EtsyFAST blog » monthly challenges

Update on the November challege

merigreenleaf — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:39:54 +0000

The contest part of the challenge has changed slightly- instead of emailing Carrie what you’d like entered, she’s just going to make polls for everything. This is her update, in case you missed it in the forum:
It’s too hard to try to go through this list so I am just making polls from EVERYTHING that is submitted, starting with the oldest item, in order. So far there are only about 4 groups
of 12 items, so it’s less of a headache to submit it all than to weed through and make y’all choose. (If anyone re-tags older items in their store, I cannot promise that it will make it into the polling, but will try.)

Sorry to anyone who has bothered to send me choices. This means you may be competing against your own items, but it’ll all be out there to see.

The options for the first poll (Accessories) can be seen here, then go here to vote for your favorite. The poll is only open to EtsyFAST members.

Info about the November challenge

merigreenleaf — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:58:16 +0000

This month the challenge is slightly different from usual. You can still do the challenge as you normally would (just tag the relevant items- in this case, ones that are $90 or higher- with “novemberchallenge” and make a post about it in the yahoo group so we can all ooh and aah over it), but there’s also a contest going on this month. Carrie from TemptressYarn.etsy.com is running the contest part, and there are going to be five categories:
HOUSEHOLD: art, home decor, blankets/throws, baskets
ACCESSORIES: hat, purse, scarf, jewelry, belt, accessory sets
CLOTHING: shawl, sweater, coat, skirt, dress
SUPPLIES: fiber kits, yarn, handspun, spinning fiber, etc.
MISCELLANY: toys, other

Members will be entered into the contest automatically, unless they have multiple items in one category.

This is the info Carrie gave in the yahoo group, and I’ll post it here, too, in case anyone missed it:
It will be 12 items per cat/per poll, which I am grabbing by searching “etsyfast team” and “novemberchallenge”, and then the best of each category will be put together at the end so we can vote on the top items as a whole group. I am donating a needle felting “fairy clouds” batt kit as a prize (anyone else?, we could use 1-3 more prize donations please).

I plan to post the first group of polls on the 15th or so, and then do 1-2 more rounds before the final voting. Items need to be listed by the end of Nov for the poll. Pictures will be viewed on a web page, and the corresponding polls will be on this group. If you have more than one item per category, please email me with your choice to be entered. (Also let me know if an item from this challenge that sold already should be entered, as I have no way to access those unless you let me know.)
To contact Carrie, send an email to: info at temptressyarn dot com

Like she said, she’s also looking for donations for the prizes, so if you’d like to help out there, send her an email. Also, make sure your tags are correct! They should be “etsyfast team” and “novemberchallenge” (both without the quotes, of course).

October Update

merigreenleaf — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:30:56 +0000

Sorry this update is a bit late! I seem to not be able to remember to post these until a week in. Heh.

Monthly Challenge:
October’s challenge theme is “candy” and the tag is “octoberchallenge”. Remember to also tag your fiber items with “etsyfast team”! (Both without the quotes, of course.) For more info about challenges, check out this page of the blog.

Featured Members:
I’m going to keep posting team member interviews for as long as I keep getting them. Info and the questions can be found in this thread in the yahoo group. Just send your answers (and a picture or two if you’d like) to me at merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com (or send a convo to merigreenleaf on Etsy), and I’ll post them in the order I receive them. This is great way to get to know everyone!

Team Shop:
I promise I haven’t forgotten about this! My personal life has gotten kind of crazy lately so I haven’t had time to list anything new, but I promise I’ll do that as soon as possible. I’m hoping to start putting the goodie bags together tonight so I can list them this week.

Random News:
Dottie (ccdzs on Etsy) has posted about the history of crochet in her blog, and since it’s an interesting read, go check it out! (They’re here and here.)

~Meri

Got us a Harvest treasury!

merigreenleaf — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:17:50 +0000

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just managed to snag us a team treasury, and I filled it up with items from the September challenge. So check it out here and please click and comment. I’d love to see it on the front page!

I wish we were able to fit more than the handful of things because all the Harvest things the team has made are amazing!

September Update

merigreenleaf — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:07:24 +0000

Sorry this is a bit late. Anyway, the updates are pretty much the same as last month:

Monthly Challenge:
September’s theme is “Harvest”, so now is the time to make those fall themed items. Be sure to tag your challenge items with “septemberchallenge” as well as the usual “EtsyFAST team” (without the quotes, of course).

Team Tag:
Don’t forget that the new tag has the word “team” in it! If you haven’t yet, please change the tag to “EtsyFAST team” (without the quotes) when you get a chance.

Blog Contributions:
We’re still looking for content for the blog. If you’ve got a fiber-related tutorial you’d like to share, or maybe experiences with craft shows, or anything you’d think is helpful, just let me know! Email me (merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com) or send me a convo and we can either set you up with blog access or I can post the article for you. Also, if anyone has any ideas for the blog, please tell me.

Team Shop:
I’m slowly adding things to the team shop and will be adding goodie bags soon- the deadline to get goodie bag things to me is mid-September. You can send individual items to me at any time, and I’ll be collecting things for the goodie bags a few times a year. For more info on donating things to the team shop, check out this blog entry.

Random News:
Bonnie (BonnieSamuelDesign.etsy.com) has written up some useful and informative posts on her blog about fiber. You can find them here.

~Meri

August Update

merigreenleaf — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:54:18 +0000

Sorry for the delay in the update- I wanted to wait until I had the team shop under control. Anyway, lots of updates this month!

Monthly Challenge:
August’s theme is “Olympics”- you can take that to mean sports, China, patriotic, unity, anything you’d like it to mean! Be sure to tag your challenge items with “augustchallenge” as well as the usual “EtsyFAST team” (without the quotes, of course).

And the two usual updates:
Team Tag:
Don’t forget that the new tag has the word “team” in it! There are still more items tagged with the old “EtsyFAST” tag than the current, correct tag of “EtsyFAST team”. Please change the tag on your items when you get a chance.

And now a new update!
EtsyFAST shop is opening again!
The EtsyFAST shop is going to have things listed in it again starting this week. I’ve taken over most of the shop responsibility from Jenn and will be in charge of receiving, listing, and mailing out the items that team members supply me with. I apologize to those awesome members who had sent us things for the shop earlier in the year; I promise everything will be listed soon!

If you’d like to send me things that I can add to the shop, that would be awesome. We need two types of things:
-Goodie bag items (examples of these are in the sold page of the shop)
Basically what we need here are little items that you can send multiples of- be it 5, 10, 20, whatever. Yarn samples, buttons, wristbands, pouches, patterns, appliques… Business cards would be great, too! Pretty much anything fiber-related that you can make multiples of. If you can stick them in a baggie with your card or attach a card with your shop name to the items, that would be great and the buyers would know who they came from.

Everyone who contributes something to the goodie bag will have their shop name in the listing.

-Individual items. These are things like you’d sell in your Etsy shop, and you’d only send us one of. When you send these, please include information about it that I can put in the description of the listing, as well as a price for me to list it for. Obviously, you’d be credited in the listing.

The money that is made from shop items will go towards our website hosting, or team advertising (if we do that again), or anything that’s important for the team.

If you want to send something, please email (merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com) or convo me first so I know to expect it and so I can give you my address (unless you got it in the yahoo group; right now I’m having problems with yahoo groups, so I’m not sure if my messages there are going through).

I also received a whole bunch of postcard-sized FAST advertisement cards from Jenn (they have our team name and website and shop addresses on them). If you’d like a couple of these to send out with things that you sell or to give out at craft shows or whatnot, let me know and I can mail some to you.

~Meri

July Update

merigreenleaf — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:04:15 +0000

Yeah, yeah, I know July is nearly over. Sorry about that!

Monthly Challenge:
July’s theme is “Destash/Unhoarding”. This is the time to finish a project that you started long ago but never got around to finishing, or you can make a project with supplies you’ve had sitting around for a long time, or you can even destash supplies that you haven’t used and want to get rid of. Think Spring cleaning in Midsummer, I guess!

As always, tag the July challenge item (or items) with “julychallenge” and “EtsyFAST team” (without the quotes, of course).

Want to be featured on the blog?
I’m going to be posting weekly team member interviews, so let me know if you’d like to be featured! Info and the questions can be found in this thread in the Yahoo group. Just send your answers (and a picture or two if you’d like) to me at merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com (or send a convo to merigreenleaf on Etsy), and I’ll post them in the order I receive them. This’ll be a great way to get to know everyone!

Team Tag:
Don’t forget that the new tag has the word “team” in it! There are still more items tagged with the old “EtsyFAST” tag than the current, correct tag of “EtsyFAST team”. Please change the tag on your items when you get a chance.

Blog Contributions
Just like in last month’s update, we’re still looking for content for the blog. If you’ve got a fiber-related tutorial you’d like to share, or maybe experiences with craft shows, or anything you’d think is helpful, just let me know! Email me (merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com) or send me a convo and we can either set you up with blog access or I can post the article for you. Also, if anyone has any ideas for the blog, please tell me.

~Meri

June Update

merigreenleaf — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:41:01 +0000

Happy June, everyone! We don’t really have much new going on, so this is mostly a repeat of the May’s news.

Monthly Challenge:
The challenge theme for June is “Heroes”. You can check out the entries on Etsy here. We’ve also picked out a few of the upcoming challenges. Visit the challenges page for more info. Remember to tag your challenge items with “junechallenge” as well as “EtsyFAST team” (minus the quotes)

Team Tag:
Just a reminder to change your tags over to “EtsyFAST team”. You can do this when the items expire or when you relist if you’d like, but remember to tag your new items correctly.

Blog contributions:
Still looking for people who want to contribute to the blog! If you’ve got a fiber-related tutorial you’d like to share, or maybe experiences with craft shows, or anything you’d think is helpful, just let me know! Email me (merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com) or send me a convo and we can either set you up with blog access or I can post the article for you.

Also, if anyone has any ideas for the blog, please tell me!

~Meri

May Updates

merigreenleaf — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:12:57 +0000

Wedding Challenge Voting
Don’t forget to vote for the wedding challenge entries! Voting ends at midnight tomorrow.

The fiber entries are here, the jewelry ones are here, and the paper ones are here.

Team Tag
The team tag to use on Etsy is now “EtsyFAST team” (with a space, no quotes). You can still tell people to search “EtsyFAST”, but we need the “team” in there to be recognized by Etsy. (Items tagged “EtsyFAST team” will still come up in searches for “EtsyFAST”.) There’s no hurry to change the tag- just update it when you list or relist. Remember, only tag your fiber-related items with “EtsyFAST team”.

Monthly Challenge
The theme for May is “Flowers”, and June will be “Heroes”. For more info on the challenges, visit the “Monthly Challenges” page.

I just snagged us a treasury of April challenge things (it’s here). Please check it out.

Want to help with the blog?
We can always use help with the blog! If you’ve got a fiber-related tutorial you’d like to share, or maybe experiences with craft shows, or anything you’d think is helpful, just let me know! Email me (merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com) or send me a convo and we can either set you up with blog access or I can post the article for you.

~Meri

April Challenge and a call for blog writers

merigreenleaf — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:09:48 +0000

Just some quick info:

The theme for April is “Storms”. As always, you can find info about FAST, challenges, tags, etc in the “files” section of the Yahoo group. If you want to see the lovely challenge items already made and listed, just search for “EtsyFAST” and “aprilchallenge” on Etsy.

We’re also looking for team members to help with this blog. If you’d like to write fiber-related entries for us, just comment in this thread or send an email to me at merigreenleaf[at]yahoo.com, and we can make you an account so you can post.

Possible ideas for posts: tutorials, announcements (like about the wedding challenge), big news (featured in a magazine, etc), or big events (hosting a relevant event, doing a craft show, etc). Of course, those are just suggestion; if you have a great idea, go for it!

I’m also going to start running a “FAST member of the week” series, so look for info on that in the near future.

~Meri