My Alice in Wonderland Obsession

For as long as I can remember Alice in Wonderland has been one of my favourite stories.  I fell in love with the Disney adaptation when I was tiny and had devoured countless written versions before I read the Lewis Carroll text in my teens.  In fact, I am so obsessed with Alice that I had read the full original story to my daughter before she was 6 months old, and there is even Alice in Wonderland bunting hung in the nursery.

Given all of this, it is no surprise that there are currently 5 Alice inspired items in my shop!  I'm going to share a little bit about each one and why I created them.

My Alice in Wonderland paper cut was the first of my Alice themed items and was created shortly after I launched Chibi Chi.  I had often lusted after Alice items on Etsy and it seemed I wasn't alone in my love for the story.  Inspired by the present fandom I decided to create an Alice paper cut.  It features my favourite line from the story, along with some of the most iconic items.

The hardest part of the design was trying to incorporate the Cheshire cat's grin, those lines between the teeth are each a micro millimetre and prone to tearing during the cutting process.

After our Alice paper cut launched I kept getting requests to make a card version.  The details were far too small to be able to shrink down to a standard card size and the time it would have taken to cut made the cost far too expensive.  I decided to make a printed version by taking a high resolution scan of the finished paper cut on different coloured backgrounds.  This was then printing with our professional artisan printer onto thick cardstock.  The detail was amazing and you could even see natural defects in the paper cut on the printed version.

I really love the John Tenniel prints that accompanied the original text and 'painting the roses red' was one of my favourites.  Due to the time of manufacture the vast majority of these drawings are black and white.  I wanted to see the iconic scene in full colour so I digitally remastered the print and then painstakingly coloured each section, it was definitely a labour of love!

I was lucky enough to be thrown a surprise Mad Hatter's Tea Party for my baby shower and it was amazing!  When we started creating cake and cupcake toppers last year I knew I needed some Alice themed ones.  Drawing on my love of the John Tenniel prints and my very own Mad Hatter's party experience I created these cute playing card cupcake toppers.  There are 6 different designs in total (my 6 favourite prints of course!) and come in a set of 12.  One day I hope to add these as a print at home version.

This is our final addition (so far) and as you can see it is inspired by our original paper cut!  I wanted something super glittery for cake toppers and this fit the bill.  It has been very popular so far and has shipped all over the world.  My favourite colour is still the red as it reminds me of the queen of hearts <3

Am I the only one with an Alice obsession?  Let me know in the comments :)

My 100 day goal and sales trackers - free printables!

At the end of last year I joined the 100 Day Goal with The Business Bakery.  My aim was to make 100 sales in 100 days, sounds pretty simple?  Well I only got 262 orders for the whole of 2016 AND that included our mini Christmas rush, so it will take some work.
I could have just set the goal myself and plodded along doing my best to achieve it, but I wanted the motivation and contacts that being part of a group working towards a goal brings.  Everyone's goals are different, but the group is a wealth of knowledge and building the right kind of contacts never hurts.
One of the recommendations for achieving your goal is to set up some kind of tracker for you to see your progress and in turn stay motivated.  I love a tracker and so of course I had to design one to fit my planner.  Whilst I was at it, it seemed only natural to also build a sales revenue tracker, so you get another 2 freebies from me this week!

Our first freebie is our sales revenue tracker.  There is a little key at the top with boxes for you to colour in to differentiate between the various amounts.
The bulk of the tracker is the days of the year and a box for you to colour in the relevant revenue total.  At the end of each month is a space for you to write your monthly revenue total.

I am personally not including P&P in mine just the item total, but how you use the tracker is completely up to you.  It will be easy to see at a glance the entire years revenue patterns and should help me plan a little better advertising etc in years to come.

Simply right click and select 'save image as'

If you have any problems downloading or would prefer a PDF version, it can be downloaded here.

Our second printable is our sales volume tracker.  I like to see at a glance just how many orders I have done over a certain period (on all selling platforms) so that I can hopefully improve year on year and plan how best to use my working time etc.

This tracker is very simple, just the months on the side with the days on the top and a daily square to write your daily total in and a space at the end of the month to write in your monthly total.

I know that if you are a successful seller that sells 10+ a day then the spaces may be a little wee for you to write in your daily totals, but this is definitely a good tool for those like me that haven't quite made it to that stage yet.

Simply right click and select 'save image as'

If you have any problems downloading or would prefer a PDF version, it can be downloaded here.

I'm happy for you to distribute our printables however you wish, but they must remain free at all times.

Getting to grips with social media

As I mentioned in our introduction post we are in the middle of a re-brand and are currently adding clothing and apparel to our range of items.

To try and get our new items seen by as many people as possible, I know we need to be more active on our social media accounts.  So far we put most of our energy in to facebook and we've managed to grow an amazing audience that seem truly interested and excited about our work, but we've let our instagram, pinterest and twitter pretty much fend for itself.

I have a secret to confess, I am pretty addicted to lists and planning.  If I have a list with a juicy box ready to tick off or strike through, I'm much more likely to do something.  In fact I have been known to add an item to a list I've already completed, just so I can tick it off!  So in order to make it more likely that I will succeed in growing our social media presence, I needed some kind of list or tracker.

I'm fortunate enough to be part of an amazing Etsy UK Sellers Help Group on facebook that has all kinds of amazing advice!  One of the admins Jennifer has not only a successful Etsy shop, but a great blog that is full of helpful tips and tricks for maximising your etsy shop.  This blog has been pinned to my browser pretty much constantly since I found it a few months back.  Jennifer has quite a few posts about social media and my favourite has to be the one about her social media posting schedule.  Jennifer not only goes in to detail about her own schedule, but has researched the best times to post to different social media platforms and then added all of this on to a habit tracker.

What's a habit tracker, I hear you cry?!  Best way to describe it is with a visual

The numbers at the top are the days of the month and the column marked 'action step' on the left is where you put your goals that need to be completed.

Jennifer's also had extra hand written stats about her accumulated followers, earnings etc and I knew that the less information I had to hand write each month, the more likely I would be to use it.  So I created my own.

I've stolen borrowed all of Jennifer's fab information (I've checked it's okay with her to share ;)) and compiled it onto a printable.  I can now see at a glance exactly what I need to do each day and should be able to schedule some posts too!

To help anyone else that also needs to work on their social media game, please feel free to download from here.  I'd also highly recommend you pop across to Jennifer's blog, this lady sure knows her stuff!

Simply right click and select 'save image as'

If you have any problems downloading the image above or would prefer a PDF version, it can be downloaded here.

**UPDATE**

We've been using our planner for just under a week and so far so good!  As you can see I've colour coded the different social media platforms, you obviously don't need to do this, I just like the pretty colours lol

We've had another Etsy shop owner ask if I could make the template editable and I promise this is on my to-do list!

I've also been busy adding a social media planner that has been quite handy for trying to plan content in advance.  At the moment it is all feeling a little over-whelming, but I am pleased to say that we've not missed a post! (although my timings may be more than a little out).

Simply right click and select 'save image as'

If you have any problems downloading the image above or would prefer a PDF version, it can be downloaded here.

I'm happy for you to distribute our printables however you wish, but they must remain free at all times.

A little introduction!

Hi, my name is Danielle and I am the proud owner of Chibi Chi Designs!
We started in 2013 on Etsy and facebook selling paper cuts and cards like these:

In mid 2015 we decided to add cake toppers to our range and set to work designing lots of quirky ones like these:

Our toppers have proven to be quite popular and in late 2015 we have re-branded as a one-stop party and gift shop!  You can buy the card, the gift and even the party and cake decor straight from us.

As 2017 quickly approaches we are adding a new line to our gift range in the form of clothing and apparel.  These are not yet on our Etsy store, but we have a lot of sneak peeks on our facebook page.

If you'd like to see more from us, please feel free to check out our social media pages:

Facebook

Instagram

Pinterest

Etsy