Week 22: Self Promotion Week!

Oh goodness, I am late as hell this week.  That's OK though, because this is the most time consuming week of all.  It was the dreaded website week!  I did finish all my projects by 9/16, I just haven't gotten a chance to post them until today because this is when I took them all live.  I didn't want to spoil the surprise!  Also, before I published them my backlinks would have led ya'll to nowhere.

So this week is the week of shameless self promotion.  I've been working on a lot of projects to maximize my "internet presence", mostly to get some traffic to my Etsy Shop, where I sell a variety of the handmade jewelry that is featured here on my blog.  Firstly, I created a Facebook Page for Mazikeen Studios.  You should totally like us!  Right now there's a very small number of fans, which means that when I start doing giveaways and promotions you'll have a better chance of winning something awesome.  <3  I usually post pictures of my creations, so here's a quick preview of our FB page!

That's one project down; the next project was to build a Mazikeen Studios Website!  This is going to be a place where I can update folks about upcoming craft show appearances, new jewelry collections, and other cool stuff I hope to be doing in the future.  It's also a place for me to collect and display all my designs in one place, with minimum rambling (unlike here, hehehe).  I also want to use it to promote some of the artists I love, which I do on my "Favorite Things" portion of the website.  I love giving shout outs to other folks in the craft community so if you'd like me to pimp your site, etsy store, or anything else just leave a comment and I'll be happy to do so!  There's also a shop bio to let people know who I am and where I'm coming from.  Quick picture previews are below:

Favorite Things Preview

Home Page Preview

Photo Gallery Preview

Shop Bio Preview

I'm counting each page as a project because I put a lot of time and effort into making each of them unique.  And that counts, right!  Right?  Also this is the first time I've ever done any web design, and I experimented with some out of the box photo alteration (at least for me) when making banners, icons, and other bits of each page.

In addition to all that, I also designed a business card for Mazikeen Studios:

Mazikeen Studios Business Card

Finally, there is the layout and format updates to this very blog!  We no longer look like a reject page from the days of Geocities.  We have a clean new layout, a new color scheme, and a few new widgets to play around with.  I'd include a picture of the final product, but you're looking at it now.  If you didn't see the old blog you'll have to take my word on the update as a project this week; I refused to keep any photographic evidence of the old blog around!  : )

I'll be back to my usual handmade jewelry and accessories crafting goodness next week.  : )  Thanks for stopping by!