This morning, my goal was to get up and really get my Etsy marketing in order. I'm very pleased with the amount of traffic I get, but I think it could be better, so I looked into this funky new place called soopsee. The way it works, is your Etsy page becomes a website! The thing I love about soopsee is that you can update all your listings with one push of a button. Pretty cool. I consider this an amazing feature since everything on my igottknits website needs to be added manually, which can take several hours of precious time. Integrating soopsee makes total sense because most of my traffic these days is coming from my Etsy page, so it's a no-brainer.

The Pros--Using soopsee is free for a basic account, and as I learned by playing and having lots of fun this morning, there's lots that you can do with just the basic account, so I won't delete igottknits just yet! I also found that with the basic templates they provide, some have more customizable features than others. The template that I chose seems to be the most flexible, and is called: "Rustic." This template allowed me to change my background color to an image, change my font style and colors, and add color blocks. I like to have the ability to strip a template down to a bare screen and add my own elements. Just having a great banner or logo, and good navigation is all you need.

The Cons-- The basic account does not allow you to use your own domain name, and if you already have an Etsy page, it automatically inserts your Avatar on the soopsee homepage, which I find slightly distracting, because it's too similar to my banner. The way I'm going to get around this is to change my Etsy Avatar to something that will really standout on my igottknits soopsee site. I'm thinking a funky little stylized knitting graphic, ball of yarn and needles....we'll play.

The bottom line is the free account seems to be the way to go, because the paid account does not offer too many other benefits other than allowing you to use your own domain, customize your navigation menu, and choose from 2 additional layout templates. So for now, I'm sticking with the free account, and at some point, most definitely move the igottknits domain.

To see the final result, you can check out my new soopsee site here, and feedback is always welcome!

Now that the New Year is here, the first thing that comes to my mind is cleaning and reorganizing my work studio. I usually do this every 6 months, and it takes lots of discipline on my part to finally do it! I was preparing to "clean house," I came across an old bag of swatching yarns that I always seem to move to a different shelf, often wondering what do with them. The idea of tossing perfectly exquisite pieces of 4 x 4 inch swatches of yarn seems sinful. I've often thought- just hang onto them to use them to make one big Afghan-- yeah sure. I've got lots of extra time on my hands for that and making small pieces is so much more appealing! So, instead of something such as an afghan that will lose my interest in a minute, I came up with my "Scrumble Project." What is scrumbling you ask? Well, it's knitting or crocheting in a free form way, allowing whatever flows off the needle to be part of the project. Also, using various other materials or methods are allowed too! Basically, the idea is to treat your projects like little works of art. In this case, my leftover swatches being the paint palette!

For years I've been receiving Daily Dharma emails from Tricycle Magazine, and over the course of time, they've ended in my Junk Mail folder. As a result, I will admit with all the overwhelming emails that I receive each day, I've let them go by the wayside.

For whatever reason, I decided to open up today's Daily Dharma, which I think we can all relate to every now and again- ANGER. It addresses real "freedom," which means being able to CHOOSE how we react in the face of anger. I like that, because it's very empowering to know that we have the ability to react or NOT react. Truly understanding this is where the freedom part comes in, and it puts the ball back in our court. Yeah!

So, here's today's Daily Dharma which I'd like to share....

Real Freedom

Freedom means being able to choose how we respond to things. When wisdom is not well developed, it can be easily obscured by the provocations of others. In such cases we may as well be animals or robots. If there is no space between an insulting stimulus and its immediate conditioned response—anger—then we are in fact under the control of others. Mindfulness opens up such a space, and when wisdom is there to fill it one is capable of responding with forbearance. It’s not that anger is repressed; anger never arises in the first place.

-Andrew Olendzki, "Calm in the Face of Anger," from the Fall 2006 Tricycle

You can read the entire article here.