Tiflo Gifts and More TM

Friday, June 17, 2011

Weekend Artist (TM) - Frauke Avent

Frauke Avent of Handmade Fuzzy is a stay at home mom and she constantly have some creative projects going on, knitting and sewing.

How it all started Frauke girls both dance with a passion. Every year at the end of the school year they have a dance recital. In the last dance class they have we give the teacher and assistants a little gift. Usually it is something handmade by Frauke.

About 1 1/2 years ago it was a little mouse like this, one for every teacher. The co owner of the dance school liked them so much, that she asked Frauke to make her whole family as dance mice. She wanted them a little bit bigger though. So then came Mr. Dance Mouse.

After that Frauke made one of her daughters, she was expecting at that time, so that mouse got a little "baby" and a bottle. One of her daughters is a elementary teacher so the mouse had a pencil and some numbers as accessories.

For Frauke this was the step into selling her crafts. She didn't want to do craft shows. So she was looking into online venues. First she tried out Etsy, but very easy you get lost in paying bills for listing and re listing.

So one day Frauke stumbled over Zibbet, and it felt like home. It was very easy to set up her shop and find new friends and wonderful support in the community. From there on it was fun to create and come up with new ideas.

Yes Frauke had her set backs, lost her mojo. But Frauke said, “It is so gratifying to see what you can

create and that other people like what you do.” Frauke is a very talented woman please check her shop out at Zibbet.

Visit Frauke at :

Handmade Fuzzy Store on Zibbet

Handmade Fuzzy Blog

Handmade Fuzzy on Facebook

Friday, June 10, 2011

Weekend Artist (TM) - Rebecca West

Rebecca West of Body & Soul Products, RWestDesigns Jewelry and SampleZBox said she is a a true believer in you get back what you put out in this world. You know you reap what you sow. Because of believing she have been blessed with much love, from her husband, daughter,family, friends, and now the Zibbet community.

Rebecca said; 'I am all about hand ~made and I guess you can "blame" my great~grandmother, grandmother, and mom. I come from generations of women who made things with their hands, some out of neccessity... some just because they enjoyed it. I have lots of hand~made items from all of them. They are precious to my heart and I can't wait to pass them down to my daughter.

Rebecca also said she has always been creating as long as she can remember. Rebecca always got crafting kits as a young girl, from pot holder makers, latch hook kits, beading kits, all kinds of crafting kits from lots of different people in my life. She loves hand made and she want to help spread the word about everyone that makes things with their hands!!

Rebecca mention most of all because she truly love to help people, sometimes she think she scares them because she tries to be tooooo helpful and people wonder what is she up to. Rebecca said;"Honestly it's just because I like to help." Rebecca believes in teamwork, and she said;"if we all stick together and help each other we will all benefit!!"

Here is one way Rebecca have been helpful. She created a successful marketing tool call the ZBox.

The Z Box is dedicated to introducing you to some fabulous Artists and Crafters that own shops on the innovative selling venue of Zibbet. Z Box contains sample items from some of these shop owners. Check back often to see what is featured in each month's box, and there will always be some surprises also!!

These boxes are available for purchase, so that you can receive a sampling of these Artists & Crafters talents. There will even be coupons from some of them , for you when you shop at their Zibbet Shops! Order ZBoxes here. Learn More About Zboxes Here

Rebecca even went as far as creating ZBox TV on You Tube see a sample video here:

OPENING A Z BOX

Rebecca is a very talented woman.

Please visit all her shop, blogs and follower her on Facebook and Twitter

Shop Body & Soul

Shop Rebeccas Jewelry on Zibbet

Shop Sample ZBox on Zibbet

Body and Soul Products on Facebook

Rebecca West Jewelry on Facebook.

Sample ZBox on Facebook

Watch ZBox Videos - Learn About Other Shops

Learn More About Rebecca on her Blog

Friday, May 27, 2011

Weekend Artist (TM)

Varina Burch of varinajewelry began apprenticing in a fine jewelry store at the age of 19....opened a custom design shop at the age of 20 and have been in the Jewelry industry for 34 years.

Varina and her husband are Master Goldsmiths, who crossed over to the fashion world in 1988 and created many different lines, working with Galleries, Museum Stores, Gift Shops and Jewelry Stores. She switched from Retail to wholesale in 1989. Made a line of Jaguar jewelry for JC Penney.

Varina designed jewelry for Major Surf shops along the East Coast of the United States including Ron Jon's. Now winding down she goes sailing with her husband and son.

She mention "I am NOT getting out of the Jewelry business because I carve out of wax and will always work for the Jewelry Industry."

Varina do wholesale work and have just recently taken on a new role of mentoring New Jewelry designers. She said it was quite by accident. She went on line to look for an on-line store that she might get rid of a LOT of stuff. Because she cannot bring everything with her when she set out to sea.

Varina found Yardsellr and a ton of talent. Varina not only joined Yardsellr but a whole new group called Centerpiece.

It is a place for designers to get together to share experiences, ideas, and the LOVE and Passion for jewelry making.

Vist Varina Burch of varinajewelry

Varina's Artistic Designs In Jewelry

Yardsellr

Facebook

Friday, May 13, 2011

Weekend Artist - In Review: All About The Buttons, Woodcut Designs, Raige Creations, Janelle Beauty, Paper On Parade

Barbara the owner of "All About The Buttons" loves to create. She said since she was a child, she have always been busy with various forms of fiber work including knitting, crochet, needlepoint, embroidery and weaving. Alongside of those interests was that famous old cookie tin of buttons that she loved to play with.

After a fulfilling career in education followed by the ease of online selling, she now devote myself full-time to combining fibers and buttons. She also love and make clocks, magnets and bookmarks. She love special orders so please don't hesitate to ask. Read more on All-About-Button

Faye Goode said she love just being alive. She also said there is so much of the world to explore and such a wonderful support group around her. Faye's passion is quickly evolving as a jewelry designer though in another life she was an equally passionate Canadian Realtor.

She enjoy using castoff elements from my friend's jewel boxes or from garage sale finds and combining them with some nice sparkly new elements to create a pleasant marriage between old and new in unique jewelry designs. Nothing is duplicated in her shop. Read More on Faye Goode

Raige Creations - where Creating and Vintage is all the Raige! You can find handmade original items made by Rebecca and an eclectic mix of Vintage items. Rebecca, and began Raige Creations after a thoughtful gift of a crochet hook and yarn for Christmas which brought back memories of her late family members creating art and music.

She said it was a long journey to get to Raige, but without each step, she wouldn’t be where she is today. Rebecca said she is lucky to say her childhood was heavily influenced with art and music, even though she chose to study Business. Rebecca found the courage to venture out on her own leaving the corporate world and create some Raige.

Monday, May 9, 2011

How to market your online store

another Great article. (By James O'Brien)

Getting a top position in major search engines for your shopping carts is hard work, it can take 1 month, it can take 10 years. Follow these rules and techniques and you are truly giving it your best shot, but BE PATIENT! It's difficult for a reason, remember, those who give up, never make it.

This article covers;

Getting the search engine spiders to find your site.
Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more frequently.
Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more deeply (i.e., this will get them to look at more than just your site's homepage.)
Setting your site for maximum keyword optimisation
Building link popularity for high rankings

Understanding Rankings
This "article" covers several areas which major search engines uses to rank sites in their search results.

"Natural" results, (as opposed to Paid Results) should be regarded as the major target of your business to be ranked highest in the world as they provide long term targeted visitors for your store. The "paid" results are considered by many to be a short term objective as they provide instant results but more of a costly outlay for visitors (PPC).

The shopping carts that rank high in the major search engines (like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, etc) are the ones getting traffic, and often sales.

Search Engines have computers and programs called "Spiders" that collect information about your web pages in an attempt to "figure out" what your pages are about. These spiders gather information from your pages and use these in factoring which sites get ranked higher than others. Search Engines analyze over 100 On-Page Factors when "spidering" your web pages.

Some of the major On-Page Search Engine Optimization Factors are:

Keyword Density
Words in Title Tag
Words in the Page
Words in Links
Words in Headings
Words in Bold
Beginning Words
Words in URL
Meta Tags (some older small engines)
HTML Validation
Directory Listings
Link Structure
"Indexability" of the page
and Hundreds of Other Factors

What is Search Engine Optimization?
When a user types a search phrase into Google, and gets back results, those results are made up of several complex formulas. When Google "Ranks" sites, it is really just performing Mathematical Formulas. There is no human involved in the process of evaluating any individual site - it is Math formulas computed from the information that Google Bot gathers from your site.

Google sends several Search Engine Spiders (computers) out to update pages it knows of, and to seek new pages that it finds through links. The name given to all the Google Search Engine Spiders is Google Bot.

READ MORE .........HERE

Friday, May 6, 2011

Weekend Artist (TM)

Teresa (Terri) Riley, proprietor of Paper On Parade, also known as POP Embroidery have for over 40 years used her hands to lovingly created and designed a variety of projects.

Terri’s wonderful husband and 3 grown children have supported and encouraged her throughout the years and all the moves. Her husband is retired from the Air Force and she and her family lived in some interesting and lovely areas over his 24-year career.

Terri and her family move to Asheville last summer which brought about many changes, as they are now empty-nesters. Terri mention her family is number one.

Terri set up her embroidery machine while unpacking and realized how much she missed sewing and embroidery. She wanted to keep the online recognition of PaperOnParade, her first online venture of scrapbooking. Therefore POP embroidery by PaperOnParade was born. Even though she gets lots of questions about the name, Terri have maintained the online foundation built thus far and enjoy the questions as it gives her a chance to meet more wonderful people.

Terri’s standouts ones are wedding dresses, dance outfits, hand smocking, picture frame mat designing and teaching machine embroidery and sewing. Terri realizes some of her designs will be passed down through generations is an honor and inspires her to keep pressing on. The amount of sales has too much of an impact on my attitude sometimes, so I strive to stay positive and keep moving forward…. sales or no sales.

Terri Mission is “Sharing machine embroidery with those who love personalized gifts and treasures. Value each day and always look up!”

Also, she has a heart for encouraging people to stay positive through tough times. It is a season of life and things will get better, just keep speaking uplifting words and smile when you feel like crying. You never know when you’ll bring light to someone’s day.

A successful business woman willing and able to give back to the community that birthed my success.

POP Embroidery on ZboxTV