PayPal Storefront Widget

Notice the green box on my blog? :)

PayPal had came a long way! I love them because they are constantly trying for a better, though their way of prioritizing buyers over sellers had make me frown, I do hope one day they would come up with policies that could protect sellers more.

Back to this cool widget.

PayPal Storefront Widget was supposedly made for MySpace and TypePad, but should your website supports HTML widgets you could do this too, that means, if you are on blogger/blogspot or wordpress.org (NOT wordpress.com, though, wordpress.com does not allow HTML widget nor you could modify themes) you should be able to make one for it.

It's really simple. All you need to do is click on "Build your own store", and then follow the URL to PayPal Xilab Widgets page, login to your PayPal account, and then start configuring your storefront. I am still in the midst of adding all items in.

Now why PayPal?

Before I raised my official website (http://de-cors.com) that offers instant download for my jewelry patterns / tutorials, I sell through Etsy and this blog, don't be surprised if I tell you that the blog has higher conversion than Etsy, it really does. But to add product one by one as a separate HTML widget take up too much space of this blog, so I took them all off until I found PayPal Storefront Widget. It's been around for quite sometimes, but I only discovered it recently. Never too late, I hope. :)

Do visit PayPal StoreFront Widget FAQ page to see how you can configure one for yourself, it's handy, though I would like to add something on to their troubleshooting portion:

If you are attempting to add new product, the widget will duplicate the item you are currently selecting, bear in mind that the maximum characters you can possibly put for your product title is only 20 characters, when duplicating a product, the widget will add "Copy of " followed by your currently selected item's product name. Let say your currently selected item's product name is 20 chars, when you hit on the "+" button, it would become "Copy of xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", which, you might see a pop up windows that says "A script in this movie is causing Adobe Flash Player to run slowly. If it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort the script?" - you will have to click on "yes" otherwise it will continue to pop up and warn you. So, keep your product title short, then you should be alright.

Now go play!!!

P/S There is another very cool feature this widget has - which is if you have a blog or a website, and if you don't mind helping me to sell my products (thank you!), it's easy - hit on "Help sell these products" link in the widget, you will then be given a set of code, copy the code, place it into your website's widget area and you are done! If you have created a storefront of your products, leave a comment so I could place your storefront on my site as well.

Hope you find this marketing tool useful! :)

Corra @ de Cor's handmades

How to Monetize Your Strengths

Category: Marketing Tool Series

Title: How To Monetize Your Strength
Artist: Corra Liew from de Cor's Handmades


Have you always been doing the same thing repeatedly? Be ware, you might be able to monetize it but you hadn't, and that is a complete waste!!!

We always do something we love to do and eventually got totally great in doing it without us noticing it, and we don't get paid for doing it. Just imagine - what if you are "aware" of your strength, and then, you "discover" a way to monetize it? Chances are you are going to continue to do it for a really long time, continue to earn money out from doing it, and eventually refining the process of doing it and turn it into a solid stream of income that would last.

So now it's about the what if's.

What if you get to identify your strengths and best of all, you find a way to monetize it?

It isn't a rocket science - All you need is to identify your potential and strength, and then find/create a right tools/ways to monetize it!

***REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES OF REAL PEOPLE***

For the past year I have helped myself and several jewelry artist friends and work-colleagues to identify their strengths as well as invented ways for them to create an additional or more streams of income, I believe if the methodology I have implemented on them worked out well for them, it will work out well for you, too.

This mini booklet include:
- Tool to help you identify your strength
- Tool to help you process your finding
- Tool (formula) to help you decide what you should do with your findings
- Worksheet that I personally used when I provide coaching/consultation job

***CREDITS***

Special thanks to Johnathen.L for proof-reading and refining this book, and Andy.M for inspiring and endless support!

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***
Please bear in mind that the sole purpose of this mini-booklet of mine is to share my own experience in choosing the tools and methodologies I have personally used, of which it might help you to identify your very own strengths and achieving your own goals.

Your purchased item will be delivered to you in printable PDF format (so that you could print out the worksheet) in within 24 hours (usually faster) upon payment made.

Wish you very success in discovering yourself! :)

Corra @ de Cor's Handmades

Wire Jewelry Tutorial: Handmade Earrings, Pendant and Find Your Signature by SuzyQJewelry!

[Click on the above image to see this gorgeous pendant on the gorgeous model!]

More Wire Jewelry Tutorials add into Guest Artists section in de Cor’s Handmades Instant download site now!!!
Today we are introducing SuzyQJewelry (I am sure though majority of you already know who she is!!!)!!!
Susanna produces only intricate wire jewelry designs no less, if you are searching for a study charm-like pendant, I would urge you to learn to make her signature design for start: Pendant with netted Base. And I thought it was terribly nice of her to have compiled all her experiences, skills and knowledge and put them into another product of hers: Find Your Signature Style. If you have been making jewelry and have not been able to find identify your niche or you wished to have a signature design of your own, this is the information you should not missed! Aside from that, Susanna also wrote an instruction in composing her very popular Taj Mahal earrings. She listed this design in SuzyQJewelry too if you would like to buy a pair of it, she handmade this designs and they are now can be found all around the world in both silver and 14k goldfilled with pearls, garnet, topaz or peridot, a perfect ethnic jewelry that’s totally feminine, Susanna love most of it’s ethnic touch.
Here’s a little Bio about Susanna:

Making jewelry are my passion since 2004 when I stumbled upon my first Internet forum about beading!
I started with plain stringing but are now all addicted to the wire wrapping technique tought by Eni Oken - an american jewelry designer. Now I find most of my inspiration from the victorian era and the ornamental traditions in Asia and India. A big source of inpiration for me are also the talented Magdalena Borejko.
I live 100 kilometres north of Stockholm in Sweden. When I am not with my family or at my full time job, you will find me at my workbench.
Proud member of the The Wire Artisans Guild since year 2008 and European Street Team. Read more about the Wire Artisans Guild at http://thewireartisansguild.blogspot.com. In the section The Wire Artisans Guild, to your right, you will find a selection of jewelry created based on a weekly theme challenge.

You should absolutely check out finished product by SuzyQJewelry in Etsy, too!
That’s all for now, I hope you love what me and Susanna have put together for you. :)
~ Corra that does handmade wire jewelry

New Blog Layout on iPAD and I am loving it!

I LOVE MY BLOG – on iPad. Click to enlarge the picture if you like!
So do you see what needs to be improved? ArtFire. :) iPad doesn’t support flash, and there is no other pictures can be funnier than this:

Picture source from internet. :P

Google Adsense and I
I was just having a conversation with my girl friend when I was showing her my blog on iPad, and she said: Ah you have Google Ads on your website. I looked at her and go: “duh?”.
Who wouldn’t have a Google Adsense account? I mean, I have been blogging since Blogspot freshly released, before Google bought it over! For those who started to blog since blogspot’s early day would it was a huge thing, and then next thing you know is everyone has an Google Adsense account.
She: ”Will you click on those ads?”
Me: “You mean clicking on those ads on my website? No, of course not, why?”
She: “Well, will you click on ads on other people’s sites?”
Me: “If it’s something I want to find out, yes, of course, why?”
She:” You mean you’d actually click on ads?” (she sounds I have offended her.)
Me:”Uh huh..”

She went silence. I kinda know where was she coming from. Please let me remind you though about Google Adsense, when you sign up, you gotta agree that you will not click on ads on your own website and will not ask your friends/ family members to click on them, Google want people who are genuinely want to find out about things to click on those advertisement links. Put it this way – if I were to park money with Google because I needed the traffic, do you think I should pay Google because some publishers click on my advertisement themselves so they can get paid from Google? Google of course, will punish those publishers for me – and to protect my interest, Google will not charge me for those fake clicks!

By the way publishers, you really don’t need to do that to earn money from Google, really. All you need to do is write good content so Google could put correct advertisement on your website, and since your readers are already reading what you wrote they will click on relevant advertisements to find out more about stuff. I have been in IT field and I know how people these days just won’t see the advertisement links anymore, they got immune to it, and there is nothing wrong about that. It is just like receiving news letters from someone from time to time, it is totally fine that you decided to unsubscribe it, all you are losing out is the latest news, you can always do a catch up later and you gotta be fine. But human being are weird, when you don’t see spams in your junk box you started to wonder if your mail server was having problem; and when you don’t see ads you started to think why there isn't anything out there worth advertising? Heh – might not be true for to you, just my $0.02.

So back to me, being someone would actually click on Google Advertisements - if you are a publisher that has Google Ads on your website, and if you see some clicks from Malaysia from your Google Analytic report, that’s probably me. Though I didn’t do it to put $0.08 (more or less) into your pocket, I do it for the information I was going to get, I knew what am I getting myself into, and I am fine with it. Some Etsy artisan too, advertise with Google and heck, I was actually glad that Google place a door to their world right infront of me! This is also one of the reason why I have ads on my website – I cannot have all jewelry related information on my blog, I don’t have that capacity, I write each and every blog entries myself, not by robot, not by modifying some existing contents from else where in the internet so that it would become unique and raw, no, nothing like that on my blog. I try to be as informative as possible, telling you about things I know and would do, if Google found a relevant ads about my blog entry they will put an ad on my website so that you will have access to things that might interest you, my website is just a platform, Google place ads base on what I write, if I write nonsense it will not be kind to me either, gladly, so far what I’ve wrote targeted Google Ads pretty well, seldom would I see irrelevant advertisements appear on my website – and do you know what that means? That mean Google acknowledge me as a serious blogger that tell serious stuff about handmade jewelry and jewelry making, if you see ads on my website, have some faith that that is Google trying to fetch you information that you might be interested with, they could have put a public charity ads on my website if they can’t find an advertisement that suit my website content.

Last but not least, please don’t get me wrong – all I am trying to do in this blog entry is to suggest you to give Google some credits for targeting right audience for their advertisement placement, personally i think it is amazing, the search engine engineers rocks, and when you are browsing the internet, never fear in clicking Google Ads if the title interest you – what do you think how I’ve discovered my favorite jewelry making forum and my suppliers? :)

Happy weekend all! :)
Corra @ Malaysia

Glowing Box, DCHTOOL03

Although you might already know how to present something you would like to present your way, I've wrote mine into a tutorial and posted it as one of my Marketing Tool collection nontheless. It's just a knowledge sharing, and because I am using a screenshot image directly from craftgawker.com, my neighbours are bound to be in the picture as well. I wrote to them one by one to gain their permission for using the screenshot, I am thankful they all said Yes. So please help yourself and hop over to grab this Glowing Box (DCHTOOL03) tutorial for FREE and start making your item pop! And if you think you like this guide, do drop me a line here to encourage me to publish more marketing tool tutorials. :)

-Me-