What have I been up to today?

JUST FOR FUN - Earrings - transparent red glass bead with an Adventurine dust swirl and gold findings.

Actually, I have been listing some of my new earring designs on my other online stores today.

Before I had my own website, I use to list on eBay. This was reasonably successful, but I had to compete against lots of mass produced items and it got more and more costly to insert items on that site.

JUST FOR FUN - Earrings - two toned glass pillow bead in aqua and green with silver findings

Then someone told me about Etsy. I had a look and loved the fact that it was all handmade items (not only jewellery, but bags, clothes, hats, cards - everything you could think of, and joined up there and then.

One day on the Australian Beaders Forum, I saw something about Made-it and checked that out also. It too was a great Australian site for handcrafted products and I joined them as well. They have everything from dolls and toys, to cloths, pet products and edible items and everything in-between. They also have a sister site - Craftumi where you can buy craft supplies.

JUST FOR FUN - Earrings - Sapphire Swarovski crystal, blue glass bead and silver findings

Then a while ago, I received an email from one of the Bead Guild members advising of a new site for handcrafted and ethical products being set up in Australia. This was called Ethikl. I messaged them and was soon a member of that site too. It has a different approach to just handmade, with products having to meet the Ethikl | Eco, Upcycled , Fair Trade Shopping policies.

JUST FOR FUN - Earrings - clear glass heart with silver foil wrapped core of dark green and black.

I havent listed on any of these stores lately, as I have been developing my own site, but today I thought that I had too many pairs of earrings to list at one store, so will be adding a few to all my sites over the next few days. This way I wont overload the viewer, and hopefully I will be able to cross promote each store via the other stores.

ROMANTIC - Earrings - red glass long teardrop earrings.

When you are searching for that something special for a gift, remember to look at the artisan stores on these sites. There are some wonderfully creative people in the world. A handcrafted gift is so much more interesting that one of the mass produced items found in the department stores.

If you make (or know anyone who makes) handcrafted items, please let them know of these alternative sites to eBay.