Second Time Treasures Welcomes Blogs, Bloggers, and Blogland

Second Time Treasures Welcomes Blogs, Bloggers, and Blogland.

Hi, and Welcome to Second Time Treasures! Happy to see you back, and happy you stopped while passing through also. I know, I shouldn't have to say it again....and again....I am so very very sorry everyone for not checking in here sooner. I tell ya, Life has gotten a hold of me lately, and I have had to prioritize just a bit. Spending time with my stores, making a sale here and there, shipping, taking son to & from work everyday, and.....worst of all was on this past Monday!

Yeah, I would have never guessed it to happen, but it did, and I am heart broken over it too. I have a blog that pretty much directs to my online sales. I have had the blog since 2009, and the past year have focused my attention and energy on it. Reading things to do, researching the good and bad of things to do, applying keywords - links - and doing a little bit of SEO with it too. Then, I sat done and looked at things that I should cover for topics, and not cover. Found out there is no right, or wrong to it....be yourself, and do with it as you wish for whatever your purpose may be. 

So, I have gotten domains from GoDaddy, and directed those to my blogs too. On Monday I checked emails, checked accounts, and then went to sign into my main business blog. Message...Blog deleted, Blog disabled, Blog not found were the 3 different messages I would get at different times. No reason for this, no excuses, and most of all...not definite way to find out about it either. I have gone to the help sections, left messages, and that usually is not very successful. Blogger is sooo big...like Facebook that doing the one on one thing just doesn't happen. At some point I was told it would be submitted for review for reinstatement. Could take up to 7 business days. Yikes! That won't work!

So, after all of that I spent all day on Monday into Monday night making a new blog, some new blog pages, getting my links put into order, banners, pictures, avatars, clocks, stat counters, organizing it, and doing all I could. Then, I went off to different places to announce the new blog addy I had too. Here it is Thursday, still not fully done with my Blog to where I want it, but it can be viewed. People are slowly coming to it, slowly getting some followers again, and etc. Then...trying to find a way that I could find/retrieve some of the blog posts I had done with it that brought me some attention too. 

All I can say is what a work out it has been! I would never wish this upon anyone. I would not have been so heart broken if I had not put so much time, and my heart into it. Also, I like my blog because it is like a website to me. It's free...except for the domains I direct to it, I have pages, I share things, share information, shares instructions, ideas, and just whatever I think would be of interest to my followers. 

Well, looks like I have written a book here now, huh? Sorry about that everyone. I get carried away sometimes. I enjoy blogging, and until Monday had a schedule worked out that I could spread my time with all of them....I have been slightly delayed. 

Thanks for being patient with me everyone. I so appreciate it! Thanks for visiting with Second Time Treasures. Take care, and see you again soon!:)

Happy New Year Everyone in Blogland Bloggers and Website Visitors

Happy New Year Everyone in Blogland Bloggers and Website Visitors!

Thinking of all of you, and hoping everyone had a great weekend too! Some will go back to work tomorrow, and some will still have the day off too. No mail, banks will be closed, and some of the retailers will also take this as their holiday. 

So, did everyone have fun? Did you have any big plans, or celebrations that you attended? Hope everyone had some fun, enjoyed it, and most of all that you were safe too. I had a pizza, some beer, was home by myself, and worked on things in house a bit along with some work in my internet stores too. Relaxing evening:)

Hope ya'll enjoyed your weekend, and here is to everyone having a super great new year. Here is to 2012!! Take care, and see you again soon!:)

Merry Christmas Blogland Bloggers Website Visitors

Merry Christmas Blogland Bloggers Website Visitors!

Welcome to Second Time Treasures, and glad you stopped to visit with me. Well, tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. Things are winding down a bit here, getting things all completed for gatherings, checking on things with my online store but no new listings being added. Time of year I like to pull back for a few days, and just have a normal pace of festivities with family, friends, and anyone who wants to share the holiday season. My wish is for everyone to have a place to go to, family to be with, friends you can spend time with, places you can go to help with others, and so on. I wish you all well, to have some fun, enjoy your time, and be safe. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Vintage, Collectibles, Repurposed, Upcycled, Artfire, Ecrater

Hello and Welcome to PassnItOn!

Welcome, and happy you stopped by! I had been working on different topics to post to my blogs, but have gotten off here just a little bit. When you can, stop by to see my LilacsNDreams Blog. Check out the tabs/pages I have added to it for Thrift Store Finds, Sharing Blog Love, Links I Love, and Coffee House Talk. Oh, yeah, don't forget my website too! I have started to add subcategories to my Blog there like with my main blog. They are all a working progress, have ideas what to do with them, but am not getting them to work fully for me as I need on my main blog. So, will have to play with them a little bit more. 

Visit my Artfire Store for vintage, collectibles, and remember I have started to add some inventory of repurposed, and upcycled items too. Fun! Fun! I do have some things at my Ecrater Store, and will be transferring some products back to that...I hope to have it done this week:)

Hope everyone is surviving the storms, and any flooding where you are. Thanks for visiting, and be safe everyone. Happy Hump Day to you!:)

 

Seo Used in Blog Blogging Websites

Seo Used in Blog Blogging Websites. Welcome top PassnItOn!

Tonight I am going to cover a little bit more about blog, blogging, and website blogging too. This is kind of a carry over from the blogging topic that was started a few days ago.

There is much to be said about blogging, much to be suggested, and many opinions and suggestions in what to do, how to do it, where to do it, etc. Blog can rank with search engines, and can also be found in searches with topics that you choose to discuss. Each new post is a new web page that searches become aware of too. 

In order to work more with the search engines you need to work with your SEO as well. Keywords, keyword phrases, on line optimization, off line optimization, etc. Use some of the available tools to help you with searching for keywords, and phrases to use. Remember links are good that go out to places that are fitted with your subjects, or links being used. Also, it is important to have backlinks coming to you as well. Those should come from sites of same interest that come to you with their links. 

To see more of a detailed explanation to some of this, visit LilacsNDreams Blog Post about this same issue. A little bit more details were done to better assist you with this topic. Remember you are welcome to comment, leave suggestions, and share things too.

Thank you all for visiting PassnItOn, and Welcome to visit anytime. Happy Hump Day to all. 

 

Website, Hosting, Shopping Carts, Domains

Hello everyone, and Welcome to PassnItOn! Glad to have you here, and that you could drop by here!


 Here is another topic for everyone to read, for some shared opinions, and to offer what I have read too. First of all, most of this posting did come from my blog at LilacsNDreams too. Asking about Websites, should I have one, do I really need one, it's so much work, really necessary, and they can cost too. Yes, you are right, they can be costly. Depends what you all want to do with it, what your goals are, and how much you would like to spend with it too. 


 It doesn't matter how many storefronts a person has it's a good idea to have a website. The website can serve as your home base, helps with links for your web presences to one another, and can serve as your 'hub' that can direct visitors to your stores, your blogs, and can serve appear as an online business card for you too. 


Before jumping into having a website I would recommend doing some research, and look around a bit. Do searches about websites, see what others have to say, and suggest. Calculate how much you would like to spend for a website. Incude the cost of hosting, your domains, shopping carts, and do you intend to advertise to get your website out there too? Many things to consider. 


What is the best Host, and what should you consider? You need to consider how it needs to be affordable for you. I know Hostgator starts about $3.96 a month, and I see them mentioned often by others using them. The host needs to perform well for you, and your visitors. You need to be able to draw traffic. Does it give you the option of setting up a shopping cart? Make sure you have support staff that is available 24/7, and that it has the tools to let you edit the site yourself too. And, does it provide for a blog if you would like to have one. Another thing is can you do the domain with them, or do you need to go else where for that? 


Having a website is great for your business cards. You use your main domain name on the card with the URL, and it will lead people to the website. At the website they can view, and click to where they prefer to shop at. Your traffic can come from your host, and also your business cards too. 


Now, there are some websites that are free to use. Depends how much work you want to work with it yourself, what you are knowledgable with, and where you feel comfortable at. 


I have a free website. There are different free ones out there. Some I have liked, and some I do not like as well. Google has one you can set up as many pages as you want, it's free, and takes a little work. I am not all computer literate so sometimes anything will take a little work for me. Check google for  sites.google.com/ Or, just go to google, and search for it there. Microsoft Office Live,  FreeWebstore.org, Webstarts.com,  Wix.com, and  Weebly.com are some others offered for free. I know you can get one at Vendio, don't let the ebay thing bother you as it can be done without ebay, and I think that one was free? 

There is also Pro Stores, and I do believe that starts at about $30 a month. I have heard others mention it with good comments from them. I have been noticing some websites done with vistaprint.com. Sorry, I do not know the cost for them. Yahoo has business sites/stores that can be used, and not sure of their cost. Just a lot out there, and no way I could mention them all. Search google for many of them, read forums with sites and social medias to learn of some, and just roam the internet to find them too.


As mentioned I have a website free, and that is with Weebly.com. Through bannerfans.com which is also free, I have made my banners, avatars, and things that are used with the site. One of my tabs on my website is for a blog. I have directed 1 of my domains to this website. I got my domains through GoDaddy.com. I have never had an issue with them, pay a small yearly fee for the domains, and that cost is sooo small compared to paying fully for a website, and all the extras with it. 


I do not have a shopping cart on the site. I could have it, or the buy it now buttons as weebly does have that. Instead I chose to use my rapid cart from Artfire, My widget from Ecrater, and for Addoway and the other stores I also have my RSS Feed going to the pages for them. 


I have chosen to use my website, and my blogs as my landing pages showing my links to the stores I sell with, links to my blogs, link to my website, and so on. Maybe at some point I will add the shopping cart, and sell either with my blog or website. But, for now, for me, I am comfortable using them as landing pages, and making an internet presence that way. Please, visit my LilacsNDreams Website, and have a look around. It is not perfect, I am sure there is much more to do with it, and different ways to do things, but I am comfortable with it, and it works for me. Great support at weebly, and they have been getting used by quite a few too.


I hope this has helped you with the issues of a website. I know I have not covered everything for you, but hope I was able to give you some things to think about, consider, and research with. Thanks again for visiting with PassnItOn, and visit with me here anytime. Always welcome with the visits, comments, sharing, and so on. 

Selling Online is Hard Work For Sellers

Hello, and Welcome to my PassnItOn Blog! Below you are going to see a topic about Selling Online, it's hard work, different than the brick and mortar stores, and some things involved with selling online. Sharing my opinion, and others are welcome to comment, and share too. Also, what you read below has pretty much been copied over from my other LilacsNDreams Blog, but wanted to share it here with you too. Hope you enjoy it.

Today I am going to discuss a subject that many of us deal with as sellers online.  Please remember this is in my opinion. There is no right, or wrong. You are welcome to comment, or share with us here too. When searching, or doing a listing with any of the venues I sell with I try to put things into perspective as if I were the buyer is generally how I work with most of my listings, and things I do for Online Sales.


I believe that Selling Online is hard work, and could be even more if I did everything I read and seen mentioned to do. It is very time consuming, and much harder to do than selling in person in my opinion. I feel it to be harder as the buyer is not able to touch what is being sold. Therefore have to work more with our descriptions to help the buyer feel the product, and also make the search engines happy with words we use. Along with this are pictures so that the prospective buyer can also better see with our descriptions what is being offered. As some of us know, pictures can also be time consuming with lighting, finding the right angles, amount of pictures, etc.

Another issue is that there is no two way conversation between the seller, and buyer to see the buyer's eyes. Seeing someone's eyes helps get a feel about the upcoming purchase. Helps you to better assist with addressing things right on the spot. Conversation is always helpful. I myself sometimes get too winded when describing things in my listings. I am trying to get the buyer to see what I see, feel what I can feel, and hopefully answer questions without wasted time between us contacting each other through emails.


Time is spent with shipping costs, finding the best one to offer for the item being sold, and the best way to ship from past experiences too. Unless the items I offer can be put to something smaller like an envelope, I generally send items USPS Priority Mail with insurance included. Reason for that is generally the shipping rates are a bit better, customers get their items within 2-3 days, and the insurance is always included for a more secure delivery. That comes from past dealings with the postal service. If a customer contacts me, and wishes to have it sent another way, I will work with them to do so as requested. I work with my customers the best possible way that I can.

Another thing as a seller to keep in mind is the venues we choose to sell with. Some of the venues do not cater to the same type of buyers, and sellers. I have found that sometimes what can work for one seller does not always work for another seller. There are many venues out there to choose from, some have higher fees to sell with than others, some advertise for their members, some work well with their members by having an operational site with support that can always be contacted too. It all depends what works for you, and where you find to feel comfortable with. It is important for you to pick the right selling venue for You.

Some have their own websites. That is more cost to some with hosting fees, domain fees, shopping carts, and with your own website you also have to work harder to get yourself seen within search engines for the prospective buyer to find you. For me I have my blogs, my website, all having domains directed to them, and find this to be a smaller cost for me. With my blogs, and websites I offer the links for the venues I sell at, instead of a shopping cart I use the Artfire Rapid Cart, Ecrater Widget, and the RSS Feeds for the sites including Addoway. If any questions I can be contacted with no problem as I do read my emails through out the day. Also, if a seller would like to purchase directly from me I am more than welcome to invoice them through paypal.

So, what did you think? How has it been for you selling online, and have you found what can work for you? If so, please share with us here. Thoughts, comments, and opinions are always welcome at PassnItOn. I only ask everyone to be civil, and remember that we all have our own opinions to things with no right, or wrong answer.

Thanks so much for visiting with PassnItOn today! I enjoy the visits, the comments, the sharing, and hope to see you again. Take care till the next time Everyone.  Remember to visit with my stores with the links provided on this blog page to the right. Thank You!

*  *  Where Yesterdays Memories Become Tomorrows Treasures  *  *

The Shabby and Chic Decor, Lifestyle, What Does It Mean

Hi! Welcome to PassnItOn! Glad you could stop by, and visit with us today.

Today I will discuss a style that is familiar to some of us, loved, and admired Shabby Chic. First of all, I would like to clarify and make you aware that using some of these words can have legal issues with it too. I have seen some people receive letters, notices, have complained of being notified, and have also had their sale listings removed because of using these words. To clarify just a little bit of this I went to the official site for Rachel Ashwell http://www.shabbychic.com to see if I could read a little bit of their terms, and what it said. On the bottom of her site I could click on the terms which in reading I had found that "shabby chic" "simply chic" and "Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Couture" are not to be used. I know, to us they are common words, we see them used all the time, and the question is why can we not use them? Rachel Ashwell has them trademarked and/or registerd trademarks of SCB. She does not just have them copy righted, but she went through further legalities to have them trademarked too.

When I see the term shabby chic being used I envision like a story book princess dream, and I think of being feminine too. I also picture white, chippy, and worn looking. Hmmm, some pink too. The term does come from the 80s. Shabby Chic is a form of interior design where furniture, and the furnishings are either chosen for their age, for the signs of wear and tear, or new items that are distressed to get the appearance of antique. Yet, it has a soft, and feminine feel that makes it different from regular vintage decor. 

The items are often heavily painted through the years with many layers showing through for that time-worn era. The style is intimidated with painting using a glaze, by painting and rubbing, or sanding away the top coat to show the wood, or some of the base coating. 

The fabrics tend to be cottens, and linens. The linen is the popular one, and is inspired by old French linens. Whites, worn, or even bleached out pastels are favorite colors. The fabric can often be stained with tea to give a look of old fabric. This method is also the same used with some papers to add with the decor of pictures, and different arrangements done through out the home. Using the bleached, and faded terms will often be applied to the style.

Todays Shabby Chic style is vintage, and antique furniture. 

Popular decor items used are pillows made of a vintage bark cloth fabric, using vintage linens, chenille bedspreads, vintage chandeliers or lighting, picture frames, wired baskets, and of course anything with roses on it. A soft, and a relaxed feminine romantic way to decorate with and that looks comfortable, and inviting. This method is sometimes also called, or referred to as Cottage Style. 

I also found that Shabby Chic is a general term which can be used to refer to a person who is stylish rather than fashionable.

Shabby Chic isn't simply elegant, or a decorating style . . . . It's an Attitude!

Some of this content noted is from the official Rachel Ashwell Site at the beginning of this with regards to the terms, and use of the words. The rest of this mostly came from http://www.en-wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabby_Chic

I want to thank everyone for visiting with PassnItOn today. You are always Welcome to comment here, leave a message, and share with everyone a thought or discussion for topics that have been done here. 

Thanks again everyone, and look forward to your next visit with PassnItOn! Don't forget to visit with my other blog at LilacsNDreams Blog, and also at LilacsNDreams Website that has been revised recently. And, check out some goodies with my LilacsNDreams Artfire Store also.