I changed my mind

I've changed my mind. The advantage of having lived half a century is that my mind has grown gentler in its stances, and experience has worn the sharp edges of self righteousness so that I roll more readily. Plus I live with crows, like The Crow mossie here. Whenever I am stating or thinking one of my many strong opinions, I hear a crow call out 'HA! HA! HA!'

The strong opinion that I used to have was that it was Unfair of Etsy to allow the same person to make the Front Page twice in the same day, when other equally deserving artists are rarely seen there at all. As you may guess, I was on the Front Page again last night, when a beautiful treasury made by twolefthands got promoted, and a piece of mine along with it. So that is the second in one day for me.

What I see now is the plain old hard work, meticulous attention, and willingness to learn that made both selections possible. The Big Secret IN I have with Etsy admin is that I read their Storque articles on what they are looking to feature each month. And although I do not scramble to glue flags on my pottery because Memorial Day is approaching, I do look at what I have that fits those categories. I make mugs with oversized handles that men usually prefer, and so I tagged them 'fathers day', and included a sentence in my description to that fact. Then I relisted the mugs. I'm guessing that this is how they came to the attention of whoever in 'admin' made the treasury of the hour.

As to being in a FP treasury, I make treasuries with other people's work, never my own, 3-5 times a week. I'm pretty sure that most people who I select for treasuries will at least come look at my shop, and IF they like it, and IF they are making a treasury that could use something like mine, they may return the favor. So, by making treasuries, I increase my chances of being in other people's treasuries, and that increases my chances of being in one that is promoted to the FP.

I also have worked very hard at my photography, and I am now going back and resizing photos so that they look right in the cropped 'gallery' mode. I am getting rid of backgrounds that are too dark or chaotic. This makes my images work better in the treasury format.

So these are all my D list insider secrets, for what it's worth. Plus, listen to what the birds are saying. It's fun. Pay attention to the crows. They've given me a reality check many times with their HA! HA! HA!