Bay Area Meeting - March 29, 2008

Photo#1 (L-R) Elaine (center) Shell (R) Funky&Chunky
Photo#2 (L-R) Chunky&Funky, Jen, Stephanie, May's daughter

LA Meet-Up and Photo Tips

A small group of us met up at Heather's of PalleikoDesigns house to get photo tips, talk shop, share ideas, drink wine, and whatever else we felt like talking about. L to R Sandy/SandySimone, Heather/PalleikoDesigns, Deidre/Blackbird72, and Amanda/AmandaKLockrowJewels.

We forgot to take photos while everyone was there. So missing from the pictures are Miriam/MiriamDema, Joanne/CrazyArtDolls.

Anyway here are the basic photo tips. For me changing my iso setting from 1600 to 400 made all the difference in the world. So check this out and see if it helps you out too. Then have fun being creative.

CCCOE Product Photography Hints

Familiarize yourself with your camera; this may mean sitting down with the manual. Where can you find your camera settings? How do you get to each setting... etc. These guidlines are for small "pocket" digital cameras; though the same concepts apply to SLR cameras and larger digital cameras. Most digital cameras have these settings or similar terminology associated with little icons. You can find the legend for these in your camera manual: MENU FOLDER Color - set to natural or normal Focus - multi AF is the best setting to use until you get more familiar with settings Light Metering - Multi is the best setting to use until you get more familiar with settings White Balance - THIS IS IMPORTANT Set to daylight or cloudy for shooting outdoors. When shooting indoors you can use the incandescent (or flourescent if you have flourescent) setting but your colors still may not come out properly. ALWAYS shoot with natural lighting if you can. Even with cloudy skies you can get beautiful photographs. ISO Setting - 400 Keep your camera set at 400 for most photography -- indoors or outdoors Picture Quality - standard Contrast - normal or increase slightly Sharpness - normal Smart Zoom - on KNOW HOW TO USE THE MACRO LENS OPTION!!!!! When using your macro setting do NOT use the zoom option. Simply move your camera closer to the product and focus. Now that you know how to use your camera... Photographing your product (things to think about): location lighting - outdoors, indirect props framing the subject how to feature texture, color, how the product is used, do you need a model draw the viewer into the piece and/or around the subject. Post software cropping color balance brightness and contrast levels and curves adjustment Written By: H. Palleiko Designs Contemporary Wearable Art http://www.palleikodesigns.com

UPDATE of what's happening at CCCOE --

Are your fingers tired? Welcome many treasury divas past, present and future. This club promises to feature each other in treasuryland and tirelessly clicks and comments on other members treasuries (making us the hottest!). If that’s not enough, and it shouldn’t be, try one of these on: 1. "Witchy Women: Heroines, Heretics and Whores" March Design Competition in progress! CCCOE members can enter a piece under the topic (and any California resident with a shop can become a member). Tag your entry with 'cccoe' and 'marchchallenge', then copy and paste it, with your name, into the list at the end of this thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5496467 Challenge runs through midnight PST March 31. 2. Promo swap for March is postponed. Convo our swap chair Yolanda for info http://yolandasclay.etsy.com 3. Want to pick the new CCCOE Logo? One of the graphics in the yahoo group photo album will become our team logo (go to http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/groups/cccoe and click on photos [left column], then click on the logo photo album). Go ahead and vote for your favorite (click on polls, left column, and then click on the logo voting poll). Hurry voting closes Monday 3/17! 4. REMINDER: A new destash photo folder has been started in the yahoo group for team members to trade and/or sell to each other. Thanks goes to Kim http://visionquest.etsy.com and now you can add your photos and do whatever it takes to get rid of that stuff! In yahoo just click 'Photos' (left column), then click on the 'DeStash' Album, and there is already stuff to see. Click 'Add' to put up your pics. 5. Get one of the local meetups on your calendar! --Northern CA CCCOE member meet-up. Everyone is welcome to attend. Meeting will be somewhere in the East Bay or SF. For more info, please contact Wrenay at http://shopwhimsy.etsy.com or email her at shopwhimsy [!at] gmail.com --Southern CA CCCOE member meet-up: Los Angeles March Gathering! Saturday, March 22nd 2:30pm, Santa Monica, CA. Email heather [!at] palleikodesigns.com with your email address to be added to the evite list for address location and more contact details. --Central CA member meet-up: Time and place being developed between http://www.tresijas.etsy.com and http://www.alliesadornments.etsy.com two of our most entertaining members! Hurry, it’s happening this week. --Artisan Af-FAIR: Our first all CCCOE mini-fair! Sat., April 5 in 9-3 (Ventura). Bring a little mojo to prettycheap, anniekdesigns, visionquest, elenamary, and creativemuse (contact http://prettycheap.etsy.com for directions). 6. Please remember to add yourself to the yahoo group database (click database, left column inside yahoo) as this is the only place showing the location of our fabulous members. Great for using to get together with nearby members! And when posting messages on yahoo, please let on who you are in your signature with an Etsy shop name (your yahoo id sometimes is completely different and we don't know who you are!) 7. Have an announcement for next Sunday? Shoot Nina a one or two sentence convo and it'll go in for next week (please keep it short, give a contact for more info). That's all folks! Nina, CCCOE secretary

REPEAT UPDATE - but a lot of good information!

WHAZZUP CCCOE? Plenty for the week 3.09-3.15 MUST READ CCCOEteam CCCOEteam says: You can’t say there’s nothing to do in this group! Welcome to new members, the more you post on this thread, the more everyone gets to know you! Pick something and get involved! MOST IMPORTANT: Our team account is changed, notice the new name. The old account is being deleted to remove billing information due to our decision not to open a team shop. --What does this affect? Nothing much except anywhere you personally posted a link using the old team site, please go now and change it to this new team site (such as on your blog, in a treasury). --What do you need to do? Please click on the link now to double check that all the info is correct http://cccoeteam.etsy.com and convo Nina http://prettycheap.etsy.com if there are any changes. From now on use this team account anytime you want to send someone to see our team profile. --It’s ok to continue to use the ‘cccoe’ tag and refer to us as CCCOE. --Committee Chairs please convo Nina for the new login id and password. 1. "Witchy Women: Heroines, Heretics and Whores" That’s the topic for our March Design Competition! Any California resident with a shop can become a CCCOE member and enter a piece under the topic. Tag it with 'cccoe' and 'marchchallenge', then copy and paste it, with your name, into the list at the end of this thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5496467 Challenge runs through midnight PST March 31. 2. Hot Diggety, we got Lucky! And so did a lot of voters! --We had great success obtaining voters on our February Design Competition Lucky Charm Entries! Now let’s turn them into buyers! All the voters get a discount of 10% off any purchase in the participating shops until March 14 (Fri). The list of these voters has been placed on our blog, and here in the thread (see post below). And congrats to http://elenamary.etsy.com for grabbing the most votes for best entry “Good Karma Bracelet”. --WOW! Thank You Volunteer treasury curators Oceanave, Anniek, Localcolorist and AlliesAdornments! We promised all voters (who wish) to be put in a treasury this week. There they go! --Round of applause to our event chair and members http://QuirkynBerkeley.etsy.com and http://Tresijas.etsy.com for such a great time! 3. Want to be in an East Coast/West Coast fling? Etsy admin has something up their sleeve for a team cross promotion and are letting teams partner up informally for now. We are eyeing the NEWNEW team (New York/New Jersey) and are already meeting and brainstorming in a thread, please come in and throw down your gauntlet: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5504615 4. Promo, Promo, everywhere a Promo! Promo swap for CCCOE team members in progress! These are little items you collect from other teammates for passing out in your sales packages, in craft fair goody bags, or whatever. New members especially should check it out! Convo our swap chair Yolanda for info http://yolandasclay.etsy.com 5. Want to be seen by millions? Design the new CCCOE Logo! Convo our promo chair AnnieK http://anniekdesigns.etsy.com for more details. But Hurry Deadline is 3/10! 6. DESTASH! Need I say more? A new destash photo folder has been started in the yahoo group for team members to trade and/or sell to each other. Thanks goes to Kim http://visionquest.etsy.com and now you can add your photos and do whatever it takes to get rid of that stuff! In yahoo just click 'Photos' (left column), then click on the 'DeStash' Album, and there is already stuff to see. Click 'Add' to put up your pics. 7. Have you made it this far???? Get one of the local meetups on your calendar! --Northern CA CCCOE member meet-up. Everyone is welcome to attend. Meeting will be somewhere in the East Bay or SF. For more info, please contact Wrenay at http://shopwhimsy.etsy.com or email her at shopwhimsy [!at] gmail.com --Southern CA CCCOE member meet-up: Los Angeles March Gathering! Saturday, March 22nd 2:30pm, Santa Monica, CA. Email heather [!at] palleikodesigns.com with your email address to be added to the evite list for address location and more contact details. Bring your craft and your camera if you wish. So Cal will have a mini workshop on the best ways to feature your products in those product photos. This means you will get tips on how to use those settings on your digital camera to get the best photo you can. We will also discuss lighting and framing as well as how to manipulate your photo in editing software. Or, simply sit back and relax with a glass of wine and enjoy good company. SOCAL: PLEASE BRING A FAVORITE APPETIZER TYPE MUNCHIE and/or BEVERAGE OF CHOICE. WINE AND SOME SNACKS WILL BE PROVIDED AS WELL. This is a child friendly event. One last plea! When you post on the yahoo group, please include your shop link and real time name too! It is hard to find out who you are just from a yahoo id! That’s all folks! And if that’s not enough, just read on………. You all are keeping me busy, Nina, CCCOE secretary Posted at 9:59 am, March 9 2008 EST prettycheap

TEAM TAG CONFUSION - Latest Up Date!!

We have politely posted to the google team leader Superstar group that we decline to change our team tag for the foreseeable future. You don't have to do anything. Nina

MARCH CHALLENGE - Deadline March 3l

CCCOE March challenge

QuirkynBerkeley says:

It's time to begin working on your entry for the March challenge --"Witchy Women: Heroines, Heretics and Whores." Items will need to be tagged CCCOE marchchallenge (one word) so that we can find them and make a list of them. Deadline for entry is midnight (Pacific time) March 31. When you have your entry listed, please post its title, YOUR SHOP NAME and a link to the entry in this thread. Please copy those already listed and add yours to the bottom of the list.

Tiny Little Name Change ---

Hi Folks! Our promo committee has been renamed to the bright, shiny, new-- "PR Committee" (applause) A better fit because the word 'promo' is used too interchangeably with 'events'. The PR Committee is in charge of publicizing our events to the outside world. Thank you!

Treasuries of Etsy Voters in our Monthly Challenge

Check out these great shops on Etsy.

The Prize for Voting in the February Challenge....

This month anyone who voted in our Etsy voting thread receives 10% off their purchase from March 8th-14th in participating shops. The other perk is getting featured in the fabulous treasuries curated by CCCOE members. Here is the list of voters and the participating shops. 1 Angelecca1 2 artenzie 3 bloomingbeads 4 bibliophile1 5 coexistlove 6 OrangeTheory 7 heartanddart 8 InvitationsByDesign 9 MFcrafts 10 kjmSILKS 11 scrapsnthings 12 arieltelsa 13 ReedsongBasketCo 14 Creativekiddos 15 punkscrapper 16 autumntomay 17 stephaniescarves 18 MillieDogDesigns 19 HumanTouchDesigns 20 trendytreasures 21 triz 22 dedesbeads 23 giapet 24 AmorDePlata 25 mineymo 26 DestinysCreations 27 CraftCart 28 labelladesigns 29 elementsjewelry 30 RosannaElizabeth 31 freeforged 32 GenenesJewelry 33 AwkwardArmadillo 34 calloohcallay 35 jenniferladd 36 willowbeeaccessories 37 Nafsika 38 blinkingmouse 39 WilMakLures 40 sellerheather 41 razorberries 42 customadornments 43 freshwaterpirate 44 MomentsByMartha 45 BundleBaby 46 macaroniandglue 47 homecreations 48 Dragonfire 49 whatshername 50 enamor 51 itreallyaddsomething 52 MissKnits 53 sarahinflorida 54 fetishghost 55 dancingjewelry 56 KnitANDPearl Buyers only: ------------------------------------ 1 fitdeaf 2 taleri 3 tonilyn 4 kimpaluch CCCOE: -------------------------------------- 1 sandysimone 2 quirkynberkeley 3 RedBessBonney 4 buttercupbloom 5 Palleikodesigns 6 DennisAnderson 7 ElenaMary 8 AlliesAdornments 9 Ohmay 10 shellmitchell 11 Tresijas 12 OceanAveSilks 13 Cigarboxbeads 14 Pineblossoms 15 Peggradyart 16 Luchi 17 Visionquest 18 Maidofclay 19 Localcolorist 20 PrettyCheap 21 Anniekdesigns 22 designsbymariejulie 23 amandaklockrowjewels 24 phydeaux 25 RedBessBonney 26 crazyartdolls 27 Surly 28 porterness 29 mrsm 30 blackbird72 31 thevintagejewelrybox 32 oceankisses 33 knittergirl 34 calyxann 35 appleandstar 36 molecular muse 37 aromafields

February Challenge Winner!

Congratulations to ElenaMary for being voted the winner of the "Lucky Charms" monthly challenge. The theme for March is "Witchy Women: Heroines, Heretics and Whores" That’s the topic for our March Design Competition! Any California resident with a shop can become a CCCOE member and enter a piece under the topic. Tag it with 'cccoe' and 'marchchallenge', then copy and paste it, with your name, into the list at the end of this thread: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5496467 Challenge runs through midnight PST March 31.

BRAINSTORMING - Cross-Promotion

CCCOE and NEWNEW teams Meeting and Brainstorm Inside

Welcome NewNew and CCCOE members! This thread is a tool for brainstorming a cross-promotion from sea to shining sea. Who is NewNew? The street team representing New York/New Jersey/Connecticut and see their profile (w/membership), blog, and some of their stuff here: http://team.etsy.com/profilest/ny.shtml http://thenewnew.blogspot.com/ http:/myspace.com/thenewnewny http://flickr.com/groups/newnew/ http://etsylove.ning.com/group/TheNewNew Who is CCCOE? The street team representing California Crafters Club of Etsy and see their profile (click ‘favs’ for some of the members shops), blog, and some of their stuff here: http://cccoe.etsy.com http://www.californiacraftersclubofetsy.blogspot.com http://etsylove.ning.com/group/cccoe http://www.flickr.com/groups/cccoe/ ------------------------------------------------------ SO YOU WANT TO HAVE an East Coast/West Coast fling?! The Etsy team staffer (sarawearsskirts) has something up her sleeve for team cross promoting coming up soon! There is truth to the fact that when someone else promotes you, there is more value than in promoting yourself! Here is what she says: "i love that you're so interested in this project! keep brainstorming, but keep an open mind, as i'd love to meet with (virtually) and work with sets of teams for this project to create amazing, dynamic, successful events for everyone. so keep the ideas coming, and know you'll be hearing from me in a few days to work out some of the logistics and really get things rolling - don't make any hard plans yet! let's keep this a brainstorming discussion! please indicate here if your team is interested! you all are so great! -sara." ------------------------------------------------------ OK! LET'S BRAINSTORM! What kind of event would you like? What would be the goals? What can you contribute to make it successful? What should be the theme? ------------------------------------------------------ Here are a few specifics to work with: “Brooklyn Bridge meets the Golden Gate” a. Group Sale -- the goal here is straightforward sales. CCCOE is running one right now as part of a voter incentive in our Feb design competition and are giving 10% off to customers b. Shop 'Search' -- the goal here is more toward getting newcomers looking inside our shops, with sales a slightly secondary priority. These include treasure hunts, word searches and the like. Some folks like them, some think it is too time consuming for the customer. c. Design Competition -- the goal of these is also to get folks clicking on our items and in our shops. CCCOE does this every month (March is underway even). THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! We can have a blast and do this better than anyone! This thread can be used for a couple weeks, and will somehow be summarized by volunteers (I can always hope). Thanks and chat away! Posted at 2:21 pm, March 6 2008 EST

PROMO SWAP INFORMATION DETAILS ...

The swap works as follows: Let's say that 11 people want to participate, each participant will send 30 promos (we don't count ourselves) to the promo chair person (me). The promos should be something small, inexpensive that represents what you sell. The promo should come in a baggy with your little promo and a business card. I will get all the promos, sort them and mail them back. Each participant will receive 30 promos back from all participants (3 from each seller) and you will use those to give away as freebies at craft shows, with a sale, etc. to promote your fellow etsyans. All participants will do the same with their promos. The date to get the promos to me would be March 31. Also, when promos are sent to me you should include a SASE, so I can send promos back to you. What people sent last time? small pair of earrings, magnets (I sent ceramic ones, OhCuddles m ade little fused glass magnets). Small wire pendants (with ribbon to hang) If your store is paper products u can send little cards, bookmarks. I also sent cellphone charms and keyrings with my ceramic beads (any beads could be used or charms). Small soaps. I'll let you know as I know of more ideas. Let me know if this helps, if fewer people participate we can do fewer than 30 promos. Please, let me know if you want to participate. Yolanda

MARCH PROMO SWAP

Hi CCCOE'rs! To give new members and those who didn't have a chance in January, I am opening a new Promo Swap for March. If you would like to participate in the swap, please convo me at yolandasclay. If you have any questions about what a swap is, also convo me. Thanks, Yolanda www.yolandasclay.etsy.com