Getting Started Building Your Website

By Gari Anne of Bead Lover's Korner

Deciding to create a new website can be a little daunting, but just like anything in life it is the challenge ahead and the goal at the end that leads you to experience and knowledge of things that you would ordinarily only dream of doing. Many years ago I decided to open an online business on EBay selling beads and other items that I thought were cool. That worked pretty well and eventually I needed a website, too. I am now on my 3rd website, and each time I upgraded to something a little better to stay in step with technology and incorporate more functions. If you are selling products, the shopping cart and how it is connected to the payment gateway is very important, as well as ease of use for the customer. That is where I become stupid, it is tricky and I really don't have time to learn that end so on this third website I hired an agency with design, technical and promotion experience to help me out. Most developers will only set things up and load maybe 50 products. After that they teach you and you have to do all the work, unless you want to pay them a whole lot more money. Really you are better off doing it yourself anyway, because you know your product better than they do.

I learned a few things from these three different website experiences, and the most important thing I learned is that while you need someone to help you with all the technical mumbo jumbo and programming, many times you are better off doing it yourself. Once you find this person to help you out, hook everything up correctly and pay their fee, you can never find them again! Then you're in a real mess and there's no one around  so you just have to wing it and figure things out for yourself. Everyone knows someone who knows html or programming but they are like Gnomes hiding under a rock or in the trees. When you go looking for them again, they have up and vanished!

A lot of websites today come with built in editors that will do the html for you. But it's always a good idea to know a little of the basics like how to make things bold, make something italic, etc. Lots of times those editors get all jumbled up with different things everytime you change something, so you can just view the code and take out all the extra stuff if you know what to look for.

Basic html examples:
For more instances this is a great source http://www.ncsu.edu/it/edu/html_trng/basic_commands.html 

<p> causes a line break and adds a trailing blank line for paragraphs, to end a paragraph use this at the end </p>

<br> causes a line break with no trailing blank line if you just want to bring something down one line

This is a <b>boldface</b> tag.
This is how boldface appears.

This is an <i>italic</i> tag.
This is how italics appear

After those few things it's all pretty easy if you take things in steps. If you try to do everything all at once it is very overwhelming! Here are a few other things to think about:

Domain names and hosting: Match your domain with your brand. Most hosting companies can help with your domain name, but be sure to get a hosting company that has real people working there so you can talk to someone if you need help.

Branding: Use the same colors, logos, design (if possible) in all other areas like Facebook, Twitter, Etsy, Blog etc. This way the customers are used to seeing the same things and will know it's YOU!

Image: Decide what kind of image you want to portray to the world, what kind of customers do you want, what do you want the customer to feel when they see your front page? Do you want them to read or buy? Think of things like that to help put together what your image will be in their eyes.

Photos: Invest in a good camera and photo editing program, it really makes a difference in the quality of the picture and what your customer sees. Etsy has some great write ups on photography. A picture REALLY is worth a thousand words!

Image names: If you are selling products and you have a LOT, be sure to start using a good image naming system so that you can find the pics when you need to. I use the manufacturer's product code along with a prefix that I assign to them. Example: BI-BS202 -  which is used for the image and the item code. Image management can be time consuming if you don't have some organization in the beginning.

Organize products: Do an outline or spreadsheet to help decide how to organize your products so the customer will have an easy time finding what they want. You may change your mind later, but if you have an outline in the beginning it makes it easy to know what you have, how products might work with each other as cross selling, etc.

Product Descriptions: You can do it however you want, but I think it should be fairly short. When people are shopping on the internet they usually know what they want and will only skim your descriptions.

Security: Make sure your site is secure from hackers, malware, and that encryption is high so there is no risk of your customers information getting into the wrong hands.

Marketing: In my opinion pay per clicks are a waste of money unless you have the time to sit and really figure out how the company presents your ads. I think Facebook, email marketing and good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are your best bet. Word of mouth is the best advertising of all!

Gari Anne, thank you SO much for sharing all of these great tips!!  I for one know next to nothing about html and really appreciate you taking the time to explain some of the basics.  Your website looks really great!  Check it out:  Bead Lover's Korner website, Bead Lover's Korner blog, and Bead Lover's Korner on Etsy.  Whew!  =)

Next week, we welcome back AJ from ErtheFae's Meandering Thoughts for another installment of ErtheFae's Faerie Lore.

60 Miles is Shorter Than it Seems

By John Welsh

The reaction that people have when I tell them I will be walking 60 miles for breast cancer will never get old to me. This year is my fifth year walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For the Cure and just today the owner of our company asked me about it.

"So, when's your next walkathon?" he always calls it a walkathon, and that's ok with me because the company has donated generously for every walk that I have done.

"It's in November this year. I'm doing San Diego this time."

"Oh, San Diego should be nice. Remind me how far this walk is."

I pause getting ready for the reaction, because even though he has heard it before, I know that the reaction will be good. I say, "It's 60 miles."

"60 miles! Jeez that's quite a long way!"

A lot of times when I tell people this little factoid they will respond similarly. Sometimes they will ask why on earth I would want to walk that distance. The answer to that question is quite simple, I will get to that later. Sometimes they tell me that they would rather just donate than walk that distance. Whatever the response is, it's usually pretty entertaining.

Maybe it's just me, but when I became a 3-Day walker I started to view distance a little bit differently. I didn't notice it right off the bat, but it has definitely changed my view. Here's just a couple of ways that happened:

• I live in Texas. I think for most people, living in Texas means that you drive everywhere. It doesn't matter if where you are going is half a mile away (sometimes even less) or it's 30 miles away, you're hopping in the truck or SUV (this IS Texas) and driving there. It's hot, so you can't blame us too much. When I started training I would try to map out something along the walking paths near the house, nothing too exciting. My friends would ask how far I walked on a training walk and when I told them eight miles, they would comment, "I didn't know you could even walk that far in Flower Mound!" (the town that I lived in). It got me thinking, if I could walk this far for training walks, why can't I walk this far for other things. I started planning walks to meet the family when we were going somewhere. Soccer games, to get a drink at the convenience store. As long as it was somewhere that it didn't matter that I was a little sweaty or I didn't have to be there in short order I would start walking there and it's pretty cool to do that, especially when you think like this: I'm walking to the convenience store in the fight against breast cancer. It kind of makes a lot of the things you do seem a lot more meaningful.
• Kind of along the lines as the last item, when I would drive somewhere I would always keep an eye on the tachometer in the car so that I could see how far a place was to determine if it was walkable. I also keep an eye out for the all important sidewalks to make a better walking experience.
• The last way I'm going to talk about how my view of distance has changed took a little longer than the first year to come across, but it's probably the most important. That first year, while I was raising money for the cause I think my primary focus was making it through the 60 miles on the walk. Walking 60 miles was the key. When I think about it now, I don't do the 3-Day for the Cure to walk 60 miles. Don't get me wrong, I'll still walk that distance because I think getting out there and helping to raise awareness about the cause is just as important as the money. What I'm saying is that if I ended up with an injury that took me out of walking after 10 miles I would be ok with that. It took me a really long time to get to that point, there's a certain pride of being able to walk that many miles and tell people that you did it. Once you get there though, it makes walking 60 miles a lot more enjoyable without worrying about whether you will make it or not.

So what's my scatterbrained point in writing about all this? I guess there's a couple. First off, when you get involved in the 3-Day for the Cure you're going to change in more ways than you think. Just look at me, I changed in just the simple way that I looked at mileage.

The second is for those of you that are on the fence about doing the 3-Day because you're concerned about the physical aspect of it. I'm not going to lie, 60 miles is a lot. My first year walking I was the only member of my team that made it all 60 miles and I think that was from pure stubbornness on my part. But you have to remember the point of all this. You're not doing the walk to walk 60 miles, you're doing it to save lives and to find a cure for breast cancer. If distance is your main reason for not doing the walk, I hope that you'll take the time to adjust how you view that distance and re-consider doing the 3-Day for the Cure.

You're absolutely right, John!  My team did a training walk weekend of 23 miles on Saturday and 21 on Sunday (something like that).  When I got to work on Monday, people would usually ask me what I walked over the weekend.  When I told them those numbers, they were usually in shock and thought I was crazy for doing it in the summer heat in Florida.  As proud as I am about the mileage I accomplished being involved in the walk, it felt like it wasn't such a big deal when you consider the bigger picture.  And now, knowing what I was able to do is a source of strength.  

Thank you so much for sharing this, John!!  Please check out John's blog at 60 Miles - 316,800 Feet Closer to a Cure and support his fifth 3 Day walk (that means he has walked 300 event miles & countless training miles while raising $35,555!!!) by visiting his fundraising page at the 3 Day.  You can also follow him on twitter @60miles.

Next week, Gari Anne of Bead Lovers Korner and her blog of the same name will share with us a little bit about her experiences building her own website.  

How to Shop Your House

Hi! I’m Paige from Final Clothes-Out, and a big thanks to Janine for inviting me to post here today. My blog is all about being smart when you shop, and part of that is knowing when not to spend.

We all like change every now and then, but sometimes it’s not in the budget. So what’s a gal to do? Shop at home! And I don’t mean, “Go watch QVC!” I mean literally Shop Your House.

Chances are that you already have plenty of fabulous things, so you just need to rearrange them into something new.

Take this shelf, for example:

It lives in a room that plays double-duty (the office/guest room) so occasionally it will need to be something other than storage:

Tip #1: Think practical. If you want to change up a look, consider all the functions of the room, and decide if one of them should be highlighted. In this case, putting out towels and a candle for an imaginary guest was an easy fix.

But what about a look for everyday?

Tip #2: Just try it. I almost didn’t put this yellow print against the tan wall because I was SURE it would look stupid. But I really like it now, so clearly I was wrong.

Tip #3: Look everywhere. Do more than rearrange items from the same room. Here, the piggy bank was on my dresser, the retro clock was in the living room, and the print wasn’t even framed. If you expand and shop your entire house, you’ll have more to choose from and a better chance of loving the end result.

Great advice, Paige!  I know a lot of us aren't spending like we used to and making some small simple changes like you suggested is a great way of getting a new look without spending a dime.  Gotta love that!  Be sure to check out Paige's delicate, feminine pretties in her shop Little White Chapel.  Also, head on over to her blog Final Clothes-Out where you will see the journey that little shelf has gone through.  =) 

Make sure you come back for next week's very special guest.  Next week's featured guest blogger, John, is none other than one of the 60 Mile Men.  You can find him on twitter @60miles or on his blog 60 Miles: 316,800 Feet Closer to a Cure.

In My Secret Garden

By Laura Walker

Members of my family have owned what is now the oldest florist and greenhouses in Lexington, Kentucky since the early 1900’s. As a child I would sit in the potting shed at the back of the greenhouses and plant flowers with my grandfather, who would tell me what each flower was as he taught me to gently plant them in terra cotta pots. So I guess it is only natural, that wherever I have lived as an adult, I have had some type of garden. Sometimes the space has been quite large, while at other times there may have been only room enough for a few potted flowers on a porch or balcony. Every winter I sit and dream about my summer garden and plan what I am going to plant when spring arrives.

I am currently in a townhouse with a bit of space in the back. A patio leads down to a dense area that was virtually unusable. So we decided to hack away the small trees and foliage and create a small haven that I like to call my secret garden. Stepping stones lead down to a small seating area that is a perfect spot to sip a glass of wine or lemonade, read a book, or just to enjoy some peace and quiet. 

As you can see from the pictures, I am usually not alone for long. We have a small colony of feral cats that we feed, who are becoming domesticated, a family of raccoons, who like to share the cats’ food, some naughty squirrels, and a lot of birds. Keeping everyone living in harmony while maintaining a pretty space is an ongoing work in progress.

I have learned while living in various places around the country that there is always some trial and error involved in choosing plants for a garden.  What may work beautifully in one area of the country may turn into a disaster in another. Don’t try to fight Mother Nature. If your area is primarily shady, as mine is now, don’t try to grow sun loving plants. It just doesn’t work.

I like the area around my patio to be lush with plants. I mix annuals with perennials so that there will be a constant display of color with lots of green foliage. Tucking some potted plants into the beds gives some variance in height and creates visual interest. Just like in the interior of my home, I love the coolness of white and so plant a lot of white impatiens in my beds. The pinks in the pots add a pop of color.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is starting a garden is to plant what is appealing to you and have fun with it.  Summer will be over before you know it, so get outside and enjoy your garden.

What great advice, Laura!  Thank you!!  It must have been such a wonderful experience to be able to sit & learn with your grandfather like that.  I just got the test results back from my soil sample & am dying to figure out what it means so I can start planting, too.  You can find some really wonderful vintage treasures in Laura's shop I'm So Vintage and be sure to check out her blog, too!

Next week's featured Guest Blogger is Paige from Little White Chapel on Etsy and her blog Final Clothes-Out.  She'll share a crafty tutorial with us.

ReCreational Art Makes Upcycled Art

Hi! My name is Rose and I am a re-useaholic.

After graduating high school I went abroad for over a decade and then came back home to marry the boy next door. After working in the corperate surroundings and getting burnt out I then took a job working in a coffee shop as a barrista. I absolutely loved it! The aroma of the exotic blends that I served, the fabulous people that I served, came to know and am still friends with, the unique opportunity that I was given to step outside of the box and learn new things is a memory that I hold dear and near.  Working in the cafe was fun and at the end of the day when I would sweep the floor there would be a small mound of coffee beans and although I knew we couldn't serve them again, I just felt it a waste to toss them in the trash. So I rinsed them off, dried them out and saved them. They looked like natural organic beads to me, so I bought a Dremel and drilled little holes in them and made coffee bean jewelry that, luckily, the owner allowed me to sell in the shop.

Also we had a plethora of Burlap bags that the coffee beans came in and although the owner donated them to several elementary schools (that used them for the kids to do races in) and a local church (that used them to decorate a playroom) there were many bags to go around. So I started taking them home and that's how my Burlap Covered Boxes came along, which I also sold in the Coffee shop. I have made other goodies from 'throw-aways' at the coffee shop: some purses crafted from plastic caps, and how about a lamp shade made from used tea bags!

I quickly learned about Etsy.com from some of my customers at the coffee shop. They suggested that I think big, they thought that I should get out there and sell my creations to a larger audience, they encouraged me to take step outside of my comfort zone and after a while I decided to take the plunge and put my work out there!

I have always been a fan of creating as little waste as possible, teaching my Boy Scouts how to be thrifty.  Challenging them to see how much waste could be minimized with a little effort opened my eyes even more! We would come up with crazy ways to save and reuse items like straws and cupcake liners. We would learn that not taking utensils on a camp out not only forced us to think outside of the box and use a Ziploc bag as a storage container, then a  bowl and then a place to store trash to take home to throw away - but we even saved the water and soap that would have been used for clean up! I stretched that idea much more in my personal life so, for example, when I rinsed those coffee beans I would save the water and use it to rinse the rags with and then mop the floors with. Sometimes I could get pretty extreme with my thriftiness! lol. Even now I get a chuckle when I see my scouts eating an orange on a camp out and then using the halved rind as a bowl for his Raman noodles! My son, at 19, will still do upcyclable things like cut open the empty cereal box and use it as a sketch pad or painters palette or cut it half way down and use it as drawer dividers!

One day I remembered about a 5 gallon pail that my dad, avid yard saler and treasure collector, had picked up at an estate sale for a couple of dollars. I dug it out and began playing. I would take apart the broken necklaces and create new pieces of jewelry. 

Sometimes I would need to make a trip to a local craft store to pick up items needed for finishing touches like clasps and what-nots, but all in all it felt really good to recreate new pieces from what someone considered 'junk'. My ReCreationalArt shop on Etsy is a place for me to post these fun pieces that have been given a new life for other ladies to enjoy! Like the Bracelets and Necklaces made from computer transistors!

Soon after I decided that men should have a place to shop, too, seeing as I had come across several accessories for men (mainly with the donation of my mother-in-laws old jewelry box full of her husbands old tie bars and cuff links). So I opened a new shop: GentlemansEmporium on Etsy and have had so much fun researching the history and ever changing fashion of men's accessories and have a place to post these beautiful heirlooms that I had acquired and that my Dad still finds for me through estate sales and flea markets!

My new endeavor is my PennyBoperoo shop that I am working on. This is a place for me to be more whimsical. I love playing with felt and this is where I post my felty creations. I still try my best to minimize waste and am able to create pieces with scrap cuttings and much with felt that my Dad (and now I!) find at yard sales. I also use old stained T-shirts that have cute designs to use as focal points in many of those creations.

Thank you Rose so much for sharing with us your upcycled treasures!  I am a firm believer in recycling and upcycling everything you possibly can and your art is such a wonderful example of putting that into practice.  I personally love your Geek Chic Collection, your Burlap covered boxes, and your Coffee Bean work!!  You can also find more on Rose's blog.

Next week's featured Guest Blogger is Paige from Little White Chapel on Etsy and her blog Final Clothes-Out.  She'll share a crafty tutorial with us.


Edit:  Oops.  I hadn't had my coffee yet.  Paige from Little White Chapel will be guest blogging her crafty tutorial in two weeks.  Next week, Laura from I'm So Vintage on Etsy and her blog of the same name will be blogging about her secret garden & sharing some tips with us.

ErtheFae's Faerie Lore: Beware the Nuckelavee!

by AJ Reardon of ErtheFae's Meandering Thoughts

Thanks to the Victorians, most of us have this image of faeries as being tiny winged folk. We might also include elves, gnomes, and leprechauns under the heading of faerie. Perhaps we think only of Tinkerbell and Fairy Godmothers, and maybe the Evil Fairy who gets offended and curses the newborn princess.

But the truth is, the faerie lore of the British Isles is rich, bizarre, and full of creatures that are nothing like the flitting, sparkling spirits we imagine frolicking through the flowers. Today I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite faeries, which I consider to be the most gruesome example of how strange faerie lore can be. That's right, we're going to talk about the Nuckelavee.

Forget your mental image of faeries as small and beautiful. The Nuckelavee is huge and horrific. Similar to a centaur, as imagined by HP Lovecraft or Todd McFarlane, the beast looks like a giant horse, with a man's torso and head rising out of its back. Oh, and did I forget to mention that it appears to be flayed? Yes, just imagine that rising out of the sea, its skinless head lolling on its shoulders, its single red eye staring right at you.

In her “An Encyclopedia of Fairies”, Katherine Kerr describes the Nuckelavee as “One of the most repulsive creatures which the Scottish imagination has conceived; and the Scots are expert in horrors.”  When Froud and Lee included the Nuckelavee in their book “Faeries” (where I first learned of it), they clearly considered it too horrible to draw in full – the illustration instead shows only its arm, reaching towards a tiny, terrified pixie.

Thankfully, the Nuckelavee is a creature of the sea and cannot abide the touch of fresh water. If  you happen to be wandering the Scottish coastline at night and the fearsome Nuckelavee rises from the depths and pursues you across the countryside, you can rescue yourself by splashing into a loch or crossing a stream. Just watch out for waterhorses while you're there!

AJ Reardon has been fascinated by faerie lore ever since she received a copy of “Faeries” by Brian Froud and Alan Lee when she was 16. She doesn't actually believe in faeries, but maybe that's because she lives in Tucson, AZ which is not known for its abundance of The Good Neighbors. AJ uses her knowledge of fae and myths to inspire the jewelry that she makes and sells in her on-line shop, Erthe Fae Designs.

Thanks so much to AJ for starting off the guest blogger series with some really awesome faerie lore!  It's so obvious how much her love of fantasy informs her jewelry.  I love the tribal styles and particularly her intricate seed bead work!!  I'm really looking forward to hearing more faerie lore from AJ in future guest posts!  AJ & I are both part of the Fantasy Artists of Etsy Street Team. 

Next week's featured guest blogger is Rose from Recreational Art on Etsy and her blog of the same name.  She'll be talking about recycling, upcycling, and repurposing.  

Call for Guest Bloggers

I've been thinking about adding a guest blogger post for a while now and after reading this post by Kanelstrand, I'm in!  I thought it would be fun for people to hear about a topic often discussed around here from a different perspective.  Or maybe to even branch out in a new direction based on popular themes here in the Armoury.

There's a wide variety of topics that we can focus on for your guest post including but certainly not limited to...
-renaissance (faires, history, etc.)
-jewelry (trends, inspiration, how-to's)
-feminism
-goddess lore
-fantasy
-green anything
-gardening
-blogging, SEO, Google Analytics, etc.
-entrepreneurship, small business, craft business
-craft projects/tutorials
-charity (obviously, I'm a big supporter of The 3 Day!)
-fundraising
-fitness
-alternative health

Or, if you have another idea, let me know!

Why would you want to guest blog?  You'll have a new audience to hear your voice and they just may check out your shop or blog after reading your post.  Not to mention that you'll have permanent backlinks to your blog from the post which will make your blog's rank higher.  Your post will be promoted to over 1,400 Twitter followers and be seen by 60 (average) daily blog visitors.  Guest posting also paints you as an expert in your field and gives you an opportunity to be creative.

I'd like to have a weekly guest post and it absolutely doesn't have to be the same blogger each week, but we'll see how this goes to start.  If you do have an idea to do a series, let me know because I think that would be a lot of fun, too!

Leave me a comment here with your proposed post idea and a way for me to contact you (either your e-mail, through your shop, etc.) or you can also contact me through my shop.  I'm really looking forward to hearing your ideas and working with you!!