Sell Crafts welcomes you.
This is the official blog for
Thank you for visiting and between our website and this blog we hope you get lots of information that will help you succeed in your craft business.
This blog is relatively new and we will be adding lots more over time.
Just Subscribe to our RSS Feed and you will automatically see our new posts in your favorite RSS Reader.
We are happy for you to comment, but spam will not be tolerated.
Hi,
Craft people generally love to chat. This has also meant that many are using twitter to talk to each other and also to get an online social presence for their craft business by getting customers or related interest groups to follow them.
This often takes up a lot of time and business people often wonder if all the twittering is worthwhile.
Bearing this in mind, there is a very simple free way to make some income while you are tweeting. This is relatively new an essentially means that you can put up to 2 in 10 tweetd an advertising tweet.
What is an advertisers tweet you might ask. Well it is very similar to adsense. Advertisers write a tweet that will direct to their website that is automatically placed ( or you can do it ) into your tweetline and anytime somebody clicks on it, you get some money.
If you stop and think about that, imagine that you have 1000 or so followers. Every time you tweet, they see your tweet and may be interested in the ad tweet they see. Free money.
You can elect what categories you want shown, that way any competition type ads do nor show on your twitter pages, and if you pick complementary advertising categories, you could make a nice little sum.
To read the full official geeky jargon and set up a totally free account, it really is free because I have one and earn money from it, just pop over by clicking on the following link.
View Twitter Ads Setup Info
Getting a toddler to sit still can be a near-impossible feat. They’re constantly exploring the world around them. That’s a good thing, but sometimes they need some creative downtime. That’s where toddler crafts come in.
Crafting is great for toddlers for a number of reasons. It can help them develop longer attention spans. Most crafts help develop hand-eye coordination. And young children can benefit from learning how to follow simple instructions. Here are some craft ideas that your toddler can do (with supervision).
Craft Stick Puppets
Puppets are fascinating to toddlers. Creating their own puppets is easy, and it’s lots of fun. All you really need are some craft or popsicle sticks, construction paper, safety scissors, markers and glue.
Help your toddler cut animal shapes out of construction paper. He can draw faces and other details with washable markers. Glue the stick to the back of the shape, let dry, and he’s ready to put on a puppet show. If you want to make more elaborate puppets, try cutting shapes out of foam. Glue on a pom pom for the nose, and add some googly eyes.
Paint with Pudding
Kids love to fingerpaint, but it’s so messy. And there’s also the concern about them eating the paint. Even if the paints are nontoxic, it can make cautious parents uneasy. The solution? Let them paint with pudding!
You don’t need different flavors to make different colors. Just use one serving of plain vanilla pudding, divide it up into small portions, and add food coloring to create various shades. Give your child a paper plate to use as a canvas for his masterpiece. When he’s done, he can eat it with no worries.
Design a T-Shirt
If your toddler sees you sewing or painting clothes with fabric paint, she may want to try her hand at designing clothes. But needles are small and sharp, and fabric paint is messy. What to do? Break out the markers!
Kids can have a blast decorating a plain white t-shirt with colorful markers. If you use washable ones, they can create a design, wear it, and start over after you wash the shirt. If a permanent design is desired, however, you’ll have to let him use non-washable markers. You can avoid a mess by covering the work area with newspaper and putting a smock on your toddler.
Placemats
Making placemats out of contact paper is very easy. Have your toddler cut shapes out of construction paper and glue them onto a whole piece with a glue stick. He can add detail with markers or embellish with stickers. When he’s done, place the artwork on a piece of contact paper, sticky side up. Place another sheet of contact paper on top, sticky side down.
Most toddlers will only have the patience to make one placemat at a time. But he can make another one tomorrow, continuing until there are enough for the whole table. He’ll be so proud to know that everyone sees his artwork at every meal!
Crafting can help your toddler learn important skills while keeping him quietly occupied. Whether it’s a rainy day or he’s just feeling creative, seize the opportunity to let him channel his imagination into something you can both admire.
Soap is one of those things that we all use day in and day out. I came across this recipe which is being talked about a bit and really makes a bucket load at a reasonable price.
Duggar Laundry Soap
1/2 c borax
1 c washing soda
1 bar fels napth soap
Step 1: Grate the felsnapth soap and melt it in 4 cups of water over low heat.
this step will take a while and the smell is pretty strong.
Then add the borax and washing soda to 2 1/2 gallons warm water and add the felsnapth soap and stir.
Add 2 1/2 more gallons of warm water and let it sit over night. The soap solution will gel, and next day add another 5 gallons of water.
You now have 10 gallons of liquid laundry soap.
5/8 cups does a load of laundry!!
Thanks to valeriebenandkids.blogspot.com for sharing.
————————————-
Below is a great introductory article for the diy selfers.
Make Homemade Soap
We all use soap. In the old days, most people made their own. Today, we are much more likely to buy it from the store. There are lots of brands to choose from, and each brand has various formulations and scents.
But making your own soap has some definite advantages. One of the most significant is the price. We can make soap much cheaper than we can buy it. Making it ourselves also gives us complete control over the ingredients, so we can create a soap that’s perfect for our skin type in a scent of our choosing.
Making soap is much easier than you might think. It is, however, important to take certain safety precautions. Here’s a basic recipe:
Ingredients
* 12 cups lye crystals
* 5 cups softened water
* 6 pounds lard
Instructions
1. Put water in a glass or plastic bowl. Carefully pour lye into water, stirring constantly with a plastic or wooden spoon. This should be done outdoors or in a well-ventilated area, because it produces caustic fumes.
2. Mixing lye and water produces heat. When the lye is completely dissolved, set the mixture aside to cool.
3. Place lard in a stainless steel or enamel pan. Melt over low heat.
4. Allow both the lye solution and the lard to cool to room temperature.
5. Slowly pour the lye solution into the lard, stirring slowly and constantly with the plastic or wooden spoon.
6. Continue stirring after all of the lye solution has been added. Drizzle a small amount of the mixture into the pot periodically. When the soap keeps its shape for a moment before sinking into the mixture, you can add scent, color and herbs.
7. Pour the soap into a mold greased with Crisco. Wrap in a towel, and let set for about 18 hours or until completely cooled. Uncover and let set for 12 more hours.
8. The soap may now be unmolded and cut into bars. Let the bars cure for 3 to 4 weeks before using.
Customizing Your Soap
There are lots of different ways you can customize your soap. To make the best soap for your skin type, you may want to use different oils. Some that are commonly used include olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter and shea butter. The correct amount varies depending on which oil you use, so look for recipes online or in books until you get the hang of it.
Essential oils have therapeutic properties and add fragrance. Oatmeal, cornmeal and other grains can be added as exfoliants. And skin-safe colorants may be used to produce the desired color. These ingredients should be mixed together and added to a cup of the soap mixture, then stirred into the rest of the soap mixture immediately before pouring into the mold.
Making your own soap is easy, and it can be lots of fun. Coming up with the perfect concoction for your skin is rewarding, and sweetly scented homemade soaps make wonderful gifts for any occasion.
Hi all,
Letting others spread the word when they find your website is a great free way of getting extra traffic.
Twitter is a huge traffic source and if one twitterer tweets it goes to all of their followers and some of them will come to your site and then retweet to their friends. On and on it goes and over time you can get your site seen by a lot of people.
The code to add a twitter button is really easy. This how to explains step by step one way to get people re-tweeting your site to the world.
Step 1
The assumption is that you can access and edit the html code on your website. If not just ask your webmaster to do the following.
Find a picture of a cute little birdie. You can do a simple text link as well but the picture hyperlink looks nice. If you are using a picture, upload it to your server so that you can reference it.
Step 2
If you are only going to do a twitter text link, find the spot in the html code that you want the link to appear and type the following.
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Add Your Tweet MessageHere.http://www.YourSite.com” target=”_blank”>Tweet Me</a>
ps: You can scroll over the code and copy to notebook for easier reading.
Where it says “Add Your Tweet Message Here” type in something about your website like, Really cool craft site here. then in the YourSite part, type in your website address.
The bit that says “Tweet Me” could be changed to something else like Re Tweet Me or recommend My Site or whatever you want your visitors to see.
The “target = blank” will open up the visitors tweet page seperate from your website so that they can come back to your website after tweeting it.
Step 3
If you want to link the picture and have the Tweet Me text as well, just do something like the following.
<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=Add Your Tweet MessageHere.http://www.YourSite.com” target=”_blank”><img title=”Tweet Me”style=”WIDTH: 55px; HEIGHT: 53px”alt=”Tweet Me”src=”images/re-tweet.jpg”border=”0″>Tweet Me</a>
ps: You can scroll over the code and copy to notebook for easier reading.
The same rules apply as far as the text link goes, and you only have to make sure that the image is referenced correctly by name and location. ie: the folder on your server and the correct image name. The height and width also depend on what image you have used.
I have put the same code on this website for you to have a look at. Go over to the homepage and have alook and give it a tweet to see how it would work for your website.
The site is at Free Craft Business Planning
You will see the little tweeter on the top right of the header.
Happy tweeting and hope this How to Add a Twitter Button to Your Website helps you get more traffic.
Cheers
Marc
Many crafters would like to get their products online but do not have the ability or confidence to buy hosting or domain names.
A great way to test the waters so to speak is to use a quality free website creation package so that they can get this presence.
Free Websites offer 2 free websites with hosting, domain names and web creation tools for exactly no dollars.
There is lots more information at Free-Websites.weebly.com where they explain the details. Even includes a free paypal ecommerce module and all this with no pop over under etc ads to get in the way of your website. Once you feel confident you can also upgrade to include free emails and lots more sites for a very small fee.