Todays featured artist is..............
Connie
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Connie is also offering 25% off all orders too to all of my readers if they type 31 summers in the notes to seller.
Tell us a bit about yourself, name, location, affiliations, and personal stuff.
My name is Connie Krebs and I live in Lakewood, Ohio with my husband of almost 5 years and my two daughters who are 4 and 1. I am originally from Amherst, NY and have a BA in dance from Baldwin-Wallace College. I am a member of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority and also hold a Property and Casualty Insurance License for the state of Ohio. I am really into animal rights and am keeper to 4 great tom cats and one newly rescued purebred mutt.
Apart from creating things, what do you do?
I am a stay at home mom and also teach dance 3 days a week. I teach adult tap, children’s creative movement, cheerleading, and musical theatre. I enjoy being out, especially in the fall! I read every night, love taking our dog to the dog park, and also dabble in a variety of other crafts.
How did you first get started creating things?
I actually started learning about graphic design when I was an insurance agent. I wasn’t dancing and had a lot of pent up creativity, but the only tool I really had a lot of access to was a computer. I was asked to make a couple flyers for various company activities and soon was poring over any tutorial, book, and podcast I could get my hands on about graphic design and business design. From there it just took off and every day I am learning a new technique or getting a new idea for a project.
Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.
When I get a new project I usually can already see in my head a basic design. I don’t sketch anything out or think about it too much, just sort of piece the work together one layer at a time. I use Photoshop mainly although I am starting to get interested in Illustrator. All of my work is done either while the girls are sleeping during nap or after they go to bed, and I always need some sort of background noise. Since most of my work is designing for Etsy shops I first focus on the feel of the shop and what product the store mainly sells. From there I choose a font and graphics that correspond with the look I see for the design. Most times I do 2-3 different designs for the customer to choose from and once a design is chosen we tweak it until we are both happy!
What handmade possession do you most cherish? 
Since I do not actually make items my favorite handmade possession thus far from Etsy is a great strawberry tote that was especially designed for me, although a bag scrapbook made by another Etsian is a very close second.
Name your top five books, movies, songs/musical groups, and web sites besides Etsy.
Book: Granny Dan by Danielle Steel, Movie: City of Angels, Song: Kite by Patty Griffin; Websites: (shopping)
www.wrapables.com; (crafting) www.notmartha.com; (fun) www.phonezoo.com
What advice would you give to artists who are new to Etsy?
Get your shop in order before you push your wares, make sure you have all your policies in place, and don’t park in chat rooms, people don’t take well to that.
How do you promote your work?
I hang out in chat rooms a lot, I love to trade which gets me a lot of return customers, and I blog about new items as often as I can. I always carry my own cards that I have designed as well as samples of other cards I have designed for people so I can show all the different styles that I can do. I also have a tendency to pull out my Mommy cards around any woman that might have kids, just in case!
What are your favorite features on Etsy or the ACE team? What new features would you like to see on either site?
I love the chat feature and Alchemy, I am not sure what else could be added to Etsy, there is so much there already!
In ten years I would like to be?
In ten years I would like to be dancing and designing, just as I do today. Maybe have a whole studio devoted at home to both though would be nice… maybe someone can talk to my husband about that?