Selling photographs on ETSY and considering all fees/options

This beautiful white cabbage butterfly was captured by my Sony Camera in Michigan a few summers ago.  We love walking in the nature parks as much as possible.  Looking forward to warmer weather and more butterfly photos. 

The Etsy shop has been getting more traffic due to some other advertising off site that they offer.  

For a $25 sale of an 8x10 photograph, these are the fees:

 - $4.23 for marketing fees if an ad is clicked on from an outside source (seems high!)

 - $1.25 for the transaction fee

 - $0.23 for shipping label fee

 - $0.20 for the initial listing fee

 - $5.60 for past listings (28 renewals on this item since 2014) 

 - $5.00 cost to print photo from outside vendor

__________

Profit: $8.69

Other items to consider include:

• Finding the order in email.
• Time taken to check the Etsy website for the order
• Time taken to order the photo (finding the file on the external hard drive)
• Ink for the printed label
• Postage fee
• Tape for the label
• Sturdy/Cardboard large size envelope -$1.00 each
• Cutting out special paper to protect the photo from scratches inside the envelope
• Including freebies in the package 
• Including a sticky colorful return address label on the back of each photo 
• Large envelopes must be driven to the post office since they don't fit in the mailbox hmmm. lol

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Sampling Program - Received a kit for Macro bars! MomsMeet.com

So we were chosen through this new site called momsmeet.com to receive a decent size of Macro bars to sample with our local MOMS Club (momsclub.org)! I was very excited to sample these because they are so healthy and so fun to share this experience with moms and kids in our playgroup. They taste amazing and fresh! Definitely good when they are room temperature! If they are cold they are rock hard and easy to cut into little squares with a knife for snack size/ bite size pieces for my almost 4 yr old son.  

Snowy Day here in Michigan

So when we woke up this morning this is what we saw in our backyard! A fresh dusting of snow! We all went outside.

The red birdbath has maybe 2-3 inches of snow on it - so pretty and fluffy.

This bee balm stalk looks like it has a cotton ball on top!

Another bee balm stalk with two old flower heads.

My mom bought this serpent cement garden art for my son's birthday over the summer.

Herbs still alive from our garden!

Beautiful colors of lichen growing on a nearby tree in the backyard. Love the shades of green!

Here we built a brick snow wall with our block molds. They boys ended up shaping it and adding more color (see two images down).

Snowy tree with holiday lights.

More food coloring and water added to spray bottles.  They love coloring the snow!

The sledding hill was very interesting today... Snow men were everywhere and kids were having so much fun! It looks a little steamy because the snow was melting so fast.

 

Moms Club Event - Book Club is back!

Since October I've been running our local moms club.  I had just a three day notice to throw a monthly calendar together!  With the pandemic I had to bring back events that we haven't had in a long time.  So I ended up creating events based on things I haven't had time to do for myself.  Once huge thing was to actually set time aside to read a book.  So we started up our first book club!  With the help of our local library, we were able to realize that the app "Hoopla" would give us exactly what we were looking for!  Unlimited moms could download the same book! It was free with the use of your library card number. SO easy and so nice that we did not all need to go buy a book or find the book! For our club I was able to find two or three books and take a vote on which book we would read. I would only choose books that had both audiobooks and ebooks.  So nice to be able to use our phone and relax with no stress about the event.

The first book we read was "The Scent Keeper" by Erica Bauermeister. I chose the audiobook since I fall asleep after reading just one page of a regular book ha ha! At first the woman's voice took some getting used to, but the story was extremely interesting and very captivating.  The beginning was very descriptive on smells and scent and then the story takes of on a new level. I was really excited about making cardamom rolls after hearing the discussions in the book a few times. It would be fun to plan a food and drink party around this one if only we could host a moms night in event (if we didn't have to social distance!).

The December book was "The Rise of Wolf 8" by Rick McIntyre. We really loved this book because it is based on fact.  Yellowstone had no wolves at one point so when they reintroduced them into the park many changes took place for the better.  This true story will capture your interest and help you understand the wild nature and way of life that wild wolves take on.  We enjoyed learning about our dogs relation at the same time.  The book has many different references to the wolves tracking numbers but don't worry.. you don't have to track the numbers on your own.  The main point is to hear about the way of life, the adventures and lives of the wolves. 

Hopefully other moms clubs or social groups will love our recommendations about these books and event topics. Happy New Year to everyone!

 

Busy in 2020!

Since the pandemic started, we have been enjoying being at home more. Even though I've been lucky enough to be a stay at home mom for eight years now, we've been nonstop busy the entire time. I love every minute of being home with my two boys and watching them grow up. My husband works from home everyday and is able to enjoy more family time also.

I've not only been on our neighborhood association board for three full years now, but I've become president of our local area Moms Club! Interested in the club? Go to Momsclub.org to find our more.  I love how the club is organized with a handbook and regular event calendar template.  Also I've been a volunteer certified Master Gardener & newsletter editor for three years now so its a full plate but focus is shifting!  I will gradually had off the Secretary position to the next volunteer in our neighborhood.  

I'm mostly focused on keeping our moms club running smoothly with all of this covid stuff happening!  We have had so many fun new ideas come out of this year's experience! We were able to do a porch fairy gift exchange and a cookie porch drop/exchange for the winter holiday timeframe (along with weekly outdoor nature walks).  January already has a fun felt craft kit planned along with weekly outdoor adventures for the moms and kids.  

One of our winter events was a "Nailed It" theme... trying to perfect a cupcake snowman! It was so fun to watch our sticky snowmen fall over and then eat the candies.

Here is a deer that our moms club walked by on the paths of Dinosaur Hill Nature area.

In the picture below, we were at the pond in front of the Avon Nature Study area. My 8 yr old son loved breaking ice with the stick. At first he didn't want to go anywhere but then he doesn't want to leave once we get there haha! 

The adorable furry pony below was located at the Wolcott Mill Metropark Farm Center.That is my 3 yr old and I at the fence.

The playground at Wolcott Mill is nice and wide open so we decided to sit on the wooden carved horse (not worrying about covid since no other visitors were there!)

Enjoy your day and stay positive, happy and healthy in the new year!

2014 Trip to Mackinac Island

We had a fun Trip to Mackinac Island a few weeks ago.  Here are some random pics of the trip.  I love flowers and pathways.

The library was very clean and colorful!

A beautiful entry.

Love the colorful flowers along the boardwalk.  

The Mackinac Island Arch (with a marriage proposal to some lucky girl written in stones in the water!)

A valley of small daisy-like flowers in the grass.

Mackinac Bridge in the distance.

These rock cairns are all around the island.  Rock Cairns

Beautiful horses

Scenic views of the downtown area.  No cars on the island of course.... only bicycles and horses.

Someone has returnables...haha

Rows of bicycles.

The sun is going down after a long day on the island.

Beautiful orange, yellow, blue colors in this sunset.

Mackinac Bridge sunset

Wind power

Mackinac Bridge at dusk

We were on the island for about 8 hours and wish to spend more time there next year.  We took home about 6 bars of fudge.  Yummm!!! We will return and probably enjoy the shopping and horseback riding next time.  I hope you enjoyed looking at all of these pictures!