Don't forget!

Just a reminder for the Spring Challenge!

And one item to your shop that fits with our theme of Springtime. You can be inspired by the colors of spring, the trees, flowers, or even rain showers!

There's still 2 more weeks so put on your crafty caps and get going!

Once you've created your item, send a photo and description to madeforcache@gmail.com and we'll compile them into one post of all the springtime goodies!

You should be totally excited by now - i used a lot of exclaimation points! :)

Etsy Mini

Maybe in the future we'll have one combined Etsy Mini, but for now we can display our individual ones.

If you'd like your Etsy Mini to be displayed in the side bar, create one that's 2x2 and e-mail the html code to MadeForCache@gmail.com.

To do this:
Click on Your Etsy
Then under Promote, click Etsy Mini
1. Click which Items you'd like to show
2. Choose thumbnail
3. Choose 2 columns, 2 rows
The code is underneath. Copy and paste that into the e-mail.

We'll get it posted up for you!

Up coming Shows

Art on the Lawn 5th annual show

Artists are invited to share their work in a beautiful outdoor atmosphere.  This show continues to grow each year. Artists donate items for auction, as part of their fee. All profits go towards the non-profit organization AVA (Alliance of the Varied Arts).

June 27th,     10 - 5

1491 E. 2300 N., North Logan

Contact: AVA or Lucy Watkins (435) 752-4749

Gallery Walk

Merchants in Downtown Logan offer space for artists to show their work. It's a great way to get known in the community.

June 12

Aug 28

Dec 4

Contact participating merchants

March Team Meeting Madness!

March's team meeting was another great one. We discussed the basics of starting a blog and what's involved in writing posts and adding content. We also got a basic walk through of twitter and how you can weave together the two to get people to notice you as an artist, your shop and your products. We also went through a few Etsy features like google analyitics, alchemy and etsy mini. Social marketing is important, because it's a cheap and fairly easy way to get your name out there, all it costs is time. All great bloggers started small and grew their audiences - if they can do it we can too!

As a new feature of our team we are going to issue a challenge for the month ahead. In the coming weeks everyone is invited to participate by creating something for your personal shop that follows a theme. The theme for April's meeting is Springtime which is fitting since Easter is just a few weeks away. You can incorporate this theme into an item for your shop through use of spring colors, icons of spring like flowers or baby animals, or even weather patterns :) Then when we meet in April, we'll show and tell about our items and the inspirations and post pics of the items on the team blog.

As a heads up for next meeting, April 8th, we're planning to discuss local in home shows and marketing. We working towards having our first show by May and Bonnie(daysgonebyinc) has volunteered her home as the location. Be thinking about ways we can advertise and spread the word about our team to our friends and the community so they can learn about the joys of buying hand made! Another item we want to discuss at the meeting is membership. Do we want to limit our group to only etsy shop owners, or do we want to reach out to other craftspeople of Cache Valley. What are the pros and cons of both sides? Bring your thoughts and we'll figure it out together.

The April 8th meeting will be held at Jen's home(sparroworiginals) in Logan at 7pm. I'll send an email around with the address when we get closer. I don't want to post her home address for the whole world to see.

Thanks again to everyone that came and I hope to see even more of you next month!

Blaire

PS If you want to participate in the themed challenge but end up not being able to make it to the meeting, just email me a photo of the item and a brief summary and we'll show, tell and post on your behalf.

Plain English Please

After our first meeting, I think some of us were left thinking, "Twitter? Tweet? What is that?" or "Whoa, whoa, whoa, go back to what a blog is." or "Why do we even need to know what this stuff is, let alone sign up for it?"

Well, Common Craft is a company that creates videos to help make things more clear. Sometimes things get too complex and you need a demonstration...I know that because I'm a visual learner I need to see pictures. And sometimes I don't get a certain concept, but if you explain it to me like it's ice cream, then it makes sense.

Here's what I mean. This one is Social Media in Plain English.



Blogs



Social Networking-Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc.




Twitter



I hope these have helped you. I know I am no pro at figuring this stuff out, let alone explaining it to others, so I'm glad there's videos out there like this. Once we figure how what/where/why these things are, we can use them as tools as we market our businesses to the world.

See you all Wednesday!

Biz Ladies

I check out Design Sponge pretty often, and today's post seemed like one you'd all be interested in. I think we should all check in each Tuesday, as Grace will "be inviting experts, artists, designers, shop owners and professionals to talk about not just surviving- but thriving- in the world of small business." She felt that "there was a real need for women running their own businesses to connect and create local support systems."

She's posted a poll for the topics you'd most like to read and learn about, so jump over there to vote!