Download your Etsy team's member list

Based on some request from my fellow Etsy team captains over at the Captains' Quarters, I published a new widget this week:

Etsy Team Member Roster

You enter your Etsy team, and it generates the list of members in a big table that you can sort, copy to excel, or just review.

I was using a similar tool for my EtsyTrades.com team - I needed to know which members of my team no longer had active etsy shops with listings, because as a trade team we need to know that as we're clicking around the member list looking for cool stuff to trade, we weren't wasting clicks on people who'd fallen off the face of the earth. We have a team policy stating that you either need six active listings, or a vacation announcement with a clear end date, otherwise we can remove you from the team. This app simplifies our search process too.

It also has a "divide into groups" function that works like this:
1) Every Etsy shop is assigned a number between 1-1000 based on the minutes and seconds that their shop was created... that makes the number pretty random, but it'll never change.

2) The list is sorted and divided into groups based on the assigned numbers. For instance if you say you want two groups, one group will be 0-500, the other will be 501-1000.

3) As new members are added they can change groups, but no one will ever move groups, as long as you use the same size chunks. For instance if you want to convo a different group of shops every month of the year, divide your list into 12 chunks. You'll end up with the same group every August, give or take new members, but no one will accidentally move from August to September.

In the trade team we use this for team convos... we divide up the list and each leader takes some shops to notify them about upcoming events. But I'm making sure we don't accidentally convo the same shop two months in a row. No need to bug anyone that much, I figure.

I'd be happy to add more capability to this if I understand how other team captains are using it, so let me know if this comes in handy for your team!

More public domain patterns in the scrapbook paper generator

So last month I posted about my new scrapbook paper generator and I've gotten some nice things said about it in teams & pinterest, I'm really happy with it. I was inspired to add some more patterns this week - these are really fun to make! If you like designing patterns and want to get involved, shoot me a comment, I can take any 300 pixel seamless png file and add it to the repository for people to color to their heart's content.

Anyway on to the patterns! Like everything else, these are released into the public domain and very easy to recolor using the website.

my scrapbook paper generator

One day I wanted to print off some cute little bunting flags for another project and was having a heck of a time finding basic pattern images... we're talking stripes, chevrons, POLKA DOTS for heavens sake. So I started making my own. Then realized, since php has a nice simple colorizing filter built in, it'd be faster to write a program to set up my colors than it would to open each one individually. Then I realized, hey the rest of the world might like this too.

So that's how spacefem's scrapbook generator has been born.



It's pretty darn simple... you enter or click a color on the first page, it uses that color on all the patterns I've uploaded, and there are quite a few. Then if you like a pattern, you can click it for a bigger tiled version, or to see it in more colors.

Here's a nice Moroccan lattice quatrefoil that it came up with, I made the pattern myself and just liked the brown, but it's also available in other colors:



And here are ever-important chevrons, in blue... here they are in lots of colors.



So you get the idea. Whatever images you generate from the page are public domain, you can use them for whatever you darn well please. I felt like that was the nice thing to do. I can't believe some of the simple patterns that people are selling on etsy... I guess if you want to buy that stuff it's up to you! But I just needed something easy and customizable, and am happy to offer it out to the world. If you use it, or if you're into scrapbooking, I'd love some feedback and comments. And it's really easy for me to add new patterns, so if you want to contribute a tile or two let me know.

New project: EtsyTrades.com

I made a new website over the weekend: a big database of etsians who love to trade! I've blogged about trading before and how it's such a spectacular way to combine my love of getting new things on etsy with my love of sending stuff I make OUT OF MY HOUSE but there's never been a great way to search for interested traders.

There are trade teams, of course, and some of them have a tag they encourage people to use on items, but lots of folks might not want to use a precious tag on something the average etsy shopper won't search for (and I have to say... I've had almost no search hits based on my use of team tags). There are other teams and blogs that attempt to compile exhaustive lists of traders and what they're looking for, but the information is out of date almost as soon as it's down, and it depends on one person doing so much work... just not a practical, sustainable solution, I think.

So now there's EtsyTrades.com! Each shop owner enters their own wishlist and a sample of items they want to make available for trade. The database is searchable, and it automatically makes you a page of people who are looking for your items, and similarly priced goods up for trade.

I AM SO EXCITED!

Oh, and all the information automatically expires after it's 30 days old, so you know everything on there is fresh, the traders are recently interested, the shops are open for business and your odds are good.

If you have suggestions I'd love to hear them, but I'd like to invite all trade-happy etsians to sign up and tell us what you want to trade. There's no better way to show your love of etsy, I say!