I couldn't think of anything interesting to call this post

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!  Despite the weather saying it was supposed to rain continuously, we managed to have dry afternoons which enabled us to get our Fall yard work done!  Not too exciting, I know. 

I wanted to thank you all for your sweet comments on my post the other day.  I didn't have a chance to hop on here and say that until now, but your advice and compassion was so awesome and made me feel a whole lot better :)

My Heartsy deal is officially over, and I have to say that was quite the rush!  I loved the whole experience.  I nearly sold out of vouchers which was pretty awesome. There were only 15 or so left when the sale ended.  The actual sale day was non-stop busy.  I woke up to a whole bunch of orders, and they continued throughout the day.  I sold out of a lot of my stuff, and surprisingly the camera straps were the biggest seller. I love how this deal gave me so much new exposure and boosted my sales greatly in just one day!  I really don't think there is any other way to do that other than to participate in a Heartsy feature.  I officially hit my 100 sales mark :)

If you're thinking about participating in a Heartsy feature, I have some tips.

• Make sure you have the day available to basically sit down and process orders the entire time. I don't know what I would have done if I had an actual job to attend to on top of this.
• Process orders as they come in.  I was sending off invoices for people who had voucher overages and packaging up the paid orders consistently.
• Stay organized.  I started my own little method for each order. I would invoice, make a note to myself in the "private note" section of the receipt page saying that I invoiced that person for $x.xx. When they paid, I would check off the "Paid" button right away. If they didn't owe a balance, I hit Paid also. After I packaged it up, and put the shipping label on, I hit "Shipped".  Heartsy also gives you your own seller backend where you can mark items as "shipped" as well, so I did that to make sure I was on top of everything!
• Message sellers to know they still have some voucher money left if they didn't use it all up.  I sent a little note to these people letting them know that when they make their next order, I will refund their remaining voucher amount via Paypal.

There's some advice from a first time Heartsy seller ;).  Also, if you're a buyer who has submitted an order that has a remaining balance to pay, p l e a s e make sure you make your payment within 24 hours. I think one of my biggest pet peeves is people who commit to buy something and then take forever to pay or don't pay at all. Not only does it mess up the shipping schedule, but it is rude to other buyers who may have wanted to purchase that item but couldn't because it was snagged by a non-payer.  This happens way too often on Ebay too... but I won't get into that now!  Etsy really needs to come up with a way to integrate with Heartsy so we don't have to do the whole invoicing shin dig.

Anyways, I decided to knock off a couple more photos for the photo challenge today too! I am pretty much way behind but oh well!

Day 7: Something New

My central vac!  I am obsessed with it! I've never had a vacuum clean so well. Just one swipe and EVERYTHING (including the mass amounts of cat hair stuck in the carpet) goes away!! My carpets look brand spankin' new!

I'm skipping Day 8: Technology because I couldn't think of anything interesting besides dorky computer photos haha.

Day 9: Faceless Self Portrait

I couldn't decide which one.  I have to admit though, I'm kind of in love with these new scrappy patchwork pillows I started making. The first one was supposed to be for the shop, but I loved it so much I kept it, and then made some more to sell!

Have you ever made or bought something for someone else and decided to keep it for yourself!?
xo Dana