Etsy Sellers Who Blog

Thanks to a post on Doodles & Kaboodles' blog I've discovered this nifty little world map feature that pinpoints where blog views are coming from! It's updated on a daily basis, and since we have a few international blogs in this ring, I thought it would be great to see how international this blog ring (and Etsy) have become! Enjoy! :) And thanks to Doddles & Kaboodles for highlighting the feature in her blog! :)

One of our wonderful fellow Etsy bloggers, known as aknitimi, has created a spreadsheet and an html list of many Etsy sellers who blog. The list is arranged based on their Etsy shop category. You can download a copy of the list or spreadsheet on her blog here: http://aknitimi.typepad.com/home/2006/05/etsy_bloggers_u.html

A few people have emailed me asking questions such as: "how many people are in the ring?", "why don't I see the ring code on so-and-so's blog?", "where do I put the code?" etc. so here are a few answers :)

*** Ring Stats ***

1. Go to Ring Surf's homepage
2. Click on the Arts link in the ring category directory
3. Click on People in the sub-category directory
4. Click on Etsy Sellers Who Blog
5. On the left side you'll see info about how many active members the ring has, how many members are waiting to join, and how many hits each blog has received. You'll also see a listing of the all the blogs in the ring in the centre of the page.

*** Where to put the code in your blog ***

1. Copy the ring code as is from the email sent by RingSurf or directly from your RingSurf membership page
2. Open your blog template and paste the code somewhere under where it says "enter stuff for your side bar here" OR if you don't have a sidebar field like that, paste it under or above your Archives section
3. See previous posts on this blog for how to insert the button image code

*** Why you can't see the ring code on so-and-so's blog ***

1. Perhaps the code is not in the sidebar...some people have it alllllllll the way at the bottom of their blog. LiveJournal users have it on their "User Profile" page, so if you're looking at their LJ, you'll have to go back to that page to continue surfing the ring.
2. Perhaps the person removed/incorrectly reformatted their code and it is now missing from their blog. If this is the case please send me an email and I will remove them from the active members list

*** Why your code does not work ***

1. If your code is properly inserted on the blog but does not appear to be working it is most likely due to the fact that I have not approved your blog yet. Please see the previous post about this.

I hope that answers all of your questions for now. Please take the time to read this blog before contacting me, most answers to your questions can be found here. :)

When you first sign up to RingSurf you will see a box near the bottom of your account info page that will have the necessary code in it. I believe RingSurf also automatically sends you an email with a link to the code and I try to re-send it to people when necessary, so please ensure that you enter that code into your blog right away. In addition, you can also view the necessary code when you log into your RingSurf account.

*** Please Note ***

Some of you have emailed me about your code not working once you've placed it in your blog. Having the code in your blog does not mean that it will immediately be activated. I need to approve you first, so please allow a few days for the code to become functional. If your code is still not working within three days, then feel free to send me an email.

Ok, I've sussed it out - with the help of the lovely Katey Bree Designs who offered to play guinea pig and helped me realize how to make this ring code work for LJ users!

I'm not sure if this will work for other blog formats, but give it a shot and we'll see what works for what:

When you apply for the ring, you must enter the URL for whatever page you put the code on. For LiveJournal users, this means that if the code is on your "User Info" page, then that is the page you must put in your site link spot, *not* the front page of your LJ where nobody can see the code.

I hope this works for all the LJ people, and please let me know if you use another blogging format and this method ends up working for you.

I would also like to say a big thank you to all the wonderful Etsy sellers who have already joined/applied for the ring. I appreciate all of the props, support and offers to help in this endeavour. I've obviously had a chance to briefly glance at all of your blogs and I must say that it's so amazing to see all of the talent, creativity and general love for handcrafting that is out there. Keep up the great work everyone! :)

Here is the button for the blog ring.




This button was created using the Brilliant Button Maker by LucaZappa.com

*******************************************************************
A few people have requested that I explain the process of adding the button, so here it is:

1) Right click on the button image up there, and select "SAVE IMAGE AS"
2) Save it somewhere on your computer
3) Create a new post in your blog and upload the image of the button
4) Publish that post (you can delete the post later once the button image is properly visible for you)
5) Now, go to Edit mode for that post, and select the "Edit Html" tab
6) You should see a line of code that looks something like this:
< img src = " whatever you saved the image as " > (there shouldn't be all those spaces between the < > and the text and the quotation marks, i'm just doing that so you can see the text instead of a broken image here)
7) Copy that line of code
8) Go into your blog template and find the ring code for the blog ring
9) Paste the image code between the quotations where it says "INSERT IMAGE HERE"
10) Either grin with satisfaction, or scowl with frustration and try again.

Hope that's clear enough!
Thank you! :)

Since there are *so* many Etsy sellers who blog, I decided to start a blog ring; so now we can all easily connect to each others' blogs! The only requirement to join the ring is that you have an Etsy shop and that you blog. Pretty simple, non?

A few things to note:

1. Please ensure that you enter the ring code into your blog template right away. I can't approve you until that code is there.

2. Please place your code somewhere that is easy to find so people can continue making the ring rounds with ease.

3. Please have an easy-to-find link to your Etsy shop somewhere on your blog - it's too time consuming for me to have to search for it.

4. Please see the instructions above for adding the button to your ring code.

Anyone who feels compelled to do so is welcome to link back to my blog or my shop :)

And don't forget to leave comments on each others' blogs letting em know that you found em through the ring! :)

If you can think of any ideas to make this blog ring better, please leave me a comment here, or over on my blog: http://ubercherry.blogspot.com.

Let the blog ring-ing begin! :)