Vote for this Month's Monthly Challenge.

This month's challenge was Back to School. You can see all the entries together in the CCCOE Team Favorites HERE. Vote in this thread.

CCCOE September Happenings!

September 1st: Prairie Primitives is participating in The Antiques & Art Fair in Danville, CA. Hours are from 9am till ?? (mid-afternoon, I suppose). Admission is FREE. The show is at 125 Railroad Avenue in Danville, and is easily accessible from the 680. September 5th-October 20th: Nina of PrettyCheap Jewelry is part of Fragile Sands Hobo Jungle at Bell Arts Factory. Opening reception September 5th from 5pm-10pm. Bell Arts is located at 432 N. Ventura Avenue Studio 101 in Ventura, CA 93001 September 5th-October 10th:Elena of ElenaMary has an exhibition of her Art ART OF THE BOOK 9-5 to 10-12-2008 Opening reception 9-6 from 6:30 to 9pm San Buenaventura Artist Union Gallery 330 South California St. Plaza Ventura, CA. 90031 805-643-3012 September 20th:Tina of TreasuresbyTina and Anita of Jewlz076 are sharing a booth at Taste of Saratoga. September 20th: MyFriendRoze jewelry and Amanda K Lockrow Jewelry will both have tables at the Glasshouse Swapmeet in Pomona. Event is free and goes from 10am-3pm. Located at the Glasshouse, 200 W. 2nd St in Pomona. There is a handmade district and also companies like Kid Robot, Obey, Paul Frank selling at this event. October 5th: Prairie Primitives is participating in the Lodi Street Faire in Lodi, CA. This Faire is downtown on School and Church Streets. Our booth will be on School Street. This show runs from 8am to 4pm. This is a FREE event. The booths on School Street is mostly antiques and "old stuff" and the booths on Church Street are mostly crafts. Lodi is easily accessible from both the 5 and 99. Are you a member of CCCOE and have upcoming events? Email aklockrow@yahoo.com to get your events added to the team blog.

Enter this Month's Monthly Challenge.

Add your entry for this months challenge. CCCOE members, It's time to begin working on your entry for the August challenge -- Back to School. Items will need to be tagged 'CCCOE' and 'augustchallenge' (one word) so that we can find them and make a list of them. Deadline for entry is midnight (Pacific time) August 31. Voting will take place the first week of September! Check out the monthly bulletin board thread for more concise thread with CCCOE team info. Stop by CCCOE Flickr and weigh in on the weekly business discussions.

Off Etsy Tools and Information for Your Shop

I have been exploring ways to find out more info on Etsy without being able to access html on a site. Here are some things I've found. If you know others please add them! Let's Ets: Tools for Etsy Sellers- (click on link to go there)

The goal of LetsEts is to provide a suite of free tools to make the lives of Etsy sellers easier. In addition to the Google Base formatter, some of the features we're working on include:

1. Statistics to help you analyze your sales and listings
2. Dashboard and Yahoo widgets to monitor new sales.
3. A bulk lister

Unofficial Etsy News- just what it says-but lots of info that is easy to navigate. Heart-O-Tron: See your items with number of hearts Etsy Bitch: A blog pointing out the mishaps and blunders of Etsy. They do it so Etsy will improve for all its users.

SoCal Bench Project Wrap Up!!!

The SoCal Bench Project Nails It! The SoCal Bench Project Artisan Fair is met with outstanding support from it's local community. August 10, 2008 On Saturday, August 9th, 2008 the small grassroots organization TheSoCal Bench Project held it's first annual SoCal Bench Project Artisan Fair in Culver City, CA, west of Los Angeles. Over 25 artists fromacross California gathered together selling their artwork to help raise awareness and funds for New Directions Inc., a local non-profit organization that provides a variety of services for our homeless military veterans community. Supporters from the Los Angeles community shopped for fine art, photography, lithographs, clothing, contemporary craft, jewelry and a variety of other gift items from candles and soap products, to stuffed animals with crazy personalities and beautiful art dolls. Incredible items from local businesses and artists were raffled off to an excited crowd. ABC, Benefit Cosmetics, Kreation Cafe, The Factory and Color Me Mine were among local businesses that supported this years raffle held to benefit New Directions. Participating vendors as well as numerous members of the group California Crafters Club of Etsy (CCCOE) also provided artwork as well as monetary donations. Sandy Collins, Amanda Lockrow and Heather Palleiko, (founders of The SoCal Bench Project), met through the website Etsy.com in early 2008 where the three are members of CCCOE, the largest street team on the indie craft site Etsy.com with over two hundred - fifty members. What originally started as an idea to have a small home show quickly grew into an annual event of California artisans coming together to create positive change in our local community. This year The SoCal Bench Project and it's supporters raised close to $2,000 for New Directions Inc. If you are interested in more information about The SoCal Bench Project and it's founders or vendors please email info@socalbenchproject.com. For information on New Directions Inc. and it's programs please go to www.ndvets.org. http://www.socalbenchproject.com http://sandysimone.etsy.com http://www.aklockrow.com http://www.palleikodesigns.com