Customized...

This is one of two custom orders I've done lately -- both for weddings!

The customer liked my red bridal bouquet that I had posted on Etsy, but she wanted a couple of changes. One, was to replace the small gold cranes I used as "filler" with silver, to match her wedding colors. The second was to change out the white ribbon that was wrapped around the stems of the original, with a ribbon that better matched the bouquet. This was the result.

I'm Back!

And this blog is starting to bear a disturbing resemblance to my old childhood diaries...the ones that can have up to 5 years or more between entries. At least I didn't wait 5 years to make a new blog post.
Well, I officially re-opened shop on August 1st, after making sure that all of my inventory made the trip safely. My things probably had a better trip than I did! Crazy weather forced hubby and I to make an unexpected overnighter in Dallas (we landed right after some tornadoes struck) and when we finally got onto our rescheduled flight to Atlanta, we ended up running into more crazy weather -- a thunderstorm -- and were forced to go into a holding pattern over the Atlanta airport for almost an hour.
I miss Hawaii like crazy. We played tourist a bit at Turtle Bay and in Waikiki before we left, so I have a lot of great pictures, including a few that I will probably end up using as inspiration for some future artwork. I just have to figure out which computer they are all stored on, but I think it will be a lot easier to look at when I'm not feeling so emotional about it.

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.