Filling Up My Etsy Shop, Little By Little

Over the past few days, other than dealing with the flu (which hit a number of people in our family, including me--I'll spare you the specifics), I've put up a few more items on my new Etsy shop.

Figuring all this out hasn't been easy, beginning with trial and error taking photographs, one of the keys to selling in this online marketplace. Given the worldwide competition every seller is facing, each photo in a shop has to be colorful, compelling, well-lit, balanced, etc. etc.

I'm certainly not a professional photographer, so it took me awhile shooting lots of pictures in different light situations and with various backgrounds in my house until I could figure out what might work. Etsy has a myriad of helpful tips and blogs on photography--and everything else someone has to know to go on this site. Etsy's Guide to Photography can be found here, and photographer Heidi Adnum from the UK has some great guidelines here and here.

My camera--a Panasonic Lumix my grandson loaned me after he upgraded and my trusty point and shoot expired--is pretty good, but I still find this part of being an Etsy seller a challenging though highly creative endeavor.

Anyway, here's what I came up with for my second listing: a vintage Japanese white ceramic soup toureen:

The next item I did was a rustic wild grapevine basket:

then a Himark Japan Orchard Collection white dinner plate:

followed by a Memory Lane Royal Ironstone plate:

a Blue Heritage cream pitcher:

vintage ceramic tea caddy:

and finally a Chinese Export blue and white reticulated plate:

So now at least I'm on my way. Meanwhile, there are lots of other things to be done to drive traffic to my site. Plus interacting with fellow Etsyans.

But more on that later--I'm off to my my Twitter site to tell followers about my latest blog...