Stickers Now Listed

It's no secret that engineers can be a little "nerdy".  That's where the term Engi-nerd comes from.  As a self-proclaimed nerd, I thought it would be fun to create a sticker or decal that displays the word "enginerd" as a fun way of saying that I'm an engineer, a little dorky, and proud of how hard I have worked to be where I am today.  Therefore, I bought some waterproof vinyl stickers, high quality laminate, and went to town making stickers on Adobe Illustrator.  I made the "engiNERD" sticker in four different colors, then made a few other stickers which quote Albert Einstein as well.  Here's an example:

How About Another Treasury

Since the "Orange and Nerdy" treasury did so well, I decided to make another one titled "Green Machine".  This treasury focuses on machinery in all shades of green, but mostly bright/lime green.  This treasury does not seem to be doing as well and did not receive as much response from the sellers as I hoped for.  Either way, it gets my shop a little more exposure and a few more people know that Mechanicality exists.  Here's a link to "Green Machine":

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c4c7893ea126d9183803000/green-machine

Orange and Nerdy

It's pretty clear that I like the color orange and alot of my mechanical products can be somewhat "nerdy".  Therefore, I thought it would be fitting to start a treasury called Orange and Nerdy.  I searched through Etsy to find all products that have some type of mechanical and nerdy feel to them.  While there are many of these products out there, it can be hard to find orange products.  However, I put together a list of 16 items that are all bright and dorky, and the treasury has gotten a very positive response.  Take a look using this link:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c3e7f3392dc6d91ca5a9f53/orange-and-nerdy?index=3

Good Day

It's a great day when you wake up, are walking into work, and your phone rings right before you get in saying you made two more sales.  Just when I think my shop is fading into the darkness, this happens.  Very Exciting.  It put an early, positive spin on my day and hopefully the good news will keep coming.  Here's what I sold today to a Virginia resident:

Bike Related Products

Bikes are clear examples of what a mechanical or structural engineer can do using several simple items.  I think it is interesting to take the bike apart and look at the parts one by one.  For example, take the chain.  This connects to the pedals which is powered by the person's feet, and in turn connects to the rear wheel to drive the bike.  The chain is made of several mechanical joints and steel with certain metallic properties to make it strong, lightweight, and resistant to corrosion.  I decided to make keychains out of bike chain since it is simple, unique, and could appeal to numerous types of people.  The key chains sell for around 6 dollars and here is a picture of one of my products:

Funny How Sales Work...

It's funny to think that in my first 5 days of having a shop I sold 5 items, and have not sold anything in the past 10 days or so since.  When items are first listed they get alot of attention since they are not yet buried in Etsy's millions of listings, and that seems like a very likely time to gain a sale.  I'm guessing that sales will come and go, maybe they are cyclical and will be in random spurts.  I don't really care how the sales happen, I just want more!

Fascinated by Gears and Pulleys

Lately I've been fascinated by gears and pulleys.  For example, if you look online at a store like Restoration Hardware, there are reproduction gears and pulleys for sale for about 120 dollars.  You can look on Etsy and find a real gear or pulley, not a fake, for under 40 dollars.  Not everyone goes for this kind of item, but I think its pretty good for someone with a mechanical or rugged-type background.  I recently bought one from a seller for pretty cheap thinking I would display it somewhere, but decided I would rather resell it after finding another Pulley I liked even more.  I'm selling the one below for about 35 dollars, very cheap compared to most others online.  Here's a picture of it:

The Hard Part About Sales

So running a shop and attempting to sell items which I feel have a unique look and value to them has been great so far.  The only problem that I run into as I have before, is how to attract people to your site.  I read somewhere that Etsy has about 170,000 shops, which is overwhelming to think about.  I see certain shops showing up all over the place, and I constantly wonder how they became so popular.  I think blogging will be a good start, but then you run into the problem of How do I attract people to my blog?  I know I'll figure this process out, but it may take some time....

Up and Running

The shop is up and running.  You can search for the shop on Etsy.com under the name "Mechanicality".  One of the more popular and better selling products has to be the vintage dictionary pages with mechanical-style prints on them.  They are made very simply with 60 year old dictionary pages bought on Etsy, clip art downloaded from the internet, and a standard ink jet printer.  The result is pretty cool and seems to be attractive to alot of people.  Here's an example: