ARTFIRE vs. Etsy Search Pages

I checked out the ARTFIRE search engine today. This being in response to a concern someone brought up in Etsy chat. It goes something like this. Etsy puts your items up in the top 5 search pages by time listed and this makes it so you have to list and relist constantly to get noticed. This generates money for Etsy and cuts deeply into your profits. It does not take long for your items to become buried somewhere below the "who Knows" x amount of search pages. If you do not list and relist, suddenly you see your views and sales fall! The concern about Artfire was this: O.k. So if you do not list on ARTFIRE daily won't your items get buried in 100's of search pages anyway? The answer is NO!!!! I checked this out for myself. Artfire has a different way of searching. They go by lowest price or highest price. You choose. I had my items come up on numerous pages of the first 5 of the word I searched. They came up on just about every page including the 1st page!!! I know people are seeing me! I haven't listed in there in over a week either! I believe they have plans to optimize their search even further but am not sure. Will blog when I find out! This is so much more FAIR! I absolutely love it! Want to find out more about how Etsy is operating? Go to: http://www.etsybitch.blogspot.com and see what everyone is saying about the new way Etsy is having your items NOT get seen!

I love this Primitive farmhouse shelf!

I love this little shelf I made. Extremely distressed and so primitive! I have some old squarehead flat head nails that I used for the pegs. This would look great in a kitchen or a bathroom!

My Slice of Primitive Heaven http://www.PlowandPony.etsy.com

Here I am writing my very first blog ever! I would like to talk about this shop I have put together at Etsy.com. I have been working on different wood projects for over a year now. Gathering items people have thrown away and redoing them into my idea of functional primitive art. Before I knew it I had a building full of items with more ideas coming every minute. This has all but consumed me! An obsession so to speak. I started making the coolest salt dough ornaments that are my own original ideas with more ideas on their way! I drug out my sewing machine and blew off the dust. I started sewing homespun towels and other prim items to go with primitive gatherings. Then before you could say "Jack Be Nimble" I had a pot of wax going and was making the best scented and totally grubby candles. You see, I had to have some candles to go with all the wood candle holders and keepers I had made. I was idly carving on a piece of wood while surveying all my labor and low and behold before I knew it,I have carved out the most unique and rustic soap dish I have ever laid eyes on! So now of course you know what happens next. Yes! I needed soap to go with it! My soap making didn't go quite as well as the rest of my endeavers. I tried goats milk and could never quite get the smell or size right. Not good seeing as how I have 25 goats. I spent a bit of money and took a lot of showers trying to get just the right soap. Then one day I had it! A fantastic hemp oil soap. Smelled great. Made my skin feel wonderful. Lots of lather and had just the right look for my rustic prim soap dish! Plus I have a bit of "old Hippie" in me and hemp oil soap just seemed like the right choice. I can't wait to get some more money in order to make some more of this soap in different scents.
So now I have all these great primitive items (with more ideas coming at me) not to mention all the vintage things I had gathered and the question arises. What do I do with all this stuff?
Someone told me about this great website called ETSY. Thank You Someone! Etsy is a place where you can sell your handcrafted items. Better than just looking at them all the time and trying to figure out how in the world you are going to put it all in your house!
I now present to all of you primitive, rustic, western, antique, smell good, feel good people my shop. Drum roll. Horns Blowing. American flag waving in the breeze..Ta DA! http://www.plowandpony.etsy.com/ Come visit me there and tomorrow I will tell you how I came about the name.