Handmade Heaven

If you read some of my blog you know I am an advocate for handcrafted items. Not only because I am a crafter myself as well as my mom, but I love to give. I like my gifts to have thought and meaning and I think that’s only possible by finding something uniquely for them. Of course that is not always possible but whenever I can I will.

So I’ve been lurking at this site for over year and decided this summer to read through it and yes….I’m addicted. I think I use that word too much.

Etsy.com is a place to buy and sell handmade items and I definitely bought more than I sold. It is absolutely fantastic to find almost any custom piece of jewelry, knitted, or baked item you can think of. The absolute best part of it is you can go the Alchemy section and request whatever you can think of, suggest a price and sellers will bid on the opportunity to make it for you. This gives you the opportunity to check out several shops and at a cost you think is reasonable. I found so many favorite shops and I intend to share them with you throughout the months on this blog. Some of course will be related to the site but many more are just shops I adore and had to share. When your finish buying from my shop give etsy a look-see!

Spam Attack!!!

I hate the canned meat and the junk email called spam!! I don't know to many who like either but I lately I would have much rather had the canned pork each day for lunch the past month and a half than attacking my store and rendering my business lifeless. This past month (beginning April 4th to be exact) SPAM has run rampant through my business emails. Not until a couple of weeks ago did we realize despite the hundreds of junk emails we were deleting each day there where still thousands still lurking in the que preventing REAL emails to come in. We have about 15 different business email addresses based on service and five major ones were attacked with an average of 1000 spams a day. Half were still bypassing filters and the other half were overloading spam folders. In other words, it's been a nightmare. We are changing our email addresses and placing a captcha contact form to help alleviate the invasion so we may be able to conduct business more timely. For those customers, reps, affiliates and inquires who have been affected by us not returning emails I sincerly apologize. Hopefully we have emailed everyone back with an explaination about our delayed reponse. If we haven't answered your email or processed your order within a week the email may have been deleted in error. Please resend your email. With this expensive and long lesson we have some tips from our webhost and things we learned along the way to help you prevent an attack on your email:

1. Use a Black & White List: This is something I have been trying to avoid for a while now because as a business sometimes even my reponse emails are sent to customer's spam. It's frustrating because I want them to know I responded but when the reponse comes back undeliverable.
2. Have at least 2 email addresses. Have a strictly personal email address for friends and use the black & white list. Use the other email address for other things and always add the email address to your safe list for people you are requesting a response from.
3. Greylisting: A temporary email rejection. This is something we are considering for our personal email addresses. Here is a little more info on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greylisting).
   
4. Make your email adress as weird as possible. It is less likely you will be picked up by a Spam list. For example Sam123@hotmail.com is more likely to be targeted than 123Sam44@hotmail.com.
   
5. If you have a business, blog or are part of a social network do not publish your email or have link to your address. This will prevent computer generated emails if your email address is published as Sam(at)hotmail(dot)com than Sam@hotmail.com. Make sure businesses state they will not share your email address or publish it if it is a social network.
6. Report it or Unsubscribe. This can be a pain but it will be helpful. Report constant emails from overtly porographic websites immediately. For sites you visited or purchased from you may have been added to their mail list automatically. I would just unsubscribe. If you still receive emails after unsubscribing I would then report as spam.

We would love to hear if you have any additional tips to battle Spam.

Samples Galore!!

This month and next month Nikki Makes Scents teamed up with several different companies to offer samples as a part of their sampler boxes. I love to try out products and getting a bunch of different samples in one box is a fantastic way to sample the many online businesses where one usually can't physically touch or smell them. I have contributed votives, lotions, perfume oils, body butter and soap samples. The soap samples aren't in my regular line yet. I was trying out new designs and with scents like Raspberry Ice and Fig & Sweet Almond (Yum). Usually there are between 10-20 different samples per box depending on the company. Look for us at:

• Home of the Sampler for their April box
• The Little Black Box on sale April 24th
• In the Company of Sistas in their May box

Greener shipping tip

I love this planet. Since I was a small child many people thought I was somewhat strange with my obsession to keep it clean. I would frown upon people that would litter or run behind my friends and family if they dared throw a piece of paper or wrapper on the ground. In my 20's I lectured my girlfriends on the environmental benefits of cloth diapers. And I even drove an electric car in the early years of the millennium before it was "en vogue" or gas spiked to $4. I must admit though, as I have gotten older, busier and less bold, I haven't been as proactive as I should be. It seems the more "natural" it is the more expensive it is. One would think that getting something straight out of the ground than manufacturing it would be simpler and cheaper but that isn't the case. As micro-mini business it is even more difficult to remain environmentally friendly in all aspects. Nonetheless, I try my best.

I I hate those little white foam peanuts. They will never disintegrate and are toxic to the factory workers who make them. But as a online business they are the most lightweight to keep from adding to shipping and for the most part cushion the products well. There are very few alternatives as paper is much heavier and corn starch peanuts are more expensive and hard to come by. In the 11 years of business I have never bought a bag of foam peanuts. I recycle them when I buy from my suppliers and I ask local businesses to save the peanuts or bubble wrap for me and I collect them monthly. My friends and family and coworkers also save their packaging to give to me. Sometimes I have so much I don't have enough room.

My easy packaging tip for consumers is unless you know the packaging is biodegradable, I encourage everyone to save at least a garbage bag full throughout the year to use for personal use like shipping presents or to give to a local mailing or online business. It won't save the planet but will recycle the peanuts already in circulation so less needs to be manufactured.