Archive for May, 2009
Summer arrives at coriandr!
Posted by onThe sun is shining, summer has arrived and I thought I’d look for some great summer picks on Coriandr. Here are some of my favourites for summer.
Custom Tropical Boat Sandals
long dangly lovebird earrings
Turquoise linen and retro print flower corsage
Scented Strawberry Punnet
Enjoy the summer!
Coriandr Express pt.2
Posted by onHere’s my final round-up this week of my favourite items from the remaining Coriandr Express featured sellers. If you missed the first part of the post, you can find it here. Remember, I’ve chosen one favourite item from each Coriandr Express shop…if you like what you see just click the images for more details!
Fine Silver Heart Charm Earrings – CeeGeeJewellery
Sea shore – lej jewellery
Delicate Flower Necklace – BlueFishHandmade
Christine earrings – Sweet Treat
Shopping Basket, made from willow – HeartandSoilBaskets
Overture Necklace in Amethyst – Ruby Spirit Designs
Furry Hood - Crochet Pattern – TomatoTea
Button Necklace TRUE BLUE – jellybellyjellybrain
Triangles Card – digtheearth
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing just a fraction of the fantastic handmade products for sale on Coriandr. I’ll be back as usual next Monday, with my regular Featured Seller post!
Kev
Coriandr Express pt.1
Posted by onSeen as though everyone is talking about Coriandr Express I thought I’d skip my usual Featured Seller post this week and bring you twenty one Featured Sellers!
Coriandr Express has indeed left the station, and it’s mission is to promote Coriandr and the diversity of the handmade goods that you can find here. You can read what MatW had to say about Coriandr Express here.
Today I’m showing you ten shops (with the rest to follow later in the week), I’ve chosen one favourite item from each…if you like what you see just click the images for more details! Enjoy!
Dinky spotty knitted purse – juliemillsdesign
Rainbow heart pendant – Kitty Ballistic
Baby Pirate Pixie Skullcap with Earflaps – PiratePixieCrew
Blue Flower Handmade Bookmark – Creativesque
Diddy 'Lucy' child's red fish tote bag – nicsknots
Set of Three Little Felt Cakes – mrs.toad.designs
Dotty dichroic pendant – Debbs Elliman
My flexible furoshiki bag – myfuroshiki
Turquoise & Red Hair Clip – snapdragonbeads
If that hasn’t inspired you to buy Coriandr handmade, nothing will! Check back here on Wednesday for my favourite items from the rest of the Coriandr Express shops.
Kev
Working together to boost handmade sales
Posted by onI wanted to blog about a few exciting happenings that are making a huge difference to visitor traffic and sales on Coriandr. Is it a brand new marketing campaign? Or some cunning web-wizardry that auto-submits a seller’s listings to every blog in existence? Have we invented a perpetual motion machine that also makes a perfect cup of tea?! Nope. The answer is much simpler than that, and Coriandr itself has absolutely nothing to do with it!
The beginning of May saw PiratePixieCrew get busy with promotion. She’s organised an excellent promotional idea which has since been dubbed “The Coriandr Express“. The basic idea is that sellers can sign-up to ride on the Coriandr Express, and once it has left the station they each take it in turn to be a VIP for a certain number of days. For those days, it’s the job of everyone else on the train to promote the VIP and their products in whatever way possible; Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. The response has been great, as the first VIP Digtheearth has shown with a recent post. If you’re interested in joining the Coriandr Express then visit the blog or catch up on how the whole thing is developing on this forum thread.
The second development I wanted to share was a phenomenon that took me totally by suprise. Most of you may have seen the “share” button on right-hand side of item pages. This button is an easy way of sharing that item page using whatever method you fancy; email, Twitter, Stylehive, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc… Having shared items via Twitter and Facebook before now, I knew how good this button was at getting an (almost) instant boost to item views, but BlueFishHandmade got her timing spot-on the other day when she submitted her Black Lace Gloves to StumbleUpon.
In less than a day her listing had attracted 300 views! Compared to some of the more established craft marketplaces that may not seem huge, but given how young Coriandr is that number is massive, and really highlights how effective social media can be in promoting your creations. If you’ve not used the share button before, I strongly suggest you try it out!
The results of all these efforts is that Coriandr’s visitor traffic is up by over 42.5% on the same time last month, and climbing every day. So a big thank-you to everyone in the community who has been involved in recent promotional ideas, especially those behind the helm.
Featured Seller – Handmaid
Posted by onHello! It’s Monday again and time for a new Featured Seller…this week I’ve chosen a talented textile designer from my neck of the woods, here in (not so) sunny Yorkshire! Simple repeats and bold colours combine to make unique modern designs with just a hint of retro…click on any of the images below for more details of the featured products…enjoy!
Handmaid
Introduce yourself…
Hi, I’m Julie and my shop is called Handmaid. I am a textiles graduate from Northumbria Uni, currently living in North Yorkshire with my husband and my pony (she doesn’t live in the house!) I work full time so don’t have as much time as I would like to make things.
How did it all start?
Since school, I’ve always had an interest in art and design, but it wasn’t until my 20’s that I decided to go back to college and study textiles.
Have you always sold online?
I’ve only recently started selling my work. Last year, I held a stall at a craft fair, and I am selling some pieces in a beautiful little boutique called Cakewalk in Ilkley. I’ve even more recently discovered the amazing Coriandr!
What inspires you?
I am inspired by the English Countryside – Florals; Animals; particularly birds and horses; Vintage and retro kitchenalia and homewares, especially china teacups; colour and bold pattern. I love Liberty, Cath Kidston, Laura Ashley and anything remotely English!
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Featured Seller – Heart and Soil Baskets
Posted by onI’m so impressed with the work from this week’s Featured Seller…it’s so good to see that traditional crafts aren’t dying out. I’m completely won over by the levels of craftsmanship and skill involved. You probably know by now what a sucker I am for ‘green credentials’, well it probably doesn’t get much ‘greener’ :)
Take it away…
Heart and Soil Baskets
Introduce yourself…
My name is hen and I craft baskets and small hurdles from Somerset willow and materials foraged from the hedgerows of the Cotswolds. The name Heart and Soil comes from my passion for the sustainable management of our countryside.
Our ancient oak woodland, hidden away in a wild valley in Exmoor, offers me the opportunity to hone my carving skills. As and when I have any wood products for sale I’ll pop them in the shop!
How did it all start?
I’ve always had a ‘thing’ for willow. It’s so diverse and beautiful. I finally decided to give weaving baskets a go last year, so I bought a book by Mary Butcher and gave it a go. It felt ‘right’ and I’ve not stopped weaving since!
Have you always sold online?
No, this is my first time!
What inspires you?
The beauty of nature, throughout the seasons.
If you had to pick a favourite from all your creations, what would it be?
It would be my spoon, but that’s not for sale! So I would have to say my Foraging Basket.
Summertime feature update
Posted by on
Hooray for friendly gremlins with spanners!
During the last few weeks we’ve been busy tinkering away with some of the “behind the scenes” code over here at Coriandr HQ. That’s all very well of course, but it’s not very exciting for everyone else out there, so now (with the help of our friendly neighbourhood tech gremlins) we’re turning our attention onto some much more fun feature updates!
Something that has (in hindsight) been missing from Coriandr is it’s community features… We don’t give you any way of interacting with each other’s shops; of letting each other know how fantastic you think each other are; even of letting everyone know what your favourite items are! All that is due to change over the next month. There are two big dates coming up, the 8th May and the 1st June.
8th May (v1.1)
- Order communication. To make order communication easier, we’re adding both a convo shortcut and the email addresses of each user to the order details page. This information will only be visible to the two people involved in the sale, but will help massively when dealing with those last minute, but important, order questions.
- Favorites. Why, oh why wasn’t this here sooner?! You know how it works; if you like a item or a seller, add it to your favourites! You’ll also be able to share your favourites via email, and even use them to build a Coriandr Seedling!
Featured Seller – myfuroshiki
Posted by onMy wife had a stall at Keighley Arts Market in Yorkshire last weekend (I tagged along for moral support) and we met this weeks featured seller, who also had a stall. I really had to show you her work, environmentally sound and really vibrant! It really is one of those occasions when the photo doesn’t do the product justice (please don’t take that the wrong way Mich, it is supposed to be a compliment!!!)…If you are looking for a fantastic alternative to gift wrap that can be used time and again, and then can be turned into a shoulder bag(!), let me introduce you to…
Myfuroshiki
Introduce yourself?
Hello, my name is Michiko Yasue (generally known as Mich) and my sister Olivia and I form myfuroshiki, dedicated to the design and production of fabric wrapping cloths and accessories. I live in beautifully green (aka rainy) Yorkshire with my partner and son whilst Olivia is sunning herself in Perth, Western Australia, with her partner, daughter and bump / baby to be. We’re looking forward to a big family reunion this Christmas when our children will meet for the first time.
How did it all start?
On holiday in Japan last year, I came across a shop in Tokyo station selling little gifts and lovely little cotton squares, known as furoshiki, to wrap them in. Very simple by themselves but so much more in combination; not only was the wrapping part of the gift, but there was no waste. Furoshiki are said to have been first used in fourteenth century Japan by people going to the bath houses, to wrap up their clothes. I was very taken by the idea of helping to spread the use of furoshiki as things which are beautiful in their own right, multi-purpose and environmentally sound.
Once back in the UK I enlisted Olivia, who has a background in design and retailing, and myfuroshiki was born!
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