My advice for Etsy friends :)

My shop started off with my Wish dog. ( Made from 2 garden gloves). It grew into having lots of different dogs and cats and even bunnies dressed from ballerinas to pirates.

Things were going pretty well for a while then the sales really slowed down. I did have offline sales from family and friends, but the economy really had an effect. I then had to switch gears. I had to come up with lower priced items that my customers could buy if they couldn't afford my more expensive items (which was usually $17.00-$22.00).

So I always wanted to try making little felt animals. I tried and came up with a pretty popular turtle playset. I was featured one day on the community type page and I was sewing quite a few turtles. They were priced at $7.00 and came with a little dish like home and drawstring bag. A bargain for only $7.00. Then I tried a guinea pig. No bigger than a kidney bean. Now those are tough on the eyes but that's what is keeping me going.

I did come up with some other tiny creations but I took most of them off of my shop because they were just too tedious to make. The two other big things are the finger-ling babies, which is a little baby in a little blankie drawstring bag and it has a little bottle attached to drawstring. And Ninjas in a bag, which is from one to three little ninjas in a drawstring bag. (both of these items are made from the upcycled cast off fingers of my glove dogs).

I hope someday I can get back into the glove animal business because that's really what I love putting together. I'm in the process of sketching out about 10 new dogs to post this fall.

So for now my shop's been tweeked because of the hard times. Not a day goes by without my trying to come up with the next big thing. So weather it be turtles or guinea pigs, finger-lings or ninjas, the best part of selling anything for me is the reaction of my customers when they actually hold one of them in their hand. I sold one of my tiny turtles to one of my customers who bought it for her son. His little sister then took the turtle, made a tiny crib for it and sleeps with it every night. NOW THAT IS PRICELESS. :)

So go crazy in the forums, get your items seen, and add some low priced items to your shop. Persistence will pay off in the end:) Things can only get better.......