We'll also be selling some of the products you see in our online shops. Our booth will be set up from noon to 7 pm on Saturday, March 14 and Sunday, March 15 and we'll be back out on Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21, 2009. Look for us in our cool blue Etsy Austin T-shirts that have been screenprinted with our team logo. The shirts make a great souvenir and can be purchased for $18 at our booth. *hint, hint*

While you're out and about enjoying all of the parties, please come by to say hello, do a little shopping, and show the love for the hard-working, creative, and friendly Etsy Austin team members.