What a busy little bee I've been getting the Halloween paper craft activity packs ready! In fact two of them are available on Etsy already!
www.etsy.com/au/shop/BoxEdsPaperCrafts
To give you all a taster of how thrilling and spectacular paper crafts and toys can be I'm doing a bit of a giveaway, a couple of freebies! For your delight and delectation you can download the Dracula and Frankie colour in masks for nothing, nadd-ah, zip, zilch, sweet Fanny Adams! Obviously the belief is that you and those that you love and craft with will be so cock-a-hoop that you'll tell your friends and family and you'll go and purchase the full pack on my Etsy store ;o)
Click on the links below to grab your free halloween masks, it's never too early to prepare for Halloween you know! And I'll be back next week with a couple more. Happy paper crafting Box Edders!!!
So I've got my latest Flat Eds up on Etsy after a quick fire photo shoot over the weekend. I upgraded the paper I used this time to 200gsm and I think the quality definitely shows in the photographs. I'm still needing to work on my lighting and setup for my products, perhaps showing them more in context with my kids playing with them.
I've had no sales whatsoever since christmas which surprisingly hasn't left me too depressed!!! What I constantly hear from the forums in Etsy is to persevere, keep tweaking and changing photos and SEO and growing a social media presence. So I'm now on Instagram as BOX_EDS and also on Wanelo
@boxedspapercrafts
Adding more inventory to my shop will hopefully bring some sales, so I've got a snake and a tiger to follow very soon. Also working on some Easter bunnies and with only 99 days until the World Cup I plan to launch a big line up of Football Flat Eds!
https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/181433110/printable-paper-toy-craft-activity?ref=af_shop_favitem
https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/181449285/printable-paper-toy-craft-activity?ref=listing-shop-header-0
So I got my Fairy Eds onto Etsy before xmas, and whilst they haven't been the run away success I dreamt of, I've learnt a lot. Marketing and promotion are skills I need to work on, but to be a success on Etsy and in general I will have to build and strengthen my networks.
Whilst I'm continuing to design and test my next set of Box Eds I've started to work on some simpler paper crafts - Flat Eds. The design of these have come from what I've learnt over the last couple of months about who my ideal customer is. It seems obvious now but I worked out it's my wife! My ideal customer is a young, funky mother who is looking for a simple, fun, educational activity for their kids that doesn't make too much mess or involve screens and is reasonably priced. I always knew Box Eds would be better suited to children 7 and over but for those 7 and under I'd need a 'gateway' paper craft.
I've retained the same principles of big bold design and using as much of the paper as possible. They can be used as banners and bunting, birthday cards and for story telling and role play. So the kids and I have been road testing the first designs for Flat Heads - Flat Head farm. Although an Elephant does seem to have wandered randomly onto the paddock!
