Friday, October 14, 2016

Home, and some news

The bear that started it all
Well, we're back from our break in London.  More about that in subsequent posts -- despite my vow to not take a ton of photos, I took a ton of photos and I look forward to sharing them.

While we were away, a few things happened.  The day before we left, I was contacted by a writer at Babble, inquiring about the receiving blanket bears I sold on Etsy.  I answered a few questions by email, packed my bags and promptly forgot the conversation.

Then, shortly after we got to London, when we checked into our Airbnb flat (which had wifi), my phone made this loud "CHA-CHING!" We both jumped.  It's not a noise I hear that frequently -- when something sells on Etsy, I always miss the cash register sound.  This time, since the phone was turned all the way up, it sounded like a Vegas slot machine, right in my pocket.

I looked, and sure enough, it was one of those bears.  Soon after, I got an email from Etsy, telling me I had an unusual amount of traffic on one listing, and that I should check to see if I'd been featured on a blog or something.  I looked at my traffic, and it was all coming from Babble.  Before I could even look for an article, I got another sale!

Finally, I had a moment to check the website (remember, I'm on vacation here, and really not thinking about the shop) and found the article, which is linked here.  They used photos from my listing, some of my words and a lot of the email I'd sent to the writer.  I'm pleased with the article, and apparently it was attractive enough, because for the entire rest of the trip, each night when we got back to the flat, as soon as we were climbing the stairs and the phone picked up the router, I would hear "CHA-CHING!"from deep in my jacket pocket.

It got to be a running joke, how many times it was going to happen before we reached the room, and whether or not it would wake us up at night.  I offered to turn down the volume, but Mario was as into it as I was and said to leave it on, he wanted to hear me making money while I was on vacation.

A few days later, I was contacted by a writer at Scary Mommy, who said she'd read the Babble article and wanted to do something similar on their site.  She asked more questions, asked if she could use my photos, and said she'd let me know when the article went up.  Soon after that, the whole cycle started over again.

We got home Thursday afternoon, and there were already 2 packages with receiving blankets waiting for me.  Two more arrived yesterday.

This is going to be fun.

8 comments:

Carolyn (Diary of a Sewing Fanatic) said...

Congratulations! That's awesome!

Linda T said...

How fun and exciting!

Sharon L said...

So happy for you!

Kyle said...

That is sooo fun! Ca-ching!!

Cherie said...

How fun is that! Hope your trip was great also!

Nursebennett said...

Love it! Cha-Ching! And everybody is happy. Looking forward to the pictures, too!

sewingfluffinator said...

Congratulations!! I saw the pictures on Facebook and knew right away that it was your bear so I had to come out of lurk mode to comment!

Laura said...

Just the other day a friend of mine posted one of your bears on Facebook. I immediately knew it was one of yours just from being a follower of your blog! And today a co-worker said she wants some bears made from her mother-in-law's shirts (she passed away a few days ago) so of course I recommended you. Be prepared to be very busy! Your bears have such personality.