Beaders Showcase

Have you ever visited the Beaders Showcase? I joined it awhile back, hoping for more visibility for my Etsy shop; and although I'm not particularly active there (just too many other things take up my time!) I was pleasantly surprised when I received a message from Jeff, the site's administrator and organizer, letting me kow that one of my beadwoven pieces had made it to the Weekly Showcase (that's my Mamaw's Patchwork Quilt bracelet in the center). Pretty cool, eh?


If you do any type of beading, you can join Beaders Showcase. It really does seem like a great community, and there are some talented beaders showing off their work on the site. It's free to join, you can show off your work (you get your own page), you can drool over others' work, and you can interact with other beaders.

It's always fun to find your work featured somewhere, isn't it? When someone thinks enough of your work to show it off in a blog post or in an Etsy treasury?

As much as I try to keep up with treasuries, both looking for that little gold or silver star that shows me something of mine's been included and looking through random collections to see all the fun things the curators have included, it's almost overwhelming.

Well, a big thank you to whoever came up with Craftopolis! I saw a blog post about this site somewhere (and can't for the life of me remember where), and it's awesome. Want to see if your creation is featured in a treasury? Just go to Craftopolis, type in your Etsy shop name, and voila! It shows whether you're in the Main Treasury or in Treasury West, and even shows if you're an alternate. Cool, eh? You can also see if one of your listings is featured in a Gift Guide.

There sure are a lot of sites devoted to Etsy-ish things, aren't there? I guess with more than 150,000 registered sellers (and no telling how many items for sale and buyers!) it's understandable that there are so many Etsy-related sites popping up. Just off the top of my head, I came up with this list:

#!etsyhacks -- One of my favorites, this site has all sorts of add-ons to make sellers' lives easier (copying listings, fast tagging, editing an item while you're viewing it). I've already saved countless minutes using these tools!

Heartomatic -- Want to see how many hearts your shop has? Oh, I know that little Etsy swirly thing is cool, but I like this even better. You can also see how many hearts your items have, either for everything you have listed or for a single item.

handmadeology -- Hints, tips, and articles by one of Etsy's most successful sellers, Timothy Adam (aka TimothyAdamDesigns). I haven't explored this one much, actually, but I know it's gotten some rave reviews.

Etsy Giveaways -- This blog was created for the sole purpose of giving you a place to promote your free Etsy-related giveaways and contests. It's really easy to post something, and you might even find a giveaway you want to win!

Okay, those are the only ones I can think of right now. I know there are probably lots of others, so if you have some favorites, please post them in the comments!