My Zazzle Adventure

I'm Still Here!

2010-08-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

It has been so long since I posted anything that I thought I should stop in and say I'M STILL HERE! I have been keeping myself very busy these days with my Zazzle shops. Since my last post I have also added to the K-Richs Place, Celebration Station family. The newest member of my Zazzle shop family is Take Me To The Top. This is my novelty t-shirt shop!

So, as you can see Zazzle is still paying me to play and do the things that I love. CREATE!! Still haven't made that first million, but I have become a Zazzle ProSeller! I cannot say it enough....if you have the spare time and some creative thoughts open a Zazzle shop!!! I taught myself how to use Inkscape and Gimp and went to work. I now make my own play money and hopefully will be able to change that to making enough money to supplement our income each month to help with more bills. It can be done and my goal is to make it happen.

The moral of my story? My little CafePress vs Zazzle experiment has a clear winner in my mind. Can you guess who that is?

It's Been Awhile

2010-02-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

Wow...it has been quite some time since I've last updated. Things have been really crazy here at home having two little ones. My youngest just turned 7 months and my next youngest will be three in a couple of months. They have kept me busy, so updating my blog had to take a back seat for a short time.

Let's see....where to begin? Well, things GREATLY improved with the Zazzle stores after my last update. Christmas season was pretty good. Sales picked up and and I was starting to see an increase in traffic flow. Christmas however, does not even come close to the OUTSTANDING January that I had on Zazzle. Sales were coming in left and right. Mind you, I did not make millions here...hahaha, but I did make a decent amount of mad money for myself. Both of my Zazzle stores saw an increase, however, I have to say the real bulk of sales came from Celebration Station, the invitation -greeting card store. Things have slowed down again now, but I have to say..overall I am very pleased.

If you are a stay at home Mom or work part-time and have some spare time that you can put into Zazzle, I say go for it! Of course, being creative helps! You don;t have to be the absolute BEST artist out there, BUT you do have to have a creative mind and the ability to come up with new ideas often. It doesn't hurt to try it. It's 100% free so you lose nothing. And who knows, you may just end up with a little spare money for playing :o)

Personally, I intend to continue with my Zazzle Adventure. I love it! I am constantly coming up with ideas at random times and often curse my bad luck for not having a pen and paper with me to jot down my idea!

I will continue to update my Zazzle Adventure and journey as I go along and hopefully one day will be able to blog about that first million! :o)

Time To Let Go....

2009-11-05T03:59:00.000-08:00

So, I experimented with the Cafepress premium shop using their 15 day free trial and the only sale was the one that I wrote about in the very beginning. Nothing else...NADA. And according to my traffic counter, I had little to NO visitors to the site. I listed the store in directories and tried to make the descriptions as search engine friendly and possible, but no one was finding my items. With all this said, I had to say Bye-Bye to Cafepress. I closed up shop a day before the trial period ended.

I don't understand it really. My Zazzle store products come up in Google searches left and right. They aren't exactly flying off the shelves either...but at least they can be found... ;o)

Anyway, my little comparison is now over. Time to concentrate solely on the two Zazzle stores. I did have one little sale on my original Zazzle store. A bumper sticker. Yippie! Here is the one that sold.

I love tailgaters! Ask my lawyer Bumper Sticker by krichard08
View more Tail Bumper Stickers

Also, my two year old daughter, Kasey made a watercolor painting yesterday of a rainbow. It was just so cute to see her little mind at work and seeing her artistic side, that I decided to add her masterpiece to some items in the store. Her painting, titled "Through the eyes of a two year old...Kasey's Rainbow" is now available on postcards and mousepads! Please Please Please take a look!

Eyes of a Two Year Old Kasey's Rainbow Postcards by krichard08
Many more Postcard designs at zazzle.com

Yippie! There really is life out there....

2009-10-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

I had to write and share my excitement of the day. It was a normal day, like all the others. It started the same way with me getting up and pouring a cup of coffee, complaining a little over the earache that I have, and fighting with my son because I need a lousy two minutes on the computer. Sounds like a normal day around here to me.

I finally win the argument and log into my email for the first of many times during the day and there is was....like a beacon of light shining hope on my experiment. A sale in my CafePress store!! I was stunned and excited all at once! I won't be be retiring anytime soon from it now mind you, however it was a sale. A very special sale...my first for that store! Now let's see what happens from here. Who will come out on top in this experiment. Cafepress or Zazzle?" Hmmmmmmm...stay tuned folks!

A Big Thank You!

2009-10-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

I have to say, people just never cease to amaze me! I am constantly surprised by the rude behaviors of people, their mean spirited ways and whatnot. However, today I am amazed (pleasantly so) by the kindness and encouragement of people. One person in particular actually.

Today while obsessively checking my email for sales notifications (hahaha) I received an email from Zazzle letting me know that a new comment had been made on my gallery wall and a separate email letting me know that someone new had joined my fan club. I am always happy to receive ANY notification from Zazzle just so I know that people are still alive out there, so I hurriedly went to my store gallery to read the comment. I was touched and so grateful for this persons kind words that I had to write about it. This person is a Zazzle store owner as well and is a newcomer also. She mentioned that she had read my blog and felt compelled to leave me a message to cheer me up.

I was so grateful for her message that I in turn feel compelled to do something nice for her. Being that I have limited means of paying her back, the one thing I thought I could do was to give her a big thank you and props here and try to give her shop a little publicity. The store ID is aportugueselove. I visited her store today and what AWESOME designs she has. I am not just saying that because I feel that I have to. If I didn't genuinely like her designs I would say nothing and let you go and make up your own mind about them. :o) The designs are really cute and really quite original!

Check them out for yourself www.zazzle.com/aportugueselove

Thank you again, aportugueselove, and I hope you find Zazzle success!!

Another New Adventure

2009-10-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my Zazzle Adventures are not really going anywhere. Not much of an adventure when nothings happening. So, I've decided to broaded my make mony from home experiement to Cafepress as well. I've opened a shop there to see if the traffic on that site is more plentiful and to see if sales are more frequent.

I've also created a Squidoo lens to discuss the differences. If you feel like checking it out, you can readi it here. http://www.squidoo.com/krichsplace

I love my Blogger.com blog and intend to continue it, but I found so many people referencing Squidoo that I figured I might as well give it a try since it seems to be so popular. Can't hurt! I have to admit though, I feel like I am cheating on my Zazzle store and my Blogger blog...lol.

Anyway, I suppose only time will tell which of the two sites are better. I still haven;t had a sale in Zazzle since the last time I wrote about it. And no sales in Cafepress yet either. I hope to get some soon. I am using a 15 day free trial for a premium shop over there and am counting on sales to pay for the subscription once the trial period ends. I may have gotten a little ahead of myself. hahaha!

Another Monday Morning

2009-10-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Another Monday morning and not a darn thing going on. Traffic to my Zazzle store was pretty slow this weekend again. I'm not sure what else I should do short of wearing a sandwich board and ringing a bell on the corner! :o)

I have a Facebook page for the store, a Twitter account, this blog, ads on free web classifieds, a linkreferral.com account...I'm stumped. I thought for sure when I stumbled across Zazzle that this was THE site to use to make extra cash and put my creative mind to work. Instead I've earned little to no cash and my creative mind has turned into mush trying to think of advertising methods rather than thinking of project and design ideas.

Well, this morning I've turned to a couple of the local newspapers and placed classified ads, as well as a Pennysaver ad. Let's see if these produce any traffic for the store. If this doesn't work, then sandwich board, here I come!! hahaha!!

Is it just me?

2009-10-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

So I was watching CNN briefly yesterday when the anchor started discussing the economy and that things seem to be turning around. The DOW Jones Industrial average was comfortably above the ten thousand mark and money issues are improving. Okay, my idea of comfortably and his are two COMPLETELY different species. I believe at the time that I was watching it was at 10,067 or something similar. Where has this guy been hiding for the last three years? Under a rock? The market can take a huge hit at anytime and not surprise anyone while it's happening. Does he really think that 67 points is comfortable?

As far as I am concerned, money issues are NOT improving. Personally, the online sales in my Zazzle gallery are FLAT!! They never even peaked! I can't speak for everyone else, but I just don't see it. I have been out of work for almost two years now and when I pick up the paper to look for a job all I can find are the occasional position with a very LOW hourly wage.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I have become so jaded and cynical over the last couple of years that I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I would love to be a happy go lucky politician or ever so optimistic news reporter dishing out bullshit and asking people to eat it politely with a fork and knife.

Oh...well would you look at that....I AM cynical...:o)

Just a little rant session for today since I have news to report on my Zazzle store. Looks like the adventures are taking a hiatus for a bit...lol

Think, Think, Think!!

2009-10-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

It's a cool gray morning here in good ole' CT and I am sitting here trying to come up with some more Christmas and holiday designs for the my Zazzle store, K-Rich's Place. I feel like everything that I think of is completely unoriginal and done to death!

Do people even buy Christmas themed products as Christmas gifts? I would like to come up with a great co-worker or employee gift. That would be cool. Something that a person could buy in bulk and give to everyone in their office. It would have to be holiday non-specific, for instance a Happy Holidays or winter theme rather than Christmas or Kwanzaa.

I guess I'll keep thinking on that one and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, still just plugging along and waiting for that big sale to come in. :o)

A Litte Work Done

2009-10-13T10:49:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to relax a little bit and get a little bit of design work done for the Zazzle store. I painted with watercolors and made a whimsical Christmas tree scene and a folk art painting of an orange tiger striped cat smelling a rose. They came out okay. I doubt they will ever be hanging in a gallery anywhere, but cute none-the-less. hahaha!

My Zazzle sales are still at a stand still and traffic is really extremely low to to the store. I guess I need to try and think a little bit more about advertising my Zazzle store.

Anyway, if you are interested in looking at the two new paintings, feel free... Will check in again soon.

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Good Morning All

2009-10-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

A beautiful fall morning here in CT. Leaves are changing colors and the temperature is slightly lower each day.

Nothing new in my world of Zazzle today. Same old same old. Still no new sales. Traffic is down. I wish I knew how everyone else was doing sales wise. I am going to assume the same as me. :o) At least that will make me feel better.

I am at a stand still when it comes to new designs. I sit in front of all of my new art supplies and go completely blank. Is it possible to lose your artistic ability if it goes unused? You know, like use it or lose it? I feel like that may be the case with me.

Anyway, still plugging along and playing the waiting game.

Is Anybody Out There?

2009-10-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

Another slow day today. According to my trusty traffic counter, only a precious few visitors to the Zazzle store today. How oh how do I attract more people?? I've added my store to directories, I've joined social networking groups, I created my Youtube video...what else is there to do?

I think I may just start to concentrate on the art aspect for awhile and see if the store takes on a life of it's own without Mama's watchful eyes on it every two seconds. My sweet husband was kind enough to purchase me some art supplies so that I can work on some watercolors and oil pastels. Maybe that will keep me busy enough to STOP checking in on Zazzle constantly!!

I'll let you know how that works out for me :o)

Newest Designs

2009-10-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

I was able to spark just a little creativity this evening and add a few more designs to the store. Some holiday, some everyday designs. I added some greeting cards for the holidays, some regular everyday note cards, an apron, a tote bag, a holiday mug and a few other things. Take a look.

make custom gifts at Zazzle

Another Day...another....well.....day!

2009-10-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

Another day here in my little world of Zazzle. It's rainy and chilly and very grey outside. The weather really can affect your mood and well being. Have been half heartedly checking in on my Zazzle store throughout the day. That's because I know before I even check my email or traffic counter that the status is the same. DEAD!!! Where is everyone??

My little experiment with Zazzle seems to be going south here. I will keep at it, but it's hard to continue trying at times.

I would love to receive comments from others who now have or have had a Zazzle gallery in the past. What was/is your experience like? Do you find the effort fruitless at times? Are you a self made millionaire? hahaha!

Sluggish Day All Around

2009-10-08T10:36:00.000-07:00

Today seems to be a very slow and sluggish day in the Zazzle world. I don't seem to have very many visitors to the site today. I am not sure if Thursdays are a slow online shopping day in general or if it is just today. I haven't really gotten a feel from other Zazzle members as to what their sales patterns are like. For the most part people seem to be very tight lipped or over sell their success. Either way, I can be 100% up front and honest with you....it's a hobby and nothing more. I can't see how someone could possible make a living off of this. The concept is great, but maybe if there weren't thousands upon thousands of other people selling on the same site, it would be different.

I realize that I am still a new seller and there are other Zazzle members who's designs are probably alot better than mine. I just seem to be getting discouraged at this point. I refuse to give up though. That feeling of satisfaction that comes when someone purchases one of your designs is just to good a high to give up. :o)I'll stick with it an tough it out.

I haven't been able to put too much effort into creating new designs today. I have the beginnings of a head cold and my husband is smack dab in the middle of one. The kids are sick too, of course.

Will end the post for now, but will be back to update again after I shake this sluggish feeling!

My Zazzle Commercial

2009-10-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

Okay, so sales aren't coming to me as quickly as I would like them to so I decided to take another approach to advertising. I decided to finally try my hand at YouTube. I created my first commercial ad video for K-Rich's Place. It's really a slideshow of my designs set to music, but hey, a commercial none the less. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get people to look at the video!! hahaha!!

It's a vicious circle I tell ya!! Create a commercial to get people to look at my site, find a way to get people to look at the commercial that I created to promote my site...and round and round we go!!

Take A look!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64lXFNjShMA

Well, fingers crossed people!!!

Till later!!

Coming Up Empty

2009-10-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

After having made design after design, I feel that I am finally starting to come up empty. I can't even seem to think about it. Every time I start to think about a design concept my mind wonders off and I start to think how hungry I am or how tired. I don't want to wear myself out so that I become bored, but I also don't want to waste anytime getting new designs up on my site. I am very curious to see if others predictions are right, that once more items are added to the store sales will pick up.

I guess I will just sit here some more and stare at my Zazzle store on my screen and see if anything comes to me.

I would really, really love it if anyone that views my store site and products would comment either here or on my store wall with any feedback about my designs. I need to know, am I doing this all in vain? If they suck, I wouldn't want to continue for nothing.

K-Rich's Place
www.zazzle.com/krichard08

As the Zazzle Adventure Continues

2009-10-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

(singing) Oh what a beautiful morning!! Oh what a beautiful day!!(end singing)

Woke up this morning to an email stating that one of my product designs had been purchased. Yippie!! What's even better is that the design that sold was one that I had just created last night! Jeez, that was quick! Okay...so I am really starting to get excited about the whole Zazzle thing. Maybe there really is something to this. I haven't made enough to put my kids through college or anything, but I actually made a few bucks doing something that I really like and had fun doing it. What a concept! :o) I'll be sure to keep updating on my Zazzle Adventure regularly.

In case your interested in seeing the lastest design purchased, here it is.

Blindfolded Umpire and Baseball Coach Design by krichard08
See other Umpire T-Shirts

Yippie!

2009-10-03T04:07:00.000-07:00

I have been working day and night trying to come up with new designs and add products to my Zazzle store. From what I have been reading on the Zazzle community forum, most people do not begin to see sales until they have a good amount of products available on their site. According to the author of one post, at least 1000.

My thoughts? 1000??!!!! Holy cow!! After working on it steadily I am currently at just over 200 different products. It's been so much fun but man, it's a lot of work and time.

Hopefully it should all start to pay off because I had my second sale yesterday. A couple copies of a unisex baby shower postage stamp. I was never so thrilled to see an email as I was when I received my Zazzle, Your Item Has Been Purchased email! Let's hope I have started a trend for myself and this will be the first of many sales updates :o) Until next time, keep designing all you new Zazzlers!

2009-09-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've just spent that last couple of days creating my little heart out!! I have created all sorts of Christmas/Holiday products for my Zazzle store. I received an email from Zazzle letting everyone know that politicians are prediciting that this holiday season will be better than the last three when it comes to consumer spending. They also state that their busiest sales season is coming up soon. They recommend that you have as many holiday products as you can create in order to increase sales. Hmmm....sounds promising. We shall see about that. I did what they suggested, in fact I plan to do some more this evening. Time will tell...tick tock tick tock tick tock!

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

More Designs and More Waiting

2009-09-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

So I spent a majority of my evening and today creating new designs and adding them to products on my Zazzle store. This in itself is a feat considering I have two little ones at home under foot, but that's a vent session for another day. Still no sales today. I have been reading the Zazzle community forums and most people say it takes time, while there are the few super designers who declare that they made sales within days of starting their stores and are making money hand over fist. I would love it if they would give me a tutoring session on this!

Like I said, I never intended to start this as my million dollar idea but it would be nice to have receive that sale which would be equivilant to a pat on the back that your hard work and creative mind aren't a complete waste.

Oh well, I guess I'll just keep waiting...what else do I have to do?

2009-09-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

I have always been a creative person at heart. Have always loved to draw, do craft projects, and really anything that allowed me to use my creativity. After being laid off from my very boring office job two years ago I decided to start selling second hand items on line using eBay and also creating a website of my own. I really had alot of fun creating my website and deciding how it was going to look. But unfortunatelly being I had two children at home and third on the way and just didn't have the time of the space anymore to keep up with selling out of my home.

Then out of the blue during a random Google search I stumble across a site called Zazzle.com...a print on demand website that allows you to use your own designs to create and sell merchandise that is printed and mailed out by Zazzle. You in turn receive a royalty for every item that sells with your design.

Now I had heard of Cafepress before and had actually tried my hand at it, but to be honest I was not at ALL impressed with the tools and products on that site. Now Zazzle on the other hand....Wow...it is a creative persons dream! I decide that I am going to just give it a try and therefore I upload some of my own personal photographs that I have taken during trips to the zoo with the kids and pictures of our very own pet cat Apollo. I create a few things, coffee mugs, postcards, postage stamps and the like. Low and behold a few days later I get an email telling me that one of my items has sold!!

I couldn't believe it...right befre my very eyes was my very first sale notification. I hurriedly log into my Zazzle account which has a really great dashboard and everything you need to tracks royalties and earnings. I can't wait to see what is waiting for me there. Finally, I see it....my earnings....a whole $.81!!
Okay, so I didn't get rich from my first sale but I was completely excited my the fact that I had sold anything at all. Just knowing that a prairie dog that I photographed is out there on a postacrd somewhere is reward enough...well, almost reward enough. I certainly wouldn't turn down future sales.

I will be sure to add more posts to my blog and record my Zazzle adventures. Will I become the millionaire that I have always dreamed of being? or will I become a flop in the print on demand world. Only time will tell!

If you would like to follwo my Zazzle adventure and check in on my latest designs visit the site at www.zazzle.com/krichard08*

make custom gifts at Zazzle