Winner of Sporkfuldesigns' giveaway

One giveaway has ended and we have a lucky winner this time, randomly selected: 65. Congratulations, Caitlin! You've won Sporkful Designs' giveaway! Thanks so much Meg of Sporkfuldesigns for sponsoring the giveaway. And as usual, you guys...who visited and commented Meg's shop, thank you very much!! 

There is still another giveaway going on now. Get your chance in winning $38 worth of beautiful handmade pendant from Designs by Harriet.

Giveaway: 150 Custom Return Address Labels

Win 150 Custom Return Address Labels, for your shop or personal use from Sporkfuldesigns. Get to know Meg behind Sporkfuldesigns. She is our Saturday Artisan this week. 

There are many ways to enter. Please make sure you leave a separate comment for every entry.

How to enter to win: 

Mandatory entry:

• Go to Sporkfuldesigns shop. Return to my Adore By Nat blog and simply leave a comment here about your favorite item from the store.

Extra entries (only qualify once mandatory entry is fulfilled):

• Earn 2 entries - Go to yesterday's post to know them more. Leave a comment there (yesterday's post) on at least one the following: what you learn from the interview, what you want to see more on her shop and why, or any constructive feedbacks are always appreciated. Come back here and leave 2 comments that you did, to ensure your entries are counted.

• Heart Sporkfuldesigns (1 entry). Simply let us know your Etsy username.
• Follow my adorebynat blog (1 entry). If you're already a follower, you still get an entry, just says you're following already.
• Like Sporkful Designs Facebook Page. Tell her that adorebynat sent you there.
• Like my Adorebynat Facebook Page. Don't forget to say hi to me there and come back here to leave comment (1 entry). If you liked my FB page already, you still can say hi and earn 1 entry. I'd love to hear from you!
• Follow adorebynat on twitter (1 entry).
• Tweet about this giveaway, add "@adorebynat" in your tweet. (1 entry).
• Blog about this giveaway to earn 2 entries. Leave two separate comments here please providing me with the link to your post.
• Be creative and share the love! Refer your friends and family to enter this giveaway. Use your social media (other than twitter and blog) to shout out this giveaway. As long as you provide me a link or a way to confirm it, you'll earn 2 entries (two separate comments).
• Purchase an item from Sporkfuldesigns and earn 10 entries for each purchase. Don't forget letting us know by leaving comments :-)

Contest starts now and ends on May 28, 2011. Contest opens worldwide.

Don't forget to leave me a way to contact you. Entries without contact information will be disqualified. Entries that do not follow the rules will be disqualified. Contest winner will be drawn on Tuesday, May 31 by a random number generator, by the artist herself. Winner must respond within 48 hours after being contacted otherwise another winner will be randomly selected.

Saturday Artisan: Sporkful Designs

The Saturday Artisan is back!!

I'm thrilled to introduce you to Meg, the artist and owner behind Sporkfuldesigns, an Etsy shop offering custom photo cards for holidays, birthdays, invites for baby showers, birth announcements, weddings, save the dates, address changes, and more!

Meg generously share her words of wisdom, don't forget to take notes :-)

Tell us a bit about yourself and what arts/crafts that you make?
Ever since I was little, I've always enjoyed crafts. I made countless friendship bracelets, hundreds of bead critters, sewed pillows and pot-holders for my family, and even took up knitting. It wasn't until around Junior High that I was introduced to the graphic arts. When my mom got Adobe Photoshop on our computer, my love for graphic design began. I worked on my high school newspaper creating the layout, was part of the yearbook team and designed my senior yearbook cover, and continued my graphic design adventures through college. Today I am a graphic design and marketing professional by day and opened Sporkful Designs to unleash even more of my creativeness. I really enjoy what I do and enjoy helping others.


Which part of creation process that you like to do the most?
I enjoy that no matter how much you know, there's always more to learn. I always enjoy teaching myself new tricks, styles, and experimenting with new techniques.

For us who love to travel, could you share a bit about Minnesota?
Beautiful and awesome are the two words that come to mind about Minnesota. I love the beauty of all four seasons and how each season has it's own distinctive look. Minnesota is perfect in the summer with breath-taking state parks that have wonderful hiking trails that you never know what you will see. Minnesota is awesome in the winter as snowmobiling, ice fishing, and ice skating are some winter activities I enjoy. In the spring, it is amazing to watch the trees go from sticks to having leaves within a week (just takes a couple of rainy days followed by a couple of hot days!). In the fall, the trees are gorgeous with their yellows, reds, and browns. There's always something here to do whether it is look at nature,


watch a Twins game at Target Field,


or go shopping at the Mall of America.

What inspires you?
The world around me and things that happen in my life. When I get in a creative funk, I usually do a quick Internet search to get some ideas flowing. CD covers, book covers, and advertising are great to get the creative juices flowing.

Any advice for others running their online shop?
Don't give up. Even if sales are slow, there are always new ways to promote, more projects to create, and always ways to improve your shop. It takes trial and error to find what works best for your shop.

Always have outstanding customer service. People love to hear responses within a day and sometimes if you take the extra step to make sure the customer is happy, it could make them a repeat customer.

Be professional. Brand your shop, Facebook page, have business cards (and keep them on you as you never know when a good spot will show up for you to leave one!), and watch out for typos. Even for a handmade business, professionalism can go a long way.

Promote, promote, promote. You can promote some within the Etsy forums, but if you spend too much time on them it can be a waste. Try to advertise off of Etsy and even off-line.

Learn more. There's no such thing as knowing too much. Keep researching, learning, improving...it's never-ending, but it's worth it. It's great to learn new stuff.


Saving money is important; tell us one thing that you do to save money?
Be creative with how you do things. I was looking for a way to package orders and was originally going to use ribbon to hold photo cards together, but when I went to the store I realized that yarn was much cheaper and did the same thing. I'm always big on trying to do things yourself. However, if you know you can't make it look professional yourself, it is ok to get some outside help.

Stay-tuned for tomorrow's giveaway!