Shaking Loose, Part 1

Something shook loose this week and I began to follow up on my mini-success with eBay by posting more things for sale online, and all in places other than eBay. Some of them I've posted before, but most  have been sitting around anywhere between years and decades waiting for me to do something with them. Amazing. I really do feel a new energy moving in my life. 

The trout above is one that Les left here on consignment. After all this time I finally figured out an easy way to put larger numbers of these painted pins in the store so people can get a good look at them and it doesn't take forever to put them up and then take them down again when they sell, as the quantity of these older designs may be from one to just a few pins of any design or paint style. One of the quick(er) ways I'd been putting them up looked nice, but they were not optimized well for Google, and that has become the Holy Grail of anything you put online these days. If the Big G can't find it, forget it. When each pin had its own page they optimized much better, but it was too cumbersome to make sense. If the pin happens to be an elephant, it may look the same each time, but if it's a trout it may come in more styles than you can count on two hands. I needed a way to post more of them quicker and not lose our great placement by switching to a new web store entirely. What I'm doing now is a hybrid system, and I think it should work.

I had to show you another unusual trout (above). I've loved these pins ever since I came across Les and his booth at the Seattle Gift Show one year. We do sell some pins right through the year, but not nearly as many as I'd like to. Hopefully that will be changing now, and my goal is to get several hundred more animal pins posted in time for Christmas sales! Think I can do it?

After I finished the trout I moved on to tropical fish. I especially love this beautiful triggerfish.

Next I did the frog page. I'm not sure what animal I'll work on tomorrow, maybe more sea life.

So much for the Tapir and Friends Store. I decided to do something with my own artwork finally. I've posted this collage (a different style for me, but funny) on this blog before, and I decided to get my feet wet the other day by making it the first item in my new Etsy store: TapirgalLovesArt. Corinna has been selling stuff she makes and making money for TPF donations for a number of years now and she recommended Etsy as a venue. So did a discussion Catherine sent me recommending Etsy over eBay for vintage and hand-made items.

A detail from my first Etsy posting.

Here's the second Etsy posting. Maybe a weird choice. I called it "Space Girl." It didn't have a name when I made it in 1980. I have so many pieces of artwork in unmanageable old portfolios that I took the first candidate that was going to photograph OK and looked interesting enough to use.

I sure wish Blogger would get the orientation right. Facebook and Blogger both had the same problem with another photo I posted a few days ago.

I didn't say anything about this one when I put it on the blog before. I guess the symbolism is whatever you want it to be. I made it in 1983 when I was living in Corona and feeling disconnected. It was my third Etsy post, so I moved from not personal at all through a sense of insecurity to intense feelings in this third one. I plan to put more up tomorrow, not sure what it will be yet.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.