Many Congratulations to B K Muir Store!

We have just gone past the 500th gift of the day submission, the lucky submitter goes to B K Muir so many congratulations there.  B K Muir will be able to submit 3 items of gifts a day from now on so we'll be looking forward to many more delightful products from the store.

Also now listed in our stores gallery so do go check out the store: http://artgiftideasstores.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/b-k-muir.html 

Gifts of the Day Blog Inviting Authors

Just to announce that I shall be opening up access to the 'Gift Community Spaces' as we go so they'll be more authors and people who can contribute easily and have access to tweak posts about their products and add extra special images/information or keyword tags to their posts and even schedule when they should post.

It will be by invitation to begin with, but if you are a Zazzler or contribute regularly already then as long as I have your email address you should hopefully get an invite.  Please email me via my store if you think that I don't have your email contact and therefore unlikely to receive an invitation in the early stages.  The reason I ask for an email from within Zazzle / your store to my store page is so that I can at least verify who you are and that it is a legitimate request.  If you don't know my store, you will find it at: http://www.zazzle.com/imaginationscape*

The roll-out will start on the Gifts of the Day blog. 

What You'll Be Able to Do

As an author, what you will see on the site, the below editing pencil that will give you access to your post:

With 'Author' access you will be able to access and edit your post by clicking on the pencil icon.

My recommendation is that you only go into add labels for your products, unless you are completely comfortable with tweaking HTML codes to your will or happy to play with the compose view.

Simply adding labels will help with searches for your product and for your products to appear in more places, especially once blogs are written on certain gifts under particular labels for example wedding gifts, pets, sports, music etc. This helps to categorise your products so they can be pulled up by labels easily.  Adding your store name as a label means you can pull up all your products submitted for that store easily.  

Labels you add will appear at the bottom on your posts.

Your label will appear at the bottom of each post as above but also in a separate window displayed currently on the side bar split out by different themes as below.  There are currently five label options visitors can browse with including: gift product categories, themes, styles, special occasions, and Artist / store submissions.

Labels allow visitors to easily look for gifts but also for artists to find your own products as above.

I've kick-started with some labels to showcase how this set-up works.  There's a lot of flexibility to evolve the set-up according to the types of tags that will start appearing.

If you are already contributing and would like access to your posts please get in touch for an invite. As every do feel free to leave your comments and feedback.

Thanks for reading this far!

Gifts of the Day Blog Launched

Gifts of the Day - GiftsoftheDay.blogspot.com

Gifts of the Day blog site is launched today - this is an auto-post site set up for all Zazzle designers to contribute their gift creations daily.  I decided to set this one up also as a compliment to the arts gift pages which gets re-formated quite a bit from the email posting so this will allow submitters to keep their referral id and by pass any form filling.

Yes there is an email to post to this - if you don't know it please check the forum or get in touch.

Mainly gifts submitted to the arts gift page will be shared on with the Facebook community also since the arts gift page is where I do actively manage most of my time.

I think once the site gets some momentum then it may be possible to pick out a few top gifts of the day based on the viewing stats.

Enjoy - yet one more space to browse for gifts and one more for designers to add their items.

Hippy Gift Shop - Featured Store of the Week

Pixie is a Pro Zazzle Designer, who enjoys running her two stores, one of which we are featuring this week called the 'Hippy Gift Shop'.  Pixie is also a very keen photographer and can always be found out and about with her camera in her spare time.

With a keen eye for detail and a great sense of fun you can see why her Hippy Gift Shop is alive with colour, befitting the variety of styles and artform in her designs, which range from funky-hippy to gothic, and ethnic / new age.

The sense of fun in the designs is not only prelevant in the vibrant colours but also the themes.  One popular design example to look out for is the family of cute kawaii alien monsters cartoon that you will see on speakers and other items. Other designs feature her fractal artwork and more psychadelic graphics.

Check out our full feature article on the 'Hippy Gift Shop' to see what delightful surprises you might enjoy discovering.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Art Gift Ideas: Artist Spotlight: Ulrich Schwanitz - You & Me - The Scrappies Bronze Figurines

Ulrich Schwanitz from Venlo, Netherlands creates bronze sculptures and pendants from 3D digital designs. His latest creation, the "You & Me" figurines from the "Scrappies" series represent love, affection and mutual commitment - emotions that everyone values and never loses their significance.

The bronze figurines are inspired by everything you can find in a scrapyard: old nuts and bolts, tin cans, pipes, coils, parts of ball bearings, but they are actually manufactured in a novel "3D printing" process. Ulrich is now running a campaign at Indiegogo and will personalize the figurines with two initials of your choice.

See more here:
http://artgiftideas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/artist-spotlight-ulrich-schwanitz-...

Art Gift Ideas: One Big Sky - Featured Store of the Week

via artgiftideas.blogspot.co.uk

One Big Sky store has been open on Zazzle since October 2011 and has seen tremendous success - achieving PRO status quickly and we can see why. During our visit to the store we loved the rainbow special messages, memorizing mandala designs, fantasy trees and abstract patterns filled with lots of color!

To get your store featured please fill in the form on the site: http://artgiftideas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/feature-list-your-zazzle-stores.html

Art Gift Ideas: New Pattern Creation in Adobe Illustrator CS6

via artgiftideas.blogspot.co.uk

Ever wonder how to create patterns quickly and easily? Check out this short introduction and video on how to create your own pattern design of anything you like using Adbobe Illustrator CS6. See also the top selling pattern designed products from Zazzle.

How to Submit Your Zazzle Product HTML Code

We now have a form where you can submit your product directly on our web page for any Zazzle Products. Below are steps to help you locate the correct HTML product code to submit with your referral ID as long as you are logged into your account.

1. Choose your product and locate the 'link' button below it.

Launched and Open for Submissions

We have gone ahead to launch and open up the brand new blogspot site for artist submissions.  Thankfully we've been able to embed a community space into it so people can interact with other artists in the community who submit there, leave suggestions for us to take up and generally share anything else that's on their mind.

If you haven't checked it out please do come along and visit and join the community there:
Arts Gift Ideas Blog

If you don't know the secret email to submit your creations then please get in touch.

Working on Blogger Launch

I'm busy putting together the new autopost blogger site that will soon be open to all artists and designers to submit too.  Once complete I will let you know the details.  You don't have to be from Zazzle, any gifts ideas are welcome here.

I hope you will enjoy the page, every now and then I will pick some outstanding or popular products posted to feature on the community blog also.  If I can dream up some contests we can hold that will happen too.

Also if anyone has some ideas to share please feel free to contact me, or would like to post/become an author in this community blog space please feel free to contact me and join in.

Best wishes,
Sheila

Beginnings of Community

It's been at the back of my mind for a long time that I wanted to create some kind of community space, although it's been hard arriving or pin-pointing what exactly it should be. It's no surprise really that the seedlings of this 'gifts ideas community' has started to filter through, since I've always loved all forms of arts / crafts / design and really love to hang out with all sorts creative people.  It has started out with the Facebook page, now three days old or so, and showing good spirit and I'm happy for the those it's been good for but it is just the beginning and I want to find ways to open it up more, increase interaction and exposure for the community.

Right now I've a bunch of ideas, more than I do the technical know hows to execute them all.  This is perhaps not necessarily a bad thing, it'll slower me down but not entirely put me off, since in my book there's always a way.

Here's a small development idea for the Facebook page since I would like to continue to build some momentum there.  So I'm really throwing this one out for feedback and to gage people's interest on whether or not you'd take this up.

Again, the idea is an open invitation for all independent artists / designers / craft people to submit their 'business card' or cards, as the case may be, as long as it's not an overwhelming number.  I'm thinking this might be particularly useful to those who take on commission work, or just want to pick up traffic to their site / stores.  The business card would be like a digital jpg photo format so you have more real estate to work with.  This would get uploaded to the Facebook page by us, so that we can categorise it into relevant albums.

Since this being digital you will have more real-estate to work with on your card design, you can showcase some of your designs / creations as examples and perhaps as appropriate, keep some personal details off and just direct to your online spaces / email contact for example.

Now the albums would work a bit like a classified ads space (but with no charge of course). Possible categories could be something 'specialist' like 'wedding photographers', 'jewellery makers', 'fractal artists' to something more general like 'mix media artists', 'painters', 'illustrators', 'graphic designers' etc.  People's card will be placed in their category of choice and new categories could open up as the need arises.  The categorisation part is where your thoughts would be most helpful.

Once the photo is uploaded into the album, you will be able to do three things. Firstly tag your logo in the photo card to your fan page name, secondly, location tag your card and thirdly leave commentary on your card with more description / details or share as you wish.  This would give you additional presence on the 'Gift Ideas' page and if browsers are anything like me I always like to check out the photo section :)

If you read this far thank you!  Now I'll await feedback / questions and if you want in, then send us your card to start rolling this out.

Thanks,
Sheila
Gift Ideas Community