*Great News*

I really am well and truely back into the craft-o-sphere once more as I'm delighted, excited and pleased to announce that I'll be one of many artists showing and selling their wares at the new Limerick Craft & Design shop which is scheduled to open in the coming weeks on Sarsfield Street in Limerick City.

Limerick Craft & Design is a new pop up shop and will showcase a wide range of craft and design all of which is made locally by up and coming established artists who live and work in Limerick. The venture is being supported by Limerick City Council in an effort to drive more business and traffic into the city itself. Like many towns and cities accross the country, Limerick has been badly affected by the recession and Limerick also has the worst known case of donut development, meaning that during the celtic tiger years, a huge amount of development took place outside and around the city centre, forcing people to spend their money outside of the city centre. As a result, trade and the overall ambience of Limerick city took a nose dive, reducing the area to a shadow of its former self. It is hoped that creative programs like these will attract more customers back to area and bring the city back to life once more! It's a slow process, but I've no doubt it will happen.

I'm looking forward to volunteering my time once the shop itself opens and have no doubt that I'll enjoy the experience just like I did with the Etsy Ireland pop up shop last summer. There are over 35 artists, crafters and designers showcasing their work and the shop itself is a real opportunity to get your work out there and of course to meet customers too! Opportunities like these are fantastic for a small business to get a small step on the creative and business ladder and allows those participating to get a real and positive insight into the running and 'goings on' behind setting up and operating a real shop. In reality, it's experience that no money or degree can buy! Although my time with the Etsy Ireland pop-up shop was short last summer, I learned and gained valuable information and experience....like security and protecting your products! No one could have prepared any of us for the fact that someone may come in and decide to pinch a few things.

When that happened, "playing shop" just got real and all of us who volunteered our time had to watch all customers (big and small) with dedicated eyes. Afterall, everyone who sent work for sale had spent money, time and effort to create their prodcuts, if something got stolen, it was stolen direct from their pocket.

Other insightful knowledge gained included Health & Safety, customer service and getting that elusive sale for you or another Etsy member and of course marketing....getting people into the shop. (It's amazing the power chalk can have on an outside wall to make a temporary sign!). The above are only a teeny tiny amout of skills / knowledge that can be gained, but if anything its an opportunity to be jumped at!

With Ruth Crean of Nice Day Designs at the helm along with other core committee members, I've no doubt you'll be hearing alot more about the shop in the weeks and months to come! Stay tuned!

New Moo Cards

I pretty much used up the bulk of my business cards at the Etsy Pop-Up shop, great to know people were interested enough in my products to take a business card.

So, in an effort to replace them I decided to spend a little extra in getting new cards. Moo.com offers the most wonderful business cards. My previous cards contained one of their stock photos on the back, but it had been suggested to me to use my own images as my cards were so cute, plus potential customers get to see your work just by looking at your business card! This is sooo easy to do, they basically connect to your Etsy shop and take the images for there and do all the work for you!

The results arrived in the post yesterday and I just love them....so much so that I may never give them away!

I'm delighted with the overall quality as I have had bad experiences in the past with dodgey business cards, that not only were a waste of money,  but did not see the light of day!

I also purchased some moo stickers which also are...you guessed it, stickers of my cards! I'm not quite sure what I'll do with them yet, but I'll keep you posted!

Pretty Cards to send to Pretty People

I've been without my beloved android phone for the best part of a month. It suddenly stopped working for no reason and alas off to the phone doctors it went. I arrived by yesterday to collect my phone only to be told "They just gave you a new one"....obviously serious damage had been done to the previous one. However, I have to say I'm loving the new updated Sony Eircsson phone. It's easier to use, easier to text with and I easily downloaded all my favourite apps in a heart beat! As you'll soon see from the images, the retro camera app is (in my opinion) thee most fun arty, farty app to play with.

Also today I was due to give a hand in the Etsy Pop Up Shop but I was having terrible headaches, part of me thought it was down to the 25C sunshine we had in Limerick yesterday! This pasty gal just ain't use to it! My apologies to the gals on the Etsy team, I was looking forward to drinking tea, chatting to the customers and bringing all my card making goodies to the shop to make cards while the shop was quiet!

However, I have managed to make some new, fun cards in the last few days. My stock is really low in the Pop Up shop (a good complaint!) so I need to get myself down there tomorrow to not only help out but to also bump up my section! Everything (and more!) you see in this post will all be available in the pop up shop from Sunday, June 5th!

Pop Up Shop Success!

Over the weekend I helped out with a number of great and talented Etsy Ireland members run our very first pop up shop. The shop was run as part of CATDIG 2011, a great cultural event which brought together storytellers, artists and musicians to name but a few to create a wonderful three day event.

Myself doing my utmost to get the customers in!

After much hard work (put in by Ruth & Jess) the previous Friday, I arrived with all my goodies ready to sell on the Saturday and Sunday. I had such a good time chatting to everyone and trying to convince people to come into the shop that I stayed the two whole days.

I also ran a card making class in the local arts and crafts shop Silkes and encouraged people to create their own and adopt some of the techniques that I use. I really enjoyed it and makes me miss teaching even more!

The LuckyRainbow Selection

On Sunday, we were having a chat about how we could make this a more regular thing, we wondered if other empty spaces would have us....for free! Just as the conversation was in mid flow, in walked Marilyn, one of the organisers who commented how great the place looked and that we should chance our arm asking to extend our stay. When Niall (owner of the space) walked in a short time later, Ruth bravely stepped up and asked the question.....with no hesitation he said "Ah we won't be doing anything with it for a month, so you can have it for a month!"......All who were there nearly died from shock with his kind gesture!

How lucky are we? If you pop on over to the Etsy Ireland team blog, you'll find more information about volunteering your time and perhaps selling your items if space is available. Overall it was a brilliant and very productive weekend....and I even made lots of sales!