A Brief Hiatus

Hello guys!

The blog will be taking a little break, as we are doing a total overhaul on it. New ideas, new look and new writers - so exciting :-D

While we are working behind the scenes on bringing you a more awesome blog (blawesome), here are some updates on what's going on.

We have LOTS of new helpers (thanks!) on all parts of the team.

Our Blog Team is:
Rose of SevenSails
Lori of GrayFlannelDesign
Erika of UniquelyEJewlery
Liz of DzyMsLizzy
Sara of BySaraLynn

Our Twitter Team is:
Jane of jmliss
Trisha of PixieDustFineries
Lisa of Paperbullet

Our Facebook Team is:
Malarie of itsastitch
Sara of BySaraLynn

Our Flickr Team is:
Miki of duckfoot
Malarie of itsastitch

Our Forum Writer is:
Sara of BySaraLynn
(sidenote: here is our April Forum Thread, come by and say hi anytime!)

I (itsa) will also continue to hold the Virtual Lab meetings, and keep up with our Team Page on Etsy. I'm also in the process of making some tutorial videos on being successful on Etsy, so keep an eye out for those in the future.

Should you have questions about a specific part of the team, or suggestions for somethings, be sure to contact someone from the above list ^ to make sure the question goes to the right people. I'm happy to take questions, but I am also only 1 person, and can forget about things from time to time.

We will NO LONGER be using our Facebook Fanpage. We are switching to a Facebook group, which will allow me to message the entire team, and is better about alerting members of discussions and posts. Be sure to request to join if you haven't already!

If you have a request for something you'd like to see on the blog, twitter or a tutorial of, post it in the comments! We always love input from our members.

Be sure you're tagging a few items in your shop with the tag "labratsteam", as well as any tweets you want the team to see with the hash-tag #sqk - doing this makes it easier for us to find you!

Thanks to everyone who offered their help in some form, I truly appreciate all the help, and if the positions were filled before you asked, I put you on a list of "back-up" (essentially), should we ever need more help or a replacement.

 

News and Things To Expect

Happy February, Rats! Instead of Mosaic Monday, I'm going to give every a run down of upcoming events, and team links that you may have missed.

In case you missed our last virtual lab meeting, we discussed things we would like to do/see more of in 2010. As some of you know, we already have a team forum thread on etsy, feel free to post whatever you'd like, whenever you'd like!

Are you on Twitter? Follow us, and even better, want other rats to see your tweets? Include #sqk in them, it's our team hash tag on there!

How about Flickr? It's a photo sharing site, and we have our own group on there. Just request to join, and you'll be approved, usually same day! Once your there, you can upload your photos to the team for other members to see.

The team also has a Facebook Fan Page, post any thing you'd like - photos for critiques, exciting news, questions or ideas.

And lastly, I started a google group specifically for the rats, where you can, more privately, discuss things that you may not want in the Etsy forums.

Our NEXT virtual lab meeting is scheduled. It will be Tuesday, February 16 at 3:30pm EST! This meeting's topic is Tag and Title help/critiques and improving your SEO (search engine optimization). Come by for help or to give help!

Now, as for 2010. We have lots of awesome things in store!

First up, our Spring Giveaway! I have already notified those who will be participating this time around, but thanks to everyone that applied! I'm so thrilled that people were so eager to help out and have a little fun. We have 8 shops that will be giving almost $200 worth of free swag! How awesome is that? In two weeks, we will start revealing who they are, with mini-interviews with the artists, too.

We will also be having another challenge in the summer. Feel free to contact me with any ideas you have for  the challenge, including theme or prize. This won't begin until mid-spring, so back of the mind it ;-)

Also look for more How-Tos and craft tutorials this year. If you would like to make a video or write an article (or both!) on a specific technique that you have down, shoot me a convo or e-mail and pitch your story! I'd LOVE to have other people teach how to do things (even if it's something like properly utilizing twitter, or sewing a button, I'm open). Should it be really involved or super neat, I may even ask for you to hold a Lab meeting!


Speaking of pitching stories, I am also opening the Lab Rat blog to ideas for articles/ghost-writers. If you have an article related to Etsy, creating, promotion, crafting, etc, send a rough draft to our team e-mail and we can discuss.

Finally, remember our trunk show? We will be having another one near Christmastime this year, but I am planning on contacting other team leaders to see if they would be interested in holding a multi-team trunk show, allowing more, fresh eyes and potential customers to see what each other's teams have to offer! I will begin contacting them in the summer and want to make this big, organized and tons of fun!

 A big thank you to lushboutique (Jenni) and nightowlcraftworks (Sally) for being amazing co-leaders! Without them, this team would never be as on top of things (or successful!) as it is right now. You ladies are amazing :-)

 

Some Notes

Hello! Just a few quick notes for you all.

-Meeting tonight! 7:30pm (EST) Shop Critiques in the Sky Room. Come if you're able to - I'll try to get to as many shops as I can =)

-Challenge! We only have a few entries for the Team Challenge, so I wanted to remind/make sure everyone is aware. There are 9 days left to enter, here is where you can read up on/leave your entry. Great stuff, so far!

-News! The lovely, wonderful and talented lushboutique is now our 3rd team "captain" (I don't know what we're officially supposed to be), but she will be taking over Wish list Wednesdays from here on out. Yay! And thanks so much to everyone who has extended their services/help to me. I'm TERRIBLE at asking for help, so it's truly appreciated. I plan on adding another one or two leaders to the team to run other things, so just sit tight and keep your eyes peeled.

-Open a second shop? Great! Just let me know and I will add it to the group, no need to fill out the application again.

-Etsy Team Profile Update. We now have some stricter rules for applying and some more links to check out on our profile if you haven't seen them yet. I love when rats recommend others, just make sure they read through the profile page first!

Thanks and hope to see some of you tonight!

Wow!

I can speak for me and Allysattic to say we are so happy with the big response we've gotten from people eager to join! Yay! We can't wait to really get this going, and word on the street is that approval should be coming this week.

As soon as we're official, all the fun stuff can start! If you could please tell itsastitch (me) your email, that would be wonderful! I'm going to send out a newsletter once we've begun (and no worries, there won't be many of those).

Either leave it in the comment section here, convo me on etsy (http://itsastitch.etsy.com) or, if you use twitter, DM/@ the lab rats there: @LabRatsTeam

Lots of love!
itsastitch