Another in-depth review for you today, or is it? Truth be told, the shop I’m reviewing today needs to do very little to improve, in my humble opinion. That shop, is Waterrose.

Right off the mark, I fell in love with the Waterrose banner. Very nice, appealing and shows the range of products without looking like an Etsy Mini. The shop announcement is short but inviting and the policies are in place on the profile page, which also adds warmth in it’s initial description of where the name of the shop comes from.

The item photography is nice and bright and shows off the cute little items very well. The colors are vivid, the backgrounds nice and basic so as not to clash with the items themselves, the descriptions are strong, and the shipping costs are reasonable. Truthfully, it’s hard to do an in-depth review/critique of this shop as I can’t find anything to really suggest for improvement! The ONLY suggestions I can come up with, and that’s after taking a break last night and looking at the shop again this morning, are firstly that the shop accepts money orders and checks so may want to add something into their policies to protect themselves regarding time for the payments to clear before shipping. Secondly, that the shop needs to fill those empty sections or remove them for now.

Truly, this is a very well-done shop and I enjoyed looking at it. Let’s see if anyone else can come up with some constructive commentary that i might have missed!

My rating: 5 out of 5 cherry blossoms!

Have you ever been looking at craft sites and come across a shop that was just filled with such potentially cute stuff but in the end you just couldn’t bring yourself to make a purchase? Sadly, there are a lot of sites out there that could do so much better in sales if only they took the same time that they use to make their creations so well and put it into their shops. I suffer from this as well and so in looking to write this review, a lot of what I am going to discuss applies to my shops as well. So let’s move on to the subject of today’s review: Bugs in Rugs on Etsy.com.

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NOTE: This is a very text-heavy post but I think it’s important that it be posted for everyone to see who may want a review!

Yesterday I launched my new regular feature: seller / shop reviews. I am very happy with the response and so wanted to use today’s post to discuss what my plans are for these posts, and what I am looking to add moving forward. Ultimately, my goal is not only to use this blog as a means of promoting myself and my thoughts, but also to help other creative individuals think differently about their work, their self-promotion and how to support positive interaction in an ever-growing field of creative peers! Let’s look at how I am proposing to do that, starting with the reviews.

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Quick Note: I apologize to those who have tried to comment but have not wanted to register. I had not realised that the need to register had been re-enabled after my last upgrade. I have corrected it and you no longer need to register to post a comment. My apologies for the inconvenience and hope you’ll try again!

Today begins a new and hopefully regular feature for my blog: reviewing other craft and art shops and products that are not mass-produced. To start with, I am going to review an easy target: Freshline Illustration and Design. Why do I say easy? Because for my first review, I’m choosing a seller and artisan that I really enjoy. Thus, it’s a pleasant review for me to write and I’ll admit up front that it is positive. I can’t promise that all reviews in the future will be positive but hopefully they will all be constructive, and artisans will need to request a review before they are featured. But for now, let’s discuss Freshline!

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This is the tale of a humble little garden tote. It is a story of high hopes, of humble beginnings and of cruel rejection… or is it? In the creative process, and definitely in selling crafts, a little harsh reality and rejection can sometimes be a good thing. Today we’re going to look at this humble little garden tote and why it was consigned to a giveaway to a family member instead of being put up for sale in my craft shop.

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