grumble

humph...the new feature for facebook is not working for me on Etsy. I saw a forum thread that lots of other people are having the same problem, so it's probably just a new item bug. Hopefully it will get sorted soon. I have listed about 15 products for free shipping to the US and UK this weekend on Etsy - so a good time to buy from MagpieNest!!
I'm also working on my mailing list - if any of you out there want to be on my mailing list and aren't already, please sign up here. I won't send out more than about 6 emails a year, so you're not signing up for heaps of emails!! :-)
In other exciting news, the skies are darkening and the temperature is dropping. Or rather, it has dropped overnight and it seems like there's a big storm coming. I heard rumours that there were big thunder storms and perhaps flooding somewhere up north and it's heading our way. Fine by me if it's today. Hopefully not tomorrow though, as it's my friend's big annual BBQ bash in his lovely garden. Let's hope it doesn't rain down on us tomorrow!!!

Monday feelings on a tuesday

So it's Tuesday but I'm feeling like it's Monday - wondering what order to do things in, what I'm supposed to be doing and thinking I'm probably forgetting something important! I have a box of items at the hallmarking office, so I should have those back at the beginning of next week. I have a small pile of half-finished items - this pile is, thankfully, getting a wee bit smaller and more manageable! Last Thursday I did loads and got various things done that had been laying around for ages. Also, we had the private view at Norden Farm which went very well. The show there is still on for another 2 weeks, so there's still a chance to see it!
I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. I put my knitted Easter bunnies and chicks on the table for Easter breakfast and it was very cheerful :-)
Tomorrow hopefully a more interesting post - with me more focused than I am today!

update: hm, two websites seem to have disappeared. One is a bead supplier I have used a lot - Jules Gems. They seem to have gone bust, the website is gone and I managed to find one comment somewhere that they aren't in business anymore. That's a shame because they had a good selection. And now I see that theindiego.com seems to have gone as well - but I can't find any comments about that, so not sure what the deal is there. If anyone knows....please leave a comment!

New Items on my website!!

After some hard work, I have managed to make a couple of big updates on my website:

- a page for new items: www.magpienest.co.uk/new.html
- a page for bracelets and bangles: www.magpienest.co.uk/bracelets.html
- and I've added loads of new items, which you can see on the new item pages or just on the item
and collection pages!
- I've made loads of small improvements, which I won't list here in detail but it should make the overall look of the website more uniform. I've also removed some old items which were sold!

Please let me know what you think!!!

newsletter and cute stickers

I've added a "join my newsletter" option to my website! Want to know where and when MagpieNest will be - just sign up for my newsletter! I'm not going to be sending out many newsletters, I doubt it will be more than 6 a year. I think that's better because I know what I do with newsletters that I have signed up for - the ones that arrive infrequently I usually have at least a brief look. The newsletters that arrive every other day, I usually just delete them!! I can't read that many things every day, and anyway if they arrive that often, then how can they really have that much new information!?! Anyway, so please sign up for my infrequent and informative newsletter! :-)
In totally unrelated other news, my mom sent me a bunch of super cute Japanese stickers (probably made in China, but oh well) with animals! They are super cute! I love these little stickers...when I went to Japan I got some and when I was in Singapore I also went to a Japanese shop and got some more. You can never have too many cute little stickers! Ok, maybe you can, but I just love these teeny tiny random stickers. I have a sort of mini collection now. Here are some photos, with the newest ones first (note the usual Japanese funny English - Kira Coat Seal...??!!)

Bob is great

So, my friend Bob Tarling is great. Yes, he's great. Why? Because he fixed the back button on my website!!!!!!!!!!!! hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!
The problem was that if you looked at the details of an item, say a ring, and then wanted to go back to the main list of items, e.g. rings, it always went back to the beginning of the list. NOT where you already were on the list. This made looking through the items somewhat annoying.
It turned out to be a rather tricky issue to fix - not least because it required Javascript tweaking, and I don't really know Javascript, I know HTML. Anyway....just so you can be impressed at Bob, here's a piece of the code that sorted it in the end:

if (page > 0) {
var previousPage = currentPage - 1;
document.getElementById("previous").innerHTML = '';
} else {
document.getElementById("previous").innerHTML = '';
}
var nextPage = currentPage + 1;
if (totalPics > nextPage * picsPerPage) {
document.getElementById("next").innerHTML = '';
} else {
document.getElementById("next").innerHTML = '';
}

Oh YES, read it and be impressed!! or confused, whichever. Keeping in mind that Bob's main thing is not Javascript, that's just one of his many nerd hobbies! (He also has non-nerd hobbies!)
So, anyone out there who wants to offer Bob a job paying loads, please contact me!

End result: browsing my website just got a lot easier!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

Monday morning again!! I got a very, very useful email from a friend of mine with all the last niggles and typos on the website, so it's in good shape now! :-) I want to change the "about" page to add some more information about me...initially a friend of mine who is good at writing copy wrote a blurb for me and I've been using that blurb ever since...but it's kind of been altered and tweaked so many times now that I need to write a piece myself. Ah well, another thing to go on the "to do" list.
Today I'm going to finish a bunch of small things (literally small, as in very small earrings) and hopefully finish a new item which I've been working on for weeks. I'm also waiting for a delivery because the barrel of my barrel polisher needed to be replaced....the lid stretched so it wasn't working because the water was just dripping out of the barrel. Hopefully I'll get the delivery today!!
It's somewhat sunny today, which is nice after all the rain lately. It was the least sunny August in 150 years for the UK. Somehow I didn't really mind....might be because I've been in the UK for nearly a decade now!! amazing....

This week is whizzing by.... and I've stumbled upon a new UK-based craft site which is very similar to Etsy & DaWanda..... it's called Folksy and it's still in beta version. This is my shop on Folksy:
http://www.folksy.com/shops/magpienest -- you can explore the whole site by just clicking on the "Folksy" logo in top left hand corner. It would be very nice indeed to have a successful UK-based site!! It's looking good so far....
Several people have been clicking away on my own site to help me make sure there are no errors...it seems that all is well in that arena. If you have a spare minute, have a look and let me know what you think of the new design! www.magpienest.co.uk
In other news, my friends over at www.todryfor.com are doing very well and are going to be mentioned in the Telegraph this Saturday!! Not only that, but they are in the current Elle Decoration magazine and are going to be featured in a bunch more magazines in the coming months! Well done, tea towels :-)

Well, some small niggles have been fixed on the website, I've had my first sale on DaWanda and I'm putting new items on Etsy & DaWanda again.....so the ball is rolling once again!!
I still need to make a lot of items for all the craft fairs coming up in November though, so I better get back to the bench!

LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE

The new website is now LIVE!!!! Please, if you have a spare moment, check it out! www.magpienest.co.uk
Let me know if you spot any missing pictures, broken links, spelling mistakes or anything that doesn't look right. I appreciate all help! I've done all the work myself so it's easy to overlook mistakes.

There is one problem I already know about - the shopping cart doesn't work properly in Internet Explorer if there are more than 2 different items in the cart. This will be fixed, I'm just waiting for Google to release the latest version of the shopping cart which they told me would solve the problem! UPDATE: actually I just realised what I hadn't done and this is fixed now! hurrah!

Also let me know if you like the new collections :-)

p.s. you may need to hit your "refresh" button to get the new site!

Some of the new features include:
- shopping cart!
- a cufflinks section
- refine your search option
- lots of new items
- new item photos on the homepage
- new, clearer design
- new homepage that looks like the rest of the site
- upcoming shows section
- direct link to this blog :-)
- MagpieNest logo in the corner of every page that links to the homepage

Still a couple of photos away from putting the new site live. It always takes longer than I want!! Also I really should wait until the new version of Google's shopping cart is released because there's a problem with it in Internet Explorer. In Firefox all is well, of course. I urge anyone who will listen to switch to Firefox. It's free, so why not!! it's soooo much better than Internet Explorer....faster, safer, better. You can download it here: http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/

I have loads more ideas for new items, so I want to get the website up and working so I go back to the bench!! And of course I want to start adding items to my Etsy shop again, but I told myself I wouldn't do that until I have my site sorted!! In the meantime, to give a taster, a little picture of some new cufflinks: (matching pendant, earrings and ring will be on the new site)

getting closer and closer to putting the new MagpieNest site live!! Hurrah for Google and all the useful tools available from them!! I will now have a proper shopping cart on the site! Soon, soon.....

Another quick note to say that my website will be re-launched in September! New look, new collections! www.magpienest.co.uk

I am nearly finished with the website update now. Just need to change all the photos where I had earrings next to a thimble for size to photos with the earrrings on Anastasia (as my sister has decided to call the head). Then ideally some page numbers instead of "previous" and "next" and then that's more or less it for now I think. The "previous" and "next" buttons worked well, but now they're not so good because there are so many pages. So it would be better if there was a page thingy....like "Page: 1 2 3 4 next". A friend of mine is looking into it because it's Javascript, not HTML, that's going to solve that. I like Javascript, it's brilliant, and I understand the logic, but I don't know the syntax. All of that means I can't make changes to the Javascript myself, but at least I can see when whatever I want requires Javascript so I can call my friend and pester him to help.

We spent last night cleaning up the cement dust in the living room, woo hoo what fun. Today I have to tackle my jewellery bench, which is also covered. It's even more of a problem in the jewellery room because of course cement is hard. Harder than silver. So it would scratch silver if I left it laying around. It's going to be a pain, but it must be done. sigh.

By the way, the spell check button on Blogger no longer seems to be working, so sorry if there are lots of typos.

I just posted some new little post/stud earrings on Etsy. I was quite happy with how they turned out...

I'm nearly, nearly done with my major website update. A friend came over last night and did a change that I think will really make a difference - you can now click on the main image of the item and go straight to that item's info page. It should make it easier, more intuitive to get to the right page. Just two more items that need more photos and their pages updated, and then I can announce the update, hurrah!
I still want to make one other change, but that is less important, I think.
Anyway...........the levels of cement dust have gone down in the house, thank goodness. The new door might be finished today! hurrah! Then the rest of the cleaning can commence...sigh.

My plans for the week got a bit sidetracked! I was planning on working at the bench but then I tried a new bit of javascript which is super easy to use! It's a slide show/gallery which lets you choose if you want the pictures to change automatically (and if you do, at what intervals). It also makes it a lot neater to have lots of photos of an item because it includes the thumbnails in the gallery so people can choose if they want to view the thumbnails or not - thus also freeing up a lot of space on the page. I think it works better and looks nicer. I'm working through my website updating with this new feature....and also making a clearer link to my Etsy shop to make it easier to purchase. And while I'm at it, also putting more new photos and new items. I'll post here once the update is actually finished....

In the meantime, follow the link below to see one of the pages I've already added the gallery to - and let me know if you think it looks good!!!

http://www.magpienest.co.uk/ringpages/silverbudring.html