Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
It would be hard to find someone who doesn’t appreciate quality and distinctive photography. Of course likes and dislikes in relationship to photography are about as the number of people on this planet so it’s a very good thing there isn’t a shortage of subject material for photographers to work with. Nature itself has always been a favorite subject for many photographers and Joanna's Photographyis one of the better examples of how skill, technique and that special insight a great photographer needs has been interwoven to create and capture little slices of this world and people for all posterity.
The sample photo above is one of my favorites in Joanna’s store. The solitude and contemplative aspects of the photo almost jump at you. Other photographs in her store are on the other end of the emotional spectrum with examples of almost everything in between. Shoppers will be able to find something in Joanna’s store to fit whatever their need, mood and desire might be.
Joanna’s is very keen on meeting her customer’s needs because it appears that almost any piece in her store can also be customized in almost any reasonable size to fit the customer’s needs. Another very pleasing aspect of the store is it’s very reasonable pricing.
It’s obvious that Joanna isn’t an inexperienced armature photographer as can be seen from the photographs in her store. It’s nice to see however that she still has and exhibits a fresh and unique perspective to each photograph she takes. These qualities are sometimes lost when that special subject matter insight begins to fade. That certainly hasn’t happened in Joanna’s case. Each photograph I saw is very unique and special.
I probably should tell the reader to plan on spending some time in her store because you are going to have difficulty deciding on which of her photographs to buy. They are all so good. Buy several and make it easy on yourself.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
We wanted to use to use today’s post to introduce our shoppers to a new shoppers service we launched today on the Arcade. It’s called our Personal Shopper Service. We have all had difficulty at times not finding what we are looking for. Let one of our Personal Shoppers help you find what you are looking for. This new service is free of charge to shoppers. To learn more about it, check out the Personal Shopper Page at the Arcade.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
I haven’t done any kind of survey or poll about this but I feel fairly safe in saying that there is a large number of those who are interested in handmade and handcrafted products that tend to lean towards the earthy, natural, organic elements that tend to be present in so many handmade and handcrafted items. Personally, I think in my case, part of the reason is thatI’m an old desert rat who has lived a large portion of his life on the back side of the Arizona deserts and mountains. The fact that I’ve been around since just after God dropped the first cactus here in Arizona probably also has a bearing on it.
Products themselves that have that earthy, natural and organic feel and characteristics to them seem to be a popular item among shoppers also. A great example of an online store that carries products of this type is Foret. Although jewelry makes up a large portion of the items Elizabeth, Foret’s store owner, has in her store, the shopper will find many other very nice and original and distinctive items. The composite photo above will give the reader a small sample of the unique and special items Elizabeth has available for shoppers.
The use of natural elements in her pieces is a perfect example of how Elizabeth has developed a skill and technique for combining these natural elements with a simple elegance into her pieces. Although I didn’t ask her, it appears to this viewer that there is an underlying concept of functionality deliberately designed into Elizabeth’s creations also. This combination provides the shopper with being able to wear these pieces in a wide variety of situations and circumstances.
Elizabeth has taken her skills and techniques and added a nice portion of her natural creativity to make an almost endless variety of products any shopper would be hard pressed not falling in love with. Take this writers advise and stop into Foret’s and see how many item you fall in love with. By the way, there is a nice Valentine’s Day sale taking place at Foret’s that you should check out.
Celebrate Your Love Sale At Foret's
Shop for your Valentine right through February 14th!
10% discount on One Item
20% discount on Two Items
25% discount on Three or More Items
Free upgrade to Priority shipping on all purchases. All items are shipped via USPS with Delivery Confirmation and all purchases over $50 are Insured.
CONVO please with your selections and wait for a ‘Reserved For’ link with corrected price.
PLEASE NOTE: You must convo first for the sale prices to go through.
Happy shopping!
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
For those who lean towards the Eclectic, we have a unique store for you today. It’s called Eclectic Oddities and what the shopper will find is a nice selection of products that are all a little bit on the different side. Nothing radical but different enough to be interesting and very nice.
I like how Judith the owner of Eclectic Oddities describes herself and her store in her store announcement. She almost covered most of what I was going to say in this review “Eclectic Oddities is a collection of handmade items, created by a retired art teacher with too much time on her hands, and an overactive drive to keep busy! Each item is one of a kind, and in some cases the style may be the same, but the materials vary, so that each piece is an original. You will find fiber/wearable arts, jewelry, paper goods, odd bits/pieces and misc. clothing articles.”
What I do want to add is that her creations are really very nice and attractive and are also very reasonably priced. Each item clearly demonstrates Judith’s wide variety of skills and creativeness. She also isn’t intimidated in here use of colors or styles. Stop by today and take a look at these really nice and distinctive products Judith has made available to shoppers.
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The apron shown above is made with a vintage pillowcase on one side and a recuperated shirt on the other. Now there is creativity in action. Everything Nathalie sells exhibits the same creativity and style. Being dedicated to the concept of recycling, Nathalie has perfected an art that for a while was quickly being lost. From jewelry to household items and almost anything in between, Recuperfashion is full of unique and exciting pieces of merchandise that are very reasonably priced. When you stop by one of Nathalie’s stores, don’t be surprised when you see something you probably never would have thought of.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
For most of us, a home really doesn’t become a home until we add those little personal touches that represent our uniqueness. These little touches come in all types but for the vast majority it isn’t the big things like furniture that really sets a home off as special. It’s the little things, a vase here, a picture there, or maybe its as simple as colors. What ever it is, to us these things make all the difference.
The name of the store “Here’s your Sign” pretty well describes what the reader will find in the store but it doesn’t tell them anything about just how genuinely unique each of the signs Tina, the store owner, creates. With a keen eye for color and keeping here subject matter realistic to a Country oriented theme, Tina has been able to create some very attractive and yet naturally simple signs that could fit into many readers homes.
There is a nice blend of themes from the semi-humorous to those more on the serious side to be found in her signs also. We only use a single picture for each blog post but the picture above is pretty representative of what I’ve been saying. Stop by and fill that empty spot on your wall with one of Tina’s signs.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
If you like really distinctive jewelry, you will love the pieces found at ArtistryByAprilee . As the picture above shows, the pieces Aprilee creates are far from ordinary. With great skill and creativity, she has created some of the most unique and beautiful pieces of jewelry to be found anywhere.
You will find necklaces, ear rings, hair accessories, some Victorian style items and even some sets in a wide variety of styles, materials and colors to choose from. From the very elegant to the more casual, shoppers will find something that will fit almost any dress need. Each piece I saw displays the craftsmanship of a talented jewelry artist.
Through formal classes and her natural skills, Arprilee has developed techniques that serve her well in her art. She is a member of SRAJD Guild (The International Organization for Self-Representing Artists in Jewelry Design) and represents them proudly. Be sure and stop by ArtistryByAprilee and see if you don’t find her creations simply outstanding.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Those that aren’t real fond of their head and neck being real cold will really like today’s store review. Two Artisan Sistersis a store that has just what the doctor calls for to keep your head and neck from developing permafrost this winter. Between their knitted hats and scarves, you should be quite capable of keeping old man winter away. There is nothing like a nice warm hat and scarf on a cold winter day
Ruth and Marilyn, the head honchos of Two Artisan Sisters, have a very nice selection of both hats and scarves in an equally nice selection of colors and patterns for shoppers to select from. They even have some matching combination hat & scarf sets. I was impressed on how reasonable their pricing was also.
The picture above is just a sample and since it’s pretty hard for this writer to describe their hats and scarves, I suggest you visit their store for complete product details. I’m sure you will just the perfect piece or pieces to keep those cold winds away this winter.
Stop by the Arcade for other great products and stores
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
Are you going crazy trying to market and promote all your stores?
If you have more than one store or have multiple stores on different venues, have you noticed that the marketing and advertising for them all can get a little crazy trying to keep track of where you have promoted which store and which products. It doesn’t take long before you find yourself wondering which store to promote each day, which products to promote from which store, which store do you send casual contacts too. If you’re finding that all this is becoming overwhelming, start thinking about all the extra time you are spending. Wouldn’t it be great to condense all that marketing and promoting and at the same time still have all your other stores and of course the sales and advertising those venues themselves do? There is a way to do it.
For quite some time we here at The Hand Made Product Shopping Directory have listened to store owners who have expressed frustration with all the time and energy they have had to expend in marketing and promoting their various stores and products. When a seller has multiple stores, they have the problems mentioned above and particularly which store to send a potential customer to. It became obvious to us that what was needed was a way for store owners to be able to market and advertise all their stores and their products in one centralized location and do it extremely inexpensively. A single location a store owner can refer potential customers to that would allow that customer the ability to see every product that seller has available. Not another store in traditional sense but something like a store that provided the customer with real product information and the ability to, with one click, be in the particular store that particular product is being sold from.
This is exactly what an Arcade Store Front is. It’s like having another store without all the hassles. Each Arcade store has its own URL (example: http://YourStoreName.dmpmc.net) that you can send your potential customers to and not worry that they won’t see all your products. Arcade store owners can list as many products as they wish and from almost any existing online selling venue. There is no need for another customer payment system and all those hassles since every listed product in a particular Arcade store links to that particular product in the appropriate actual store that product is sold from.
If you wanted to you could think of an Arcade store as your main store and all your other stores as departments within that store. With an Arcade store you can list in say Etsy what sells best through Etsy, in your Artfire store, list what sells best there and in your Cafepress store what sells best there and so on. With an Arcade store you can do this without the worry that a customer won’t see your other products either.
Here is what makes Arcade stores really different. If you are tired of the product photos shoppers initially see in your store look a little crazy because most selling venues size their thumbnail photos into a standardized size throughout the selling venue, you’ll like the fact that each listing is reviewed by real people before it goes on line and each photo is sized proportionately so shoppers see your products the way they should look. Shoppers don’t just see a picture and a title, they see a real product description of the product as well as a title and photo. When a shopper clicks on the photo, they instantly go to that items sales page on what ever store the Arcade store owner normally sells that product from. There they make their purchase. Shopper confusion about Shipping and Terms of Sale are reduced because these facts are also on every page in an Arcade store owner’s store. So is a Profile and your store owners comments. All this is possible because all Arcade stores, product pictures and product descriptions are human edited prior to going online.
Think of it! No more business cards and other ads with half a dozen web addresses on them. No more having to explain to potential customers that this particular product is only sold in this or that store. No longer will you have to promote and advertise all those stores if you don’t want to. Think of all the time and energy you will save and have available for doing what you really want to do, create more products. These are the benefits of having an Arcade store.
Shopping is more fun when you find incredible quality at incredible prices!
Thousands Of Stores To Shop From
Today’s blog post is being directed towards shoppers of children’s handmade products. You may or may not be aware of a new law that takes effect in February 2009. This new law is called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Ace (CPSIA). This new law, if it goes into effect as currently written, is going to significantly and negatively impact you.
The law is pretty complicated but basically what it was written in hopes of addressing issues caused by the use of certain chemicals like lead and certain other chemicals found in some children’s products. On the surface, the law sounds logical and appropriate but built within this new law are elements that will radically impact your ability to purchase children’s products.
Initially the law was intended to address the problem of imports from certain other countries but in addressing this issue, the writers of the bill have sounded death knell for many who create and sell handmade products geared towards children under 12 years of age. It will also cause most mass produced products to significantly go up in price if not disappear all together.
The main problem stems from the requirement that every product will need to be independently tested and certified. This is a heavy cost that for the majority of those who create and sell handmade products geared towards children simply can’t afford to have done. Even if they could, it would result in them having to raise their prices to such a point that the products wouldn’t be saleable. The result will be if the law isn’t changed is that you the shopper will no longer be able to buy handmade children’s products and the mass produced ones that you will find on the market will be extremely more expensive.
What is so frustrating to all of us is the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of contaminated products are being produced out of the country and not within the US. In their efforts to address the issue of importing contaminated products, they have created a problem that is going to be much worse. It is obvious that this bill was poorly thought out and the subject poorly investigated. Otherwise they would have found out the real facts.
If this bill goes into effect in its current form, it is not only going to be devastating for handmade product sellers, it is going to cost the government a big piece of change. It appears that the government doesn’t care, or probably never considered, the loss it will take from lost income taxes and sales taxes. Guess who is going to be paying for this lost revenue? Every tax payer in higher taxes.
There are far too many elements and aspects of this bill to go into in a simple blog post but we are encouraging every reader of this post to do a simple Google search of of “CPSIA” and read up for themselves on this issue because it does effect you. Then contact their local representatives and senators and let them know how you feel.
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The purpose of this blog is to impart information about The Hand Made Product Directory and the stores listed in the directory that sell Handmade and Hand Crafted products by reviewing various stores and their products.
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