Monday, April 4, 2011

Learn & Grow - Featuring KristiMcMurry

Welcome, one and all, to our newest blog feature! It's called "Learn & Grow" because that's just what our intention is, to help us get better as a treasury making team! Periodically we will be interviewing some of you that have an Etsy Front Page treasury and featuring you here so others may learn and grow from your experiences. I hope we are all inspired by these posts. Feel free to contact Vanessa or Yvonne with any questions you may have surrounding this feature.

Congratulations to our first feature, Kristi from KristiMcMurry!

Click here to view the treasury!

1. When you are making a treasury do you have a system that you use to coordinate the items?

I usually just start with an item that strikes my fancy and scroll through pages looking for things to go with it. I open items in a new tab from the initial search (saves me from backing up all the time!), then start plugging them into the collection. I pick at the collection after every few items and delete and rearrange things if I think it needs it. I find items by searching keywords, and sometimes just searching curationnation and looking for specific colors or styles. 

2. Do you tend to make treasuries on a whim or do you have a planned theme in mind?

I'm an "on a whim" kind of girl. I just look through team members' items until I find one that feels right for my mood or the day, then I work from there. 

3. What tools on Etsy do you find useful while you are making treasuries?

Just search I guess. I know there are some tools out there to use when building one, but I haven't had the time to figure them out! haha. I also usually check the merchandising post on the Etsy blog to get tag ideas. 

4. Tell me a little about the process of making the Clouds Clouds Go Away treasury.

It had been cloudy for what felt like years and I was feeling like everything was GREY! I decided to make a collection and since I was in such a grey mood, funflash's camera caught my eye. I'm also a photographer, so that had a little to do with it :) I just started searching grey, cloudy, neutral, and things like that to find good things for the treasury. Usually when I have a neutral collection I try to add a hint of color just for interest, so you can see some faint purple splashed in there. It's all about coordinating!

I usually try to include something expensive in there, but oddly enough I didn't this time and it still made FP. I guess it's not as important as I thought!

5. Any rules or advice that you have to offer up to our teammies? 

It's good to be picky, so don't be scared to delete things that might be throwing it off a little, or even some simple rearranging might help. Try to step back a little and look at it to make sure it isn't heavy to one side. Some photos have more going on and some have plain backgrounds, so balancing those is important. I know Etsy ends up rearranging them, but we have to attract them in the first place :) Also, if you're aiming for FP, make sure you have a good variety. Sometimes I'll go back through what categories are represented and make sure it is varied. 

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A huge thank you to Kristi for her hard work and participation in this post!
Feel free to comment below and remember this is all just a learning experience, everyone is different!
We look forward to sharing more posts with you in the future!

Go CNation!
 

 

9 comments:

  1. HOORAY!!!!! I LOVE this new blog feature! Wonderful words of wisdom from Kristi - I've certainly picked up a few tips. I'm not as good about finding a variety of price points as I should be - sometimes I'll look through my treasuries and though they look balanced, and lots of categories are represented, I'll notice that I've got lots of super inexpensive items and no big or even medium-ticket picks. Definitely something to keep in mind.

    Thanks so much for sharing, Kristi, and BRILLIANT idea for the blog! I love it!

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  2. SO helpful~
    Thank you for your insight!

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  3. Awesome post! Love the questions and answers. Thanks for all the tips Kristi! Can't wait to read more!

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  4. I love this new feature on the blog! Thanks for all the great ideas, Kristi! & congrats on the FP! :)

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  5. Truly a killer treasury!! I could print it out and hang it on my wall as art. I've got to get better at adding some higher price points in my Ts too. Sometimes I'm conscious of it, most times I'm not. And, let's face it, Etsy is in the business of making money. High ticket itmes = higher profit for Etsy. Great points here Kristi, thanks for sharing them.

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  6. I love this feature Vanessa!!!

    Super helpful tips Kristi, so sweet of you to take the time to share them :D

    Thanks!

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  7. This is a very helpful post!

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  8. Great post! Glad to know I am not the only one who hasn't figured out all the short cuts and tools! :) Thanks for the tip on including all different prices. I always forget to do that!

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  9. Wonderful addition to our blog.
    I too found some really great tips here Kristi.
    Price?? I never even thought to look at that when creating a collection!

    Thanks so much for a VERY helpful post!
    ♥toni

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