How to make an Etsy Treasury

Orit of http://OritDotanDolls.etsy.com shared these great tips on how to create an etsy treasury on our forum thread over on etsy. I thought I would share them here so we can easily check back on them.

I have been asked about the treasuries-how do I know when the treasury will open?
Well-you need to count from the last one until you will see the 333
Usually it is on pafe 17
When you will find the time that it will be 333-you need to be at the treasury 10 minutes before as lately it does not fixed exactly at the time it is written and to wait
then, when the box open-do not dream-click the first letter if you do not want to loose it
Advice:
-Prepare the treasury on the sketch
-Also you can follow the instructions [at the buttom of the treasury page
-After you post the treasury-go to the promotion thread and open a thread or go to a thread that is already there
This way you will have more comments
Important -in my point of view-to comment on all the treasuries you see at that thread

Yes-it is a lot of work BUT we can have better sales-all of us -if we will create many treasuries

Also lately allow poeple to feature one item from their shop -so -that is one more good reason to make this effert

Sorry about my English, I guess I have many mistakes BUT i am trying to get better all the time..

Hugs to you dear ladies
orit
==============================
Here are the instructions of how to create a treasury
you will find there the poster sketch, you can add it to your favorites and prepare the treasury BEFORE you are trying to catch one so you will be able to create beautiful treasury
http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/how-to-...-and-bolts-688/

ruetabega
If you will prepare the treasury on poster sketch -it will take you couple of minutes to copy it to the treasury
I do it so fast now that most of the times I am the one that open the thread of the new treasuries
If I am not the faster one -I join thread that already open
Hope it helps

NFEST April Challenge

The NFEST monthly challenges are back and this month's challenge theme is Happy Colors.
Entries are due by April 30th!

NEEDLEFELT TEAM work on FLICKR

I tried to put this slide show of our team FLICKR group photos in the sidebar of this blog, but it was too wide. It is too beautiful, not to share. GREAT ARTWORK everyone!!! It's so fun to see how many different styles of needlefelt there are. If you get a chance to kick back and cruise through the slideshow, it's a lot of fun. You can click on pictures to go right to the flickr, too!

REPOST:How to Make a Painless Needlefelt Ornament!

This "Painless Needlefelt Ornament" tutorial by Morgan of EwesYourImagination is so GREAT that I thought I would repost now at Christmastime for everyone to enjoy.

Hi! I am Morgan, a.k.a Ewes Your Imagination, a proud member of the NFEST team and the Felting Forum. I asked my mom if she would be the guinea pig for this tutorial, and she happily agreed! About 15 minutes into the project, we had already altered some things, and she was quickly tiring of the stabbing process! Now that I think about it, Dr. Phil was on, and she seemed to be listening less to my instructions and more to the television. I came home and realized there was no way of simplifying all the changes we made, so I sat down and start to finish did this tutorial like I originally planned.

If you have ever pulled out your wool and needles around people who haven't heard of needlefelting, you probably get the same question I get, "Can you teach me?" My answer is usually "No," not only because I am a lousy teacher, but also knowing how much damage a sharp, downward-barbed needle can do to one's fingers. So I hesitate to let the interested kids (and some adults!) I know start stabbing. How do you share the joy of your craft, without sharing the pain?

I wanted to make a Christmas ornament with my mom, who doesn't have any needlefelting experience yet, and thought a good template, or stencil, would be a cookie cutter! I remembered all the fun cookie cutters we used growing up, most of them in Christmas shapes. So we found the standard Gingerbread Man cookie cutter and started stabbing away! The high walls were perfect to run the needle straight up and down without having to put your digits in harm's way.

So if you want to get someone with tender, innocent fingers started in this fun and addictive craft, try some things you have in your house first, and in no time they will pick up the basics of needlefelting.

1) What you'll need: felting needle (I used a size 40), foam,
cookie cutter with no bar across the top, various colors
of wool roving depending on what you are making.




2) Put your cookie cutter on your foam work
surface, and start laying wool over the top, being
sure to lay wool over the edges, and in different
directions.

3) Push the wool down, and keep adding
more wool until the cookie cutter
is loosely filled with the roving.

4) Start pushing the needle straight up
and down along the perimeter of the
cookie cutter, and continue all the way around, leaving the middle for later.

5) Before you go any further, it's good to
lift up the cookie cutter, and pull the wool
off the foam, so it doesn't get too stuck in
the foam. If you've felted all the way
around the inside edge, it should
hold it's shape well.

6) Now, push the wool back into the
cookie cutter and felt all the wool
in the middle down until it is uniformly felted.

7) Now you can remove the cookie cutter and you should have a semi-firm felted shape.






You can start adding details any way you like, I chose to use
the standard Gingerbread Man embellishments.



You could embellish with beads, sequins, embroidery, or anything you feel like! To make these into hanging tree ornaments, simply sew a loop of thread near the top and tie a knot. Metallic thread looks good for this. The snowman at the top of the page was made using the same cookie cutter, but my mom added some length to the legs after step 6, then gently wet felted, dried and shaped the whole body until it was what she wanted. Then she and I added the carrot shaped nose, and the black eyes and mouth. It resembles a primitive snowman doll she found a while back, and I can't wait to make more!

Also, if you are helping teach someone who is either really impatient, or just really young, you could skip most of the time-consuming steps, and just have them trace the body from a piece of pre-made felt, then just needlefelt the details. They would make good easy hanging ornaments, or even special tags to adorn presents. Happy Felting!