The Craft Star artist feature - Bethan Davies

You may have noticed that I am moving my shops to The Craft Star, and I will be promoting the shops there.  (I'll still be shopping at Handmade Artists and Etsy, so you never know what I'll be sharing with you here. )

At The Craft Star we have clubs, not rings, so there is no set artist feature promotion like we had at the other two sites, which means I can just pick and choose who I want to feature there, and I decided to start at the top, with the owner of The Craft Star, Bethan Davies, and her shops (she has 4 of them).

Her first shop, The Gypsy Rose, opened up in September of 2012, and is filled with amazing jewelry.  My favorite is this purple and red wrap bracelet.  It looks so exotic, and gypsyish...so beautiful.  When you click on the link, then mouse over the picture, you can see this close up.  (One of the many features of The Craft Star that I like).

When Bethan started the site, there was a lot of buzz about it over in the Etsy forums, and not all of the buzz was good.  But I had been getting disillusioned with Etsy for many years, so I first signed up at TCS when it first opened up.  Then Bethan hit some bumps in the road....I felt bad but I had to move on and opened my shop at The Handmade Artist.  I can't imagine the work that goes into running a venue like TCS or HA, I have enough to keep up with on my blog, but Bethan was a trooper and in September of 2012, she relaunched TCS. 

Bethan opened her second The Gypsy Rose shop in February of this year.  This one has hats, and hair clips, and bows...and since I'm a hat person, I picked this military hat all softened up with pink bling!

So now, here is Bethan, running a site, and 2 shops.  And I was not running a site and had only 1 shop, and was looking for a place to share my vintage and upscaled creations.  I'm not sure how I remembered The Craft Star, I think it was a link on my internet favorites tab.  But anyway, I went visiting there, and discovered that the site was all updated, and crisp, and clean, and very busy.  And they had just decided to open up the venue to vintage shops.  So I was in again!  I opened my vintage shop there in May.  And I am so glad I did, I made a sale in the first month!  Something that I had not achieved elsewhere.

Also in May, Bethan opened her third shop, The bra-Zing.   Now, I'm not one to let my bra straps show, much, but with spaghetti strap shirts, it's kind of hard not to.  Now we all have a wonderful way to cover up, while bringing attention, to our bra straps.  LOL.  I love this orange dragonfly one. What it does is it adheres to your bra strap, and I think is just a cool idea.

Bethan has lots of cool ideas....like a PR person for The Craft Star.  Lately I have been seeing ads for TCS on so many different sites when I turn on my computer, or surf to a new website, BAM, there's another one.  All that promotion is great.  Last month, Bethan changed the pricing for the site to a flat monthly fee, for unlimited items that don't expire.  Which is good for me, since I have a memory like a sieve.  And then just a few weeks ago, I discovered that I can have more than I shop there without having to pay for separate shops.  So I opened up our handmade shop at The Craft Star.  Now I am in the process of moving our items from HA to TCS.  While I love the people at Handmade Artists, and recommend that site, for me, I just can't maintain my presence on 2 separate sites, and still have time left over for a life, and to create.  So you will now find me, all of me, at The Craft Star.  I will still be promoting my friends at HA, because you can never have too many friends.

The last shop Bethan has is Venice Beach Boardwalk.  It's a collection of items from different artists that reflect the wonder of a beachy life.  I really enjoy this watercolor of shells that I found there. 

The last bit I want to share about The Craft Star, is just how hard Bethan is working for us.  She just spent some time in NYC schmoozing with advertisers and movers and shakers of the craft world, all for us.   I read all about that on the TCS facebook page.  She also tweets, pins, and blogs.

Like I said, The Craft Star is becoming a great venue to sell, and buy, handmade and vintage.  Come on over and pay us a visit.  And use the links above to check out the other great items that Bethan has to share.

Be blessed,

Debbi