sehara

One of the natural things for any artist is to sell his/her works. And the next natural step for an interned addict like me was to consider selling online. I registered on Etsy back in 2006, but living in Bosnia and Herzegovina creates obstacles in online selling, the first and the most important one not being able to use PayPay (we can send money only). I've managed to find the way around this obstacle and I registered on DaWanda in the meantime. Being quite late in my academic aspirations, I had to put all of this aside and obtain my degree first, but now I'm back on the road.
And few days ago something wonderful happened!

I might be reinventing hot water all over again, but here it goes.

Ever heard of ArtFire?

I stumbled upon it while reading  some useful articles on Timothy Adam's Handmadeology (amazing guy-will write about him later on).
Anyway I took a quick peak at it and fell in love with the whole concept.

It's a Buy and Sell venue similar to Etsy and DaWanda, and if you already sell there, you probably now wonder whay would you need another one.

Ay, there's the rub (to quote my all time favourite Mr. Shakespeare)-unlike the two mentioned venues ArtFire offers you to join for FREE and to sell for FREE. There are some limitations with free account, like being able to list 10 items with less pictures, but for no money coming out of your pocket it's a great deal. And once you sell you'll pay NO COMMISSION FEE at all-you get to keep all the money from your sale.

Of course, that's not all. There is an option to get registered as a verified member for 20$ per month and that's all the money you'll ever have to pay-again NO listing fee for and item which might or might not sell and NO commission fee for items you sell.

That's not all, and it gets better...

Right now ArtFire.com is offering 7$ per month registration option for verified members (total of 5,000 accounts) which includes all of the available options (+more which are still in development)). Have a look at some of them:

1.Simple calculation.
On Etsy for 7$ per month you can list 35 items (for 0.20 $ listing fee). And if you're lucky enough (or to put it better if you work hard on your promotion), you might get noticed in the huge crowd of Etsy sellers and sell something-then you have to pay 3.5% commission fee per item.

On DaWanda for 7$ per month you can list 50 items (for approx. 0.14$ /0.10 €/ listing fee, but then you pay 5% commision fee on everything you sell.

I hope you won't get me wrong-I like both, especially DaWanda, and I believe anyone can succeed in a crowd with hard work, but ArtFire seems like a great opportunity.

2.A whole bunch of promotion tools and great options, like:
Google Analytics, viewing prices in any currency, Google Base (autofeed of every item), Rapid Cart which can be put on blogs (customers can shop directly on blog- grab your impulse buyers before they change their mind), 10 images for each listed item (yes, that's right, TEN!), Market Hub where you can list all of your most important web places. And a whole bunch more.

3.Growing popularity
ArtFire is already on the 10th place in Alexa ranking-there is a blog with this list, but I can't find it now. I promise to look for it.


As I mentioned before right now ArtFire is offering 7$ per month for 5,000 lucky sellers! That would last a lifetime as long as you didn't cancel your store.

So if you're selling handcrafted goods, or maybe plan to sell handcrafted items online, or you just happen to know someone who wants to start such a type of business, I would be really happy  if you tried Artfire right along with me by clicking on this referral link . If you browse Artfire and choose to join, be sure to come back to my journal and click the link so you can be counted as one of my referrals....I would really appreciate that.
The account type you need to purchase is a Verified Account. Free accounts don't count towards the referral program.

There are only 334 accounts left right now and they are going pretty quickly. When I joined, there were 557!
If you are quick enough, you can start your own refferal program.

I wish you good luck with ArtFire.com if you choose to join, as well as with any other selling venue you're on, and thank you if you choose to join through me!


Quick update....now there are only 307 accounts left!!!

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Stamps I

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...after a year or so.

I really love dA, but I had no time-with all of my exams and my happy crowd of kids.

I can proudly say that I finally got my diploma....FINALLY!

I got so annoyed at the very end, since in the period of October and November I couldn't apply for my last two exams...our University decided they needed higher salaries and started the strike. In December they were on the road again, but they took their sweet time in setting up their schedule of exams and I spent a couple of days phoning everybody....my mentor, my Head of Department, the Colledge Secretary and the Student's Service (who are of no service at all)....only stopping short of phoning the Dean himself.

I was supposed to have my final (or diploma paper as we sometimes call it) ready in the meantime, but I was too aggitated to do anything about it. So, at the moment my two exams became the past the real headache started, since my final paper was only 2 thirds completed+it needed to be checked, as well as translated into Bosnian (all of the 37 pages of it)

I managed to do this somehow, though my translation really sucked (my mentor's exact words ) and then the annoying part came all over again. I had to hand it over officially to the Colledge Secretary and wait for the Colledge Council to approve it. Unfortunatelly, after the strike they got a bit lazy in setting up their sessions-and the phoning started again.

I finally had my date set up for 26th of January, 2008, and I think I have grown another bunch of gray hairs on my head in these couple of months-thanks God for the hair dye .

Well, it was worth it-my job is now secure and my salary is up by approximately 20%. I think I'll award myself with a nice trip to Egypt this summer-unless I spend all that money on jewelry supplies (I've discovered the charms of e-bay).

New jewelry coming up soon-that's a promise!!!

Lots of love and to you all!

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Stamps I

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Well, it's been a while since I posted (or did anything here)-sorry, there was no time. My work is killing me and not to talk about my regular winter depression-it hits me every year. Guess I'm getting older....lol.

And influenced by this depression, as well as lack of time (or my ability to organize myself properly) I lost my inspiration. I tried creating several times but it wouldn't work. Then I remembered the old trick-I started making earrings, simple ones, and afterwards some simple necklaces (have a look in my gallery). That was few days ago and my inspirations is back, so you can expect more jewelry soon.

BTW There's a new club on dA- DaWanda-Sellers (guess who started it). It gathers dA sellers on DaWanda (www.en.dawanda.com/), the place for unique and individual products and people. DaWanda is based in Germany, but it works in three different languages and if you're looking for your place in European market, look no further. Go ahaid and register and then join the club

Have a look at my shop (it is a bit empty, but I'm working on it) at SeharaDaWanda .

Have fun!



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Stamps I

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Ooops, it's been a while since I posted some of my works, but I simply haven't had any time. Being an english (or any) language teacher at the end of the half-term takes up all of my time, since I have about 250 pupils with all of their exams, tests and grades. Luckily, yesterday we started a 5-day off period that will give me time to catch up with tests I still have to check and all other "things-to-do" (I'm late as usual-should be my middle name, if we had the tradition of giving middle names )
So new jewelry will have to wait for a while, but I'll be posting some of my old works I haven't put up yet.



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