Name Change

Well, it's official. The business has officially been changed from Millenium Tsuru to 3D Cranes. There were a few reasons for the change. One, I misspelled "millennium" in my registration so I was stuck with the misspelling on everything and it was driving me crazy. Two, it was way too difficult to pronounce, even for me.

Another big change (which I thought I already mentioned here but I guess I didn't) is that my husband is getting transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia, so I and my business are going along for the ride. I'm not looking forward to moving away from home -- I've never lived anywhere except for here in Hawaii -- but when the Army says you have to move, you move.

I have decided not to do craft fairs in Georgia, at least for the time being until I get more familiar with the area, and my business will be moving to strictly on-line only. My Etsy shop will be going into vacation mode on June 1st, with a tentative re-open date of August 15th, as I have no idea how long it will take to get legally set up to do business in the state.

Featured....

Thanks to Krishenka for featuring my new carnations in her treasury!

Also, one of my bouquets was recently featured on the foundhandmade blog, in an entry titled "Handmade Wedding Bouquets and Bouts" as an alternative to real flowers. There is no direct link to the entry, but if you go to the blog, it's the one that was posted on May 5.

Goodbye, Dawanda

Well, my Dawanda experiment officially ended today, when I e-mailed support to cancel my account. I know that some will say that 4 months is not a long time to experiment with a venue, but I need the time to concentrate on my own website and my Etsy shop. Especially my website, which has been seriously neglected for a long time. Dawanda is probably a pretty good venue for those who can list and communicate in French and German, as their English site is known for not getting as much traffic as the others. I appreciate the fact that they had selling/traffic stats available to individual shops, as well as the ability to use a previous listing as a template for a new one (helpful when listing new colors of previous items), but the overall store and site just were not right for me.

I may choose to branch out onto another selling site sometime in the future, but for the time being, I will be staying on Etsy.

100 Items!

Silver with Green -- On Tree
Originally uploaded by origami3d_cranes

Yes, I've finally achieved that long-time Etsy goal of having 100 items listed in my shop. This is the 100th -- a set of my origami crane star ornaments in silver with green.

I still have several items to list before the month is over, though. I have at least 3 items finished and photographed, but not listed, and I have 1 finished item that isn't photographed yet. All of them are art pieces. I plan to complete a few more sets of Christmas ornaments in different colors -- those should be ready to go up into my shop next week.

Experimenting with Shop Sections -- Again

It doesn't seem all that long ago that I revised my Etsy shop sections. At the time, I had two art sections: Framed and Unframed. Later, I added an ACEO section.

Recently, it occurred to me that this might not be the best way for customers to be able to find things in my shop. So I changed the Art sections to reflect the subject of the pieces. Now, there is "Animal and Nature Art," which includes my ever expanding origami zoo, and then there is the "Kanji Art," which includes all of the different kanji characters that I've done so far.

For the time being, because ACEOs are often searched for by their size, they will be staying in their own section.

Crane Trio, Lime Green

Crane Trio, Lime Green
Originally uploaded by origami3d_cranes

Three cranes strung together, mixed with beads. I used faux pearls and Czech Fire Polished Half-Metallic glass beads. I made a few of these last year, but I'm adding a few new color combinations this year. I admit I wasn't too sure about using the lime green color, but I've seen a lot of people saying that they're decorating their entire Christmas tree in this shade, so I thought I'd try it out.

Building a New Light Box

A few weeks ago, my light box that I had constructed out of pieces of white foam board finally collapsed on me. The interior was badly scratched and warped. I had known it was on it's "last legs" for a while, so I saved the box from my miter saw purchase earlier this year with the intention of building a new one with instructions acquired through the internet. You can find the complete instructions here.

This is how the box looked when I started:









Then I measured, marked and cut out the openings as instructed:













I lined the interior with white poster board, and used another sheet of poster board to create a curved backdrop:











Finally, I used thin white cotton fabric to cover the sides and top to finish the box. This is what it looks like:
It's a little smaller than I sometimes need, but it works well for the majority of my photos.