I'm On YouTube!

Thank you for stopping by!

I created a YouTube channel, where I am now doing video tutorials of all my miniature foods!

Here is my channel

The photo to the right are my nails.  Recently my nail artist Tin Tin from Blossom Beauty Lounge has been urging me to make my food tiny enough to go on my nails!   Two of my subscribers Mandy Lee, and Miss CiciUK  were also supportive of the idea.   This breakfast inspired set is the very first time I have had my miniature food on my nails, and I think it may just become an addiction! Here is the nail size pancake tutorial.
Here is my nail size egg and bacon tutorial.

So if you were wanting to delve into the world of polymer clay, or just want to see how I make your favorite items stop by, and watch a video or two.  I will be releasing videos in themes.  Right now is Breakfast.

Here is the pancake charm tutorial

Here is my bacon and egg tutorial.


I am transitioning slowly to a focus on creating more tutorials, and reducing my store inventory.  I hope to do a couple of local fairs this year.

Thank you all for being so supportive.
Heather

Here is my bowl of  cereal tutorial 

Here is the cinnamon roll tutorial 

Here is the eggs benedict tutorial ,  and the ham tutorial for the eggs benedict.

Themed Food Tutorials

Welcome back!

In the last month and a half, I have been creating miniature food tutorials and placing them on you tube.

I already have several there.  Since I tend to make food in themes, I decided to create the tutorials in themes too.  Right now I am starting a cherry theme.  The first tutorial will be a basket of cherries.

For the next couple of weeks I will be adding more cherry themed tutorials.

Here is the
Food Tutorial Document I put together that has the links to all the video, and written tutorials I have published to the web.

I will update this blog once I have more cherry tutorials up.

Baking Up Some Fun

As many of you now know, I closed my Etsy shop.  You can still reach me there for the time being, but all my miniatures are now on Zibbet.  

First I wanted to say Thank You!!!!  Some of you have already found me on Zibbet, and I am so grateful that you have followed me over.

The Holidays are a pretty hectic time, and the munchkins have been sick, so I haven't been able to make a whole lot of new items.  Here is a sneak peek of my current projects.  

The broken egg is so much fun!  I love them, the egg shell is very thin, and the egg white is a liquid polymer clay.  It is flexible and will bend rather than break.  Take care with this one, you can break this one by smashing it, or tearing it forcefully.

The butter was made by request, but I did make a a few extra, because I have been meaning to make a set of baking charms.  I will be making three more charms to go with the eggs and butter after the Holidays.

The French toast was also a special request, but I decided to make a few extra.  I like the way they look so I will try to make more in the coming year.









This year I won't be making batches of 50 or more.  My batches will be much smaller, so I have time to continue creating more things, and work on other ventures.

I will also be working on couple different projects this year.  I plan on making knitting and crochet left and right handed video tutorials. I will probably throw some food tutorials in there too.  When I start building up enough tutorials, I will comeback and provide the youtube links.

Any Knitted or crocheted items in the store you see, are projects I have been working on for the tutorials.  They are finished and ready to ship, and I will not be making more of the exact same item.

The other big thing I am working on is my family tree.  I am spending a good deal of time researching.  

I will try to get in to more small local fairs this year.  I will post what fairs I will be at along with the  dates and locations.

Thank you all so much for sticking with me as I had have to pull away from Etsy.
Heather

Black Friday Sale

Thank you for coming back!

As you know, you can all find me now on Zibbet.

Zibbet is a great handmade community, and I am so glad I found them.  I happened to be looking through their forums recently, and learned that over 100 shops were going to have a Black Friday - Cyber Monday Sale.  They are offering anything from free shipping, all the way through 50% off.

The founders of Zibbet have pledged to stay true to handmade, vintage, and supplies.

I really want to support them and help the site grow in my own small way.  So for the first time in three years I am having a sale!  From  November 29th - September 1 Everything in my store will be 25% off.  No need for a coupon code.
Here is the link for my store.

The photos from this blog are my new caramel and chocolate charms.  They are all available, but I am making much smaller batches of foods since closing my Etsy shop.  

New Holiday Items

Thank you all for stopping by!

I just created some new Holiday goodies.  They are very small batches this year.

You can find my new goodies in my Zibbet shop

On the right side of the shop there is a Holiday section if you are searching for the Holiday only items.

The peppermints are actually one of the more challenging foods I make.  They are very fun, but very difficult to make perfect on both sides.   There is definitely a front and back on most of them.

The main green I use for the green peppermints was discontinued.  I use a mixture of greens, but any new batches I make will be a slightly different green.

My items can also be found at:
Blossom Beauty Lounge  in Redondo Beach, Ca.
Emerging Thoughts  an online boutique with creators from around the world
Two Elephants in Granada Hills, Ca.

Cookies And Cream Cake

Over the weekend I had a chance to make a brand new cake.  Here I have layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with dark chocolate icing.  I added a dab of vanilla frosting on top with chocolate sprinkles and topped it wit a wafer cookie.  

I like the colors so much, the I hope to make a cookies n cream ice cream, and perhaps even a matching cupcake. 

All my newest foods are available at my new shop.  My latest designs are the cookies and cream inspired cake, and a variety ice waffle cone ice creams. 

If you missed out on the Hotdogs or plain cheese burgers, I made new small batches of those items.

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Heather

Is Poaching Too Strong of a Word?

Just a quick warning, This particular post is meant more for documenting how Etsy has changed incoming traffic to listings.  I wanted to show other shop owners what is happening, and why their shops may have slowed down.
I just stumbled across a change Etsy made to incoming search results.  I often perform searches on google, to see if my items are showing up.  I am showing up on a number of google searches, but my views on Etsy have been plummeting.   If you are an Etsy shop owner that has built your business, only to find yourself struggling this may be the reason.

Here is the google shopping results for snow cone necklace today October 22, 2013.  My snow cone necklace is in the first slot top left.

 Once you click through to see the item this picture of the screen below is where you are taken.  An Etsy listing page.  The top is very different though, Notice that you don't even see the item.  You are shown other "similar" items.  Then you see the shop name next to some thumbnails of shop items.  You actually have to scroll down in order to find the item you clicked on.

How many people clicking through to find your item, will know to scroll down?
Sorry they are photos guys...  There were errors when I tried to post with actual screen shots
Heather

Here is another way Etsy is directing traffic away from your shop
 I search for chocolate cupcake charm then click on images.  Mine is the 6th in on the top

 Here is the screen after I click on the image.  Instead of saying my business name on Etsy, It says Popular items for cupcake charm on etsy

Then when you click on  to Etsy you are taken to a search page of many items.  The one you clicked on may or may not even be there

I deactivated my listings. My item was in the top row in the third slot.  There have been reports by other sellers that their item did but appear on the page at all, or it was towards the bottom of the page.

I don't want my images to lure people to directly competing items.  Amazon at least shows competing items on the bottom of the page.  This is not fair to the shops that spend countless hours researching SEO, taking the best pictures they can, only to have it used to promote their direct competitors items. 

To my wonderful buyers..  You can still contact me through Etsy for the time being, or find me here
This along with the allowing factory mass produced items to be called "hand made"  was the reason I took all my listings down on etsy.