Folksy Five #8

This week's Folksy Five is a little different to normal. Rather than just showing you five of my favourite Folksy shops, I asked for nominations for YOUR favourite Folksy shops. Thank you to everyone who responded to let me know their top sellers, it's been great browsing some new shops I'd not seen before. I hope you like them too. Click on the shop banners to head through to their Folksy shops.

PS. Can anyone tell me how it's September already?!

Your name: Jo

Shop name: JoSara 

Nominated by: Clare @ Jumbleberries

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Mosaics, Colour, Pattern

How long have you been selling on Folksy: A year and a half

What’s your top tip for someone selling on Folksy: Try and take the best photographs of your items that you possibly can. I do a weekly blog showcasing themed items from Folksy, so I am used to trawling through pages of pics from a search. Quite a lot of the time I will find the perfect thing for the theme, but the photo is either cropped weirdly, or it’s got a fussy background, or it’s out of focus, which puts me off using it. Your item photo is the first thing a customer will see of your shop on a page of other search results, so it needs to grab their attention and entice them in to find out more. If dull light is a problem, make a small investment in a photo tent and a couple of daylight lamps to brighten the items up. If it’s difficult to get a clean, bright background, try fotofuze.com, which will magically transform the background for you. Another tip is to make use of the Macro facility on your camera. You don’t need a flashy camera to get great close ups, just find out how to change the camera setting to Macro (the tulip flower icon) and you’ll have pin sharp images. And if there’s too much background in the photo, try cropping the image so the item is the main focus. If you don’t have any basic software (you usually get some free software on CD with most digital cameras), you can always Google ‘cropping photos’ and you’ll find loads of free sites that you can upload your pic to. Lastly, make sure to use all 5 photo spaces in your Folksy listing to show the whole of the item (on all sides if it’s got a pattern, or detail that you can’t see in one go), show close ups on any important details (try using some arty camera angles to get some interesting close ups), and you could put the item into context, too, i.e. if it’s a bracelet, show it on a real arm. Imagine you are your customer. What would you look at on your item? What would you want to have a closer look at? You have to be the eyes and hands of your customer via your pictures.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Nicole

Shop name: Hollybird Beads

Nominated by: Emma @ Ritzy Swish

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Delicate, intricate & sparkly!

How long have you been selling on Folksy: 2 years, I started selling my work in the Summer of 2010

What’s your favourite shop to buy supplies from: I try to buy most of my beads from UK suppliers, but there is one shop, based in France, called Perles & Co, which does a fab range of gorgeous Swarovski crystals including the more unusual colours that I just can't resist buying from.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Hazel

Shop name: Flame Haired Jewellery Designs

Nominated by: Teresa @ Creative Treasures and Christine @ Raven's Stained Glass

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Classical and Decadent Jewellery

How long have you been selling on Folksy: Since March 2010

How do you decide what to make next: I don't decide as such, the ideas come to me (sometimes in the middle of the night, unfortunately!), but I'll most likely make a charm bracelet first in the colour scheme that inspires me at the time (charm bracelets are my absolute favourite thing to make), then either matching items, or similar items in another colour scheme follow.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

 

Your name: Janice

Shop name: Wellydog

Nominated by: Natalie @ NOfkant's Curios

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Art

How long have you been selling on Folksy: It must be coming up for 3 years but I started selling tiaras and jewellery, I have been wellydog gallery selling art for nearly 2 years

How do you decide what to make next: I am always inspired by my surroundings so wherever I am I take photos and these quite often lead onto work. It's always an instinctual thing for me, whatever feels right is, what I paint next

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:

Your name: Jools

Shop name: Art by Jools Yasities

Nominated by: Tracy @ Cinnamon Jewellery

Describe the items you make in 3 words: Paintings, lino prints

How long have you been selling on Folksy: Approx. 18 months

How do you decide what to make next: I work mainly on two threads of art; lino prints and paintings. Both of these come from my initial drawing and photography of anything and everything that inspires me. I always have a sketchbook full of ideas and a notebook of things I think of as I go along, so my work is an ongoing development of whatever I am particularly loving at the time. It’s frequently quite difficult to choose just one piece of work to start, and I regularly have half a dozen or so on the go at once. I’d say it’s a bit of a prize draw as to what I pluck from my imagination on any given day.

What are your 3 favourite items from your shop:




And their favourite items from the say it shop are:

Ottawa personalised notebook chosen by Hollybird Beads

Sarajevo postcard chosen by Flame Haired Jewellery and JoSara

Rhodes map notebook chosen by Wellydog

Munich sheet music notebook chosen by Jools Yasities