Want to Win My Hand Dyed Silks and Colorful Wool Roving for Your Handmade Nuno Felting? Giveway Contest Going on Right Now at Craft Gossip!

Everyone loves a freebie... Right?  Well, I know that I do!  That's why I offered up a package of my hand dyed silk in 9 different colors and a package of wool roving in 12 different colors to the super sweet felting editor, Linda, at Craft Gossip.  There is a contest going on right now, and you could win it all!  It makes a great basic starter kit for anyone wanting to try nuno felting.  It is also a nice combination of silk fabric and wool roving materials for the fiber lover or textile designer.  You just need to click here and head on over to Linda's post for complete directions on how to enter the contest.

My last contest hosted by Craft Gossip received over 130 entries!  Thanks so much to all who entered last time for the needle felting kits giveaway and congratulations to the lucky winners.  I hope you are enjoying your new adventures in needle felting.

(p.s. Although, I appreciate your comments here, you can't enter the giveaway contest at this post.  Sorry about that!  It is an easy click over to the contest though for a chance to win.....)

And, a big thanks to Linda for hosting the giveaway!

Valentine's Day Special! Get a FREE felted heart ring! Read on for details...

This is by far one of the best deals that I will be offering all year long so I hope you take advantage of it! Here it is...

BUY ANY FELTED HEART ITEM AND GET A FREE FELTED HEART RING!

For each felted heart item, including pendants, rings, and hairpin sets, that you purchase receive one FREE felted heart ring in your choice of color. Limit of five free rings per buyer. For instance, if you purchase five felted heart pendants, you will receive five felted heart rings for free. Or, you can purchase a variety of felted heart items and receive one free ring for each item purchased up to the limit of five rings. (Please note that hairpin sets count as one item.)

How do you get this great deal? Use the coupon code BEMYVALENTINE2010 upon checkout in my Etsy Fiber Shop or my ArtFire Shop. For ArtFire, you can enter the code phrase in directly at checkout. For Etsy, you will need to put the code phrase in the message to seller at checkout. For either shop, please let me know what color(s) you'd like for your ring(s) in the message to seller at checkout. And, you MUST use the above coupon code to receive the free ring(s) so don't forget it!

Hurry, hurry, hurry! This coupon code is only valid through midnight on Tuesday, February 2nd. It is such a good deal that I can't let it go on for long, and I want to be able to get your felted heart goodies in the mail to you as soon as possible in hopes of reaching you by Valentine's Day.

THE SHORT VERSION:
THE DEAL = 1 free heart ring with each heart item

(limit 5 free heart rings per buyer)
COUPON CODE = BEMYVALENTINE2010
TIME FRAME = valid through midnight on Tues, 2/02/10

A Nifty Tool to use with Flickr - FlickrEdit by Sunken City! A super easy way to edit and backup your flickr photos!

After seeing a lot of chatter on the Etsy forum about individual's flickr accounts being terminated. I decided that it might be a good idea to backup my flickr photos. Although I do not use flickr for direct promoting or any kind of selling as it is against their terms of use, I do have a lot of product photos stored there. I have a pro account and really like to use flickr as my photo storage for arts and crafts images as well as some personal photos. And, flickr has a wonderful community. I have over 2,500 on my friend's list now! I also belong to several fun groups.

Unfortunately, it appears that in the last few months there has been at least a few fellow Etsy sellers' accounts deleted by flickr administration for whatever reason and without warning. (I'm assuming that the account termination is related to a violation or suspected violation of flickr's terms of use.) The fear of that happening to me is always in the back of my mind even though I feel like I comply with the site's terms of use and have always had a "safe" rating on my account. I guess that you can never be too careful when it comes to important business things though - in this case, a lot of good photos and great photo storage!

In light of all the chatter that I've seen about accounts being terminated, I searched out a way to backup all of my flickr photos. Perhaps it is just the paranoid woman in me - she is present all the time! I am happy that I did do a little research though because I came across a wonderful download-able application called FlickrEdit. It allows you to not only edit your flickr photos but also back up all of them to your hard drive or a cd/dvd. It is totally free and compatible for both PC and Mac. How great it that! So even if you are not as paranoid as I am, I highly recommend that you take advantage of this program provided by SunkenCity.org - it is a real little gem! I backed up all my flickr photos yesterday. Since I had over 700 photos, it did take a little while (maybe 30 minutes to an hour), but it was well worth the time and piece of mind.

Now, as far as flickr goes, I love it! I hope that I never have my account terminated for any reason. It is a great community to be a part of and an inexpensive photo storage with wonderful options offered. I enjoy being part of groups there and having so many on my friend's list. I don't know all the circumstances of those whose accounts have been terminated, but I know that it would break my heart if that happened to me. Those who it happened to probably feel a little of the same way. I hope that things work out for the best in the end.

Buttons, Banners, Backgrounds, and More! Easy online help to make your indie business brand look better.

I realized this morning that it had been a while since I posted some useful resources for indie business. Part of my role as an indie business owner is constantly researching how to improve it. A lot of times, this has to do directly with fiber art and feltmaking, but it also means dealing with developing my "funky felter" brand as well as the more technical details of the business end.

While researching recently, I came across a few neat websites that can help you with making banners, avatars, buttons, and more for your Etsy shop, website, blog, or whatever you need. A couple of these sites provide free backgrounds and digital photos and images. The other two are sites that can actually help you build buttons, banners, ads, avatars, and more. You can make them online without the use of any software on your own computer which is very handy. Although I haven't had a chance yet to explore every detail of these sites, I thought that I'd go ahead and share with you so that you can be exploring while I am too. Hopefully you will find them to be useful.

For Background Photos/Images
Grunge Textures
CGTextures

For Creating Banners, Buttons, Etc.
Cool Text
Banner Sketch

If you have a link to a great site for free backgrounds, banners, avatars, buttons, etc., please share it in the comments.

FREE FELT SOAP SPECIAL!! (Week of 7/01 - 7/07)

Don't miss out on this week's featured Summer Sale at my Etsy shop!

SUMMER SPECIAL FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 1ST - 7TH:
One FREE BAR OF FELTED SOAP will be included with all purchases this week of $10 or more. That's a little bit of free felted goodness to use or just smell great and decorate! Please put "FREE FELTED SOAP" in the notes to seller at checkout as a gentle reminder for me to include your soap bar. Just check out the photo of the sweet smelling fuzzy soap to get an idea of what I'll be including or click on it for more details about what in the world felted soap is. Please note that colors and styles may vary for each felted soap bar.