Made Now Carrying Theresa Rose Designs

A quick shout-out to the newest store carrying Theresa Rose Designs!

You can now find my jewelry at Made on Mass. They are a modern handmade shop located at 737 Massachusetts St. in downtown Lawrence Kansas. They carry locally made items, along with items from regional and national artists.

See more great products: Made

February Giveaway Contest Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in my first giveaway contest of 2013!

We had a 3-way tie with the exact date given. The date I had in mind was the date I joined Etsy - November 26, 2007.

Since there was a 3-way tie, I let my trusty assistant, Keena, help with the random selection for the winner. I placed all three names on separate pieces of paper and threw them in the air. Keena then selected the winner. As you can see from the first photo, she wasn't quite up to the task. But with a little lovin and a milk bone treat, I soon had her ready to help out.

Congratulations to Kristin! You will receive an e-mail with the details of your gift certificate.

Spring 2013 Color of the Year - Poppy Red

I can't believe that March 1st is only a few days away! Daylight savings time is only 2 weeks away and spring will officially kick-off in 3 weeks. Spring is one of my favorite times of the year and with the weather a balmy 70 degrees today in San Diego, I feel it will be an early and warm one this year.

I'm really excited about the new spring colors for 2013. They are soft, yet vibrant. Another great color this spring is Poppy Red. While many of the colors for this year are soft and pastel, the poppy red 'pops' out and is sure to bring a lot of inspiration to my designs this year.

I found this great red sweater at Anthropologie. Black, white and red is going to be hot, hot, hot this year. and I love this combination! This sweater inspired the darling little gold wire wrapped earrings in my shop.

To see these earrings in my Etsy store for $8.00 each:
Red and Gold Teardrop Earrings

February Giveaway

Along with resurrecting my blog, I'm also going to start my monthly giveaways again. I really enjoyed my giveaways and connecting with new people during that time, so I'm not really sure why I stopped. Life probably just got in the way - doesn't it always!

So, here we go. For this giveaway, I'm giving a $15.00 gift certificate to my Etsy store. It's open to everyone, domestic and international.

The way to win this giveaway is to enter a date (from 1/1/2000 - present) that is the closest to an important date that I have selected. The person who guesses closest to that date wins. In case of a tie, I will randomly select a winner.

To enter:
1. Enter a comment with the date you have selected. Be sure to use the following format - month/date/year.
2. You can enter once in the comment section below.
3. However, you can also enter (as many as once per day) by sharing the facebook post from my Facebook Fan Page regarding this contest. After sharing the post, enter a comment with a date. You can share this post as many days as this contest runs - just remember, only once per day.

This contest runs through Monday, March 4th at midnight.

Creating Your Own Website Without Hiring a WebMaster

Creating and maintaining a website doesn’t have to be a monumental task. I think one big mistake people make is that they look at big company websites and are immediately intimidated by the scope and grandeur of these sites. For most of us, it’s just important to have a presence on the internet that contains pertinent information and links to our product offerings on our shopping site.

While I maintain a successful Etsy shop, I also have my own website. This site shows my latest jewelry products in a slideshow and then has links to my Etsy shop, blog, facebook fan page, twitter, and pinterest. There is also an ‘About’ page and a ‘Contact’ page. It took me one week to create and I used all free code found on the internet! I can modify it at a later date as my needs change. But for right now, I have all my important information on one site.

I found a great site on the internet called Free Website Templates. I browsed through their templates until I found one that had the style I was looking for. One caveat -  there are some templates (usually the best ones), that do not allow you to download the code. You can only edit and publish from their site. I quickly dismissed those. There are still many free downloadable templates to choose from. 

Once you download the code, then it’s just a matter of replacing their logos, images, links, and text with your information. Fortunately, I used to be a windows programmer, so I do have a lot of comfort in coding, but html code is very straightforward and anyone can edit it in a simple text editor. The source code is not cryptic and one can usually decipher it readily. If you’re stuck on a piece of code, just google it! You’ll find all the descriptions you need.

The most difficult task was replacing the main body picture with the slideshow pictures. I found a great site on the internet that gave me the free code for the slideshow – with all the instructions needed to integrate their code. There’s even a discussion board to help!

The company is Dynamic Drive and their website can be found here:

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex14/fadeinslideshow.htm

Once I edited the files, cleaned up my images, I copied all the files onto my hosting site (I use hostmonster.com) and I was instantly on-line! It was a great feeling to type in my website and see my jewelry on the internet.

I’m happy to help anyone who may have a question regarding what I discussed today. Please feel free to leave a comment and I’ll help any way I can. I realize that programming can be a bit daunting, but it is so worthwhile to have your own website!

Here's the link to my site: Theresa Rose Designs

Natural Products - San Diego Bath and Body

I love it when I find a great product that is:

• Local company
• Owned by women
• Natural
• Organic
• Vegan
• Handcrafted

If I find a product that supports local, small businesses (especially run by women), then I've hit a home run! San Diego Bath and Body Company is exactly the type of company I love to support. It's run by environmentally conscious Christy Bartlett and her husband Steve Blake.

All of her skin care products are natural, using only real ingredients that you can actual recognize and pronounce (there's a new concept!). Ingredients such as coconut oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, olive oil, lavender, eucalyptus.

I've been using the French Lavender Body Lotion religiously since I purchased it a couple of months ago. Not only does it beautifully moisturize, it lasts forever! A little goes a long way, which I attribute to the natural ingredients that Christy uses when making this lotion. All of her products are handmade by her, so I know I'm getting a quality product.

You can find her at local craft shows in San Diego and purchase online.

Why It's Important to Have Your Own Website

I've been selling on Etsy for over 4 years and have been very happy with the traffic and sales I receive on their site. People are always asking me if I have my own website and until recently, I never gave it much thought. I did sign up for my domain name - TheresaRoseDesigns a few years ago, just in case. I tried to create my own website but was overwhelmed with the task, so it went years wasted.

I have finally gotten my act together and launched my website and it only took me 1 week from start to finish! I'm so glad I finally completed this task and wonder why I didn't tackle this sooner. The reasons are so numerous why it's so important and I spell out the main ones here. Hopefully, this will get you motivated to do the same.

Here are the main reasons to have your own site, even if you are selling successfully on Etsy:

1. You own your brand name. TheresaRoseDesigns is my name, forever. As long as I pay my $10 or so every year, no one can take that name.
2. Your entire online presence can be accessed from one location. From my main site, you can link to:
• Etsy Shop
• Blog
• Facebook Fan Page
• Twitter
• Pinterest  
3. Increase your web exposure.  The more places you have your name, the more you will be found.
4. Complete control over content. While I love the way Etsy looks, I do not control the picture sizes, color, or logo. I want the first look a customer has of Theresa Rose Designs to be the image that I want to project.
5. SEO, SEO, SEO! I can drive customers to my site via SEO (which I'm still learning). I can't really do that on Etsy. 
6. Credibility. Having my own site shows that I'm serious about my business. If I'm invested in my business, then that builds trust with potential customers. It shows professionalism and legitimacy.
7. What is the future of Etsy? I'm pretty sure that Etsy will be around for a long time, but if anything happens, I'm positioned to link to a new store. If Etsy disappears and that's my only on-line presence, I disappear.

Your website doesn't have to be a massive undertaking. I have a couple of pages. I use it mostly to link to my other sites at this time. Once I realized that this was the way to start, the task didn't seem so daunting and I was able to get to work on it. In a later blog post, I'll explain how I was able to design and complete my website in only one week - for free (that was the best part).

Theresa Rose Designs