A professional Artisan

A Professional Artisan

I finally did it. It shows you that if you continue to stick with a goal you have made for yourself eventually you WILL achieve it!

I love to create scrapbook albums via decoupage, embellishments and photographs. After numerous months of researching and incorporating what I love to do and share with others, I figure there must be a way to incorporate these loves into my income stream. Well I decided to create pieces of artwork on the blank canvas of 12" X 12" scrapbook albums. I finally created my first piece for Breast Cancer Awareness Month for the memory of my Aunt who passed away from Breast Cancer before there was a Breast Cancer Foundation called Susan G. Komen.

I have sold that piece a week ago and have achieved the goal I set out to step into the professional realm of being a artisan paid for my creative skills. There is nothing like an accomplishment visualized with hard work and due diligence.

I would like to thank my buyer from Hawaii that purchased the said art piece below and pray that they will enjoy the many precious memories that they decide to affix to this scrapbook album art piece.

Shop4UniqueGifts

Getting back in the GROOVE

As this day of 10-10-10 fades out, over the past few weeks I have been getting back in the GROOVE. I haven't been around much do to working and acclimating myself to a new job but life goes on. Now that the kid is back in college and the holidays are coming up I thought lets get back in the groove of things and pace myself a little better. So I decided to start out with participating in a cool online function called Worldwide Moment.

Basically what you did based on your time zone on 10-10-10 @ 10:10 AM GMT  you take a photo at that specific time. Well being the fisher woman that I am of course you know where I was at that time when converted to my time of 6:10Am. I was fishing waiting for the fish to bite. You can see my photo here I wasn't sure if they would accept it but they did and boy did I feel good. What I find extra special about this is that I was placed on page 10 the 3rd row and 3rd picture from the left too funny huh? Someone out there into numerology would have a blast with this. Photography is on of my pastimes and when I can combine fishing and photography together is really makes me appreciate the things our creator has given us.

I can't believe that I was able to capture the essence of a new day with my Blackberry cell phone. I love my Blackberry. Technology sure has advanced. I am sure I will be participating next year as well it really did something for my soul.

The morale here sometimes you have to just step away from the box to get back into the GROOVE!

Happy New Year 2010

Happy New Year to all! 

May your year be prosperous and peaceful!

Here we are at another new beginning and boy I am excited for what the new year will bring. Many challenges for myself for one with the continuous research and writing of my first book, re-inventing myself shall be fun and challenging. Here's a free downloadable e-book that I would like to pass on to you from one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin. He wrote it last year but this really gets you pumped up and the information is timeless.


I don't know about you but have you noticed over the past few months that Google places interesting pictures superimposed on it's search home page? Well I started noticing when it was Sesame Streets 50th anniversary


what a very interesting image they had. Big Birds legs was the "L" in Google it was quite cool to see. From then on I started watching and was anticipating what they were going to do next.

How appropriate that they put something on their home search page for the New Year

Well I found out who does these his name is Dennis Hwang actually he has been doing these for a few years. His first was the Fourth of July in 2000 that he was to modify before then Google had used outside contractors for the logo but they wanted something more fun well ever since then he has been logooling. The art work that Dennis creates using the letters in the word "Google" to bring attention to a celebratory occasion of the day, year or month.

I have really grown accustomed to the anticipation of what he is going to place on the home page of Google next.

Enjoy Dennis's New Year 2010 Logoogle or as he says Google Doodles, lol!

Keeping Calm during the holiday!

This is the time of the year where all online sellers including eBay seller'seb patience are tried and stretched. Between the shipping and the increase amounts of items selling off their shelves it's a wonder we are able to keep our heads above water.

As I was listing this item below. This post came to mind. Just smile and you will get through it.

Click HERE

With an increase in unpaid bidders during this time, tracking issues etc tempers and impatientness can be standing right next to us. Look at the t-shirt again and smile it works!

Remain professional and focused is the key and smile when you are filling out that unpaid bidder report, that refund, that email to inform that payment is due. It will show you to be a true professional person. 

Yep we  might be temped to just shake and break something but wait oh yeah, SMILE!

If you need a visual this might help. Keep smiling it's only for a short period and we should be smiling to the bank!

Zhu Zhu Who!!

Every time I ask someone about Zhu Zhu pets they say, "Zhu Zhu who?"
So before I tell you about what the latest toy fad for this year is watch this video.




Well I learned about this latest fad in late September early October of this year and about a month and a half ago one of my neighbors kid had one. Now I looked really strange at the pink ball with this hamster in it and thought, okay this is ia middle school young man with a pink ball with a hamster toy in it.

When he showed most of this kids you know as kids do they said, "Eww-w-w!" Since then I haven't really heard too many of the kids talking about it unless they are on their cell phones texting about it. Yeah isn't technology great, lol! So now you know the latest craze and I can't believe now they have and iphone application for the hamsters. Well I tell ya that they are really hot they are going for sale on ebay and amazon from $30.00 on up to lots for $500.00!

Don't believe me take a look here.




That's a lot of  zhu-u-u-min! These hamsters are jumping off the shelves so much so that there are eBay members making handcrafted clothes for them. Yes talk about being creative




Then there are those that are selling other sorts of zhu zhu accessories.






Well I suppose I should get my zhu zhu items up and stop blogging, huh?

Stay tuned for the auctions here!

The Wow Factor!

Sometimes we come across items on the internet that makes us go wow now that's is really kewl! With the holidays upon us there are more and more kewl items being presented to us.

I wanted to check out the Trans-Siberan Orchestra this year and I ended finding something of interests through Amazon. Not only did I see what I was looking for but a countdown to the 12 days of Christmas. It is a musical countdown from Amazon of some really interesting items pertaining to music.

Starting yesterday and drats I missed it, for the next twelve days there will be a special musical product showcased until December 17th. Check it out click the banners and you will be taken there. There might be something special for that family or friend of yours to give for the holidays.

Well I have to get back to that Trans-Siberan issue before it's gone!

Happy Holidays!

What is up with the Midwest?

Just what is up with the Midwest over the past few days. I mean Black Friday was explosive in the Midwest for eBay sales. I was absolutely shocked to know that more spending on eBay was happening in the Midwest.

Ebay produced this heat map to illustrate such... See the upper right of this blog.

This is pretty kewl and of course very eye opening. I can only imagine what Cyber Monday will add to this map for eBay sales. One thing is for sure if you are a seller stocking your store and getting more listings available for those buyers is something that you should be focusing on. I also read that Dec 5 - 15th is also a time when holiday sales gain more momentum so there is some time to get listing but not much.


Good Luck eBay sellers with your listing endeavors.

Learn Lots!

What's Going On @ Shop4UniqueGifts

It's Chic to be Unique!!

A Cool TechCrunch Widget

This is great news. If you aren't familiar with one of the most influential tech blogs called TechCrunch well let me introduce you to a blog that is well written in content. I have been a reader for sometime and talk about bringing great value to the reader with content.

As they say in blogging content is key. TechCrunch has added a new widget that allows the website owner or blogger owner to add their widget with TechCrunch as a way of saying thank you will reciprocate in kind with a link from their blog.

New Look!

Welcome to my new looking blog for Shop4UniqueGifts.

I have so many irons in the fire, ever feel that way, I feel like I am in a time warp zone going from one project to another. Really I think I rather like it that way and feel guilty if nothing is going on. That's me full of ideas it never stops. I once had a dream about popcorn with melted chocolate poured all over it.

Now I am not one to go looking up what your dreams mean but this one was really bizarre and I had to find out what it meant. Popcorn meant that I have a lot of ideas just popping away, lol and the chocolate meant that I want to indulge myself hmmmm. Oh well enough of that on to the business at hand.

I have a few other blogs and I received a great comment on one of my blogs that leads me to this blog post today.

Hi there, your blog was on yahoo hot topics top 10 and i thought let me check out the website for knowledge gain and also to know why its one of the top 10 topic. Honestly speaking I never knew so much is happening regard this subject. I read the whole article on your site and i must say that me and my husband loved reading your post. We bookmarked your website for future reference. Thanks a lot

I style="color: #444444;"> was so floored. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know what to feel and thought oh this is spam. Looking further into my blog, behind the scenes I found that it wasn't spam. There was only an email link nothing else. No shameless plug to get reciprocal links blah blah blah.

A genuine comment. I smiled because this is something that I have spoken about in workshops, articles etc that I have shared with the members of my eBay group Starting2Sell. It's all about value and what you can do to bring value to a person's world. Value is perceived, measured and obtained differently to people. 

Not only is the a fore mentioned a factor but it changes constantly depending on the need of the person seeking the value. If we can hone in on that at some point we have a winner.

Just as the example in the above comment ,my blog post was ready for those readers at that time it feed their need for more information about a subject they were looking on the net about. My blog was there to help them solve their problem. This brought value to them and now they are bookmarked blog readers.

This chart below gives a great visual representation of what I am talking about. Bottom line no matter what each what the business or the individual (customer or buyer), they have to meet at some point to so both can benefit via the ROI (Return on Investment the sale, or service) for the company and experience for the individual. This equals the value.

I know what it feels like to have something bring value to my world and make that connection.

This is what we as eBay sellers and online marketers should be striving and thinking about constantly in our business. What value am I going to bring to someone out there today?

I hope that I have brought value to you in this post towards helping you understand just how important value is.

Learn Lots! :)

Contact Me

Contact Me Carla ~ Shop4UniqueGifts

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