Kayla’s Etsy Shop

A guest post from Kayla…

I took Spencer’s suggestion to organize the basement a little too seriously and now I have an Etsy shop! You can find me here.

I’ve tried an Etsy shop a few times over the years but haven’t had a lot of success. I’m no good at photography and I don’t like the time it takes to research and list items. This time around I’m doing pretty well, and I think I found a way to make it sustainable by offering mystery items.

For example, I have several dozen doilies to sell. Instead of listing every single one, I have sorted out the ones that are at least six inches large and are of good quality. I separated them into three categories:

White/ecru,

colorful,

and linen.

Folks can purchase a doily and I will pick a random one from my collection and send it along! This way I don’t have to do a lot of photography and listing and I get to pick something special for each customer. My goal is for people to feel like they are getting a special package from their grandma instead of just making a purchase.

I’m carrying this mystery theme into a few more categories that I like to collect:

Raffia straw trivets,

and cotton crocheted potholders.

One of my favorite things to do is curate ephemera sets for scrapbookers and journalers. All of the sets are made from the same items, but they will each be a little bit different.

Here’s a vintage flashcard set

and here’s a children’s academic set.

Last year I invested in a high-quality large format scanner to format Mary’s (of Country Threads) paper patterns into digital PDFs for her online shop, ChickenScratchCountryThreads. I’m having so much fun looking over all of the pamphlets and books I have collected over the years and scanning them in to make digital collages and stickers.

Here’s an apple set I made

And here’s one with chickens from a Victorian pamphlet.

People who like to journal can print a JPEG page and cut the images. If they prefer digital journaling I also offer a PNG file with a transparent background. These are a lot of fun to curate and I look forward to expanding to vintage coloring books soon. I think Spencer would appreciate me keeping my sales digital instead of all of the paper coming and going!

My favorite mystery item is my full-size vintage sheet sets. I took all of my full-size flat sheets and picked two pillowcases to coordinate but not match. They were so fun to put together!

I’m letting nothing go to waste with my sheets. I’m also selling twin-sized flats. Some sheets have been cut into fat quarters. Some fat quarters weren’t quite perfect so they are offered as B-quality for a lower price. I also have 2# bundles of scraps and a giant bundle of sheets I can’t use.

Because I’m saving so much time by not listing each item individually I am able to offer what I think are great prices. I also hate paying for shipping so I’m not asking people to either. Products less than $5 have a flat $3 shipping fee on the first item and everything is free after that. Almost everything else has free shipping, or free shipping over $35.

I’m also giving Mom’s readers a 10% discount this weekend. You can use it by shopping through this link or entering code JOJUNCTION at checkout.

You might have noticed I took down my Pins’s Needles blog… It was costing more than not and I wasn’t keeping up with it. I am wondering, would you be interested in my guest blogging more often? What do you like to read about?

Every guest post ends with a Jasper tax. He is spoiled by all of his grandparents but especially Grandpa Jerry or “Pa.”

Here’s Jasper with his new favorite thing: An implement sales catalog from “Pa.” We keep it in the car and he reads it constantly.

He had an appointment in Iowa City. His asthma has been a struggle this summer so he’s moving to a daily inhaler. He’s been doing great and will be counting to seven before long because that’s how many breaths he has to take from his meter- Twice morning and twice night. Here he is in a little bear mask!

Thanks for reading my long and rambling post!