Shop Update

Welcome to my blog, Vintage Page Designs.  Please consider following this blog or stay in touch on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook.

My Etsy store has been open for a full calendar year and as I review my business moving into 2013, I wanted to give you an update and share some things I’ve learned. 

I started the store in late 2011 offering a little bit of everything for sale. I wasn’t really sure what direction the store was going to take, so I tried a few different things: project kits, vintage book pages, vintage ribbon, ephemera, tags and journals. It became clear that the journals were the most popular of my offerings. And in particular, the custom travel journals made with vintage maps. 

So, I've decided to focus on this area of the business. I’m glad I tried a few different things, but I think the store looks a lot more cohesive with just one type of product for sale. During 2013, I will focus on offering a wider variety of travel journal formats – different sizes, bindings and materials. Watch for updates!

I’m really happy with the progress I made in 2012. I learned a lot and am really excited about the upcoming year.  I'm hardly an expert on selling on Etsy, but there are three things that I've found to be extremely important:

• Excellent photography
• Good pricing
• Phenomenal customer service

There's so much to say on these subjects, that I'll write separate blog posts about them.  Coming soon...

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Ali

Vintage Page Bird Kits

Good morning!  The Vintage Page Bird kits are finally available in my Etsy store.  I've been working on them for a while and I'm so excited that they are out in the world!

My thinking behind them is that while mass produced papers and embellishments are fun to use, I like to incorporate real vintage items into my work.  And so I figured, other probably like to do that too.  That's how they were born!

I picked a favorite theme of mine for the first kit - Vintage Birds.  Each hand-selected package contains all original bird themed book pages, illustrations and ephemera - nothing has been reproduced or altered in any way.  Because they're from my personal collection, there's only a limited supply, so when they're gone, they're gone :(

And in case you're wondering what to do with these bundles of vintage goodies, here's some inspiration for you.  Helene Huber created this fantastic tag using a recycled postal box lid - thanks Helene!

And I made a fabric collage using one of the cute bird trading cards that's included in the kit.

If you have any comments or questions about the kits, drop me a line - alimanning@charter.net.

Have a creative day!

Ali

Shop News

It's been a busy week in the Etsy store.  All of the vintage French ribbon sold out, but luckily I scored some more yesterday on a little antiquing trip I took!

I received several custom photo albums orders, including a neat one with a map of Africa to celebrate honeymoon memories!  And I'm busy this weekend creating my new vintage kits - I found some fantastic vintage hankies yesterday to include - I'll take a picture when I've washed them :)

Got an Etsy store?  Feel free to leave a link in the comments - I'd love to pay you a visit!

Fun Custom Orders

One of the things that I really loved about my first few months on Etsy is working with customers on custom orders.  It's so much fun to hear the stories behind the items they're requesting I make.  The vast majority of these custom orders are for my Vintage Map Photo Albums and I thought I'd share a few of those projects today:

The first is a spiral album featuring a map of the USA with 7" x 7" pages.  It was requested by a young woman to give to her boyfriend for Christmas to celebrate the cross country road trip they took this year.  The front shows New York state where they started from and the back shows Washington state, which is where they ended their journey and now live.

The second is another spiral album, this time with 5" x 7" pages with a map of Mexico.  It was requested by Dylan's aunt to give as a gift to her Sister-in-law to celebrate their November trip to Cancun.

Finally, here are 10 journals I made for a wonderful lady in Alabama. There is one each for all 10 cousins in the family who grew up in Hillsborough, AL for them to record their childhood memories.  What a thoughtful and personal gift!

I'm currently taking orders for custom albums for Valentines Day and the upcoming wedding season.  If you have a special place you'd like to feature on a photo album or journal, don't hesitate to contact me at alimanning@charter.net or directly through my Etsy shop.