Welcome

WELCOME TO MY BLOG. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE OR LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR ME TO LET ME KNOW YOU HAVE VISITED xx

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Well I am very excited.  As a new business, it is difficult to direct traffic and potential purchasers to your site.  I have been offered a spot on a website advertising create businesses within Australia. Any news is advertising and this is the start.  I was browsing through the Madeit forum and came across this post asking people to submit their websites and if chosen we would be featured on the site.  So I have to start putting finger to keyboard and answer some questions.  Look out for my feature, it will be on the website on 11th April 2012  http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com.au/

Please also remember that I would love your feedback, drop me a line in the comment box just to let me know you have visited, or for you to subscribe to my site so that I can keep you up to date with new designs and happenings.

Monday 12 March 2012

Time for Introductions....

Okay, so its time for introduction and a face to a name.  As my profile says, my name is Shelley and this is my family.

Bryan my amazing husband, what a wonderful father he is to all three of our children, Adam, Skye and Eryn.

Bryan and I met and married 15 years ago.  He is a business man and works hard to provide for his family.  Our eldest, Adam is a budding musician and attends a school for the arts.  He loves piano and singing.  Skye our second born, is a dancer.  Ballet, Jazz and Contemporary are her passion.  If she could dance for a living, she would.  Eryn our baby with a ten year gap between her and Skye, is an angel.  She brings such joy to all of us.  The two eldest love their little sister and she loves them too. The children rock our world!



Skye, Adam, Shelley, Eryn and Bryan


From time to time, I will be dropping in a snippet about my family.  I hope you dont mind but every mother has to have her time to brag.

xx

NEW !! NEW!! NEW!!

I woke up, this beautiful public holiday.  The weather is a bit on the chilly side as it is nearing the middle of March.  The sun is peeking through the clouds.  As I lay on my pillow, thinking about the day ahead, I remembered these beautiful red beads I had in my box.  They are a deep red and I knew that I had to design a necklace with them. 

It is finished and I love it...here it is.  I will be listing it on Etsy and MadeIt tomorrow.

I do hope that there is a buyer out there for this because I know whoever buys it will LOVE it!  It is a good weight and feels beautiful.  Take a look...and if you love it or know someone who will...send them to my shop....

what a great day

xxx

Sunday 11 March 2012

How to Install a MadeIt Badge on your blog

Well it took me forever to figure how to install a Madeit Web Badge button on my site....but this is how I eventually did it.


  • Go to www.madeit.com.au
  • Scroll to the bottom of the home page and in the foot notes, you will see Web Badge, Click on this.  
  • Chose which badge you would like to display and copy the html code ie select the code, right click and copy.
  • Next go to your blog.  Now I am using Blogspot,com so this is a how to for this site.
  • Go to Design, then click on layout.  This will bring up a layout of your blog page.
  • Click on add a gadget, a list of gadgets will now appear.Under Basics, find HTML/Java Script.Click on the plus sign on the right hand side.
  • In the next box, add a title and in the large box underneath the title, Right click and paste your html code.
  • Dont forget to save.
  • Dont forget to submit your website address with the madeit button to the MadeIt Forums to be incuded in the Lovely Madeit Sellers who Blog page here 

Saturday 10 March 2012

Here are my new links

Remember I told you my story of the name change...I forgot to give you the new addressses.

Please visit them and remember to pass on my information to people who may be interested in my items.

www.madeit.com.au/soupspoondesigns
www.etsy.com/shop/soupspoondesigns
website still has to be changed but here is the old one in the meantime
www.wix.com/soupspoongifts/welcome

have a great day!

Name Change...ALERT!!!

Oh my...after weeks of setting up my etsy shop and made it shop and my website and blogspot, I have now decided to change the name.  For practicality and labelling Soupspoon Designs will be better than Soupspoon Gifts...so off to redesign the logo and was this a task in itself.  I had tried many programs and finally settled on using different size banners for my etsy shop and madeit shop and then a full size image for my blog.  These were made on Microsoft Publisher.  I do have a small issue of clarity but I will be playing around on Photoshop to figure out if I can clear (pardon the pun) up this issue.

You may wonder why my shop is called Soupspoon Designs.  I don't sell spoons or make them.  I started off with The Soupspoon Gift Company for my jewellery line.  Soupspoon has been a nickname of my surname for many years.  This was a play on my family name, so The Soupspoon Gift Company was formed however as I am planning on expanding my range to include sewing, labels for the clothing would seem odd with Soupspoon Gifts hence the need for a change and rather now before I start advertising.

So finally welcome to my shop...Soupspoon Designs.  The home of handcrafted jewellery and many future ideas.

Within the next few days, I will be posting some picks of my designs...

Have a good evening...I am off to bed!

And so it began....

I moved to Melbourne a little over three months ago from South Africa. I had never visited Australia but I hadn't visited England either and we moved there in 2000. So would this be so different from that...and yes it was. I moved to England with two small kids, ie no schools to worry about etc but our move to Aussie was so much more. I had to find new schools, places to buy uniforms, stationery, a ballet school, a piano teacher, a mothers group, a church, a shop to purchase pointe shoes and dancing supplies and boy was this a task in itself...but here I am three months down the line. Children loving their respective schools, baby adjusted from the jet lag ( waking at night and sleeping during the day), car fitted with a satellite navigational device...a must for a first timer to Australia.

Now that the family is settled, I needed to find me again...it's quiet during the day, older children are at school and hubby is at work and with baby in tow, I can't venture too far. So out came my beading supplies and it felt so good to be running my fingers through these magical little gems...oh how I missed them. They had been en transit for over two months and then with settling in, they were pushed to the back burner. They are now out again in full glory and waiting to be constructed into a design.

I left many customers behind in South Africa so time to start finding new ones. I began searching online for markets and came across eBay. It didn't seem like the right place for my crafts but I tried it anyway. I must say eBay is great for many things but I know that from my experience, people look for a bargain on eBay. My material costs don't allow me to sell my pieces for 99c so I hit the Internet again, this time I discovered Etsy.com.What a little treasure. Just browsing through the sellers stores kept me up til the wee hours of the morning. I regretted it the next day especially when bubba had kept me awake for most of the night. What a great site and well done to all those clever esty sellers out there. If I could create half the things on there, I would feel like a cat with a bowl of cream....darn lucky. I started my shop, small with a few of my designs.

www.etsy.com/shop/SoupspoonGifts

its a start... But then.... I discovered Australia has a site just like it ....Australia...you beauty!!!

Www.madeit.com.au

and again full of designers that are closer to me. What a talented island this is! So my little shop has opened ...

www.madeit.com.au/soupspoongifts

I have a few designs listed but this is only the beginning...watch this space as I explore ways in which to promote my little virtual shop and grow it into a fun little business. Something to surely keep me out of mischief... So as they say...watch this space and please watch my others too...check out my website too

Www.wix.com/soupspoongifts/welcome

Soon I hope to have my own domain name but for now this will suffice.

Have a great day
xx Shelley